The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-06-16
"CURRENT EVENTS.

This was the April topic of the Fort
nightly, and at the meeting discussion
arose as to GladstOne's Home hule and
his attitude toward the Church of Eng
land and disestablishment of the Church
in Wales. Several questions were asked
by the ladies at that time, which find a
reply in the article below, from the pen
of Dean Paget, who states in addition
that not cent of salary is paid by the
State to the Church clergy except to the
chaplains in the army and navy. This
is not the popular impression, but it is
the fact, nevertheless. Dean Paget says:
1t is as hard for Americans to under
stand the actual history and bearing of
the church questions in England as it is
for Englishmen to enter into contrUver-
sizes of like nature in America, We are
so liable to be biased by preconceived
notions, bv popular but erroneous state
ments in papers or by individuals. Now
as the son of an English clergyman, born
in a country rectory in Leicestershire,
and having as a lad received the glebe
rents for my father in the second coun-
try rectory (of which the 1.-THE was main
ly paid by the principal landowner, the
duke of Bedford), and having served the
first two years of my ministerial life in
an English: country curacy, may claim
to have some practical knowledge of the
subject under discussion. This is not
whether a state tax to support the
church would be right or wrong, wise or
unwise, but simply that as fact there
is no such tax in England. In all my
life in England l never heard any educat-
ed churchman, lay or clerical. call the
tithe rent a "tax," it would be viola
ton of the plain meaning of the word to
do so. A tax is public charge imposed
by government, general or municipal, is
public money, and may therefore at any
time be rightfully diverted or repealed
by government, representing the people.
The school tax here would exactly cor
respond to this definition. Suppose,
however, that wealthy land owners
among the early settlers in America, be-
ing ardent lovers of popular education,
had built public schools in their own
townships at their own expense, had in
some cases endowed these public schools
with gifts of land, in Others had paid
over proportion of the produce of some
of-their farm lands (say one-tenth) to the
support of the school, and at death, in
stead of bequeathing land for this pur-
pose, had been able legally to bequeath
their land subject to this perpetual pay
ment. Then all subsequent purchasers
of these lands could only actually pur
chase nine-tenths of them, the produce
of one-tenth being the perpetual proper
w OIL TIC puul1O svhvvl. m. sy runnld nf
course pay proportioDately smaller
sum in rent or purchase money for the
farm, just as farmers and landowners in
England pay less for land which is partly
church property, or liable to tithe. Here
is an exact parelled to the tithe rent
charge in England, which is as precisely
the bequest of the generous churchmen
of early days, and as entirely church
property, as a land or house endowment
is the property of Trinity church, New
York. The payment of tithe has no.
thing to do with the fact of the church
in England being called the established
or national church; she might be discs
tablished tomorrow, but the tithe would
still be legally due from her own prop
erty. 1t is true the state, through Par
lament, might rob the church of her
property, but it would be case of
spoiiation as plain as Henry VIII. COM
mitted when he arbitrarily transferred
church Land to his favorites, or as if the
state were to seize the endowments of
any religious body in this country.