The alienation which has taken place in funds bequeathed by the piety, or bigotry, of our ancestors, for religious purposes, might check this inextinguishable propensity to do, as we think, so much good after we are dead; and of attempting to perpetuate doctrines, incontestably true-because we believe them. What has become of the immense revenues most piously bequeathed to uphold the holy Catholic faith,-to array in splendour and in beauty the Virgin Mary, and to enshrine the whole community of saints? gone to supplant the religion they were designed to uphold, -to turn the Virgin Mary out of doors, and leave the saints not a place to lay their heads in. The dissipation and abuse of funds left for charitable uses, might be urged as an argument against posthumous charity. In the late investigation by Mr. Brougham, in a committee of the House of Commons, into the application of the funds of charitable foundations, what abuses and misapplication have in many instances been detected! And where they have not been shamefully dissipated in anniversary, and committee dinners, and civic jollity, by municipal or corporate bodies, with whom the direction is very frequently left, yet, from the expenses of management, the fees of surveyors, the plunder of bailiffs, and the dilapidations of tenants, but a scanty proportion has remained for the charitable purposes for which the property was originally devised. In the foundation of Dulwich College by Edward Alleyne in the year 1617, by deed of gift, and confirmed by his will, the income of his immense estates, producing nearly £20,000 yearly, is still managed and appropriated, in conformity to the directions of the founder. It supports a school for the maintenance and education of a number of poor children, and maintains twelve aged people, denominated Brothers and Sisters; but the heads of the college, consisting of a master, warden, and four fellows, hold their situations in this splendid establishment, and share its funds, only on the condition that they do not marry: and thus are the dictates of nature outraged, and the injunctions of holy writ violated, by an absurd submission to the caprice of an old bigot who lived more than 200 years ago. What renders it the more remarkable is, that Alleyne was a married man himself. When will mankind learn, that there is common sense enough in every age of the world, and every condition of society, to transact the current businesses of life, without all this tender solicitude for the guidance and direction of posterity? When a man's dust is resting with, the clods. of the valley, and his spirit can neither impart its counsel, nor partake our labours, what claim has he to interpose?* Are the institutions of society, the habits of mankind, and mind itself, of so fixed and unvarying a character, that the law of to-day is to bind them for ever? When will the shackle, which the death-bed devotee imposes, have its rivet broken? Is the miser and the bigot to say to the enlightened generations which may succeed, "These were my opinions, and they shall be yours; this was once my property, and you shall occupy as I direct, and expend as I ordain." The folly of such devises is only surpassed by the folly of observing them. It will be said, that the munificent endowments by will, by our ancestors, have laid the foundation of some of the most splendid, most useful, and beneficent establishments in the country. In the millions of acres, and millions of pounds, bequeathed to public institutions and to charity, it would be very strange if some good were not done; but it would still be a question, whether, if the whole of that property now tied up to charitable purposes, and other uses, were in the hands of the community at large, the cause of religion, or learning, or humanity, would suffer. This much, at least, we may safely affirm, that much lavish expenditure would then be saved, and many an idle office spared; and charity, if not so splendid, would be more pure and more effective. When funds are fixed and permanent, and where the trusteeship is merely formal, and imparts no interest, circumspection is asleep, and economy an intruder if the income is princely, it is too frequently expended with princely inconsideration. Could the funds of many of our old establishments be submitted to rigorous investigation, it would be found that one part is dissipated in the collection, another consumed in sinecure offices, and the remainder allotted to the dreamy discharge of duty. Many of our old establishments are like old trees, which have survived the time of healthy bearing and fruitful produce, and now stand loaded with excrescences, and their nutriment exhausted by parasitical plants. : When men are their own almoners, the funds of charities are sacred deposits-are vigilantly guarded, and faithfully Having long ceased from the generation of the living, and when his dust is scattered by the four winds of heaven, are golden harvests to wave, and the earth yield her increase, under his control? administered. The spirit of charity, which impels a man during life to devote a part of his substance to the cause of religion or humanity, is a living and an active principle, that pursues its object with ardour, and suffers not the cause to be weakened or frustrated by improvident expenditure, or negligent application. It is his own offering, and he guards it with the sanctity of a sacrifice. In exemplification of this, we might point to the magnificent establishment of the Bible Society, which, with an income of nearly £90,000 yearly, dependent on voluntary contributions, goes on from year to year with increasing splendour and usefulness, with an establishment expending only a few hundred pounds a year in its management. The same may be said of the Missionary Society, and many others, where the funds are administered by the parties who raise them. Had the princely estates and immense funds which the piety or bigotry of our ancestors wrested from the natural heirs to purposes of learning or charity, descended in a natural order, many a splendid establishment, which we now deem the glory of our country, would have been wanting; but the far greater glory would have remained-the less need of them. Many a poor scholar might trace his eleemosynary education to his own paternal acres; and the inmate of an hospital has not unfrequently received succour from funds, which, but for the bigotry or vanity of his progenitors, would have been his own, and have enabled him to succour others. Had not one acre been left, nor one pound demised, to be tied up to charitable purposes, the first had been better cultivated, the other more productively employed, and the country much richer. In the present day, of the increased and increasing influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which breathes in every page a spirit of philanthropy and benevolence, little apprehension need be entertained of the cause of religion, of charity, and of moral culture, being suffered to decline: that spirit is abroad and expanding in every direction; and deeply is it to be deplored that so many millions should have been withheld from its active zeal and powerful energies. Had the whole of the revenues, now tied up by our ancestors, been diffused through the community, little doubt would exist but that religion, pure and undefiled, would still flourish; learning, unshackled by the monastic restraint of celibacy, would still be cultivated; and benevolence, extensive as the miseries and wants of man, would still be found. And while it is contended that all the wealth of the nation, and the application of that wealth, belongs to the generation in existence; so it is to them also that the alleviation of human misery, the propagation of truth, and the education and moral culture of the community. belong; and the bequest which meditates to do that for us which we ought to do ourselves-represses our energies-weakens our responsibility-and limits our duties. L. Monumental Inscriptions to the Memory of Great and Good Men. II. MATTHEW PARKER, THE SECOND PROTESTANT ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, IN THE CHAPEL OF LAMBETH PALACE. [The Remains of Archbishop Parker were deposited in this chapel, at his own request, under an altar tomb which he had erected for himself, near the communion_table. Upon it was the following inscription, written by Doctor Walter Haddon, the celebrated civilian, who had been made, by the Archbishop, judge of his Prerogative Court of Canterbury.] Sobrius et prudens, studüs excultus et usu, TRANSLATION. Temperate, pure, prudent, studious from his youth, Sage Parker lived-theCourt which had engaged, W. [When, during the Commonwealth, Lambeth house was purchased by Scott and Hardy, two of the Parliamentary officers, the former, to whose lot this part of the palace fell, removed the Archbishop's tomb, and turned the chapel into a dancing room. The leaden coffin was sold to a plumber, and the Archbishop's corpse was thrown into a hole in one of the out-houses. After the Restoration, it was discovered there, and re-interred in the chapel under a marble slab, having this brief inscription:] Corpus Matthæi Archiepiscopi tandem hic quiescit. TRANSLATION. The body of Archbishop Matthew at length rests here. [Archbishop Sancroft placed the old monument in the corner in the vestibule of the chapel, and caused the following inscription, said to have been written by himself, to be affixed to it.] Matthæi Archiepiscopi canotaphium, corpus enim, (ne nescias, lector,) in adyto hujus sacelli olim rite conditum, a sectaris perduellibus, anno MDCXLVIII, effracto sacrilegè hoc ipso tumulo, elogio sepulchrali impiè refixo, direptis nefariè exuviis plumbeis, spoliatum, violatum, eliminatum; etiam sub sterquilinio (proh scelus!) abstrusum: rege demum (plaudente cœlo et terra) redeunte, ex decreto Baronum Anglia sedulo quæsitum, et sacello postliminio redditum, in ejus quasi medio tandem quiescit. Et quiescat utinam, non nisi tuba ultima solicitandum. Qui denuo desecraverit, sacer esto. TRANSLATION. The Cenotaph of Archbishop Matthew. For his body (lest, reader, thou shouldest be ignorant of the fact) originally interred near the altar of this chapel,-his tomb having been sacrilegiously broken open, his sepulchral eulogy impiously effaced, and his leaden coffin wickedly broken to pieces, by hostile sectaries, in the year 1648was despoiled, defiled, torn from its grave, and (oh wickedness!) tossed upon a dunghill! - At the King's restoration, (an event at which heaven and earth rejoiced,) by a resolution of the Barons of England, it was carefully sought for, and, being recovered, was replaced in this chapel, nearly in the centre of which it now reposes. And there may it rest undisturbed until the last trumpet shall sound! Let him who again shall desecrate it be accursed! |