Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/58

 They will admit that some new churches ought to be built, that some enormous parishes ought to be divided, but they will denounce it as visionary, to propose operations so vast as are requisite for the full developement [sic] of the parochial system; and therefore they have recourse to other measures more or less beneficial and expedient, but which must ever be wholly insufficient to remedy the evil.

And is this really the case? Is it hopeless that we should carry out a series of measures which would secure a blessing, and must we content ourselves to abandon the mass of our city population to the powers of darkness, and seek only to snatch from them one here and another there? God forbid! It were indeed visionary to imagine that by any measures we could provide that all men should with a true and sincere zeal discharge their several duties. No system will make every Christian or every Clergyman a man of faith and prayer, of self-denial and patient obedience; for the evil ever were and ever will be "mingled with the good," until the coming of the Lord to judgment. But although men will ever remain fallen and inconsistent, and in every branch of the Church there will be many unworthy members, it is possible that systems may be ever approximating towards perfection; and the attempt to bring them continually nearer to it, instead of being visionary or utopian, results from a wise practical sense of