Chapter XI: Part 11

If Mr. Miall has not acquired fame as a parliamentary debater, he has made two speeches which will live in the political history of this half century. Of that of 1856 it may, perhaps, be said that its influence was greatest in the effect which it produced on the minds of Liberal politicians whose minds were made up in condemnation of the Irish Establishment, but whose notions in regard to remedial measures were confused and undecided, or were radically unsound. The principle which he then affirmed was as bread cast upon waters seen after many days; and seen in the unequivocal shape of a statute of the realm giving practical effect to the views enunciated thirteen years ago. But the task undertaken then was far less difficult than that of 1871, the area of discussion was much narrower, and the issues raised much less complicated. Of Mr. Miall's recent speech, Mr. Leatham happily said that it seemed to him 'as though it were the condensation of the thought of a life-time;' but, in truth, the speaker had to disengage his mind from many thoughts which had for years engaged the highest powers of his intellect and the warmest sympathies of his heart. He had to remember that he was standing, not on a Liberation platform, but on the floor of the House of Commons, and that he was addressing not the eagerly responsive readers of the _Nonconformist_, but the cold and critical readers of journals of a very different type. And, further, while avowing that the religious side of the question was that which most powerfully affected his own mind, and conscious that the most potent arguments which he could employ were those which derive their force from religious considerations, he had to leave that vantage ground, from the admitted unwillingness and unfitness of the House of Commons to deal with the subject in its spiritual aspects, and to take the lower ground involved in objections of an exclusively political and social character. It required no small degree of self-restraint, and of practical skill, for a speaker of such antecedents as those of Mr. Miall to keep strictly within the lines which he had laid down for himself; and the unstinted admiration expressed by all the subsequent speakers and especially by public journals, which--within a week of his Metropolitan Tabernacle speech--were little likely to be biased in his favour, have shown conclusively the completeness of his success. When the usually moderate _Guardian_ affirms that Mr. Miall's speech was a signal example of dissenting exaggeration, dissenting narrowness of view, and dissenting shortness of thought and inability to comprehend the higher aspects of a great religious and national question; and the _Record_ asserts that 'never was a speech delivered on a great question more damaging to the cause it was intended to support:' the very recklessness of the misrepresentations indicate a consciousness that the impression produced was of a kind which has given great uneasiness to the supporters of the Establishment. We expect, moreover, that the _reading_ of the speech, in the complete form in which it has since been published and widely circulated, will be found to have deepened the impression produced by its delivery, and by a first hasty perusal. Its calm yet forcible statements--its close reasoning--its apt and pungent illustrations--its incontrovertible facts, and its elevation of tone and style will, we are confident, perceptibly affect the minds of thoughtful men on whom, for some time past, the truth has been dawning that there must be something radically wrong in the existing relations between the State and the several religious bodies of the country. By a process of filtration, the truths enunciated by Mr. Miall in this speech will, aided by other influences, find their way into quarters into which none of his previous utterances on the same subject have penetrated, and, unless the tendency of ecclesiastical events greatly changes, it may be expected that the seed now sown will germinate, and produce its fruits, with a degree of rapidity for which previous efforts furnish no precedent.

Nor would justice be done to others were there no recognition of the valuable aid given to the mover of the resolution by those who supported him in the debate. It was fitting that a proposal so deeply affecting the welfare of the Church of England should be seconded by a member of that body, and the duty which Mr. J. D. Lewis voluntarily undertook was discharged with both ability and courage. The facts and figures supplied by Mr. Richard admirably supplemented Mr. Miall's exposition of principle; while, so far as the Principality is concerned, they demolished some of the boldest allegations of the advocates of the existing system. If Mr. Leatham's speech must be spoken of in terms of qualified praise--and notably in regard to his insinuation respecting the views previously expressed by Mr. Winterbotham--it must be admitted that he blurted out some truths which were required to be told, however roughly, and presented with admirable force, as well as vivacity, some aspects of the question which ought not to have been neglected in such a discussion, and which will tell upon minds but little affected by the less graphic method of the philosophical and unrhetorical member for Bradford.

We do not wonder that the Dean of Norwich has expressed dissatisfaction with the apologetic and low-toned character of the replies given by the upholders of the Establishment; for an ecclesiastic who holds it to be the duty of the State to find out which is Christ's Church, and, having found it, to uphold and extend it to the utmost, must have heard, or read, the debate with downright dismay. The proverb that 'one story's good till another's told' does not apply in this case; for strong as was Mr. Miall's case when he had concluded his speech, it was stronger still after the weakness of the other side had been shown by the reply. 'Is that all?' might have been asked by any one conversant with all the traditionary arguments used in defence of Church Establishments, after hearing Mr. Bruce, Sir Roundell Palmer, Dr. Ball, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Gladstone. Of the 'national conscience' which enjoins the provision by the State of the means of grace for the nation, or of the 'national atheism' involved in the absence of such provision; or, in fact, of any theory whatever on which it may be supposed to be possible to base an Establishment, there was heard nothing. The friends of the Church, indeed, so far abandoned theory, that Sir Roundell Palmer reproached Mr. Miall with the theoretical character of his arguments, and was himself forced to fall back on statements of the most prosaic and practical character; while Mr. Disraeli, though vaguely asserting that 'the State ought to recognise and support some religious expression in the community,' was content to rest the case of the Establishment chiefly on 'the manifold and ineffable blessings it bestows.'

It was perhaps a misfortune for that establishment that its defence was mainly undertaken by official and ex-official advocates. They, it is clear, were more concerned for their own position, in relation to the question, now or hereafter--and especially hereafter--than affected by a noble zeal on behalf of Church Establishments. Of course, if it had been felt that the foundations of those institutions were firm as the everlasting hills, that fact would have given firmness of tone, if not vigour of expression, to those who were under the necessity of doing battle on their behalf. But the insecurity of the position renders necessary a system of Parliamentary 'hedging'--to use sporting phraseology--on the part of those who wish to continue to be, or to become, the depositaries of political power; and that, perhaps, is the most alarming fact which the late debate has forced on the notice of those who once thought that Church and State never _could_ be separated.

The Home Secretary, in particular, described the ministerial policy in this matter with a frankness which revealed in an almost amusing way the embarrassment of official Liberalism. He admitted that 'the question of an Established Church was seriously occupying the minds of the people of Scotland,' but added that 'nothing, he was assured, would be done in the matter until the great majority of the people were in favour of disestablishment.' With respect, however, to England, 'the question was far less mature.' No fair-minded man, he added, could deny 'that there was a great deal of truth in many of the statements' made by Mr. Miall, in regard to the shortcomings of the Establishment, and the extent to which the spiritual necessities of the people had been met by Nonconformists. But, he continued:--

'The practical question for the House to consider was
whether they were for those reasons prepared to pass a
resolution which would bind them at once to legislate on
the subject. No Government would, he thought, be justified
in undertaking such a task in the present state of public
opinion. The calmness of his hon. friend in dealing with
the question would, he was afraid, not be imitated by the
country at large, and its discussion must lead to great
dissension and controversy, although in the end the result
might tend to promote peace and harmony. It was a subject
on which no Government should attempt to legislate without
the assurance of success. (Ironical cheers.) He was
speaking without reference to the present or any other
Government, and he must repeat that no Ministry would be
justified in proceeding to deal with a question of such
great importance without some assurance of success. ("Hear,
hear," and a laugh.) It was the business of private members
to ventilate such questions, and the duty of the Government
to take them up only when public opinion declared it to be
expedient.'

And then, as a _solatium_ to those whom these ominous statements were calculated to disturb, he proceeded to say a few civil words about the great work which is being done by the Church of England, and the deep root she has taken in the affections of the people; returning, however, to the official line on which he started, by admitting that he 'was not prepared to defend the Established Church with any abstract arguments,' and insisting that, as prudent men, they must see their way more clearly before adopting such a motion. 'Call you that backing your friends?' was the indignant, and not unnatural reply of the fervent Dr. Ball, who declared that 'the Church would be defended as long as it did not imperil the interests of the Government, and no longer.'

Mr. Disraeli's milder expression of the opinion that 'when it comes to a question of maintaining the union between Church and State, I think your adhesion to the proposal, or your objection to it, should be founded on some principle which cannot be disputed, and guided by some policy which the country can comprehend,' did elicit from the Prime Minister 'very different sounds'--to use the language of Mr. Disraeli--but the substance was substantially the same. He could remind the Opposition leader that, notwithstanding his appreciation of principles, he himself was content to rest his defence of the Establishment, 'not so much upon adhesion to any abstract theory, or principle, as upon the fact that the convictions of the nation are in its favour, or, in other words, that public opinion is adverse to the motion of my honourable friend.' And it was, practically, upon this proposition Mr. Gladstone took his stand; while he, at the same time, strengthened his position by descriptions of the 'vastness of the operation' pointed at in the motion, and the immense difficulties which it would involve, and also dilated, with characteristic grace and copiousness, on the pre-eminent advantages resulting from the manner in which the Church of England discharges its practical duties. And his closing declaration went no further, and rose no higher, than this:--

'I cannot but stand upon the firm conviction that the
nation which sent us here does not wish us to adopt the
motion of the hon. member.... I do not think that it is
necessary for us--indeed, I don't think the hon. gentleman
expects that we should do so--to vote for a motion which we
are firmly convinced is at variance with the established
convictions of the country, and I shall venture to say to
my hon. friend, what I am sure he will not resent, that if
he seeks to convert the majority of the House of Commons to
his opinions, he must begin by undertaking the preliminary
work of converting to those opinions the majority of the
people of England.'

When Mr. Miall led the attack on the Irish Establishment, in 1856, it was stated that the task of replying to him was assigned to Mr. Whiteside, but that the vehement representative of Dublin University was quite unprepared to deal with a case so dispassionately put as it was by Mr. Miall; while it is certain that he found his physical force oratory--as Mr. Bright once described it--much more available in a subsequent session, in denouncing the anticipated betrayal of the Church by Mr. Gladstone. Sir Roundell Palmer, however, did not shrink from fulfilling the intention which had been ascribed to him previous to the debate, and, perhaps, no fitter representative man could have been chosen for the purpose. Certainly no one could have succeeded more fully in keeping the discussion up to the high level to which its originator had sought to raise it. No one could be more candid in his recognition of the ability, and the admirable spirit, with which Mr. Miall had placed the subject before the House.[40] No one could be more discriminating in choosing the grounds on which his resistance was offered to the motion; and no one could put the case of the Church more suavely, or more willingly. But, notwithstanding all these high recommendations, the speech was a singularly weak one, in regard to both its reasoning and its facts. The latter, indeed, constituted the weakest part of his case--though, in some quarters, they are relied upon with a confidence which seems to us to be attributable either to imperfect knowledge, or to mistaken views of their bearing on the question in dispute.

The two main facts urged by Sir Roundell Palmer were these--first, that the existence of an Established Church no longer involves injustice to Nonconformists; second, that 'this great institution does a work of inestimable value over the whole land, and in every part of society,' and, more especially, that, to the poor, and in the rural parishes, it is of 'priceless value.'

If the first of these propositions can be sustained, the most effective weapon at their command will be taken out of the hands of the assailants of the Establishment. Mr. Miall, of course, insisted on the converse of that proposition with the utmost emphasis--denouncing, as he did, 'the essential and inseparable injustice involved in lifting one Church from among many into political ascendancy, and endowing it with property belonging to the people in their corporate capacity;' and affirming that 'the inmost principle of a Church Establishment is necessarily unjust in its operation,' and that 'man suffers injustice at the hands of the State when the State places him in a position of exceptional disadvantage on account of his religious faith, or his ecclesiastical associations.' Sir Roundell Palmer has two replies to this, viz., that what Dissenters 'call ascendancy' is 'no longer an ascendancy involving any civil rights, privileges, or advantage whatever,' and that those who do not participate in the benefit derived from the property in the hands of the Establishment 'fail to do so from simple choice.' He further asserts that the idea 'that no State institution intended for the public good can be just which everybody does not equally participate in,' would 'lead us into communism, or some other system of the kind.'

The plea that, the Establishment being open to all, no injustice is done to these who stay outside, is one which it is difficult to discuss with patience, even when seriously urged, as it seems to have been, by an opponent like Sir Roundell Palmer. We saw nothing of the inadequacy, as regards quantity, of that which the Establishment offers to all--an inadequacy so great that the offer becomes a mockery: it is enough to point out that that offer is one which, from the necessity of the case, cannot possibly be accepted. The well-known saying of Horne Tooke's that the London Tavern was open to every man--who could afford to pay the bill, suggests the answer to the shallow averment that the injustice endured by Nonconformists is, after all, self-inflicted. If they are ready to pay the price at which the advantages of the Establishment are offered to them, to sin against their convictions, and to swallow their conscientious scruples, they may enjoy religious equality within its pale, instead of struggling for it without. It is a new use of the old defence of the Irish Establishment so happily ridiculed by Thomas Moore, in his 'Dream of Hindostan:'--

'"And pray," asked I, "by whom is paid
The expense of this strange masquerade?"
"The expense!--Oh that's of course defrayed,"
(Said one of these well-fed Hecatombers)
"By yonder rascally rice consumers."
"What! _they_, who mustn't eat meat!"--

"No matter--"
(And while he spoke his cheeks grew fatter),
"The rogues may munch their _Paddy_ crop,
But the rogues must still support our shop.
And, depend upon it, the way to treat
Heretical stomachs that thus dissent,
Is to burden all that won't eat meat,
With a costly MEAT ESTABLISHMENT."'

Sir Roundell Palmer thinks that he has conceded everything which equity requires when he expresses entire agreement with Mr. Miall that 'no State authority ought to interfere with any man's religious belief,' and he clenches that admission by the bold assertion, that the ascendancy of the Church of England no longer involves 'any civil rights, privileges, or advantages whatever.' It might have occurred to him that, even if his statement were strictly accurate, the words 'no longer' pointed to a history of suffering and of struggle which resulted from the existence of an Establishment, and in which Nonconformists have figured as the victims. But is it accurate? Why at the moment the statement was made there was before Parliament--as there is likely to be for some time to come--a measure for extinguishing the clerical monopoly in parochial churchyards; the disabilities of Dissenters at Oxford and Cambridge had not been removed,[41] and there had just been published the new Statutes of Winchester and Harrow schools, which expressly insist that none but members of the Church shall be qualified to act as members of the governing bodies of those institutions! And, even when these grounds of just complaint have been removed, there will still exist in numerous Statutes, or Trusts, or Schemes, or Regulations, affecting matters of parochial, educational, or charitable administration, provisions which, directly or indirectly, exclude Dissenters from the national Church from the enjoyment of rights, privileges, and advantages, which Sir Roundell Palmer would have us believe are as much within the reach of Nonconformists as of Conformists.

That, however, is a very limited view of the subject which supposes that the principle of religious equality is violated only by means of Statutes of the realm which, in so many words, place the members of unestablished bodies on a different footing, as regards civil rights, from that occupied by members of the Establishment. For it may be safely asserted that for every act of exclusion, and every violation of the principle of equity, for which the legislature is responsible, in connection with an Established system, there are twenty others which are the indirect, though inevitable, result of that system. Establishment is a name for more than a collection of Statutes, and a particular mode of appropriating national property: it represents a powerful source of influence--a spring the force of which is felt throughout all the ramifications of society, and is often experienced by those who are unconsciously affected by it. Notwithstanding the lip-homage now paid to the principle of religious equality, even by politicians who once persistently fought against it, the ascendancy of the Church Establishment is sought to be upheld by public functionaries, by corporate bodies, and by individuals, organized and unorganized, in a hundred ways which are independent of legislation, but which, nevertheless, inflict, whether intentionally or not, great injustice on those who are attached to other religious communities.

No one would now venture to declare, as a Conservative journal did years ago, that a 'Dissenter is only half an Englishman,' but, so far as a right to share in all the advantages afforded by civilized society is concerned, that is the position in which he is, or is sought to be placed, even now. The question with which Mr. Leatham fairly startled Mr. Gladstone, 'How long are we, a party of Dissenters, to be led by a cabinet of Churchmen?' suggests other inquiries, of a more searching kind, which are even more strictly relevant to the point we are now considering. Take the public functionaries throughout the kingdom--the Commissioners who administer the affairs of important departments, some of which decide matters vitally affecting the interests of Nonconformists--the occupants of the magisterial bench--the trustees of public charities--the holders of municipal and parochial offices, great and small, and it will be seen that the large majority are connected with the State-favoured Church, and that offices of responsibility and influence, as well as of emolument, are filled by Dissenters in an inverse proportion to their numbers, their intelligence, and their energetic devotion to public duty.

These are some of the allegations with which we meet Sir Roundell Palmer's assertion that the Establishment no longer inflicts wrong on those who think it right to dissent; but there are others, the aptness of which will be still more apparent, because the facts come within the knowledge of a far larger class. Whatever may be the case in the great centres of population, it is certain that in the small towns, and especially in those rural districts, in which, we are told, the Establishment is so great a blessing, petty persecution, aiming at the repression of dissent, is as rife as when that Establishment could persecute by law. Is the dissenter a farmer? He is kept by Church landlords and landladies out of a whole district, as carefully as the rinderpest itself; or if he happens to be already in it, he is deported as quickly as lease, or agreement, will allow. Is he a shopkeeper? He must hold his head low, and consent to sell his principles with his wares, or he loses half his customers. Does he require education for his children? The day-school is, indeed, open to them, but attendance at the Sunday-school and the church is insisted upon, as part of the price to be paid for the education for which he, in common with other tax-payers, largely pays. Is he poor? So much the worse for him, when coals, blankets, and soup are distributed at Christmas; when parochial charities, intended to be unsectarian, are dispensed, or when misfortune makes him a fitting object for the help and sympathy of all his neighbours. Nay! he may be wholly independent of all around in regard to pecuniary circumstances--may have fortune, culture, and all the gifts and graces of refined and of Christian life; yet, if in the matter of the Lord his God he differs from those who worship at the altars of the Establishment, he, too, pays the penalty for conscientious Nonconformity, in the social exclusion, and the haughty contempt, which to certain minds make country life one of the hardest things to bear, and strongly tempt the children of wealthy Nonconformists to desert, and ultimately to despise, the communities to which they were once attached.

To these representations, as well as to others relating to the social discord created by an Establishment, it has been replied that they describe as much the result of the caste-feeling, which, rightly or wrongly, exists among us, as the result of the Church being established; that hard and fast lines will be drawn by individuals even when State-made distinctions have ceased; that we 'shall not get rid of the Church of England by disestablishing it;' and that 'so far from being less energetic in the assertion of its claims,' it will be 'more energetic than ever.' The rejoinder is, that the existence of a state-maintained Church aggravates social tendencies sufficiently bad enough in themselves to require no encouragement--that, when the possessors of invidious privileges find their privileges endangered, they think themselves justified in doing what they would otherwise condemn--that acts such as we have indicated are committed to a far greater extent by the members of established than of unestablished bodies, and that Episcopalianism in America, and in our own colonies, does not adopt the repressive, and the oppressive, policy to which it resorts at home. Sir Roundell Palmer's dictum that 'One of the advantages of a union which subsists between Church and State is, that it gives to the former an inducement to act in a more liberal and conciliatory spirit than can be relied upon if the relations between the two were different,' is, in our judgment, contrary to the facts of history; and if the Church is, at the present time, 'bound over to keep the peace' as it has not been before, it is just because the ties between Church and State are loosened, and liberality and moderation are necessary to prevent their being quickly severed.

There is one other aspect of the case to which, perhaps, full justice was not done by any of the speakers in the late debate, and that is the influence exerted by the Establishment, in regard to opinion, as affecting both theological belief and ecclesiastical practice. The Nonconformist objection to an Establishment, as popularly put, is, that it appropriates public property to the maintenance of a Church, the advantages of which cannot be shared by large sections of the community. That is true, but it is not the whole truth; for even if the Church found its own capital, and the State gave nothing but authority and privilege, the Nonconformist would still have ground to complain of the injustice done to him by the junction of the two bodies. The pocket objection, strong as it is, is, after all, neither the strongest nor the highest. To the man who, in these days of shifting and uncertain belief, holds definite views of truth, and especially of the highest forms of truth, it is less a grievance that the State should deprive him of his share of public property than that it should exert its influence on behalf of what he believes to be mischievous error--error, possibly, dishonouring to God, as well as detrimental to men. The member for Richmond says that he is at one with the member for Bradford in thinking that 'no State authority ought to interfere with any man's religious belief;' but what is interference with man's religious belief? Is no one's belief interfered with when the Canons of a national Church excommunicate _ipso facto_ all impugners of the Articles, the worship, or the government of that Church, until they have repented, and publicly revoked, their 'wicked errors?' Is the Unitarian belief not interfered with by the state-sanctioned Athanasian creed? Or the Baptist belief by the baptismal service? Or the Quaker belief by the eucharistic doctrines of the Church? Or, to put the question in the broadest form, is the Roman Catholic's belief not interfered with when there is established a Protestant Church, which asserts that the leading tenets, or practices, of the Romish Church are damnable and idolatrous?

It is true that everybody in the country is free to protest against the creed and practices of the Establishment, but why should anyone have to protest at all? The Nonconformist may enforce his own views of truth and religious duty, but why should the State, which is invested with authority derived from him, in common with his fellow-citizens, not only compel him to become a Nonconformist, but put a heavy premium on the acceptance of that which he feels it to be his duty to denounce? This is a question, the force of which increases in proportion as the Established clergy assert their right to set at defiance authorized doctrinal standards and rubrics, as well as to disregard the most solemn judicial decisions; for the points of theological antagonism between their teaching and the views of Nonconformists will multiply as confusion grows within the Church. But we are content to enforce our present point by an illustration drawn from a state of things with which we have long been familiar, rather than from any new development of clerical extravagance. Here, for instance, are specimens of the teaching of one of the authorized instructors of the people, taken from a twopenny catechism, entitled _Some questions of the Church Catechism, and doctrines involved, briefly explained, for the use of families and parochial schools_; by the Rev. J. A. Gace, M.A., Vicar of Great Barling, Essex,[42] and which, we understand, is circulated widely in many parishes far distant from the author's.

'85. _Q._ We have amongst us various Sects and
Denominations who go by the general name of Dissenters. In
what light are we to consider them? _A._ As heretics; and
in our Litany we expressly pray to be delivered from the
sins of "false doctrine, heresy, and schism."

'86. _Q._ Is then their worship a laudable service? _A._
No; because they worship God according to their own evil
and corrupt imaginations, and not according to His revealed
will, and therefore their worship is idolatrous.

'87. _Q._ Is Dissent a great sin? _A._ Yes; it is in direct
opposition to our duty towards God.

'94. _Q._ But why have not Dissenters been excommunicated?
_A._ Because the law of the land does not allow the
wholesome law of the Church to be acted upon; but
Dissenters have virtually excommunicated themselves by
setting up a religion of their own, and leaving the ark of
God's Church.

'98. _Q._ Is it wicked then to enter a meeting-house at
all? _A._ Most assuredly; because, as was said above, it is
a house where God is worshipped otherwise than He has
commanded, and therefore it is not dedicated to His honour
and glory; and besides this, we run the risk of being led
away by wicked enticing words; at the same time, by our
presence we are witnessing our approval of their heresy,
wounding the consciences of our weaker brethren, and by our
example teaching others to go astray.

'99. _Q._ But is language such as this consistent with
charity? _A._ Quite so: for when there is danger of the
true worshippers of God falling into error we cannot speak
too plainly, or warn them too strongly of their perilous
state; at the same time that it is our duty to declare in
express terms to those who are without, that they are
living separate from Christ's body, and consequently out of
the pale of salvation, so far, at least, as God has thought
fit to reveal.'

Assuming, as we may fairly do, that the author of all this--well! we need not describe it--preaches as he publishes, have the heretics and sinners whom he thus consigns to perdition no right to complain that, besides receiving--according to the 'Clergy List'--£230 a year of public money, he should also be invested with authority by the State? It is idle to say that truth is truth, and falsehood falsehood, and that the one will prevail, and the other perish, no matter whether he who utters it is an established clergyman, or a dissenting preacher. In the long run it will be so, but the struggle between truth and falsehood is prolonged when, instead of the two being left fairly to grapple with each other, the weight of State-influence, as well as of State-gold, is thrown into the wrong scale. To speak plainly, the establishment of a Church is an organized system of bribery in favour of that Church. It may fail to buy the adherence of strong and independent minds, but the minds of the majority are neither the one nor the other. It appeals successfully to the self-seeking, the timid, the conventional, the fashion-loving, and _they_ are to be found among every class of the community. And, in doing so, it inflicts injustice--injustice to those who reject the established doctrines, even though they may be in possession of every civil right.

'The Established Church will certainly not be weakened by the debate of Tuesday,' was the final conclusion of the _Times_, in the three fluctuating leaders devoted to the subject, and that is true in the sense in which it is true that an army hard pressed by an enemy is not weakened by abandoning an untenable position, and by retreating within its inner line of defence. And that is just what the English Establishment has done, so far as its present position is indicated by the late debate. Almost everything in the shape of _à priori_ argument on its behalf has been given up, and it has fallen back on the plea of utility alone. In doing so, it has adapted itself to a characteristic of Englishmen, of whom Emerson has smartly said that, while there is nothing which they hate so much as a theory, they will bow down and worship a fact. It does not, however, follow that objectors to the Establishment are bound to confine themselves to the same weapons as those selected for the defence. The reasoning based on religious principle which--strange anomaly! seeing that Parliament charges itself with responsibility for the religious concerns of the nation--is thought to be unfit for the House of Commons, may still be employed with effect in influencing pious and thoughtful minds elsewhere. Nor can the reasoning which appeals to men's sense of equity be disposed of in the summary fashion adopted by Sir Roundell Palmer. An institution based on principles which are radically unsound cannot long be vindicated solely with reference to its alleged usefulness. That which is unjust cannot be permanently upheld, because it is seemingly successful. The painted sepulchre is a sepulchre, though painted; and if an establishment really contravenes the rules of right, its most brilliant, and even its most solid achievements, will ultimately fail to prolong its existence.

When the Church of England, put upon its defence as a Church established by law, insists that it is the source of blessings to the community, amply worth the price which the community is required to pay for them, it indicates no lack of Christian or of generous feeling to examine these claims in the same practical way in which they are put forward. Especially is it necessary to discriminate between the action of the Church simply as such, and its action as a Church specially favoured by the State, as well as to see that, while acknowledging all its deeds of goodness, we do not draw from them a totally erroneous inference. It does not seem to us that very much is conceded, if we admit the correctness of Sir Roundell Palmer's assertion that the Church of England is exerting more influence over the country than all the other religious bodies put together. Why--to quote the language of the _Times_, used for an opposite purpose--'a man of education might be expected to remember that modern Dissent can only boast a history of a hundred and fifty years, and that before it arose the whole system of the Church of England was firmly consolidated.' And, besides the advantage of a long start, she has had wealth, power, and prestige--all three being enjoyed at the expense of Nonconformity, and yet the nett result is, that she only does more than all the unestablished bodies, and in doing so, leaves masses of the people almost untouched by her ministrations! Let it be remembered also, that these descriptions of the Establishment, which are intended to reconcile us to its existence, are descriptions which, to a large extent, have been applicable only during the last fifty years. No one would speak of the Church in the days of the Georges as he may rightly speak of her in the days of Victoria; for one of her own clergy--the Rev. Sydney Smith--has characteristically declared that during the former period 'the clergy of England had no more influence over the people than the cheesemongers of England.' And whence the change? Is it attributable to the action of the Establishment principle--to the retention of Parliamentary grants, or to the multiplication of political privileges? On the contrary, not until voluntaryism had to so great an extent supplied the deficiency existing in connection with State-endowments and compulsory exactions, and not until the process of disestablishment had, in principle, been commenced, has the Church of England earned the eulogiums of which she is now deservedly the subject. Sir Roundell Palmer asks for the gratitude of Dissenters because the zeal and energy of the Church have given to them a powerful stimulus, and reminds us that, in regard to architecture, to music, and to modes of worship, they have not hesitated to copy the Church from which they dissent. Well! we are as thankful as he is for that 'community of feeling between the most enlightened and best of men on both sides,' which not only brings them together, but leads them to select for imitation each other's wisest and best methods. But is the obligation all on one side? Does the Church owe nothing to Nonconformity, in regard to zeal, to organization, to education, to hymnology, to preaching, and, above all, to the pecuniary aspects of voluntaryism? She is welcome to all she has borrowed, and we hope that it may be possible to import into her own system other admitted excellencies, to be found in those of Nonconformists; but does this interchange of influence between different Churches justify the placing of one in an exceptional position, to the prejudice of the rest; and is Nonconformity,

'Like a young eagle, who has lost his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,'

to have an Establishment foisted upon it in perpetuity, because it has done so much to make such institution more tolerable than in days of yore? And what authority had Sir Roundell Palmer for the assertion that Mr. Miall wished, 'for certain theoretical reasons, to destroy the whole of the immense machinery by which all this good is done?' If by this it was intended to suggest that all the good effected by the Church of England comes out of its legal position, Mr. Miall would deny the correctness of the suggestion; while, on the other hand, if no inconsiderable portion of that good be the result of the piety and devotedness of Churchmen--manifested in spite, rather than as the result, of Establishment--he would repudiate any intention to destroy, or in any way to hinder their work.

We have said that the case of the Establishment has been made to rest solely on the utilitarian argument; and we now add that the range of that argument is practically limited to the rural parishes. Sir Roundell Palmer admits that in the large towns the Church of England is not overtaking the spiritual wants of the population; though he thinks that its efforts to do so are greater than those of Dissenters. That is to say, the influence of the Establishment is smallest where the intellectual and moral forces which ultimately decide the country's destinies exist--a large admission, and one which will have cumulative weight as time progresses. Mr. Miall, he complained, 'did not sufficiently distinguish between the position of the working classes in the towns and the working classes in the country,' and, with regard to the last, he affirmed that, 'speaking generally, they are members of the Church, and through the Church they are partakers of benefits of every description, spiritual, moral, and even temporal.' 'Those,' he added, 'who know the rural districts of this country, will bear testimony to the existence of multitudes upon multitudes of poor people who have in them both "sweetness and light."' And then--utterly ignoring the influence exercised by all other agencies--he stated that he could not 'imagine any institution to which this character of the labouring poor is due more than to that which has placed in the centre of the population of every part of the country a man educated and intelligent, whose business it is to do them good, whose whole and sole business is to take care of their souls as far as by God's help he is enabled to do so, in every way and in all circumstances of life to be their friend and counsellor.'

We assume that Scotland is not included in the sphere within which the Established system has wrought thus beneficently. We assume also that, after the facts and figures for which the House and country are indebted to Mr. Richard, M.P., the Principality of Wales also may be excluded from the map of the territory over which the sun of the Establishment sheds these blessings, and, probably, a candid Episcopalian would hesitate to claim for his Church credit for all the civilization and Christianity to be found in Cornwall, and some other districts. So that, tried by a geographical test, the argument may be pared down even yet lower than it has been by the speaker himself.

But are we to be satisfied with Arcadian pictures, or to seek to build on solid fact? We repeat Mr. Miall's question--what is the condition of the rural parishes? and for an answer refer, not to Blue Books alone, but to the knowledge of living men. How are 'the men whose whole and sole business it is to take care of the souls' of our villagers discharging their high function? Are they feeding them with the bread of life, or with 'the husks which the swine do eat,' in the shape of superstitious teaching, or of vapid formalism? Is it not in our village parishes that there are to be found the most stolid ignorance and the grossest superstition? Can there not be reckoned up by hundreds parishes in which spiritual deadness and intellectual stagnation are the prevailing characteristics of the population--or where the only ray of light issues from the mission-station of the despised itinerant preacher, and the only mental activity is due to the self-sacrificing efforts of a handful of, perhaps, persecuted Dissenters? These are the kind of questions which will be stirred up by Sir Roundell Palmer's statements, and other recent utterances of the like kind. Those statements are, no doubt, true of certain parishes, and the number of those parishes is, we are glad to believe, increasing; but that they accurately describe the majority of rural parishes we utterly disbelieve, and surprise must not be felt if, henceforth, there is less reticence than there has been in regard to the real working of the Establishment in those districts in which it is now alleged to be the greatest blessing.

We have heard of those who represent the world as resting upon the back of a tortoise; and now the case of the English Establishment is based upon the agricultural labourer. Even a journal having so unclerical a bias as the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gravely declares that

'Without the parson of the parish the English parish itself
would revert to that barbarism from which it is, even under
existing circumstances, not so very distantly removed. The
agricultural labourers of this country have been not
altogether unjustly described as a class without hope; but
whatever chance of kindness or consolation they may have in
need, sickness, or the approach of death, depends in the
main on the presence and the comparative affluence of the
parish clergyman.'

Thus, as Earl Russell once vindicated the Irish Establishment by alleging that it gave the farmer in every parish a customer for his eggs and butter, so in England it has now become the fashion to look upon the Established clergy as auxiliary relieving officers, or as a supplementary county police. It is not a high conception of their functions; while it indicates the kind of impression which the Church, as a spiritual institution, has made upon the political and religiously-indifferent class. Nor will it reconcile good men, whether in the Church of England or out of it, to a continuance of the evils, the anomalies and the perplexities which are now admitted to be inseparably connected with its position as an establishment. The eggs and butter argument did not save the Irish Establishment; and neither will the resident gentlemen theory save that of England. An institution is, in fact, doomed when its advocates are thus obliged to descend from the higher ground which they previously occupied, to one--comparatively speaking--so miserably low. The question 'what will become of the rural parishes if the Church be disestablished?' is one which should be and can be answered; but, even if no satisfactory answer were forthcoming, it would not be practicable to maintain intact all the elaborate and costly machinery which goes by the name of an establishment.

It is not our purpose to deduce from the debate on which we have been commenting any practical lessons for the guidance of those whose principles and aims it was the object of Mr. Miall to advance. The leaders of the movement are not likely to be led by any elation of feeling, resulting from the recent rapidity of their progress, to relax the exertions needed to overcome the difficulties still awaiting them; while they are acute enough to perceive the direction in which they must in future work. If the passing of the Irish Church Act demonstrated the possibility of disuniting Church and State by peaceful, legal, and constitutional means, it has now been made equally evident that, whenever public opinion calls for a similar measure for England and for Scotland, our statesmen will be prepared to comply with the demand. And, although we are not sanguine enough to expect that the remaining stages of the controversy will be passed through with the placidity which characterized the recent debate, we yet hope that the fairness of spirit, and the generosity of feeling, which were conspicuous from its commencement to its close, will exert a perceptible influence on disputants in a less elevated arena. The issue to be tried is one which, from its very nature, should restrain, rather than excite evil passions, and which pre-eminently calls for the manifestation of a broad and catholic feeling, instead of a narrow and acrid sectarianism. If it be useless to cry 'Peace--peace!' amid the din of conflict, that conflict may yet be carried on in a spirit which will make it easy for victor and vanquished presently to rejoice together, in what will be ultimately felt to be a gain for interests which are equally precious to both.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Remembering the bitter vituperation of which the Liberation Society has been the subject, the following passage from Sir Roundell Palmer's speech, while creditable to the speaker, is amusing also:--'When we see considerable bodies connected--_I won't call them with agitations, for that is a word that might not be acceptable_--but with movements out of doors for the purpose of influencing public opinion on this subject.... I cannot pretend to deny that the question should be brought under our attention.' This is substituting rose-water for vitriol!

[41] The University Tests Abolition Bill received the royal assent on the 16th of June.

[42] London: J. and C. Mozley, and Masters and Son, 1870.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS.

_The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland._ By J. P. PRENDERGAST, Barrister-at-law. Second Edition. Enlarged. With a Facsimile of a Cromwellian Debenture. Longmans. 1870.

It is the tritest of common places to deplore the persistency with which the Irish will go back to early times, and explain the failure of the well-meant attempts of modern legislation by narrating old persecutions. They will do it; and the practical effect of their doing so is seen, in the agitation for 'home government' among the wilder spirits in Fenianism, among men like Mr. Butt and Mr. J. Martin. But, though we regret the 'over-long memory' of the Irish, we cannot but feel that Englishmen have never paid attention enough to the history of the sister island. To most English readers everything beyond what it suited the purpose of Macaulay and Carlyle and Froude to tell them, is a mere blank. Educated men read with surprise in Mr. Hill-Burton's Scotland, the statement that Ireland was the old _Scotia_, the _Scotia major_ when it becomes necessary to make a distinction, and that the _perfervidum ingenium_ which carried four Scotia missionaries over the whole continent, is that very temperament which makes the Irish of to-day so impatient of English rule. Mr. Reichel's lectures, again (chiefly known, we fear, only through the appreciative notices of them in the _Saturday Review_) have been a sort of new revelation of the way in which Popery was forced upon Ireland by the English invaders, and of the general state of the country in Plantagenet times. Even Mr. Froude continually overthrows preconceived opinions--as when he proves that in Elizabeth's time the only part of Ireland where there was anything like peace and security was that which was still ruled by native princes; 'the pale' being ground down by taxation and ravaged by an unpaid soldiery, the successors of those 'paddy persons' who under Leicester had made England despicable in the Netherlands, whilst Ulster, under Shane O'Neil, was quiet and prosperous. What Englishman, again, had anything like a true notion of the disgraceful horrors of '98, till he read Massey's George the Third? Yet Irishmen know and ponder over all these things. A whole library of cheap historical monographs has for many years spread the knowledge of them broadcast; and to this reading, unhappily so one-sided, is due that stubborn 'ingratitude' as we call it, which even the Disestablishment and the Land Bill fail to satisfy.

Mr. Prendergast's book (which we see has reached a second edition) is perhaps the very best that an Englishman could read in order to master the causes of Irish discontent. It is well written in every sense; full of minute research, which the author's office as cataloguer of the Carte papers in the Bodleian enabled him to make; graphic in its descriptions, and abounding in a kind of grim humour which suits the story well. It is the work, in fact, of an educated Irishman.

Its object is to show how the Long Parliament, taking occasion from the massacre of 1641, declared the whole of Ireland forfeited, and, assigning Connaught as a home for the native population, divided the rest into lots, which were given, partly to those who advanced money to raise the Parliamentary army, partly in lieu of pay to the officers and soldiers of that army. Mr. Prendergast does not give many details of Cromwell's conquest--sufficiently known from Carlyle's Letters; but he traces narrowly the history of the deportation, and shows how, after causing incredible misery, it failed in 'thoroughness.'

The only doubtful portion of the book is the preliminary attempt to explain away what our author styles 'the so-called massacre of 1641.' The attempt will hardly satisfy anyone, and in some it may awaken an unfair prejudice against the rest of the work. No doubt as to this 'massacre' there was immense exaggeration. It gave occasion for just the sort of cry which the Parliament wanted to strengthen their hands against Charles. He and Strafford, tolerant for their own ends, had no prejudice against the use of those Irish Papists whom the great majority of the King's party looked on much as Chatham in the American war looked on our Red Indian allies. He therefore encouraged the Irish of the North, smarting under the sense of James's confiscations and Strafford's oppression, to arm with the view of helping him against the Scots. They were to have come over and joined the Highlanders in crushing the army of the Covenant. There is no doubt about it: since Mr. Prendergast wrote, facts cited by Mr. Burton in his recent history, prove that O'Neil's commission was not (as one historian after another has repeated) 'a forgery with an old seal torn off an abbey charter stuck upon it,' it was a bonâ fide document sealed with _the Great Seal of Scotland_--a bit of that clumsy 'statecraft' which the Stuarts learned from Elizabeth, for the Scotch seal had, of course, no real power in Ireland.