36
to some employer, and on him they have a claim for alms, both of body and soul. The appeals to individual energies, by which the Church Endowment Bill was ushered into Parliament, and the recording, in that high place, of the great law which binds the holders of property and employers of labour to assume the charge of their welfare, are of more worth to us than all the thousands that Ecclesiastical Commissioners can borrow of Queen Anne's Bounty.
This subject is so nearly related to the last, that I will for a moment connect them together. If we would promote the education of children, we must ensure the religious instruction of their parents: in a word, if we would have schools, we must build churches. It is beginning at the wrong end to talk of schools for Manchester and Birmingham, until men that are dying day by day possess the means of salvation. Churches draw schools after them. One church in a populous town will soon surround itself with schools of all sorts. But schools do not always bring churches, but rather excite cravings which, if not speedily and adequately met, as they seldom, if ever, are, end in spurious substitutes, religious excitement, and irremediable divisions.
Another great principle advanced at the same time is of even higher importance than the last. It was proposed to promote not the building but the endowment of churches, and for this reason: because
