Bishop Kennion, the new Bishop of Bath and Wells, who
was translated from the See of Adelaide, Australia, paid his Ent official visit to Bath last Tuesday, and in answer to an address of welcome, said that he had heard a great deal before going to Australia of the disadvantages of Establishments, and the much greater friendliness which existed between the Church and the other Christian denominations in a land where there was no such bone of contention between the various Churches as is due to the possession of State-endowments by one of them. His experience at Adelaide had not in any way tended to confirm this optimist view of the consequences of such religious equality as this. On the contrary, he had found that the jealousies between the various denominations were increased, and that the spirit of rivalry was decidedly hotter than in England. He went so far as to say that he would prefer to see one of the other denominations established, instead of the Anglican Church, in any of our Colonies, rather than to see none at all, even though in that case he himself should have to live in it as a Dissenter. If Dr. Kennion has had an adequate experience to justify this judgment, he gives a rather remarkable testimony to the disadvantages of perfect equality in promoting the cordial co-operation of religious societies. Group them round a natural centre, and they fall into easy relations which would never arise, if there were no such natural centre, and each of them were anxious to believe itself the centre and to deny precedence to all and any of the others.
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