ESTABLISHED CHURCHES AND THE WORLD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " EPECTATOR,1
SIR,—You say in the Spectator of May 21st "We cannot doubt that the chief set-off against the enormous benefit of an Established Church is the infiltration of a certain worldli- ness of temper into the bias of those who seem to be pillars."
This claim of the virtue of comparative unworldliness, which you appear to concede, is that always made by un- established Churches ; and yet it does not rest on any evident foundation. Could anything be imagined more worldly than the action of the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, as described in your article of the same date on "The Fight over the Freeman"? It may be urged that his action only shows that "wisdom of the serpent" which is compatible with the "harmlessness of the dove ;" but this cannot be said of the same prelate's approval of that conspiracy of fraud called the "Plan of Campaign," nor of the slowness of the Irish Roman Catholic chiefs in general to denounce agrarian crime.—I am, Sir, Sze.,
[We do not say that all, or even most, Disestablished Church s are unworldly, but only that Established Churches are apt to be ruled by prelates who are a little in love with the world. Disestablished Churches are apt to be a little out of love with the world, but that, too, is the worldliness of discontent, as the other is the worldliness of comfortable prosperity.—En. Spectator.]
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