CHURCH AND STATE.
ITo THE EDITOR or vas " Srzereroe."1
flue,—To most people the proposed double ecclesiastical fran- rhise—a baptismal qualification for the electors, and a com- municant test for the members, of the Representative Councils to be created—will appear a strange and questionable arrange- ment. The Dean of Durham seeks to justify it as a well- conceived plan for giving expression and effect to two finctions or aims of the Church of England. To others it will seem a compromise, neither defensible in principle nor likely to be stable in practice, between two conflicting conceptions of the Church, one of which is bound ultimately to prevail.
But, however that may be, it is well to bear in mind that time question of the franchise is only one of detail, and that its settlement in one way or another does not mean that a case has been established for the grant of what is termed self- government to the Church. The really important considers. tions are those which were admirably set forth in your article of the 1st iust., and which, the Dean's letter does not touch. Are Parliament and the nation prepared to hand over the government of the Church of England to a body which in all probability will closely resemble in its composition, aspira- tions, and temper the existing so-called Representative Church Council ? Is there not reason to fear that the adoption of such a course would gravely endanger the comprehensive character of the National Church, and shut the door once for all against the reform and expansion which it needs ?—I am, Sir, Ac.,' Cum.
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