Chapter IX: Part 9

But while admitting, as who could hesitate to admit, that the practice so long followed of appointing Englishmen to all the higher ecclesiastical offices in Wales, could not fail to affect most injuriously the interests of the Welsh Church, we must utterly demur, as we have already intimated, to the exaggerated influence ascribed by the modern defenders of the Church to this circumstance, as though it were the sole cause of its inefficiency. For let us look a little more closely into the matter. The period to which the advocates of this theory are fond of reverting, as constituting the ideal era of the Established Church in Wales, when it was governed principally by native prelates, is, speaking in general terms, the interval between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the reign of William and Mary, or to take the precise dates, adopted by those among them who have most carefully investigated the subject, from the years 1558 to 1715. They specify the names of twenty-four Welshmen elevated to Welsh sees during these 257 years. But what was done by these Cymric bishops for the spiritual good of the Principality? Mr. Johnes, whose work is the great repertory of information on all matters connected with this subject, mentions three out of the whole number who seem to have distinguished themselves by some service rendered to their country. First, Bishop Morgan, who translated the Bible into the Welsh language; but he did this _not_ as bishop, but as the vicar of a small country parish in Denbighshire, and he undertook the work precisely _because_ it had been neglected by the Welsh prelates to whom it had been entrusted. Second, Bishop Parry, who brought out a new edition of the Bible for use in the churches. Third, Bishop Owen, who succeeded to the diocese of St. Asaph in 1629, and of whom we are told that 'he began first by his order and decrees, to establish preaching in Welsh in St. Asaph parish church, and as it is supposed, in other parish churches, in his diocese. He repaired his cathedral at his own cost, and set up a new organ in it;'--expressions which evidently seem to imply, that these very simple and obvious duties had been neglected by his predecessors, though they also were native prelates. We have, also, seen a general statement that some of the others established and endowed schools in particular localities in Wales. Of most of the rest we know nothing, but of some of them we know something. We know of Bishop Hughes, of St. Asaph, that he held sixteen rich livings _in commendam_, and left his diocese in the disgraceful condition already described in the early part of this article. We know that under Bishop Meyrick, of Bangor, there were, by his own acknowledgment, only two preachers in his diocese; and that according to the testimony of Strype, the grossest scandals were openly practised by the clergy. We know that the four native bishops, who by the Act of Elizabeth, of 1563, were charged with translating the Scriptures into Welsh, so neglected their duty as that even the churches were left without Welsh Bibles for twenty-five years after that date. We know that for seventy years after the settlement of the Reformation, not a single edition of the Bible in the Welsh language was issued for the use of the people. We know that from 1640 to 1690, which forms a considerable portion of the vaunted era of Welsh bishops, Churchmen published only one edition of the Scriptures--a large folio, for use in the churches--while during the same interval the Nonconformists published nine editions. We know that the contributions of the 'native bishops' to the moral and religious literature of the Cymry are conspicuous by their absence. We have examined with some care Rowland's 'Cambrian Bibliography' ('_Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry_'), containing an account of all books published in the Welsh language from 1546 to 1800, and, between the years 1558 and 1715, the era of Welsh bishops, we have failed to discover a single work written in Welsh or translated into Welsh by any one of these prelates, except 'A Letter to the Welsh,' by Bishop Davies, introducing Salesbury's translation of the New Testament. Nor is there any proof that they helped or promoted in any important degree the publication of religious books in the Welsh language, while the Nonconformists of that age laboured indefatigably to enlighten the people through the press. Even Vicar Pritchard's work, 'The Welshman's Candle,' left by him in manuscript, and which, next to the Bible, had the greatest influence on the religious character of the country, was published by the care and at the expense of Mr. Stephen Hughes, a Nonconformist minister. But above all, we know what was the state of the Church and the country during, and at the end of, the reign of this long dynasty of Welsh bishops. It is described in the language already cited of Strype, and Penry, and Pritchard, and Edwards, and Thomas, and Erasmus Saunders, and Griffith Jones, and Howell Harris. And we beg our readers specially to observe, that all the witnesses we have summoned to depose to the character and condition of the Welsh Church during three centuries of its history, have been members of the Church itself. If there is one exception, it is that of John Penry. But he also was born in the Church, and baptized in the Church, and ordained in the Church, for we are told that he was 'a famous preacher of the University' and he had, moreover, the honour of being persecuted, imprisoned, and hung by the Church. With that one doubtful exception all the rest lived and died within its pale. We might, of course, have added a large number of witnesses from the ranks of Nonconformity, whose testimony, we believe, would have been quite as trustworthy. But we have preferred omitting whatever might be thought open to even the suspicion of sectarian prejudice. Let us remember, that several of the 'native bishops' lived several years into the beginning of the eighteenth century, and if they had exercised so blessed an influence on the Church and the country as it is now the fashion to affirm, that influence could not have suddenly vanished immediately after their death. _Nemo repente fuit turpissimus_ is surely as applicable to a community as to an individual. And yet we know by the confession of all candid Churchmen, that when Griffith Jones and Howell Harris began their labours--the former in 1730, and the latter in 1735--the Welsh Church was in a most lamentable state of inefficiency and corruption.

The simple truth is, that the history of the Welsh Church is only a crucial illustration of the invariable and inevitable evils that attend State establishments of religion. It is true that in its case these evils appear in a somewhat aggravated form, from the attempt made by the English Government to treat Wales as a conquered country, and to employ the Church as an agent in the extinction of its language and nationality. But when the life of a Christian Church is made to depend not on the faith, love, and liberality of its own members, and the presence and blessing of its Divine Master, but upon the protection and patronage of the civil government, and when, as a necessary consequence, the administration of its affairs falls into the hands of worldly politicians, who use it as an instrument of State, what can be expected but what always has ensued, that its spiritual life should wither, until those who seek real religious nourishment from its breasts are driven in sheer desperation to seek it elsewhere?

Indeed, it is curious that the friends of the Welsh Church, while enumerating the secondary causes which have led to her ruin, do not find their way, which they may do by a single step, to the right conclusion as to the primary cause from which all the others spring. Our Church, they say, has suffered grievous injustice from the alienation of her revenues, from the appointment of unqualified persons to all her highest offices, from the most flagrantly corrupt use of patronage, from the neglect of native talent, from laxity of godly discipline. But who has alienated her revenues? The State. Who has made those unfitting appointments? The State. Who has exercised patronage so corruptly? The State and its nominees, the bishops. Who has overlooked native talent? Again, the State and its nominees. Who has neglected to enforce godly discipline? Still, the State and its nominees. Yet, when it is proposed to strike away the fetters which bind them to the power that has thus maltreated and oppressed them, they hug their chains with frantic vehemence, and even use them as weapons with which to assail those who would fain assist in their liberation.

But let us now inquire into the condition of the Church in our own day. And in the phrase 'our own day,' we suppose we may include a period of twenty-five years. We have previously observed that, for a long time after the revival of religion which stimulated the Dissenters in Wales to such extraordinary activity in providing the means of religious instruction for the people, the Church continued sunk in utter apathy. It is impossible to find a more conclusive illustration of this, than is afforded by the following statement of the comparative progress made in church and chapel accommodation during the first half of the present century. It is founded on the Census Returns of 1851, and appears in Mr. Richards's 'Letters on the Social and Political Condition of Wales,' where it is cited on the authority of a very accomplished statistician, the late Mr. Plint of Leeds. North Wales, in 1801, stood thus as to religious accommodation:--

Proportion to all
Sittings Sittings
Church of England 99,216 75·2
All others 32,664 24·8
------- -----
Total 131,880 100·0

In the fifty years following, the population increased from 252,765 to 412,114, or 63 per cent. To have kept up the ratio of sittings to population by each of these sections of religionists, the former should have supplied 62,505 sittings, and it did supply 16,164. The latter ought to have supplied 20,576, and it did supply 217,928. The Church of England fell short of its duty 73·5 per cent., and all other denominations exceeded it 950 per cent. The ratio of sittings to population, which, in 1801, was 52·1 per cent. (5·9 less than the proper standard, according to Mr. Horace Mann), was, in 1851, 88·9--that is, 30 per cent. above it.

South Wales, in 1801, stood thus:--

Sittings. Proportion to all
Sittings.
Church of England 133,514 61·8
All others 82,443 38·2
------- -----
Total 215,957 100·0

The population increased from 289,892 to 593,607, or 105·5 per cent. The quota of sittings required of the Church was 140,854; it did provide 15,204. The other denominations ought to have provided 86,975; they did provide 270,510. The Church of England fell short of its duty 89 per cent.; the other denominations exceeded it 211 per cent. The ratio of sittings to population in 1801 was 74·7 per cent., and in 1851, 84·5. Can the force of antithesis go further.[165]

But we must descend a little more into detail, and furnish some practical illustrations, still taken from the testimony of Churchmen themselves, as to the condition of their Church in Wales in these modern times. In 1849, Sir Benjamin Hall made a speech in the House of Commons, in which he described the state of things at that time, especially in the diocese of St. David's. He spoke of the total neglect of archidiaconal visitations, of the small number of services performed in the diocese, and of the ruinous and deserted state of the churches. Here are a few extracts from his statement, taken, we believe, from the Report of the Commissioners on Education:--

'No. 1. Kemys Hundred.--In the whole country between
Fishguard on the north, and the Precelly mountain on the
south, there is no day-school, and the state of the church
exemplifies the neglect in which the population of the
parishes are left. The churches of Llandeilo and
Maenchlogag are in ruins. In that of Morfyl the panes of
the chancel window were all out, the inside of the church
wet, as if just rinsed with water--indeed it had been, for
the afternoon was raining.

'No. 2. Hasguard.--School held in the church, where the
master and four little children were ensconced in the
chancel, amidst lumber, round a three-legged grate full of
burning sticks, without funnel or chimney for the smoke to
escape; how they bore it I cannot tell. There had been no
churchwarden in the parish for the last ten years, nor, it
is believed, for a much longer period.

'No. 3. Llanafan Fechan.--Mr. Rees, farmer, who lives close
to the church, informed me that divine service was very
seldom performed here, unless there are banns to publish, a
wedding, or a funeral.

'No. 4. Llandulais.--This church is a barn-like building
with large holes in the roof, evincing every symptom of
neglect and discomfort.

'No. 5. Llanfihangel Abergwessin.--No service performed in
this church five out of six Sundays for want of a
congregation.

'No. 6. Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan.--Divine service not often
performed here, except a wedding or funeral takes place.
The vicar rides by on a Sunday afternoon, but seldom has
occasion to alight and do duty, from the want of a
congregation.

'No. 7. Llanfair tref Helygon,--The parish church was in
ruins many years ago; the oldest inhabitant does not
remember it standing.

'No. 8. Llandegley.--The clergyman is forbidden to have his
horses in the churchyard, but he puts in two calves. The
school is held in the church, into which the belfry opens,
which is open to the churchyard. Calves are still turned
into the churchyard, and, I was told, still sleep in the
belfry.

'No. 9. Llangybi, four miles from Llanbedr College, has
neither doors nor windows. The sacrament has not been
administered for _ten_ years. Service seldom performed at
all. Cows and horses walk into the church and out at
pleasure.

'No. 10. Llanfihangel Ar Arth, also near Llanbedr.--Here
there was once a chapel of ease; the stones of its ruins
have now disappeared, though a yew-tree marks the spot; and
the baptismal font was lately seen used as a pig-trough.
Yet the dissenters have five chapels, and congregations
amounting to 1,200.

'No. 11. Llandeilo Abercywyn.--The incumbent is
occasionally obliged to ring the church bell himself; but
sometimes the congregation amounts to two or three persons.

'No. 12.--In another parish the vicar has been in the
Insolvent Court; and was also suspended for three years for
immorality, but allowed to return. He has only a
congregation of about fifty, whilst the dissenters have
four chapels, with congregations of about 1,300.

'No. 13 Llandeilo Fach.--No service here for about _ten_
years. The roof has fallen down for several years; but,
fortunately, there is a dissenting chapel, with a
congregation of about 300.

'No. 15. Llanddowror.--This parish is a frightful
demonstration of the destruction of the Church in Wales by
the present system. About eighty years ago this parish was
under the pastoral care of a native Welshman, the excellent
and eminent Griffith Jones, renowned for his piety,
abilities, and qualifications. This church had then 500
communicants, and people came many miles to attend the
service. But this church has now no roof to its chancel,
of which it has been destitute several years. The
churchyard has neither wall nor fence; sheep were seen
standing on the church tower some months ago. In one parish
the curate has only of late been suspended, of whom the
parishioners said he was "so bad the devil would soon be
ashamed of him." The vicar had not preached in this parish
for ten years, and lives twenty miles off. He has had the
care of the parish since 1812, which is now reduced to the
above deplorable state, though formerly, when in other
hands, it was quoted as the model parish of Wales.'

Such was the aspect of the Church in the diocese of St. David's only twenty years ago; and we have no doubt there were scores of other parishes in the same diocese in little better condition than those specified in the above extracts.

Let us now turn to look at another diocese. In the year 1850 a vigorous effort was made to promote church extension in the diocese of Llandaff. An appeal was issued in the form of a letter from the Archdeacon of Llandaff to the Bishop, stating the facts of the case, which were these. The population of the two Archdeaconries of Llandaff and Monmouth was 173,139. There was church-accommodation for only 17,440. Let our readers specially remark this fact. After having been in possession of the country for three hundred years, the Established Church in that part of Wales did not pretend to have made provision, in the year of grace 1850, for the religious instruction of more than one-tenth of the vast population committed to her care. But, did the people avail themselves of her ministrations even to that extent? The answer is at hand. Among others to whom the appeal for help in building new churches, founded on the above showing, was sent, was Sir Benjamin Hall. Before responding to that appeal, Sir Benjamin, who was intimately conversant with that part of the country, and who had his doubts whether more church-accommodation, scanty as it was, was really needed for the district, instructed competent persons to count the actual numbers who attended the churches and the dissenting chapels in forty of the parishes of the diocese on a given Sunday. He published the result in a pamphlet, in the form of a letter to the Bishop, from which it appeared that, while the sittings provided in the churches were 17,440, the total number of actual attendants at the most numerously-attended service on Sunday, October 13th, 'the weather being particularly fine,' was 7,229; while the number which attended the 227 chapels provided by the Nonconformists, in the same district, amounted, on the same day, to 80,270. 'From the above it appears,' says the writer of the pamphlet, 'that so far from the churches being too small to hold the remnant of Churchmen which the zeal and activity of Dissenters have not wrested from us, there is, at present, room for 9,591 persons in addition to those who now attend the divine service of the Established Church.'

If we turn to one of the North Wales dioceses, that of Bangor, it would seem that even now, notwithstanding the energetic efforts which the present bishop is known to have made to infuse some life into the church, its condition, according to the acknowledgment of its own friends, is sufficiently discouraging. At a meeting held in Bangor last year, the bishop in the chair, a lay churchman said that Anglesey has seventy-nine parishes, fifty-two of which have no parsonages. The seventy-nine parishes are held by forty rectors; two of them possess four livings each, eight of them possess three livings each, and seventeen two each. He said that the desirable thing for Anglesey was the residence of the clergyman among his parishioners. He declared that the church there was now 'empty.' Another of the speakers, Lord Penrhyn, acknowledged that Dissent had prevented Wales from becoming a heathen country. At a clerical conference held in the same city in August, 1868, also under the presidency of the bishop, the Rev. P. C. Ellis, Llanfairfechan, in the course, we are told, of 'a very earnest address,' made these remarks:--'He believed if the Church of Ireland were disestablished it would be a just judgment upon the clergy of that church for their shortcomings, and he was convinced that investigation would show that the clergy of the church in this country had fallen as far short of their duty as their brethren in Ireland. He trembled to think what the report of the state of the Church in Wales would disclose, as he believed its position was worse than that of the Church in Ireland. If the Church in Ireland were to go down, the Church in Wales must surely follow.'

With regard to the number of persons still attached to the Church in Wales, there is great discrepancy of opinion. Without pronouncing dogmatically on the subject, we propose to furnish our readers with certain data, which may assist them in drawing their own conclusions. So far as we know, the first, and we believe the most careful attempt that was ever made to procure a return of the ecclesiastical statistics of Wales, was in 1846, by Mr. Hugh Owen, Honorary Secretary of the Cambrian Educational Society, a gentleman to whom the Principality is indebted for many valuable services. What provoked that inquiry was this. About that time the National Society was making a strenuous effort to cover Wales with day-schools, wherein, according to the fundamental regulations of that Society, 'the children were to be instructed in the Holy Scriptures, and the liturgy and catechism of the Church of England, such instruction to be subject to the superintendence of the parochial clergyman;' 'the children to be assembled for the purpose of attending service in the parish church;' 'the masters and mistresses to be members of the Church of England,' &c. A special appeal was issued on behalf of Wales by Archdeacon Sinclair, with a view 'to raise a large fund' to establish schools on the above principles. In this appeal, the suggestion 'to adopt a broad basis in which all sects could unite,' was sternly rejected. No system 'from which the characteristic doctrines of the Church of England were expunged' could be tolerated for an instant. To show how utterly unsuited to the country schools of this description must prove to be, the inquiry of which we speak was instituted. Having obtained, through means of the relieving officers, the names and addresses of trustworthy persons in about three-fourths of the parishes in Wales, Mr. Owen addressed a circular to each of those persons, requesting a return of--1. The name of every place of worship in his district. 2. The name of the denomination to which it belonged. 3. The exact number of the congregation at each place of worship on the first Sunday after the receipt of the circular, in the morning, afternoon, and evening. 4. The exact number attending the Sunday-school at each place, morning and afternoon.[166] Returns were received from 392 parishes, thirty of which were in Anglesey, fifty-nine in Carnarvonshire, fifty-three in Denbighshire, seventeen in Flintshire, twenty-three in Merionethshire, twenty-eight in Montgomeryshire, twenty-seven in Breconshire, fifty-four in Cardiganshire, forty in Carmarthenshire, eighteen in Glamorganshire, forty-three in Pembrokeshire, and ten in Radnorshire. The population of these 392 parishes amounted to 431,000. As the total population of Wales, not including Monmouthshire, was then only 911,603, that of the returned parishes contained nearly one-half of the whole population of the country. The result is thus summarized in a pamphlet published soon after:--

'From the returns it appeared that the number attending the
morning services of dissenters were 79,694, the morning
service of the church, only 18,128, being more than four
dissenters to one churchman; the afternoon services of
dissenters were attended by 63,379, those of the church by
5,710, or about seven dissenters to one churchman. The
evening services of the church were attended by 9,889, and
those of dissenters by 128,216, or twenty-two dissenters to
one churchman. The average attendance on the Sunday was--

Churchmen 11,242
Dissenters 90,415
-------
Total average attendance 101,657

Hence the average attendance of dissenters as compared with
churchmen was as eight to one.

'The actual morning attendance at dissenting Sunday-Schools
was 40,641, at the church schools 3,396, or in the
proportion of twelve to one. In the afternoon, the
dissenters' schools were attended by 57,243, the church
schools by 6,002, or more than nine to one, giving an
average proportion of eleven to one in favour of dissenting
schools.'

It may be objected that as there were probably many churches in which only one service was held, the deduction, from the average of three services, may be unfair. Well, let it be noticed that the maximum number attending the churches is in the morning, when it amounts to 18,128; and that the maximum number attending the dissenting chapels is in the evening, when it amounts to 128,216; hence the ratio of the maximum attendance at dissenting chapels (evening service) to the maximum attendance at the churches (morning service) is seven to one. But leaving out of account for the moment the relative proportions of Church and Dissent, as indicated by these returns, what do they tell us of the absolute number of persons attached to the Church, as compared with the population? Instead of taking the average attendance at three services, we will, as before, take the number present at the most numerously attended, namely, the morning service; and if we add to that number one-fourth to represent absentees, we shall have a total of 22,660 souls. This, in a population of 431,000, would amount to rather more than one in nineteen of church-goers.

But let us now turn to the official census of 1851. We have not the slightest wish to impeach the general accuracy of the facts and figures given in Mr. Horace Mann's masterly report. But the condition of Wales is very peculiar, and the general rules laid down by that eminent statistician for classifying and formulating the immense mass of figures with which he had to deal, while fair enough, no doubt, to the normal state of society in England, may not have been equally applicable to a country in so exceptional a state as Wales.

That a serious error has crept in somewhere into the returns, as respects the Principality, is obvious from this one fact. The number of sittings provided by the Church of England is stated to be 301,807, and the number of the worshipping population of the same church on the 31st of March, 1851, is stated to be 138,719. Now Mr. Mann shows that the proportion per cent. of attendants to sittings in the Established Church, throughout all England and Wales, is only thirty-three; whereas by the above showing, the proportion of attendants to sittings in Wales alone is 40 per cent. We venture to say, that no man competently acquainted with Wales, knowing, as every such man must know, the miserably meagre attendance at hundreds of churches in that country, would for an instant believe that the churches are occupied in the proportion of 40 per cent. of attendants to sittings. Let us, however, take the figures given to us in the census. The population of Wales, including Monmouthshire, in 1851, was 1,188,914. The total number of places of worship was 4,006, which was distributed thus:

PLACES OF WORSHIP.

Of the places of worship--
The Established Church furnished 1,180
Nonconformists 2,826
-----
4,006

SITTINGS.

Of the sittings (including estimates for defective return)--
Established Church furnished 301,897, or 30 per cent.
Nonconformists 692,239, or 70 per cent.

It appears thus, that the Church had provided sittings for only 25 per cent. of the population, while the Nonconformists had provided sittings for nearly 59 per cent.

But how about attendance? According to Table B. of the Census of Religious Worship, the greatest number by very far of attendants at the services of the Established Church on the Census Sunday was in the morning. The number was 100,953. If we add one-fourth to this number for the absentees, we have 126,191, which represents 10·6 per cent., not quite one in nine of the population.

But these facts, sufficiently remarkable as they are in themselves, give really but an imperfect impression of the real magnitude of the anomaly which exists in Wales. An Established Church is presumably a _national_ Church, and rests its claim to being established on the ground of its being national. Above all, it ought to be _par excellence_ the poor man's Church, as some of the friends of the English Establishment are wont to allege, with what truth we pause not now to inquire, that theirs is. But in Wales the Church is not only not national, but it is anti-national; and the whole policy of its rulers for at least a hundred and fifty years has been inspired by a prejudice as stupid as it was mean against, the Welsh nationality and language. At present, of the small remnant of the population which still remains within its pale, by far the larger part are either English immigrants into Wales, or that portion of the Welsh people which have become Anglified in their feelings and tastes; and instead of being the poor man's Church, that of Wales is emphatically and almost exclusively the rich man's Church. There are scores, we might safely say hundreds of churches, in which, if the clergyman's family and the squire's family, and their few dependents and parasites were removed, there would be absolutely no congregation at all.

Mr. Gladstone lamented, as members of the Welsh Church also sometimes profess to lament, the want of accurate and trustworthy information as to the real facts of the case as regards the several religious opinions in Wales. But whose fault is that? There would be no difficulty whatever, in a small country like Wales, in obtaining perfectly accurate information as to the number of adherents to the church, if that body were to follow the example of the principal Nonconformist denominations in the Principality, who collect and publish periodically statistical returns of the members of their churches, and the attendants at public worship. But the clergy of the establishment, clinging tenaciously in the face of notorious facts to the fond fancy that theirs is the national church, however small a fragment of the nation really belongs to it, decline to give us the number either of their communicants or of those who habitually frequent their churches. We are driven therefore to look for such incidental indications of the real state of the case as may come within our reach. Some of these, however, are very significant. In the National Society's report for 1866-7 there is a return given of the number of persons attending Church Sunday Schools in Wales. They amounted to 49,358, or 4 per cent. of the population. The number found in Dissenting Sunday Schools, according to the printed year books of the various denominations on the same year, was 351,128, or 29 per cent. of the population, thus showing the Church Sunday scholars to be one-eighth of the entire number. These returns are all the more valuable, because in Wales it is not the children merely that attend the Sunday schools, but a very large proportion of the adult population also.

Very striking revelations have been made, likewise, in connection with Day Schools in Wales, tending to throw much light on the actual and comparative strength of the church. When the committee of Council on Education began to make grants for the erection of schools, there was a great rush of applicants from the friends of the Established Church in Wales. They had many advantages in their favour for undertaking the work of establishing Day Schools. They had nearly the whole land and a great proportion of the wealth of the country in their possession. As they drew the means for the support of their clergy, the fabrics of the church, and public worship--which the Dissenters had to provide out of their own pockets--from the national endowments, they had all their resources at liberty to devote to the work of education. The administrators of the national fund were their partial friends, and dispensed it with a lavish profusion, with little or no inquiry into the fitness of those who applied, to direct and control the education of such a population as that of Wales. The National Society, as already shown, made an appeal, which was liberally responded to, for a special fund in which the co-operation of England was solicited, to promote 'the education of our fellow-countrymen throughout Wales in the principles of our common church.' Our friends of the Establishment, moreover, were restrained by no scruple whatever from receiving public money to any extent for teaching their own peculiar tenets in day schools, while the Dissenters conscientiously refused the proffered grants of Government aid for religious instruction. This sudden access of educational zeal sprang avowedly in great part from proselyting motives. The Bishop of St. David's, in one of his early charges, adverting to the peculiar condition of the Principality, confessed that the existing generation was hopelessly alienated from the church, but that the next could and must be recovered by attending to the education of the young. The result of this effort was that State-aided Church schools sprang up in all the larger towns and villages, and in many remote hamlets, and that often in places where there were not half-a-dozen church children.[167] In these schools the principles of the National Society were rigidly enforced. All the children were taught the Church catechism, and obliged to attend church on Sundays. But State-aided schools were liable to inspection, and the inspectors had to present their reports to the Committee of Council, and these were laid before Parliament and the public. It was not possible, therefore, in reporting on the state of education in Wales, wholly to conceal the fact, that an enormous majority of the people held religious views different from those held by the class who in many places had undertaken to direct their education. This has often come out in the reports of even Church of England Inspectors. Thus the Rev. Longueville Jones, who was inspector of Church schools in Wales in 1854, says:--'The number of children in Welsh schools whose parents belong to the Church is so very small, that it requires great experience and delicacy of feeling to treat their young minds as they should be.'[168] As an illustration of the difficulty with which this gentleman had to contend, it is only necessary to refer to the statistics he gives of one school under his inspection, in which out of 107 children, only five were of parents belonging to the Church, whilst in the following year the same school contained 144 children, of whom two only were of church-going parents. To come down to a later period in the report of the Rev. S. Pryce, Inspector of Church of England Schools for Mid-Wales, for 1868, we find the following admission:--'The number of children attending the Welsh country schools I visit, is great beyond all proportion when compared with the number of persons attending church.'[169]

Among the inspectors of British schools in Wales was and is Mr. J. Bowstead. We believe that Mr. Bowstead is himself a churchman. But he is a liberal and candid churchman. When, therefore, in the discharge of his office, he began to visit the country, some eighteen or twenty years ago, he was forcibly struck with the singular anomaly he found to exist, of a large number of Church schools in some cases liberally subsidized from the public funds, and in others supported by deductions from workmen's wages, planted among a population of Dissenters, who felt the strongest repugnance to much of the religious teaching forced on their children in such schools. He had the courage in his reports to expose this injustice, for which he has been ever since the _bête noire_ of the Welsh bishops and clergy, who often assail him with great acrimony and conspicuous unfairness. But on the other hand, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has won the enthusiastic gratitude of a whole nation, who owe to him, in a main degree, the exposure of a flagrant wrong from which they had been long suffering, with little hope of deliverance. Well, Mr. Bowstead, after extensive and careful inquiry, in order to show the aggravated character of the anomaly of which he complained, ventured to say that _nine-tenths of the common people_ in Wales were Nonconformists. A writer in the April number of the _Quarterly Review_ has assailed him very angrily, and has accused him of 'asserting without a shadow of proof that _nine-tenths of the Welsh people_ are Nonconformists.' In a pamphlet issued for private circulation, Mr. Bowstead has with just severity first rebuked his assailant for perverting his words, and then shown how little foundation there is for the charge of his having asserted without 'a shadow of proof,' what alone he did assert, that nine-tenths of the common people of Wales, of such people as use elementary schools, are Nonconformists. Now for the proof of this allegation. When Sir John Pakington's committee was sitting in 1865-6, Mr. Bowstead was one of the witnesses summoned to give evidence. He had been asked to procure the best information he could, as to the comparative numbers of children of church people and children of Dissenters in the schools he visited. He had no difficulty in getting at this from the school register, because the name of the Sunday school which each child attends is entered in a column provided for the purpose, a very satisfactory index of the denomination to which its parents belong. And what was the result? He received returns from thirty schools, 'which were the only elementary schools in their respective localities. These thirty schools had an aggregate of 6,799 children under instruction, and of these 756 were returned as belonging to the Church. The children of parents attached to the Church formed, therefore, about 11 per cent. of the whole, and the children of Nonconformists constituted the remaining 89 per cent. But Mr. Bowstead supplies us with more recent evidence, which we give in his own words:--

'I have not on this occasion attempted to obtain returns
from so wide an area as in 1866; but I have secured very
complete and reliable returns, upon a considerable scale,
from a locality which embraces some 20,000 inhabitants, all
of whom are brought together by the industrial operations
of one large Company; and all of whose children, so far as
they belong to the working classes, receive their education
in schools promoted by that Company. The locality is
Dowlais, which in the matter of education is the Prussia of
South Wales. It has an admirable system of schools,
embracing not only unsectarian Protestant schools for the
bulk of the community, but also Roman Catholic schools for
the Irish. Nearly one-sixth of the whole population may be
found on the registers of these schools at any moment, and
I should think there is scarcely a child in the place that
does not receive some amount of schooling, whilst those of
them who stay long enough at school secure a very thorough
elementary English education, together with some
instruction in the French language and in drawing. I know
of no place where the schools reproduce so complete a
picture of the population around them, or where the free
play of all the social forces presents so true a type of
the characteristic features of the working men of the
district.'

Mr. Bowstead then subjoins a table showing the number of children belonging to each denomination, in attendance at the Dowlais schools: out of a total of 2,933, those belonging to the Established Church are 266. 'The Church children therefore would be almost 7·7 per cent., or one-thirteenth of the whole, and the Nonconformists would claim the remaining twelve-thirteenths. This gives a larger proportion to the Nonconformists than any former return.' Accompanying this return there is a letter from Mr. G. T. Clark, the manager of the Dowlais works, containing two or three sentences which are of great significance and value. In sending the tabular statement just referred to, Mr. Clark remarks:--'The proportion of the several sects may, I think, be taken as typical of the manufacturing population of South Wales and Monmouthshire.' We must quote two or three other sentences from Mr. Clark's letter:--

'I see a great deal is said about the disposition of the
Welsh Dissenters to allow their children to attend Church
schools. We have both Church and neutral schools in this
district, and I believe the Church schools of my friend and
neighbour the Rector of Gelligaer to be as good as any
semi-rural Schools in Wales, and they are largely attended
by the children of Dissenters. But this is not from love of
the Church, but because they desire education, and the
district has no other schools. The Welsh, in this respect,
like the Scotch, have a craving to get on, and they will
make a sacrifice to educate their children; and if the only
accessible school be a Church school, to it they will
apply. They trust and safely trust to the domestic example,
and to the Sunday teaching in the chapel, and chapel
school, to keep the children in the special faith of their
parents.... Those who say that the South Wales
manufacturing population have a regard for the Church of
England speak in utter ignorance of the matter. Their
dislike to the Church, as an establishment, is very strong,
and is yearly becoming stronger.'

It would be difficult to find a more competent and trustworthy witness. Mr. Clark is himself an attached member of the Church of England. He is a gentleman of rare intelligence, who has for many years been at the head of one of the largest and best conducted of the great iron works of South Wales. His knowledge of the population of the whole district is extensive and accurate. His testimony therefore as to the comparative number of Churchmen and Dissenters, and the feelings of the Nonconformists towards the Establishment, must be held to be unimpeachable.

But what is the comparative progress in accommodation for worship made by the Church and the Nonconformists since the Census of 1851? We have the materials for an approximate estimate. The Bishop of Llandaff, in his last charge, delivered in August, 1869, states that since 1849, the number of new churches erected in his diocese is thirty-nine, not quite two churches in the year; and the number of churches rebuilt on the same site, but whether enlarged is not stated, is thirty-six, making a total of seventy-five. Against this we have to place the following return, furnished to us in detail, but of which we can here give only a summary, of what has been done in the same diocese by three Nonconformist bodies since 1850:--

Number of new chapels built by the Independents 68
Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 46
-- 114
Number of new chapels built by the Baptists 66
Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 39
-- 105
Number of new chapels built by Calvinistic Methodists 52
Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 42
-- 94
---
313

Let it be observed that this showing includes only the three principal Nonconformist denominations, as we have failed to procure returns of the different bodies of Wesleyan Methodists and other minor sects, which would make undoubtedly a considerable addition to the total increase of dissenting accommodation. And yet how does the comparison stand even with such incomplete elements as we possess? We find that the Nonconformists have built 186 new places of worship against thirty-nine built by the Church, and have rebuilt and enlarged 127 more against thirty-six rebuilt by the Church.

With regard to the whole of Wales, our information as respects what the Church has done during the last twenty years, is not so perfect as we could wish. The number of new churches built in the four dioceses appears, as nearly as we can calculate from the data within our reach, to be about 110. But there is more difficulty in getting, at those rebuilt and enlarged, as in one of the returns (that of St. Asaph) we find churches 'restored' and 'improved'--words implying merely repairs of existing fabrics without any additional accommodation--mixed up with those which have been 'rebuilt and enlarged.' We have the precise number rebuilt, and we are willing to presume somewhat enlarged, in Llandaff, which is thirty-six, and in Bangor, which is thirty-one. We think it would be a liberal allowance from the statistical report before us to assign thirty-five 'enlarged' churches to St. Asaph, and judging by the number of new churches built in St. David's, we presume that thirty 'enlarged' churches would cover all that has been done in that diocese, making a total rebuilt and enlarged of 132. Let us now turn to the Nonconformists. The following are facts on the substantial accuracy of which our readers may rely. Since 1850, the Calvinistic Methodists have built 321 new chapels, and have rebuilt and enlarged 435 more, providing additional accommodation in all for 123,881 worshippers, at a cost of £366,000. The Independents, during the same period, have built 118 new chapels, and have rebuilt and enlarged 200 more, furnishing additional accommodation for 130,000, at a cost of £294,000. The Baptists have built 142 new chapels, and rebuilt and enlarged ninety-nine more, furnishing additional accommodation for 81,800, at a cost of £163,000. Thus, these three denominations alone have in twenty years built 581 new chapels, and rebuilt and enlarged 734 more, providing accommodation for 308,681 persons, at a cost of £823,000.

But it must be further observed, that it is not merely in the matter of religious instruction that the Nonconformists have become almost exclusively the leaders of the Welsh people. As respects literature and science, and all important social and political movements, it is the same. The literature of Wales, and not its religious literature merely, is almost wholly Nonconformist. There are about thirty periodicals, quarterly, monthly, and weekly, at present published in the Welsh language. Of these all but three are owned and edited by Dissenters. There are nine commentaries on the whole Bible, and nine besides on the New Testament alone, some original and some translated from English, and only two of these were done by Churchmen, and even they were Dissenters when they began their work. There are eight Biblical and Theological Dictionaries, and as many bodies of divinity or systems of theology, and no Churchman, we believe, has had a hand in the production of any one of them. There is a History of the World, a History of Great Britain, a History of Christianity, a History of the Church, a History of the Welsh Nation, a History of Religion in Wales, all by Dissenters, besides elaborate denominational Histories of the Calvinistic Methodists, the Independents, the Baptists, &c. Indeed, all the ecclesiastical histories in the language are Nonconformist, and all the general histories except the History of Wales by the Rev. Thomas Price, and a small work called the 'Mirror of the Principal Ages.' There is a valuable work illustrated by many excellent maps and diagrams, entitled 'The History of Heaven and Earth,' treating of geography and astronomy, by the Rev. J. T. Jones, of Aberdare, formerly a Nonconformist minister. There is another large geographical dictionary in course of publication by a dissenting minister. There are two copious Biographical Dictionaries edited and principally written by Dissenters. There is now, and has been for several years, in course of publication an Encyclopædia in the Welsh language (Encyclopædia Cambrensis), dealing as such works do with the entire circle of human knowledge. It was described by the late Archdeacon Williams, who had seen the earlier volumes, as 'a work of great promise, as sound in doctrine as it is unsectarian in principle.' It is studiously free from denominational taint, and was intended to be a great national undertaking, the contributors being indiscriminately selected from the ablest writers of all denominations, the combined learning and talent of Wales being thus engaged in its preparation. The enterprising publisher at the outset addressed a letter to all those among his countrymen of whatever church or creed who had distinguished themselves in any way by their literary acquirements and productions, inviting their co-operation. We have now before us a list of the contributors amounting to ninety names, and out of these ninety, there are certainly not more than nine churchmen.

The English public has of late years become partially acquainted with a remarkable institution existing in Wales, which has come down from very ancient times, called Yr Eisteddfod, or the Session, meaning in its primitive signification the Session of the Bards. Its object is to encourage the cultivation of literature, poetry and music. The English press has tried to throw great ridicule on this institution, as the English press is wont to do, upon all institutions that are not English. And yet surely, as the Bishop of St. David's has said, 'it is a most remarkable feature in the history of any people, and such as could be said of no other than the Welsh, that they have centred their national recreation in literature and musical competitions.' Prizes ranging from £1 to £100 are offered for the best compositions in poetry, prose, and music. The highest honour bestowed by the Eisteddfod is the Bardic chair, and the productions entitling the successful candidates to this distinction are supposed to possess rare merit. There are now living nine chaired bards, of whom one is a clergyman, seven are Nonconformist ministers, and one a Nonconformist layman. In musical compositions, the proportion would be about the same. And certainly the Welsh clergy of the present day have not, any more than their predecessors, distinguished themselves as authors. A catalogue of Welsh books published within the last twenty years, would show a very beggarly 'account' standing to the credit of the official instructors of the Welsh people.

Such are the past history and the present condition of the Established Church in Wales. Surely no legislature with any sense of justice can long refuse to deal with so anomalous an institution as that we have described; a Church which has wholly failed, and is still failing, to accomplish the only object for which it pretends to exist, from which--and that entirely owing to its own criminal neglect--the great body of the people are hopelessly alienated, and which has no vital relation with the religions, political, social, or literary life of the nation. And it is not merely a theoretical anomaly. It is an intolerable practical grievance, and is becoming more and more so every day. For its friends, numbering as they do nearly all the landowners and wealthy classes, galvanized, of late years, into a sort of spasmodic zeal, which is far more political than religious, are making frantic efforts to regain for their Church the ascendancy it has so righteously lost, by a very unscrupulous use of their wealth, their social position, and their control over the land. The advocates of the Church, especially in the English press, are trying to wreak their vengeance on a nation of Dissenters, by traducing the character of the people, and ridiculing their language, their literature, and their religious institutions; and this they are not deterred from doing by their utter ignorance of all three. Some of the Welsh clergy, also, exasperated by seeing their pretensions contemned, and their ministrations forsaken, are propagating the most monstrous calumnies against their successful rivals, the Dissenting ministers. One Conservative journal in London has especially distinguished itself by throwing its columns open to these anonymous slanderers. Here are some of the flowers of speech that have been plentifully scattered in its pages on the Welsh Nonconformists. 'The Welsh language is made the instrument of evil by preachers and other supporters of anarchy and plunder.' 'The people are actively taught to commit arson and murder; they are regularly drilled into Fenianism.' 'Dissenting ministers are the curse of Wales; there is scarcely a sermon or lecture they deliver that is not full of sedition.'

And yet the country whose population is thus systematically trained to sedition and murder, is more free from serious crime than any part of the United Kingdom; so free, indeed, that in many of the counties the annual visit of her Majesty's judges is almost a work of supererogation. Take as an example the county of Cardigan, which was the scene of the most extensive and cruel political persecutions after the last election, where about sixty tenants were evicted from their holdings, some of them under circumstances of a singularly exasperating character. And yet at the Assizes, that were held immediately after, there was not a single prisoner to be tried. Mr. Justice Hannen, in charging the grand jury, said 'that a perfectly clear calendar was a circumstance he had never before met with since he had been on the bench, and he understood from his brother judges that only in the Principality of Wales was such a thing known, and that there it was frequent. Whether it was attributable to race or to the influence of religious teaching he could not say, but he felt deeply interested in the matter, and whatever might be the cause, there was the indisputable fact, one of which the county of Cardigan might well be proud.'

These insane efforts to drive or to drag the people back into the Church by coercion and calumny, produce, of course, precisely the opposite effect. Indeed the Conservatives, in their treatment of Wales, are triumphantly vindicating their right to the title bestowed upon them by Mr. Stuart Mill, as 'the stupid party.' Unhappily, however, they do succeed in embittering the heart of the people, and in introducing alienation and anger into their relations with the classes who are thus tempted to tamper with their religious and political rights. And all this is owing to the existence of an Established Church.