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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 'Kl
 
 THE 
 
 RIGHT OF THE NATION 
 
 TO DEAL ■WITH THE 
 
 £€dB8ia$tit)al li^xlmtrmBnts 
 
 NOW ADMIKISTEKKD JIY THE 
 
 CHFRCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 HENRY W. CROSSKEY, F.G.8., 
 
 Birmingham, 
 
 TKIRB EDlTIoy— REVISED, 
 
 SociEry FOR THE LiBERATiosr OF Religion from STAtE-PATaoxAGB 
 AND Control, 2, Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street, London. 
 
 Price Twopence.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The following paper was originally read at a IMidland Counties 
 Conference of the supporters of the Society for the Liberation of 
 Religion from State-Patronage and Control, held at Birmingham^ 
 February gth, 1875. The writer alone is responsible for the 
 sentiments which it contains ; and it is published — in com- 
 pliance with the request of the Conference — not as aii 
 authoritative exposition of the Society's views, but as a 
 contribution towards the discussion of a confessedly difficult 
 subject. In the present edition, one or two subordinate 
 passages have been re-written. 
 
 June, 1875.
 
 3X 
 
 THE RIGHT OF THE NATION 5'/-5'7 
 
 TO DEAL AVITU THE (^^ qO'/^ 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ENDOWJIENTS, 
 
 &e. 
 
 Ml^ 
 
 Before reading the Paper which I have prepared at the 
 request of the Committee in charge of this Conference, it is 
 right that I should, distinctly and emphatically, declare that I 
 am alone responsible for the opinions expressed. As respect- 
 !^iilly and clearly as possible I shall state my own personal 
 onvictions, in the belief that whatsoever may be erroneous 
 in them will be best corrected by open discussion, and that 
 the speediest and the surest method of securing ultimate co- 
 operation is to encourage the frankest expression of individual 
 thought. 
 
 A discussion on the right of the nation to deal with 
 endowments now devoted to ecclesiastical purposes, and 
 administered by one section of the community, can neither 
 be justly regarded as dictated by ungenerous and sordid 
 motives, or scornfully dismissed as an appeal to low and 
 ignoble passions. Large and far-reaching educational, moral^ 
 and religious interests are inextricably involved. If, as the 
 Liberation Society contends, the establishment of a "Church 
 of England " by the State is a grave spiritual misfortune, 
 disestablishment without disendowment would intensify the 
 evil a thousandfold. It would remove the check upon 
 ecclesiastical pretensions furnished by the lay conscience and 
 
 40G007
 
 by legal forms of procedure ; while it would bestow upon an 
 organisation which would have the strongest pecuniary, 
 motives for narrowing its interests, an imperial range of 
 influence, apart from the control of imperial authority. 
 
 In a speech delivered in the House of Commons (May 
 i6th, 1873), Mr. Gladstone is reported to have said, "I once 
 made a computation of what sort of allowance of property 
 should be made to the Church of England if we were to 
 disestablish her upon the same rules of equity and liberality 
 with respect to property which we adopted in the case of the 
 Irish Church ; and I made out that, between life incomes, 
 private endowments, and the value of fabrics and advowsons, 
 something like ,^90,000,000 sterling would have to be given, 
 in this process of disestablishment, to the ministers, members, 
 and patrons of the Church of England. That is a very 
 staggering kind of arrangement to make in supplying the 
 young lady with a fortune, and turning her out in life to 
 begin the world. And undoubtedly the spectacle of a 
 voluntary society in the position of the Church of England, 
 altogether independent of the State, and with money available 
 for her purposes that can be roughly described, or even 
 possibly estimated, by figures like these, does present to the 
 mind rather puzzling problems, so that prudent men, moderate 
 men, and, on my own behalf, Sir, I will say liberal men, may 
 venture to doubt whether they are called upon by any im- 
 perative sense of duty to join in such a crusade, even though 
 led by my hon. friend filling the part of Peter the Hermit." 
 
 I entirely accept Mr. Gladstone's statement, and do not 
 believe that "liberal men " are called upon to join in any such 
 crusade. If the ecclesiastical system known as the "Church 
 of England " should have any proportion of the large posses- 
 sions now enjoyed through its connection with the State 
 secured to it as a private sect, it would within its own bound-
 
 aries exercise an ambitious tyranny ; and in relation to the 
 countr}-, it would become the centre of a political power in 
 eternal conflict with free institutions. 
 
 Neither is it evidence of mercenary greed to insist upon 
 the importance of the disendowment of the Church for the 
 relief of national burdens. The awful shadows of ignorance 
 and pauperism fall darkly upon our country. Boast of our 
 civilisation as we may, life to thousands of our fellow-country- 
 men and countrywomen is a heavy and weary burden ; and 
 many of their miseries could be uplifted by a fair application 
 of resources now employed for ecclesiastical purposes. In 
 town and country, those who labour for social improvement 
 are hampered by the fear of resistless opposition should the 
 rates be raised. When the standard of education is kept 
 miserably low, lest it should become too costly ; when dens, 
 which generate that physical pestilence which, in its turn, 
 brings forth moral death, cannot be thoroughly cleansed lest 
 another penny in the pound should be added to our taxes ; 
 when numberless labourers on the soil have no chance of 
 becoming intelligent men, through the sordidness of their 
 surroundings — we are bound to ask, in the name of justice 
 and humanity, whether those who love God cannot and ought 
 not to pay the cost of worshipping Him ; and whether the 
 resources of England cannot be more thoroughly applied 
 toward lightening these national burdens, which so miserably 
 interfere with the general enjoyment, not only of the higher 
 graces, but of the simplest necessities of civilised existence ? 
 
 The Bishop of Manchester asks, " What would they say if 
 some paid lecturer were to begin to say to the Duke of 
 Devonshire that he should be allowed to retain his property 
 as long as he lived, but when he was gone it should be 
 parcelled out among themselves ? Great questions like this 
 ought not to be agitated by holding before the eyes of the
 
 ignorant agricultural labourer — though he believed that the 
 agricultural labourer was not nearly so ignorant as was sup- 
 posed — such baits as should never be held up before any 
 men, thus tempting them with the hope of possessing the 
 parson's tithes and lands, while it was not possible to tell 
 what might be the difficulties in the way of the enjoyment 
 of them." ••' Bishop Fraser assumes the whole question. We 
 are not tempting men with the hope of possessing " the 
 parson's tithes and lands; " we are showing them the validity 
 of their own' title-deeds to their own possessions. We are 
 offering no "bait" — so offensive a phrase as " holding up a 
 bait " does not describe our purpose. We, at least, believe 
 that we are pleading for the higher civilisation of England. 
 
 In examining the right of the nation to deal with eccle- 
 siastical endowments, I propose to state in a series of pro- 
 positions, as clearly and distinctly as possible, the positions 
 for which I contend ; ranging beneath them such antagonistic 
 theories as it may prove essential to notice. I shall not 
 argue the question as a matter of " generous " treatment, but 
 as one of right. It will be time to consider what is generous 
 when we understand what is just. If we attempt to decide 
 upon the generous method of treating endowments before we 
 fairly understand the extent of the nation's claims, we shall 
 not only wrong the manliness of our opponents, who surely 
 desire, as we desire, that whatever is right shall be done, and 
 are not in any way to be regarded as suppliants craving for 
 mercy ; but we shall fail to gain for ourselves any knowledge 
 either of what is generous or what is just. Neither shall I 
 discuss possible compromises which it may be or may not 
 be necessary to make, in order to carry a Disendowment Bill 
 through the House of Commons. If we begin with pro- 
 pounding schemes of compromise, we shall end with losing 
 
 * Speech at Dewsbury, December 3rd, 1874.
 
 ■everything for the sake of which we fancied compromise 
 ■desirable. Great reformations have never been achieved by 
 men too timid to state the principles for which they were 
 -willing to live and die. The mediators, without the pro- 
 phets, would have made poor work of the world's history. 
 
 IMultiplicity of detail will not be required by the argument 
 I submit. We must protect ourselves against the danger of 
 permitting the point of the whole controversy to be lost in 
 an intricate confusion of minute and unessential issues. The 
 theories in contention regarding Church property stand 
 opposed to each other on remarkably clear and distinct lines. 
 They are not metaphysical subtleties, except in the sense 
 in which the question, "What is a pound .^" raises a meta- 
 physical subtlety in currency. They are not antiquarian 
 problems, except in the sense in which the origin of the 
 present rights of the Crown constitutes a chapter of 
 antiquarian research. Although unable to say, "What 
 is a pound ? " our knowledge as to the rightful owner 
 of a definite sum of money may be precise ; and although the 
 exact method by which the Crown obtained its privileges 
 may not be very clear, we may not have the slightest doubt 
 as to whom our allegiance as citizens is due. 
 
 INIy first proposition is : — That what is popularly, and for 
 convenience, termed the " Church of England " is, in reality, 
 the State exercising ecclesiastical functions ; and that, there- 
 fore, whenever the State determines no longer to exercise those 
 ecclesiastical functions, no institution which may be organ- 
 ised by individual Episcopalians, and called the Church of 
 England, will have any right to claim the revenues which 
 ^lave been devoted to religious purposes, under the direction 
 of the State, as its own private property. 
 
 The Church of England is not, I contend, a distinct insti- 
 tution which has entered into partnership with the State, and
 
 ■\vhich, on the dissolution of that partnership, is entitled tO' 
 pecuniary compensation ; but is an agency of the State 
 employed for the conduct of certain services. When the 
 State chooses to surrender the charge of the religion of the 
 countr}', no corporate body, with any title to be called the 
 Church of England, will exist, either in law or fact, until 
 those who choose meet, and create an organisation at their 
 free and independent pleasure. Bishop Eraser's statement,, 
 that Avhile "the Church, as an aggregate or a corporation, has- 
 no property whatever, all the property was allocated to the 
 several benefices, each of which forms a corporation sole," 
 does not touch this position. The allocation of lands and 
 titles to benefices for ecclesiastical purposes does not consti- 
 tute them the private property of those benefices. They 
 have always been employed under regulations determined by 
 the nation, acting through its constituted authorities, and 
 have never been administered by any body or corporation, 
 whether sole or aggregate, capable of acting independently ofT 
 the State, and disregarding the definite conditions it has 
 imposed. "The clergy," said Lord Brougham, "are officers 
 of the State, and, like other officers of the State, may be got 
 rid of in proportion as they are no further wanted." * The 
 State can as justly decide that the money now administered: 
 to secure the services of a body of clergy should be applied 
 to another purpose as the Admiralty can pay off" a ship. 
 There is no corporate body with proprietary rights of its owrt 
 called the " British Army." Neither is there, in a legal and' 
 corporate sense, a Church of England distinct from the State. 
 If a law were enacted abolishing a standing army, the indi- 
 vidual men and officers would be entitled to compensation ; 
 but there would be no " British Army," with rights as a cor- 
 porate institution, to receive any part of the balance which, 
 
 * "MiiTor of Parliament," 1825, p. 367.
 
 might be left after such compensation had been paid from the 
 sum now devoted to its maintenance. The enactment of 
 laws liberating religion from State-control would have pre- 
 cisely analogous results. The fact that, instead of certain 
 votes being annually taken, burdens have been imposed as 
 charges upon land ; accumulations secured through the opera- 
 tion of common laAv, and properties allocated to special bene- 
 fices, does not invalidate the conclusion that the determination 
 of the State to abandon the charge of religious services would 
 leave no corporate institution entitled to apply to its own 
 uses endowments at present ecclesiastically employed. What- 
 soever remained after individual compensation, would, there- 
 fore, be the property of the nation itself. 
 
 As a matter of law, this position appears to be absolutely 
 established by the Irish Church Act. By clause 13, every 
 ecclesiastical corporation in Ireland, whether sole or aggre- 
 gate, was dissolved, and by clause 21, ecclesiastical courts 
 and ecclesiastical law were abolished. As a direct conse- 
 quence of these clauses, no Irish Church existed, as a corporate 
 institution, at the moment when the Act came into existence. 
 The State having ceased to exercise religious functions, no 
 Church remained as an incorporated body until a purely 
 voluntary association was organised. A special clause (22) 
 was therefore inserted in the Act, providing that "if at any 
 time it be shown to the satisfaction of Her Majesty that the 
 bishops, clergy, and laity of the said Church in Ireland, or 
 the persons who for the time being may succeed in the exer- 
 cise and discharge of the episcopal functions of such bishops, 
 and the clergy and laity in communion with such persons 
 have appointed any persons or body to represent the said 
 Church and to hold property for any of the uses or purposes 
 thereof, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty, by charter, to 
 incorporate such body, with power, notwithstanding the
 
 Statutes of INIortmain, to hold lands to such extent as is in 
 this Act provided, but no further or otherwise." This new 
 Church body inherited by right no property. Property was 
 bestowed on it by arrangements, which w^ere, in fact, provi- 
 sions for making special gifts. If every ecclesiastical corpo- 
 ration in England were dissolved, as in the case of the Irish 
 Church, a number of men might voluntarily meet together 
 and form a Church, and accept episcopal forms, and s gn the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, and say that they belonged to the 
 " Church of England ;" but no ecclesiastical endowments 
 whatever would belong to them, except by special gifts, which 
 t might be wise or unwise to make. 
 
 For myself, I believe that every, objection to a State- 
 Church as now existing would apply to any legislation 
 svhich should practically re-create or re-endow a " Church," 
 nd recognise a certain number of men who happen to 
 believe in Episcopacy, as forming the " Church of England," 
 with direct or indirect claims upon ecclesiastical endow- 
 ments. We are frequenty told that "the Church is co- 
 extensive with the nation." If so, no voluntary organisation 
 of Episcopalians which might succeed disestablishment can 
 have a right of inheritance to property distinctly held in the 
 hands of the political representatives of the whole com- 
 munity. 
 
 Historically, it is impossible to separate Church and State 
 into two distinct bodies. What is termed Church property 
 originated when the relationships between the various con- 
 stituted authorities in Church and State were by no means 
 sharply defined, but were, indeed, unceasingly contending 
 against each other for supremacy. Whether or not the Anglo- 
 Saxon kings gave portions of their own estates or public lands 
 to the " Church " is a mere antiquarian question, inasmuch as 
 the fact remains patent that since England, as an organised
 
 community, has been in any relation to Christianity, the civil 
 Government has, on the one hand, struggled to keep its hold 
 upon the ecclesiastical arrangements of the nation, and on 
 the other hand has employed State-machinery to assist in the 
 Jevelopment of ecclesiastical resources. The increase of the 
 property administered by the Church, through the action of 
 the common law of the land, has been proved by ■Mr. JNIiall 
 hj facts which have never yet been answered. To quote one 
 or two salient instances only : Tithes recoverable by law, 
 under pains and penalties, have been paid upon articles such 
 as turnips, potatoes, hops, hemp, flax, and several garden 
 fruits — vegetables which were either unknown in England, or 
 if known, not employed as sources of gain, until long after 
 the establishment of the tithe system.* Benevolent indivi- 
 duals had assuredly no power of prophecy to enable them to 
 make tithable, articles with which they were utterly unac- 
 quainted. The case of personal tithes is equally strong. The 
 wages of carpenters, smiths, weavers, masons, innkeepers ; 
 the fish taken in the sea ; the gains from working a mill — 
 were all tithable ; but could not have been subjected to the 
 tax by the authority of a pious founder. With respect to the 
 land, ]Mr. Miall proves by statistics — comparing the acreage 
 of land under tillage or pasture in Great Britain in 1871 
 with the acreage similarly employed in the time of John — 
 that eight-ninths of the tithe property since commuted 
 into rent-charge, i.e., 21,500,000 acres out of 24,000,000, 
 on the annual produce of which rent-charges are due to the 
 Church, had nothing to do with individual bequests, but 
 became tithable by the direct action of public law.j 
 
 While the State secured provision for ecclesiastical offices, 
 
 * "Title Deeds of the Church of England to her Parochial Endow- 
 ments." By Edward MiaU, p. 53, et seq. 
 
 t Speech in the House of Commons, July 2nd, 1872.
 
 it exercised over their performance an unceasing and solici- 
 tous control. No time can be pointed out in which a 
 corporate body, called the Church of England, entered into a 
 compact with a body called the Government of England — as 
 one man might enter into a business partnership with another 
 reserving power to resume his own rights. I entirely agree 
 with Dr. Freeman when he characterises the statement that 
 " there are two distinct bodies, called Church and State, 
 which are capable of bargaining with one another 'as a 
 delusion ' ;" and maintains that " it will be well for the 
 words ' relations of Church and State,' to substitute some 
 such words as ' legislation on ecclesiastical matters.' '"^ What 
 we commonly call the State Church is but the outcome of 
 legislation on ecclesiastical matters, and can only exist in a 
 corporate form or capacity so long as such legislation con- 
 tinues. The doctrines taught within the Church have been 
 altered from time to time by the sole and supreme will of the 
 State ; just as the fashion of the uniform to be worn by 
 regiments in the army has been changed by the same 
 authority. At one time the State directed its ecclesiastical 
 oflficers to wear the livery, and administer the services, of 
 Catholicism. In Edward the Sixth's time another word of 
 command was given ; and Episcopalian forms were to be 
 observed. INIary restored the ancient order ; Elizabeth 
 brought back Episcopalianism. Under the Commonwealth 
 the law directed Presbyterianism until Charles II. practically 
 established " the Church of England," through which, at the 
 present day, the State continues to exercise its ecclesiastical 
 activity. 
 
 The Bishop of Manchester declares that " the continuity" 
 
 * " Disestablishment and Disendowment— What are they ? " By E. 
 A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D., pp. 31, 32.
 
 13 
 
 of the Church was not interrupted "for a single moment." '■' 
 He rebukes the people who "talk" as if the 4,000,000 of 
 people inhabiting this country at the time of the Reformation 
 were " equally divided into Protestants and Catholics, and 
 the property of the Church was taken from the latter and 
 given to the former." With all due deference, I submit that 
 the supposed " continuity of the Church " is as mythical as 
 the existence of Phlogiston, the spirit of fire. The one con- 
 tinuous element in the ecclesiastical history of England is the 
 supreme authority of the State. Nothing else in the Church 
 has been " continuous." Its doctrines and ceremonies have 
 varied as Governments have arisen and fallen, but its depend- 
 ence on the reigning political power of the day has remained. 
 I do not maintain that the Government at the Reformation 
 took property from one " body" and gave it to another, as it 
 might confiscate the estates of one duke to bestow them on 
 another ; but that the Government instructed its ecclesiastical 
 officers to conduct religious services belonging to a form of 
 faith differing from that which had previously existed, and, 
 when they refused, summarily dismissed them from their 
 posts. 
 
 Historically, as legally, therefore, there is no body called 
 the Church of England entitled of its own right to retain 
 ecclesiastical endowments. It directly follows that what is- 
 termed vaguely " Church property," is not held on any tenure 
 at all analogous to that on which the title to ordinary pro- 
 perty depends. Church property is not private property in 
 the sense in which an estate is private property. The Church 
 authorities are trustees of the State, appointed for adminis- 
 trative duties, and have no right to claim what are emphati- 
 cally trust funds, given into their charge by the nation, as 
 their own. The holder of Church property enjoys its use, on 
 
 * Loc. cit. an;:.
 
 H 
 
 condition of performing certain duties which he does not in 
 any way select for himself, but which are determined for him 
 by the State ; and he can neither sell it, nor bequeath it, or 
 in any way transfer it, according to his pleasure. The sup- 
 porters of the Establishment have no right, on the pressure of 
 one argument to declare that "their Church" holds private 
 property, and on the pressure of another to maintain that it 
 provides for a national recognition of religion. 
 
 The ecclesiastical endowments now used by the Established 
 Church are not equivalent to those held by Dissenting bodies, 
 because the Church has never existed as an independent 
 religious organisation, in the sense in which an Independent, 
 Baptist, or Wesleyan Church exists, and therefore, of its own 
 Tight, possesses no property whatever. Never having been a 
 private institution, it can establish no claim to private pro- 
 perty. Professor Newman raises the question whether an 
 individual has a natural right to dictate a creed to future 
 ages, if only he will give money for it, and personally I 
 admit the adverse conclusion at which he arrives.-"' But this 
 is an altogether different thing from the appropriation of 
 national property to that ecclesiastical system which is called 
 the Church of England. It is impossible for that system of 
 legislation on ecclesiastical matters, termed the Church of 
 England, to receive under the conditions of its establishment 
 any gifts for itself as Nonconformist churches can receive 
 them, for the simple reason that it has no existence apart 
 from the nation, and must at all times, therefore, be prepared 
 to receive the verdict of the nation with regard to the control 
 of any property now devoted to its service, or the continuance 
 of any official power now delegated to its ministry. 
 
 Neither is the relation of the Church to the State equiva- 
 
 *•' On Religious Endowments." By Prof. F. W. Newman. Being a 
 Lecture to the Manchester Reform Club. October, 1874.
 
 lent to that of a public institution, like an hospital, ^vhich 
 generous donors have privately endowed. An analogy might 
 possibly be drawn if an hospital were officered by Government 
 nominees, and regulated in its method of treating disease by 
 Act of Parliament. 
 
 Endowments given by individuals cannot, I further con- 
 tend, partake of the character of private property. Any gifts 
 to a State-Church must be bestowed, and received, on the 
 conditions under which the Church itself exists. When 
 individuals have endowed a church connected with the 
 English ecclesiastical system, they have endowed an institu- 
 tion existing by the leave, and under the authority, of the 
 State, and not an independent body capable of enjoying a 
 fortune of its own. If a private individual erect a building, 
 and present it to the authorities who, in submission to the 
 Legislature, manage the affairs of the State-Church in 
 England, he virtually presents it to the nation, and abrogates 
 his private rights and claims. He cannot bargain that the 
 services within it shall be Broad Church, or Evangelical, or 
 Ritualistic. He can make no stipulation that if the nation 
 should revert to Popery the edifice he has erected shall be 
 devoted to Protestant purposes ; and, by the same rule, he 
 cannot make it a condition of his gift that if the State should 
 abandon the attempt to exercise religious functions, such 
 edifice shall be reserved for the special use of any one section 
 of the nation alone. 
 
 My next position is, that no special claim upon Church 
 property can be established against the nation at large by 
 certain Christians personally attached to Episcopalian forms. 
 On the 19th May, 1662, the assent of Charles H. was given 
 to an Act " for the uniformity of public prayers, and adminis- 
 tration of sacraments and other rights and ceremonies, and for 
 ■establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating
 
 i6 
 
 bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church of England." 
 This Act rendered it imperative upon every clergyman to 
 declare his unfeigned assent and consent to all and every- 
 thing contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common 
 Prayer ; incapacitated every person from holding a benefice 
 or administering the Lord's Supper, who had not previously 
 received episcopal ordination, and prohibited every one from 
 preaching or conducting public worship, unless he did it 
 according to the rites of the Church of England. By this 
 Act the property of the nation was virtually devoted to the 
 service of those who believed in Episcopacy, and by Bills of 
 pains and penalties their tenure was rendered secure. The 
 right of the particular party now dominant in England to the 
 enjoyment of Church property, rests upon what is now 
 admitted to have been an act of persecution. Parliament 
 summarily dismissed from religious offices all those who 
 could not accept one set of forms and dogmas ; but the 
 claims of the nation, although long in abeyance, have not 
 been destroyed by the vote of the section which chanced 
 to obtain a temporary majority. 
 
 On the following grounds, therefore, — 
 
 I St. That what is termed the " Church of England " is the 
 State exercising ecclesiastical functions, and that this Church 
 does not constitute, either legally or historically, a corporate 
 body, entitled, of its own right, to ecclesiastical endowments. 
 
 2nd. That the property now devoted to the sustenance of 
 what is called the Church of England, is trust property held 
 from the State, and not private property, like an estate apper- 
 taining to an individual, or an endowment given to a Dis- 
 senting Church, or a donation received by a special charitable 
 institution. 
 
 3rd. That a large proportion of the sum now devoted to 
 ecclesiastical uses has been obtained through the direct
 
 '7 
 
 action of the common law, and that special endowments 
 bestowed by individual donors have been both given to and 
 accepted by a State institution without any reserved condi- 
 tions of private proprietorship. 
 
 4th. That those individual Christians who are Episcopa- 
 lians have obtained their exclusive position as the result of 
 direct acts of persecution, and can therefore establish no 
 exclusive right to the property they administer — I claim the 
 whole of the ecclesiastical endowments now administered by 
 the State-Church as the property of the poeple of England, 
 to be dealt with, according to their pleasure, by their repre- 
 sentatives in Parliament assembled. The Bishop of I\Ian- 
 chester * has himself admitted that " the property of the 
 Church of England is national property, in the sense that it 
 was originally given for national purposes ; and that the 
 nation, as represented in Parliament, has a right to see that 
 it is properly distributed and usefully applied." So that, 
 although all his contention regarding the origin and character 
 of Church property be true, and all my contention be false, 
 we meet at last upon one platform, and equally assert the 
 supreme right of the nation. 
 
 Several questions are at once suggested by this general 
 conclusion : — Do you propose, it will be asked, to give no 
 ' compensation " to the Church ? Individuals now employed 
 in the service of religion, according to the forms appointed 
 by the State, will undoubtedly have a right to most liberal 
 treatment. No individual ought to be left worse off by any 
 measure of Disestablishment. Justice requires not only that 
 every individual minister should be compensated, but that such 
 •compensation should be regarded as his own property and be 
 placed absolutely at his own disposal. The advowsons belong- 
 
 * Loc. cit. ante 
 
 406007
 
 ing to individuals having been recognized as private property 
 by the law, would, as a matter of course, have to be treated 
 as private property. But, for the reasons advanced in this 
 paper, I cannot admit that there will be any corporate body, 
 called the Church of England, entitled to compensation after 
 the claims of individuals have been fairly and amply satis- 
 fied. If, on the abandonment of State-control over religion, 
 Protestant Episcopalians organize a Voluntary Church, no 
 injury will be inflicted upon them if they are simply required 
 to do what is done by all their fellow-citizens, support the 
 Church in which they themselves desire to worship the God 
 who made them. 
 
 With respect to parish churches, their very name indicates 
 their proper appropriation. They belong to the parishes ; 
 let the parishes determine what to do with them. They 
 might be let with a purchasing clause in the lease to some 
 one religious body for a term of years ; or simply let to a 
 religious body ; or (which I should deem preferable) two or 
 three religious bodies might arrange to conduct services in 
 them at different times of the day. 
 
 The point contended for, is, that if a church be sold for a 
 religious use, the parish should receive its fair value ; or if 
 let to a worshipping body or bodies, such control should be 
 retained by the parish as will enable it to resume its rights 
 over the building, whenever it may be thought necessary ; no 
 one religious body obtaining, without purchase, a perpetual 
 possession. The parish should receive the full price, or the 
 fair rental, and devote the amount, not to defray the expenses 
 of any system of worship, but to relieve the parochial burdens. 
 
 Cathedrals distinctly belong to the nation, and should be 
 reserved by the nation for religious uses, such services being 
 conducted within them as the nation may from time to time 
 determine. Preachers in cathedrals ought not to be selected
 
 19 
 
 from one sect. The most eminent men of all denominations 
 
 in the country should in turn be invited to teach and preach 
 
 to the people within them. 
 
 . The method of disposing of ecclesiastical endowments docs 
 not fall within the scope of my subject. I have claimed 
 them entirely and absolutely for the nation — to be dealt with 
 by national authority for national purposes. It should be 
 remembered that, the compensation of life interests being a 
 gradual process, a large portion of the surplus funds will 
 accumulate slowly. As they accrue, they might either pass 
 into ihe imperial treasury or be dealt with locally. It is 
 worth considertion whether they might not be administered 
 by parishes, groups of parishes, and municipalities. A muni- 
 cipality might employ, for the public benefit, the ecclesiastical 
 property within its boundaries. Where a municipality does 
 not exist, the parish might receive Church lands and revenue. 
 Should any parish be too small, or possess an undue pro- 
 portion of wealth, groups of parishes might be arranged. 
 While the questions affecting the disposal of the funds which 
 may accrue from Disestablishment must be fairly and 
 thoroughly debated, any decision upon them may stand over 
 until we have won a public acknowledgment of the national right. 
 I have stated and defended (I trust with all the respect due 
 to those who differ from me) the principles which, in my 
 belief, should guide the settlement of this great question. 
 In this country, in which the spirit of compromise has become 
 the genius of legislation, no man can expect that abstract 
 principles of justice will ever be carried to their logical con- 
 sequences in an Act of Parliament. It is none the less neces- 
 sary that those who would promote great reforms should un- 
 derstand what justice demands, both that their own hearts may 
 be touched with that supreme enthusiasm which only springs 
 from faith in the goodness of their cause, and that they may
 
 not despair too soon of success, and surrender, ignominiously, 
 at the moment when faithful resoluteness might secure 
 honourable terms, the very citadel of their high contention. 
 
 It will, of course, be open to the representatives of the 
 nation to consider the former position of those who have been 
 connected with the Episcopalian institutions, and deal both 
 generously and bountifully with them. 
 
 A certain amount of property is the result of modern 
 ■voluntaryism, and was intended by private donors, who are 
 now living, for the use of a Church accepting Episcopal forms. 
 With respect to such property, while no claim of right can 
 be admitted — while it is impossible to recognize property 
 expressly given to an institution, both established and man- 
 aged by national authority, as subject to the private disposal 
 or control of individual donors — in the way of generous 
 dealing, and for the purpose of procuring the settlement of a 
 long controversy, it may not be advisable to press the claim 
 of right to its fullest extent. 
 
 I am, however, solemnly convinced that it will be better 
 to agitate for years than to run the risk of the passing of a 
 scheme of Disestablishment which should, directly or in- 
 directly, approach to a re-endowment of an ecclesiastical 
 organization which would act independently of State-control. 
 We may be denounced as robbers, laying sacrilegious hands 
 upon the Temple of the Lord. In sober truth we are the 
 defenders of the people's rights against the assertors of sec- 
 tarian privileges, and the advocates of the cause of the 
 ignorant, the poor, and the needy, whose lives could be made 
 ,so much brighter, purer, and nobler if the great resources 
 of England could be won from the hands of ecclesiastics, and 
 devoted to purposes conducive to the well-being of the nation 
 at large.

 
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