Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 61

Say then that a handsome church (I am referring to the cities) of brick or stone, is raised in a certain quarter of the city, and that it costs 75,000 dollars. When the interior is complete, and the pews are all built, they divide the whole cost of the church upon the pews, more or less value being put upon them according to their situations. Allowing that there are two hundred pews, the one hundred most eligible being valued at five hundred dollars each; and the other one hundred inferior at two hundred and fifty dollars; these prices would pay the 75,000 dollars, the whole expense of the church building.

The pews are then put up to auction; some of the most eligible will fetch higher prices than the valuation, while some are sold below the valuation. If all are not sold, the residue remains upon the hands of the parties who built the church, and who may for a time be out of pocket. They have, however, to aid them, the extra price paid for the best pews, and the sale of the vaults for burial in the church-yard. Most of the pews being sold, the church is partly paid for. The next point is to select a minister, and, after due trial, one is chosen. If he be a man of eloquence and talent, and his doctrines acceptable to the many, the church fills, the remainder of the pews are sold, and so far the expenses of building the church are defrayed; but they have still to pay the salary of the minister, the heating and lighting of the church, the organist, and the vocalists: this is done by an assessment upon the pews, each pew being assessed according to the sum which it fetched when sold by auction.

I will now give the exact expenses of an American gentleman in Boston, who has his pew in one of the largest churches.

He purchased his pew at auction for seven hundred and fifty dollars, it being one of the best in the church. The salaries of the most popular ministers vary from fifteen hundred to three or four thousand dollars. The organist receives about five hundred; the vocalists from two to three hundred dollars each. To meet his share of these and the other expenses, the assessment of this gentleman is sixty-three dollars per annum. Now, the interest of seven hundred and fifty dollars in America is forty-five dollars, and the assessment being sixty-three--one hundred and eight dollars per annum, or twenty-two pounds ten shillings sterling for his yearly expenses under the voluntary system. This, of course, does not include the offerings of the plate, charity sermons, etcetera, all of which are to be added, and which will swell the sum, according to my friend's statement, to about thirty pounds per annum. ["A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability or exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size and paid by Government, the church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have a sense of shame, and I know many a one, who, because he cannot go to Heaven decently, will not go at all."-- Sketches of Paris by an American Gentleman .]

It does not appear by the above calculations that the voluntary system has cheapness to recommend it, when people worship in a respectable manner, as you might hire a house and farm of fifty acres in that State for the same rent which this gentleman pays for going to church; but it must also be recollected that it is quite optional and that those who do not go to church need not pay at all.

It was not, however, until late years that such was the case. In Massachusetts, and in most of the Eastern States, the system was not voluntary, and it is to this cause that may be ascribed the superior morality and reverence for religion still existing, although decaying, in these States. By former enactments in Massachusetts, landowners in the country were compelled to contribute to the support of the church.

Pews in cities or towns are mentioned in all deeds and wills as personal property; but in the country, before the late Act, they were considered as real estate.

A pew was allotted each farm, and whether the proprietor occupied it or not, he was obliged to pay for it; but by an Act of the Massachusetts State legislature, passed within these few years, it was decided that no man should be compelled to pay for religion. The consequence has been, that the farmers now refuse to pay for their pews, the churches are empty, and a portion of the clergy have been reduced to the greatest distress. An itinerant ranter, who will preach in the open air, and send his hat round for cents, suits the farmers much better as it is much cheaper. Certainly this does not argue much for the progressive advancement of religion, even in the moral State of Massachusetts.

In other points the cause of morality has, till lately, been upheld in these Eastern States. It was but the other day that a man was discharged from prison, who had been confined for disseminating atheistical doctrines. It was, however, said at the time, that that was the last attempt that would ever be made by the authorities to imprison a man for liberty of conscience; and I believe that such will be the case.

The Boston Advocate says--"Abner Kneeland came out of prison yesterday, where he has been for sixty days, under the barbarous and bigoted law of Massachusetts, which imprisons men for freedom of opinions. As was to have been expected, Kneeland's liberation was made a sort of triumph. About three hundred persons assembled, and were addressed by him at the jail, and he was conveyed home in a barouche. During his persecution in prison, liberal sums of money have been sent to him. How much has Christianity gained by this foul blot on the escutcheon of Massachusetts?"

It is however worthy of remark, that those States that have enforced religion and morality, and have punished infidelity, [Miss Martineau complains of this as contrary to the unalienable rights of man:--"Instead of this we find laws framed against speculative atheists; opprobrium directed against such as embrace natural religion otherwise than through Christianity, and a yet more bitter oppression exercised by those who view Christianity in one way over those who regard it in another."] are now the most virtuous, the most refined, and the most intellectual, and are quoted as such by American authors, like Mr Carey, who by the help of Massachusetts alone can bring out his statistics to anything near the mark requisite to support his theories.

It is my opinion that the voluntary system will never work well under any form of government, and still less so under a democracy.

Those who live under a democracy have but one pursuit, but one object to gain, which is wealth. No one can serve God and Mammon. To suppose that a man who has been in such ardent pursuit of wealth, as is the American for six days in the week, can recall his attention and thoughts to serious points on the seventh, is absurd; you might as well expect him to forget his tobacco on Sunday.

Under a democracy, therefore, you must look for religion among the women, not among the men, and such is found to be the case in the United States. As Sam Slick very truly says, "It's only women who attend meeting: the men folks have their politics and trade to talk over and havn't time ." Even an established church would not make people as religious under a democratic form of government as it would under any other. [Mrs Trollope observes, "A stranger taking up his residence in any city in America, must think the natives the most religious people upon earth." This is very true; the outward observances are very strict; why so will be better comprehended when the reader has finished my remarks upon the country. The author of Mammon very truly observes, that the only vice which we can practise without being arraigned for it in this world, and at the same time go through the forms of religion, is covetousness .]

I have yet to point out how slander and defamation flourish under a democracy. Now, this voluntary system, from the interference of the laity, who judge not only the minister, but the congregation, gives what appears to be a legitimate sanction to this tyrannical surveillance over the conduct and behaviour of others. I really believe that the majority of men who go to church in America do so, not from zeal towards God, but from fear of their neighbours; and this very tyranny in the more established persuasions, is the cause of thousands turning away to other sects which are not subjected to scrutiny. The Unitarian is in this point the most convenient, and is therefore fast gaining ground. Mr Colton observes, "Nothing can be more clear, than that scripture authority against meddling, tattling, slander, scandal, or in any way interfering with the private concerns, conduct, and character of our neighbours, except as civil or ecclesiastical authority has clothed us with legitimate powers, is specific, abundant, decided, emphatic. It is founded in human nature; it is essential to the peace of society a departure from it would be ruinous to social comfort. If therefore it is proper to introduce any rule on this point into a mutual church covenant, it seems to me that the converse of that which is usually found in that place ought to be substituted. Even the apostles, as we have seen, found it necessary to rebuke the disposition prevalent in their time to meddle with the affairs, and to make inquisition into the conduct of others. But it should be recollected, that the condition of Christians and the state of society then were widely different from the same things with us. Christianity was a new religion, and its disciples were generally obnoxious. They were compelled by their circumstances to associate most intimately; they were bound together by those sympathies and ties, which a persecuted and suffering class always feel, independent of Christian affection. Hence in part we account for the holy and exemplary candour [?an dour] of their attachments to their religion and to each other. But even in these circumstances, and under these especial intimacies, or rather, perhaps, on account of them, the apostles found it necessary to admonish them against the abuse of that confidence so generally felt and reciprocated by those who confessed Christ in those unhappy times; an abuse so naturally developed in the form of meddling and private inquisition."

I quote the above passage, as, in the United States, the variety of sects, the continual splitting and breaking up of those sects, and their occasional violent altercations, have all proved most injurious to society, and to the cause of religion itself. Indeed religion in the States may be said to have been a source of continual discord and the unhinging of society, instead of that peace and good-will inculcated by our divine Legislator. It is the division of the Protestant church which has occasioned its weakness in this country, and will probably eventually occasion, if not its total subversion, at all events its subversion in the western hemisphere of America.

The subjugation of the ministry to the tyranny of their congregations is another most serious evil; for either they must surrender up their consciences or their bread. In too many instances it is the same here in religion as in politics: before the people will permit any one to serve them in any office, he must first prove his unfitness, by submitting to what no man of honesty or conscientious rectitude would subscribe to. This must of course, in both cases, be taken with exceptions, but it is but too often the fact. And hence has arisen another evil, which is, that there are hundreds of self-constituted ministers, who wander over the western country, using the word of God as a cloak, working upon the feelings of the women to obtain money, and rendering religion a by-word among the men, who will, in all probability, some day rise up and lynch some dozen of them, as a hint for the rest to clear out .