If there was a time, when one-fourth of the tithes was found sufficient to maintain the parish-poor, and the revenues of the national poor are now twice as great as the revenues of the church, thence it follows, that where they had one poor man we have eight throughout the kingdom, that is, 1000 poor instead of 125. It may please God still to increase the poor, till they swallow up the rich who devoured them: for I think it requires no degree of superstition or credulity to see the hand of God in this whole matter. Even heathens were persuaded that their gods were the avengers of sacrilege; and if it is a certain fact that the poor have increased as the church hath gone down, they who lessened the patrimony of the church brought upon us such an evil as might be expected; indeed, such as seems to follow naturally and necessarily; for what a man soweth, that shall he also reap; therefore, he that soweth in sacrilege must expect to reap in poverty. Even in this parish, there poor; It is a fact singular concurrence of circumstances: and if I speak of them, you all know me too well to suspect I have any design in it, but that of following the order of my subject; which has required me to give you a brief and impartial history of collections for the and the nature of them in different ages. known to us all, that in this place, no part of the property of the parish is settled upon the service of the church. The rectorial tithes are in the possession of a lay impropriator who is a papist; the vicarial are taken by the minister of another parish; and the only certain dependence of a minister is upon benefactions of a modern date from other quarters. So stands the case with the church. Now look at the poor; and you will find such a charge as occurs but in few parts of the kingdom; for the sum expended annually upon the poor amounts, one year with another, to three hundred and fifty pounds; that is, to more than one-fourth part of the whole rents of the parish. Amongst the rest of our national burthens, the single tax upon the land, a new imposition, never thought of till within the last hundred years, takes more from the landed interest, than would, at the time when it was imposed, have been sufficient to maintain all the poor in the kingdom: and these two burthens were neither of them felt by the nation while the poor were maintained by the church. So many ways has the providence of God of shewing us, that he is stronger than we are; and how little they are like to gain in the end, who mix sacrilege with their policy, and hope to enrich themselves by any act of impiety. We can now only lament these things; we cannot correct them. We have no reason to think God will be reconciled to national sin, without national restitution; and there is less hope of that every day. The work of Sir Henry Spelman*, shewing the manifest judgments of God upon the violation of churches and the usurpation of church lands, had its effect for a time, in some instances, but it is now almost forgotten. There are, indeed, some other lesser concurring causes to increase the burthen of the poor, to which prudence might apply some remedy: these are, first the corruption of morals amongst the poor; secondly, the indolence of persons of fortune and influence, * See the work of Sir Henry Spelman, De non temerandis Ecclesiis. -A Tract of the Rights due unto Churches. A work alarming in its subject, and unanswerable in its argument; the author of it being equally skilled in law and divinity, who take no care of them; and thirdly, the laying of too many farms together, especially where new enclo sures have taken place. As to the first of these causes, when the state of the poor was inquired into, at the desire of govern ment, by a person of great eminence for learning, in the year 1697; he delivered it, as his opinion, to the Lords Justices, that many of our grievances, in regard to the poor, arose from the toleration of tipling in public-houses; drinking spirituous liquors at private shops; and the wandering about of idle people, as beggars, without restraint, from their proper parishes. However great these evils might be at the time abovementioned, I fear they grew much worse afterwards. Of late years, indeed, the magistrates have been so sensible of the increase of poverty, from the increase of public-houses, that the number of them has been much diminished in many parts of the kingdom; and they are more cautious, than heretofore, in granting licences. I am not prepared to give you an exact history of the inn and the public-house in England. It seems there were no such common sources of corruption to the people, when travellers, in times of greater simplicity, were accommodated by charitable hospitality: and, bad as they are by their nature, they are become still much worse in practice since the common use of spirituous liquors, which is but of the last hundred years. Another cause of our increasing rates, is that want of public spirit, and that aversion to business, which has prevailed of late years amongst our gentry; who leave the inspection of the poor wholly to their inferiors. I knew a worthy person, of great piety, charity, and extensive learning, who was allowed to have great judgment in all national concerns, and was so well acquainted with the state of the poor, that none ever wrote better upon the subject than himself. It was an observation of his, that the rich are under a fundamental error, in supposing that the duty of alms-giving is the essential part of the comprehensive duty of charity; and so their object is rather to remove present misery, than to prevent it by encouraging. piety, order, and good morals. Let gentlemen of fortune, said he, give more of their time to the poor, though they give less of their money, and then we shall have found out the grand secret for reducing the parish rates: the poor would then behave better, and cost less, and find themselves, much happier than they do at present *. To these another cause may still be added, which has had the unhappy effect of damping the industry of the poor, by taking away from them the hope of bettering their condition by good management: I mean the selfish practice of laying many farms into one, to save trouble and raise more money; whence it comes to pass, that labourers have not that encouragement to endeavour to advance themselves and their families as they had formerly in some places there are no small farms left for them, and they are not able to take a large one; in consequence of which they grow desperate in their poverty; and even where there are small farms, the profits are, in a manner, eaten up in many parishes,, by burthensome rates and taxes. Paupers at London take collection from many parishes, at once, under false names. A spy is detected in a camp, by ordering all the soldiers to their tents; so these impostors might be detected by a muster, or roll-call, of all the parishes held at the same time; and every person so detected, should receive corporal punishment, and a brand of infamy on their forehead. I have now enumerated, to the best of my knowledge, and without concealing any part of the truth, the several causes which have contributed to increase the number of the poor, and to render them so burthensome, that they cannot always find a provision adequate to their wants in times of sickness and inability. Societies have, therefore, been formed, the members of which undertake, in the days of their health, to make a better provision for one another, out of a common stock, than they could expect from the public, if they should ever be reduced to the necessity of applying for it. As I heartily approve of this design, and have given you my sentiments to that effect on former occasions, I shall now add such advice as may promote and secure the benefit to all those that are concerned in it; and I know not how to do this more effectually than by enforcing the exhortation of the Apostle, that each of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him. For in order to do this, so as to keep up to the sense of the exhortation, he must be 1. Prudent; 2. industrious; 3. sober; and 4. honest; without which, he has no reason to expect that God will prosper him. By prudence, I mean a proper attention to his affairs; which we call economy. It is as wicked to waste what God hath bestowed, as to deny it to him that is in need; and for this plain reason, because he who wastes what he has, will have nothing to give. Prudence in our affairs is a duty so necessary, that our blessed Lord, who was exemplary and instructive in his actions, as well as in his words, seems to have shewn a particular regard to it: Gather up the fragments which remain, said he, that nothing be lost: and if he, whose word alone was sufficient to providę |
