West Port Experiment

“It is no personal disparagement to the dissenting minister, when we simply say of him that he is less favourably placed. He may officiate through the week among his own hearers, who often lie scattered in isolated families over a wide extent of country, or through all the streets, and to the distant outskirts of a populous town. We have no doubt that he would greatly augment his influence, by assuming a local district in either of these two situations, and, in the way of Christian experiment, charging himself with the duty of religious attention to all the families within its limits whom he shall find willing to receive him. We should look for a far wider and more welcome respondency, and therefore a better result than is generally anticipated. But, in point of fact, this is seldom if ever done by dissenters. They are incredulous of its success—and are even themselves discouraged by a certain haunting sense of inferiority, which in as far as it is well founded, is itself a strong demonstration in favour of a religious establishment. They do apprehend a certain defect of reception and recognition among the families; and that, on the ground too, that they are not the regular or established functionaries of the land. They hang back under a sort of consciousness, that theirs is not so valid a right of entry as that of the parish minister. They cannot help the feeling of a certain defect in their warrant, in virtue of which they are not so authorized to go into every house, and there overture the services of Christianity. They themselves, in short, would have a greater sense of comfort and confidence in the prosecution of such a round, if translated into the place of regular clergymen, or similarly backed by the institutions of the land. For ourselves, we should like if our dissenting ministers could in the spirit of enlightened zeal, or of active religious philanthropy, overleap all these delicacies, and actually make the attempt of carrying their household ministrations into the bosom of every family that would open the door to them. The fact that this is so little done by them, is pregnant with inference. To our mind, it speaks powerfully for a religious establishment; that under the cover of its sanctions, there is on the one side, a greater boldness of access felt by its ministers; and, on the other side, a readier acquiescence by the people, in their offered services. The propriety of a universal movement among the houses of his allotted territory on any Christian errand, or with any Christian proposal, is far more promptly recognized by all, when performed by the parish clergyman, than would be a similar movement, if gratuitously attempted by a sectarian minister. And this would be the feeling not of the upper classes of society alone—but, in truth, the feeling even of workmen and cottagers. It is one of those aptitudes of our nature, of which it were most legitimate to avail ourselves—and which is turned to its best account by the device of an establishment. Without this machinery, the population will fall away in large masses, beyond the scope of any ecclesiastical cognizance. With it a wide door of access is opened to all the families. It is just the access which it is most desirable that a man of principle and prayer should be provided with that as it is a great, so also it may be an effectual door” (Thomas Chalmers, Collected Works 17:123-124).

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