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THE OLD CHURCH; 



WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT? 



BY 



THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C., 

AUTHOR OF *TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


TO 

THE RIGHT HON. W. E. FORSTER. M.R 



TO ALL OTHER ENGLISHMEN AND WOMEN, 

WHO, WHILE DISSENTING FROM THE PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF THE 

NATIONAL FAITH AS EMBODIED IN THE 

NATIONAL CHURCH, 

ARE YET UNWILLING THAT ENGLAND SHALL, AS A NATION, 

ABANDON THE MOST SACRED OF ALL THE MISSIONS 

ENTRUSTED TO HER. 




IN ALL GOODWILL AND MUCH SYMPATHY BY 



THE AUTHOR. 



370 



CONTENTS. 

•0* 

PAGE 

I. — How THE Question Stands i 

II. — Advantages of a Public Church .... 23 

III. — Established and Voluntary Churches in 

Contrast . 39 

IV. — The Condition and Prospects of the 

Church of England ....... 79 

v.— The great Experiment of the pure Volun- 
tary System . . . . • in 

VI. — To a Church Union 141 

VII. — Conservatism of Clergy, etc 164 

VIII.— Church Congresses 202 

IX. — The Body of Christ . 211 



THE OLD CHURCH: 

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT? 



HOW THE QUESTION STANDS. 

What shall be done with the Old Church? Any- 
one who cares has no time to lose in making up his 
mind what he wants, and doing what he can to get it. 
For some answer will have to be given in the next 
Parliament to this question. True, many public men 
have been telling us of late that it does not press ; 
that it is one for our children ; that at any rate it is 
not to be made a test question at the next election. 
They should change their mood into the optative. 
What they really mean is, that they hope it won't be 
made a test ; that whips, or influential persons of one 
kind or another, will be able to pull some other wire 
than this at the last moment, so that quiet folk may 
worry through with a silent bow to the established 
authorities over the right shoulder, and an aside to 
the Liberationists over the left — " that no one in his 
senses would think of establishing religion, or any- 



2 THE OLD CHURCH. 

thing else, in these days ; that they have only to be 
a little patient, such a settlement as will meet their 
views being only a question of time," and the like. 
A question of time no doubt it is, but were it not that 
we make the wish father to the thought, we should 
all see that that time is now. 

How do I know this ? Well, thus. It may not 
be altogether true in our politics that lookers-on 
see most of the game, but it certainly is true 
that public men on the shelf see most of one side of 
it, and from personal experience I can assure all 
doubters that in this matter they are deceiving, or 
trying to deceive' themselves. Let them be well 
assured from one who has the very best reason to 
know, that no Liberal will contest a borough at the 
next election without being forced to declare himself 
distinctly on this subject. The time for sitting on 
the fence is past, and every one of us will have to 
jump down on one side or the other. 

But I may be reminded, that in the very last year 
of the last Liberal Parliament, Mr. Miall moved, 
" That the establishment by law of the Churches of 
England and Scotland involves a violation of religious 
equality, deprives those churches of the right of self- 
government, imposes on Parliament duties which it is 
not qualified to discharge, and is hurtful to the religious 
and political interests of the community, and therefore 
ought no longer to be maintained," and was utterly 
defeated. No doubt that motion was negatived on 
the i6th of May, 1873, by the great majority of 295 ; 
or 356 against 61, Mr. Bright being the only member 



HOW THE QUESTION STANDS. 3 

of the then Liberal Government who voted in the 
minority. Almost all the other Liberal leaders voted 
in that majority, and so decided was the party, that 
Mr. Gladstone himself replied at once to Mr. Miall, and 
the House would listen to no one afterwards, though 
Sir William Harcourt made an effort to improve the 
occasion by showing that, in addition to the array of 
reasons cited by the late Premier, the Act of Settle- 
ment would become waste paper if this motion were 
carried. 

I remember it well, and thought at the time what a 
mistake it was not to allow the question to be properly 
debated. The consequence is, that the case has never 
been fairly before the country within the short space 
over which political memory runs in these days : and 
the danger for us Nationalists is, that it never will be 
fairly before the country, unless an effort is made at 
once for this end. If this be done, I do not share the 
fears of many of my friends as to the result. I 
believe that there is too much common sense left in 
our people to commit such an act of stupidity, and 
that the English instinct to reform, and not to 
destroy, will certainly prevail in this, as it has in 
other departments of our national life. 

But the case must be stated, or it is quite likely 
that judgment may go by default. For those who 
challenged the verdict of the last Parliament are 
untiring in their efforts to bring the country round to 
their view. They have adopted new tactics, and a 
new and formidable organisation is working with and 
for them. 

B 2 



4 THE OLD CHURCH. 

I may be wrong perhaps in saying that the Libera- 
tion Society and their aUies have adopted new tactics 
since 1873, for they have always worked as apolitical 
organisation. What I mean is, that they have never 
before so distinctly avowed their objects and methods. 
" From this time," is now the language of the society, 
*' the question must cease to be argued from the 
Dissenters' standpoint." And their meaning is most 
clearly and authoritatively developed by Mr. R. W. 
Dale in his Bradford speech, which may be accepted 
as a pronunciamento of the highest authority. " We 
think," are his words, " that the time has come for 
making the disestablishment question part of the 
programme of the Liberal party ; and no time could 
be so favourable as this for raising the question of 
disestablishment to the dignity of a political question." 

This, then, is the distinct policy of the Liberation 
Society ; and though I much question whether their 
thirty years of life have added much to their real 
strength, the experience gained has sifted out, and 
brought to the front, able and skilful leaders, who do 
not take such a step as this lightly. The coming 
assault, so far as the Nonconformists are concerned, 
may, as some people think, be that of a forlorn hope, 
hurried on because the leaders feel that the supports 
are melting away behind them, and it is their last 
chance. But forlorn hopes sometimes take citadels. 
Besides, in this case if their old supports in "the 
denominations " are melting away behind the Libera- 
tion Society, new and formidable recruits from the 
secular world are marching up. Mr. Dale may 



POSITION OF THE LIBERATION SOCIETY. $ 

faintly protest in favour of the older policy, 
and declare that, "we do not desire to win the 
triumph of our cause by any political stratagems," 
that " we are not seeking a sinister alliance with any 
party in the State " (speech at Derby). Possibly he, 
like Dr. Parker, might have preferred to go into 
action with those only who are moved by religious 
zeal. But the temptation has been too strong, and 
we find him and his society in league with those 
who mean to win by any stratagem, and, upon this 
question of disestablishment, propose in future "to 
employ all the most modern resources of scientific 
political warfare."* And so the united forces are 
fairly on the march, and the campaign has begun, 
which, in the words of Mr. Chamberlain, who com- 
mands the right wing at any rate if not the whole 
army, " will rouse a passionate discord throughout 
the length and breadth of the land." 

Here at least we are all agreed. Passionate 
discord will assuredly be roused ; but we Nationalists 
can go into the fight with the satisfaction of feeling 
that we had no hand in kindling the flame. And into 
it we are bound to go, every man of us who does not 
wish to leave his country a weaker and poorer place 
than he found it 

I have already indicated what I meant just now by 
the new and formidable organisation which is working 
with the Liberation Society, and it is one which 
challenges the serious attention of all English poli- 

♦ ' The Next Question,' by Joseph Chamberlain. 



THE OLD CHURCH. 

ticians. The Liberal Association of Birmingham is 
pretty well known, I suppose, by this time to every 
one who is likely to read these pages. I desire to 
speak of it with all respect, while I must wholly 
decline at present to follow the leaders of my party in 
holding it up as an example to all who would be good 
Liberals. I look upon it as a very formidable experi- 
ment, which has undoubtedly had great success in 
certain directions, and may fairly claim a place (to 
use Mr. Chamberlain's words again) amongst "the 
most modern resources of scientific political warfare." 
But it is as yet in its infancy, and has much to do 
before it can claim allegiance from any Liberal who 
really loves liberty. 

In the best account* I have been able to see of it 
we are told that "the Liberal Association is the 
organisation of the people themselves for the purposes 
of self-government " and that " its forms permit the 
free play of individual convictions " around all political 
questions. Very good. If this should prove to be so 
it will in due time have my warmest support for 
what that is worth. I have no admiration for the 
" hordes of wayward free lances " in politics, which it 
is part of the Association's mission to crush ; though 

1 am bound to say that I look with some misgiving 
on the other hand on those " armies of disciplined 
men well accustomed to stand side by side and move 
in unbroken battalions," who form, according to Mr. 
Crosskey, the forces at the disposal of the Liberal 

* By Mr. Crosskey, Macmillan^s Magazine ^ vol. xxxv. 



THE, NEW ALLIANCE. J 

Association. Again, if at Birmingham the Liberal 
leaders have been able to " take the party as a whole 
into their direct and immediate confidence," so much 
the better ; and if, by doing so bonafide^ they have 
been able to effect their object of " securing as a party 
a working majority in every representative body con- 
nected with the borough," I cannot refuse my humble 
meed of admiration for their patience and executive 
ability. At the same time I must own that the 
machine seems to me, even in a single borough, a 
dangerous one to handle. The wheels within wheels 
of ward committee, general committee, executive 
committee, ending at last, by a complicated sifting 
process, in a small " management sub-committee " 
of ten or eleven members at the outside, must need 
so much looking after to make them work smoothly, 
that little leisure will be left to any except the half- 
dozen sub-committee-men at the centre to attend 
to anything but the oiling. The mill may grind well 
enough, but will the rank and file of miller's men ever 
get a real chance of knowing beforehand what kind of 
grist is going to be ground } I don't say that they 
will not. The professions of the leaders are fair, and 
I have no desire to question the genuineness of their 
intentions, or ability, to steer clear of the evils of the 
caucus system. But human nature is weak, and 
lust of power strong, and one can't help hearing 
the echo in one's memory of many transatlantic 
warnings, when we see the Liberal Association 
posing as " the people in the act of self-govern- 
ment." For myself I confess to deep distrust of 



8 THE OLD CHURCH. 

any approach to a system such as that in the United 
States, when, 

** The elect gut the offices down to tide waiter, 
And the people took skinning as mild as a tater, 
Seemed to choose who they wanted to, footed the bills. 
And felt kind as tho' they wuz hevin' their wills, 
"Which kep 'em as harmless and cherfle as crickets ; 
While all we invested wuz names on the tickets : 
Wal, ther's nothin' for folks fond of liberal consumption 
Free of charge, like democracy tempered with gumption."* 

And the spread of this Liberal Association points 
disagreeably in this direction. 

For, supreme at home, with a working majority in 
every representative institution connected with the 
borough, the Birmingham Association has of late 
turned its attention to foreign conquest. What is 
good for Birmingham must be good for other places ; 
and accordingly a propagandist movement has been 
set on foot, to spread the blessings now enjoyed by 
the metropolis of hardware over the rest of the 
English boroughs. A confederation of associations 
on the Birmingham model is spreading rapidly over 
the country, and adopting, not only the organisation 
but, the shibboleths of the parent association. Of 
these the disestablishment and disendowment of the 
National Church is the most vital — though the county 
franchise, and redistribution of seats, are often allowed 
to occupy the foreground for strategical reasons — and 
every man who cannot pronounce the selected words 
distinctly is to be marked, and opposed by the con- 
federation. 

I will only mention one fact to show how strong 

♦ Lowell's • Biglow Papers,' 2nd Series. 



RESULT OF THE NEW ALLIANCE. 9 

the pressure has already become. Within a week I 
have heard three active polititians, all of whom are 
or have been M.P.s, admit that they expected to have 
to vote for disestablishment after the next election. 
They were all men whom I had known to be opposed 
to that policy, and on questioning them I found that 
neither of them had changed his opinion on the merits : 
but as a matter of party expediency all three were 
prepared to humiliate themselves by sacrificing their 
convictions. A this rate, as the number of possible 
candidates is limited, we may have the question 
settled before it ever comes up again seriously for 
debate in the great council of the nation. 

While there is yet time, then, and before we are all 
at the mercy of a party organisation with a cut-and- 
dried bundle of pledges to be swallowed on pain of 
party ostracism, it is worth while to challenge the 
authority of those who are asking us to " foot their 
bills." We shall soon see whether it is their intention 
to allow the full play of individual conviction around 
this question, or to force it on an uninstructed 
public by the skilful use of the " most modern 
weapons of scientific political warfare." 

Meantime, as a thorough-going Liberal, who was 
trained thirty years ago in the belief that democracy 
— not " tempered by gumption," but " freed from 
Jacobinism" — was a cause well worth the devotion 
of a life, and who has never consciously been false to 
that early faith, I would ask my brother Liberals to 
look this matter fairly in the face, and judge it by 
the true democratic, and therefore by the true Liberal, 



10 THE OLD CHURCH. 

test. If they really hold that what our time has to 
do as its special work, with singleness of purpose 
and all its might, is, to lift the people to a fair and 
full share of all the best things of this life, — its highest 
culture, hopes, aspirations, burdens, as well as its 
loaves and fishes — to set before them a truly noble 
ideal of citizenship, and help them to attain 'that — 
then I would ask them to look this " next question " 
round, and see how its decision will tell, not on this 
class or that class, this party or that party, but on the 
character and life of our English nation. 

That at any rate I hold to be the true work of 
a Liberal, in a Liberal age. Whatever goes beyond 
that, or beside that, savours of Jacobinism, for 
then comes in that jealousy which is the bane of 
true democracy. The true democrat has no old 
scores to pay, covets no man's good things, wants 
nothing for himself which is not open to his neigh- 
bours, will destroy nothing which others value merely 
because he doesn't value it himself, unless it is 
palpably and incurably unjust and unrighteous. I 
need not go on to contrast the Jacobin with him, 
beyond saying that the one is before all things 
constructive, the other destructive. The difference 
between them will, I hope, come out clearly enough 
in this discussion. 

If the National Church, as we have it in England, is 
not, in its idea and its essence a truly popular demo- 
cratic institution, then assuredly it must go, and I for 
one would not move a finger to preserve it. But let 
us see how the case really stands, and hear both sides, 



THE LIBERATIONIST SUGGESTIONS. II 

before we fold our hands lazily, or let our voices swell 
a cry, which, come from which side it may, from 
Liberationists, Ritualists, or Unbelievers, has none 
of the true democratic ring in it. 

These are the three hosts which are joined for the 
campaign, but it is only the first who have attempted 
as yet to give any answer to the question from which 
we must start, what shall we do with the Old Church ? 
Let us see what that answer is, in their own words, 
taken from the ' Practical Suggestions relative to 
the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the 
Church of England,' published at the office of the 
Liberation Society. 

First, then, the Irish Church Act is not to be fol- 
lowed in its governing principle. That Act dealt 
at once with the Irish Church as a corporate body ; 
appointed a body of " Commissioners of Church 
temporalities in Ireland," for the immediate custody 
and management of its property, and contemplated 
the formation of a " Church body " in the future, to 
whom the Commissioners should transfer the property 
remaining in their hands after the compensations had 
been paid ; and which would become the successor by 
direct inheritance of the Disestablished Church of Ire- 
land. But, say the Liberationists, this portion of that 
measure "has been the subject of unfavourable criti- 
cism," and so they propose to depart both in principle 
and detail from the Irish Church Act. One naturally 
asks. Why .? and, though they are careful not to state 
it plainly themselves, the reason stands out clearly 
enough in their scheme. " It is of cardinal import- 



12 THE OLD CHURCH. 

ance," say the Suggestions, " to recognise the fact that 
the Church of England is not a corporation." Their 
object, in short, is, by every possible precaution, to 
prevent the Episcopal Church, which, as they admit 
must be hereafter organised in England, from being, 
either in spiritual or temporal matters, the old Church 
reorganised, or the lineal and acknowledged heir and 
successor to the Old Church. Whether the attempt 
be successful or not there can be no mistake, I think, 
as to its meaning, which is, to make the transition not 
as easy but as difficult as possible — not to connect 
the old order with the new, but to sever them once 
and for ever. The proposal shows the animus of the 
present attack, which is simply destructive and 
Jacobin. " The Irish Church," say the Liberationists, 
" if it ever revives, as seems not unlikely, will do so 
as the admitted successor of the Old Church, and has 
already gained strength from being able to assert that 
position for herself We didn't foresee this in the 
case of Ireland, but will take care, now that we do 
see it, to hinder any such advantage accruing to the 
English Church." There is no other interpretation 
possible of this part of the Suggestions that I can see. 
The same jealousy comes out in the compensation 
clauses. The clergy individually are to be dealt with, 
and in fixing the amount to be paid in each case, 
regard is to be had to the fact that " their services 
will be no longer required." Their parsonages and 
glebes will vest at once in Commissioners, who will 
deal with them " in the same way as with th e other 
surplus property coming to their hands." But here 



THE LIBERATIONIST SUGGESTIONS. 1 3 

even the Liberation Society feel that " a proposal to 
eject the inmates of all the parsonages in the country 
would be regarded as a harsh proceeding," and there- 
fore the suggestion is, that existing incumbents 
should be allowed to occupy their parsonages, upon 
payment of rent, " so long as they continue ministers 
of the churches in which they now officiate : " in 
other words, should a parson be elected by the future 
congregation (if any) their minister, he will be allowed 
to stay in the parsonage paying rent for it, but, when 
he leaves, it will in any case pass to the nation for 
secular purposes. These purposes are not at present 
defined ; it is only insisted that they shall be secular. 

So much for the glebes and parsonages. The cathe- 
drals and abbeys, with the bishops' palaces, and " the 
buildings in the nature of appendages to the cathe- 
drals," (including, I presume, deaneries and canons* 
houses, schools and almshouses being dealt with 
separately), are to be at once at the disposal of the 
state, and are to be placed under national control, for 
such uses as Parliament may from time to time 
determine. 

It occurs to one here, that should Parliament deter- 
mine that cathedrals and abbeys shall be maintained 
for the purposes of worship, these " suggestions " and 
the whole liberation policy, tumble at once to pieces. 
For if we are to have any public worship conducted in 
St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, 
&c., by anybody, under the control of Parliament, that 
is simply re-establishing a National Church of some 
kind. It is impossible to suppose that such men as 



14 THE OLD CHURCH. 

Messrs. Dale and Crosskey do not see this ; and so 
one is driven to the conclusion that they do not con- 
template the cathedrals and abbeys being used in 
future for any kind of worship, though it does not 
of course suit their purpose to put this prominently 
forward. 

Be that as it may, at any rate no analogous pro- 
vision to that above quoted as to incumbents is made 
as to cathedral dignitaries. They, it would seem, are 
not to be allowed to rent their own houses as long as 
they continue to perform their present duties ; for the 
simple reason, I presume, that they are not in any 
case to be allowed to perform those duties in the 
future. 

Let me then just point out how the scheme thus 
proposed would work in a case which is familiar, and 
I presume of some interest, to every Englishman. 

In our own day, and specially within the last 
fifteen years, Westminster Abbey has been re- 
stored and beautified with a thoughtfulness and 
reverence which have doubled its value to the 
nation. The great English memories with which it 
is culotte (if I may use the phrase wjiich best 
expresses my meaning) have become the property of 
the people as they never have been till now. Crowds 
of them — from royal suites to working men's clubs 
and pauper children — visit it at short intervals, and 
learn from the successor to the proud old mitred 
abbots the stories, glorious, pathetic, tragic, humorous, 
but all full of deepest national and human interest 
and instruction, which haunt every tomb and column 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. IS 

and niche of the building. Four or five times a 
week (besides the ordinary daily services) the fore- 
most scholars and orators in the National Church 
preach there to ever-increasing crowds, till there is 
no such sight I imagine in the world as the Abbey 
congregations on Sundays and saints' days. Now 
apply the Suggestions, and what happens ? 

The Dean, who by the devotion of fifteen years of 
his life has perfected this work for the nation, must be 
turned out at once with a pension, his connection 
with the Abbey ceasing absolutely — for I don't see 
that he would, under the " Suggestions " scheme, be 
even allowed to hire his own house — and all religious 
services would thenceforth cease in the Abbey. 

And what has been going on in St. Peter's Abbey 
has been going on in every cathedral in the kingdom. 
They have become the people's churches in a sense 
which is as real as it is astonishing. And all this the 
Liberationists and their allies are not only willing, but 
apparently anxious to destroy in the sacred name of 
religious equality, to which they do service with their 
lips, while in their hearts they must either hate or 
misunderstand it. To the average Englishman, the 
idea of shutting off the services of the Abbey, and 
driving the Dean out of the Westminster precincts 
by Act of Parliament, will seem the queerest kind of 
Liberal measure — the most remarkable boon to the 
people, and step in the direction of true democracy — 
yet suggested in our time. 

But the Liberationists will turn on me and ask, 
as they have full right to do. What, then, do you 



l6 THE OLD CHURCH. 

Nationalists, Church Reformers, or whatever you 
please to call yourselves, mean to do in this matter ? 
You talk of a public Church, a national Church, a 
democratic Church, fitted for the new time. You 
own that the Church of England as it stands to- 
day is not such a Church. How are you going to 
make it so ? 

Well, so far as method goes, we reply, by the same 
machinery as you would use for its destruction. The 
nation in its great Council must remodel the Church, 
as it did three hundred years ago : and, much as the 
task goes against the grain, Parliament will have to face 
it in one form or another, and that before long. The 
sooner all statesmen understand that, the better it will 
be for us all. As to the principles upon which the 
work should be done, I don't think there will be much 
difference of opinion amongst Liberal Churchmen, 
though the details will, of course, develop very great 
differences. We should all agree, then, I think, that 
the Church should be made in fact, what she is in 
theory, the Church of the nation. To this end she 
should be made wide enough to include all English 
Christians who own no human allegiance outside their 
own nation. Further than this we cannot go, because 
to do so would destroy the national idea, the corner- 
stone on which, humanly speaking, our Church rests. 
A universal Church we look for, but only as composed 
of independent national Churches, and with no human 
head. If there are groups of English Christians who 
still insist on standing apart, so it must be. We 
cannot help it. All the nation can do is to make the 



REFORMS. 17 

standing ground wide enough inside for all who like 
to come there. 

Starting from this point we can approach every 
vexed question with confidence. Let us try it on one 
or two of them. Of the most notorious, the Burials 
Bill, it is scarcely worth while to speak here. Every 
Liberal Churchman is not only willing, but anxious 
that Nonconformists should bury their dead in the 
national graveyards, with their own services, under 
such regulations only as will insure reverence. By so 
doing they are acknowledging the national character 
at any rate of Church property. Many of us hold that 
they have the right already to what they ask in this 
matter, without any alteration in the law. 

But the churchyards are only a step to the churches .'* 
Well : even should this prove to be so the nerves of 
Liberal Churchmen may endure the shock. We do 
not desire to be soldiers holding intrenchments against 
enemies (unless driven into that attitude). We must 
acknowledge that there is plenty of spare room in our 
fabrics, and that the national services leave much time 
unoccupied. The spirit of a national Church should 
not be one of jealous exclusiveness, and the best 
traditions of ours are in favour of hospitality. The 
fugitives from Alva's persecutions were received as 
brethren, and had parish churches allotted for their 
worship, at Colchester and elsewhere. A chapel in 
Canterbury Cathedral was set apart for the French 
Huguenots, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
and is still used by their Presbyterian descendants. 
We should be prepared then to consider any such 

C 



1 8 THE OLD CHURCH. 

proposals, if made, with a sincere desire to make all 
concessions consistent with the maintenance of order. 
We should hail with pleasure the restoration of the 
old liberty (for instance) of throwing open Church 
pulpits to persons not in Anglican orders. But there 
must be no anarchy ; and there is neither demand for, 
nor advantage in, extravagant concessions, which would 
raise alarm amongst Churchmen, and which Non- 
conformists would not welcome. 

Working on the same principle in other directions, 
Liberal Churchmen would desire to see the Act of 
Uniformity repealed — the subscription to the Articles 
given up altogether. Their only use now is a mis- 
chievous one, if, as is said, they hinder the ablest 
and most conscientious young men from taking orders, 
which they would be ready and anxious to do, were 
they only required to declare that they can use the 
Common Prayer Book, and conduct public worship 
as there prescribed, loyally and with a whole mind. It 
will be also desirable to remove great stumbling- 
blocks, like the Athanasian creed, from the place they 
now occupy. The Irish Church have already done 
this, with the most beneficial results, so that there is 
good precedent for the change. Other modifications 
in the rubrics and Common prayer would be necessary, 
upon the liberal and Christian principle of avoidmg 
offence wherever this can be done without abandoning 
essentials, or violating principles. 

The same liberal and tolerant policy should be 
followed in all matters of discipline and ritual, and in 
dealing with questions of patronage and endowments. 



REFORMS. 19 

That wisdom and forbearance and patience will be 
necessary in order to work out such a reconstruction 
in Parliament is of course true : but then it is equally 
true of all important work which Parliament has to do, 
and I fail to see what is the great advantage of our 
boasted methods of government and legislation, if 
they are unable to deal in this spirit with the most 
important national concerns. 

Indeed, as the nation is in any case to be forced to 
face this question by those who admit that it will 
rouse " passionate discord from one end of the king- 
dom to the other," I believe that Parliament will find 
it quite as easy, and certainly as wise and patriotic, 
to reform and reconstruct the old foundations and 
superstructure, as to make a clean sweep and begin 
building again from the ground. 

It would be out of place to dwell ^further here on 
the details of the reforms which may be necessary to* 
make our Church in fact what it still is, and always 
has been, in theory, national and popular. Enough, 
I hope, has been said to prove that Liberal Church- 
men will not shrink from that task, but will be ready to 
consider all such proposals on their merits, come from 
what quarter they may. It does not lie in our mouth 
to object to Mr. Leatham and Mr. Richards as Church 
Reformers. They have just as much right as we to take 
that position, and we shall gladly help them ; merely 
remarking, in passing, that if they had been of this 
mind in the last Parliament, a long step might have 
been then taken in the direction of Church Reform. 
But my object now is, not to raise discussion on details, 

C 2 



20 THE OLD CHURCH. 

but to assert a principle. I would appeal to my 
countrymen, especially to those who call themselves 
Liberals, not to be satisfied with the commonplaces 
which pass muster in our ranks, but to look a great 
question fairly in the face, and make up their own 
minds about it honestly and independently. 

I should have been glad if I could have put what I 
have to say on the subject in another form than that 
which I have been led to adopt. No one is more 
thoroughly aware than I of the defects inherent in 
such addresses as those collected in this volume, and 
if I had believed that I could have attracted more 
readers by throwing my views into a more methodical 
shape, I would gladly have given whatever labour 
might have been required for that end. But, for one 
man or woman who will take the trouble to master a 
carefully written treatise on such a subject, such as 
that of Mr. Harwood, there are a hundred nowadays 
(the more the pity) who will read a short address, 
printed just as it was spoken : and it is numbers who will 
have to settle this question in the end, and to whom 
the appeal must be made. Besides, I must repeat, 
time presses. " The citadel of the Establishment," the 
Liberator tells us, " must be approached by mines," and 
when people are at work undermining the foundation 
of your house, you will not wait for a Toledo rapier 
or a Krupp gun, but catch hold of the first stick 
which lies ready to hand. To any who may wish 
to study the subject more carefully, I can recommend 
Mr. Harwood's book, and Dean Stanley's Essays on 
Church and State ; meantime, I trust that the most 



THE IRISH ACT. 21 

hasty reader will, at all events, find enough in these 
pages to convince him that, apart from all higher con- 
siderations, the disestablishment of the Church of 
England is a business, even in a political point of view, 
upon which Liberals cannot enter with light hearts 
and closed eyes, if they mean to be true to their 
principles. 

If they distrust such appeals from a Churchman, 
let me cite a witness from the foremost ranks of the 
Liberationists themselves. Mr. Laxton, who repre- 
sents the policy of the " Suggestions for Disestablish- 
ment " already referred to, denounces the Irish Church 
Act more bitterly than any Episcopalian, as the " most 
prodigious blunder that a statesman ever committed," 
and declares that Mr. Gladstone "has not liberated 
the Irish Church, but delivered it up bound hand 
and foot into the hands of a priestly party," and that 
*' rather than see the same thing done in England, he 
would vote that the present connection between 
Church and State, with all its evils, should be per- 
petuated for ever." If this be so in the case of the 
green tree, what will be done in the dry ? An alien 
Church which had never taken fair root in the soil, 
which reminded three-fourths of the people of cruel 
wrongs, and the remaining fourth of an ascendancy 
won and kept by the sword, could make terms which 
can wring such a protest from able and thorough 
advocates of the separation of Church and State in 
England. Is it the part of wise men to carry the 
experiment further } 

But I am far from wishing that the issue should be 
tried on any but the highest grounds, and will state it 



22 THE OLD CHURCH. 

therefore in the words of one of the strongest Liberals 
and truest and bravest EngHshman of this century — 
the man who was the first to open one of our seats of 
the highest education of Nonconformists. 

" The Church of Christ," Arnold wrote in December 
183 1, "was originally distinct from the national 
society, to which its members belonged as citizens 
or subjects. It was promised, that these National 
Societies should become Christian Societies ; and so 
they have become, but, unfortunately not so entirely 
in spirit as in name. Hence, many good men wish 
the two societies to be again distinct, believing that 
the Church is more likely to be secularised by the 
union, than the nation to be Christianised. And, 
doubtless, as things are and have been, this belief has 
too much to warrant it. But, on the other hand, as 
things ought to be, and as I believe they yet may be, 
the happier alternative is the one to be looked to, 
namely, the carrying forward God's work to its 
completion — the making the kingdoms of the world 
become the kingdoms of Christ ; not partially, or 
almost, but altogether, in spirit and in truth. It is 
certainly very bad to remain as we are ; and to go 
back to the original state of the Church would be 
most desirable, if we could have no hope of going on 
to that glorious state of perfection for which Christ 
designed it. But this hope is too precious to be 
lightly abandoned, and our present state is a step to 
something better, however little we have chosen to 
make it so ; the means are yet in our hands, which it 
seems far better to use, even at the eleventh hour, 
than desperately to throw them away," 



( 23 ) 



II. 

ADVANTAGES OF A PUBLIC CHURCH. 

[Reprinted from the Birmingham Gazette^ 

The following speech was made at a meeting held in 
the Town Hall of Birmingham, on the 7th of November, 
1872, under the presidency of J. D. Goodman, Esq. 
The Liberation Society had lately been holding a 
series of meetings in that town, at which facts, and 
the views and principles of Churchmen, had been so 
misrepresented, that it was considered wise to let the 
other side be heard. The meeting was, I believe, 
called by the local branches of the Church Defence 
and Church Aid Societies, to neither of which do I 
belong ; but I was requested to attend, and move the 
following resolution, and did so. I should add, that 
the meeting was specially intended for work-people. 

The resolution was as follows : — 

"Believing that there are some matters in the 
administration of the Church which depress many of 
her friends, and give a handle to her adversaries, this 
meeting believes it to be the wisdom of the friends of 



24 A rUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

the Church to endeavour to carry out those reforms 
which may be calculated to increase and extend her 
usefulness, such, for example as the following: — (i) 
Reform of Convocation, so as to secure a more 
adequate representation of the Church. (2) The 
provision of some means whereby the laity of a 
parish or congregation may have a voice in Church 
work. (3) The adoption of a scheme whereby all 
traffic in benefices may be abolished without disregard 
of existing rights and interests. (4) The substitution 
of a less objectionable plan in the appointment of 
bishops for the cong^ d'dire. (5) The utilisation of 
cathedral endowments to a greater extent for spiritual 
and practical work in harmony with the parochial 
system. (6) The union of small parishes, and the 
augmentation of poor livings to a fair minimum." 

I art! glad that the resolution you have placed in 
my hands refers to reforms in the national Church. 
Defence apart from reform I could not support. I 
probably occupy a very different position on this 
platform from most of those who will speak to-night 
and look at this question from quite a different point 
of view. I come here as a Radical. I entirely accept 
on this question, as on every other, the test of "the 
greatest good (not happiness) of the greatest number." 
I desire to apply this test strictly, and to ask, " Will 
disestablishment benefit the greatest number of living 
Englishmen — is it likely to make them wiser, stronger, 
more righteous .?" If Mr. Miall, or the Liberation 
Society can show me that it will, I will join them 



18/2.] THE TRUE TEST FOR LIBERALS. 2$ 

then and there ; for I hold that the Established 
Church was made for the nation, not the nation for 
the Established Church. 

Now, I wish at once to escape from generalities, 
and to put the case in what seems to me the most 
direct and practical manner. Let us take the first 
carpenter, smith, labourer, or other poor man we meet 
with in town or country, and ask ourselves, "What 
good will happen to this man — and to those like him 
who form the great mass of the English nation, and 
are therefore in my judgment entitled to the first con- 
sideration — by disestablishment ?" I must make one 
assumption, however, at starting, and that is, that the 
English nation still has a respect for Christianity, and 
desires to continue Christian. I do not dispute, of 
course, that there are a large number of persons, 
ranging from the Duke of Somerset to Mr. Bradlaugh, 
who hold Christianity to be a played out superstition, 
and most of whom desire every trace of it to be swept 
away. But I do believe that these persons make a 
noise entirely disproportionate to their numbers, or 
their wisdom, and that I am right in assuming that 
the nation is Christian, and wishes to remain so. At 
any rate I have a right to assume this in arguing with 
the Liberationists, for it is just as much a part of their 
case (as put by Mr. Miall and their recognised leaders 
and organs) as it is of ours. This being so, let us 
return to my carpenter. 

In this month of November, 1872, there is no 
corner of this island in which he will not find an 
educated clergyman, for whom he, as an Englishman, 



26 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

has a right to send, and who is bound to come and 
mmister to him in all spiritual things, if he will accept 
the ministration, and is not living in open sin. In 
every corner of the island there is a building in 
which generations of Englishmen have worshipped 
for hundreds of years, and into which he has an 
undoubted right to go and worship, without the power 
in any person whatever to ask him a question, or take 
a penny from him. 

Let me put the case as I see it in another form. 
You in Birmingham have of late come to the conclu- 
sion, and have been urging on your representatives, 
that a constant water supply is one of the necessities 
of wholesome living. In this I cordially agree. Now, 
suppose that we had a great system of reservoirs and 
aqueducts in this island, which had been provided and 
paid for by munificent persons, or by the State, 
hundreds of years ago-^so long ago, indeed, that the 
best authorities differ as to how it was paid for — and 
which brought a constant supply of water to the door 
of every cottage in the kingdom. Suppose that this 
supply was thus offered free of all cost, and that every 
English citizen was perfectly free to take it or let it 
alone, as he pleased. What would my friend the 
working man think of politicians who, in the name of 
advanced Liberalism, were to say to him, " This State 
water supply is a gross breach of sanitary equality ; 
the State has no business to give us water for nothing. 
The offer demoralises us. Help us to pull down these 
aqueducts, and build hospitals and schools with the 
stones. Water which the State supplies for nothing 



1872.] WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO GET? 2/ 

must be bad. There can't be enough fixed air in it. 
Try our pump!" 

I think the working man would be likely to 
answer, when he had looked well round the proposal, 
" Well, I don't use much water myself ; but the women 
want it ; and perhaps the children may get a taste for 
it. So, on the whole, I will let the old waterworks 
alone. The stuff seems to have been good enough for 
my grandfather, and if I don't want it I needn't take 
it, and at any rate I don't pay for it. When I seem to 
want more fixed air in my water, I will come and buy 
my pennyworth at your pump." Now, just change 
the word " water," into " worship and the ministrations 
of religion," and you have the case of the national 
Church. Here in England we have an establishment, 
entirely under the control of the nation, by means of 
which, what even Messrs. Dale and Crosskey will, I 
think, allow to be a not entirely objectionable form of 
Christian worship, and all the ministrations of religion 
are freely offered to every British subject. Since the 
Toleration Act no British subject has been obliged to 
use this worship. In our own time every disability 
has been removed from those who will not use it, or, if 
there be any shadow of disabilities left, these may be 
easily abolished. Whether we use this worship or let 
it alone, not a man of us need pay a penny towards 
its maintenance unless we like. And all this being 
beyond dispute, I would just ask the working man 
what he is likely to gain by sweeping away the whole 
system ? In what respect — spiritual, moral, or mate- 
rial — are you, my friend the carpenter, going to be 



28 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

the better for disestablishment ? I ask the great mass 
of my poorer countrymen, to whom the Liberation 
Society has appealed, and who, both sides admit, have 
no great interest yet in this controversy, to answer me 
this simple question, for as yet I have heard no answer 
from any quarter. 

Well, then, if, as I maintain, the existence of the 
establishment (that is to say of the direct and avowed 
connection between this nation and Christianity) 
forces nothing on you, and takes nothing away from 
you ; if you are just as free and as well off, whether 
it continues or whether it ceases, just let me ask you 
to try to understand the case of those to whom it has 
a very deep and real meaning — my case, for instance, 
and that of many others, who have always endeavoured 
to gain for you your fair share of political power, of 
mental culture, and of all the good things of this 
world. 

We believe, then, in the first place, that the connec- 
tion between State and Church as it exists in England 
has this immense value, that it forces on the Legislature, 
on the Government, on statesmen, on all men engaged 
in public affairs — and so, upon the national conscience 
— the fact that the nation in its corporate capacity has a 
spiritual as well as a material life ; that it cannot, even 
if it would, confine itself to the preservation of material 
things, of body and goods. The endeavour to separate 
things secular from things spiritual in individual, 
family, or national life, is, we hold, a grievous blunder, 
and certain to prove both mischievous and futile. 
The man, the family, the nation, must live both 



18/2.] membership: wpio is to define it? 29 

lives. We desire that they may be pledged as 
deeply as possible to live them according to Christian 
standards. 

Again, the connection of Church and State (in 
England, at any rate, if not everywhere) is the surest 
guarantee for keeping the religion of the country 
broad and comprehensive. The national Church is 
accused of latitudinarianism, that it embraces men 
of very different beliefs ; of " multitudinism ; " that it 
makes no attempt to distinguish between spiritual 
and unspiritual men. One of the ablest advocates of 
disestablishment urges this argument in these words ; 
"The early Churches, like modern Congregational 
Churches, had clearly some means of distinguishing 
between catechumens and the faithful, of determining, 
that is, the distinctive religious character of individual 
men. And if, as communities of the faithful. Churches 
are to exist at all, the distinction must be maintained." 
Now it seems to me one of the most precious charac- 
teristics of the national Church that it makes no such 
attempt, draws no such distinction. What human 
power can determine, or ought to try to determine, 
what are " the distinctive religious characters of indi- 
vidual men " ? Let both grow together till the harvest. 
But, once sever the connection of Church and State — 
take the Church from under the control of Parliament 
and the law courts, and who shall say that it will not 
follow the example of all other English denominations, 
and set about this wretched sifting sectarian business ? 
In any case, Church membership would no longer 
remain the birthright of every Englishman. 



30 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

Again, if you sever the connection you must make 
the Church a corporation, independent of the State. 
Are we prepared to do this ? Parliament hesitates 
before the proposal to allow the amalgamation of two 
great railway companies. Such a corporation would 
be too powerful, it is said. What, then, of such a 
corporation as our national Church would become, if 
disestablished } " The Protestant Church " says Dr. 
Newman, in his * Historical Sketches * (p. 230), "would 
be an imperium in imperio, considering the immense 
wealth and power and influence of its constituent mem- 
bers, were it itself a corporation." It would, indeed, 
be a corporation as powerful as, not two, but all the 
railway companies of the kingdom, if it held together. 

Yes, I shall of course be told, " if it held together," 
but it will break in pieces. And then, I reply, when 
it has broken, say into three sections, we arrive at this 
result, that there will be three more denominations in 
England — separated only by differences which it is 
clear need not divide Christian men, for they exist 
now side by side in the national Church — and every 
one of us will have lost his rights in two-thirds at least 
of the old national places of worship. I cannot under- 
stand why religious men should think this so great an 
improvement. 

But, I may be told, these differences of yours are 
so great, that, as honest men, you ozight to be in three 
or four different communities. I cannot think so ; in- 
deed, I do not see why, so far as doctrinal differences 
are concerned, all the Protestant denominations should 
not be in the same communion, as they were in the 



1872.] THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 3 1 

Tudor times. Dean Stanley's name for the Dissenting 
denominations, or free Churches, as they seem now to 
delight to call themselves, " non-conforming members 
of the Church of England," describes accurately the 
view which national Churchmen should take of them. 
But for the Act of Uniformity they might be so now. 
That Act, always mischievous, has become practically 
powerless ; has already been in part repealed, and I 
trust may be wholly repealed before long. " Pity," 
said Dr. Allen to Sheldon, when it was passed in 
1662, "you have made the door so strait ;" and after 
two hundred years, during which it has driven many 
of the best and most zealous Christians out of the 
national Church — in the latter years of which it has 
been practically ignored, not only by extreme Ritual- 
ists, but by good moderate Churchmen — surely it is 
time to get it buried. 

Let me now remind you that the great names in 
the great times of the godly denominations were in 
favour of a national Church. In the times of the 
Commonwealth Dr. Owen, their foremost representa- 
tive in the Long Parliament, denounced strongly 
those who maintained that the State had no concern 
with religion. Calamy wished to conform ; Baxter 
and Matthew Henry wrote strongly in favour of a 
national Church, though they could not conform ; and 
the followers of Wesley never proposed to separate 
from the national Church till after the death of their 
founder. Our chief business seems to me to be now^ 
so to provide for the future that no such defections 
as those of the Non-Jurors and the Wesleys can 



32 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

possibly happen, and that, perhaps, some of those 
who have seceded may be led back to the national 
communion. 

But if this is to be we must consider what reforms 
are required, for the Church must meet the times as 
well as all other institutions. First, then, we are bound 
to consider any grievances which Dissenters still put 
forward. These are practically reduced, so far as I 
know, to two. They cannot bury their dead with 
their own services in the parochial graveyards ; and 
their members are still excluded from some of the 
highest posts in the national universities. I think 
the Church would be wise to meet the Dissenters 
more than half-way in both cases. I find it difficult 
to be patient with the spirit in which Mr. Osborne 
Morgan's bill is met in the House of Commons 
by Mr. Beresford Hope and others, who profess 
to represent the National Church. It enables one to 
understand, and make allowance for, that attitude of 
watchful jealousy which, as Mr. Winterbotham said 
two years ago, is habitual with Dissenters. If we 
take away these last remnants of ascendancy, we 
may hope to see the " watchful jealousy " give place 
to a better feeling, and one more in accordance 
with the teaching of St. Paul and St. John. For, 
beyond question, a sense of social inferiority is at the 
bottom of much of the bitterness which finds expres- 
sion in the Liberation movement. The clergy of the 
Established Church have, as a rule, had educational 
advantages from which the Dissenting clergy have 
been excluded, and treat Nonconformist ministers as 



18/2.] REFORMS IN CONVOCATION. 33 

an inferior caste. When, as I hope soon to see, they 
are educated side by side at the universities, much of 
this feeling will disappear. Indeed, the effect which 
recent legislation has had on the best and most 
cultivated Dissenters is a most hopeful sign of what 
we may look for when perfect religious equality in 
these respects has been established. 

We need not look for perfect uniformity, and I, 
for one, should not care to see it. In a country of 
free thought, it would indicate an unnatural state. 
We never have had it in England, and never can. 
There will always be a large minority at any rate of 
Englishmen, who would sooner be big fish in a small 
hole than small fish in a big hole ; and while this is 
so we must expect to have Dissenting denominations, 
or free Churches. But there is no reason why the 
Church and the Nonconformists should not work 
together, side by side, at their Master's business, if 
their officers had only something more of their 
Master's spirit. 

But, besides these remnants of grievance which 
Dissenters can still allege, and by far more serious, are 
the anomalies which exist inside the Church, weaken- 
ing its power, and paralysing its energies ; and these 
it should be the object of every good Churchman 
to reform. Several of the most pressing of these 
much-needed reforms are referred to in this resolution. 
I will follow the order in which they are placed before 
you there. First, as to Convocation. No Churchman, 
I believe, would now deny that this body needs 
radical reform. At present it represents nothing but 

D 



34 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

the clergy, and this in an utterly inadequate manner. 
In the Lower House more than two-thirds are deans, 
archdeacons, and other ex officio members. If it is to 
continue it is indeed necessary that it should be re- 
formed, so as to secure a more adequate representation 
of the whole Church. I confess, however, that I am 
not sanguine as to the reform of Convocation, and do 
not see clearly the advantage of such a body in a 
truly national Church, or how any legislative power 
can be given to it which will not interfere with the 
authority and lessen the power of the national 
Legislature. 

But there is no such difficulty as to the second 
proposal in this resolution, the provision of some mode 
whereby the laity of a parish may have a voice in 
Church work. There is no question which has been 
more thoroughly discussed than this, and the conclusion 
is almost unanimous that the formation of parochial 
councils is the proper method. Lord Sandon's Paro- 
chial Councils Bill embodies this reform, and is to be 
introduced again in the coming session. It is worthy 
of the support of all Churchmen, and, I trust, may 
become law in spite of the active opposition of those 
Churchmen who oppose all reform. 

Then comes the question of the sale of benefices, 
the great scandal of our Church ; and here, again, I 
rejoice to think that there is little real difference of 
opinion. Simony in all its forms must be abolished. 
The evil is, indeed to some extent, curing itself 
already in the presence of this better feeling, for ad- 
vowsons have declined in value to a point which prac- 



1872.] THE BISHOPS. 35 

tically prohibits their sale. But there is urgent need 
of legislation on the subject, and whatever course may- 
be taken as to patronage generally, one thing should 
be insisted on. The parishioners through their council 
should at least have a veto on the appointment of 
their clergyman. 

The fourth reform suggested in the resolution re- 
fers to the appointment of bishops. No doubt there 
are many objections to the present system. The 
cong^ ddire is a clumsy and obsolete method, but 
as yet opinion is not matured on this question, and 
one may simply take note of it as a matter to be 
carefully considered. 

In the same way, although it is generally agreed 
that cathedral endowments should be utilised to a 
greater extent for some spiritual and practical work in 
harmony with the parochial system, no plan has been 
matured for the purpose. It will be enough that 
we should affirm the proposition generally, without 
pledging ourselves to any particular scheme. 

And now we come to the last, and, I think, the 
most important of the reforms referred to in this 
resolution — the union of small parishes and the 
amalgamation of small livings. The parochial system 
has always been, and must continue to be, the main- 
stay or backbone of a national Church. But the 
constant shifting of population has thrown the old 
machinery out of gear. The pressing need of reform 
in this direction has long been recognised, and to a 
certain extent met by the Act which allows the union 
of neighbouring benefices where the population does 

D 2 



36 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

not exceed 1,500. But this is merely a makeshift. A 
friend of mine, an ardent Church Reformer, who has 
gone very carefully into this question, brings out the 
following remarkable results. Taking a population 
of 300 as the lowest which will provide work for a 
clergyman, and ;^200 as the lowest income which will 
provide him with decent maintenance, there are at 
present 1,409 livings which provide neither work nor 
food, 1,141 which provide food but not work, 3,032 
which provide work but not food, and, of the last 
division, many hundreds consist of the poorest 
suburban populations of great towns, the very places 
where spiritual destitution prevails most, and the 
need is the sorest. In the face of such facts as 
these it is high time that Churchmen bestirred them- 
selves. 

The ancient Church of the nation must be reformed, 
and can easily be reformed if her children are wise in 
time, so as to remove all reasonable cause of offence. 
If she moves steadily in this direction, she may 
disregard the indiscriminate attacks which are made 
on her, and abide the issue with confidence. Her 
best defence is reform ; her greatest danger the 
temptation to return railing for railing. I wish we 
could see the controversy carried on, on one side at 
least, as carried on it must be, in a very different 
spirit from that which prevails in not a few of what 
are called Church Defence organisations. I don't 
know how you feel, my friends, on this subject ; but 
to me it is a saddening and humiliating thought that 
we should have at this time to fight this battle, not 



18/2.] A LEGEND OF ST. AMBROSE. 3/ 

with that one-third of our countrymen who (according 
to your member, Mf. Dixon) are not Christians at all, 
but with the one-third who beHeve in and worship the 
same Lord with us. Nothing but the most earnest 
conviction that the severance of this immemorial 
connection — this attempt to relegate the State to 
material things, and to declare that the nation as a 
nation has nothing to say, has no help to give, in the 
sore struggles of humanity to rise out of the material 
to something higher — should induce me to take part 
in it. For I can take little interest in the questions 
which divide Christian Churches and sects, can see no 
reason why they should not now be working side by 
side to redeem our waste places, and to make the 
kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord 
and of His Christ. 

Let me close what I have to say with a Church 
legend, which seems to me full of wisdom for this 
controversy. St. Ambrose was a holy man and ex- 
ceeding zealous, even to slaying, for the one true 
creed. One day as he was walking in deep medita- 
tion as to how to bring all men to his own mind, he 
was aware of a stream, and a youth seated beside 
it. He had never seen so beautiful a countenance, 
and sat down by him to speak of those things on 
which his mind continually dwelt. To his horror he 
found that the beautiful face covered a most heretical 
mind, and he spoke in sorrowful anger to the youth of 
his danger. Whereupon the young stranger produced 
six or seven vases, all of different shapes and colours, 



SS A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872. 

and, as he filled them from the brook, said to the 
saint (as the legend is versified by Mr. Lowell) — 

" Now Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here — 
As into these vases this water I pour ; 
One shall hold less, another more ; 
But the water the same in every case, 
Shall take the figure of the vase. 
O thou who wouldst unity reach through strife, 
Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?" 

When Ambrose looked up, the youth, the vases, and 
the stream were gone ; but he knew he had talked 
with an angel, and his heart was changed. I wish 
that angel would come and do a great deal of 
preaching to our English Ambroses. 



( 39 ) 



III. 

ESTABLISHED AND VOLUNTARY 
CHURCHES IN CONTRAST. 



(An Address delivered at St. Andrew's Hall, Norwich, at the 
request of the Church Defence Association^ on Monday 
evenings May \ith^ 1873.) 

[Reprinted from the Norfolk Chronicle^ 

The Meeting was a very noisy one, strong par- 
tisans on both sides being present, so, to make the 
allusions clear, I have been obliged to leave some 
of the interruptions as they were reported, while 
striking out mere notices of applause or dissent. 

Mr. Sheriff, Ladies, and Gentlemen. — I trust 
that my friends around me will not think I am begin- 
ning by telling tales out of school if I venture to 
confide to this great meeting a little secret. When I 
undertook to deliver this address in your great city, 
I of course entered into correspondence with the 
officers of this association. I wrote to the secretary to 
state that I should deliver it " as a politician." I con- 
fess, sir, that the remarks which have just fallen from 
you have explained to me what I thought was rather 



40 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

unnecessary alarm on the part of the gentlemen who 
had invited me here when that announcement came 
to them. But I see now since our chairman's address 
the grounds upon which I was warned that it was not 
as a politician that I was expected to appear here to- 
night. Now, my friends, I see very good reason for 
that little alarm. Politics, in the ordinary sense of the 
word, are so mixed up with those party squabbles in 
which I and my hon. friend (Mr. Clare Read), whom 
I am glad to see here, and who sits on the opposite 
side of the House to myself, are often engaged in St. 
Stephen's, Westminster, that I don't wonder that 
those who are convening these meetings for so great 
a purpose as that for which we are gathered here to- 
night should wish to abstain as much as possible from 
the word " politics." But just let me explain very 
shortly why it is that on all such occasions as this I 
stand before any audience which may come to listen 
to me as a politician. As I understand the word 
" politician," it means a man who, whatever his other 
engagements in life may be, and however he may earn 
his daily bread, feels above all things deeply inte- 
rested, feels that he is bound to be deeply interested, 
and to take as active a part as he can, in the public 
affairs of his country. A politician of that kind is, I 
believe, a specially English institution. I believe that 
every Englishman, if he is worth anything at all, is 
bound to be a politician, and can't for the life of him 
help taking a deep interest in the public affairs of his 
country. My friends, what is the object of politics in 
that sense ? The object of politics is the well-being 



1 873-] THE POLITICIAN. 4I 

of the nation. [" That's it."] I am glad to hear an 
enthusiastic friend below applaud that sentiment. I 
am quite sure that it will gain applause not only from 
him but from everybody who hears me to-night. The 
object of politics is the well-being of the nation, or, " 
as we heard in that noble lesson which was read 
yesterday morning in our churches, to make " a wise 
and an understanding people." Now, what are the 
means by which a wise and an understanding people 
is to be made ? Well, of course, the chief means of 
making a wise and understanding people is by training 
them up in wisdom and understanding. The State 
wants men who are brave, truthful, generous ; the 
State wants women who are pure, simple, gentle. By 
what means is the State to get citizens of that kind ? 

Such a politician, then, looking around him and 
seeing how the national conscience is to be touched — 
for unless the national conscience be touched you 
can never raise citizens of that kind — finds that the 
great power which alone can do it, in this as in other 
free countries, is that which goes by the name of 
religion. He finds also that the Christian religion 
prevails in this country, and that it is by means of this 
Christian religion that all the civilisation and all the 
progress of the nation has been hitherto attained. 

What does he find next } He finds all over this 
country, in every parish and in every great town and 
in every corner of this land, a number of magnificent 
buildings — cathedrals, churches, schools— all belonging 
to this religion, which is the religion of the English 
nation — the religion of England. [A Voice : " What 



42 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

about Rome ?" and interruption.] He finds a regular 
organisation existing all over the country of persons 
— professional persons — engaged in this special work of 
touching the national conscience, educating the boys 
and girls, the men and women, and making them more 
moral and wiser and better through the instrumentality 
of this religion. 

He sees next that, spread all over the country, there 
are many other religious societies — many different 
communities of Christians engaged in work of the 
same kind — yet that this one society alone, which is 
by far the largest, by far the most powerful, by far 
the richest, has been for more than a thousand years 
— in fact ever since this nation could be called a 
nation at all — intimately connected with the govern- 
ment of the nation and under the control of that 
government. He finds that in this largest, richest, 
and greatest of religious communities all the chief 
officers are appointed by the government for the time 
being — that is to say, by the nation ; that its dis- 
cipline, its ritual, its doctrine are all under the control 
of the nation, and that this intimate connection has 
been kept up, as I have said before, for upwards of a 
thousand years. 

He finds, furthermore, that these other religious 
societies, although they are not so large, although 
hardly any of them have existed for more than 200 
years, yet they, although not connected with the State, 
are under the protection of the State, are protected by 
the laws, and have a position — an established position — 
under the laws of the country to do the work they 



1873.] ESTABLISHED DENOMINATIONS. 43 

have got to do in the country. If there are any 
gentlemen from Nonconforming communities here to- 
night, as I trust there may be, I suppose that they 
will protest against my using the word " established " 
in connection with them. All I have to say is that 
the word is not mine, but that the connection between 
them and the State has been laid down to be an 
^^established'' connection by one of the greatest 
lawyers who has ever sat on the Bench of England. 
I am alluding now to the great judgment of Lord 
Mansfield, from which I will give you a few words to 
show you the real position which these Nonconforming 
communities occupy in this country in the eye of the 
law. The case to which I refer — and I daresay many 
of my Nonconformist friends if they are here, know it 
as well as I do — is the great case of 1767, the City 
of London v. Evans. 

Mr. Evans was an eminent citizen of London. He 
was a Nonconformist, and on being elected to the 
office of Sheriff he said — " I won't be the Sheriff of 
London. You cannot have a man as Sheriff of London 
unless he has taken the Sacrament according to the 
rites of the Church of England within a year from the 
time of his appointment. I have never done this, I 
never mean to do it, and I won't serve the office of 
Sheriff." What did the Corporation of London do ? 
They sat in council and they fined him a heavy fine. 
He went into the courts of law to see whether they 
could enforce that fine against him or not. His 
defence was that he was a Nonconformist ; that 
according to the Toleration Act he had a right to 



44 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

be a Nonconformist and not to receive the Sacrament 
according to the rites of the Church of England ; that 
not receiving it he was not liable to be made Sheriff, 
and the fine could not be imposed upon him. What 
said Lord Mansfield ? He decided entirely in his 
favour. He said that the Toleration Act had freed 
all Nonconformists from the liability to serve. I want 
particularly to call your attention to his words, 
because they justify me in the use of the word " estab- 
lished " with regard to Nonconformists : " The Dis- 
senters' way of worship is not only exempted from 
punishment, it is rendered innocent and lawful ; it is 
established ; it is put under the protection, and not 
merely under the connivance of the law." 

This is the status and position of those other com- 
munities to which I have referred, and therefore, they 
should consider before they use the word " Establish- 
ment " as a kind of sneer with regard to the national 
Church of England. 

Now, from this bird's-eye view, as I may say, of 
the position of things in England, on this very great 
subject, what are the conclusions which an ordinary 
politician wishing for the well-being of his country 
would draw ? It appears to me that the first con- 
clusion he would draw would be, that this arrange- 
ment which . has existed as regards the Established 
Church for more than a thousand years, as regards 
these Nonconformist societies for more than two 
hundred years, must be an arrangement which must 
meet very fairly some particular need of this English 
nation. I think we must conclude, too, that this 



1873.] THE politician's DIFFICULTIES. 45 

arrangement has worked well as regards this country, 
because I don't suppose that anybody who is a citizen 
of this country is not proud of being a citizen, — I 
don't suppose that there is any one in this large 
assembly, either man or woman, who would change 
his or her English citizenship for that of any other 
country in the world. And I think he will also come 
to the conclusion, looking around him on what is 
happening in the other nations of the world about this 
time, regarding the question from the point of view 
that I have indicated, that this is not quite the time 
to be overturning old foundations without some very 
good reason. At such a time as that in which we live 
we should not rashly cut off any of our old links with 
the past without trying very steadily, and testing very 
severely, whether they won't stand the strain of the 
present — whether they are not better for this time 
than anything we should be likely to make under 
new circumstances } 

Well, then, having come so far, my friend, the poli- 
tician, — i.e., I, myself, — holding the views which I have 
explained, has got to meet certain other facts ; the 
conclusions to which he has come are met with 
certain facts which, of course, at the first blush 
disturb them very much. For what does he find .? 
He finds that all those, or almost all those, other 
Christian communities of which I have spoken, which 
are not directly in connection with the State, are 
wishing and striving to sever that connection between 
the State and religion which exists between the State 
and the Established Church. These are not persons 



46 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

who are irreligious. Remember, all those Noncon- 
formists who are trying to sever the connection 
between the State and the Established Church will 
tell you they believe just as heartily as we do in the 
paramount need and importance of religion to the 
State. And yet they tell us that although they believe 
in the paramount need and importance of religion to 
the State, the very best way they can think of to get 
Christianity, to get religion known and honoured in 
this country, is to abolish all national recognition of it. 
[" Oh, oh, " and ironical cheers.] Well, that is to me, I 
confess— [Interruption by SCURLL frequently repeat- 
ing, " Take away the money."] If my noisy friend 
down there will have the goodness just to wait, we 
shall come to the money in plenty of time. But this 
question is a matter so serious, and requires such very 
temperate statement, and such very careful considera- 
tion, that I sincerely trust you won't import into it 
any of those noisy ebullitions which one expects in 
an ordinary political meeting, but which I must say 
are not in place at a meeting called for so solemn a 
purpose as that for which we are met to-night. 

Then, when I find Christians for whom I myself 
have the greatest respect maintaining this, of course, 
I, as a politician, am obliged to look very carefully 
over those conclusions to which I have come, and I 
am bound to consider very carefully the arguments of 
those who oppose them. 

This brings me to another point. I told you that I 
started as a politician, and now I stand before you as 
a Liberal politician. Let me explain my idea of a 



1 873-] THE LIBERAL POLITICIAN. 4/ 

Liberal politician. A Liberal politician is a man who 
looks to the future and not to the past ; he looks for 
progress ; he desires to see the whole nation raised ; 
he desires it to go on from better things to better 
things, and he is not afraid of new things ; he holds 
that every institution must be tried by its worth and 
its value to the nation ; — he holds above all things 
that there should be equality before the law for every 
institution, for every society, and for every individual 
citizen. Well, then he comes right upon the question 
that presses upon us all in considering these subjects 
— he comes upon the question. What is religious 
equality ? 

I have had to think a great deal upon this subject 
for my own guidance in public life, and I will tell you 
what I think are the real tests of religious equality. 
In the first place, if there is to be religious equality 
every Englishman must be free within certain limits 
(which I will explain directly) to set up, and to en- 
joy, any form of religion that he pleases. This is, I 
think, the first requisite of religious equality. The 
second requisite of religious equality is this — that no 
citizen shall be bound to contribute to a religion 
which he does not believe in. The third requisite I 
take to be this — that every man shall be free to use 
or to let alone those religious appliances which the 
State has to offer to him. In order to make a perfect 
and exhaustive division of the subject, I think there is 
a fourth, and that is that every man shall be free to 
try to alter the conditions on which the State offers 
its religious appliances to the people of the country. 



48 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

Now then, my friends, just try this question of 
religious equality as regards the national Church by 
every one of these tests. In the first place, is every 
man in England free to set up and to enjoy any form 
of religion that he pleases ? You perfectly well know 
— and in stating what is done universally in England 
I shall be able to show you where the hand of the 
State comes in, and where the people are stopped 
in this matter — you know perfectly well there are 
Mormon congregations in this country, that Mormons 
are perfectly free to assemble and worship as they 
please. But the State simply steps in and says that 
Mormons shall not in this country be allowed to marry 
two wives ; if a man marries two wives he is indicted 
for bigamy, but so long as he desires only to worship 
in the Mormon form, whatever that may be, he is not 
prohibited doing so here. 

Well, in London there have been a number of 
gentlemen — some of them have left the Church of 
England, and some have left other communities — 
who have been setting up a purely secular religion ; 
and nobody has hindered them, because they may 
set up any worship they please, provided they don't 
break the law. I will give you one more instance, 
because, so far as I know, that particular body is 
confined to the eastern counties. I don't know 
whether you have any in Norwich, but I know they 
are scattered about in the eastern counties ; and 
they are the people who call themselves " the Peculiar 
People." Now, the Peculiar People are perfectly free 
in this country to worship just as they please, but 



1873.] FREEDOM OF WORSHIP. 49 

one of their tenets is, that it is wicked to use medi- 
cine, and so they let their children die because they 
won't allow them to be attended by any medical man. 
The law steps in then and says, " We can't allow this ; 
have any religious worship or belief you please, but 
you must attend to your children, and shall not allow 
them to die from the want of medical attendance." 

As I have said, the first test of religious equality 
is that every man shall be free to set up and to enjoy 
any worship he pleases, and so far at least no one 
can deny that we have perfect religious equality in 
England. 

The second test is, that no man shall be called 
upon to pay for a form of worship which he does not 
approve. Now, no man in this country is called upon 
to pay a single penny since Church-rates — [cheers, 
and noise in front of the platform] — I say that it is 
the second condition of religious equality that no 
man shall be called upon to pay for a religion he does 
not believe in, and since the abolition of Church-rates 
no man has a single penny to pay to the Church 
unless he pleases. This is too long a business to go 
into ; but if all my friends in this room will just think 
and consider for themselves, they will find that they 
have not had to pay a single penny towards the Estab- 
lished Church, unless they chose to do it voluntarily, 
— to put it into the plate at church, or to subscribe 
it to some church charity. 

My third point is, that every man shall be free to 
use such religious appliances as the State has to 
give him, or to let them alone. Now, every man and 

E 



50 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^73- 

woman in this room is perfectly aware that they have 
the right to go to church if they please, in their own 
parish, and nobody can hinder them ; whilst, on the 
other hand, if they don't like, they can go to any 
other place of worship ; or, if they prefer it, they need 
not go to any place of worship at all. They are 
perfectly free, without any interference from, the 
Church or the State, to go or not to go to church just 
as they please. Well, you can't get nearer equality 
than that. My fourth test is, that if a man is not con- 
tented with the use that the State makes of those 
religious appliances which it has to offer to all the 
citizens of the country, he should have the right to 
change them. So he has. What in the world am I 
sent to Parliament for, or what do you send my friend 
Mr. Clare Read to Parliament for — if it is not to look 
after these things for you ? If you Nonconformists 
are strong enough to say that the way in which the 
State deals with that great religious inheritance which 
it has inherited from the time of Alfred and before, 
does not please you, you have nothing to do but to set 
to work and elect men who will go and represent you 
and try and get these things changed. It is perfectly 
within your right to do this : and if you can do it, and 
if those other things which I have just been advancing 
are true — and I am certain that no man in this room 
is able to refute them — then I say so far as religious 
equality goes there is perfect religious equality, at this 
time, in this country. 

I know the answer that will be made to me by 
my friends among the Nonconformists. They will say, 



1873.] PROPERTY. 51 

"How about the property; how about the endow- 
ments ; you have been talking about disestablishment, 
but you have left out disendowment altogether." I 
have not left it out altogether ; I am coming to it, and 
I hope to satisfy you — I don't know whether I shall 
satisfy my friend below there, but at any rate I intend 
to make very clear to him — what I myself think on 
this question of Church endowments. 

The first question I wish to ask my Nonconformist 
friends, and I have no doubt my friend below is one 
of them, is this — Are they ready to take any part 
of the Church endowments ? [SCURLL : " No."] No ; 
that is precisely what I thought. I am not myself 
against it — I tell you plainly that I don't object to 
what is called concurrent endowment. I should not 
particularly object to it ; I should not object if the 
revenues of the national Church were applied to the 
helping of other religious bodies which own allegiance 
to no earthly head outside the nation. That is my 
private opinion. It is one rather unusual. At any 
rate, it is one which is intensely unpopular with Non- 
conformists. What have they been doing ? When 
the Tories a few years ago — I beg their pardon, I will 
say Conservatives if they like it better — when the 
Conservatives proposed a few years ago in Ireland 
what is called concurrent endowment, my Noncon- 
formist friends in the House and in the country said, 
" No, no ! whatever else we have we will not have con- 
current endowment ; not a bit of it." Consequently, 
concurrent endowment we did not have, and the first 
article of the creed of the Liberal party, especially of 

E 2 



52 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

the Nonconformist part of the Liberal party, is " No 
concurrent endowment, on any terms." 

Well ! No concurrent endowment ! but how about 
this Church property and all these great endowments ? 
You say you don't want them, you won't have any 
part of them. You say it is a great weakness to any 
religious body to have endowments ; you say it is 
sure to make that body degenerate, and to make it 
weak, and not able to hold its own against inde- 
pendent bodies. All this is a great disadvantage, and 
you must feel that if there be any inequality the 
inequality is on the side of the Church. We are 
weighted with all these dreadful endowments, and 
how in the world we manage to bear them, and how it 
is that weighted as we are we yet manage on the 
whole to hold our own pretty well, is to me a perfect 
wonder. 

But, however, I pass from this point, which I hope 
my Nonconformist friends will turn over, and just 
ask themselves, if they don't want these endowments 
themselves and would not have them at any price, 
whether it is better to leave them for religious uses, 
or better to turn them into the pockets of the land- 
lords } [SCURLL : " Anywhere rather than the 
Church."] That is precisely the feeling. My friend 
does not feel that the work which we are all doing, 
which the Church is doing as well as the Noncon- 
formist community to which he belongs, is all one and 
the same work, — that we are working in the same line 
though with different methods ; and his hatred to the 
name of the Church is so strong that though he won't 



1873.] FREE THOUGHT. 53 

have these endowments, and though he thinks that 
the Church may make use of them for rehgious 
purposes, yet he so dislikes the Church that he says, 
" Do anything else you like with them — throw them 
into the horse-pond, throw them into the river, — but 
don't let the Church have them." 

The next argument of my Nonconformist friends 
— I have a great many amongst them and I have 
a great respect for them, for I think they have done a 
great deal of good in the countiy — their next argu- 
ment is that these endowments and the Establishment 
extinguish the spiritual life of the Church. Do they } 
I know my friend there holds this belief strongly. 
Now, let me argue with him for a moment or two. 
What is the sign of the extinguishing of spiritual 
life .? Well, the first way that spiritual life expresses 
itself is by the voice — by published works, by its 
speech. What, then, has been the speech of the 
national Church to the country } How do those 
belonging to it speak .? What influence has it had on 
modern thought in this wonderful time in which we 
live ? What contributions have the members given — 
I won't even say its members, but what contributions 
have its officers, the clergy, given — towards the 
activity of modern thought and the guidance of 
England in that wonderful labyrinth of difficult social 
and other questions which we have come upon in 
our day } 

We will take the activity in literature. Let me 
mention a few names of men I have myself known 
— and my life is not a very long one — let me just 



54 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^73- 

mention the activity I have known in men of my own 
personal acquaintance since I was a boy. There is no 
department of human thought in which such activity 
has been exhibited as in the study of history during 
that time. Let us look at the names which officers of 
the Church of England have contributed towards the 
history of this country and the development of histori- 
cal knowledge. There are Milman, Merivale, Arnold, 
and Thirlwall, four great names among the modern 
historians of England, and all of them clergymen of 
the Established Church. Take moral philosophy and 
metaphysics, the highest subject on which human 
thought can work, and think of such men as Maurice, 
Mansell, Professor Grote, and Professor Whewell. 
Then in general literature, there is a name which 
should be very dear in this town, Dean Stanley. 
Look, again, at Canon Kingsley, who has lately 
thrown the whole of the cathedral machinery of 
Chester, so far as he has command of it, into the 
direction of, as he calls it, wedding science with the 
Church. Look at other names. There are Robert- 
son, the two Hares, Canon LIddon, Bishop Temple, 
Professor Jowett, Mr. LI. Davies, and I might name 
twenty others. I have named men from some of 
whom I differ much more than I do from my Noncon- 
formist friends, but they are all Church clergymen 
whom I have known in my own life-time. So far, 
then, from the Establishment extinguishing spiritual 
life, precisely the contrary is true ; and the very fact 
of being officers of that State Church which many of 
my friends hate so much, has just given a stimulus 



1 873-] INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM. 55 

and a freedom to those men which has led them to 
distinction in these different studies. 

No one respects more than I do a great many 
of the Nonconformist ministers and leading men of 
Nonconformist bodies ; but try them by this test. 
You say that spiritual life, and that intellectual life, is 
extinguished by the State Church. What names of 
Nonconformists can you think of to put beside those 
fifteen or sixteen names that I took as the first I 
thought of in the Church of England. There is one 
great Nonconformist name that will occur to us all, — 
that of a native of Norwich, Mr. Martineau : but 
although there are many excellent writers and minis- 
ters among the Nonconformist bodies, there has not 
been one except Mr. Martineau who has contributed 
in the same measure as these Churchmen to all that 
new thought that has come flooding into religious 
matters, into historical matters, into metaphysics, into 
all branches of knowledge. 

This leads me naturally on to the other side of the 
argument, as to that freedom which the Liberationists 
wish to bestow upon us. It is quite clear we don't 
want freedom in that direction ; that with all the 
gagging which the State must necessarily (according 
to their theories) put on the Church, the literature of 
the Church has been more powerful than that of any 
other portion of this British nation. 

But we are to be set free in other respects. Now 
I hold that if we were not freer than any other portion 
of the community so far as religion is concerned, the 
result that I have stated could not have happened. 



56 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^73- 

But I fancy that my Nonconformist friends would 
account for it in this way. They would say, " Yes, 
but you have had peculiar advantages ; you have had 
the Universities, which have not been open to us." 
And this was true until lately, so far as regards 
Oxford and Cambridge. But just remember that the 
Liberals, and amongst others a very large majority 
of Churchmen, have now thrown those Universities 
entirely open to you Nonconformists. Every intel- 
lectual advantage of the Universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge, as you know, is just as open to every 
Nonconformist who chooses to go and avail himself 
of them as they are to me. 

Then, again, I say besides, that although, during 
that time, the Nonconformists have not had Oxford 
and Cambridge open to them, yet they have always 
had the University of London, which with its affiliated 
colleges is a great educational institution, and for all 
purposes is just as able to train men to take the 
lead in the intellectual activity of this country as the 
older Universities. But in any case, that objection has 
passed away now, for, as I say, all Nonconformists 
have been placed in precisely the same condition as 
Churchmen with respect to the culture of the Univer- 
sities. ["Can a parish get rid of a clergyman.?" 
frequently ejaculated by SCURLL.] If my very 
vigorous and excellent friend will merely let me go 
on my own way, I think he will probably find that 
I shall touch all the points on which he wishes to be 
instructed before the end of my talk. 

Now, let me say that the reason by which I account 



1 8/3-] A TRUSTEE OF NATIONAL PROPERTY. 5/ 

for this great difference between the intellectual activity 
in the highest regions of thought of the Church of 
England, and that of Nonconformist communities, is 
this — it is because the clergy of the Church are in a 
freer atmosphere, because the nation, which governs 
the Church of England, which has a special connection 
with the Church of England, is a far greater and freer 
body than any portion of it can possibly be. There is 
a very wise saying of a French statesman called Tal- 
leyrand, that " there is one person who is wiser than 
anybody, and that is everybody " — and it is the whole 
British nation as represented in the regular constitu- 
tional Government of the country which is responsible 
for, and which is connected with, the Church of 
England. And this I think is the reason why it is in 
a freer atmosphere, and is much more intellectually 
and spiritually active in my opinion, than those com- 
munities, of one of which I have no doubt my friend 
below is a very ardent and enthusiastic member. 

Then the Liberal politician finds that the Church, as 
it stands now in our time, is the trustee for the nation 
of a great number of splendid buildings — cathedrals, 
churches in every parish, schools, and parsonages. In 
every parish it has got one of its own officers on 
duty, and buildings dedicated to religious purposes, 
which are open to every citizen, and to every man, 
who chooses to take advantage of them. And what do 
my Nonconformist friends propose the State should do 
with these .? They propose that the State should toss 
that all over and have nothing whatever to do with it, 
and I, as a Liberal politician, don't intend, if I can 



58 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

help it, to allow the State to make such a fool of 
itself. Mind you — and I speak as a Liberal — we are 
not asked by them to improve and adapt, but we are 
asked simply to destroy ! I say it is not the part 
of a wise nation to do that. 

Just to give an illustration of it : Suppose that this 
nation, hundreds of years ago, long before any of us 
were born, before any of us could have any exact 
evidence of how it had come about, became possessed 
of gas works : that ever since the State had owned 
those gas works : and that in every town and village of 
England gas was still carried to the door of every man. 
And suppose that a great number of bodies in this 
country were to rise up and say, "We object to this 
gas ; we think that petroleum oil and tallow candles 
are much better things than gas, and we won't allow 
you (the State) to bring that gas (as you bring the 
services of the clergyman and the use of the parish 
church) to every man's door." He can, you see, use 
the gas if he pleases, or he can let it alone if he pleases, 
and yet my friends come and say, " Oh ! but this is 
abominable tyranny ; why should all these people 
have gas ? We won't have it, so why should he ? 
Pull down the gas works ; let everybody light them- 
selves by petroleum oil and tallow candles, — and let 
these old gas works, and all that belongs to them, be 
carted away and sold, and the money distributed in 
the relief of the rates, or anyhow you please." Would 
that be a reasonable contention ? [" No, no," and 
ejaculations by Scurll, rendered inaudible by cries of 
** Turn him out."] 



1 873-] THE CURE OF BODIES AND SOULS. 59 

The Sheriff (addressing Scurll) said — " I must beg 
of you to be silent. You are breaking your contract 
with the committee — ["hear, hear"] — for you were 
only admitted on a ticket pledging yourself to submit 
to the chair." 

Mr. Hughes continued — Well, if my friend does 
not like that illustration I will give him another. He 
may say that gas is a material thing, and that he 
would like an illustration from a learned profession. 
I will take then a profession which is most analogous 
to the profession of a clergyman, to the curing of souls. 
In every parish in England my friend and anybody 
who likes, whatever his religious opinions are, has a 
right to send for the parson of the parish : and the 
parson of the parish is bound to come and minister to 
him, and to cure all his spiritual ailments if he can. 
Suppose that the State from ancient times had en- 
dowments under which it kept a doctor in every 
parish, and by which it had command of all the great 
hospitals of the country. Now you know that there 
are a number of different schools of medicine in this 
country. At present the school of medicine which has 
the command of all the hospitals, and of the medical 
profession in this country, is what is called the allo- 
pathic system. I won't say whether I am an allopathist, 
but at any rate whether I am a nonconformist in this 
matter of medicine or not, there are a great many 
nonconformists who have something to say : homceo- 
pathists, hydropathists, mesmerists, and advocates of 
half-a-dozen other forms of disestablished medicine. 
Now, suppose that the State owned all the hospitals in 



6o THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

the country, and had a medical officer in every parish 
of the country, who was bound to minister to every 
man who chose to go to him, and the homoeopathists 
were to say, " This will never do ; this is not medical 
equality ; let us pull down these hospitals ; we won't 
have these hospitals ; oh ! this connection between the 
State and the doctors is dreadful ; let us abolish all 
the hospitals ; down with them !" [" No."] But that is 
what the demand of the Nonconformists is. They 
say, "Let us abolish the Establishment altogether." 
Now, should you think it would be wise of the State, 
in case it had such appliances as these for the curing 
of the bodies of the people, to act upon the suggestion 
of the homoeopathists and the hydropathists ? The 
case of the Church is precisely analogous. It is 
simply a question in the one case of the doctors of the 
body ; in the other case it is the doctors of the soul. 

I think I have sufficiently explained what the Non- 
conformists want, and what the Liberation Society, 
if it had its way, would take away from the people of 
this country. As I say, the people of this country 
at present have a right in every parish to the parish 
church, have a right to the ministrations of the officer 
of religion ; they may use the church or not, as they 
like, and they need not send for the ministrations of 
the clergyman if they don't like. This is what they 
will have to give up if this disestablishment movement 
is successful. 

Now, what do the Nonconformists propose to give 
them in exchange ? and this brings me to the pro- 
posals of the Liberationists as I understand them. 



1 873-] NONCONFORMIST PROPOSALS. 6 1 

The first of their proposals is to adopt something like 
the Irish plan. The plan of disestablishment which 
has been adopted in Ireland, as you perfectly well 
know, has left the cathedrals, the parish churches, the 
manses, and a considerable portion of the endowments 
in the hands of the clergy and the present Synod of 
the Irish Church. Well, supposing that plan adopted 
here, every non-Churchman in the first place would 
be deprived of his birthright. My friend down there 
and the Nonconformists would have no longer any right 
to enter the parish church ; he would have no longer a 
right to the ministrations of any clergyman in the 
country ; he would have no right to any of those ap- 
pliances to which he and his fathers have had a right 
ever since the nation was a nation. This many 
Englishmen perhaps would not object to very much, 
but as a Churchman and a politician I do object to 
any such course as that being adopted with regard to 
the English people. 

For myself I say, that if the Church held together, 
as I sincerely trust it would, it would become far too 
powerful, — it would become an imperium in imperio 
that would be very dangerous to any civil government. 
No government that came into power would be able 
to stir hand or foot until it had made terms with the 
disestablished Church. We should have a disestab- 
lished Church whose roots were intertwined with the 
whole political and social life of the country, and whose 
power would be dangerous to the civil government. 
If it were to break up into sections — into two or three 
divisions — then we Churchmen in our turn should lose 



62 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [^^73- 

our birthright. For we could not belong to more than 
one of the sections into which the Church was split 
up, and we should lose our right in two-thirds of the 
parish churches of England. The parish churches 
would belong to those sections of the Church and not 
to us, and we should no longer have the right which 
we inherited from our fathers to use those churches 
and to call upon the clergymen who serve in them to 
minister to us. Therefore, I object to disestablishment 
on this ground. Whether the Church remained to- 
gether or broke up into sections, matters little to my 
mind. In either case the nation, and I, are losers. 

Then, there is a second proposal which I don't think 
I need dwell upon, although it is far more consistent 
— that is, to sell the cathedrals and churches to the 
highest bidders, and apply the whole of the endow- 
ments to purely secular purposes. I quite feel that I 
need not dwell upon this subject here. I was talking 
it over with a thorough-going disestablishment man 
only the other day, in the House of Commons. I said, 
** What are you going to do with Westminster Abbey 
and St. Paul's ?" He replied that in Westminster 
Abbey there were a great many monuments, and 
perhaps it was fit for a picture and sculpture gallery, 
whilst St. Paul's might be bought for a great auction 
mart. Are you prepared — is my friend below prepared 
— to go that length ? Now, you have, I must say, the 
ugliest terminus that I ever saw to your railway in 
this town. Suppose that disestablishment had taken 
place, and the cathedrals were to be put up by public 
auction, and suppose the Great Eastern Railway 



1 8/3-] OPEN CHURCHES. 6^ 

Company were to be the highest bidders for your 
cathedral : would you like to see them turn that build- 
ing into a terminus for your railway ? I am quite sure 
you would not. You feel that the cathedrals and 
churches throughout the country have been used for 
500 years for the highest possible purposes for which 
any buildings can be used in this world, and you would 
not have them degraded, any more than Churchmen 
would, to any purposes less high. 

There is a third proposition, to throw the churches 
open to all religious communities. I should not object. 
But then comes in the trouble, that is nothing less than 
concurrent endowment, or just precisely the thing 
to which Nonconformist communities have pledged 
Parliament on no consideration whatever to consent. 
And, even supposing the churches and cathedrals were 
to be thrown open to all the religious communities of 
the country, you don't get out of the difficulty. There 
must be some hands to hold them, — some organisation 
to deal with them, — you cannot leave them there for 
the several congregations to fight over: for one to march 
in at one door, and another to march in at the opposite 
door. I see my friend is very reasonable ; he shakes 
his head ; he sees that this would be utterly impossible. 
What, then, is the only alternative } It is, to arrange 
some hands in which they should be held ; and I think if 
you consider the matter you will find that they could 
not be held by anybody who would exercise that 
trust more fairly, or more for the good of the nation, 
than those to whom they are at present confided. 

Again, amongst the other arguments which I should 



64 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

wish to put before this meeting is this — that the 
certain tendency of religious communities not in con- 
nection with the State is, narrowness. What has kept 
the Church of England so broad as it is at present .? 
I believe it is simply its connection with the State. 
[SCURLL : " We agree there."] Exactly. My friend 
does not think it necessary to have a community 
broad. I think it desirable to have it as broad as 
possible. I should be glad to worship with my fellow 
Christian below (I don't know what form he belongs 
to) because I am a State Churchman : but he, ' sitting 
there as a Nonconformist, I daresay would look three 
or four times before he would worship with me. I 
say that the breadth of the Church of England has 
been maintained by its connection with the State. 
Let me remind you of what has happened during our 
lifetime. You remember there have been three great 
crises in the English Church, and in each one of these 
some one party has risen up and striven to cast out 
another party from the Church. The first case was 
the celebrated case in which the late Bishop of Exeter, 
with the High Church party behind him, tried to cast 
out Mr. Gorham. They were unsuccessful. The case 
went before calm lawyers who were greatly bothered 
— there is nothing that judges so much dislike as to 
have ecclesiastical questions before them, but, when 
they are there, they bring trained intellects and calm 
minds, and all the wisdom that they have gained from 
long practice of their profession, to bear upon these 
questions, — and, as you remember, Mr. Gorham was 
not turned out. Then came the celebrated case of the 



1 873-] CASTING OUT TARES. 6$ 

* Essays and Reviews.' In the same way a section of 
the Church rose up and said, " These men have been 
writing things contrary to the doctrine of the Church 
of England ; let us cast them out." But the State 
stepped in and said, " No no ! they have been writing 
things which perhaps we cannot approve : they have 
been writing things which it may be difficult to 
reconcile with certain portions of the creeds of the 
Church of England : but still, as they can be interpreted 
in such a way as to be not clearly incompatible with 
those creeds, you shall not cast them out." Then, 
what happened the other day } The time of trial came 
for the High Church party. There was the case against 
Mr. Bennett. The privy Council said, " We very much 
regret what this gentleman has written ; we don't 
think it at all right that a clergyman of the Church of 
England should have written these things ; but we see 
that they can be interpreted in a way which is not 
necessarily incompatible with the doctrines of the 
Church of England." Therefore, the State holds an 
equal and firm hand between all schools within the 
Church and says, " Gentlemen, your duty is to live 
together as Christian men, and not to be casting one 
another out of the inheritance of your fathers." My 
friend down there evidently thinks this is a disgrace 
to the Church. [SCURLL : " I do." ] My friend says he 
does. But then, you see, if he thinks it is a great thing 
to be able to cast out the tares and to keep the wheat, 
he does not agree with the Author of our religion, or 
with the Apostles. They said that the tares and the 
wheat were to grow together until the harvest, and 

F 



66 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

that it was not for human judgment to go and root 
up those whom we please to call tares, and to tie 
them up in bundles to burn them, upon mere human 
judgment. 

Let me now look for a moment at the different way 
in which these religious communities act. Without in 
the least wishing to throw any disparagement upon 
the body of which I am going to speak, I will take 
the broadest of the Nonconformist communities, the 
Independents. Their government is a self-elected 
and absolute committee. What has happened within 
the last few years } We all remember that two or 
three years ago the Rev. Mr. Brewin Grant was cast 
out of that Church for I don't really know what. 
But I will speak of a more recent case. There was 
the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Eckington, near Chester- 
field, who had been a minister in the Independent 
Church for more than fifteen years. It appears that 
in this community there is the * Congregational 
Year Book,' and that it is necessary that the names 
of all the ministers should appear in that book every 
year. He found in the year 1871 that his name had 
not been inserted among the ministers. He wrote to 
the editor of the * Year Book ' to ask why his name had 
not been returned, and the editor, the Rev. Mr. Ashton, 
made him no answer. Then he referred the editor 
to a bye-law of the society, imposing upon the editor 
the duty of informing the minister whose name was 
omitted. He got no answer. Then he wrote to the 
secretary of the Congregational Union. He got an 
answer, that if the secretary of the County Union 



1 873-] INDEPENDENT LIBERALITY. 6/ 

does not send the name in, no help can be given. 
Then he wrote to the secretary of the County Union, 
and he was told that the secretary of the County 
Union could give him no information. Then he made 
an application straight to the committee of the Con- 
gregational Union, and they expressed regret that 
they had no power to act. Thus the name of that 
clergyman was quietly shunted out by an irresponsible 
committee : and the consequence was, that without 
having the opportunity of defending himself, or having 
his case heard by any tribunal, he lost his share of 
the sick funds to which he had subscribed all those 
years : he lost the privilege of sending his children to 
school at a lower rate of payment, which every Inde- 
pendent clergyman has ; . he lost the advantage of 
the Pastor's Insurance Society to which he was also 
entitled ; and I apprehend that by this time, in con- 
sequence of the disappearance of his name from 
the ' Congregational Year Book,' he is no longer a 
member of the Independent community. 

Contrast the difference between this treatment of 
the ministers of one of the largest, and by far the most 
liberal (so far as I know) of the Nonconformist com- 
munities with the treatment which Church of England 
clergymen get ! Therefore, I say again, the connection 
with the State makes the position of a clergyman 
much more free, much more independent, than that of 
the minister of any other religious community. I only 
cited that case just to prove this point. As a Liberal 
politician, I believe that the principle of exclusion is 
illiberal, and that the principle of inclusion is liberal. 

F 2 



68 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^TS' 

The one is the idea of religious communities outside 
the Church; the other is the idea of the national 
Church ; and I as a Liberal, intensely prefer the 
principle of the Established Church to that principle 
of selection and exclusion which is the principle of 
Nonconformist communities. 

Again, there is another tendency of Nonconformist 
communities which I should be very sorry indeed to 
see come into the Church of England, and it seems 
to be quite inevitable in the case of communities 
not in connection with the State. That is the tendency 
to split up. The other day I read in a book of very 
considerable authority, that in the community of Bap- 
tists there are in England 550 congregations which 
are unattached, and which owe no allegiance to the 
central organisation. I don't know whether that is 
true — at any rate it is stated by those who write 
with some knowledge, — but I do know that in 
* Guthrie's Conversations,' which is a work of autho- 
rity in America, where the Baptists are much more 
extended than in England, there is the following list 
of sects into which the Baptists have split up :— * 
Regular, Campbellites, Free-will Seventh Day, Six 
Principles Winnebrunnians, Anti-Mission Christians, 
Dunkers, and others. I should be very sorry indeed 
to see the chance of having the Church of England 
split up in that manner. 

I will not only take the Baptists, but take the most 
recent of all Nonconformist communities, for which I 
have great respect — the Wesleyan community. You 
remember that John Wesley up to the end of his life 



1873.] WESLEYAN UNITY. 69 

considered himself a Churchman. He said, " I have 
uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying from 
the doctrine of the Church at all." But even in his 
time the Methodists had split up into three portions. 
Lady Huntingdon and Whitefield went off with the 
Calvinistic portion, another section went off with 
Ingham and Gambold, and then there was the Church 
section which remained with John and Charles Wesley. 
In the year 1795 there was a formal secession of the 
Methodists. Two years afterwards, in 1797, came 
the first split among them. The New Connexion was 
formed. [SCURLL : "They wanted freedom."] That 
was an attempt to get the lay members into the 
Conference. Then came 18 10, when the Primitive 
Methodists went off on some question of preaching in 
the open air. [SCURLL : ** Freedom again."] Now, if 
they had been of the Established Church connected 
with the State, the State would have said, "You 
Christians need not quarrel about these things ; go and 
do your own work in your own way ; you are perfectly 
at liberty to hold all these things within the pale of 
the Church." In 181 5 the Bible Christians broke off, 
and then followed in 1835 the Wesleyan Methodist 
Association. And so you see within the first forty 
years of the disestablishment of Methodism, from the 
time they were released from State control, there were 
no less than five secessions and splits up. [Scurll : 
"The result of freedom."] If my friend thinks it 
desirable to have no religious organisation throughout 
the country, and to have every community splitting 
up into a hundred different parts, of course he has a 



70 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

perfect right to his opinion ; but I don't. There he 
and I entirely disagree. 

Now, I daresay my friend down there has never 
looked into this part of the subject ; but I will ask — 
what have the greatest Nonconformists who have ever 
lived said on this question ? I have the greatest 
possible respect for Nonconformists now living, but 
as I have said, with one exception, there are no men 
of the first flight of intellectual greatness among the 
Nonconformists in England at the present time. But 
that was not the case 200 years ago, in the great days 
of Nonconformity ; and you shall hear what those 
men thought about Disestablishment and Disendow- 
ment. First, let us have Oliver Cromwell, whom all 
will allow to have been a pretty distinguished Non- 
conformist. There was no man more angry than he 
at the suggestion to split up the Church. He said, 
*' Every man saith, ' O ! give me liberty,' but give it to 
him and (to his power) he will not yield it to anybody 
else. We are a people who have been unhinged 
these twelve years ; as if scattering, division, and 
confusion came upon us like things that we desired. 
These which are the greatest plagues that God ordi- 
narily lays on nations for sin." Oliver would not 
stand these splittings up. He appointed Triers, who 
went round to see that every Church was properly 
served, and that people did not split up and make 
divisions. The consequence was that a great number 
of Independent and Presbyterian ministers accepted 
livings in the Church of England as Nonconformist 
ministers. Let us come to John Bunyan, almost the 



1 873-] THE GREAT NONCONFORMISTS. /I 

greatest of Nonconformists, and not far from the 
greatest of English writers. What does he say ? " I 
would be, and hope I am, a Christian ; but as for these 
factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presby- 
terians, or the like, I conclude that they came not 
from Jerusalem or Antioch, but rather from hell and 
Babylon. For they naturally tend to divisions.; you 
may know them by their fruits." Now comes another, 
one of the greatest and ablest of all Nonconformists, 
and almost of all Englishmen of his time. What does 
Matthew Henry say in his commentary on the 45th 
chapter of Ezekiel } " It is the duty of rulers to take 
care of religion, and to see that the duties of it be 
regularly and carefully performed by those under their 
charge. Let us give God praise for the national 
establishment of our religion with that of our peace 
and civil liberty." Then he says, " Christianity is 
twisted in with the very constitution of our Govern- 
ment." The time is getting late, and I will give you 
only one more quotation. This shall be of another 
eminent Nonconformist of that time — Dr. Owen, 
Cromwell's brother-in-law — whom all of you who study 
this question know to have been one of the leading 
men in the Long Parliament. A motion for disestab- 
lishment came on then, just like the motion which 
Mr. Miall is going to bring on next Friday in the 
House of Commons. Dr. Owen was one of the leaders 
of the religious party in the House of Commons at 
that time, and what does he say ? '^ If it comes to 
this, and you say you have nothing to do with religion 
as the rulers of the nation, God will very soon have 



72 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

nothing to do with you as rulers of the nation." Well, 
I hope that I have proved that in the very greatest 
time of the Nonconformists this idea of disestablish- 
ment, of severing all connection between the State and 
religion, had never occurred at all to the greatest and 
best of them. I quite admit that they wanted to put 
their Church over the State, and I am as happy they 
failed in that as I am happy that they succeeded in 
stopping others from severing the connection. 

I am told by many Nonconformist friends, " It is 
very true what you say about the opinions of the old 
Nonconformists, and about our opinions now ; but you 
will please to understand it is not only we Noncon- 
formists who cry out for disestablishment ; there is a 
large party in your own Church which is crying out for 
disestablishment." [" No, no."] I am glad to hear that in 
Norwich this is not so, and I hope it may not be true 
in other parts of the country. But if it be true that 
a portion of the Church of England is crying out for 
disestablishment, is it Liberal Churchmen, is it Broad 
Churchmen, is it men who want all authority to be 
obeyed, who wish the bishops to keep their dioceses 
in order, who wish to go on the old lines in which the 
Church of England has gone for 300 years ? It is not. 
The only portion of the Church within its pale who 
have made any efforts for its disestablishment are just 
those who won't obey the bishops — who want to 
break up the order of the Church, who want to do 
away with those things which we and our fathers have 
held to for 300 years, and who wish to introduce con- 
fession and a number of other things. [SCURLL: 



1873.] LIBERALITY IN ROMANISM. 73 

" That's it."] My friend cries out " That's it." Well, 
is he prepared to go into alliance with them ? 
[SCURLL : ** No."] But he must do, because they are 
the only persons in the Church who, like him, wish 
for its disestablishment. Now, I say that all State 
Churches are liberal, and that all voluntary Churches 
are illiberal. I will give you another proof of this. 
As you are aware, the Church of Rome, after a 
council which sat in Rome two or three years ago, 
have settled that the Pope is infallible. Who were 
those who supported the pretensions of the Pope to 
infallibility ? Why, they were all the free Churches — 
the voluntary Churches. His great supporters were 
the voluntary Romish Church of England, the volun- 
tary Romish Church of Ireland, the voluntary Romish 
Church of America. Archbishop Manning and all 
who follow him were the great advocates of Papal 
infallibility. Who were the persons who opposed it ? 
The members of State Churches. The members of the 
State Church of Germany, the members of the State 
Church of Hungary, the members of the State Church 
of France. There never was a case in which the 
principle came out more clearly than in the most 
searching ordeal that has been before our generation 
— that question of the infallibility of the Pope, on 
which probably the very continuance of the great 
Romish Church, or heresy, which ever you please to 
call it, turned ; and upon that question the great 
supporters of the Pope's monstrous claims were the 
three voluntary Churches, and his great opponents 
were the three State Churches. 



74 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

In conclusion, I will just say a few words to my 
friends the Nonconformists and to my friends who sit 
around me, and who have invited me down here. I 
would say to the Nonconformists, that I hold their 
work has been necessary, has been of immense value 
to the religious life of this country, and that it is 
likely to be necessary in the future. I also hold 
that they have every right to the position which they 
occupy, and I sincerely trust they may maintain it, 
but I wish they would maintain it inside the Church 
instead of outside. Let me remind my friends of one 
or two facts. Before the Act of Uniformity there 
were Nonconforming members of the Church of 
England. In the year 1602 who was it carried the 
Millenary petition to King James l.> Why 800 
Nonconforming ministers of the Church of England. 
As I have told you, Oliver Cromwell put into churches 
numbers of men who were Nonconformists, and who 
did not accept the doctrines of the Church of England. 
There is not the least reason why they should not 
now pursue their own views, desiring and preferring 
their voluntary organisation to that of the Established 
Church : but why should they not accept openly what 
they cannot help, because they are Nonconforming 
members of the Church of England, whether they 
like it or not ? Why should they not say, " As we 
cannot get out of you, we will reform you. There 
are many ways in which we should like you to 
reform. We will join all your own best men in 
helping to reform that Church which has been handed 
down to us for a thousand years, and make it a noble 



1 8/3-] TO CHURCHMEN. 75 

temple in which all Christians in this country who 
are willing to acknowledge no supremacy outside the 
country may join in one great body." 

To my friends the Churchmen, who I suppose are 
the great majority in this room, I will just say a very 
few words. If disestablishment is to come in this 
country it will be very much your own fault. I 
hear some people say that the day of our visitation 
has come, and is past. I should be very sorry indeed 
to believe it, and I believe it would be a very sad day 
for England if that were true. But in order that it 
may never come, I trust that Churchmen will re- 
member that this struggle is not to be carried on by 
any kind of intemperance, or of intolerance, or of 
narrowness. We should remember that truth is 
many sided ; that all truth comes from one source. 
There is only one sun in the heavens, yet, as you 
know, there are many beautiful colours, all which 
come from the one sun. You cannot say that the 
red is better and truer than the blue, or that the blue 
is better and truer than the yellow. You may prefer 
one to the other ; you may see that one colour is more 
universal, more applicable for different purposes than 
another, but there is truth in each. In the same way 
there is only one earth, but there are a great many 
different trees which grow out of it, and which derive 
their nourishment from it : and although the oak may 
be very much better suited to England and the fir to 
Norway, yet we admit that there is truth in each ; 
that one is just as good and true a tree as the other. 
Therefore, let us who are apt to think in the Church 



^6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

and other religious communities that we have got all 
the truth ourselves, remember that truth is wider 
than can be comprehended by any body of human 
beings, and let us be tolerant to one another, not 
forgetting that those who are not in the same com- 
munity with us hold their side of the truth as strongly 
as we do ours. 

Each religious community has witnessed, and is 
witnessing, to some side of the truth. Religious 
communities are not perfect in themselves like trees 
or flowers, but for that very reason it is all the more 
necessary that the members of them should be tolerant, 
and should make the greatest effort to understand 
those of other religious beliefs. If our Church, as I 
hold and as I believe, is the broadest, and therefore 
in that sense the truest and greatest of those com- 
munities, if it be a catholic body, it can do two 
things. It can, in the first place, concede more easily 
than other bodies, and in the next it can assimilate 
better. And I say that the duty of Churchmen in 
this day of ours is, to concede everything that can be 
fairly conceded to other religious communities. We 
Churchmen are very fond of resisting every change, 
however small it be, on the old unwise pretence of 
not letting in the thin end of the wedge. Now let 
me read to you an extract from one whom you will 
all admit, whether you agree with him or not, to be a 
great statesman, and whose name will be honoured in 
any assembly of living Englishmen. I am going to 
quote to you from Lord Russell's * History of the 
Christian Religion,' p. 185. It is the wisest sentence 



1873.] ASSIMILATION. ^J 

in the whole book. "There is no doubt that con- 
cession gives rise to demands for fresh concession, 
— [* Hear, hear ' from the platform] — and it is right 
that it should be so." [Laughter.] Then comes the 
point to which I wish specially to call the attention of 
my friends behind : — " The true limit is, that all it is 
just to concede should be conceded ; all that it is true 
to affirm should be affirmed ; but that which is unjust 
should be rejected, and that which is false should be 
denied." Besides this power of concession, which she 
has in a much greater degree than any other religious 
body, the Church, if she be a catholic Church, as she 
pretends to be, has also greater power of assimilation. 
Let her not be afraid of those sides of the truth which 
have been most prominently put forward by other 
religious communities. She can assimilate them if 
she pleases, and it is her duty to assimilate whatever 
is true in them. Her mission in this world is not to 
hold her own in the sense of resisting all reform, of 
resisting all concession, but her duty and mission is 
to go to the lost people of our country, and of every 
country where she is established or where she exists, 
and to draw those together into her fold who cannot 
get into that of other religious bodies, which have 
such limits as I have been speaking of to bar the 
gates of admission. Her great mission is to seek and 
save those which are lost in every community. The 
highest title of her ministers is Servi servorum Dei 
(the servants of the servants of God), and, if she 
remembers this high mission, if she endeavours by 
her life to exemplify her Master's Spirit and to 



78 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873. 

illustrate His life, she never need be afraid in this 
country, or in any other country, of disestablishment 
or disendowment. What did the greatest of Church- 
men who ever lived say on the point of people car- 
rying on those miserable squabbles that are dividing 
us in this day ? They were saying, " We are of 
Paul," "We are of Apollos," "We are of Peter," and 
he said, " Who is Paul ? Who is Apollos ? Who is 
Peter ? " If you only understand what an inheritance 
you are called to, "all things are yours, whether 
Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, or life, or 
death, or things present, or things to come, all are 
yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 



( 79 ) 



IV. 



THE CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

{Delivered at Sion College, March \Zth, 1877.) 

I THINK that many of those whom I am about to 
address in this college on the condition and prospects 
of our national Church, may very probably be asking 
themselves at this moment what possible claim I can 
have to do so, or what possible good can come of 
anything I may say. I, at any rate, very readily 
admit that such questions would be most reasonable, 
so perhaps a few preliminary words of explanation 
may not be out of place. 

It was some months ago, before the late occurrences 
at Hatcham and all that has followed on them, that 
the proposal was made to me. Even then I had 
serious doubt as to accepting, and ultimately did so 
with some reluctance. The doubt arose from a 
genuine belief that I had much more to learn from 
than to teach the members of Sion College on such a 
subject. It is true that I had been asked to speak 
or lecture on the Church question at Birmingham, 
Norwich, and elsewhere ; but those addresses were 



8o THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

delivered to popular audiences, to whom I had been 
asked to speak as a politician, and at times when this 
great controversy was in a very different phase. But 
in this place I knew that I should be addressing an 
audience of experts, the metropolitan representatives 
of the great profession (or " calling," to use the better 
word) of ordained ministers of the national Church — 
a very different and much more serious matter. 
Hence my doubt. 

My reluctance arose from a dislike to stir still 
waters, and raise discussion upon grave matters at a 
time when there seemed no pressing need for action 
or decision with regard to them. And I own that 
the earlier part of the past year appeared to me to 
bear many signs of such a time ; for the usual 
motions, pointing to a severance of Church and 
State, or to reconstruction or reform of one kind or 
another, had not been made in the House of Commons. 
In the addresses of members and candidates to con- 
stituencies last autumn, when reference was made to 
the Church question, it was generally treated as a 
kind of neutral territory in politics, even advanced 
Liberals, like Mr. Leonard Courtney, declaring, that 
though they were theoretically in favour of the entire 
severance of Church and State when the proper 
time might come, yet they saw no sign of its coming, 
and deprecated any attempt to force it. On the 
other hand, one most important Church reform, the 
full meaning of which has never been popularly 
appreciated, — I mean the subdivision of dioceses and 
the appointment of suffragan bishops who should not 



1 877-] THE NEW CRISIS. 8 1 

be peers of Parliament, — had made great progress, 
almost without opposition from the nonconforming 
bodies or the Liberation Society. Thus far the time 
seemed one for letting well alone : and I should 
certainly have desired to do so then, but for the 
smouldering discontent already too apparent in one 
extreme wing of the national clergy. In view of 
this, however, it seemed to me possibly worth while to 
put forward at Sion College a lay view of the matters 
which were causing such discontent amongst a section 
of Churchmen. So with this view I overcame my 
reluctance, never dreaming that before I should 
address you here, this smouldering fire would have 
burst into a blaze ; that we should have, on the one 
hand, the Church Union publicly denying the right 
of the nation to control the clergy, and clergymen 
declaring that they "will labour night and day to 
set the Church of England free from a persecuting 
State;" on the other hand, the Liberationists, re- 
assured at hearing their own war-cries issuing from 
within what they are used to regard as the hostile 
camp, openly preparing for a campaign which they 
seem to think may be the final one. 

Had I been able to foresee such a state of things, 
I candidly confess that I should have declined this 
invitation. The prospect is to me altogether too sad 
and too confusing, and the issues are at present so 
undefined, and the forces on either side so unde- 
veloped, that I would very gladly have been silent, at 
any rate till I could see more clearly how the great 
controversy was shaping itself, and what it behoved 

G 



82 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//- 

one to say or do in this matter, who looks upon the 
connection of Church and State — of the spiritual and 
temporal life of the nation, as it exists, and has 
existed in England ever since we were a nation — as a 
part of our national inheritance which it would be 
a grievous misfortune, and an irreparable misfortune, 
to lose. 

I am here, however, to speak to you on the subject, 
and must do so to the best of my ability, glad at any 
rate that you will hear the views, frankly expressed, of 
what I believe to be a much larger proportion than is 
generally supposed of ordinary English Churchmen — 
laymen who have no strong bias for or against any 
party in the Church ; who have neither time nor taste 
for the lamentable party wrestling-matches got up by 
the (so-called) religious press and societies, but only 
desire to use themselves in peace, and to hand down 
to their children, the opportunities for Christian wor- 
ship and Christian living, which have served their 
forefathers for so many generations, improved and 
reformed to suit the needs of a new time, but still an 
inalienable part of the birthright of every English 
child. I repeat that I believe, — and, as one who has 
had much intercourse with all classes of our society, 
and has for years been much exercised by this 
question, have good grounds for my belief, — that 
this class is a far larger one than is commonly 
allowed. And it would be a great mistake to sup- 
pose, because they make no strife or fuss about their 
religion, that they do not really care about it. It is 
often assumed, nowadays, that the bulk of our Church 



1 877-] A COMMON ERROR. 83 

laity are mere formalists, supporting religion because 
they believe the parson to be the most powerful kind 
of policeman ; and ready to welcome whatever form 
of new worship, or no-worship, may come next, when 
criticism and science shall have dealt finally with the 
supernatural and Christianity, so long only as some 
form or other be left to keep the common folk in 
order, and their own wives and children quiet. On 
the contrary, we (for I must rank myself in their 
number) are thoroughly satisfied that Christianity is 
in no more real danger now than it was a hundred 
and fifty years ago, when Dean Swift, and many other 
greater wits than we have amongst us nowadays, 
thought and said that it was doomed. We hold in 
perfect good faith, that the good news our Lord 
brought is the best the world will ever hear ; that 
there has been a revelation in the Man Jesus Christ, 
of God the Creator of the world as our Father, so .that 
the humblest and poorest man can know God for all 
purposes for which men need to know Him in this 
life, and can have His help in becoming like Him, the 
business for which they were sent into it : and that 
there will be no other revelation, though this one will 
be, through all time, unfolding to men more and more 
of its unspeakable depth, and glory, and beauty, in 
external nature, in human society, in individual men. 
That, I believe to be a fair statement of the positive 
religious belief of average Englishmen, if they had to 
think it out and to put it in words ; and all who hold 
it must of course look upon Christ's Gospel as the 
great purifying, reforming, redeeming power in the 

G 2 



84 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^77- 

world, and desire that it shall be free to work in their 
own country on the most favourable conditions which 
can be found for it. 

On the other hand, there are a number of matters 
which have been commonly insisted upon in England 
as part of Christianity, as to many of which the kind 
of Englishmen I am speaking of have come to have 
no belief at all, one way or the other. They have no 
time to spare for such subjects, and do not feel it 
needful for their higher life that they should make up 
their minds, for instance, as to the exact quality of 
the inspiration of Scripture, the origin of evil, the 
method of the Atonement, the nature and effect of 
sacraments, justification, conversion, and other much- 
debated matters. As to another class of ecclesiastical 
subjects, such as apostolical succession, and all the 
priestly and mediatorial claims which are founded on 
it, they have indeed made up their minds thoroughly, 
and believe them to be men's fables, mischievous and 
misleading to those who teach and those who learn — 
to priests and people alike. 

Probably many of my hearers will consider such a 
belief as this too vague to be of any practical value ; 
but at any rate, as a fact, there it is, and it has to be 
acknowledged and accounted with as a fact in dealing 
with this Church question. And, as a rule, while it 
hinders those who hold it from attaching any exagge- 
rated or superstitious importance to one form or 
another of Church organisation, it inclines them to 
respect and value that which they find to have been 
thought out and beaten out by successive generations, 



1877.] ^ layman's reasons. 85 

and to have brought the nation safely at least, and 
not without honour, so far. Such a man is therefore 
generally an attached, though not an enthusiastic 
national Churchman, and in the main for the following 
reasons : — 

First, the historical. Our time is not one in which 
any institution is able to stand on its pedigree only : 
but it is also one in which we are bound to be specially 
careful of any wholesome links which bind us to the 
past, and make our history one of steady and con- 
nected life and progress. And from this point of 
view the national Church is beyond all question the 
most venerable of our institutions, and as intimately 
bound up with the national life as the monarchy or 
the Houses of Parliament. The latest and best 
historian of the Conquest describes the England of 
1066 as "a land where the Church and nation were 
but different names for the same community ; a land 
where priests and prelates were subject to the law like 
other men ; a land where the king and the witan gave 
away the staff of the bishop;" adding that "such a 
land was more dangerous in the eyes of Rome than 
one of Jews or Saracens." 

And through the long four hundred years' struggle 
with the Papacy, the same description holds good ; 
and in every great crisis the Church and nation has 
held together as one community. When a Becket 
backed the Pope's claim to make Church courts 
supreme over the clergy, and to exempt them from 
the national tribunals, the king answered by the 
Constitutions of Clarendon, which declared the Church 



S6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

to be part and parcel of the nation, and the clergy- 
amenable to the civil law like all other citizens ; and 
those Constitutions were supported by clergy and 
laity alike. 

When the King, backed by the Pope, refused the 
demands of the nation for the Great Charter, it was 
Archbishop Langton who headed the barons. Two 
of the three sureties to whom John was bound for its 
fulfilment were bishops, and the first nine names are 
those of Church dignitaries. Again and again the 
identity of the Church of England with the nation 
was upheld ; sometimes by bishops, as when Robert 
Grostete flatly refused to institute Innocent IV.'s 
Genoese nominee to an English benefice ; sometimes 
by the King or his courts of law, as when the King's 
Bench outlawed the members of the assembly of 
clergy, who had come together without the King's 
writ, and, in deference to a Papal Bull, produced by 
Archbishop Winchelsea, refused to grant a subsidy to 
Edward I. for his Scotch campaign. The statutes of 
mortmain, of provisors, of prohibition, of praemunire, 
all aimed at some encroachment of Rome on the 
national character of the English Church, were all 
passed with the assent and by the help of that Church 
which, by its very divisions in such crises, proved its 
national character. It is not necessary to follow the 
history since the Reformation, for it is part of the case 
of those of the clergy who seek to sever the connection 
that it has existed in full force from that time. Even 
when episcopacy was abolished during the Common- 
wealth and Protectorate, the national principle was 



1877.] SUPPOSED COMPACT. 87 

upheld, and the established Presbyterian Church was 
even more intimately allied with the State than its 
predecessor had been. Cromwell had no more thought 
of severing the connection than Edward or Henry, 
but desired to make the Church as broad and tolerant 
as possible. 

And so the Church has continued to our own day 
in theory, and still is to a very great extent in fact, the 
nation organized for spiritual purposes, and in striking 
sympathy with and faithfully mirroring the nation in 
all its varying moods — at times no doubt persecuting, 
apathetic, unfaithful — but on the whole faithful to her 
g^eat mission, and exercising a noble and purifying in- 
fluence on the national conscience and the national life. 

If this is at all a true view of the history of the 
Church of England, the fallacy of the main argument 
of the English Church Union at recent meetings 
becomes clear. Appeal is made to some supposed 
compact between the State and the Church, and it is 
contended that the Church never conceded to the 
State the right of control in spiritual matters when 
that compact was made. This assumes that the State 
and the Church in England were at some time two 
distinct corporate bodies, in part at least composed of 
different persons, and capable of contracting with one 
another. But there never was such a time in England ; 
State and Church never stood in such relations to 
each other ; there never was any such formal contract 
between them as the Church Union argument starts 
from. Between the officers of the Church for the time 
being and the State, there can of course be, and 



88 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l877- 

â–  always has been, a contract of service, as there is 
between the officers of the army and the State. But 
it is placing matters on a false issue to represent the 
Church of England as a power bound by treaty or 
compact with the State of England for certain 
definite purposes, and competent to annul that treaty 
when she pleases. A Church with the pretensions 
of Rome, or a voluntary Church, such as the Methodists, 
if the nation were to come to them now to make terms, 
might assume such an attitude and make such claims, 
but they contradict the very idea of our national 
Church, as those words have always been understood 
in England. 

Before quitting the historical ground I would just 
remind you that this modern cry for disestablishment, 
or the absolute severance of the State from religion, 
has really no English tradition at all behind it, at any 
rate since the Long Parliament. In that celebrated 
assembly it was indeed mooted, but with no success. 
Dr. Owen, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, and a 
famous Nonconformist minister, was its most vigorous 
opponent, and evidently expressed the sense of the 
House and the country when he protested in the 
most solemn and earnest words against the notion 
that they, as rulers of the nation, had nothing to 
do with religion. From that time to our own the 
effort has never been repeated, while the greatest 
names amongst the Nonconformists may be cited as 
supporters of the direct and avowed connection of the 
State with religion. Thus Matthew Henry thanks 
God " for the national establishment of our religion 



1877.] SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 89 

with that of our peace and civil liberty," and Bunyan, 
Wesley, Baxter, may all be quoted on the same side. 
Even the leading Nonconformists and reformers of 
the very last generation had no such policy. Mr. 
Grote, who may be taken as their representative man 
on this question, in the first Reformed Parliament, 
advocated indeed sweeping and stringent reforms 
within the Church, but, so far as I am aware, never 
hinted at severing the connection between the Church 
and the civil government. I need not say that the 
cry from within the Church herself for this divorce is 
of even more recent origin. 

It may of course be replied to all this, that however 
strong the historical argument may be, it is after all 
mainly a sentimental one, which can be allowed little 
weight in the changed and changing conditions and 
aims of our time. And I would not press it beyond 
this, that if thirty generations of Englishmen, who 
have given us our country as we enjoy it, have 
insisted on a national profession of Christianity by the 
State, those who now oppose it shall at least give us 
some grounds for believing that the nation will become 
nobler and better for renouncing that profession. 

The second reason for which such men as I am 
speaking of value the connection, may also possibly 
be called a sentimental one, but has I believe a very 
important practical side to it. It is that that connec- 
tion is a constant and powerful protest against the 
desire and effort to divide human life sharply into two 
parts, one of which is concerned with the visible, and 
the other with the invisible : or, as the commoner 



90 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^77- 

phrase goes, one with secular, the other with religious 
affairs. Notwithstanding the experience of many- 
failures, that desire and effort were never more active 
than in our time. And, however firmly convinced 
we may be from the experience of our own lives, and 
from our observation of all that is going on around us, 
that no such severance is possible, — that the two 
realms will assert their interdependence sooner or 
later, whatever rules we may lay down for keeping 
them apart, — still the mere attempt to sever them 
will always work mischief, and we cannot afford 
to part, or to tamper with, any witness that they have 
been joined together from the beginning of time, and 
will remain so joined to the end, by a law which man 
cannot set aside. And the connection of Church and 
State is a standing witness to this law in the highest 
places, a protest against the notion that the nation 
can repudiate its highest functions and duties, any 
more than one of its own citizens can do so. Were 
the present connection severed, the only result would 
be, that, sooner or later — probably after much national 
deterioration and humiliation — the law would have 
to be reasserted, and the duty accepted again by 
the nation under new conditions. Therefore, those 
in whom the love of their country is deepest and 
strongest, should be foremost in insisting that we shall 
not give up the highest national ideal because we find 
it hard to realize. 

It is scarcely possible to contend that that ideal 
is not lowered by severance of the connection. An 
abandonment of important functions may be ex- 



1877.] RELIGION IN POLITICS. 9 1 

pedient, or convenient, or even necessary, but it must 
remain a proof of a more stunted and narrower life. 
And, without dwelling on the many ways in which 
such an abandonment might probably act in England, 
I think no one will deny that, in any case, it is certain 
to lessen the interest which religious men take in 
politics and public life. There is, I know, a school of 
politicians, not wanting influential representatives in 
the press, who will exclaim at once, " What a blessing ! 
How smoothly public business would run on in future 
if we could only get rid of them altogether ! They 
are the bane of public life, at least, just so far as they 
will insist on bringing religious considerations to bear 
on it. A nation to be great and prosperous can't 
afford to keep a religious conscience." But I venture 
to think notwithstanding, from all I have seen of 
public life in England, that precisely the contrary is 
true, that men who are avowedly religious are the 
best politicians, and that it is of the highest moment 
for the national character, and therefore in the end 
for national prosperity, that they should be kept 
interested in politics. It is not easy to do this now, 
and I am at a loss to see how it will become easier 
when we declare that henceforth the nation will take 
no cognizance of, and will cease in its corporate 
capacity to have anything to do with, religion. If it 
is replied by some sections of Liberationists (as I 
presume some at least of the nonconforming bodies 
would reply) that this is not their meaning — that they 
never intended to bring about such a result, and they 
do not believe that disestablishment will effect it — I 



92 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

can only ask, how they propose to avert it ? By what 
machinery can the national supervision and control 
of religion be made less irksome to them than the 
present arrangement ? 

Again, such a man finds himself born to a certain 
religious inheritance as an Englishman. He can go 
and settle in any remotest hamlet of this island of 
ours, and there he shall find provided for him and his 
family a public place of worship, an officer of the 
State, and all the machinery necessary for enabling 
him to enjoy every office and ministration of religion, 
if, and so far only as, he desires them. This, I say, is 
part of his and of my birthright, and of every man's 
birthright as an Englishman, in this year 1877. I 
have the right to all these things, not because I hold 
any particular religious opinions, but simply because 
I am an Englishman, and claim them. If I am too 
poor or too miserly to pay for them, I can claim them 
without payment. 

Now, to put it no higher, this particular portion of 
our birthright can do us no harm, for this if for no 
other reason, that we need not use it unless we please. 
If we do not want to worship God ourselves, or to be 
baptized, married, buried, consoled, aided, instructed 
— if we want none of these things for our wives and 
children — there is no compulsion whatever upon us in 
the matter. It is not easy, therefore, to see how we 
or our families can be injured by this option, and by 
no means clear how any one else can be. 

Again, another reason why such men as I am 
trying to describe are attached to and desire to main- 



1 877-] THE CHURCH OF THE POOR. 93 

tain the connection between Church and State, as 
the religious condition of things most favourable to 
national life, is that they see that the principle which 
underlies the National Church is inclusiveness. 
Every Englishman born is assumed to be a member, 
and continues to be so without question, until he 
leaves it by his own act, of his own free will. Whereas 
the principle which underlies all voluntary churches is 
exclusiveness — they are essentially a section gleaned 
out of the nation ; and whereas an Englishman cannot 
get out of the national, he cannot get into any 
voluntary Church, without an effort of will. It 
follows, or at any rate is the fact, that the national 
Church is the most liberal in spirit ; for by its very 
nature and constitution it is bound to protest against 
the sectarian spirit, the spirit of division. Whenever 
the National Church is not bearing this protest faith- 
fully, it is untrue to itself. The wide divergences of 
opinion allowed within its ranks, so triumphantly 
cited in some quarters as signs of weakness, seem 
to such men proofs of strength. 

They see also that the national is the only 
organisation by which the Gospel can be carried to 
the very poor and the outcasts — to those, in short who 
need it most, but who do not value it, and cannot or will 
not pay for it. For voluntary Churches cannot live in 
the poorest districts, but must follow those who can 
maintain them, and are only bound to minister to these. 

They see, lastly, that the National Church is best 
adapted to the tone and circumstances of the people of 
England, as is proved by the fact that the voluntary 



94 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

Churches are all imitating her in so many ways — by 
using more and more of her Liturgy, by copying her 
architecture and music, till it is often difficult to tell 
as you pass a place of worship whether it is national 
or Nonconformist — by even adopting for their ministers 
the titles by which the national clergy have always 
been; distinguished. 

I have had to dwell at some length, though I trust 
so as not to weary you, on the sort of views which are 
held by a large number of quiet lay Churchmen who 
think about such subjects at all. And now, if there 
be the least ground of truth in my picture, if I am 
not dreaming when I say that such men are numerous 
in England, I would ask any clergyman here to try 
to put himself in the place of such a layman, and 
consider how he would regard the doings of the last 
few months within the Church, and the position which 
a section of the clergy are taking up and the language 
they are using — I say a section of the clergy, not 
meaning for a moment to deny that they have a 
following of laymen (not really so numerous as they 
suppose, but genuine as far as it goes) with them, but 
only to place the burthen on the right back. No 
laity would be there but for them. It is idle to talk of 
offences coming mainly from the newly aroused zeal 
of boys and girls. It is a section of the national 
clergy who are responsible, and must answer for, the 
present state of things, be it for good or for evil. 

Now this extreme section are deliberately breaking 
the law, and, to our astonishment, are applauded and 
upheld in doing so, not only by newspapers and 



1 877-] SUFFERING FOR CONSCIENCE. 95 

unions from which nothing better could be expected, 
but by considerable numbers of their brethren upon 
whom we had been accustomed to look with respect 
as honest and faithful ministers, however much we 
might differ from them. They do not indeed pretend 
to agree with the extreme Ritualists, but they support 
them openly and warmly, on the plea that they are 
suffering for conscience sake. Well, let the plea pass 
— admit that they are making these things matters 
of conscience — but we must be allowed to ask, as 
Englishmen, whether this is the kind of conscience 
which we desire to cultivate in ourselves, or to see 
cultivated in this nation. Poor conscience ! to what 
pitiful uses is that sacred name turned ! The stolid 
Essex peasant, one of the Peculiar People, lets his 
child die because he will not allow it to take medicine, 
and believes himself to be suffering for conscience 
sake because he is summoned before a magistrate to 
answer for its life. And he has far more reason on 
his side than these Ritualist martyrs. I desire neither 
to speak nor think scornfully or bitterly of them, but 
this at least I must say, that men who can make 
matters of conscience of such trivialities as the shape 
and colour of vestments, the burning of candles and 
incense, the position of tables, and the like, and in 
defence of these things are prepared to defy authority, 
and break what they know to be the law of their 
country, are not fit to be trusted with the spiritual 
guidance of any portion of our people. This nation 
has a great work still to do in the world, for which 
she needs children with quite other kind of consciences 



96 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

than these — consciences which shall be simple, manly, 
obedient, qualities which must disappear under such 
examples and teaching as these men are giving. It 
is with reluctance that one has to come to such a 
conclusion, but there is no use in blinding ourselves 
any longer as to their meaning. They have resolved 
to try their strength with the nation ; to throw off all 
civil control as well as to disobey and defy their 
spiritual superiors : and they will have to abide the 
consequences, which will assuredly be that they will 
not be allowed to minister any longer in that National 
Church, which they are doing all they can to destroy. 
Were it only a question of these extreme men, there 
would be small cause for anxiety, but, as already 
stated, they have been backed — at any rate, ever 
since the judgment in the Hatcham case — by a large 
number of High Church clergy from whom we had a 
right to look for very different things. I have heard 
friends of my own speaking of these men as martyrs, 
and echoing the clap-trap cries of the (so-called) 
religious press, such as that of "The interference of 
the State with the Church has increased, is increasing, 
and ought to be diminished." A martyr I have 
always understood to be one who suffers willingly, for 
his faith. It is abusing an almost sacred word to apply 
it to such suffering as is possible here in England 
nowadays for any opinion (I will not speak of faith) 
about what postures of the body, or shape or colour 
of garments, have been in use in churches since 
Edward the Sixth's time. And as to interference of 
the State having increased, it is notoriously untrue in 



* 1 8/7-] PLEAS OF THE DISAFFECTED. 9/ 

any sense except that offences against the law have 
increased, and so that law has had to be (with extreme 
reluctance) enforced by the heads of the Church against 
the offenders. 

I willingly admit, however, that they have more 
reasonable arguments than these. They urge, for 
instance, that (apart from the extreme Ritualists, 
whose proceedings they do not approve) they have 
been the moving power of the great Church revival of 
our time, the evidences of which lie broadcast over 
the whole country, in restored cathedrals and churches, 
frequent and reverent services, and the widespread 
zeal for all social reform and philanthropic effort, 
which has become the honourable and distinguishing 
characteristic of the nation in our day. In return for 
these services they have met with abuse, distrust, 
misrepresentation : and now at last are the subjects of 
direct attack on the part of the nation, both in the 
Law Courts and in Parliament, the crowning act of 
aggression being the Public Worship Regulation Act 
which has been aimed at them, and at them only. 

Now even those who distrust the High Church 
party most, must admit their plea as to the zealous, 
and in many respects admirable, work which they 
have done since the revival begun by the * Tracts for 
the Times ' forty years ago. They have deserved 
well of the nation in many ways, and have possibly 
some grounds for their complaints as to the suspicion 
with which they have, no doubt, been always regarded, 
though they have certainly taken no pains to avoid it. 
But it is impossible to admit that they have any 



98 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^77- 

reason to complain of harsh or unjust treatment, 
either from the national executive, or from the legis- 
lature. The judgment in Mr. Bennett's case shows 
how far the Law Courts have been disposed to go in 
construing their obligations in the largest and widest 
sense. It is only when there has been an obvious 
and scandalous disregard and defiance of the law (as 
in the case of Mr. Purchas and Mr. Tooth) that it has 
been enforced against any of their number. Indeed, 
another proof of the advantage of the national prin- 
ciple may be found in the reluctance with which the 
courts have intervened ; and the steadiness with 
which they have upheld the principle of a large 
toleration and inclusiveness in the face of strong 
popular excitement. 

Again, as respects the legislature : so far from 
showing any readiness or eagerness to follow the 
popular cry, it has been only when the open defiance 
of the law had become a public scandal that Parlia- 
ment could be induced to interfere at all, and then by 
an Act which I venture to think has been greatly 
misunderstood and misrepresented. 

Let me just remind you of a fact or two with 
respect to this Act. In the first place, remember it was 
a Church measure. Whereas the custom had pre- 
vailed for years, until it had almost become a rule, 
that such Bills should be introduced by the govern- 
ment of the day in consultation with the bishops, 
this bill was not a government measure. I have 
never heard why it was that the rule was broken, but 
broken it was, and it was not until after the Bill had 



1877.] THE PUBLIC WORSHIP ACT. 99 

passed the Lords, and been debated for three long 
nights in the Commons, that it was at length adopted 
by the Government. 

It was introduced by the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, and received the general support of the whole 
bench, though the Bishops of Lincoln and Oxford 
took some objections to small matters of detail. 

At the end of the long and able debate in the 
Commons, the feeling of the House, and of the nation, 
had been so clearly expressed that the second reading 
was carried without a division. 

I scarcely remember a question which has stirred 
the House or the country more deeply in the last 
twenty years. It was discussed all over the country, 
in meetings held chiefly, I believe, under the auspices 
of the Church Association and the Church Union (as to 
which bodies the Bishop of Lichfield has to my mind 
well said, that there will be no peace in the Church 
till they cease to exist). I would only ask any fair 
man who is inclined to join in the attempt to take 
the Church from under state control, to compare the 
speeches in Parliament and those of the members of 
these ecclesiastical organisations, during the spring 
and summer of 1874, and then say which yoke (as the 
phrase goes) he would honestly desire to be under. 

As for the Act itself, it was well said by Mr. 
Goschen — himself I believe a High Churchman — that 
it would prove either a small or a large measure ; 
a small one if the clergy meant to obey it, otherwise 
most likely a large and searching one. 

By its provisions the clergy of every school are 

H 2 



100 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//. 

protected against any malicious or arbitrary use of 
the Act, by the interposition of the chief of their own 
body in the diocese in which it is sought to put it in 
motion, whose leave must be obtained before the 
institution of proceedings. The bishop practically 
becomes an arbiter in the case, if both parties are 
willing to accept him : if not, an impartial tribunal 
is provided for the decision of the questions at issue. 

I trust there are even yet hopes that it may prove 
a small act, for I cannot believe that, in spite of all 
goading of the religious press, and of the semi-eccle- 
siastical societies, a body of high-principled English 
gentlemen will continue to maintain the attitude of 
defiance to the law, and to the clearly expressed will 
of the nation. 

The often repeated cry that the Act is one-sided, 
and aimed against one party only in the Church, may 
serve the purpose of excited speakers, but will not 
bear examination. For it makes no alteration in the 
law, but only simplifies and cheapens the processes 
by which the law is administered. Whatever was 
lawful in the fabric or arrangement of consecrated 
buildings, or in vestments, postures, or decorations, 
remains still lawful — whatever was required before 
the passing of the Act is still required, the neglect to 
use that which is prescribed standing in precisely the 
same category as the use of that which is forbidden. 

If it be one-sided, every efficient law in the 
Statute Book is one-sided, for every such law inflicts 
penalties, not on those who keep within, but on those 
who break it. 



1877.] RITUALIST AIMS. 10 1 

The objection to the constitution of the Court 
which takes cognizance of these offences, when the 
parties will not submit to the bishop, can scarcely be 
regarded as serious. It is said that the authority 
of this Court " is not derived from the rightful royal 
supremacy exercised ' under God,' but of the Sovereign 
in council by authority of Parliament." But surely 
those who make this protest are aware that the Queen 
has no authority by virtue of her mere supremacy to 
constitute any court apart from Parliament. . 

On the whole, it is not easy to see how, if order 
is to be preserved, and the law enforced at all in the 
National Church, any more moderate or fair method 
could have been found than that adopted by the Act 
in question. 

But let us pass from the late Act to the remedies 
for the present state of things, which have been sug- 
gested by those who are taking part in this agitation. 
These are not at present very definite. They are 
indeed vaguely pledging themselves to "work night 
and day to set the Church of England free from a 
persecuting State ;" but we are not told with any dis- 
tinctness, what they desire to substitute for the yoke 
of the nation. If the words of some of their number 
are to be taken literally, it would seem as though our 
history of seven hundred years had been rolled back, 
and that England is again face to face with the monks 
who followed a Becket in his attempt to sever 
the clergy from the nation, and set them up as a 
caste outside and above the law of the land. I do 
not of course mean that the present contention is that 



102 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1877. 

the clergy shall not be amenable to the law for 
civil offences, like all other citizens ; but apparently 
there is a section of them who do claim, that as regards 
all matters connected with their position and functions 
as clergy, they shall be subject to Church courts only. 
And by Church courts they cannot mean any courts 
constituted in our national manner, and under the 
jurisdiction of Parliament ; for then their grievance 
comes to nothing. It is reduced to a mere question 
of names, and it does not matter a straw by what 
name the Courts which try ecclesiastical causes are 
known, if they are constituted, and their judges 
appointed, by the head of the State, on the advice 
of responsible Ministers, and under the control of 
Parliament. One is driven therefore to the conclusion 
that they mean a tribunal independent of State 
control, the judges of which are elected by, and 
responsible to, the clergy, or some purely ecclesiastical 
organisation. There was some strength and meaning 
in a Becket's proposal, because he had the Pope to 
put in the place of King and King's Council, as the 
head and fountain of authority for the Courts which 
he proposed to substitute for the national Courts. 
But, as the Ritualists have not that resource, they 
should either cease beating about the bush and make 
their demands clear and precise, telling us who is to 
be the fountain on earth of ecclesiastical authority, or 
leave the national Church, and set up a sect of their 
own, in which they may place themselves as priests in 
whatever position they please, as they find themselves 
unable to accept the grandest of all positions, that of 



1 877-] RITUALIST AIMS. IO3 

simple citizens, called and appointed to minister to 
the nation, whose sons they are, in spiritual things. 

There is another course advocated by many High 
Churchmen as an escape from our present difficulties, 
which is advanced temperately and reasonably, and 
has the public sanction of at least one bishop. I 
think I shall state it most fairly perhaps in his 
words : " I am of opinion," the Bishop of Lincoln 
writes, " that for the sake of the State, as well as for 
that of the Church, much more liberty ought to be 
given, and much more weight attached, to the judg- 
ment of the spirituality in ecclesiastical causes, and to 
the action of the Church of England in her synods, 
diocesan and provincial." I am glad to be able to 
quote his further words of warning : " But we shall 
never obtain those benefits by violent resistance to 
constitutional authority ; on the contrary, we shall 
provoke violent reprisals, and shall greatly injure the 
cause we desire to maintain." 

I presume that these words point to investing 
Convocation with some legislative powers in eccle- 
siastical affairs ; and with every desire to concede 
whatever can be conceded for the sake of peace, I am 
bound to say plainly that I do not think it can be 
found in this direction. Convocation has now for 
some years been sitting, and discussing all questions 
upon which legislation is needed, or which seriously 
affect the religious condition of the nation. But I fear 
that the reports of the debates in both Houses have 
not had a reassuring effect on the country ; indeed, 
they have been characterised by timidity and narrow- 



I04 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^??- 

ness, and an apparent want of appreciation of the 
forces which are working in the outside world, which 
has disappointed those who looked most hopefully 
towards this experiment. I am not aware of any 
recommendation of practical value which has as yet 
come from that body. Indeed, it seems to me, that 
the main result of the recent revival of Convocation 
has been, to strengthen the convictions of all those who 
value the national character of the Church, that that 
character cannot be maintained if its direction and 
government is to be entrusted to any ecclesiastical 
body. It may be said that the proposal is to reform 
Convocation by the admission of the laity. But this 
would not remove the objection. Such laymen as 
would have a chance of election would not represent 
the nation, besides which they would be powerless 
in such a body. When professionals and amateurs 
meet, we know which side is likely to go to the wall. 

Convocation was no doubt two hundred years ago 
a sort of fourth estate of the realm, representing not 
the National Church but the clergy, even for purposes 
of taxation. It was at their own request that for 
those purposes they were merged in the nation, and 
taxed by the same machinery as the laity. From 
that time Convocation was practically without func- 
tions, and when summoned, as in 1698, the disputes 
between the Low Church bishops appointed by the 
Crown and the Jacobite clergy, ran so high as to 
create scandal and render their debates fruitless ; and 
from 17 17 till our own day, though formally sum- 
moned, they were always at once prorogued. 



1877.] REFORM OF CONVOCATION. I05 

But even if the traditions of Convocation were 
far more satisfactory, the chief objection remains, that 
to hand over the control of the Church to that body- 
would be an infringement of the national principle, 
and an imitation of the practice of the sects, without 
any compensating advantage. For what ground from 
recent experience have we for believing that the 
various parties in the Church would agree better in 
Convocation than they did in 1698 ? 

To give the powers that are claimed to Convoca- 
tion would be a certain step towards a severance of all 
connection with the State, and consequently (in words 
probably familiar to many here) would inevitably 
lead to that " degradation which by an almost 
universal law overtakes religion when, even while 
attaining a purer form, it loses the vivifying and 
elevating spirit breathed into it by close contact 
with the great historic and secular influences, which 
act like fresh air on a contracted atmosphere, and 
are thus the divine antiseptics against the spiri- 
tual corruption of merely ecclesiastical communities" 
(Dean Stanley). 

I am not aware of any other proposal to which the 
same objection does not attach. They are one and 
all aimed at further severance of the clergy from the 
Church and from the nation ; whereas what we need is 
precisely the reverse of this — that the clergy should 
be brought into closer contact with the nation, and 
should learn to feel more and more the worth and 
nobleness of their earthly citizenship. 

That they have a higher citizenship is of course 



I06 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^//. 

true, but only in the same sense in which it is true of 
every one of their lay brethren. That Christ is the 
only Head of the Church is also true, but is He not 
also the only Head of the nation ? He is no more 
visible to the Church than to the nation, to the priest 
than to the crossing-sweeper. They hold their com- 
mission from Him no doubt, but they must receive it, 
with some visible seal, from some human hands ; 
and what seal can be so worthy, so noble, as that of 
the nation whose children they are ? 

But if none of the suggestions yet made seem to 
offer relief, what is the outlook ? Dark enough I 
admit, but still by no means so dark as it has often 
been before : for all these struggles and controversies 
are, after all, but the signs of a vigorous life. All that 
is needed — and surely England will not now for the 
first time need it in vain — is some small share of the 
self-restraint, the patience, and the courage, which 
have never yet failed her under God's blessing. That 
there must be a great reform in our national Church 
is clear, but she is strong enough to bear it. What 
has been done in our day in this direction should be 
encouraging instead of depressing to any one who 
will look at it steadily and fairly ; but it is only a 
fraction of what is needed. 

The readjustment of Church property, the establish- 
ment of the Ecclesiastical Commission, the abolition 
of tests, the relaxation of subscription, the reorgani- 
sation of parishes, the appointment of bishops with- 
out seats in the House of Lords, the subdivision of 
dioceses, the Church Discipline Acts, the revision of 



1877.] CHANCE OF REFORMS. I07 

the Bible, and lastly, this Public Worship Act,, are 
all measures passed within my own memory. And 
surely such a list (and it might be doubled) may well 
give heart of grace to the most desponding : for these 
reforms have been made in a time peculiarly un- 
favourable to the development of the Church. The 
commercial spirit, with its utilitarian and materia- 
listic Gospel, has been in the ascendant, with the 
result that the friends of the national Church have 
been afraid of touching a brick of the old fabric lest 
the whole should come about their ears, while her 
•enemies have looked upon every effort for reform 
with watchful jealousy, fearing lest it should strengthen 
the old walls and foundations. No one can have 
been in the House of Commons without becoming 
aware of the strength of these two antagonist forces, 
both however working in the same direction, that of 
making any resolute action in Church reform all but 
impossible. And yet all these things I have just 
referred to have been done in such a time. 

Why, then, should we despair of greater and 
better things, when a time has come in which there 
are unmistakeable signs that, whatever the controlling 
spirit may prove to be, it will not be the utilitarian, or 
materialistic ? If the Church has emerged from such 
a time as the one which is expiring, fuller than ever of 
spiritual life and zeal, and without having as yet lost 
anything of her national character, what fear is there 
that she will be false to her own and her country's 
history in the time which is coming } It was in a 
crisis in several respects as serious as the present that 



I08 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^??- 

a wise and observant, and certainly one of the best- 
informed of foreign critics of our national habits and 
institutions, wrote : — " To this country belongs the 
honour of having, so far as the State is concerned, 
succeeded in the mighty task of reconciling in- 
dividual liberty with allegiance and submission to the 
will of the community, whilst other nations are still 
wrestling with it ; and I feel persuaded that the same 
earnest zeal and practical wisdom which have made 
her political constitution an object of admiration to 
other nations will, under God's blessing, make her 
Church also a model to the world " (Prince Albert). 

It is in this hope, and with this belief, that I have 
ventured to speak to you this evening. I know that 
I must have said things which may have roused 
painful, and possibly indignant, feelings in the minds 
of persons for whom individually, and for much of 
whose work, I should desire only to express respect 
and gratitude. If there should be any such here, I 
can only ask them to believe that it is from love to 
the Church, of which we are all members, not less 
sincere, I trust, or loyal than their own — from an 
estimate not lower, at any rate, though in some 
respects differing from theirs, of the mission of that 
Church, and of the work she has been called to do 
for the nation, and for the world — that one is con- 
strained to be perfectly outspoken, and not to ignore 
or explain away facts, or to call things by any other 
than their plainest names at such a time as this. 

There is no danger for our Church that I can see 
except from her own children, indeed from her own 



1 877-] CHANCE OF REFORMS. IO9 

officers. There is no deeper feeling on this subject 
of disestablishment in the House of Commons than 
irritated jealousy, having its root in social and poli- 
tical soil, and its expression in clever flippancy and 
bitterness : and the House in this matter very fairly 
represents the people. Those outside the Church who 
represent anything more serious are, I think, constantly 
finding it more and more difficult to persuade them- 
selves, or any one else, that they are working for the 
highest good of the country, and with a single view 
of placing religion under the absolutely best condi- 
tions for doing the nation's work. It is only within the 
Church's own ranks that there is zeal and fire enough 
to be dangerous. 

Before going further on these new and perilous 
ways, the discontented in her own ranks should at 
least count the cost more carefully than they seem yet 
to have done. Can any one of them say deliberately 
that in his conscience he believes the conditions and 
prospects of the religious life of this nation will be 
improved by the withdrawal of religion altogether 
from the cognisance and control of the nation ? If they 
can answer " yes," there is no more to be said, and there 
can be neither peace nor even truce possible between 
us. If not, there is scarcely any length short of the 
intrusion of foreign influence in the national Church, or 
disobedience to the law, to which Nationalists would 
not go to help them. We will join them in eflbrts to 
obtain thorough Church reform, the deeper and wider 
the better. We have no fear of touching formularies, 
or canons, or rubrics, or liturgies ; indeed are anxious 



no THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^77* 

they should be touched, inasmuch as they are in not 
a few respects, obsolete and unfitted to our time. 
Whenever the clergy are prepared for this necessary 
work, which cannot be long deferred — though in the 
midst of the present agitation it is difficult to see 
how or by whom it can be taken in hand — they will 
find lay Churchmen cordial and strenuous helpers. 
All we ask of them is, that in one of the great crises 
of the world — the days of the Lord, as they are so well 
called — they at any rate shall not wantonly destroy 
that example of the conditions on which the Gospel 
and the nations can live together, which, with all its 
faults, is the best hitherto seen in the world, and the 
only one which gives us even a distant hint of how, 
in God's good time, the kingdoms of this world may 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. 



( III ) 



V. 



THE GREAT EXPERIMENT OF THE PURE 
VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

Some years ago I was invited by an eminent Non- 
conformist to meet two Congregationalist ministers 
from the United States. The party consisted of these 
gentlemen, one other Churchman besides myself, and 
some ten or twelve of our leading Nonconformists, 
amongst them the late Dr. Binney. The conversa- 
tion turned almost exclusively on the prospects of 
Christianity in the two countries, which were discussed 
with singular candour and fairness, and I was pleased, 
as well as surprised, to find that most of those present 
were disposed to admit that the highest and noblest 
ideal was that of a Christian nation, in which the duty 
of providing for public worship and the support of 
religion should be acknowledged. Only it was urged 
that in Christendom as we have it, such an ideal had 
become impossible, and that, as matters stood, free 
voluntary churches, as existing in the United States, 
were a better alternative than the English, or any 
other Established Church. I protested against giving 



112 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

up the ideal, and argued that there was no need to do 
so, at any rate in England, where in theory at least 
we had it still ; and was not a little delighted to find 
that the patriarch of English dissent was in sympathy 
with me. We met again on several occasions before 
his death, and on each of these he recurred to the sub- 
ject, and dwelt on the hope of a possible future — far 
off, and of which he should never see the dawn — but 
which might yet, by God's blessing, knit together 
our children in one communion and fellowship, a 
Christian nation in deed and truth, as well as in name. 
In another and very different society an even more 
significant result came under my notice. The subject 
of the connection of Church and State was chosen 
for discussion some time since at the Working-men's 
College, and debated for many evenings. To the 
greater number of those who took part in the dis- 
cussion the subject was practically new, and they 
appro.ached it with no strong bias one way or the 
other : but a considerable minority were strong 
Liberationists, while not more than two, or perhaps 
three, were, at the start, in favour of maintaining the 
connection. At the end of the discussion (which was 
a thorough one, not carried on by set speeches, but as 
it were in committee, by question and argumentative 
conversation) I will not say that there remained no 
difference of opinion amongst us, but none such as to 
lead to a division : and, I think I may say, we were 
practically unanimous, that from the democratic point 
of view it would be more patriotic, not to sever, but to 
maintain the connection. 



THE COLONIES. 113 

These two stand out in my memory prominently 
amongst the experiences which give me confidence, 
that if only plenty of light and air are allowed to 
play round the question — as the Birmingham Associa- 
tion desire — we shall find candidates regaining the 
courage of their convictions, and refusing to follow 
the Birmingham lead. My object, however, in citing 
them here is, that they lead naturally to an important 
side of the question, I mean that of the religious 
condition of the United States, and our colonies, as 
compared with that of the mother country. I do not 
pretend to speak with any confidence here, because 
I have had no sufficient personal experience. But I 
have done my best to use such opportunities as have 
been open to me, and what follows is the result. I 
give my views as near as I can in the shape in which 
they were put before the members of the College. 

During this discussion, our colonies and the United 
States have more than once been cited by those who 
are in favour of the separation of Church and State, 
as examples of the success of that experiment amongst 
people of our race. I am not, however, aware that 
anything has been advanced beyond general state- 
ments founded on hearsay. Nor do I pretend to be 
able myself to speak with any confidence on this part 
of the question. I have only visited one of our great 
colonies, and my stay in Canada was too short to 
enable me to form any trustworthy opinion from per- 
sonal observation as to the condition and prospects 
of that splendid and vigorous scion of our stock in 
matters ecclesiastical. In passing, however, I may say, 

I 



114 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

that the one thing which did strike me was, the great 
and dominant position which the Roman Catholic 
Church seems to occupy, not only in the Province of 
Quebec, but in Ontario, where certainly I was not 
prepared, by anything I had read or heard, for such 
a state of things. I was not surprised to find the 
practical ascendancy of that Church decidedly ex- 
pressed in the town of Quebec. But two hundred 
miles further west, in the great centre of commercial 
activity and enterprise, Montreal, the buildings which 
at once strike a stranger and give character to the 
city, are mostly Roman Catholic ; while he cannot 
take up any local journal at his hotel, or walk for an 
hour in the streets, without feeling that it is not only 
in bricks and mortar, and the possession of the finest 
sites, that the power and activity of that Church are 
making themselves felt. 

Cross the border and you will find much the same 
state of things in the Protestant province. Roman 
Catholicism seemed to me almost as much in evidence 
at Toronto and Hamilton, as at Montreal ; but, as I 
have already said, the first impressions of a stranger 
are really of small value, and the possession of the 
central town-lots and the prominent buildings may 
mean very little. I trust that it may prove to be so, 
and that the native free churches may be able to hold 
their own against their powerful rival, not only in the 
Dominion, but in the Australias, where, however, 
from all one hears the outlook is by no means en- 
couraging. • 

Of the United States I have somewhat more confi- 



THE UNITED STATES. II5 

dence in speaking, as I spent three months there, and 
lost no opportunity of observing, and informing my- 
self upon this question. I will give you some of my 
impressions as shortly as possible, for what they are 
worth. 

In the first place I was struck by one marked con- 
trast in the entertainment of a stranger, with what 
would occur in like circumstances in England. The 
Americans, besides being the most hospitable of man- 
kind, are specially anxious to show you everything 
that they think will interest you, and make you ap- 
preciate their great country. I visited many cities, 
large and small, and was taken by kind friends to 
divers town-halls, hospitals, schools, banks, museums, 
parks, and all manner of public institutions, but in no 
single instance to a church. I don't pretend to ac- 
count for, or argue from this fact ; but so it was : and 
so far as I could judge, the reason seemed to be, that 
they never thought of their churches as public buildings, 
which could reflect either credit or discredit on the 
nation. 

Then again the habit of family worship seems to be 
the rare exception in the States, even in the houses 
of decidedly religious people. It would be imperti- 
nent to go about questioning why this is so, and I 
certainly did not take that means of endeavouring to 
satisfy my curiosity ; but, from the best observation 
I could make, I think that the strength of the feeling 
that religion is a strictly private concern, for each 
individual man and woman, has much to do with it. 
In this matter also I think that the existence of a 

I 2 



Il6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

public or National Church in England may very pro- 
bably account for the difference which certainly exists 
in this respect between the two countries. Why else 
the national habit should hold in the one, and not in 
the other — why one should be often astonished in 
England at finding it, and in America at not finding 
it, it is not otherwise easy to see. 

I had the pleasure and advantage of staying on 
terms of intimacy with all sorts of people, professors, 
lawyers, parsons, merchants, soldiers, politicians, both 
in New England and in other eastern, and several 
western. States, and amongst all of these who troubled 
at all about the question, I can only recall one who 
was satisfied with the condition and prospects of 
religion in his country. I remember reading with 
much interest the story of Mr. Gerrit Smith's crusade 
against the sects, and his attempt to establish a 
church on Apostolic lines. The resolutions which 
formed the consitution of his New Jerusalem may be 
fairly sampled as follows : — 

" Whereas the Bible teaches that the union of 
Christians is important. Resolved, therefore, that 
the division of Christians into rival sects or parties, 
is unscriptural and wicked." And, " Resolved that 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes abundant provision 
for the closer and closer union of his disciples with 
each other, but makes none at all for their sepa- 
ration from each other, etc." 

So the staunch but eccentric Abolutionist held that 
the Christians in each locality constituted the Church, 
and that all sects should be at once and finally abo- 



GERRIT smith's CHURCH. 11/ 

lished: and accordingly called on all his own neighbours 
to come and join him in the Church of Peterborough. 
He denounced not only sects, but " theologies," as the 
curses of mankind : and so was naturally in his turn 
denounced as one who " made war upon the Churches 
of God ;" and though I believe he struggled on till 
his death, a year or two ago, with a small following 
of the broadest kind of Christians, his experiment 
never took hold of any large number of his country- 
men ; and, indeed, is scarcely known at all except to 
the curious in such matters. Probably nine out often 
of my American friends, if they had ever cared to give 
an hour's attention to Gerrit Smith and his crotchet, 
would have said he was crazy ; but, for all that, most 
of them to a great extent agreed with his fundamental 
doctrines when you came to talk it out with them. 
They all thought Sectarianism as it exists in their 
own country a quite unsatisfactory state of things. 
Most of them held that the jealousy between the 
various sects kept their belief narrow, and expressed 
themselves almost as strongly as Gerrit Smith him- 
self against " the theologies." This narrowness, they 
admitted, is by no means abating, and makes Church 
Membership in the States a real difficulty. Indeed, 
I found that several of the best and ablest men I met 
belonged to no Church at all in any sense, beyond 
renting sittings. They regretted that it should be so, 
but had no hope of anything better. One of them, 
however, who had lived a good deal in England, 
volunteered to me that, for his part, he wished they 
had some such arrangement as we had. I was 
taken by surprise to hear so strong a protest against 



Il8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

the exclusiveness of sects in America, as I had till 
then believed them to be more tolerant and liberal 
than with us. Mr. R. W. Dale, in his * Ecclesia/ 
makes it a matter of boast that a person desiring full 
membership in our Nonconformist communions, must 
be examined ; must " narrate the story of his awaken- 
ing to spiritual consciousness " ; and " the inward 
conflicts through which he had forced his way to the 
kingdom of God." My American friend described an 
analogous state of things there with sorrow, not un- 
mingled with bitter scorn. What he valued, on the 
other hand, in our system, was very much that which 
is so strongly denounced by Liberationists — I mean, 
the church membership which comes to every citizen 
as his birthright, and which he is assumed to possess 
without any effort of his own, unless he distinctly 
repudiates it after he has grown up. What seemed 
to strike him most was, that he and his family had 
been allowed, as a matter of course, and without any 
question whatever, to worship and communicate in 
the English parishes in which he had lived, although 
he was not a member of the Episcopal Church in his 
own country, and of course not of the English Church. 

This, he gave me to understand, could not have 
happened in the United States. Whether he was 
right or not in this I cannot say, but on the main 
point, that there is dissatisfaction with the present 
condition of things — unrest and uneasiness more than 
is merely incidental in all human arrangements — I 
think cannot be doubted. So far as I could judge, 
the testimony was practically unanimous. 

With more places of worship in proportion to 



AMERICAN CHURCHES. II9 

numbers than in England, there is far more spiritual 
destitution and neglect than with us. The number of 
churches to which no minister is attached is very large. 
In the Report of the American Tract Society of two 
years ago it was put at twelve thousand. The pro- 
portion of persons belonging to no religious com- 
munity is even larger. It was stated in the same 
Report that ** one-third of our people, or from eight to 
ten millions, are unreached by the ordinary means of 
grace " : while not more than one-sixth even profess 
to be members of any Christian Church. Then again 
there is another significant difference which struck 
me. The churches and chapels there are far more 
comfortable in their furnishing and arrangements 
than with us. When I remarked this to Mr. Robert 
Collier of Chicago with respect to his own fine church 
(burnt to the ground I am sorry to say in the great 
fire), in which the seats were the most luxuriously 
comfortable, and the carpets the richest, I had ever 
seen in a place of worship, he assured me that his 
congregation was mainly composed of people living 
by weekly wages, who nevertheless insisted on going 
to this expense. 

And I think this costliness as to arrangements for 
the comfort of individuals, rather than on the fabric — 
a lavishness in cushions and carpets, warming and 
ventilation, rather than on painted windows and 
architectural ornament — is a characteristic of the 
Protestant places of worship in the States as com- 
pared with ours in England. At any rate it was so 
in those which I visited. It may be that this differ- 



120 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

ence, if it exists generally, is only an indication of the 
practical character of the people, an assertion (very 
much needed in England), that warmth and light, and 
good air and comfort, are as valuable in churches as 
in houses. It seemed to me at any rate sufficiently 
marked to make it worthy of notice in comparing the 
external features of religious life in the two countries, 
as they strike an English Churchman. It is of course 
only these external features upon which a mere visitor 
can form any opinion at all, and even as to these he 
should be very cautious in generalising. I am far 
from presuming to do so, and only give you these first 
impressions on matters of no great moment in them- 
selves, but bearing, I think, on the discussion we have 
in hand. 

Let me now turn to evidence of a more weighty 
kind. There is of course no country in the world 
where all the churches, and the faith of which they are 
manifestations, have been so entirely free to develop 
naturally as in the United States, and to try whatever 
experiments in government, discipline, organisation, 
might seem good to them. And I admit at once, that 
the broad facts of their history seem at first sight to 
tell heavily in favour of a complete severance of Church 
and State. For, comparing the state of things now 
and a hundred years ago, when the connection with 
the mother country was severed, we find that establish- 
ment of one kind or another was then the rule through- 
out the colonies. In every one of them, except New 
York, the recognition and support by the State of 
public worship in some form was accepted as an 



PURITAN PRINCIPLE OF STATE SUPPORT. 121 

essential duty. John Adams' contemptuous say- 
ing, that you might as well expect to change the 
solar system as to get New England to abandon the 
control of her own religious life, did not exaggerate 
the then prevalent opinion. To-day the connection 
has ceased ; every trace of it has been swept away, so 
far as enactments and declarations can do this ; and 
from Maine to Texas an overwhelming public opinion 
has decided, that the State shall be kept a purely 
political organism, dealing only with secular affairs. 
This very remarkable change was in progress as early 
as 1787, when the thoroughly and advisedly secular 
character given to the Federal constitution no doubt 
lent a strong impulse to the separatist movement. 
But even as late as 1833 traces of the old Puritan 
principle of state support to public worship lingered 
in Massachussets. In that year the Old Bay State 
wiped her statute-book clear of them, and proved 
John Adams a mistaken prophet. The solar system 
remained, but Massachussets had deliberately given 
up, as a sovereign state, all recognition of religion. 
A protest was heard here and there such as that of 
Judge Story, who maintained, that " it yet remained 
a problem to be settled in human affairs whether any 
free government can be permanent where the public 
worship of God and the support of religion constitute 
no part of the policy or duty of the State." But, on 
the whole, the verdict may be taken as practically 
unanimous — the deliberate and unquestioned voice of 
the American nation. 

And what has the result been ? So far as statistics 



122 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

go, a marked success. At the end of the war of 
liberation the population of the thirteen colonies 
stood at three and a half millions, supporting about 
1950 churches of all denominations, or one for every 
1700 of the people. The last census showed that 
while the population had increased to 38,000,000 
the churches numbered upwards of 72,000, or one 
for every 529 persons. Let full weight be given to 
this fact, which, even if we deduct the 12,000 which 
have no minister, is a very telling one. It is true that 
the multiplication of places of worship is only a 
negative proof of healthy religious life in a nation. 
But it is undoubtedly one of the essential conditions ; 
for there can be no such healthy life where it does 
not exist. 

The same evidence (of the last census) seems also 
to confute the common belief that the governing 
tendency of American Christianity is, to split up into 
innumerable sects. The name of the sects is indeed 
Legion, but the census shows nevertheless that the 
nation is gathering more and more into a few large 
denominations, which rank in the following order : 
Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, 
Congregationalists, and Protestant Episcopalians. 

But these facts being granted, we are only at the 
beginning of the real question. What we need to be 
satisfied of is, that the purely voluntary system is 
doing the work of Christianity better for the States 
than our public Church for England. 

In considering this question our attention should, 
I think, be mainly fixed on three points : whether the 



TESTS OF VOLUNTARYISM. 1 23 

poor and the careless (that is to say, precisely that 
portion of the people who need it most,) are reached 
by the voluntary Churches ; whether these Churches 
are working towards union, and developing any more 
Catholic adaptation of the Gospel of Christ to the 
needs of mankind, than is the case with us; and 
lastly, whether they exercise a higher and deeper 
influence on public life and the national character. 

As to the first point, I have already told you that, 
so far as my own personal observation and enquiry 
are concerned, the state of things is, to- say the least, 
as bad in America as in England. And this impres- 
sion has been confirmed by reports and official docu- 
ments without number. There, as here, there is a sad 
confession on all hands, that the spiritual machinery 
does not reach those who need it most. But there 
the nation stands on one side, as though this were 
not its concern, and it mattered nothing to the United 
States that the means by which the evil might be 
encountered remain inadequate and powerless. Here 
the work of making the means adequate to the 
need is still at any rate acknowledged as a national 
duty, and, so long as that is the case, there is hope 
that the national conscience may be roused to its 
fulfilment. 

On the second point I prefer to give you American 
testimony, and it shall be of the highest class. In 
January 1876, the * North American Review ' devoted 
its centennial number to the progress of the United 
States during the century ; and the first article dealt 
with religious progress in a manner quite worthy of 



124 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

the subject. The following passage bears directly on 
the point now under consideration. 

*'The tendency so clearly revealed of American 
Christianity to aggregate itself in a few great denomi- 
national families, strenuously affirming theological or 
ecclesiastical tenets that are mutually exclusive, de- 
serves special attention in its bearing upon the pro- 
spective development of a truly Catholic type of 
Christianity. It might have been supposed that the 
contact, upon a perfectly equal footing, of so many 
Christian bodies, each zealously asserting its distinc- 
tive faith, would have provoked such mutual com- 
parison as would gradually have brought into clear 
relief the essential truths which all were agreed in 
recognising. Professing to receive the same Gospel, 
it might have seemed that somewhere there must 
have existed substantial harmony ; but no such result 
has followed. It is amazing to note how slight has 
been the reciprocal influence which these bodies have 
exerted. They seem to have pursued their separate 
paths, coming into contact with each other's opinions 
only to controvert them. With individuals, of course, 
changes of opinion have been frequent ; but, so far as 
concerns the formal affirmations of the leading reli- 
gious bodies, with the sole exception of the Congre- 
gationalists, there has not been the slightest change. 
With most of these bodies no modification has been 
thought of ; in one or two cases, where the relaxation 
of some distinctive denominational feature has been 
suggested, it has drawn forth a storm of indignation. 
The irreligious world has laughed at the spectacle of 



NATIVE TESTIMONY. I25 

an eminent philanthropist actually brought to trial on 
the atrocious charge of singing hymns with Christians 
of another name. It is evident that our leading re- 
ligious organisations have done nothing in the way of 
promoting any external Christian unity. There are 
many to whom this state of things is not repugnant, 
who defend the * denominational ' type of Christianity 
as the natural efflorescence of the Reformation, and 
rest content with it as the ultimate achievement of 
Protestant Christianity. On the other hand, there 
have been some who have protested against the 
* evangelical ' heresy that the normal state of the 
Church universal is a state of schism. From many 
quarters have come eloquent expressions of the con- 
viction, that the sectarian system, however much it 
may stimulate zeal, does not furnish the conditions of 
the finest and noblest Christian culture. But no 
adequate remedy has thus far been proposed, and 
American Christianity seems hopelessly committed 
to the denominational experiment." 

In a later part of the same essay the writer deals 
with the position which the Roman Catholic Church 
in America has taken up with respect to education, 
by which, to use his words, it " is irrevocably com- 
mitted to conflict with a part of our public system 
which, by the great majority of our people, is regarded 
as absolutely essential to the perpetuity of free insti- 
tutions." He is not one of those who regard the 
Roman Catholics in the United States as enemies of 
democratic political institutions ; but rather gives 
them credit for appreciating the full advantages of a 



126 The established church. 

system under which in the hundred years which have 
passed since the Declaration of Independence, from 
the last they have risen to the fourth place in numbers, 
and to the second in wealth, amongst religious de- 
nominations. He sees clearly that their stand as to 
the control of education is not only logical, but that 
it is a mere re-occupation of the ground which the 
Puritans of New England — the founders of the public 
schools system — defended so stoutly, during the 
century and a half in which they refused to regard 
human life as divided into two distinct spheres of 
action, and insisted that the spelling-book and cate- 
chism should go together. He acknowledges -fairly 
that the remedy proposed by the Roman Catholics — 
the apportioning the amount raised for school purposes 
by taxation rateably amongst the several religious 
bodies — is nothing more than the precise arrange- 
ment which used to prevail in Massachussets. And 
thus step by step he is driven, as a fair and candid 
man, to the conclusion that *' the problem of the re- 
lations of religious and political society is less simple 
than our politicians half a century ago supposed." 
For, if this theory of two distinct spheres be the true 
one, it would be difficult to defend the present system 
of public education : whereas, on the other hand, " if 
it be the right and duty of the State to enforce the 
support of public education from a class of the popu- 
lation conscientiously debarred from sharing its advan- 
tages, then our current theory respecting the nature 
and functions of the State stands in need of conside- 
able revision." 



CHURCH PROPERTY AND TAXATION. 12/ 

And in this dilemma, from which escape is by 
no means easy, he leaves this part of the subject, 
and proceeds to the consideration of another burn- 
ing question, the exemption of Church property 
from taxation. " By the immemorial traditions of all 
Christian countries," he writes, "such property has 
been exempted from taxation. When the Church 
was a public institution, and when the benefit of 
its ministrations was freely open to rich and poor 
alike, a sufficient reason existed for such exemp- 
tion. But, it is argued, the effect of our voluntary 
system has been to render the modern Protestant 
Church little more than a religious club, where 
Christians in easy circumstances, by paying an annual 
assessment, may listen once a week to reasonably 
good music, and to such preaching as it pleases the 
Lord to send. The portion of the population debarred 
by pecuniary inability from enjoying this soothing 
Sunday relaxation is not inconsiderable ; a still larger 
number decline to attend for other reasons. The 
enormous increase of our public burdens, directing as 
it has increased attention to the principles on which 
equitable taxation should be adjusted, has raised the 
question whether those who derive no benefit from 
public worship should be indirectly taxed for its 
support. That exemption is such indirect support, and 
that so far it tends to throw an additional burden upon 
other property, there needs no argument to show. It 
only differs from direct support in furnishing the 
most liberal assistance to those who need it least. 
And, conceding the general benefits that accrue to 



128 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

society from the positive institutions of religion, the 
question still remains, Why should a ' purely political 
organism ' give even an indirect support to religious 
worship ? 

" The manner in which this subject has been handled 
affords striking evidence of the confused and unsettled 
state of public opinion with reference to the relations 
of the spiritual and temporal power. Mr. Brownson 
claims that neither in politics nor in religion is it the 
destiny of the United States to realise any theory 
whatever. What the future may have in store for us 
it would be beyond the scope of this paper to predict, 
but a review of our past history should incline us to 
place a modest estimate on our success. 

* Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth.' 

He certainly would be a very bold or a very thought- 
less man, who would venture to affirm that the ideal 
of Catholic unity has been reached in our system of 
* strenuously competing sects/ or that the problem of 
Church and State has received a final solution in 
remitting public worship to voluntary support. At 
the close of a century we seem to have made no 
advance whatever in harmonising the relations of 
religious sects among themselves, or in defining their 
common relation to the civil power." 

Now I have cited this witness at some length 
because he seems to me to be the very best whom 
we could call for our purposes. He is no partisan, 
but the man who was chosen by the conductors of the 
leading review in the United States to sum up the 



CONCLUSIONS FROM AMERICAN REVIEW. 1 29 

results as regards religion of the first century of a 
national life of unparalleled vigour. He is thoroughly- 
loyal to his own country, and proud, as all Americans 
are, and have good right to be, of the astonishing 
progress she has made ; and he is full of hope as to her 
future. And yet you have heard him frankly acknow- 
ledge, that no progress has been made in the United 
States towards the solution of the great problem of 
the relations of Church and State — that the churches 
and sects under a purely voluntary system do not 
show signs of coming together, but are rather inclin- 
ing to insist, as essentials, on the distinctions which 
separate them — that the voluntary Churches have not 
succeeded in reaching that portion of American society 
which stands in the greatest need of the message 
which they have to deliver. 

I do not ask you to infer that we in the mother 
country are in a higher, or more satisfactory, religious 
condition than our American kinsmen, or that they 
may not work out the problem in their own way at 
least as well as we shall in ours. But I do ask you to 
weigh evidence of this kind against the loose declama- 
tory assertions of the Liberationists, that no such 
divisions between Christians exist in America as we 
have at home. 

We will now turn to the third point, the influence 
of religion in America on public life, and the 
national character, under the purely voluntary system. 
It will not be disputed I suppose, that the sever- 
ance of religion from politics is intended, in fact as 
well as in name, to keep the two spheres apart 

K 



I JO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

and to provide, as far as may be, that in the 
realm of politics — of the dealings of the nation as a 
nation, with the lives, property, and destinies of its 
citizens — it is best for the people that other standards 
and sanctions should be accepted, and should prevail, 
than those recognised in the churches. Of course it is 
very difficult to estimate with anything like precision 
the effect which this policy has had on American 
politics, or how far it is answerable for the present 
state of things. It has always seemed to me that the 
triumph of Jefferson and his party at the beginning of 
the century — gained as it was by dressing Jacobinism 
in cheap philosophical robes, and professing to fall 
down and worship "the great voice of the people," 
" the great heart of the people" — turned the nation out 
of the right road, and is mainly responsible for the 
degradation of public life in America. Their doctrines 
worked with subtlety and success amongst a people 
growing rapidly in all material prosperity, to whom, 
in their grand new country, the blunders which have 
sobered older communities were trifles to be laughed at. 
Why should they not believe the leaders who told 
them that experience was an old-world delusion, not 
applicable to the new conditions of the new world — 
that they, who were going ahead faster than any people 
had ever done before, had thus proved themselves fit to 
decide all questions, and to manage all affairs ? They 
did believe : and the belief that one man is as good as 
another bore fruit in the election of judges by popular 
vote, rotation in office, jealousy of, manifesting itself in 
meanness to, all high officials. The stand made by 



AN AMERICAN DOCTOR'S SPECIFIC. 13I 

John Quincey Adams in his presidency only showed 
how the splendid self-reliance of the national character 
had been manipulated by politicians, till " the voice 
of the people " had come to mean any cry which the 
wire-pullers thought might prove popular. Adams 
refused to use the government patronage for party 
ends, and so General Jackson became president, and 
" the spoils to the victors " the law, in the government 
of the Union. For fifty years Jeffersonian democracy 
has had full swing, and, though the conscience and 
intellect of the nation has risen again and again in 
protest against it, still holds its own with the tenacity 
of a Briareus, every new and popular cry and delusion 
giving a new grip to some one of its hundred claws. 

Let me again call unimpeachable native evidence 
to show that I am not giving my own view, as seen 
through English glasses. In 1873, Dr. Thompson, an 
American clergyman, while residing in Germany, 
submitted to Prince Bismarck a statement of the 
solution of the problem of the relations of Church 
and State which had been arrived at in the United 
States, and which (the Doctor apparently thought) 
might be useful in Germany. The book was re- 
published in Boston, under the title of ' Church and 
State in the United States,' and attracted a good 
deal of notice and comment. I will quote to you that 
of the Nation, a paper which for ability and indepen- 
dence stands deservedly at the head of American 
journalism. After admitting the correctness of Dr. 
Thompson's presentation of the facts, the writer goes 
on, "the statement of our theory of the relation 

K 2 



1-32 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

between Church and State is a very simple matter. It 
is a simple negation of any relation at all, and we 
have applied that theory positively to separate them in 
every respect. We regard every contact and relation- 
ship between them with suspicion, and we go so far 
(at least this is the popular feeling, which is re-echoed 
in the press) as to view with suspicion any citation of 
religious principle, or motive, or sanction, in political 
affairs. Even this does not exhaust the present 
tendency in this matter. While we have certain 
religious circles who believe in the persons who are 
technically called * Christian statesmen,' we have 
another large class who meet the application of 
even moral principle to politics with contempt. This 
latter class is growing. The downfall of some of the 
eminent Christian statesmen has strengthened this 
party and increased their number ; for the popular 
mind is not careful to reflect, that the downfall of the 
Christian statesmen proves no more against Chris- 
tianity than against statesmanship." 

" Such being the status and tendency of feeling 
amongst us in regard to the relation of Church and 
State, and a large part of the best thinkers of the country 
being profoundly convinced that what is needed above 
all else in our politics is moral principle, and moral 
stamina, whether based on religious sanctions or not, 
it would appear that our experience is not so clear 
and positive a proof of our theory that we can go 
before the world with it as a final solution of this 
difficult problem. Hesitation is suggested also by 
another consideration. It appears from our ex- 



POLITICAL CHURCHES. 133 

perience that the more we popularise government, 
the more impossible it is to keep any public interest 
* out of politics.' It is very certain that our religious 
faiths, of whatsoever form or grade, have very little 
effect at the present moment on our public life. Has 
the separation of Church and State led to this — that 
our moral principle and conscience are all in the 
Church, and our practical life all in the State — and 
have they thus become permanently sundered ? Still 
further, have they separated the population into two 
groups — the honest, conscientious, and religious on 
the one side, and the intriguing, unscrupulous, and 
political on the other ? The actual severance of the 
sober, conservative, and reflective part of our popula- 
tion from practical politics is an undisputed fact. It 
has as yet given rise to no misgivings in the popular 
mind as to the finality of our solution of the Church 
and State problem : but, if the proposition be true 
which is already beginning to attract the faith of the 
best political thinkers, that no public interest (taking 
public interest in the widest sense) can be severed 
from politics under our system of popular government, 
then even the separation of Church and State may 
turn out to be only a happy compromise, a great 
advance at the time it was made, but not a finality. 
It has been a great success in our history on the 
whole, but we find that its ultimate applications in- 
volve great difficulties. We have succeeded in putting 
the moral influence of the Church at a distance from 
politics, but the political power of the Church, which 
can control a consolidated voting power, is a notorious 



134 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

fact. In view of this, there is room to pause and 
hesitate, before we offer our theory to the world as 
conclusive and final." 

The writer goes on to argue, that it is the social 
circumstances, and the popular faiths and traditions 
of America, which have made their solution of the 
question a possibility, and a success. The social 
arrangements and popular traditions of Germany 
being entirely different, he doubts whether the solu- 
tion suggested by his enthusiastic countryman to 
Prince Bismarck, and his colleagues, will be of much 
practical value to those brilliant statesmen. And, 
while he never hints at any reconsideration of the 
question in America, or challenges the success of 
what the United States have done, he does doubt 
"whether if we had to meet the question with our 
Society so far solidified as it now is, and with a 
number of churches accustomed to State subsidies, 
we could decide it in this way ourselves.'* 

I will call one more witness from America. In 
December, 1873, the sister Congregational Churches 
of Brooklyn remonstrated with Plymouth Church on 
the subject of ecclesiastical discipline, which they 
considered to be too lax, and not according to Con- 
gregational usage, in that community. At Mr. 
Beecher's suggestion the remonstrance was disre- 
garded, and Plymouth Church accepted, after debate, 
his yiew, that it is no business of the Church what 
a member's way of life is. Its doors should be " as 
wide as humanity for entrance," " as wide as necessity 
for departure." This decision of Plymouth Church 



THE CASE OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 35 

created some scandal, and no little astonishment and 
remonstrance, of which I will again take the Nation 
as the ablest spokesman I can find. 

This decision, it argued, put in plain language means, 
that Plymouth Church is nothing but " an assemblage 
of persons taking an interest in spiritual things and 
desiring to hear Mr. Beecher preach." It is an 
abandonment of the old theory " which has played so 
large a part in English and American history, that 
there is a real distinction, displaying itself in outward 
marks, between members of Congregational churches 
and the world outside. According to this theory, the' 
Church was composed of a body of persons, who had 
not only embraced certain beliefs with regard to 
Christ's character and mission, but had, as a conse- 
quence or accompaniment of those beliefs, undergone 
certain changes of hopes, desires, tastes, and aims, 
implied in the term * conversion ' or * change of 
heart/ which created a real line of demarcation, 
and a real difference of standards, between them 
and their non-religious neighbours ; and this change, 
and this alone, constituted fitness for participation 
in the sacrament in the Lord's Supper " . . . . and 
"This theory is not that of the Congregationalists 
alone. In the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist 
Churches also, membership implies an outward and 
visible sign of an inward change, affecting not only 
opinions but conduct. In England the case is widely 
different. There every one is in theory a member 
of the National Church, whatever his character or 
beliefs may be, and the tolerant view of what 



136 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

constitutes a Christian life which this has bred, has, not 
unnaturally but under widely different circumstances, 
been perpetuated by the Episcopal Church here." But 
the Plymouth Church decision cannot of course be 
taken as an adoption of the English Church theory. 

" Some one has said," the Nation concludes, "that 
this is putting the Church on * a democratic basis,' which 
is true ; but then, it is by introducing into the Church 
organisation that feature of democracy which gives 
cause for a very large part of whatever apprehension 
exists as to the future of modern society. One of the 
greatest helps to conduct — which, as Matthew Arnold 
says, is three-fourths of life — in the ancient and 
mediaeval world, was the close dependence of men on 
each other, created by various artificial arrangements. 
Everybody was a member of some small organisation, 
whose interests took his thoughts off himself, of whose 
honour he was jealous, and whose opinion stimulated 
him in any course of action which its code prescribed 
as best. He belonged to a small tribe, or state, or 
guild, or commune, or order, in which he was every 
day reminded of his dependence on his fellow-men ; 
in which he lived under continual observation, which 
exacted of him continual sacrifice of self, and whose 
concentrated censure he dared not face. The result 
was that, in spite of barbarism and insecurity, great 
ideals were kept alive, and great types of character 
were produced in every age. In the modern world, 
all these have disappeared. The only organisation 
the modern man belongs to is the nation, and when 
nations contain thirty millions of persons, each one's 



THE OLD NEW ENGLAND CHURCH IDEA. 1 3/ 

sense of obligation to it is apt to be very slight 
Public men have ceased to be responsible to anybody 
but * the people,' and the people is so vast and busy 
that responsibility to it is hardly more burdensome 
than responsibility to Posterity, or the True, or the 
Good. Public opinion, too, is expressed through so 
many organs, and is distracted by so many objects, 
and is made up of so many influences, that it is all 
but impossible to concentrate it with any force on any 
one man's deeds or misdeeds. Society every day 
comes nearer to a promiscuous crowd, each individual of 
whom supplies his own tests of conduct, and his own 
aims in life, and lets the others go their way. The 
one institution which has come down to our time as 
an artificial check on wrong-doing, or stimulus to 
decent behaviour, is the Church as the Puritans set 
it up. It is (if we except the Quakers) the only 
organisation which has professed to exact more than 
common decency of men engaged actively in the 
busy work of life, and exposed daily to its trials and 
temptations. It took the best moral opinion of the 
day, and brought it to a focus, so that it was felt, 
not simply by society at large, but by A and B, and 
opposed a practical and visible obstacle to their 
cheating, and lying, and licentiousness, by making the 
disgrace of it prompt and tangible. There is nobody 
who has fairly considered the temptations of our 
time but must regret deeply that the process of social 
disintegration, which has already worked so much 
mischief, and has even attacked the family, should 
have reached religious organisations, and dissolved 



138 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

one of the most successful. What has occurred in 
Brooklyn will be taken, however, as a frank confession, 
that what so many men of the world have maintained, 
is true — that church-membership was no guarantee of 
purity of character. Perhaps it was not ; perhaps it 
was folly for any tribunal to sit on the condition of a 
man's heart ; but this is hardly a reason for resolving 
itself into a simple public meeting. It might, if it 
cannot exact holiness, at least exact, and successfully 
exact, decency of life, by judging and casting out 
slanderers, cheats, forgers, blackmailers, adulterers, 
and peddlers of worthless securities. The Stock 
Exchange does something of this kind, and so do 
most clubs ; can it be that we are about to witness a 
formal confession by religious bodies, not only that 
we are all sinners, but that in democratic communities 
one sinner is just as bad as another, and that the 
difference between robbery and petulance is not 
worth a Christian man's notice ? " 

I have dwelt on these matters at some length 
because the argument from the religious condition of 
America is the strongest shaft in the Liberationist 
quiver. It was certainly the one which weighed most 
with me until I had been in the country, and had 
done my best to learn the opinions of the ablest and 
most thoughful Americans themselves. Having done 
so I can find nothing in their half-a-century experi- 
ment of the voluntary system to make me wish that 
England should follow it. 

During that half century, however, there has been 
one heroic period, which raised not this or that se.ction, 



CONCLUSIONS. 139 

but the nation, above the ordinary recognised sphere 
of politics, and has not only left behind it glorious 
memories, but has strengthened men's faith in a nobler 
political future. I need not say that I refer to the 
struggle for the abolition of slavery, culminating in the 
election of Abraham Lincoln, and the civil war. But, 
let me remind you that this period was heroic just 
because the two spheres which the Jeffersonian would 
keep absolutely distinct became here hopelessly mixed 
in American politics. Men, who, as the politicians 
protested, ought to have known and respected the 
rules of the game, got up in Congress with bible- 
texts and arguments in their mouths, appealing to 
standards and sanctions, which, as all politicians were 
agreed, should be kept for the pulpit. So they had 
to be assaulted in the House, and ostracised in 
society ; to what purpose, the triumph of the cause 
for which they contended has shown. 

But what do I infer from all this, even if my views 
be accepted as true } Do I mean that if the United 
States had kept an Established Church they would 
have had a judiciary appointed for fitness, a per- 
manent civil service, no King Caucus, and would have 
abolished slavery a generation sooner ? 

No, I mean nothing of the kind. My case doesn't 
need it. All I have to show is, that the absolute 
severance of the two spheres — the resolute attempt to 
keep politics and religion clear of one another — in the 
United States, has not in either sphere produced 
results which we in England should desire to attain. 
If then, as I hold, the other religious bodies in the 



I40 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

States are not broader or more tolerant than with us, 
while the Protestant Episcopal Church is certainly 
less so than the mother Church, which still remains 
national — if their system has managed to banish the 
best men from politics, and their political life is 
allowed by themselves to be in a thoroughly unsatis- 
factory, if not in a dangerous, condition — my case is 
proved. The " severance of Church and State " may 
remain in England a Liberal Shibboleth, but as a 
policy it cannot be fairly supported by the example 
of the United States. 



( 141 ) 



VI. 

TO A CHURCH UNION. 

{Parts of an Address delivered at Hull, December 1876.) 

It seems a somewhat hopeless task just now to speak 
in such an Institution as this of any subject but that 
most critical one which is absorbing (and rightly 
absorbing) the thoughts and energies of every English 
citizen who car^s for the good name and the honour 
of his country. I say rightly absorbing, because no 
less a stake than the good name and honour of 
England is at issue in this Eastern Question. Putting 
aside all miserable party squabbles and recriminations, 
all considerations of whether Tory, Whig, or Radical 
are to gain in our insular struggles for power, by the 
answer which must be given within the next few weeks 
to the question, What shall be done now in these 
winter months of 1876, with the unhappy nations 
who inhabit the fairest corner of Europe ? one thing 
remains perfectly clear, and that is, that the decision 
of this Eastern Question practically rests with this 
country. We have seen within the last fortnight, since 



142 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

England's Plenipotentiary has been making the tour 
of European Courts, and conferring with the statesmen 
who for the moment control the destinies of the great 
powers, that, one after another, France, Germany, 
Austria, Italy, stand deliberately aside, and give 
place in this matter to our representative. He is to 
preside at the conference at Constantinople, and it is 
he, and therefore, England, who, like the Ambassador 
of Rome before the senate of Carthage, holds peace 
or war in his mantle, and can give which he will. It 
matters not how this has come about, it boots not 
now to inquire whether by other action in May or 
in August — when the Andrassy Note or the Berlin 
Memorandum were open to our acceptance — we 
could have shared this tremendous responsibility with 
others. May and August are as far behind us in this 
matter as last century. What might have been, may be 
left to our political leaders to fight over, when their 
time comes, as come it surely will ; what is, and shall 
be, is still, let us hope, in the nation's power ; and I 
for one rejoice therefore to feel, that every man and 
every woman who love the land that gave them birth, 
can think of nothing, and work for nothing in this 
her great hour of need, but the maintenance of her 
good name unsullied, and the vindication of her old 
renown for good faith and just dealing amongst the 
nations. 

If, then, I could think that our subject of this 
evening would lead you off the scent, or that the 
hour to be given to this question of Church prospects 
at home, would abate the interest, or slacken the zeal 



THE EASTERN A NATIONAL CHURCH QUESTION. I43 

of any one here in the Eastern Question, I would ask 
you even now to hear me on that subject, or to return 
to your homes. But, believing as I do that the two 
subjects are at any rate so far in touch that we can 
scarcely think seriously on the one which is just now 
in the background, without gaining strength and 
clearness in dealing with the one which calls for 
prompt decision and action, I can go on and say my 
say with a clear conscience. For I, at least, hold, and 
have always held, the Church question to be one 
altogether outside of, and above party politics, one 
which we are bound as good citizens to approach 
without any thought how its solution in one direction 
or another will bear upon the parties or the govern- 
ment of to-day or to-morrow. And if this be so, and 
we can to-night get ourselves to think, and examine, 
to the best of our ability, not how church or chapel, 
orthodoxy or dissent, can be strengthened or humi- 
liated, but under what conditions the Christian Gospel 
— the good news of Christ — can be most effectually 
offered to every man woman and child in these realms, 
we shall find ourselves in a better frame of mind to 
decide in the morning how we would have England 
act with regard to her fellow Christians in the East, 
and their Turkish masters. The effort to raise 
ourselves to the true standpoint in the one case will 
help us in the other, though there may be no direct 
or obvious connection between them. 

Turning then to our subject, we are met on the very 
threshold with the question which our age is asking 
very eagerly, more eagerly and searchingly than any 



144 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

which has gone before it : " What is the use of talking 
about Church prospects ? Has what you call the 
Church, which must mean some form or other of 
Christianity, any prospects at all ? There is no 
Christian Church or sect which does not stand upon a 
supernatural foundation, and has not that foundation 
already crumbled to pieces before modern scientific 
inquiry ? There is no Christian Church or sect which 
does not hold the Bible to be in some special sense 
a Divinely inspired book. Has not Biblical criticism 
finally reduced your sacred books to the level of 
ordinary human literature ?" It would not be honest 
to pass these questions by, and I am the last man 
to wish to do so. But even if a popular lecture were 
the method, this is not the place, for dealing with them. 
We are met in a Church Institute, the existence of 
which assumes that you, its members, are satisfied (or 
I presume you would not belong to it) that, however 
severe the shocks may be which Christianity has 
sustained, and may have to sustain in the future, it 
will surely rise above them, and hold its own hereafter 
as a living religion, the only power which can, and 
assuredly will, in time, redeem the world out of the 
depths of misery and wretchedness in which it still 
welters. At any rate, that is my own deepest convic- 
tion. I have no doubt whatever that the Christian 
faith will survive the deep unrest of our day, and come 
forth all the stronger and purer from the fire, whatever 
of its old trappings and environments may perish in 
the process, as much of them undoubtedly will perish. 
And in this conviction I can honestly speak to you on 



NATIONALISM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 145 

the subject of our Church prospects, and ask you to 
consider with me to-night not only what these are, 
but what they may be made. 

In order to clear the ground then, let me say at 
once in what sense I am using the word Church. 
Willingly and thankfully acknowledging, as I do, that 
widest and highest meaning, which embraces all 
Christian organisations, and all individuals who accept 
the name "Christian" though they may belong to no 
Church or sect, I do not propose to use it in that 
sense to-night. I wish to speak of the Church, as that 
word is commonly used and understood in England, 
and as you, who are members of this Society, use it, 
that is to say, as that particular form in which 
Christianity has been deliberately accepted, estab- 
lished, and upheld by the English nation. This one 
cardinal fact is the first upon which the attention 
of every one who comes to the serious consideration 
of this great subject should be fixed. We have here 
in the midst of us a religious national organisation, 
older than the national civil government, for, before 
the Saxon kingdoms were united under the kings of 
Wessex, a thousand years ago, the Church — very much 
what it is now, in all essentials, except its relations 
with Rome — was already organised and at work in 
every English parish. It was, in fact, national, before 
our ancestors knew that they were a nation, and has 
retained this nationality as its leading characteristic 
from that day to this. The Pope claimed, indeed, 
supremacy here as elsewhere, and was often very near 
making his claim good. But he never did make it 

I. 



146 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

good. Papal supremacy was always illegal in 
England, and denied and resisted by Norman and 
Plantaganet kings and their Parliaments as firmly as 
by the Tudor princes, under whom the final separation 
was effected : and no one of the great Englishmen who 
bore a part in the final work ever dreamt of establish- 
ing a new Church or a new faith, but only of reforming 
and purifying the Church and the faith which had 
come down to them. 

The English nation at the time of the Reformation 
never entertained a doubt that the State was bound to 
concern itself with other matters besides the preserva- 
tion of body and goods. The men of that day knew 
that the religion of a nation has more influence on its 
character than all other causes put together. They 
had a high ideal of what a State should be, and there- 
fore claimed for their own State the right, and the duty, 
of directing and controlling the religion of the English 
people as its highest function. It took some two hundred 
years of fierce strife to convince the nation that this 
claim had been put too high. Inch by inch, and with 
the greatest unwillingness, the ground was abandoned. 
The nation learned, through bitter experience, that 
there could be no peace in the land till men were left 
free in this highest matter to follow the guidance of 
their consciences, in whatever direction these might 
lead them. This national confession was made, and 
the first step towards liberty of conscience taken, 
in the first year of the reign of William of Orange, 
when the Toleration Act was passed exempting all 
Dissenters who would take the oath of allegiance and 



ABANDONMENT OF COERCION. 147 

sign the declaration against Popery from the penalties 
of Elizabeth's Act of Obedience, and Charles II.'s Act 
of Uniformity. But the old theories were still strong, 
and it was only as it were inch by inch that the ground 
was won upon which we now stand so firmly. It was 
not till the reign of George III. that, in Hallam's 
words, " such a genuine toleration as Christianity and 
philosophy alike demand had a place in our statutes." 
In that reign Acts were passed for protecting Dis- 
senting chapels, and extending the Toleration Act 
to Unitarians. In the reign of William IV. the good 
work made long strides. Dissenting chapels were 
placed on a level with the parish churches, so far as 
exemption from Church and poor rates could do this ; 
the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed, the 
Catholic Emancipation Act was passed. But it was 
not till the present reign that the battle for religious 
liberty was finally won when the Act of 1846 was 
passed, repealing all statutes and parts of statutes 
which imposed any penalties on religious belief. 

But while the English nation has thus finally and 
for ever abandoned all claim to control the relisfious 
beliefs of any section, or of any individual amongst its 
citizens, it has never abandoned the right, or disclaimed 
the duty, of maintaining the connection between the 
State as a civil, and the State as a religious, organisa- 
tion, but has, on the contrary, hitherto deliberately 
maintained that connection, which remains practically 
what it always has been. Before passing, then, to the 
consideration of how far this national organisation for 
religious purposes is in accord with the modern 

L 2 



148 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

democratic spirit of the times in which we live, let 
us fairiy recognise the fact for what it is worth, that 
this religious organisation of the nation which we 
call the Church of England, has been upheld by 
our forefathers for thirty generations. This may be 
no reason why we should continue to uphold it, if, 
after the most earnest consideration, we find that it is 
no longer in sympathy with the nation, and that its 
continued existence outrages the national conscience. 
But it is a reason for pausing, and insisting on the 
most deliberate action in this matter. This is no time 
for cutting, in lightness of heart, or intellectual im- 
patience, any of the links which bind us to the past. 
It has not been by such methods that our forefathers 
have preserved, and handed down to us, that great 
inheritance of which the Church is a part. Thirty 
generations of Englishmen have vigorously asserted, 
or assented to, the principle, that it is best for the 
nation that the outward organisation of religion should 
remain under the same control, whatever that may be, 
as the other organisations which together make up 
England. It is no light thing to reverse their judgment. 
And now, turning to consider the question of how 
far the Church of England is in harmony with the 
modern democratic spirit, let us first remark that it is, 
in its national character, a creation of the people 
themselves. It has not been forced on them by foreign 
prelates or princes, it is not a society apart — in them 
but not of them — it is they who have the ultimate 
control over it, they govern it through and by the 
same machinery which they use for carrying on their 



THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. I49 

civil business. Through that machinery they can 
make it what they please, distribute its revenues, alter 
its discipline, prescribe its duties. Of what other 
religious organisation can this be said ? 

But this modern spirit is before all things an equal- 
ising spirit, claiming that the good things of this world 
shall be more widely distributed, protesting against 
privilege and exclusiveness in temporal and spiritual 
matters ; and it is often used as an argument against 
the National Church that her existence offends against 
this spirit. Even if it were so, the answer is again, ** the 
remedy is in our own hands. If the Church is not 
democratic enough, make it more so." But let us look 
at the matter a little closer. In the first place there is 
no wider basis possible for a National Church than the 
nation — a truism, no doubt, but one which it is not 
superfluous to insist on — and this is the one upon 
which our Church stands. Thus, in every centre and 
in every remotest corner of this land alike, the nation 
offers with open hand all the ministrations of religion 
to every one of her children. There is no exception 
whatever made by her. The dweller in any English 
village has the right to the use of the national buildings 
and the services of the minister. These are a part of 
his birthright of which he can only be deprived by his 
own voluntary act. He need not take up his birth- 
right, but there it is for him if he will ; and the clergy^ 
as officers of the nation, are bound not only to give the 
offices of religion to all who ask for them, but to offer 
them to those who do not. This is of the very essence 
of the Church as the English nation has established it. 



150 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

The nation holds that these things are good for all ; 
that those who accept and use them rightly will be the 
best citizens. Accordingly, they are provided for all ; 
every person born in these realms or of English parents 
being, In theory at any rate, a member of the Church. 
It takes an exercise of the will to become a member of 
any of the self-governed Churches and sects which 
exist amongst us ; whereas, it takes an exercise of the 
will not to be a member of the National Church. This 
is a vital distinction, and one which it seems to me of 
the utmost importance to get clear about in our own 
minds. The other Christian bodies in this country are 
by their constitution limited to those who have been 
converted, or who accept some tests which make them 
members, and by their constitution it cannot be other- 
wise. But surely this is a very low ideal for the 
Christian Church, whose principal work should be with 
those who have not come in, who are outside the fold. 
Practically it may be said that the self-governed 
churches and sects are engaged in missionary work 
amongst us as well as the Church of England, but, in 
their case, it Is a work of supererogation, while it is an 
essential part of her duty. " We see this difference," 
says an able writer, once himself a Nonconformist, " if 
we consider that the minister of a Dissenting chapel is 
not expected to attend to any but his own congrega- 
tion, whilst the clergyman is bound to be at the call of 
every person in his parish ; although, of course, others 
are welcome, the services of a chapel cannot be joined in 
as of right, except by its members, whilst those of the 
Church are open to all those who choose to come. It 



ELASTICITY OF ORGANISATION. 151 

is one thing for work to be done or not as we choose, 
and another for it to be a part of our duty. If the 
National Church does not do its duty properly, it 
should be made to do so. But the destruction of that 
Church would be a great blow to the future spread of 
Christianity, for then there would be left no organisa- 
tion bound to minister to the unconverted as well as 
to the converted." (G. Harwood's ' Disestablishment.') 
This going out into the highways and hedges is at 
once the special glory and the raison d'etre of the 
National Church — this carrying the offices and con- 
solations of religion to the very doors of those who 
have no wish for them, who would sooner be without 
them — and it is a work which the voluntary Churches 
seem quite unable to perform. And for this simple 
reason, that self-supporting religious bodies, as a rule, 
cannot exist in the poorest quarters of great towns, 
or in remote country districts, the precise places in 
which they are most needed. This is no reproach 
either to congregations or ministers. The minister 
must live, however great his zeal may be, and, in order 
to live, he must follow those of his congregation who 
hold the purse-strings, and who will not live in poor 
and crowded districts. But it is a great gain that the 
nation has ready made to its hand a religious organi- 
sation which can meet the new conditions of life of 
our time, which can and does bear the strain which 
our rapidly changing industrial life is throwing upon 
it by the accumulation of our people in the outskirts 
of our great cities and manufacturing towns, and can 
meet crime, and vice, and misery, in their own haunts 



152 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

with a steady and permament front. I am not for a 
moment suggesting that this work is effectually done, 
or that there are not great arrears to be made up, but 
I do say that there is no hope or chance of its ever 
being done at all except by a national organisation, 
and that the Church has been roused to the paramount 
necessity of doing it, and is proving itself year by 
year more equal to the task. There is another cha- 
racteristic of the National Church which cannot be 
valued too highly in times like ours, and which is, as 
I believe, directly due to its connection with the State, 
which we are told so narrows and cripples it — of all 
religious organisations it is the one which allows and 
can bear the greatest freedom of religious thought. 
And it is precisely because it is national, because it is 
under the final control, in all questions of membership, 
of the civil power, because the calm, dispassionate and 
trained intellects of laymen are brought to bear upon 
the passionate differences of theologians, that this 
wise latitude is possible. Does any one suppose for a 
moment, that in these last thirty years, in which there 
has been so vivid an awakening of spiritual life 
amongst us, there would have been no rending of 
the Church in fragments, no great schism like that of 
the Free Kirk in Scotland, had such a body as Con- 
vocation been the ultimate court of appeal, and the 
governing power in the Church .'* 

Restless spirits, not a few, chafe under this national 
control and are tempted from time to time to throw 
it off. It is made a subject of reproach against the 
Church of the nation by those of other communions. 



TENDENCY TO DISINTEGRATION IN ALL SECTS. 1 53 

But, surely, all those who believe that Christianity was 
intended to be the common inheritance of all men — 
that its mission is not to separate men, but to bring 
them together, not to build up, but to break down 
walls of partition — must in their best moments rejoice 
that in our country there is one religious organisation 
so tolerant, so elastic, or, if you will, so latitudinarian. 
The disease of this same time amongst our other 
religious organisations has been the constant tendency 
to split up, and it is abundantly clear that the Church 
would have suffered from it as severely as any other 
body, but for that control of the nation which is said 
to be her weakness, and from which she is so loudly 
called to free herself. 

There is another reason why I think that this large 
tolerance within the Church of which I have been 
speaking is of immense national value. There is a 
large class of the most cultivated and intellectual 
people of this country, of excellent moral character, 
who are quite contented to remain members of the 
National Church, using its offices and ministrations 
habitually, but who assuredly would not be admitted, 
or desire to be admitted, into any other communion. 
The best known perhaps of these is Mr. Matthew 
Arnold, who, in his later writings, has explained that, 
in his view, the Church is " a National society, for the 
promotion of goodness." An entirely inadequate 
view, no doubt, most of us would say, but one which 
expresses part of the truth ; and which it would be 
the height of folly, in the interests of the nation, and of 
religion, to run the risk of destroying in men's minds. 



154 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

Taking, then, these points which have been noticed, 
I would ask you to consider whether a religious 
organisation which is open to the whole nation, without 
any distinction, which is specially devoted to the out- 
casts and the poor, which no one need use unless he 
pleases, which can and does retain in communion men 
of views as widely different as those of the Ritualists 
and Mr. Matthew Arnold, and which is under the 
control of the State, and of no private body of citizens, 
is not, in theory, more in harmony with the modern 
spirit than any other religious organisation with 
which we are acquainted, or any of which we can at 
present form any idea ? If it is not so in practice it is 
the fault of the people ; and the remedy is in the 
hands of the people, who can apply it in the same way 
and through the same machinery, as they would use 
to reform any other part of their institutions. That in 
one sense it is not democratic, may be readily admitted ; 
but then, no more is the English nation, and when the 
nation changes we have every ground for believing 
that the Church will change also. It is competent 
for the nation to change the form of its government 
into that of a republic, and for those Englishmen who 
desire such a change to work for it. When that time 
comes, doubtless the national organisation of religion 
will be modified in a similiar direction ; meantime 
what we have to consider is, whether the Church does 
or does not fairly represent the nation in its present 
phase, and in making up our minds upon this point 
it is only fair to bear in mind that what are commonly 
called the great prizes in the National Church are 



SEVERANCE NECESSARILY DESTRUCTION. 1 55 

absolutely open to all. There is no profession more 
democratic in the true sense of the word than that of 
the ministry of the National Church, and none in 
which a larger proportion of those who have started 
in life with no advantages whatever have risen to the 
highest places. * * * * . 

It must be borne in mind that to sever the connection 
between the State and the National Church must 
destroy the Church. It is not its Episcopal constitu- 
tion, or its possession of the cathedrals, churches, 
glebe and tithes, or its Thirty-nine Articles, or even its 
Prayer Book, or its grand history and traditions, which 
make the Church of England the National Church. It 
might retain all these, and lose its national character ; 
or, on the other hand, it might lose its endowments, 
and change its constitution, and yet retain its national 
character. For this consists in its national continuance, 
as an integral part of the constitution of the country — 
as the organisation of its higher life which the nation 
approves and offers to its people, and keeps under its 
own control. Should England, through weariness or 
impatience, or from any other cause, ever agree to the 
divorce, apart from other dangers, this one would 
most assuredly confront us. That indifference to 
religion, as a matter with which practical men have no 
need to trouble themselves — already so wide spread 
at both poles of our civilisation, amongst our cultivated 
classes, under the influence of the avowed agnosticism 
of many of the most able of our scientific leaders ; 
amongst the masses of our poor, under the influence 
of the grinding struggle for existence in our competitive 
world — will gain tenfold strength. If the nation shall 



156 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

solemnly declare that it has no longer any concern 
with the religion of its people — that it can and will for 
the future get on without an effort to provide anything 
beyond protection of life and property — what inference 
can be drawn, but that obvious one, that these are the 
only essential matters about which good citizens need 
concern themselves. It would be a virtual abandon- 
ment by England of the struggle which she has main- 
tained ever since she became a nation, an admission of 
failure in the highest sphere of human endeavour, a 
confession that, so far as she is concerned, the inspiring 
prophecy that one day the kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
Christ, is a fond dream. 

But, if the English nation strikes its flag and abandons 
the struggle, there is a power which assuredly will not 
do so. The Church of Rome has made progress of late 
in England, which, while rousing us to watchfulness, 
need perhaps as yet cause us little anxiety. But let 
the nation once openly profess that the religion of the 
people is no longer the affair of the State, and declare 
that a National Church is henceforth impossible, and 
an impetus will be given to the action, and a sup- 
port to the claims, of the Church which professes to 
be universal, which the State will find itself unable to 
meet, except with weapons which have never proved 
of much value in this warfare. If the State will not 
rule the Church, the Church will rule the State, and 
our children may have to fight over again the battles 
which we have been wont to believe had been won 
for all time. 

The progress which the Romish Church is making 



PROCESS OF DISINTEGRATION. 1 5/ 

here and in the United States, in spite of the late 
Vatican decrees, is a subject upon which no thought- 
ful man will speak lightly. But, it may be said, 
that the Church of England, even after she had been 
separated from the State, though no longer carrying 
the prestige of national authority, would be strong 
enough to hold her own. To me it seems idle to hope 
that this would be so. She would then be nothing but 
a Religious Society, differing only in size and prestige 
from the other Christian Protestant sects. She would 
be governed by a Synod, composed chiefly of 
ecclesiastics, and, keen as all such bodies must be 
to scent heresy, and to magnify doctrinal differences, 
there is too much reason to believe that she would 
speedily split up into fragments, and so add several new 
recruits to the disgraceful war of " strenuously com- 
peting sects." But, assuming that she were to remain 
unbroken, and were to prove able to hold her own 
against Rome and the competing sects, then another 
and most serious danger would arise to the nation. 
For, though she would be no doubt deprived of 
much of her property before being turned adrift, there 
are certain portions which no one who understands 
England will for a moment suppose can be taken 
away from her. She would retain the cathedrals, 
parish churches, parsonages, and probably the glebes, 
and wealth enough besides to support her machinery 
in working order, until the tide of gifts and bequests 
(which would pour into her coffers in even greater 
abundance than in these last church-building years, 
when such contributions must be reckoned by millions) 



158 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

had more than made up for all that she had lost. 
With her roots struck deep in every family and every 
parish, her energies thoroughly roused by the struggle 
through which she had been passing, and eager to 
lose no jot of her influence and prestige ; she would 
be left face to face with the civil government, in no 
friendly mood with the power which had cast her 
adrift. Unless a great and very improbable change 
were to come over her spirit in the meantime, the 
power over this great religious organisation would 
pass into the hands of the High Church party, whose 
views as to the proper relations of the temporal and 
spiritual power scarcely differ from those of Romanists. 
Who can doubt that such power in such hands would 
prove a serious danger to civil and religious liberty } 
We English might escape the clutches of giant Pope, 
for here would be a spiritual power competent to keep 
him at bay. But, said Luther, "every little priest, 
however humble, carries a little pope under his 
cassock " ; and we should fall into hands which we 
should scarcely like better than the Pope, and of 
which it would be more difficult to loosen the hold on 
the political and social life of the nation. 

Church prospects, then, you will see by this time, 
seem to me to be of the gloomiest character, if this 
revolutionary change should be made in our con- 
stitution. On the other hand, if, and so long as, the 
present relationship continues between Church and 
State, in spite of many serious drawbacks, I can look 
hopefully to the future. 

'* These are anxious days for religion," says the 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF NATIONALISM. 1 59 

author already quoted more than once, " such as shake 
the faith of its timid friends, and even make those sad 
who have unswerving confidence in the omnipotence 
of God, and in the ultimate and universal triumph of 
a religion which has always come victorious out of 
dangers which seemed infinitely greater. The old, 
simple, manly, practical Christianity which the Bible 
teaches, and which has been the faith for so many 
generations of the best of our forefathers, is going out 
of fashion, and the Christian world seems to be dividing 
itself up between priestly domination on the one hand, 
and on the other worldly indifference or antagonistic 
scepticism. The torch of pure religion, lit by the 
Lord Himself with the fire of Heaven, is being trodden 
out under the contending feet of fanatics and un- 
believers. It can only be picked up and borne onwards 
by the hand of a Church which is practical as well as 
spiritual, human as well as Divine, National as well as 
Christian. Protestant revivalism, like Roman Catho- 
licism, sets the other world against and above this, 
and to Nationalism is reserved the task of properly 
reconciling the two ; of joining practicality and 
spirituality, life with religion, earth with heaven ; 
of making Christianity a sensible reality as well as a 
devout enthusiasm. Can there be a nobler work, or 
one more needed than this which lies especially before 
the National Church of England ? No better motto 
can be chosen as a guide to success than that which 
is attributed to Baxter : " In necessary things, unity ; 
in doubtful things, liberty ; in all things charity." 
But to approach the work of the future with the 



l60 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

power, and in the spirit here indicated, the Church has 
to do much in the way of reform of her own constitu- 
tion on the one hand, and of change in the spirit in 
which she has but too often dealt with fellow Christians 
not of her own communion, and with the poor, on the 
other. The nation will make no move in this work 
until it sees that the Church is thoroughly in earnest, 
Parliament disliking to be called upon to deal with 
questions of Church reform more than with any other 
business. And the authorities within the Church, it must 
be owned, have shown a caution and timidity which 
would seem to imply the existence of that distrust 
they have been so often accused by enemies of feeling, 
the belief that, if one plank or stone were touched, 
the whole building would come crashing about their 
ears. They must get rid of these fears and doubts 
and set to work to overhaul the building. Mr. Arnold 
tells us, as a fact within his own knowledge — and the 
experience of all men I know who have the means of 
forming an opinion on the subject bears him out — that 
there are numbers of able young men ready to enter 
the service of the National Church, were it not for the 
.professions which are still required of them before 
they can be admitted to serve. And who can wonder 
at this, when we retain the definitions and formulas of 
three hundred years ago, as the expression of the 
national faith of to-day ? In the face of the wider and 
larger knowledge which science and Biblical criticism 
have opened to our generation, it is hopeless to expect 
that men of cultivation and ability can solemnly pledge 
themselves, even in the general form now required, to 



PRESSING REFORMS. l6l 

the propositions contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, 
or to use the Athanasian Creed in the Church Service. 
Nor is there the least need why this should be required 
of them. The articles served their purpose in their 
own day, and continue admirable statements upon 
controversies, which were then living, but have long 
since been dead and buried. It is good to treat them 
with respect ; but to keep them alive any longer, as 
tests of the beliefs of young men who have grown up 
in the present half century, is to put a wholly un- 
necessary impediment in the way of candidates for 
holy orders, and to encourage dishonesty, and self-* 
deception, in the very places where, before all others, 
there should be truthfulness, and clearness of sight. 
In speaking on this subject, Mr. M. Arnold says : " The 
Ordination Service itself, on a man's entrance into 
orders, and the use of the Church Services afterwards, 
are a sufficient engagement on the part of those who 
desire to take service in the National Church." And 
Mr. Arnold is perfectly in the right here. It is the 
most crying need of the Church to have these necessary 
reforms carried through, that she may no longer be 
hampered with the trappings and garments of three 
hundred years ago. " It was a premature decision on 
the details of Church government and doctrine, in the 
absence of a broad leading principle," Prince Albert 
writes, in his Memorandum on the Church Crisis in 
1 85 1, "and the fact of their being finally settled for 
posterity by those into whose hands the conduct of 
the Reformation fell, which prevented the Church of 
England from participating in that constant and free 

M 



l62 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

development which the State has been able to derive 
from the broad principles of Magna Charta." 

He had no fear of touching formularies which have 
been with us an object of almost superstitious regard 
for so long, but believed that new life and strength 
would spring up under bold but reverent handling. 
The constitution of the Church he knew required 
reform, and was strong enough to bear it. He urged 
that it should be begun in time, holding that the most 
opposite opinions might exist as to details, but that 
these might well be left to time and public discussion 
to settle by degrees ; and that " the same respect for 
historical tradition and vested rights, which has marked 
the progress of the British Constitution, added to a 
high sense of the sacred nature of the work to be 
performed, v/ill not fail to attend this development." 

But his advice and warnings have fallen on unwilling 
ears, and the reforms which he pleaded for are scarcely 
yet commenced. Meantime, the most marked increase 
has occurred in the impatience of sectarian differences 
and disputes in the minds of all thinking men who 
are not engaged in the strife of religious parties. 
Especially has this been the case within the Church. 
When shall we hear less of these theological j anglings 
and hair-splittings and more of the Gospel, which, after 
all, we all hold in common } It is said, however, by 
some, as I think, unwise defenders of the faith, that a 
colourless Christianity iS no Christianity at all, that 
you can have no Church without a definite creed. To 
the first I would reply that, after all, the bright white 
light is, in its purity, better than all colour. To the 



PRINCE ALBERT'S ADVICE. 1 63 

isecond, I admit that every Church must have a 
definite creed, but the more simple and broad that 
creed is the better. It is only the simplest creed 
which can give us the unity, or the tolerance in 
diversity, for which all good men are longing. 

It is the business of every Englishman who cares 
for the great national inheritance to which he has 
been born, and especially of the officers of the Church 
of the nation, to lend a hand with these necessary 
reforms. The spirit in which parsons should come to 
the work cannot be better defined than by Prince 
Albert, who writes that a bishop should be " meek 
and liberal, and tolerant of other confessions : but 
let him never forget that he is a representative of 
the Church of the land, the maintenance of which 
is as important to the country as that of its con- 
stitution, or its throne. Let him be always conscious 
that the Church has duties to fulfil, that it does not 
exist for itself, but for the people, and for the country, 
and that it ought to have no higher aim than to 
be the Church of the people." 

Meekness, liberality, tolerance of other confessions ! 
These are great virtues, but hard, very hard to practise 
in such hurrying, driving, democratic, competitive 
times as ours, when respect for authority seems to 
have almost died out. Nevertheless, they must be 
practised, if the Church is ever to fulfil her great 
mission, and to become in a larger and truer sense than 
she has ever yet been, " The Church of the People." 



M 2 



1 64 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



VII. 

CONSERVATISM OF CLERGY, etc. 

There are several matters frequently debated in this 
controversy, which have either been entirely omitted, 
or only casually referred to as yet, in these pages. I 
have had, however, to speak on them on different 
occasions ; so, without troubling my readers with more 
addresses, which would be in many respects only 
repetitions of those already given, I subjoin the fol- 
lowing extracts, which at any rate raise the points 
sufficiently to " let the light and air play round them." 
All I desire is, that my countrymen and country- 
women, especially those who are Liberals, should just 
take trouble enough to know what the points at issue 
in this Church question are. The facts upon which 
their judgment should be formed, lie round on every 
side, just as open to them as to me. If they will only 
look at them and clear their minds of cant, political 
and religious, on this subject, that is all one can ask. 
The fear is lest they should leap in the dark. 

Conservatism of Clergy. 
Let me now say a few words on an argument which 
is made to do service constantly on Liberation plat- 



PROFESSIONAL CONSERVATISM. 1 65 

forms, and which appeals specially to Liberals, I mean 
the Conservatism of the Church clergy as a body. It 
is said, that as a body, they have opposed every 
popular reform upon which the nation has set its 
heart, that (to use Mr. Chamberlain's words) they are 
" part of a vast mutual assurance against change, to 
which the landlord, the publican, and every vested 
right and privilege, readily contribute." I will not 
question the general truth of this charge, though it is 
only fair to remark that, as regards one of the vested 
interests referred to, that of the publican, the Church 
clergy have shown themselves of late years its most 
powerful and dangerous enemy. The Church of 
England Temperance Society, with the full bench 
of bishops at its head, and a branch in thousands of 
parishes, is doing as much as all other influences put 
together, to grapple with the national sin : and I for 
one don't see how the national sin can be so well 
confronted as by a national religious organisation. 

But on the whole I freely admit it is beyond dispute 
that the Church clergy have been, and are, as a rule. 
Conservatives, and that much of their conservatism, 
such as their opposition to the Burials Bill, is of a kind 
peculiarly exasperating, not only to Nonconformists, 
but even more so to Liberal Churchmen. These latter 
are apt to get out of patience, and to say, or at any 
rate to feel, with Mr. Hugessen, that the parsons 
will soon make disestablishment certain. 

But, even on the assumption that the National 
Church clergy are, and are likely to remain, at any 
rate till the Church is reformed, incurably Conservative, 



l66 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

how far does that go towards proving that it will be 
for the good of the nation to sever their connection 
with the State ? The army is quite as Conservative as 
the Church, and opposed the recent military reforms, 
upon which the nation was bent, at least as resolutely 
as the clergy are opposing the Burials Bill. Are we 
going to abolish the army because of this ? During 
the long discussions on the military reforms of the 
late government, the professional opposition was often, 
and with justice, denounced as factious ; the officers, 
it was said, were forgetting that they were servants of 
the nation, and acting as though they were a separate 
caste, who valued the interests of their caste above 
national interests. How were they met ? By the 
resolute determination of the nation to assert the 
national character of the army, and to regain the 
control of it. And the most strenuous asserters of 
this principle were that section of the Liberal party, 
who are now maintaining just the opposite principle 
in the case of the National Church. 

They who saw most clearly that the army ought to 
be made thoroughly national, and to that end must 
be bought back again from the soldiers and thrown 
open to the nation, are now taking the opposite 
side, and striving to denationalise the Church, and to 
narrow it into a sect, from which the nation is to be 
excluded. They cannot be right in both contentions. 
Of the two the Church is the more powerful body, and 
though by its constitution and character it can never 
be as dangerous to liberty as a standing army, I feel 
that it might become, even in England, a serious 



THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM. 167 

danger. Therefore, the conclusion seems to me to follow, 
that Liberals at any rate should strive to make it 
national. The nation, by its own good nature and 
carelessness, has to a great extent lost its control over 
the Church, as it had over the army, and I say that we 
Liberals should try to make it take hold again in 
earnest of the Church, as it has of the army. 

And I say further, that the nation will get strenuous 
help in this work of reform from the best of the 
clergy themselves. 

For, Conservative as the profession is as a whole, 
there is always a strong band of Liberals of the best 
type amongst them. I need only name half-a-dozen 
under and with whom I myself have worked, Arnold, 
Maurice, Robertson, Kingsley, Stanley, and Davies, in 
proof of this. Scores of other names will occur to any- 
one, of men who invariably stand on the Liberal side, 
through good and evil report, such as Fraser, Temple, 
Pattison, Bradley, Fremantle, Jowett, M. Butler, 
Stopford Brooke, Brooke Lambert, Hansard, Harry 
Jones, and Percival. Why, I could run on to a hundred 
of my own acquaintance, were it worth while. I don't 
know where you will find a higher and better sample 
of what Liberals should be than such men as these. 
And if I am told that many, or, at any rate, that the 
most distinguished, of them have been suspected — that 
the Church (meaning the dominant section of the 
Church for the time being) has tried to get rid of them, 
and would be only too glad to do so still — I reply that 
this, so far from weakening, is all in favour of my ar- 
gument. For these men have been able to hold their 



1 68 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

ground, to speak their minds, and take their line, freely 
and fearlessly, just because their Church is national. 

The day that it ceases to be so will be the beginning 
of a time when such service as they have done, and 
are doing, for the nation, will become more and more 
difficult. I say " for the nation," because, of course, they 
will be still able to do the kind of work which leading 
Dissenting ministers are doing for select congregations. 
I am glad to acknowledge the strong liberal sym- 
pathies and teaching of such men as Mr. Baldwin 
Brown, Mr. Newman Hall, Dr. Allon, and other lead- 
ing Dissenting ministers. I believe it to be thoroughly 
genuine and conscientious, and that no congregational 
pressure would induce them to change it. But, neverthe- 
less, the fact remains, that they are in full sympathy with 
their own congregations in their political Liberalism 
— that this is what the people who gather round them 
want to hear, and their attention is mainly fixed upon 
these people — and all I maintain is, that the theological 
(not the political) atmosphere is freer in which the 
Church parson breathes, and the ground broader and 
firmer upon which he stands. Dr. Parker or Mr. Dale 
may be just as good Liberal politicians as Dean 
Stanley, for instance ; up to a certain point, are indeed, 
far more certain to be found on the side of popular 
Liberal cries : but, as Liberal theologians, they cannot 
be compared for a moment. Indeed, as far as I am 
aware, there is no man amongst English Noncon- 
formist ministers (always excepting Mr. Martineau) 
who has any claim — or indeed who has shown any 
desire to assert a claim — to that title. 



THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM. 169 

I do not suppose that any Liberationist would deny 
this as to theology. The Society, indeed, puts forward 
as one of the reasons for belonging to it, that it " aims 
to demolish great hindrances to that freedom of thought 
and loyalty to conscience, which are essential to noble 
living, national and religious." But it is obvious that 
these words are not intended to cover freedom of 
thought on theological subjects, because one of their 
main arguments against the Church is founded on the 
(to them) scandalous laxity of her doctrine, and still 
more scandalous freedom of her thought. " The doc- 
trine of the Church of England," writes Mr. Parkinson 
indignantly, " gives room for the utmost play of theo- 
logical limb. Within its boundaries all phases of 
faith may disport themselves." "The belief of the 
clergy of the Church of England at present ranges 
through every shade between Ultramontanism and 
Atheism," mourns a Canadian Liberationist. The 
Liberator, contrasting the Scotch with the English 
Establishment, sneers at a Church, " so broad as to be 
practically creedless ; so comprehensive that sceptics 
or unbelievers may find in it an undisturbed home." 
"Talk of an Act of Uniformity," exclaims the Rev. J.G. 
Rogers, " why you will find as many different shades 
in the Establishment as you will in all the Dissenting 
Communities." I might multiply quotations to any 
extent, proving that the "strait gate and narrow 
way " is preferred by our Nonconformists, not only in 
conduct, but in faith ; but it would be waste of time. 

Now these facts point to one or two conclusions 
as to the Conservatism of the Church clergy. First, 



170 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

that it is in the main political, and therefore of com- 
paratively little importance. What is of national 
importance in regard to professional men is, that 
they should be Liberal on their own special sub- 
jects, which they do, or ought to, understand, and 
on which, at any rate, they are the acknowledged 
authorities, and not on subjects on which they are no 
greater authorities than other men. Secondly, that 
the Church clergy are as a rule more Liberal than 
Nonconformist ministers on theological questions, or, 
if this be denied, at any rate that a section of them 
are more Liberal, and Thirdly, that they are more 
Liberal because they are national officers. 

For, if it be not that the professional atmosphere and 
surroundings in the Established Church are larger and 
freer than those of the Voluntary Churches, it must be 
because the men themselves are by nature bigger men 
— more open to new light, more courageous, more tole- 
rant — which I for one do not for a moment believe. 

And so, to return to the point from which we started, 
I maintain, that in the event of disestablishment, there 
is every reason to fear that the work which Liberal 
professional theologians have done heretofore for the 
nation would be done no longer : for, when the Church 
has lost its national character, and been narrowed into 
a sect, we may expect that its clergy will, gradually 
perhaps, but certainly, become more and more like 
their Nonconformist brethren — not more Liberal 
probably in politics than they are now, and certainly 
less so in theology. 

So far as one can judge from experience, the nation 



RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. I /I 

would lose its Arnolds and Maurices, its Stanleys and 
Jowetts, without being by any means sure of getting 
Binneys in exchange. I give no opinion as to which 
kind of men are the more valuable to the nation. No 
one questions the value of either ; why not keep both ? 

Church Resistance to Change. 

But how do I reconcile my views with the fact that 
the history of the Established Church has been one of 
continual resistance to wholesome changes, and to the 
removal of unwholesome restraints. Well, I am not 
concerned to deny that there is much truth in this 
indictment, if we substitute the word clergy for Church ; 
but then to do so would contradict the very idea of a 
National Church. It is the indolence and apathy of 
the nation, represented by Parliament, which has 
enabled a majority of the national clergy to resist 
changes, and to perpetuate abuses. The nation has 
tried to shuffle off the duty of attending to its own 
highest business, and the usual penalties have followed. 
Let us take the last, and most prominent, instance of 
this state of things, the dragging on year after year of 
the Burials Bill controversy. No doubt there has 
been some excuse in this case for indolence and 
apathy on the nation's part, because the grievance is 
not one which has any great substance of reality in it, 
and Englishmen generally don't care to exert them- 
selves much when it is only a question of giving a 
triumph to one or another set of somewhat narrow 
and unreasonable professional disputants. But when 
the poor straw had been threshed over again and 



1/2 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

again, some modicum of grain was left on the floor. 
There remains a just claim on the part of Noncon- 
formists who choose to exercise their right as English 
Christians of burying their dead in the National church- 
yards, that they should be free to use a service there 
which they do approve, and not one which they do not. 

The lay Church conscience, in a lazy way, has come 
to acknowledge this at last, and to resolve that right 
shall be done. But Liberationists may say, the lay 
conscience has been very slow to recognise this right. 
True. But how would the question stand, if it had had 
to wait for the professional conscience ? There is no 
sign whatever that the "No surrender" cry has lost its 
power with the body of the clergy, though a considerable 
number have been staunch advocates from the first of 
the national policy of welcoming their Nonconformist 
brethren to a full share in the common inheritance. 

From this, and other instances which might be easily 
added, but which most readers will be able to supply 
for themselves, we may fairly conclude that Convoca- 
tions, Synods, and other bodies composed mainly of 
Ecclesiastics, will share the disposition of other pro- 
fessional bodies, such as the Inns of Court, to take 
narrow professional, rather than broad national, views 
of questions which touch their own real, or supposed, 
interests. And it would seem to be a strange kind 
of reform, looking to national interests, to provide that, 
for the future, professions shall be left more to them- 
selves, the nation abandoning even that control which 
it has hitherto exercised. Precisely the contrary 
method seems to be the truer and more wholesome 



THE NATION AND PROFESSIONS. 1/3 

one, and, indeed, the only one which is in accord with 
the movement and tendency of modern life. 

In short, all experience in England, if not elsewhere, 
warns us, that if resistance to wholesome changes, and 
to the removal of unwholesome restraint, in any depart- 
ment of national life is to be overcome, it must be 
by the nation. It is the nation which has kept the 
Church of England the widest of all religious com- 
munions, the one which has made more wholesome 
changes, and removed more unwholesome restraints, 
than any other, just because the nation has controlled 
the profession on all critical occasions. Let me 
remind you of one more typical instance, the action of 
the profession and of the nation at the time of the con- 
troversy on 'Essays and Reviews/ That controversy 
culminated in the prosecution of two of the clerical 
authors in the Arches Court, and afterwards, on appeal, 
before the Privy Council. The nation, represented by, 
and acting through, the highest Court of the realm, 
dismissed every one of the thirty-two original charges, 
although carefully abstaining from any expression of 
approval of the book, or of the views which they had 
thus solemnly declared to be lawful for ministers of 
the Church to hold. But, while the nation, scarcely 
concealing its apprehension of what it nevertheless 
felt itself constrained to bear with, stood thus firmly 
on the side of toleration and charity, no less than 
I i,ooo of the clergy — a majority of the whole of the 
profession in 1865 — joined in a declaration as to 
what " the whole Catholic Church holds without re- 
serve or qualification." This precious document, if it 



174 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

could have been made binding, would have driven pro- 
bably a third of the clergy, and two-thirds of the laity, 
out of the National Church fourteen years ago. It 
was ignored : and so Canon Farrar, and other orthodox 
popular preachers, are now proclaiming without reserve 
or qualification, doctrines on "the Inspiration of Scrip- 
ture," and " the everlasting punishment of the cursed " 
(the two crucial questions before the Privy Council 
on that trial) which are quite abreast of anything in 
' Essays and Reviews,' but excite scarcely a murmur 
or remonstrance even in religious newspapers. 

And so, looking back over our ecclesiastical history, 
who will be bold enough to assert, that any of the 
wholesome changes which have been made since the 
Toleration Act, would have been made at all, or any 
of the unwholesome restraints removed, by any eccle- 
siastical convention or synod ? But does what holds 
true of the Church apply with anything like equal force 
to the sects ? Has the governing body of any of the 
voluntary religious denominations of our country done 
anything in these trying times for the relief of the 
consciences of ministers or people, which can be named 
with the Subscription Act of 1865, by which the 
National Legislature freed the National clergy from 
the " unwholesome restraints " under which they had 
lain since the passing of the Act of Uniformity ? 

So far at least as I am aware, the freedom which 
has thus been given by the nation to the Church, is 
looked upon rather with contempt by the Noncon- 
formists, who regard the " general assent " now required 
of candidates for ordination as too colourless and 



PROTESTANT INFALLIBILITY. 1 75 

vague to be of any practical value, and immeasurably 
inferior to their own winnowing and sifting processes. 

Liberationists are in the habit, indeed, of boasting 
of their greater freedom, but it is not easy to discover 
in what precise sense they use the word. For their 
clergy, instead of having the public law of their 
country to rely on, and govern themselves by, are 
bound to consult the wishes, and too often the whims 
and caprices, of bodies, whose resistance to change in 
doctrine, discipline, or ritual, is at least as strong as 
that of the clergy of the Establishment. No doubt 
there are amongst them men strong enough to make 
changes, and to defy their deacons, elders, or other 
authorities. Thus Mr. Spurgeon can afford to de- 
nounce deacons in language at least as arrogant as any 
addressed by the High Church newspapers to bishops, 
for daring to object to a change made in the order 
of his service, without their approval, by a brother 
Independent minister. 

And, in this particular. Ritualism no doubt looks 
fondly towards Nonconformity. Mr. Spurgeon is 
practically as infallible as the Pope ; can change the 
order and method of his services, and preach and do 
what he pleases. And it is this kind of freedom, 
envied by Ritualists, which makes the Abbe Martin 
e5cult that the dogma of Infallibility will not prove 
any great stumbling-block to them. " What is there 
in it which can long withhold them .?" he writes, " an 
infallible Pope ! Those amongst themselves whom 
they deem infallible may be counted by hundreds." 
While the Rock newspaper chafes over the same 



176 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

phenomenon, " Mr. Mackonochie is infallible, so are 
Mr. Bennett, Dr. Lee, Dr. Pusey ; all the Ritualists 
are infallible, in spite of the difficulties which divide 
them. Each priest is a pope to himself, and to his 
congregation." 

The Liberation Society. 

I have said that, with all the respect which I 
sincerely entertain for many ardent members of the 
Liberation Society, I cannot look upon their move- 
ment as a thoroughly honest and bond fide one, for they 
march to some extent under false colours. 

To begin then : take their name, and avowed object. 
They are Liberators ; persons who are banded together 
to set some other persons free : for, to talk about setting 
religion in the abstract free is nonsense. Who are 
these other persons } Why, you ! they reply ; you, poor 
enslaved and deluded members of what you are 
pleased to call the National Church. It is out of 
regard and consideration for you, and for your Church, 
which we value very highly, and whose work, especi- 
ally of late years, we cordially admire, that we desire 
to liberate you. 

Well, that is very thoughtful and kind of you 
Liberationists ; but from what are you going to set us 
free } From the interference and shackles of the 
State, is the reply. Good. But suppose we don't want, 
or ask for, your help in this direction, but hold it to 
be better for the Church of which we are members, as 
well as for the State of which we are members, that 
this interference, and these shackles as you call them. 



STATE OPPRESSION. 1/7 

should exist, then as they don't affect you, we would 
respectfully ask when it became the mission of 
advanced Liberals to free people against their will ? 
There has arisen, indeed, I admit, in the National 
Church within the last two or three years, a party who 
are crying out for the severance of Church and State, 
so that at last the Liberationists may pose with some 
semblance of truth as deliverers, rescuers of the op- 
pressed. But these oppressed are young priests, bent 
on defying authority, and asserting their priestly claims 
as a class — not precisely the persons whom Englishmen 
in general desire to see taken from under control. 

But will Liberationists seriously pretend that they are 
pained by these grievances of these extreme Ritualist 
clergy > that they cannot possess their own souls or 
pulpits in peace because of the oppression of their 
Ritualist brethren of the Establishment, under the 
Public Worship Regulation Act ? When it suits their 
purpose, there are no such stern denouncers of the 
Ritualists as they. I do not care to press this point ; 
but when they extend their solicitude to us poor 
Church-folk generally, one feels inclined to commend 
to their consideration Hosea Biglow's remonstrance 
with his neighbours in the American civil war, when 
they cried out against Lincoln's proclamation of free- 
dom to the slaves : 

" But why should we kick up a muss 

About the Pres' dent's proclamation? 
It ain't a-going to liberate us 

Ef we don't want no 'mancipation. 
The right to be a cussed fool 

Is free from all devices human, 
And common as a gin'r'l rule" 

To every critter born of woman." 

N 



1/8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

It is no part of any Liberal programme that I ever 
heard of that my " right to be a cussed fool " should be 
meddled with, unless, indeed, it hinders my neighbour 
from being a wise man. Well, then, if the Liberationists 
can prove that they are hindered in preaching, praying, 
or any act of worship — from electing, paying, and dis- 
ciplining their clergy and flocks in whatever way seems 
good to them — let them only make this clear to me, 
and I as a Liberal will help them to get the hindrance 
out of their paths, to knock off these " shackles," as they 
like to call them ; only making it clear that it is off 
their ankles I am knocking them, and not off mine. So 
far they may fairly reckon on a united Liberal party 
with them, as they have already upon the Burials Bill, 
and, as I believe they will have in the future, when 
they claim the use of churches and cathedrals, under 
proper national control. 

But when they pose as the deliverers of national 
Churchmen from the control of the nation in eccle- 
siastical affairs, the irony is not of a kind which is easy 
to appreciate, or likely to lead to any good result. 
The fact is, that this profession of consideration for 
the Church— this slide which the leaders of the Libera- 
tion Society are always ready to pull out when it 
seems to be the right one for the moment — imports a 
disagreeable element into the controversy. I don't 
pretend to like Mr. Spurgeon's methods of attack, and 
wonder that so good-natured and able a gentleman 
(not to say so eloquent and zealous a minister) should 
allow himself not only to say, but deliberately to print 
and circulate such things for instance as these, that 



LIBERATIONIST AMENITIES. 1 79 

" to ravine like a wolf and to plunder like a freebooter 
has been the peculiar prerogative of the Church of 
England" " No Church ever ate dirt more abundantly 
than our beloved Church of England ; her capacity for 
humiliation is infinite." &c., &c., 

But this kind of talk does no harm at all to any one 
but the speaker, and is at any rate straightforward and 
above board, and therefore to my mind, even as a 
matter of taste, infinitely preferable to all the laboured 
expressions of anxiety for the good of the Church, 
in which other Liberationist leaders are in the habit 
of indulging. 

And this want of straightforward candour seems 
to colour a great deal of the action and speech of the 
Society. — The subject is an unpleasant one, and it is 
with regret that I have to notice it in connection with 
the names of very able and earnest men, most of them, 
too, ministers of the Gospel. Nor do I for a moment 
believe that they are conscious of the insincerity in 
their advocacy which strikes bystanders. But when 
we find a man of the character and reputation of Mr. 
Dale, who, in addressing Churchmen is as soft spoken 
and complimentary as you please, permitting himself 
to appeal to the cupidity of the mob, in his eagerness 
to carry them to his conclusions, it is a sad proof of 
the lengths to which partisanship in this movement 
will lead even the best men. 

Again and again Mr. Dale has protested that the 
Liberationists "repudiate the alliance of the baser 
passions," that they have *'no offers to tempt the 
unscrupulous or needy," and yet he does not hesitate 

N 2 



l80 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

to suggest to a great public meeting how much a head 
the revenues of the Church would come to if divided 
amongst the people. I will give the words to show 
that I am not exaggerating. The speech was made 
at Norwich. After alluding to the difficulty of 
estimating Church revenues, and taking them as be- 
tween five and six millions a year, he goes on, " as 
Mr. Chamberlain said at Sheffield the other day, this 
means that if the revenues of the Church of England 
when the present vested interests expire were appro- 
priated to local purposes, it would amount to about 
five shillings a head for every man, woman, and child. 
I am told that a penny rate in Norwich produces about 
i^i200 a year, and if you had these ecclesiastical 
revenues for the city they would equal the sum raised 
by a IS. 6d. rate. This is a practical reason for 
getting them. I don't know what you would do with 
the money if you had it," &c. &c. 

Mr. Dale's example is followed by other Libera-, 
tionist orators, whom I do not quote, because, as he 
probably would be allowed in all respects to stand 
first amongst them, there is no need to strengthen 
the case by the example of smaller men. Any of 
you who care to pursue the inquiry farther may find 
the subject fully treated in a pamphlet, entitled, 
' The Curiosities of Liberation Literature,' by the Rev. 
E. Whitehouse, where the inconsistent and contra- 
dictory views and arguments of their writers and 
speakers are brought together, and ranged in parallel 
columns. 

I only note this particular instance because it bears 



LIBERATIONIST VIEWS. 1 8 1 

on that part of the subject which is likely to excite 
most interest in the country, and shows how Libera- 
tionists are in the habit of fighting their battle. They 
have two or three views as to Church property, which 
is represented at one time as given to the nation for 
religious purposes ; at another as given by the nation 
to a favoured sect ; sometimes as having a voluntary, 
at other times a compulsory origin. But it is not on 
differences of opinion upon such difficult subjects as 
the origin of tithes, &c., that we have a right to look 
for consistent views. What we have a right to ask is 
that they shall not fight under two or three different 
flags, as to the application of Church property in the 
future. It belongs to the nation, they say generally, 
so let the nation declare what shall be done with it, 
to which doctrine I for one do not object. But the 
Liberation Society it seems is to be the nation's teacher 
in this great business. " We," says Mr. Dale, speaking 
for the Society, *' mean to pursue our great enterprise, 
until the time shall come — it is not far distant — when 
the principles of which it is our glory to be the 
representatives and the guardians, shall control the 
legislation and the policy of our country." 

Those who take such high ground may surely be 
asked to say upon which set of principles they mean 
to stand. When they control the legislation and policy 
of our country they may of course either appropriate 
the revenues of the National Church to some kind of 
religious uses, or to the relief of rates, or other purely 
secular purposes. But as long as they try to ride 
both horses at once, plain folks may well be excused 



1 82 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

for looking with some distrust on them, and the 
movement they represent. 

Politically, no doubt, it is not a bad position, because 
while occupying it they can hold out one hand to 
secularists pure and simple, and the other to reform- 
ing, or discontented. Churchmen. But it does not 
commend itself in ordinary men to the high moral 
sense to which Liberationists are in the habit of 

appealing. 

* * * * * 

Since these pages have been in the press an article 
has been published by Mr. Guinness Rogers, which 
illustrates in a striking manner what seems to me the 
extraordinary incapacity of the Liberationist leaders 
for understanding the position of Liberal Church- 
men. The article referred to is a criticism upon, 
and reply to, Mr. W. E. Forster's speech at Bradford 
in December, 1877, and may, I suppose, be fairly 
taken as an official document, expressing the views 
and carrying the weight of the Liberation Society. 

In the course of this paper Mr. Rogers finds 
himself confronted by the parochial argument, which 
Mr. Forster cited as one which had had great weight 
with himself How, he had argued, except by a 
national organisation covering the whole country, 
can you insure that the spiritual needs of remote and 
poor districts shall be met ? At any rate the National 
Church does provide for these. 

Yes, replies Mr. Rogers, that may be all true 
enough. " There may be few, if any districts in which 
there is not a clergyman accessible to all ; but there 



CHRISTIAN WILLINGHOOD. 1 83 

are hundreds of cases in which he is provided by 
Christian willinghood, not by public taxation." 
(Ni7teteenth Century , p. 524.) 

But how, one asks, in astonishment, does this affect 
the question ? It does not seem to occur to Mr. 
Rogers for a moment that " Christian willinghood " 
can be possible in a religious organisation, open to 
elect and non-elect alike, and supported (as he some- 
what inaccurately puts it) "by public taxation." 
These hundreds of clergy "provided by Christian 
willinghood," must then, by some subtle process 
which I am unable to follow, be kept distinct from 
the national clergy. And I can quite see how 
important this is to Mr. Rogers' case ; for, if the 
National Church has a right to count them amongst 
her officers, it is obvious that the " Christian willing- 
hood " which is the mainstay of the sects is no less 
potent in the Establishment. 

Possibly he might refer to the next passage in the 
same article as containing the key to his view, and 
explaining in what sense he would deny the name of 
National clergy to all those who are not supported 
by tithes (to which I presume he refers when he 
speaks of " public taxation "). " The State," he writes 
(p. 524), "has given up the attempt to work out the 
old idea of an Establishment, and the practical out- 
come is that the adherents of the Church of England 
supplement the public provision." The Church has 
given up nothing. The old idea of Establishment 
remains precisely what it has always been. 

Certain individual Churchmen have come forward to 



1 84 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

do this good supplementary work, but they have 
only been able to do it, or allowed to do it, by means 
of national machinery, and by presenting the nation 
with the large sums necessary for the purpose. And, 
so far from it being the fact that the State has given 
up the attempt to work out the idea of an Establish- 
ment, we have only to glance at what has been done, 
and is in progress, in subdividing dioceses and parishes, 
and bringing the national spiritual machinery up to a 
level with the work, to convince ourselves that there 
was never more " Christian willinghood "in the nation, 
or a stronger feeling that Church work is of no private, 
but of a national character. 

If one, or a dozen, or fifty Englishmen join to- 
gether, and find funds for building a church, and 
endowing it, they cannot move a step towards their 
object except through the machinery provided by the 
State. They must comply with a number of con- 
ditions prescribed by statute before they can obtain 
assistance or recognition from the State : but, when 
they have complied with them that assistance and 
recognition is forthcoming. The utmost that the 
Liberationists can maintain with any truth is, that 
the State has given up providing money by taxation 
for this part of the nation's public business. No 
doubt, if they could go on to say, "the State no 
longer supplies the necessary funds, and so they are 
not forthcoming, and never will be till you give up 
your foolish ideal ; then you will see what the free 
hand of voluntaryism will do for you," the position 
would be a strong one. But unluckily for their case 



CHRISTIAN WILLINGHOOD. 1 85 

the precise contrary is true. The old parochial 
machinery is still vigorous throughout the country, 
maintaining its place in the constitution with less 
friction than almost any other part of the going gear, 
and adapting itself easily to new conditions of life, 
while, wherever readjustments of that machinery are 
needed, the extra bands, wheels, and oil are either 
already in hand (in the shape of such funds as Queen 
Anne's Bounty, and the property vested in the Ecclesi- 
astical and Charity Commissioners), or are found by 
" Christian willinghood.'* In either case the new ma- 
chinery becomes a part of the national trust property, 
held by national officers, for national purposes. 

In the case of a like effort on the part of Wes- 
leyans or Baptists, the new machinery also becomes 
trust property, but the trusts are limited to certain 
specified persons, and classes of persons, while 
the nation is carefully excluded from any share in the 
benefits ; and, as far as possible, from any control 
over the administration or disposition of the property. 

" Christian willinghood " is an admirable thing in 
both cases, but surely not less so where it works for 
a distinctly national object. 

A Broad Churchman. 

(Extract from Address on Charles Kingsley, delivered 
to the Midland Institute^ December 3, 1877.) 

But there are other sides of his ministry of more 
importance at the present moment (and especially in 
this place) to which I must devote the short time that 



1 86 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

is left me. A time of trial is at hand in England for 
the faith which Kingsley held so firmly, and for the 
Church of which he was so loving and loyal an officer. 
It should, I think, be the first duty of one who is asked 
to speak of the man to such an audience as this, to 
bring out as well as he can his views upon the great 
issues which, threatening in his time, are now ap- 
parently upon us in earnest. 

The first of these is the question of a National 
Church. Is it for good, or for evil, that this nation 
has for a thousand years maintained what we call 
an establishment of religion } What did Charles 
Kingsley hold as to this } 

I am aware of course that I am speaking in a city 
which is the stronghold of those who answer that 
question with a confident and passionate, "Cut it 
down ; why cumbereth it the ground." But I cannot 
believe that where so much has been done to honour 
this man, and to perpetuate his teaching in other 
directions — where, as is proved by my own presence 
here this evening, and the audience which fills this 
hall, men and women are anxious still to dwell on 
his memory, and keep it alive, — there will be any 
unwillingness to hear and consider what he had to 
say upon a subject, which he had thought on as 
carefully, and which was even nearer his heart, than 
sanitary reform. First, then, let me give you one or 
two quotations, which will, I think, put you at once 
in a position to understand his view of the matter. 
Writing to Thomas Cooper the Chartist (of whom he 
had made a steadfast friend by generous aid in his 



CHARLES KINGSLEY. 1 8/ 

sorest need, and who had sent him a copy of his 
* Plain Pulpit Talk '), Kingsley says : " I see in it the 
thorough, right old morality — common to Puritans, 
old Anglican Churchmen, apostles and prophets — that 
you hold right to be infinitely right, and wrong in- 
finitely wrong ; that you call a spade a spade, and 
talk to men about the real plagues of their own 
hearts. My dear friend, go on and do that, and, 
whether you call yourself Baptist or Buddhist, I shall 
welcome you as one who is doing the work of God, 
and fighting in the battle of the Lord, who makes 
war in righteousness. But more — you are no Buddhist, 
not even an Unitarian. I happen to be, from reason 
and science, as well as from Scripture and Catholic 
tradition, an orthodox theologian, and to value or- 
thodoxy more the more I think, for its own sake. 
And it was a solid pleasure to me to find you or- 
thodox. But my dear friend, whatever you do, don't 
advocate disestablishing us. We are the most liberal 
religious body in these realms. In our pale men can 
meet who can meet nowhere else. Would to God 
you belonged to us, and we had your powers, as we 
might have without your altering your creed, with us. 
But if we — the one remaining root of union — we 
disestablish, and become a sect like the sects, then 
competition, not Christ, will be God, and we shall 
bite and devour one another, till atheism and M. 
Comte are the rulers of modern thought." This 
was the mature judgment of his last years, written in 
1872. Fifteen years earlier he wrote to Mr. Evan 
Franks : " As to your being an Independent, sir, 



1 88 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

what's that to me, provided you — as I see well you 
do — do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with 
your God ? I don't think you will ever find the 
freedom in your communion which you would in ours, 
the freest, thank God, in the world; but I should be 
a second Ham if I had no respect for the Independents. 
For why ? My forefathers were Independents, and 
fought by Cromwell's side at Naseby and Marston 
Moor ; and, what is worse, lost broad acres by their 
Puritanism." 

Again, to one who had written to him on the 
abuses and anomalies in the National Church, he 
writes : " If you are dissatisfied with the Church of 
England, so am I. Stay in it, then, and try to mend 
it. But let your emendations be consistent with the 
part that is yet pure. To Romanize the Church is 
not to reform it. To unprotestantize it is not to 
reform it.'* 

Thus you see he was perfectly tolerant of and in 
sympathy with what he recognised as honest and 
faithful Christian profession, by whatever name it 
might be called. Indeed, it was only against Phari- 
saism, against any attempt to limit or appropriate to 
a favoured few , what was meant for mankind, that 
his whole soul rose up in stern, often in fierce, protest. 

The one thing he could not away with, was the 
doctrine, which he sorrowfully recognized to be 
creeping into Calvinistic and Evangelical, as well as 
into the high Church pulpits in these days, "the 
message," as he put it, " that the devil and not Jesus 
Christ is the Lord of the present world, that men are 



CHARLES KINGSLEY'S TOLERANCE. 1 89 

sent into this life to get their souls saved in the next ; 
that the soil is not Christ's but man's ; that the State 
has nothing to do with religion, or parsons with 
'politics ; that property has no absolute and essential 
duties towards Christ (why should it if it be not the 
Lord who giveth the power to get wealth), but only 
works of supererogation in the shape of alms or 
charity, and district visiting"; that God is not the 
father, or Christ the Lord of all men, but only of a 
chosen few, whether ' episcopally baptized ' ones, or *the 
converted ' or * the elect ' matters little, in practice 
or in spiritual truth — in a word, all that Manichaean 
practical atheism of which Rome is the systematized 
embodiment, and which is now proving what its 
unconscious parentage was, by leading people, the 
children of Evangelicals especially, to Rome from 
whence it came." 

This " practical atheism of Romish birth," was to 
be met by the assertion of the holiness of " that 
spiritual one body called the English nation," and 
that assertion could only be made effectually by *' the 
nation organised for spiritual; purposes," or, in other 
words, by a national Church. Therefore (as his last 
curate tells us), he was never tired of quoting the 
words, " as by law established," and gloried in the 
feeling that he was a national officer — a soldier in 
England's spiritual army. 

This intensely national spirit was not incompatible 
with the longing for a larger, or Catholic, unity, an 
aspiration (as he tells Mr. Maurice) which he at times 
thrust away even fiercely — when he thought of what it 



IQO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

had come to in Rome — as impossible and a phantom, 
and then found himself so much meaner, more careless 
of everything worth having, that he always went back 
to the old dream. 

But nevertheless a dream he felt the idea of a 
universal Church to be, for any practical purpose, so 
far as he and his generation were concerned ; whereas 
the national idea was there before him, a practical 
fact. In the National Church, of which he was a 
member and officer, he recognized a perfect unity in 
theory, and a very remarkable unity in fact. As he 
pointed out to Thomas Cooper and other Noncon- 
formists, the English Church, just because it is 
national, because it inherits and represents that form 
of Christianity which the nation has accepted, and 
offers to every English child as its birthright, because 
it is not an ecclesiastically but a nationally governed 
body, is the only organisation which can assert and 
uphold the highest life, of "that spiritual one body 
called the English nation." 

It was this which he valued above all other things, 
this consecration, not of one or another select portion, 
but of the whole body, to the service of his master. 
Nothing pained him more than to be misunderstood 
in this matter, as so often happened to him, at the 
hands of friendly, as well as hostile, critics. To one 
of these, a personal friend, who had used the words 
" muscular Christianity " in speaking of his works, he 
writes : " My dear Sir, I know of no Christianity save 
one, which is the likeness of Christ, and the same for 
all men, viz., to be transformed into the likeness of 



CHARLES KINGSLEY'S TOLERANCE. I9I 

Christ, and to consecrate to His service as far as may- 
be, all the powers of body, soul and spirit, regenerate 
and purified by His Spirit." And as he strove to 
make each man and woman realize that no part of 
them is unholy, that their flesh, as well as their 
intellect and spirit, is redeemed by Christ for His 
service, so he strove and pleaded with and for the 
nation, that it should not cut itself up into natural 
and supernatural, secular and religious, sections, but 
should frankly and with open eye acknowledge, that 
every portion of it is redeemed for God's service, " who 
takes care not of churches only but of states, not of 
religious only but of political and scientific events." 

And so, tolerant as he was of religious differences, 
he never flinched from maintaining that the sect 
principle, viz., " we have bound ourselves together on 
opinions as to Christ," is the natural antagonist to the 
true principle, of Church as of nation, viz., " God has 
bound this whole people together in one divine 
society." And, repugnant and painful as the idea of 
the separation of the Church from the nation was to 
him in hi^ life, I am sure it would be ten times more 
so now, when that separation is called for, not only 
by those who avowedly prefer the sect principle — 
who desire to see the Church turned into a sect 
limited to those who agree in opinions, and the nation 
left to mind its own business of protecting body 
and goods, without interfering in higher matters — 
but by those who, hating the sect principle, are ready 
to risk turning their own Church into a sect, for the 
chance of asserting for it supernatural gifts and graces 



192 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

as an universal body, which, if they could be main- 
tained, would bring family and national life bound 
and suppliant to its feet. 

Against this putting asunder what God has joined, 
his whole life was a faithful and earnest protest. 

I trust that in thus endeavouring to put before you 
the position which Charles Kingsley occupied on the 
question of the connection of Church and State, I 
have not unduly trespassed on the ground of party 
polemics, from which I should desire, even more 
anxiously than he himself would have done, to keep 
his name clear. If I have in any respect failed, let 
the blame rest on me, and not on his memory. 



Laxity OF Doctrine. 

Every reader who is at all familiar with the litera- 
ture of this great controversy will have recognized how 
much I am indebted to the writings of Dean Stanley for 
many of the principles and views which are maintained 
in these addresses. I desire here, and always, to 
acknowledge this obligation in the fullest manner, and 
as the question of the laxity and vagueness of the 
present form of subscription in the National Church, 
and what is often represented as the consequent 
dangerous and scandalous latitudinarianism of her 
ministry, has been referred to more than once in these 
pages, I venture to reprint, for the benefit and plea- 
sure of readers, a famous passage from the Dean's 
writings, first published twenty-eight years ago, but 
which cannot be too often repeated, or too carefully 



FIRST SANCTION OF LATITUDINARIANISM. 1 93 

considered, by all those who can rise above party 
mists and sectarian squabbles, and are looking for 
some broader and firmer ground to stand upon as 
Christians and as Englishmen, than Liberationists or 
Ritualists can offer. 

After criticising the action of the High Church 
assailants of Mr. Gorham, and alluding to the French- 
man's remark, that, while all Europe was rocking and 
trembling under the shock of great ideas, the only 
revolution which seemed to have any interest for 
benighted England was the revolution of '*le pere 
Gorham," he goes on : " We have dwelt on the historical 
certainty of the fact that the Church of England was 
meant to include, and that it always has included, 
opposite and contradictory opinions, not only on the 
point now in dispute (baptismal regeneration) but on 
other points as important or more important than this. 
We have dwelt also on the inestimable value, if not 
absolute necessity, of retaining this position, as the 
best means of dealing with the peculiar mission of a 
National Church, especially of a National Church in 
England in these times. But we feel that there is a 
yet higher ground to be taken, that there is a sanction 
and an example of our position almost too solemn to 
be insisted on in a temporary argument, were it not 
for the greatness of the interests at stake, and for the 
sincerity, in many instances, of the scruples which such 
a position excites in those who have not considered it 
from its true point of view. 

" In the second of those vigorous, though mistaken 
letters, which have drawn down upon Mr. Maskell the 

o 



194 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

anger of hundreds less plain-spoken or clear-sighted 
than himself; after an examination of the various 
points on which he truly conceives the Church of 
England to have expressed no dogmatic opinion, there 
occurs' this (in his view) final and fatal question : Has 
the world ever seen — does there now exist anywhere — 
another example of a religious sect or community 
which does not take one side or the other clearly and 
distinctly, upon at least a very large proportion of the 
doctrines of which we have been speaking ? 

" Yes, the world has seen one example, at least, of a 
religious community, whose highest authorities did 
refuse to take one side or the other clearly and 
distinctly on the questions which were brought for 
their decision. There was once a Council in which, 

* after much disputing,' it was determined ' not to put a 
yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither their 
fathers nor they were able to bear,' and to whom 

* it seemed good to lay upon the Church no greater 
burden than these necessary things, from which if the 
brethren keep themselves they shall do well' There 
was once a Conference of ' those who seemed to be the 
pillars of the Church,' to decide the claims between 
the two rival sections of the Christian community, of 
whom we are told that when they perceived that ' he 
who wrought effectually on one side, the same was 
mighty also on the other side, they gave to both the 
right hand of fellowship, that each should go unto his 
own peculiar sphere.' There was once a Controversy 
which distracted the Church with ' doubtful disputa- 
tions,' and the answer which came from an authority, 



THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES. I95 

now revered by the whole Christian world, was a 
decision which decided nothing, except that each party 
might be left to its own convictions, however opposite 
and contradictory they might be. * Let every man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth 
the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that 
regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard 
it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth 
God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord 
he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.' It is to the 
principle, not the subject-matter, of such decisions, 
that our attention is directed. The controversy to 
which they related, different as it was to those of 
modern times, agitated the ' Apostolic Church no 
less fiercely, and was invested by the contending 
parties with no less importance. It is enough for 
our purpose to learn that the Church of the first 
century gloried in the freedom which is now re- 
garded as a disgrace, and directed its earliest and 
most energetic efforts, not to the enforcement of a 
rigid conformity, but to the toleration of wide diver- 
sities. It was, indeed, no empty figment of speech 
which in that early age of Christianity recalled the 
image of the ark prepared against the flood. It is 
not an empty boast that we have now within our 
reach, and it will be no imaginary guilt if we, of our 
own accord, refuse to maintain, a system which shares 
in however imperfect a measure, one characteristic 
attribute of that perfect Church, which was to float 
visibly on the stormy waters, and gather within itself 
the characters of various conditions, opinions, and 

O 2 



196 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

tempers, who fled to it for shelter from the waves of 
this troublesome world. The Church of England, 
however, in this respect, unlike the churches of Rome 
or Geneva, may console itself with the reflection that 
it presents a likeness, however faint, to the Church of 
the Apostolic age." 



Disestablishment not Denationalization. 

It is well to look all contingencies in the face, so 
let us suppose the cry for disestablishment and disen- 
dowment to be successful, and consider whether, even 
in that case, the Church need abandon her national 
character and become a sect. Her distinctive mark 
hitherto has been, that she has a message, not for 
this or that section, but for the whole nation ; that 
she has, apart altogether from material property, 
certain possessions, such as her Orders and her 
Common Prayer, which she holds in trust for the 
nation. How far, then, can this be altered by any 
possible legislation } 

The aim of a disestablishing Parliament will be 
to reduce her to an exact equality with the sects. 
How, then, is this to be done .? 

The first step will be to place her ministry in the 
same position as that of the sects. The State cannot 
say there shall be no bishops, but only that they 
shall not, as bishops, sit in the House of Lords. If 
this change were made, the Houses of Parliament 
must remain open to the clergy of the Church, as 
citizens, as they are now open to Dissenting ministers. 



POSSIBLE CHANGES. 1 9/ 

lawyers, soldiers, merchants, and others : in which 
case both the nation and the profession would be 
gainers. One of the strongest influences which tend 
to keep the clergy a separate caste would disappear. 
The bishops would, as a rule, be left free for the 
higher part of their work, in their own dioceses ; while 
the country would probably get the services in 
political life of a most valuable class of men — the 
clergy of independent means. There would be 
nothing in such a change as this to affect the national 
character of the Church. 

The Ecclesiastical Courts must either be abolished, 
and the jurisdiction over Church trusts and disputes 
transferred to the Court of Chancery, which already 
exercises jurisdiction over Dissenting trusts : or the 
Ecclesiastical Courts must be reformed, and the 
jurisdiction over Dissenting trusts transferred to them. 
In neither case would the national character of the 
Church be affected. 

The question whether the use of the churches 
should be allowed to Dissenting bodies would raise a 
difficult point. In the case we are contemplating, of 
an effort to place the Church and the sects on an 
exact equality, the well known principle would come 
in, that they who seek equity (or equality) must do 
equity, and, tried by this test, the claim of Dissenters 
will, scarcely stand. It is unfair and unequal, they 
say to the legislature, that one section only of the 
nation should have the custody and use of national 
buildings ; open them to us. In the supposed case, 
the legislature would reply, these buildings are held 



iqS the established church. 

as national property, and the use of them is given to 
all those who will accept it, subject to the control of 
the nation in Parliament, and to such conditions as 
the nation may from time to time impose on their 
use. Are you ready to accept such national control, 
and to conform to such conditions ? If so, we will 
arrange for your admission : if not, you are kept out, 
not by the nation, but by yourselves. I should be 
glad myself that the sects should answer, Yes, we 
will conform to such conditions ; but, until they do, it 
is idle to talk of equality being outraged in this 
matter. 

With respect to rates, the National Church and the 
sects are on an equality already. We all pay rates 
that chapels, as well as churches, may be exempt from 
them. This exemption would seem scarcely com- 
patible with Nonconformist principles, but Liberal 
Churchmen will not care to inquire how this form of 
State aid is less objectionable to their Nonconforming 
brethren than any other. They will rather rejoice to 
see all the Voluntary Churches accepting Establish- 
ment in this form, at any rate, and content to allow 
the nation to recognize them in this practical way, 
even though they refuse in return to acknowledge the 
nation. 

The same difficulty would confront Parliament at 
once in dealing with endowments as with buildings. 
How are they to be equalised as between denomina- 
tions, when the Nonconformists refuse to take any 
part in them .? There would be obvious inequality 
and injustice in refusing them their proportion, if 



INEQUALITY OF THE ESSENCES OF DISSENT. 1 99 

they claimed it, and were ready to submit to Parlia- 
mentary control, and to bring their own endowments 
"into hotchpot" to obtain it. There is none until 
they do this. 

And so on, through every branch of the question 
the same principle runs, and the more it is studied, the 
more clearly it comes out, that it is not the nation, or 
the Church which the nation controls, but the Non- 
conformists themselves, who make equality in this 
sense impossible. The State, or nation, holds certain 
material properties of different kinds in trust for 
Spiritual uses, and lays down certain rules and condi- 
tions under which those properties are to be held and 
enjoyed by those who will voluntarily conform to the 
rules and accept the conditions. Those who will 
not, themselves make the inequality of which they 
complain. 

Our supposed disestablishing Parliament might no 
doubt cut the Gordian knot by sweeping away all 
religious endowments of every kind, and applying 
them to secular purposes : but then, as great part of 
Church endowments, though national, are earmarked 
as precisely as Nonconformist endowments, these last 
would have to go too if there is to be absolute 
equality. 

Finally, to make the dissolution perfect, so far as 
Parliament could do so, I presume that the Church 
would have to be incorporated and dismissed with 
some species of trust deed, defining her constitu- 
tion in future, as that of the Wesleyan community is 
defined. But, after all this, and when Parliament had 



200 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

done all that even Parliament has power to do, I fail to 
see how equality in the Liberationist sense would have 
been reached, or the Church turned into a sect. 

Suppose the law allowed a man who had lived 
with his wife hitherto, and been very liberal to her in 
the matter of allowances and pin money, to turn her 
out of doors, and say. Henceforth you are no wife of 
mine, and I never wish to see your face, or hear your 
voice, again. Here are these odds and ends of pro- 
perty to which you are possibly entitled, and w^hich I 
hereby declare by this deed of divorce to be absolutely 
your own to deal with precisely as you please ; so 
now all bond between us is at an end. Even in such 
a case the wife might reply : You cannot effect your 
purpose. It took my consent as well as yours to 
make us one, and without my consent as well as yours 
we can't be made two. I mean to remain loyal to 
you in word and deed, and to hold these shreds of 
property, and any I may become possessed of here- 
after, on the same trusts for you and your children, as 
though I were still acknowledged by you and living 
in your house. Under such circumstances it seems 
obvious enough that nothing the man could do would 
really effect his object ; no human will or decree could 
alter facts, and the woman who had been his wife 
could never be made to him precisely as other women. 

And so in the case of the Church and the sects. In 
the supposed case, after the State had given the Bill 
of Divorce, if the Church remained loyal, and declared 
that whatever scraps of material property might be 
thrown to her, together with the spiritual property of 



TRUSTS OF THE CHURCH. 201 

her Common Prayer, her Services, Orders, and the 
rest, she would continue to hold, as heretofore, upon 
trust for every parish in England, and for every 
parishioner in each parish — for every man, woman, 
and child in the nation, whether the State consented 
or did not consent, she would remain still truly 
national, not indeed in Establishment, which is ac- 
cidental, but in object which is essential. 

An Established Church may be (as of old in Ireland) 
an Established sect. A Disestablished Church might 
well remain truly national, unless it made itself into 
a sect by voluntarily narrowing its own trusts. And 
I would fain hope and believe, that, under no possible 
circumstances, will the Church of England ever be 
guilty of such a piece of folly and stupidity. 



202 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



VIII. 

CHURCH CONGRESSES. 

The Relations between the Church and 
Dissent. 

At the last, and most important, of our Annual 
Church Congresses, I was asked to speak on the 
subject of the Relations between the Church and 
Dissent. The time allowed was only ten minutes, 
and I must admit that my ten minutes were in great 
measure wasted, for I was led aside into paths which 
I had no intention of treading, and so had to leave 
unsaid almost all th^t I came prepared to say. I 
reprint the speech here, however, partly because it has 
been the subject of much comment, and I desire to 
say deliberately that there is nothing in it which, after 
all that has been said against it, I wish to retract ; but 
mainly, because I am permitted to append to it the 
best speech, which, so far as I know, has yet been 
made on the subject of Church Congresses. I am 
glad to be able to leave my readers at the end in a 
higher and healthier atmosphere than they have had, 
of necessity, to breathe in the earlier pages of this 
book. 



church congress. 203 

Speech at the Church Congress at 
Croydon. 

In order to make clear what I have to say about 
the relations between the Church and Dissent, I must 
endeavour in the first place to state distinctly the 
standpoint from which I and those who agree with me 
look upon ours, as a national Church. It has been, 
of course, and is, in one sense, a Catholic Church. 
If we mean by that a portion of the great body of 
Christian worshippers throughout the world it is to 
utter a truism ; but the moment we get beyond that 
none of us can agree. ["No, no."] Well, at any rate, 
we can all agree that it is a national Church ; and 
your Grace knows, as well as anybody, perhaps, that 
those amongst whom I have been educated and brought 
up hold that to be a very noble name. We have learnt 
that the nation is holy as well as the Church ; that 
God cares about the nation just as He cares about 
the Church ; that Christ is the King of the nation 
as well as the Head of the Church. Believing this, 
as I do, you may imagine the astonishment — I may 
almost say the dismay — with which persons who 
concur in the views I have just stated, must read some 
of the remarks which apparently have been received 
with applause in this hall. I hold in my hand a 
statement which was made yesterday in a paper read 
by a dignitary, who was supposed, I presume, to re- 
present the strongest body in the Church of England. 
He said that the standard of prosperity of Church and 
State is essentially different ; that the State prospers 



204 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

when its members increase and are wealthy ; the 
Church when its disciples are conformed to the 
example of its great Head. [Cheers.] Well, my 
friends, I do not perhaps interpret rightly what that 
applause means, but if it means that the standard 
of prosperity of the Church and State ought not 
to be the same, I confess that applause startles 
and astonishes me. Why, I have always believed 
that this warning the world to keep its distance, is 
precisely the standard of the sects, and not of the 
Church. I have understood that it is sects that divide 
things secular and religious, and that they say the 
nation is not holy, that God is not caring for this 
English nation as He cared for the Jewish nation of 
old. I have always believed that this was the touch- 
stone of the position of the sects and not of the 
Church. I have been taught by great divines to 
regard the Church of England as the nation in its 
relations with the invisible. I believe it to be the 
organisation of the highest national life. I may be 
asked how does this theory tally with the fact that 
those sects of whom I am speaking and for whom 
I entertain great respect, all deny it as much as 
this dignitary of the Church denied it in his paper on 
Wednesday last } The denial, I am told, comes from 
all sides ; but, my friends, the denial will not alter 
the fact. Supposing that all of us choose to deny that 
we are Englishmen, can that alter the fact of our 
nationality ? Because I do not choose to be called an 
Englishman, and refuse, so far as I can, to submit to 
the conditions of English citizenship, can that make 



THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 20$ 

me less an Englishman ? I see at once, from indica- 
tions of feeling in this hall, that my view is not 
shared by many of you ; but it is nevertheless, a view 
which I can vouch to be, from my own knowledge, held 
by many who belong to the Church, and who are not 
less earnest members of it than you yourselves. While 
the English Church lasts. Englishmen, whatever we 
choose to say, cannot take themselves outside it. So 
long as there is a national Church, surely my friends 
on the platform, and all of you in the hall, will agree 
that, in theory, at all events, it should embrace the 
whole . of the nation ; and therefore, I say, while it 
exists it is no more possible for people to unmake 
that unity because they wish to unmake it than it is 
to unmake their nationality to which they were born. 
They may return to it and acknowledge it, but they 
cannot unmake it. 

What is the duty, then, of the national Church under 
these circumstances ? Surely it is the duty of the 
nation and the Church to make the return to unity as 
easy as possible to all those who are outside. Are we 
doing that } My friends on the platform say " Yes." 
I wish I could agree with them with any truth ; but I 
confess that that is not the conviction which has come 
home to me from an anxious study of this subject. 
The nation in past times has settled the form of 
Christianity which it thinks best for this people of 
England. [" No, no."] At any rate, that is my view ; 
and I would only ask, if the nation has not done this, 
who has .? The nation has formulated that Chris- 
tianity in its Articles and its Prayer Book. If the 



206 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

nation has not done it, I should Hke to know who has ? 
I should like to know what is the meaning of the 
Common Prayer Book at all, unless it is the Prayer 
Book that has been recognised by this nation ? The 
nation has placed churches and national officers in 
every parish. My friends cry " No, no !" Well, I 
should like to know who has placed them in the 
different parishes of this country if it be not the 
nation ? At any rate, that is my belief ; and those 
who think with me hold these to be the most 
precious characteristics of our national Church. The 
clergy are the officers and guardians of that national 
Church, and how are they doing their duty ? I 
admit that they are doing their duty nobly in many 
ways, and I speak as one who is not only cordially 
but most intimately connected with the clergy, the 
national officers of the Church, for my grandfather 
was a clergymen, my brother is a clergyman — I have 
very many relations who are clergymen. All the 
most intimate friends I have had in my life, whom I 
have at present, are amongst the clergy ; and no one 
honours them or their work more highly than I do ; 
but for all that I am bound to acknowledge that that 
inheritance of which I am speaking is in danger, and 
that danger is mainly due to the conduct of the 
clergy in their relations with the Dissent of this 
country. They have become too professional in a 
narrow sense, they are separating themselves too much 
from the nation in general, and particularly from that 
portion of it which is outside their own lines, I mean 
their Nonconformist brethren. They seem to forget 



SEPARATION OF CLERGY. 20/ 

that after all they are servi servormn Dei ; that they 
are to minister not only to their own immediate con- 
gregations, like the Dissenting ministers, but to every 
Englishman who may desire their services. I speak 
from my own conscientious view of what is the real 
state of the case. Let me by a couple of illustrations 
show what is the policy pursued by the clergy, which 
I think is endangering this most precious part of our 
inheritance. I would refer to two questions which 
have lately come under their consideration. There is 
the title of " Reverend " — the title which has been 
appropriated by the nation to the ministers of Christ 
in this country. A Nonconformist minister claimed 
that title, and you all know what happened. Instead 
of the clergy of the Church of England saying, " By 
all means, you are a minister of the Church of Christ 
— and we are only too glad that you come forward 
and claim the national title set apart by the nation for 
that ministry." [" No, no."] I told you, my friends, 
that I looked at these questions from this point of 
view as a layman, and I am only letting you know 
what I as a layman think you clergy ought to have 
done in this business. 

Then take the burials question. I confess, when 
the reverend gentleman read the first paper just now, 
and touched on that subject, I was astonished at the 
response with which his remarks were received. It 
seems to me and to all laymen [" No, no "] — to all 
laymen whom I know — they may not be known to 
you, but there are many more than you appear to 
imagine — at any rate, they look on this burials 



208 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

question as virtually settled. We think you ought to 
welcome Englishmen who come forward and claim 
their portion in the national burying-grounds of this 
country, and join in making easy conditions for their 
admission. [" No, no."] I anticipated that response 
to such a statement. If the clergy or this assembly 
think that the opinion of the country is with them, I 
believe they will find they are grievously and sorely 
mistaken. Let me illustrate my view in another way. 
There is a national army in England. That national 
army has the charge of the parade grounds, ranges, 
and the other military machinery in the country. A 
great army of volunteers has come forward and are 
desiring to share these ranges and these military pro- 
perties with the national army of this country. This 
movement has been going on now for eighteen years. I 
happen to have seen a good deal of it ; and I can only 
say that where there have been wise national officers 
who have put those facilities and advantages as far as 
possible at the disposal of those who come forward as 
volunteers in the same cause as themselves, they have 
entirely carried with them those volunteer bodies, and 
have been able to do almost whatever they pleased in 
educating them professionally. Let me show how that 
bears upon the relations of the Church of England 
with Dissent. There is a clergyman — I wish I could 
call him a friend — with whom I have the honour 
of a slight acquaintance, who was appointed two 
years ago to a town in the north of England, which 
was almost entirely filled with Dissenters. It 
was, indeed, a stronghold of the Liberation Society, 



THE CHURCH IDEA. 209 

and this autumn the Society proposed to hold a 
meeting in that town. But the different Noncon- 
formist congregations sent to the Liberation Society, 
and said if they came none of the congregations 
could attend, because they would think it disre- 
spectful to their vicar, of whom they were very proud, 
to do so. It was not by taking the line, which 
seems to be the popular line here on the Burials Bill, 
that that result was obtained. While this Congress 
has been sitting there has been a similar gathering of 
one of the great Nonconformist communities of this 
country — that of the Baptist Union. It is now sitting, 
I believe, at Newport I was reading the remarks of 
the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown, in a sermon which he 
preached at the opening of that meeting. He there 
urges, that denominationalism forms the strength, and 
not the weakness, of the Church. Well, of course, I 
cannot myself agree with that ; but, at any rate, I do 
say that constant, friendly relations with the Noncon- 
formist bodies would act as a spur to zeal. The ideal, 
of course, is unity. Will these bodies come back to 
the Church ? I am sorry to say it seems as though 
scarcely anybody in this room, except Mr. Harwood and 
myself, has the slightest hope of such a result as that, 
and I quite admit that considerable changes will have 
to be made, and great courage shown, by the Church 
if that union is to take place. I, for instance, believe 
that we must alter our Articles if the Union is to be 
brought about. [" No, no."] I hear dissent to that, but 
I should feel glad if it were done, because, in reading 
them through, I recognise them as a venerable and 

P 



2IO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

most valuable document — a document which was of 
the greatest service at the time it was prepared by 
the wise Churchmen of those days — but for us, I must 
say, it is certainly obsolete. I will mention only one 
Article, and ask any Churchman in this hall whether 
he cordially and bond fide accepts its teaching. I 
mean the Thirteenth, which says that works done 
before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of His 
Spirit, have no doubt the nature of sin. I do not 
believe there are many persons in this room who do 
not think that, if we are to get back to the unity we 
ought to desire, we shall have to alter not only the 
Articles, but also other portions of the Prayer Book. 
I do not believe the alterations will be at all extensive, 
and I think that, with wisdom, they may very well be 
made. Wisdom and courage will be necessary ; and 
wisdom and courage we must have, if we are to retain 
the national Church in this country. I believe that 
we are quite as competent as our fathers to reform it, 
and that God is just as much with the nation now 
as He was then. If we set to work in the spirit 
in which they set to work, I believe we shall, by God's 
help, be able also to provide, once more, a new frame- 
work for the Church, which will make it again, as it 
once was, the worthy national Church of the people 
of England. 



( 211 ) 



IX. 

THE BODY OF CHRIST.* 

''He is the head of the body, the Church:'— Qo\.. i. i8. 

The annual "Church Congress," held during the 
last few days, has attracted public attention more 
strongly than the similar meetings of former years. 
This Congress, it should be clearly understood, is a 
purely voluntary gathering. It does not even repre- 
sent a permanent association, as other congresses 
generally do. A local Committee, under the presi- 
dency of the Bishop of the Diocese, makes all the 
arrangements, and has the entire responsibility, for 
the meetings of the Congress week. The meetings 
are attended by any persons. Church people or Non- 
conformists, who procure themselves tickets of ad- 
mission. Those who attend them hear short addresses 
on selected topics by selected readers or speakers. 
The feature which gives its special interest to a Church 
Congress is that care has always been taken by the 
local Committee to bring together representatives of 

* Preached at Christ Church, St. Marylebone, October 14th, 1877, 
by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, 

P 2 



212 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

the different parties or schools in the Church of 
England. The attractiveness and success of the 
meetings depend to a considerable extent on the 
thoroughness with which this policy is carried out ; 
and the chief usefulness of the Congresses, in the eyes 
of the Bishops and other eminent persons who promote 
them, is understood to consist in their thus bringing 
together on the same platform, and on terms of mutual 
courtesy and Church fellowship, those whom party 
conflict is apt to divide very much from each other. 

It is obvious that, having this voluntary and irre- 
sponsible character, it is only in a very qualified sense 
that a Church Congress can be held to be representa- 
tive of the Church of England as a whole. But it is 
so, in respect of the choice of speakers and the free 
publicity of the meetings ; and the presidency, this 
year, of the highest dignitary of the Church, and of a 
man so comprehensive in his views as Archbishop 
Tait, has given to the Congress at Croydon more of 
the character of a representative assembly than any 
preceding Congress has been able to claim. 

I refer to the Congress now, as thus bringing 
the Chicrch before our minds. Those who occupied 
its platforms were looked upon as representing the 
Church of England ; 'they spoke much about the 
Church, — about its nature, its prerogatives, its dangers, 
its tasks. The Church of England, they would all 
have agreed in saying, is a branch of the Church of 
Christ. But what is the Church of Christ 1 When 
this question is asked among Churchmen or Christians, 
great divergences of opinion begin to appear. It 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 213 

evidently was so at Croydon ; and we may turn to 
account the name and the discussions of the Church 
Congress by asking the question for ourselves, and 
trying to see how the Apostolic teaching would start 
us on the way to the most scriptural views on this 
subject. 

The Church is the Body of Christ, — we are all 
agreed in accepting this statement, which we find 
given repeatedly in the New Testament. 

There are those who go on to say that the Church 
has therefore a supernatural character. They insist 
strongly on this term supernatural, — a word unknown 
to Holy Scripture, and which it has been no gain to 
theology to add to the scriptural vocabulary. This 
supernatural body, they say, is an organised society, 
living on from age to age, with officers and institutions 
and functions belonging to it by the conditions of 
its creation, and intrusted with gifts and graces which 
it alone has power to dispense. It finds itself placed, 
supernatural as it is, in a natural world. Human 
beings as living together in civil bonds form, it is held, 
a natural society. What a difference there must be, 
then, between the Church and the world ! Imagine 
the superiority which a supernatural society must 
have over one that is merely natural ! When minds 
have become thoroughly imbued with this feeling, it 
is no wonder that they come to look on all human 
things that are not ecclesiastical with a sort of disdain. 
The Church is supernatural, the State is natural. 
What an intolerable intrusion and usurpation it must 
be, if the State asserts any right within the province 



214 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

of the Church ! A mere aggregation of mortal men 
assuming to control Christ and his body ! And this 
is precisely the light in which many persons are now 
training themselves to regard much that has been done 
and is going on in this country under our existing 
constitution in Church and State. That a Judicial 
Court appointed by authority of Parliament and the 
Crown should decide on disputed points of ritual is, 
in their eyes, the natural body dictating to the super- 
natural. The Body of Christ in this country, it is 
taken for granted, is the Church of England. But it 
has been of late years a cause of great and increasing 
distress to those who hold these views, that the Church 
of England, as a supernatural Body, is at the present 
time without a voice. If only the Body could fashion 
for itself a satisfactory mouth, in the shape of a correct 
synod, this very grave defect would be remedied. 
Then the Church might speak for itself and judge 
for itself and declare its own mind with authority. 
The voice of the Church, like itself, would be super- 
natural. 

There are many obvious difficulties besetting any 
view like this, against which the holders of it can only 
arm themselves for the most part with what seems to 
them to be faith. We ask, supposing that there is this 
distinction between the Church and the World, that the" 
one is supernatural and the other natural, how are we, 
living at this day, to know the Church t Perhaps 
some answer like this may be given, — " Any organized 
society which has the Apostolical Succession, and the 
Threefold Ministry, and the Sacraments, and the 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 21$ 

Creeds, may rightly claim to be a part of the Super- 
natural Body, with the power of dispensing the 
supernatural gifts and graces." Are we obliged to 
hold then that South American Romanism, for 
example, is supernatural, and the Methodist Society 
merely natural ? Or, looking on each side of us at 
home, are we to say that we of the Church of England 
enjoy supernatural gifts and grace, and that Non- 
Churchmen have to do as well as they can without 
them } And the State, — is that a mere natural 
creation ? We should be led on to ask what those 
who use these terms natural and supernatural mean 
by them. When they call men and things outside 
the Church natural, do they mean that they are with- 
out God ? • Impossible. They are compelled to be 
indefinite, to empty the words of an intelligible mean- 
ing. But none the less do they revert to their original 
position, and conjure with the word supernatural as 
if it meant all that it appears to mean, and affirm 
the Church of England as distinguished from the 
civil society to be the Body of Christ, and therefore 
entitled by Divine right to spiritual independence. 
To this policy they pledge their loyalty to Christ. 
They think they would be denying Christ, if they 
did not claim Divine prerogative as given to his 
Body. 

But is not then the Church the Body of Christ .? 
Is there not some society upon earth which Christ 
founded to be permanent, and to the officers and 
members of which he assigned certain powers and 
graces in perpetuity ? 



2l6 TIIK ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

Let US see what the Church was, when St. Paul 
declared it to be Christ's Body. 

No doubt it was from the first a society of persons 
called out from the world. It was formed by the 
Apostles, who proclaimed Jesus Christ as a Living 
Lord and Saviour, and invited men to receive forgive- 
ness of sins through him. Those who were persuaded 
to do so were baptized with water and joined to the 
existing company of believers. The Holy Ghost, as 
a power of warmth and light and utterance, was given 
to the society at its beginning, and it was assumed 
that every one who came into the society drank 
of the same Spirit. Besides the Baptism at the 
entrance into the Church, there was one other 
ordinance used by the society, the common partaking 
of bread and wine, as of the Body and Blood of the 
Saviour, on the Resurrection Day. 

The government of the society was in the hands of 
the Apostles. There was no distinction at first 
between the more secular and the more strictly 
spiritual provinces of the common life of the Church. 
But, as the need arose, of^cers called deacons or 
ministers were appointed to relieve the Apostles of 
such work as the distribution of funds amongst the 
needy. After a time, the Church spread through the 
preaching of Christ beyond Jerusalem and Judaea. 
St. Paul, when his Apostolic career had begun, went 
from city to city, founding small branch societies 
wherever his word was received. Each of these 
societies was called a Church, and it was assumed 
that every one who joined them became a partaker of 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 21/ 

the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Jesus Christ, whose power 
was manifested in the fervour and faith of the Christian 
body. All St. Paul's Churches remained under his 
personal government, and every dispute and question 
that arose in them was referred to him. But he 
appointed elders or overseers in every city, to exer- 
cise pastoral care over the believers ; and no doubt 
there were deacons also, as a rule, in every Christian 
community. 

St. Paul delighted to contemplate the organic unity 
of this association of believers in Christ. The idea of 
it excited his enthusiasm ; he dwells upon it, blesses 
God for creating it, exhorts the individual believer to 
appreciate it, to use its privileges and to conform 
himself and his life to it. You remember the passage 
in which this feeling finds its most remarkable utter- 
ance. " There is one body and one Spirit, even 
as ye were called in one hope of your calling ; one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
of all, who is above all and through all and in all." 
With this unity, there are distinctions of function ; 
and each member, St. Paul holds, has his own gift of 
endowment to enable him to fill his own place. Christ 
is the great Giver, and besides these gifts to the 
several members of the body, he gave to the body as 
a whole the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, 
and teachers, by whose various ministries sinful and 
self-willed men were to be moulded into true members 
and the ultimate perfecting of the body to be accom- 
plished. St. Paul looked forward in hope to the time 
when the Body of Christ might be not only ideally 



2l8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

perfect, but actually perfect also, in its adult growth 
and in the harmonious co-operation of all its parts. 

Surely, it may be said, this is a supernatural 
creation of which St. Paul speaks. It cannot be 
doubted that the Apostle held the Church of his own 
days to be in close relations with the living Christ in 
hfeaven, and to have precious gifts and privileges. 
True, that cannot be doubted. But St. Paul appears 
to me to be in a completely different atmosphere of 
thought from that in which the ecclesiastical organiza- 
ation is exalted infinitely above the civil, or a Church 
organized in one way set infinitely above a Church 
organized in another way. 

If we supposed that St. Paul was attributing a 
Divine authority to a particular organization, we 
should have to conclude that the hierarchy of the 
Church ought to consist, not of bishops, priests, and 
deacons, but of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shep- 
herds, and teachers. No doubt, in naming these 
agents of Christ in the building of the body, St. Paul 
was not thinking of a Divinely-appointed permanent 
organization of the Church. But if Christians from 
the first age have been right in believing that St. 
Paul was not imposing these orders upon the Church, 
at all events he does not name the orders of bishops, 
priests and deacons. The Church had not yet re- 
ceived the full organization which it afterwards ac- 
quired. The Apostles held an exceptional position 
in the Church, and the place of St. Paul was still 
more unique. His government was a personal one, 
exercised by him because he was the actual father of 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 219 

his Churches. In the Churches under his government, 
the two names, bishop (overseer), and presbyter (elder), 
were given to the same persons. It was only by 
degrees, after the Apostles were gone, that the name 
of bishop was appropriated to the presbyter who was 
appointed to preside over other presbyters. Nothing 
can be clearer, I think, than that St. Paul's faith in 
the Divine calling and constitution of the Church 
does not attach itself to any defined organization. 
We see in the New Testament the administrative 
system of the Church growing under our eyes ac- 
cording to its circumstances and its needs. Christ 
gave whatever sort of agents were wanted for the 
building up of the body. 

Observe, in the next place, that it is not in the 
outward realized shape of the Church, that St. Paul 
sees the Divine creation which he glorifies. There 
may be every sort of defect and irregularity in the 
men and women whom Christ has called to be his 
members. The unity is not made by them, and does 
not depend upon them. Their business is to keep the 
unity, to conform themselves to it. The supernatural 
Body of Christ is the ideal one, and it is realized with 
various degrees of imperfection wherever men acknow- 
ledge Christ as their head. 

The truth is, that the Church of Christ is more 
supernatural in the New Testament than it is to those 
who are now warning off the civil society from pre- 
suming to interfere in its domain. We Christians of 
the Church of England are a part of the Body of 
Christ, in that God has called us to be in fellowship 



220 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

with his Son and has given us to drink of his filial 
Spirit ; and we are a part of the Body of Christ, 
again, in so far as we on our side yield ourselves to 
be God's children and submit to the motions of his 
Spirit. The institutions of the Church are means, 
more or less sacred and important, for bringing 
us all into our right spiritual places and conditions. 
This is the Scriptural account of the Church. In 
order to take it in, we must think first and steadily 
of what the perfect spiritual society of Christ's mem- 
bers would be, in earth and heaven ; and then we must 
see in the various processes, ecclesiastical and other, 
by which that perfection is promoted, God's gifts 
or energies accomplishing the unity which is his 
aim. 

What guidance may we get, then, from the New 
Testament with reference to the ecclesiastical diffi- 
culties of our time .? 

We find nothing whatever, I think, in the New 
Testament, to tell us directly what the relations 
between the Church and non- Churchmen, between 
the Church and the State, ought to be in circumstances 
such as ours. The Apostles were occupied with the 
conditions in the midst of which they lived. They 
were not speculators, but Apostles. They did not 
draw up rules for a world altogether different from 
that in which they were working. There was nothing 
in their day at all answering to the condition of our 
Christian England ; nothing analogous to our Church 
and Dissent, nothing analogous to our Church and 
State, in the relations of the small Christian com- 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 221 

munities of the first age to the heathen and Jewish 
world around them. 

But it does not therefore follow that the teaching 
of the Apostles will give us no help in dealing 
practically with the problems of our own age. We 
may study their principles, and seek to enter into 
their spirit. 

(i.) They teach us to keep in view the ideal per- 
fection of the Body of Christ. Not St. Paul only, 
but all the Apostles and Evangelists, were continually 
contemplating the heavenly glory of a brotherhood 
of men in full harmony with each other because all 
joined to Christ, of men walking in humility and 
meekness and love, endeavouring to keep the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is nothing 
in such an ideal less suited to us to-day than to the 
Christians of the first age. For ourselves, and for 
our neighbours and fellow-men, this hope should be 
in our hearts, this Divine ideal before our eyes. 
Let us believe that it is the Divine purpose, and that 
we are called to the fulfilment of it. 

(2.) They teach us, further, to subordinate means 
to the end. Is it not an express principle in the 
teaching of our Lord Himself and of his Apostles, 
that means and instruments and agencies are not to 
be worshipped in themselves but to be estimated with 
reference to the end they are to promote .? Think, 
for example, what is implied in that pregnant saying, 
" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the Sabbath." Means and instruments are not dis- 
honoured by this principle. If the end they serve 



222 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

is high and precious, they also will deserve to be 
valued. If the spiritual freedom of man is important, 
then the ordinance of a Day of Rest, which ministers 
to it, may well be sacred. But it is often appointed 
in the Providence of God that an apparent dishonour 
should be cast on means, that the minds of men may 
be forced away from resting upon them. And means 
may be varied, according to circumstances, whilst the 
same permament end is to be sought. Now the 
orders of a sacred ministry, and a historical succession 
of Bishops, and an ancient Church, and consecrated 
buildings, can claim to be nothing better than means 
for the building up of the body of Christ. It is right 
to prize them, but it is equally right to regard them 
steadily as subordinate to their end. And we might 
expect that God would make it plain to us by 
fact and history that the end is higher than the 
means and independent of them. 

(3.) They teach us again, to strive to be spiritual 
rather than ecclesiastical. By the ecclesiastical dis- 
position, I mean that which makes much of the 
dignities and rights of a Church. In the New Testa- 
ment, this disposition appears to be illustrated in 
the character of the Jews and the Judaizing Christians. 
They were always thinking of their exclusive religious 
privileges, of the sacredness of the Temple and of the 
Law, and of the questionable and dangerous position 
of those who were outside the covenant. Now this 
habit of mind, undoubtedly religious as it was, is not 
held up to our admiration in the New Testament, 
but the contrary. It is denounced as being the 



THE BODY OF CHRIST. 223 

Opposite of a true spirituality. It is shown to us as 
associated with intolerance, bigotry, hardness, cruelty, 
as most offensive to the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ and fruitful of mischief in the world. St. Paul 
had to undergo the reproach of being disloyal to the 
religion of his fathers, because he contended against 
this ecclesiastical spirit. But the reproach was as 
unjust as it was painful to him. He loved the holy 
city and the Temple and the ordinances of the Law 
and his kindred according to the flesh ; but he knew 
that the proper aim of a devout man was not to hedge 
round an organization, but to glorify and bear witness 
to the Divine Spirit. 

(4.) Again, the Apostles teach us to regard civil 
society as a Divine creation, and civil authority as 
having a Divine sanction. It is extremely impressive 
to remember that when St. Paul wrote, ** The powers 
that be are ordained of God," the highest earthly 
potentate was the Emperor Nero — not only a Pagan, 
but one of the m^ost odious and contemptible of men. 
What would he, who treated the Roman adminstration 
with such respect, have thought of the civil authority 
of a Christian country like Ours ? With what aversion 
would he have turned away from the language which 
calls it merely " natural," and seeks to foster an 
irreverent and defiant spirit towards it ! 

(5.) And lastly, let me remind you with what 
earnestness the New Testament urges us all to seek to 
be governed by the gracious and considerate Spirit of 
Jesus Christ. Wherever there is good, in whatever 
Samaritan or heathen we may see kindness and the 



224 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

fear of God, there we are to welcome it and rejoice 
in it in our Father's name. There is no respect of 
persons with God, no acceptance of any man on 
account of his religion or his profession ; under what- 
ever religious garb, he that loveth is born of God, he 
that doeth righteousness is born of God. There is no 
danger in being ready to appreciate simple goodness 
and to refer it to the working of the Divine Spirit 
wherever we may find it ; there is the greatest danger 
in failing to appreciate it. This is doctrine of un- 
questionable Divine authority, which we may often 
have opportunities of putting into practice. Let us 
remember to cherish it in all our dealings with those 
who do not belong to our own Church. Let us be 
afraid lest nature and the flesh should make us in- 
tolerant and unsympathetic ; let us be sure that 
Christ and the Spirit would win us to modesty and 
reverence and sympathy. 

I do not deprecate attachment to the Church of 
our fathers. God forbid. How can we be thankful 
enough for the privileges of which by God's mercy 
we are inheritors .'' But let us learn to set Christ 
above the Church. Then we shall not, I think, love 
our Church the less ; but we shall love it more wisely, 
and be more able, perhaps, to draw others into the 
fellowship of our love. 

THE END.