THE BRITISH CHURCHES IN RELATION TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE. BY EDWARD MIALL. Second Edition. LONDON: ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE & CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW. EDINBURGH: A. & C. BLACK. 1850. BIP PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. WITH much pleasure, I send forth into the world a second and a cheaper edition of this work. The favour with which the first edition was received greatly exceeded my expectations, and calls for grateful acknowledgment. Hostile criticism has not disturbed my feelings, and has turned attention to the volume itself, with respect to which my chief desire is that it may be read and pondered. I have altered nothing; for if I had acted upon all the counsels tendered to me, I should have left nothing unchanged. I am not seeking to establish a new system, but simply to suggest considerations which I think may be profitably taken into account by the thoughtful. Under these circumstances, I can have no motive for maintaining every position which has been assailed. I am very likely wrong in many of my conclusions, and many of my recommendations may be regarded as injudicious. At present, I cannot confess myself convinced that such is the Again, therefore, I offer the thoughts contained in this case. book to the public, as meriting calm investigation, especially in the present day; and again I pray, that what of truth there is in them, He who is emphatically The Truth will use and bless for his own glorious purposes. TUFNELL PARK, HOLLOWAY, November 7, 1850. E.M. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE Congregational Union of England and Wales having, some time last year, mooted for discussion the question of the general indifference of the working classes to our religious institutions, I thought it a good opportunity to obtain from persons belonging to that section of the community, and, therefore, familiar with their thoughts and habits, some information which might aid in conducting us to right conclusions. With this view I opened the columns of the Nonconformist, for several weeks in succession, to letters from working men, in which they were invited to state such reasons for the assumed fact, as they might happen to know had force upon the members of the class. I closed this series of interesting communications with some articles from my own pen, in which I endeavoured to account for the state of things then under investigation. In preparing those articles, I felt myself much hampered by the narrowness of the ground selected for inquiry, and a strong desire sprung up in my bosom to deal with a far more comprehensive question-namely, the comparative inefficiency of the British Churches in respect to the British people at large. The urgent requests of some too partial friends fostered that desire into determination—and this volume is the fruit of it. The substance of the following pages has already been given to a very small fraction of the public in a course of lectures, delivered during the month of November, in the Theatre of the City of London Literary Institute.* I may mention, however, that they were prepared, not for oral delivery, but for the press. Such being the case, it may strike the reader as strange *I applied for the lesser Exeter Hall-but after having furnished the Secretary with the prospectus of the lectures, I was informed by him that the Committee declined acceding to my request. They probably judged that they would act more in accordance with the religious and philanthropic objects for which that edifice was erected, by letting the room for a series of "Dramatic Readings," which I learn from advertisements are about to take place there. |