Mr. Craig replied, "It's a' very true and sound what Mr. Snodgrass has
observed; but Tam Glen's wean is neither a stranger, nor hungry, nor
naked, but a sturdy brat, that has been rinning its lane for mair than
sax weeks." "Ah!" said Mr. Snodgrass familiarly, "I fear, Mr. Craig,
ye're a Malthusian in your heart." The sanctimonious elder was
thunderstruck at the word. Of many a various shade and modification of
sectarianism he had heard, but the Malthusian heresy was new to his ears,
and awful to his conscience, and he begged Mr. Snodgrass to tell him in
what it chiefly consisted, protesting his innocence of that, and of every
erroneous doctrine.
Mr. Snodgrass happened to regard the opinions of Malthus on Population as
equally contrary to religion and nature, and not at all founded in truth.
"It is evident, that the reproductive principle in the earth and
vegetables, and all things and animals which constitute the means of
subsistence, is much more vigorous than in man. It may be therefore
affirmed, that the multiplication of the means of subsistence is an
effect of the multiplication of population, for the one is augmented in
quantity, by the skill and care of the other," said Mr. Snodgrass,
seizing with avidity this opportunity of stating what he thought on the
subject, although his auditors were but the session-clerk, and two elders
of a country parish. We cannot pursue the train of his argument, but we
should do injustice to the philosophy of Malthus, if we suppressed the
observation which Mr. Daff made at the conclusion. "Gude safe's!" said
the good-natured elder, "if it's true that we breed faster than the Lord
provides for us, we maun drown the poor folks' weans like kittlings."
"Na, na!" exclaimed Mr. Craig, "ye're a' out, neighbour; I see now the
utility of church-censures." "True!" said Mr. Micklewham; "and the
ordination of the stool of repentance, the horrors of which, in the
opinion of the fifteen Lords at Edinburgh, palliated child-murder, is
doubtless a Malthusian institution." But Mr. Snodgrass put an end to the
controversy, by fixing a day for the christening, and telling he would do
his best to procure a good collection, according to the benevolent
suggestion of Mr. Daff. To this cause we are indebted for the next
series of the Pringle correspondence; for, on the day appointed, Miss
Mally Glencairn, Miss Isabella Tod, Mrs. Glibbans and her daughter Becky,
with Miss Nanny Eydent, together with other friends of the minister's
family, dined at the manse, and the conversation being chiefly about the
concerns of the family, the letters were produced and read.