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A distinguished member of the school declared that nothing was to him more odious than any manner of voluntaryism, and that he hoped to see State operation introduced into every department of English social organization.

The reasons given for this apathy are, that a body which had so long wielded ecclesiastical power over others, by virtue of State laws, ought in its turn to yield obedience to those laws—that the Seceders had held on upon their power so long as they could exert it in their own way—that, in the exercise of spiritual authority, they had been far from tolerant of Dissenters—and that, at the very moment of their egress from the Kirk, they repudiated Voluntaryism as a principle, and offered incense to State-church establishments.

As to the repudiation of Voluntaryism, while in the very act of Secession, it was a concession to that tempting expediency which, in a crisis when principle and numbers are both important, yields some of the former to gain more of the latter.

But, though justly celebrated as a preacher and a divine, he is more widely known for his able advocacy of Voluntaryism, in opposition to Church Establishments, his early and steady services in behalf of negro emancipation, and his devotion to the general cause of civil and religious liberty.

He has also been among the foremost of the dissenting clergy in advocating the principle of Voluntaryism, in its application to ecclesiastical affairs and the education of the people.