El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-07-26
By
Frederic
]. Haskn

, sold the job of street commissioner to a
| political henchman for a term OF, say,
! four years he is shocked beyond power
! of expression by the wickedness and
| corruption of his degenerate American
| cousins. But when a Profligaue. indie
cent moral leper of a duke, who owns
| ten or fifteen churches, sells the job of
rector OF each church TO the highest
bidder for life, that is not corruption
that is English. and therefore right
| A clergyman marries the daughter of
| a wealthy man, and for a wedding gift
the brides father buys living for his
! ecclesiastical sOninlaw, and thereby as
| sures him a position and an income for
| life, wholly without regard to the
young clergyman's moral, mental or re-
1 ligious fitness for the place. Almost
/ every day the London papers carry adj
vertisements announcing the sale of
| these church livings. And yet, so pow
erfuI is custom, that not even the Non
Conformists look upon this business
scandal. When n-Conformist min
! listers are in control of the government
/ they make quite as much of their pow
er of patronage IN the church as do the
orthodox Anglicans in similar posi-
lions.
Bishop of London a Model.
1t must be said, to the credit of the
good men in this church, that they man
pure and good in spite of the palpable
disadvantages of It's system of govern
ment The day of the sporting country
kparson is dead, and clergyman no
| longer can utterly neglect his duty, be-
cause of the swift and sure punishment
of clerical and social ostracism visited
upon the unworthy. There was time
when the neglect of duty on the part Of
| a great number OF the clergymen made
the entire church ineffective, but this
| is no longer true. The Church of Eng
| land. as religious body, Is now a mil
| liant organization and there are no
/ drawer and better Soldiers of the Cross
| in all Christendom than that type Of
! Anglican. clergyman to be seen in the
present bishop of London
But for all that, puritanical America
| would be shocked by the public profess
| sions of a great many of the good men
in the Anglican clergy. great many
bishops and clergymen objected siren
uously to the LOyd-George licensing
bill, aimed at the restriction Of the
! liquor traffic, on moral grounds be-
cause it would impair the value OF
| brewery shares held by widows, orphans
and clergymen. Last spring a prom
/ inent bishop of the church in a speech
/ in London, delivered before a temper
ance society. made a statement which
would have precipitated a riot in any
| American gathering OF the kind He
| said that he was considering seriously
/ becoming a total abstainer. In expla-
nation he said that in the last hOp-pick-
{ ing season he had gone down into Kent
/ and while there his supply OF liquid
! refreShment was exhausted. For four
/ days he took no alcohol. He was so
surprised by the fact that he suffered
no particular Inconvenience on account
/ OF his abstinence that upon his re-
turn TO the city he consulted his ply
/ stefan and asked the medical man if
| in his opinion, il would be safe TO con-
/ tinue the abstinence indefinitely. The
| medical man assured him that perhaps
/ the experiment. although bold one,
would not result diSaStrOusly- The bish-
! op said that as q result OF that expert
ence he was almost tempted to become
! a total abstainer, although as yet he
| had not done so. The present govern
! ment, Non-Conformist, last year intro
| duced into the schools the study Of the
/ effect Of alcohol upon the human sys-
! TEN, and opened schools to the timer
1 ant temperance teachers sent out by the
/ temperance societies
To Disestab iisn Wales.
The principal political issue involv-
/ ing the church in Great Britain 1T the
present time is the agitation for the
! disestablishment OF the Church Of
Wales This has been always one of
rogram, but premier AsquiSn has been
! for years its principal Champion 1t
| Wales the great majority OF the PEOPLE
are Dissenters. and yet they are forced
by law to support the established
| church.
, The case for Welsh disestablishment
was summed up by lord Roseberry. in
his Radical days. in this language: AN
| ecclesiastical establishment, like other
establishments, must rest upon the de-
| liberate will of the people, or ii rests
upon nothing. That was the doctrine
and basis on which the Irish Church
| was disestablished. 1t was a mission
airy church that converted nobody. 1t
| was an alien church that alienated ev-
| erybody. 1t kept for a minority what
| was meant for the nation. And so,
| coming as it did, a stranger to Ireland,
and repudiated by the mass of the ma
ton. 1t passed away. You know another
/ church establishment which embodieS
these characteristics, and which in like
| manner is doomed"