MR. FORSTER .ON lahl NATIONAL CEP:MOM B ItADPORD, as Mr. Forster
hinted in very intelligible terms last Saturday, is much given to the policy of Disestablishment, and has set its heart on leading the party which calls itself the party of religious equality. It takes, therefore, some strength of conviction and some courage, for- a Liberal statesman so much in earnest as Mr. Forster to avow to his supporters in Bradford that he is opposed -to their favourite political reform, and sees no reason to expect that he shall ever change his mind on the subject, except under contingencies too doubtful or remote for practical considera- tion. Nevertheless, even the most earnest Radicals in Brad- ford will hardly respect Mr. Forster theless for the -manly and perfectly frank speech of Saturday last, while a considerable number, we trust, of the moderate Liberals will be confirmed in their belief that there is no inconsistency between their Liberalism and their respect for the National Church, by hearing Mr. Forster's profession of political faith. Indeed, for us who are, perhaps, even more convinced of the value of a National Church than Mr. Forster, though we always feel the claim of history over mere abstract theory in con- sidering the value of political proposals, it would seem -not less, but more plausible to attack the House of Peers Sand the idenarchy from the democratic point of view, as inconsistent with the principle of social equality, than it is to attack the Established Church from the same point of view as incon- sistent with the principle of religions equality. Mr. Forster reminded his audience that the Church question is a question not of putting up, but of pulling down. "Few persons, I imagine," he said, "would think now of establishing a Church in England, if it did not exist. Certainly, I am not one of those few, but the question is not one of establish- ment, but of disestablishment." And he might have added that no persons would now think of establishing an aristocracy of birth in England, if it did not exist, or of establialling a throne, if it did not exist. It is because the Peerage and other distinctions of hereditary rank do exist, and answer varions useful as well as some injurious ends, and because an hereditary monarchy which has long contented the English nation does exist, and for this reason only, that no one of any weight assails either the one or the other. We know what life is like with these institutions. We do not so well know what it would be like without them. We know that we should lose much of the variety of life, and of the colour of our best-beloved political traditions, by losing them ; we are not sure how much we should gain, in the way either of happiness or hope for the mass of the people, by abolishing them ; and therefore we ding to these institutions, though no one would maintain that they are theoretically consistent with the principles on which our various reforms of the House of Commons have successively proceeded. But when we turn to the question of the Established Church, there is certainly much more to be said in its favour from the very point of view of democratic equality and the happiness of the mass of the people, than there is for an hereditary aristocracy invested with political privileges or an hereditary monarchy. In the first place, if an Establishment violates the abstract prin- ciple of religious equality in favour of a particular Church, it demands an eqnivalent, both in service and political concession, from that Church, which, in the case of the hereditary aristo- cracy, we certainly do not demand. No peer is bound to special service of the State by reason of his great political privileges or his social rank, but the bishops and ministers of the Establishment are bound to such special service, and are com- pelled also to recognise the right of Parliament to legislate for them to an extent that would be (very justly) repudiated as a bond of servitude by the free Churches. Indeed, so notorious is this, that Mr. Miall sagaciously changed his plan of attack on the Establishment by substi- tuting for the name, " Anti-State Church Society," "The Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control," meaning to make it an emancipation society offering a benefit to the Church, instead of a hostile society striking a blow at it. And that, at all events, marks most distinctly the fact that the National Church does not take its privileges for nothing. It promisee work, And it does work, and it gives allegiance to the State in matters in relation to which other Churches would indignantly and quite rightly refuse it. Here, then, is one great distinction between the historic State Church and the historic Peerage, and a distinction which is,—speaking in the light of democratic principle,—in favour of the former,—that it pays for its historic privileges while the historic Peerage does not. As Mr. Forster most truly and impressively observes, "At this moment there is no place in England, no country parish, however secluded, no back slum in any city, however squalid, in which there is not a minister of the, Church,—that is, a State servant, whose business it is to care for the highest good of every man, woman, and child
in this parish and those streets They know, and I wish them to continue to know, that they may ask for the religious help of this minister of religion, not because they are raemb'ers of this or that congregation, but because they are Englishmen." And surely that is, after its kind, a demo- cratic defence of the State Church, and one which it would be impossible to advance for the hereditary House of the Legisla- tim, or even, perhaps, for the dynastic principle itself.
But Mr. Forster did not by any means exhaust this side of the case. We confess we feel very strongly that though it is true that the Established Church does give to its ministers and to its rulers (in exchange for services and political sub- ordination), and in much less degree even to its lay members, a secial position which is, in fact, regarded, and not perhaps unreasonably ,regarded, as more or less injurious to the ministers and members of other religious denominations, yet inside the National Church the Establishment promotes a spirit of large comprehension, -mutual deference for each other's rights, and in
one word, religious equality amongst its various members, which no Church not under the control of the State and of the influence of Parliament could enforce on members of such widely different schools of thought. Under the broad dome of the National Church a far greater diversity of religions parties and religious ideas exist side by side than could possibly exist under the cover of any free denominational bond. You may talk as you like of the religious equality of the Roman Catholic Church with the Dissenting sects, and in one sense, no doubt, they have per- fect religious equality ; but what is the use of religious equality without religious communication ? And what is true, --almost perfectly and mathematically true,—of the im- passable gulf between the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissenting sects, is almost, though not quite, as true of the gulfs between those various sects themselves. As Matthew Arnold says of all human souls, certainly it may be said of free Churches, that "in the sea of life enisled, with echoing straits between them thrown, dotting the shorelees watery wild," these separate Churches "live alone." That is not true in any sense of the various schools and tendencies of thought in the National Church. Where is the Broad Churchman who has not pored over Dr. Newman's Oxford Sermons ? Where is the Low Churchman who has not some conception of the teaching of Maurice and Kingsley and Llewelyn Davies and Dean Stanley ? Where is the High Churchman who has not distinct conceptions of the principles of Simeon ? Religious equality,—within its own bounds,—is a far more real and a far more useful thing within the Established Church, than what may be called the politico-religious equality which those denominations enjoy which are equally ignored by the State and by each other. We do not deny that there is a sense in which, in return for work and obedience, the Estab- lishment confers a social advantage painfully felt by-- and no doubt socially injurious to—other Churches. But at least it does realise a genuine religious equality within its own bounds in return for this disadvantage, while no one can say that our aristocratic institutions,—with which we have, nevertheless, no desire to part, while they promote, as on the whole they probably do, the happiness of an historic and tradition-loving people,—foster equality of any kind whatever, social, moral, or intellectual.
We hold, therefore, that a genuinely democratic statesman like Mr. Forster is not derogating half so much from his democratic principles in sanctioning the continued existence of the Established Church, as he and every one who holds to the British Constitution necessarily is, in sanctioning the con- tinued existence of an hereditary Peerage and hereditary Throne. Yet where is the Radical party that attacks these last institutions,—which could not be successfully defended on properly democratic principles at all Certainly English Radicalism cannot pique itself very safely on the logical and moral consistency of its democratic faith.
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