The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 20,1858.

1128

charged with the maintenance of Maynooth—or, to
take a more appropriate case, in the great Episcopalian
landowners of Scotland being bound to maintatn the estab-
lished Presbyterian worship. Men, however, have irritated
themselves into the belief that they have a grievance in
church-rates, and it is politic, it is Christian, fully to con-
sider their feelings. Moreover, I suppose it is granted
that, whatever may te said of the justice of the present
church-rate, it has great inconveniences, and therefore we
are quite ready for any good alteration of it which i-an be
suggested ; and we wish this alteration to be made iu the
most conciliatory spirit towards those who are not members
of our Church. How far these alterations may with safety
be carried, the Government, we are led to believe, is now
considering. Even supposing that the alterations were to
go very far, I should feel no fear myself that the churches
of this great and wealthy metropolis would be allowed to
fall in ruins, or the seemly dignity of their services be cur-
tailed, because we were thrown more unreservedly on the
hearty loyalty of that great mass of persons who love the
time-honoured institutions of our Church, because they
feel it has brought many blessings on their own and their
fathers' souls. I cannot sr.'', however, that I should be
equally free from alarm in remote or very poor places.
Indeed, as I have already stated, I cannot look upon this
otherwise than as a poor men's question. The parish
church ought to be everywhere, and, thank God, still is in
many parishes, and always in the country, the inheritance
of the poor. It is their right to have it maintained for
their use, not merely by the voluntary exertions of those
who are charitably disposed to aid them, but by some pro-
vision of the law. And T do most earnestly trust that
whatever settlement is devised, nothing will be done to
sacrifice the rights and feelings of the great majority of the
people, both rich and poor, in order to satisfy the un-
reasonable demands of a politically influential few. I must
say unreasonable demands, for I cannot allow any man's
objections to church-rates to be reasonable, who, when a
compromise is proposed, not contented with an immunity
being secured to himself and his fellow-dissenters, protests
against the impost being levied by authority of law, even
on those who are actual members of the Established
Church, and feel no hardship in the payment. The
present state of this question is, I grant, a very anxious
one ; but still, my reverend brethren, let us not exaggerate
the difficulties before us. To my mind, the one great
lesson which all these inquiries into secular matters con-
nected with our Church forces upon us is this—that the
days are gone by when the Church of England can look to
be propped up by the adventitious aid of secular authority,
if it be not true to itself, and to its heavenly Master, and to
the souls He has committed to it; and yet that it is not
therefore less prosperous and strong. It we, the clergy,
are true to our vows, the temporal aid which the laity can
give, both privately and by law, in their national corporate
capacity, will not, I feel confident, ho refused to us. But,
above all things, it is important for us to understand that
our true strength is not temporal. The Church, as a
spiritual institution, the Church of Christ, can never
perish ; and this our own national development of the
Church of Christ, with its own peculiar institutions, dear
to true-hearted Englishmen from the historical associations
of the centuries of England's most real greatness ; which
has been bound up with so many crises of the nation's
history in times pa4t; which men love because it maintains
the faith in which their fathers lived and died, and in
which they desire to rear their children, to which all the
Protestant nations of the earth look as the great bulwark
of that at once reasonable and loving Christianity which
commends itself only the more to right-minded men, the
mere they love freedom, and the more they are educated—
I say this, our great national development of the Church
of Christ is in no danger if we, its ministers, are what we
ought to be.

love of the externals of worship to an extreme. It is in
my judgment carried to an extreme in all cases in which
men's minds are led to dwell on such things rather than
on those spiritual affections, those revealed theological
truths and sound practical principles which are the essence
of the Gospel, while these things are at the best but its
helps. Why should any clergyman wish to make his
church such that a common man, placed suddenly within
it, would not be able to say whether he was in a Church
of England, or a Romish place of worship? I believe
there is danger to our souls in encouraging these tastes,
which insensibly break down the barriers by which the
wisdom of older times has separated us from a corrupt
form of faith.