Note 7 — IV.—CALVINISM IS PRODUCTIVE OF POSITIVELY INJURIOUS EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER, AND ON SOCIAL HAPPINESS.

The Manchester Synod, at which were present 620 ministers of various denominations, was held in the year 1841, for the purpose of discussing the corn laws, with a view to their abolition. The professed object was the relief of the poor by procuring cheap bread; the real object was the depression of the landed aristocracy, and, through them, of the Clergy of the National Church, whose tithes are regulated by the average value of corn. Had those gentlemen been sincere in their lamentations for the manufacturing poor, they would have long ago agitated the country for the abolition of the Factory System, and the rescue of its miserable victims from oppression and famine. That system must be strengthened by the abolition of the corn laws, which would only aggrandize the great manufacturers, and plunge the working people into deeper misery, by throwing the agricultural poor out of employment, and driving them to the towns and cities for occupation, thus glutting the market with superfluous labour. Looking at some of those individuals who took a leading part in the Synod, men of reputed truth and probity in their customary habits, their disingenuousness on this occasion supplies a striking proof of the power of faction to impair the moral sense, especially when originating in hatred of the Church. The great body of this Synod were ministers of Calvinistic Churches. The “dissenting interest” has degraded itself by assuming the character of a political faction.