The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-01-15 00:00:00

MR. RATHBONE, M.P., *ON DISESTAB.

LISHMENT.
Speaking at Bangor on Saturday night, in connec-
tion with the opening of a Welsh Congregational
chapel, Mr. W. Rathbone, M.P., said that he had for
many years held the opinion that to connect a Church
with the State and to largely endow it was most
injurious to its religious life and usefulness. A
Church would always possess more life and greater
energy if it were free from State control, and left
to regulate its government in harmony with the
opinion of its members. And still more was it
in human nature to value everything in propor-
tion to the effort, and sacrifice made to obtain and
maintain it. An Established Church could not be
released from State control because, in such a
case, there would be no security that its teach-
ings would be in harmony with the opinions of the
majority of the nation; yet, on the other hand, how
conspicuous were the difficulties which the State
control now involved. They had clergymen im-
prisoned because they considered that obedience to
their opinions obliged them to disobey the law by
which alone an Established Church existed. Such a
state of thing must lead to a reconsideration of the
relations of Church and State, and bring this question
into the range of practical politics much sooner than
many persons had expected. People would naturally
be ready to inquire how far the voluntary system was
capable of doing that which the Established Church
was intended to do, but had failed to accomplish.
To that question Wales and Scotland gave a deci-
sive and triumphant reply. It had been cal-
culated by Mr. Horace Mann that in a religious
country there ought to be Church accommoda-
tion for 58 per cent. of the population. Assuming
that estimate to be correct, the Church of England in
Wales' with endowments yielding an annual income
of 027,000 and numbering among its members the
greater part of the landowners and other wealthy
inhabitants of the Principality, fell, short in the year
1851 of that standard by 387,000 sittings, whilst the
Nonconformists, relying entirely upon voluntary
effort, exceeded the number by 2,770 sittings. Tn less
than a century they had built 3,000 places of worship,
and they raised annually between £300,000 and
£400,000 for the support of their religion. It had
been maintained by the advocates of an Establish-
ment that the voluntary principle was entirely
inadequate in rural districts where the inhabi-
tants were few, scattered and poor ; yet in
Wales, to which that description applied
perhaps more truly than to any other part
of the United Kingdom, the Welsh had,' in the words
of Mr. Henry Richard, "amid poverty, isolation, and
discomfort, provided themselves with more ample
means of religious worship and instruction than can
perhaps be found among any people under the face of
Heaven." When the sacrifices made by the Welsh to
build their chapels, the affection and confidence they
reposed in their ministers, and the hold which reli-
gious opinions had upon the hearts of Welshmen were
more widely known, he should expect to see an in-
crease in the number, already not inconsiderable, of
those earnest members of the Established Church who
longed for the freedom and energy which they found
Nonconformity had given. There ~were already
not a few in the Church of England who were
prepared to secure their freedom by a dissolution of
the connection of their Church with the State and a
relinquishment of its endowments, and who wished to
rely upon its unaided spiritual power to recover its
position among the religious agencies of the ccuntry.
He had not a doubt that to disestablish and disendow
the Episcopal Church would increase enormously its
spiritual power and usefulness. Referring to Ireland,
he questioned whether any Parliament had had to
deal with such a difficult, grave, and responsible task
as the present one. He trusted that the legislation
which was enacted would be such as to prove to Irish-
men that the law was their friend and would protect
every one, high and low, rich and poor.