A meeting of the Liberation Society was held on Wednesday,
at which Mr. Stansfeld took the chair, and intimated that we are on the eve of grappling with the subject of Disestablish- ment. That is a very singular judgment of his. We should have thought it possible in 1885 that we were on the eve of grappling with that question, but in 1889 it looks a great deal further off than it looked in 1885. Apparently, Mr. Stansfeld holds that the Ritualist question will lead to Disestablishment, for he quoted the Dean of Windsor to the effect that it needs only that the present state of anarchy should continue, to make Disestablishment the inevitable result. Did the Dean of Windsor say anything quite so strong as that? We hardly think he did. It is surely a great exaggeration to call the present state of things, as regards ritual, a state of anarchy, though it is not certainly a state that can be called orderly or satisfactory. But though we fully agree that much the greatest danger to which the Establishment is exposed, is due to the fanaticism of the Church Association, we believe that the Establishment has weathered greater dangers, and will weather greater dangers again. For the present, Mr. Parnell and his friends are warding off attack from the Establishment, —much the best illustration known to us of the maxim that it is an ill wind which blows nobody good.
Previous page
