The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-07-10 00:00:00

THE JUSTIFICATION OF ESTABLISHED

CHURCHES.
(From the Pall MaU Gazette.)

There is one, and only one sufficient justification
for the erection of an Established Church. When the
great bulk of the people really believe in the truth of
the religion which it teaches as simply and naturally as
they believe in the duty of enforcing contracts and
punishing crimes, it is natural that they should invest
the clergy with such power, rank and wealth as
every one would naturally wish to confer upon an
order of men who were really believed to be the
ambassadors of God to mankmd. So long as it re-
presents the genuine religious convictions of the
great POWS of a nation an Established Church is a
noble and magnificent thing, perhaps one of the no.
blest institutions ever seen amongst men. Such a
Church may be a very useful institution for many im-
portant purposes after it has ceased to be the
organ by which the nation thinks and receives
instruction upon the highest subjects. As we see in
the Church of England, the priest shades off by degrees
into a sort of moral magistrate, who does by advice,
iy education, and by persuasion what the police do by
rougher means. An Established Church so situated
may be a very valuable body, and may retain its hold
on the affections of large numbers of persons who do
not care much for its doctrines, and stand outside
of such rags of discipline as it still affects to exercise
over laymen. This, however, is a state of things which
you can no more produce by legislation than you
could call into being by an Act of Parliament the
ancient elms which ornament Hyde-park and Ken-
sington-gardens. If the State endows voluntary reli-
gious associations, one of two things must and will
happen. Either it will give large subscriptions to funds
over which it has no control, and to people who will give
no sort of consideration for it, or it will find itself in
the false position of having converted the clergy into its
pensioners, and having connected itself with all manner
of religious questions which it might have altogether
avoided. Generally speaking, the result would be a
happy combination of the two results. The clergy will
become, to a certain extent, State officials, and they
will be continually proving their independence by
throwing their weight into the scales of whatever party
in the State maybe most inclined to favour them. Can
any one who looks at the state of France fail to see the
enormous political power which the French priesthood
get from the fact that they are official personages
recognised by the State? Can any one doubt that
if Archbishop Manning, for instance, had a (govern-
ment salary and a publicly recognised position as a
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, he would
be able to bring to bear on the Government much
greater influence than at present in some directions,
though he might lose in other directions part of the in-
fluence which he at present possesses ? Surely, too,
there is something which may also be called dishonest
and immoral in subsidising a variety of sects to preach
all manner of discordant doctrines, upon the principle
that almost any sort of religion is useful, whether true
or false. It is surely far better to leave religious ques-
tions to find their level, and to carry on the ordinary
government of the country on the simple, intelligghle
principles which we are all applying every day angl
ll
day long to common affairs. The plan, no doubt, is
simple, and may to some people appear vulgar, but it
has, at all events, the merits of sincerity and solidity.

greater

CARDINAL CULLEN ON CHURCH
EDUCATION.
Cardinal Cullen delivered an address in Dublin last
Saturday evening, at the close of the session in the
Catholic Univi rsity. Be renewed his protest against •
the non-recognition of the University of five millions of •
Catholics by tho State, and complained that they were
left to struggle for themselves, while half-a-million of
Anglican Protestants had the full control of one of the
richeat Universities in the world. They had not looked,
however, at the rejection of their claims as a reason for
abandoning their rights. He added the following
observations on the subject of education and the Church
question
They asked for nothing but religious equality with others ;
they asked for Catholic education for Catholics, and, being,
.1111 dent that this was right and neceotari for the preserva-
tion of theirfaith, they could consent to nothing else—nothing
lees. No other measure would satisfy them ; liut at the same
time, they did not intend to interfere with others, or to pre-
vent them from giving whatever education t they wished to
their children. While their hopes had not been realised,
still one should ailinit that within the short space if time
which had elapsed since the time he referred to their cause
had made some progress, and they hat now every reason to
expect that the University. and Cathobc education in general,
would obtain the lecognftion to which they had a right, and
that Catholics would be put on a footing of equably with
all other classes of their fellow-cP tuns. Indeed, their
claims were so cuiformable with justice and equity that
in the elm they mast be triumphantly successful. (Ap-
plause ; That that had been the tendency of events during
the past few months no one could deny Had not the peo-
ple of this great empire declared at the hustings that religious
equality should be introduced into Ireland? had not the
Ilouse of Commons declared, by an immense majority, that
that ascendancy which had been forced on them by the sword,
confiscation, and penal laws, and which had inflicted un-
heard of evils on this country, should prevail no longer? I
might be, indeed, tint the House of Lords would not listen
to the voice of the country, and that the Church Bill pre-
pared by the most liberal sad enlightened statesmen of the
age would be mutilated in the Upper House, and rendered
unworthy of the nation's acceptance; still, the old fabric of
ascendancy was reduced to such a tottering state that even
if they were disappointed this year their wishes must be
satisfied in a short time. (Hear, hear.) lie might add that
perhaps a little delay would bring them afu Ii measure of
justice than the higher branch of the Legislature was now
willing to give them.
He pointed out the injurious effects of the exclusive
system upon the cause of education, and deprecated
the mixed system as one of the worst modes of sup-
pressing the religion and morals of Roman Catholics.
He asked,—
Where could their children, whose parents were toiling
from morning till night, having neither time nor capacity to
teach the truths of religion, learn these truths! Protestant
teachers, while explaining the doctrines common to Chris-
tianity, might impart many things contrary to the Roman
Catholic faith. Then the Roman Catholic child did not see
his master either making the sign of the cross at appointed
times, or going to mass, and he might say, with some
shadow of reason,—" These practices are difficult to flesh and
blood ; my master, who is a good man, does not perform
them, anti 1, not professing to be wiser or better, will not
submit to practices which he repudiates." Again, every
Roman Catholic sentiment was banished from the class-books,
which fact alone might induce the scholar to think that
there was nothing true or valuable beyond them.
He compared the system prevailing on the Continent,
and observed that hitherto the existence of religious
ascendancy had precluded Roman Catholics from de.
manumit their just rights in the matter of education,
but now the last knell of ascendancy was sounding,
and they might expect to see it shortly vanish from the
land in which it had inflicted so many and severe

calamities.