which it was the symbol have been redressed. | streaming into the Church of the families Whether the injury be serious or trivial-a point of rich Dissenters, the frequent applications in relation to which there will be great diversity to the bishops and principals of Church of feeling-it is one which the State has no right Theological Colleges from Dissenting minto inflict on any of its subjects.'—' Nineteenth isters who wish for Holy Orders, and the Century,' May 1877. general avoidance of the Dissenting minisThis absolute denial of the right of the try by the children of the wealthier NonState to grant privilege in any case is sub-conformist leaders, are facts of no slight sequently qualified by Mr. Rogers, whose significance; and in dealing with them we admissions completely solve his whole diffi- think that Dissenting writers often do themculty: If it could be proved that the selves great injustice :overthrow of the Establishment would be likely to result in an amount of evil to the country, for which the redress of any grievance that presses on us would be a very inadequate compensation, we must be content. as Christian patriots meekly to bear the cross which the nation thinks it necessary to lay upon us. But this is exactly what we cannot see.' Undoubtedly; but it is possible that some prejudice, and an exaggerated estimate of the value of abstract religious equality, may hinder the discernment of what many Nonconformists have seen clearly and acknowledged unfeignedly. What would have been the answer to any American citizen, who complained that he could not breathe freely' in this country because he was conscious that the institution of the peerage or of the monarchy was hostile to his theories of perfect civil equality? Would he not be told that the constitution was thus maintained under the conviction that the privileges of the Sovereign and the nobility, though at variance with his views of civil equality, resulted in the welfare of the entire community? We do not for one moment intend to imply that Mr. Dale and Mr. Rogers are not as loyal subjects as the staunchest of Churchmen, but the unqualified denunciation of all privilege is landing not a few of their allies into the most democratic republicanism. We might, perhaps, hardly be expected to understand the frame of spirit which in one breath arrogates to itself a lofty assertion of higher spiritual freedom and demurs at bearing the implied stigma of dissent which that freedom involves, were it not abundantly manifest that most dissenting attacks upon the Church are due to social jealousy. We can make every allowance for the pardonable mortification which Lib erationists must feel at the contrast between their own boastful estimate of Nonconformity and the practical value set upon it by their own followers. If a thing be worth what it will fetch from those who know it most intimately, and can therefore appraise it most correctly, modern Nonconformity would seem to have fallen on an evil and unappreciative generation. The constant "The idea that it is more aristocratic, more gentlemanly, to belong to the Church, is not yet extinct; and Nonconformists of wealth and culture naturally fret at this ostracism. They have a right to be indignant at it, and to scorn it as the outcome of a miserable weakness and a petty purblind jealousy.'—The Freeman,' April 26, 1878. If we admit the premisses, we can hardly deny the conclusion; but, then, where are the vaunted results of sturdy Noncomformist education? Surely the faith which overcometh the world has not grown so feeble that it fails before a miserable and purblind weakness! For our own part, we do more justice to the home spiritual influence and early religious training enjoyed by most Dissenters, than to suppose that they are won over by such ignoble agencies. It seems to us worthier of both sides to assign higher reasons for their defection. Indeed, the Freeman' itself suggests a reason that might have seemed invidious had it come from a Church quarter : เ tion than their parents, and the uncouthness Perhaps they have received a better educa of their old associates offends them. Their tastes are now refined, and the bald simplicity of our Nonconformist services can no longer gratify them. What so natural, therefore, as that they should go to Church?' pages Nor need we travel further than the of the Freeman' for an example of that very tone of thought and expression which repels many educated persons. If an article on Liturgies in General, and King Charles's in Particular,' affords a true insight into the style and temper of modern Nonconformist students, we can well imagine the sufferings inflicted on congregations which are supplied' by such an agency. The scene opens on a Sunday evening in the common hall of the college, where several of the students had gathered for a little conversation round the fire : 'Three of the gentlemen' (we are informed) tinguished by white neckties. 'had been preaching that day, and were disThe conversation was outspoken, and marked by that fear-lessness of thought and truth of utterance which is found amongst Nonconformist stu Last Sunday I accompanied a friend to church. My friend said he felt better after 'it. After it, I said, but not for it. There is always a relief-a kind of spring after having had to sit with propriety for an hour or so listening to a dull performance. I told my friend he mistook the natural reaction after a doze of dull routine for a refreshment of spiritual life. He said the Litany was scriptural. I replied that the Scripture it recalled was Baal's priests on Mount Carmel. After a criticism at once so profound and so kindly, we are not astonished to hear that Mr. Martineau's Liturgy contrasts favourably with the hodge-podge of the Anglican Prayer-book': 'that the demand for a liturgy arises from a twofold cause-laziness and a low state of spiritual life, quite as much as from the desire for a better form of expression;' or that 'the Order of Morning Service is such a jumble that, were it not for habit, it never could be tolerated. No wonder clergymen are bound by oath and capital good pay to use it. No intelligent man would ever do so without.'-The Freeman,' July 5, 1878. Yet we question whether the unconscious vulgarity, which can record or invent such utterances with complacency, will not compare favourably with the spirit which is for ever asserting its own superior culture, and, under a transparent guise of mock humility, is constantly assuring the whole bench of bishops, But for the mere accident of the Establishment, I am just as good as you.' It seems idle to urge upon minds so constituted, that the disestablishment of the Church would not improve their social position. It is hopeless to argue with them that social status is embraced in the category of imperfect rights, which cannot be enforced, and depends upon a combination of elements which are quite independent of legislation. The average tone and temper of a class; its position relatively to the other sections of the community in education, birth, and affluence; its mean specific gravity of ability, energy, and self-sacrifice; its powers of geniality and intuition, which enable it to maintain its convictions without causing needless offence; such are some of the elements which determine the social standing of any body of men, and which no Act of Parliament can touch. So long as a substantial proportion of Dissenting minis ters are men of inferior education and of intolerably dependent position, so long will their dead weight help to drag down their colleagues in the social scale. So long as the English episcopate consists of men of the highest Christian culture, and is maintained, whether by ancient endowment or modern munificence, in a position of high independence, so long will their exalted condition, which is open to all the clergy, contribute directly and indirectly to raise their social standing. Add to this, that no Act of disestablishment could abrogate the prestige of centuries, and it will be seen that the inequality complained of is inevitable and is in the nature of things. There is one point on which the Ritualistic favourers of disestablishment and Nonconformist Liberationists are entirely in accord. Both agree in loudly asserting that its connection with the State keeps the Church in bondage. To the loftiest claims for spiritual supremacy, which are urged Romanists-whose language on this point alike by Congregationalists, Ritualists, and might (strange to say) be used indifferently by any of the three-Liberation tracts and orators add innumerable taunts about the subjection of the spiritual to the civil authority. It were easy to run through a long list of such reproaches, from the roughand-ready assertion, that the State priest only prays by Act of Parliament, to Mr. Harrison's elaborate insistance that the Establishment is mediatised and secularised, from the two Houses of Convocation to the clerk and beadle of the parish.' The points of practical importance in weighing such an allegation seem to us to be exhausted by the inquiry, how far the State control as at present exercised hinders the usefulness of the Church as a body or of its members individually-how far any such hindrances might be overcome by a re-adjustment of the relations between them-and how far the maintenance of such control, under the most advantageous conditions which mature thought can devise, corresponds with the voice of Scripture and with the practice of the Church in some of its brightest days. The consideration of each of these questions lies apart from our present subject, but the bare mention of them will suffice to indicate that disestablishment is not the only remedy for any inconvenience to which the Church is at present subject in consequence of its union with the State. The Congregationalist, who holds that union to be unscriptural, will naturally put forth all his strength to dissolve it; but surely churchmen, of whatever school of thought, should exercise forbearance and patience before committing themselves to a step that would be irrevocable. Neither the insubordination and perversity of the extreme Ritualists, nor the vexatious difficulties which beset the constitution of ecclesiastical courts, afford sufficient warrant to either party for adopting a policy which would prove disastrous alike to the country and to the Church. Plans for intrusting Convocation with enlarged powers are under the consideration of able churchmen, and it is not too much to expect that the mutual yearning for conciliation, and the closer rapprochement which is being displayed so honourably by all but extreme partisans within the Church, will gradually lead to a satisfactory settlement of many grave existing difficulties. But on one point it is necessary to speak with unmistakable plainness. We are convinced that the Church laity of this country, whether the Church be established or disestablished, will never hand servedly to the clergy either the definition of Church dogma or the interpretation of the Book of Common Prayer. over unre It is important to recollect that complaints about the bondage of the Church may be prompted by a desire for such sacerdotal supremacy, and the weighty and solemn warning of Bishop Thirlwall, uttered twenty-five years ago, may be commended to churchmen in our own day :— With regard to the power of deliberation, although it may be that much is left to desire, I think there is no ground for complaining that the Church is subject to any intolerable restraint. And I believe that something very different is meant by the language which we now so often hear, which represents her as working in chains, and pining in bondage, and by the charges of timidity or servility brought against those who fill her highest offices, as acquiescing in her misery and degradation. I think it is plain that all this points to the want of quite another kind of power, that of authoritative binding decision, which many would like to see exercised by a purely ecclesiastical assembly, and without which they would set little value on any Synod, or rather would be the more dissatisfied, the more its constitution corresponded to their wishes. Now, it is true the Church does not possess, and, as long as her relations to the State remain what they are, never can possess such a power of synodical action as this, by which the majority of a Synod would be able to bind the minority and the rest of the Church, and either to establish a new definition of doctrine, or to shut out from her ministry, if not from her communion, all who do not construe her language in the same sense with themselves. And it is because this power could not be exercised without the consent of the State, and because there is not the remotest prospect that it will ever be conceded by the legislature, that we hear murmurings of growing discontent, and longings more and more audibly whispered, for a Free Church, and for the severance of ties which are regarded as shackles. It is very important that the real nature and meaning of these complaints and wishes should be clearly unMuch valuable light has of derstood.. late been thrown upon this question. I wish that those who may have been perplexed and disquieted by a "History of Erastianism," which begins near the end of the subject, would, by way of supplement, study an account of it from another hand, which carries the review back into a remote antiquity, and which furnishes evidence sufficient, I think, to satisfy every candid inquirer that at all events we are not in this respect labouring under auy new or impartial grievance. trust that many of those who have been misled to crave an impracticable redress of an imaginary wrong will yet feel the weight of his grave and seasonable warning: "When we determine to find elsewhere that independence of the civil power, which Christians in ages wiser and better than our own never desired to attain, we lay open our faith to a danger under which we can the less expect divine deliverance because we bring it upon ourselves." For my own part, I cheerfully accept my full share of all the obloquy incurred by those who shrink from the responsibility of exposing the Church to such a danger.'-Remains, i. pp. 178-180. It is the more important to remember this testimony of so sound and learned an historian as Bishop Thirlwall, because much modern argument in favour of disestablishment assumes it as incontrovertible, that the Church, in ages wiser and better than our own,' was independent of the civil power. Their mutual relations may of course require readjustment, owing to the changed circumstances of the time; and the Convocation of the Southern Province last year suggested a plan, upon the lines of which some legislation may be found practicable. Already such an increase in the Episcopate has been virtually secured, as but a short time since might have been well deemed hopeless. For the present, at any rate, the most ardent spirits will do well to ask themselves, first, whether their field of usefulness is appreciably narrowed by the existing order of things; and, secondly, whether the results of disestablishment, so far as would not probably produce results diametreason and experience enable us to judge, rically in opposition to their wishes. In truth, few things can be more astound *An Argument for the Royal Supremacy.' By the Rev. Sanderson Robins. ing than the recklessness with which disestablishment is advocated by some Churchmen as a remedy for the real or imaginary grievances under which the Church is labouring, without due consideration of the probable consequences. We are not left without abundant light afforded us on this head, by the existence of vast and wealthy religious communities, whose condition, as described by themselves, warns us what are the dangers to which unendowed religious societies are exposed. The statistics given in the Congregational Year Book for 1878 supply no unfair example of the working of the voluntary system. We learn from it that for 3137 chapels in England and Wales, and for 1092 preaching and evangelistic stations, the Congregationalists have only 1953 pastors in charge; 304 churches are returned as vacant, 41 more are served by lay pastors, and 210 are variously supplied. If, then, we set aside all the preaching stations, we have 553 churches confessedly vacant; whilst of the remainder there may be 1321, each of which has a separate minister, and 1264 more with only a pastor for every two churches. In strange juxtaposition with so vast a deficiency, no less than 558 ministers' names are entered in the Year Book as without pastoral charge. With all the wealth which the community enjoys, and with its much vaunted superiority in kindling through the voluntary principle the enthusiastic support of its adherents, from one-fifth to one-sixth of the regular congregations are absolutely without pastors, whilst the same proportionate number of pastors are without congregations. Nor can it be maintained that this unfavourable condition of things is due to the deadly shadow cast upon the denomination by the establishment of the Church of England, inasmuch as 21 churches are returned as vacant out of 121 in Canada and Newfoundland; and there is the same number of vacancies in the 169 churches of Australia. What prospect there may be of any speedy improvement can be estimated from the returns, which give 120 as the total number of new ministers settled at home and abroad in 1877, against a loss of 101 by resignation, 18 by secession to other denominations, and 74 by death-or 193 in all; leaving a definite loss of effective power of no less than 73 ministers during a single year. We are tempted to suppose that such a state of things must be quite exceptional, and due to the peculiar organization and management of the Congregational churches, but the Baptist Handbook' for 1878 presents us with a striking parallel. Here again there is a marked discrepancy between the number of chapels in England and Wales, which is given as 3278, and the supply of pastors, which falls to exactly 2000; but of the latter from one-fifth to one-sixth (the exact figure appears to be 372) are without pastoral care. It is the same tale repeated of chapels without pastors and pastors without chapels. The Handbook does not give us details of gains to the ministerial body by ordination or accession from other communions; but it records the deaths of 37 pastors, the removals of 175, and the settlement of 59. A comparative table shows how much the number of pastors in charge fluctuates from year to year; in 1872 (the first year entered in the return) it was 1779; in 1876 it rose to 1913; in 1877 it fell again to 1825. With commendable straightforwardness, the editer vouches only for the approximate correctness of these returns. We Nor do the figures furnish less remarkable evidence, if we had space for a searching analysis, of the painful restlessness which causes such numerous and constant removals of ministers from their posts. Many men, doubtless, there are in these and other voluntary churches, whose names would do honour to any religious community, and whose personal piety and worth have won and retain for them a lasting hold over the flocks committed to their charge; but despite such brilliant exceptions there must be something faulty in the system which results in dissatisfaction so widespread, and which produces such disastrous consequences. We indulge in no unkina reflections upon the utterly inadequate stipends of their ministers, which has formed the subject of so many moving_complaints and of so many energetic efforts. grieve for the sad necessity which compels the voluntary bodies almost without exception to shorten the term of preparation for the ministry, and to hand over the spiritual instruction of their people to beardless boys. It is the system and not the individuals that we blame. But in the face of such facts, it seems to us little short of madness on the part of any who care for the maintenance of Christian truth, to propose that we should secularise our existing Church endowments, and cast the entire body of Christian teachers upon resources which experience shows to be so untrustworthy. We had rather a thousand-fold hand over our endowments entire to other religious bodies for the support of gospel teaching, than cry with the Liberationists, Let them be neither mine, nor thine, but divide them.' It is of no small importance to inquire what is the practical effect of voluntaryism | struction of the entire rural population of upon the tone and character of its ministers. the country. Once more let it be understood that we are not casting any imputations upon persons. We have only to deal with the general tendencies of a system, and if these be injurious, they are sure eventually to produce undesirable results. We prefer to let the testimony of Dissenters give its own conclusive evidence on this head as being altogether beyond suspicion : 'A man with an income of 607. a year, drawn from a few people whom he is bound to please, and yet may very easily displease, cannot afford to speak his mind. We have observed such poor men painfully calculating the loss to their income if such and such persons were to take offence and leave the place. There are hundreds of Nonconformist ministers who, laboriously treading out the corn, are muzzled, and not unmuzzled. And this is our blessed voluntaryism; and for this we fight against endowments and would have them devoted to relieving the rates for sewering and paving.'-The Christian World,' Aug. 11, 1876. A review of Aggressive Nonconformity in its existing phase would be altogether imperfect without some notice of the Agricultural Labourers' Union, whose alliance is so studiously courted by the most prominent Liberationist leaders. A study of the English Labourers' Chronicle,' the property and organ of the Union, proves that its members have grasped with eagerness the lessons taught them by the latest exponents of Liberationism. We pass by the abusive denunciations of the Church and the clergy as the enemies of education and of the poor. When Mr. Arch, -to feed whose personal vanity the 'Labourers' Chronicle maintained-asserts that the greatest obstaseems to have been started and cle to the social improvement of the labourer has been, as a rule, the clergymen of the Establishment, he is but echoing the ordinary clap-trap of his parliamentary and literary chiefs; although possibly the comparison to Moloch of the Parish Priest of Eng We could fill page after page with Non-land clothed in his sacred vestments, who conformist testimony to the wide-spread injury caused by the want of endowments. The English Independent,' for the 4th of May, 1877, contains a lengthened report of the Triennial Conference of the Liberation Society, which fills more than a score of its pages, but, with all this pressure on its space, room is found for a long communication ministerial support, with a few brief extracts from which we must close this part of our subject :— upon has stood in the midst of country homes and seen children starved to death without inquiry,' would be a trifle too strong even for Mr. Miall and Mr. Chamberlain, or for Mr. Harrison and Mr. Morley. But, to the leaders of the Agricultural Labourers' Union, the downfall of the Church is only a stepping-stone to the destruction of the landed gentry. They care less about the village church than they do for the village green, stolen from them, as Mr. Harrison bears witness, by the squire. Each weekly Oh, there must be a wonderfully sustain-issue for the first six months of the present ing power in the gospel they preach, or they would long ago have succumbed to the strain put upon them-the strain of poverty. The fact of so many ministers changing or seeking to change their pastorates throughout the country proves there is oppression somewhere. A minister, according to the apostolic type, should be a pastor as well as a preacher; but, in the present day, he is not, nor do I see how he can be. We inveigh against the tyranny of a creed that binds men's minds down to a rubric; but is there not a tyranny deadlier and more depressing to be found in some of our rural districts, where 'narrow-minded magnates, because they find the stipend, stipulate as to what is to be taught in the pulpit, as inexorably as any of our ecclesiastical prelates or Courts of Ap-off land left or transferred in greater quanti'By a ten per cent. probate duty, cutting peal? Is this a fact in our boasted Noncon- ties than one hundred acres, this can be done formity, or is it not?' It is needless to pursue the argument further. By the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England, on the basis proposed by the Liberationists, the Legislature would imperil the Christian in year contains a paper on the Land Question, whose outspoken utterances assuredly leave nothing to be desired on the score of frankness. It is instructive to remark the calm forgetfulness with which the 'Labourers' Chronicle,' whilst advocating the disendowment of the clergy, observes that : 'An endowed peasantry becomes an elevated peasantry; their thoughts are awakened, and their ideas widened from a sense of independence.' How the needed endowment is to be obtained is not left in obscurity. in the best and readiest manner. It is the change we want, the manner of it may be this stroyed, how we care not. But we would rather or that. The land monopoly must be deit were done on the lines of legislation in the manner of taxation, and not with violence. It will soon come one way or the other. |