BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE REV. DR CHALMERS. 509 



ing in Britain, as would be the rule of that popular violence which could make 

 havoc of their architecture, and savagely exult over the ruin of then* libraries 

 and halls." 



Now, throughout the whole of this Essay on Endowments, and in the lectures 

 which he delivered with so much success in London before Princes of the Blood 

 Royal, Peers, Bishops, Ministers of State — the highest and the most intelligent of 

 the land — it will be observed that he constantly advocated compulsory enactment 

 or permanent endowment for support of the objects on which he lectm-ed. He 

 maintains this opinion chiefly on the ground, that individuals are not in all cases 

 the best judges of their own interests, and wUl not always voluntarily employ 

 their means in that way which is most conducive to their own benefit and that 

 of society. In religion the supply must not be delayed till the demand come 

 forth to claim it. The demand is, in fact, to be created, for there is no natural 

 appetency for religious instruction ; and so, as he himself declares, " the great 

 argument for literary endowments is founded on the want or weakness of the 

 natural appetency for literature." Now the difficulty Avhich most people have in 

 folloAving Dr Chalmers' views on pauperism, arises out of this very argument of 

 his own in defence of academical and ecclesiastical endowments. For may it not 

 be urged, if the principle of provision by compulsory payment be so clear and 

 applicable to the case of sustaining ecclesiastical and academical institutions, 

 why is it not equally applicable to provision for maintaining the poor ? The 

 natural appetency for charity is frequently quite as dull and torpid as natural 

 appetency for religious or literary instruction. As a high and moral obligation, 

 should it not therefore also be compulsory equally with the others '/ But the poor 

 do assist each other in their poverty. But then, again, it may be asked, why 

 should the support of the poor be cmifineil to the poor ? They see their brethren 

 suffer, and charity is forced upon them. The more wealthy neighbours live at a 

 distance. If human distress were forced upon their notice, they too would help. 

 But they do not witness suffering at their doors, and so they forget it. But ought 

 they to be allowed to forget it ? Whatever force there may be in these or similar 

 arguments, one thing is clear, the Glasgow experiment did not practically con- 

 vince the Legislature that they might now abandon aU compulsory assessment 

 for the poor, and throw themselves upon the natural charity of mankind for better 

 attaining, without compulsion, the same object. This, however, be it remem 

 bered, is no real argument either against the truth of the statement or the sound- 

 ness of the theory. The highest exercise of Christian charity is undoubtedly the 

 voluntary ; indeed, giving to the poor except voluntarily, is not charity at aU. The 

 principle may be pure and right, but human nature is not perhaps yet fitted to 

 receive it, or capable of acting upon it. A time may come when the world will 

 discern and receive it, when the outpourings of Christian love to the brethren wUl 

 so promptly and so amply supply all the wants of the poor, that assessments will 



VOL. XVL PART V. 6 P 



