Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/40

 tendency, and others, although highly useful, are only fitted to hold a subordinate place, and must never be esteemed the primary instruments for reducing our population to the obedience of Christ. For projects wholly independent of our Diocesan and Parochial system, which regard our cities or counties as a heathen mass, out of which individuals are to be snatched by desultory and irregular labours; however well-intended, cannot but be hurtful in the end. They are so, because they substitute a faulty for a sound principle, and divert us from the only means from which we can hope for large and beneficial results. And again, when individuals or associations labour to supply the deficiency of pastoral superintendence in a parish of thirty, fifty, or sixty thousand souls, (as is the case with our District Visiting Societies and the like,) they do well indeed for the season; they afford an aid which the pastor cannot but hail thankfully; yet after all it is but a temporary expedient. The remedy is inadequate; not because the labours of the laity, and of every one of Christ's people are unacceptable to Him, or useless to His Church; but because their place is as fellow-labourers in aid of the appointed ministers of God's word and Sacraments, not (as they are practically in these cases) to be substitutes for