The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-07 00:00:00

THE ENGLISH CHURCIL

H Episcopal Church
be
alteredbytheeePestasriontgtaentbe
connected with
the State ? The question is forced upon us by
a debate in which the ceasing of that connec-
tion, as far as Ireland is concerned, is, in
reality, taken for granted by both the great
political parties : for Lord Stanley did not say
anything more for it than Mr. Gladstone.
Neither can we believe that the process will
extend only to Ireland. That the English
Establishment will suffer by the disestablish-
ment of its Irish branch, we do not believe.
On the whole, the cutting off of that diseased
branch must tend to improve the health of the
tree. But the signs of the times cannot be
mistaken. Everything tends to disestablish-
ment in England as well as in Ireland ; not so
speedily, indeed, but as surely. What then
will be its religious effect ? This question,
we own, gives us a special interest in the re-
ligious phenomena of the United States. The
progress of religions change there is much the
same as in England, only farther advanced.
What is now the religious condition there will
in the main be that of England some years
hence.

The first inference we draw from this is one
of 'hope. We trust that there is no reason to
fear that the downfall of the Establishment
will cause any great spread of infidelity. It
is a sad and miserable thing that in any Chris-
tian land the ruling class, and, still more, the
mass of the people, should be willing to sever
the connection between their Government and
the Christian religion. In whatever proportion
willingnessan
hirrehgiousstate exists, it is a symptom of
of mind, and as such it is
impossible to see it without deep regret. But
how much evil is likely to follow from the act
is another question, and that depends of course
upon the nature of the religion to which the
State bids farewell. We know by the experi-
ence of 300 years that upon the mass of the
nation, the working classes, including the shop-
keeper class, and all classes below it, the Church
of England is, and always has been, without
religious influence. Individual clergymen have
often had much, and their families even more.
But if that influence has been strictly religious,
e.g., where any man's preaching has really
touched and influenced the multitude, it has
always been found that his influence has been
so purely personal and so little that of his so-
called Church, that the families and individuals,
moved to earnestness by his preaching, have
always fallen away to some dissenting sect.
They have felt that the
"Church of England"
was no place for them. The most striking ex-
amples of this were Wesley, Whitfield, and the
Countess of Huntingdon.
But those who have
attended to the subject know that the same has
been true, in its proportion,
of every Church of
England preacher who has ever acquired any
really religious influence among the middle
and lower classes. At this moment we very
greatly doubt whether the religious habits and
feelings of any considerable portion of the
working class would be seriously disturbed if
the worship of the Established Church was
totally to disappear next Sunday.
Upon certain sections of the gentry it has a
religious influence ; but there seems no reason
to believe that this, such as it is, would be
materially affected if it were reduced, how-
ever suddenly, to the position of the Anglican
communion in America. Our conclusions thus
far are supported by the experience of the
United States. The Protestant Episcopal
Church there is the Church of the respect-
able classes to a degree which,
considering
that it never was established, and that many
of the Protestant emigrants to America were
either hereditary Puritans, or Lutherans, or
Calvinists, from the Continent, is at least as
great in proportion as it is here.
Neither making fair allowance for these
circumstances, and still more for the mere phy-
sical effects of the huge extent of the States
(which has remciTed so many 1112,11dredr; of