13 OCTOBER 1917, Page 3

In a letter to the Times of Monday the Bishop

of Oxford said : " The fundamental ground for the present demand for such Church refocus as will give the Church freedom to manage its own affairs is the sense that the Church and nation am no longer identical." Though we deplore the Bishop's words, we are glad to have the case stated so plainly. Our own belief is that no Government can commit a more cardinal error than to separate the ideas of religion from the ideas of government ; and we further believe that the Establishment can be defended only on the ground that the Church 11 co-extensive with the nation. We have not space to say more now, but if the Bishop of Oxford's words are intended to be a challenge, we can assure him that they will be accepted as such.