[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your editorial note to Mr. Percy L. Parker's letter of last week you claim that the Church of England is the national Church, first, "because she does not exclude any Christian Englishmen from her ministrations if they are willing to use them," which is true of the chief Evangelical Free Churches ; and secondly, "because she is comprehensive enough in the matter of doctrine to allow a great variety of belief." But this latter claim is one that surely cannot be maintained by a Church founded on a series of Acts of Uni- formity, and, if it be permissible to a Nonconformist to say so in your hospitable pages, a series of Acts marked by great intolerance. The Establishment received its chief features under Elizabeth, and out of the clamour of the religious con- troversies of that day the one clear and intelligible note which reaches us is the determination of the Queen and her hierarchy to" bring the Church into a uniformity." The last and worst of the Acts of Uniformity, that of 1662, was intended to make a large number of the leading clergy either Nonconformists or hypocrites. It is true enough that within the State Church a remarkable variety of Christian beliefs and practices is to be found; but this is not because the Church is comprehensive, it is because the Church is lawless. It is possible to-day to subscribe to one set of Articles and preach another without moral offence. But to the Nonconformist, the man who claims to have a conscience in these affairs, the phenomenon is a great mystery.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Tyddyn Meilir, Pwltheli, North Wales. Wm. PIERCE.
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