
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 their 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 lectured. He 
maintains this opinion chiefly on the ground, that individuals are not in all cases 
the best judges of their own interests, and will 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 which most people have in 
following 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. Asa 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 confined 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 thezr 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 all compulsory assessment 
for the poor, and throw themselves upon the natural charity of mankind for better 
attaining, wrthout 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 all. 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 will 
50 promptly and so amply supply all the wants of the poor, that assessments will 
VOL. XVI. PART V. 6P 
