Bridport, Beaminster, and Lyme Regis Telegram and Dorset, Somerset, and Devon Advertiser. — 1885-10-23 (Bridport, Dorset, England)

THE WEST STAFFORD LIBERAL MEETING.  To the Editor.  Mr. Editor,-1 can well understand that abreviation in reports of speeches is-an absolute necessity. It is also inevitable that the abbreviator should sometimes fail to convey the real meaning of a speaker. May I call attention to your report of the Liberal meeting at Stafford on October 12th. The concluding part might convey an impression that the coronation of our Sovereign by Mr. Spurgeon or any other eminent Nonconformist would, in my opinion, be an adequate substitute for the time-honoured practice of coronation by the Primate of the Church of England. That was not at all my meaning. I was arguing that Disestablishment amounted to a public dishonour done to HIM "by whom kings reign and princes administer justice." I could not conceive of any way by which our national recognition of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of our dependence upon God, could be evinced and manifested if the connection which for so many centuries had existed between Church and State were abolished by the Legislature. At present all the deliberations of Parliament are preceded by prayer, and there is no dispute as to the person who is to officiateLbecause England possesses a National Church. In the House of Lords one of the bishops officiates. If Disestablishment takes place, one of two things must follow. Either the proceedings of Parliament would be conducted without any public recognition of God, or else there would be endless disputes as to who was to represent the religion of the country. In the coronation service there is the fullest acknowledgment of the Divine Majesty. The prayers offered are thoroughly Christian, and the most solemn oaths are administered by the Archbishop to the Sovereign. In the presence of the Almighty he or she has to swear that he will govern according to law, and especially that h,e will maintain the Protestant reformed religion. I WES asked by Mr. Thomas whether that could not be done by a Dissenting Minister, who would be quite as fit as any archbishop. lat once replied that I would a thousand times rather that the coronation were performed by Mr. Spurgeon, or any other godly Nonconformist, than that there should be no public recognition of the Almighty. The most eminent Nonconformist of the 17th century, Dr. Owen, said, in preaching to the Long Parliament, after the murder of the king—" If you, as the rulers of the nation, think you have nothing to do with God, He will soon show that He will have nothing to do with you, as the rulers of the nation." It would be well if all the promoters of Disestablishment (as distinct from Disendowment) would consider more seriously than they appear to have done what a very serious thing it is to destroy the national acknowledgment of God. It w3uld be well if all preachers who are taking that course would take as their text on the first opportunity these most solemn wards —" Thus saith the Lord—' Them that honour Me I will honour, and tbose that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.'" The question is not about personal individual religion —that is absolutely independent of all the power of human rulers —but it is whether this rust ion, which God has made so free and so great, should now publish to the heathen, to the Mahommedan and the Jew, as well as to the Secularist and the Atheist at home, that Christianity is no longer the established religion of the British Empire. May God keep us individually from the dominion of the world, the flesh, and the devil. May He keep us also from everything that would tend to a national apostacy from Christ.—Yours truly,