THE MEANING OF " DISESTABLISHMENT."
[To THE EDITOR OF TIESS " BPROTAT0IL."]
Stu,—Many of those who are protagonists in the fight for Disestablishment are, though they do not realize it, not so much opposed to the principle of Establishment as to the state of things at the moment established. The great charity, which has " provided " and endowed schools and churches, ministers and parsonages, for the maintenance and develop- ment of Christianity among our people has, in the lapse of time (like nearly all other unreformed ancient charities), come to be administered in such a manner as to benefit much fewer people than the donors intended. The nation is now demo- cratically governed and socialistically inclined, and if only it could be got to see that it has at last full power to make the administration and use of its most ancient and most sacred charity more elastic, more oomprehensive, and (in the best sense) more worthy of the name "national" at will, it would never surely be so mad as to resign this, its guiding, steady- ing, "establishing" power ; nor would it be willing to hand over a large proportion of its ancient parochial " endowments for spiritual culture " as a " peoulium " to those who happen at the moment to be (contentedly or discontentedly) con- forming to the Established Order, as if they constituted in any real sense "the Church " of the nation ! By so doing the nation will practically, if unintentionally, be calling into ex- istence a new " sect " or " sectarian Church " consisting of " Conformists," to which will be handed over all the goodwill and status and dignity and much of the property of the old "National Church," while it secularizes in the most uncalled- for way what it does not thus hand over. But the " Church" of England is historically nothing less than the organ on the public side of the religious life of a Christian nation. No baptized Englishman can be de jure anything but a member of the Church, whatever amount of conformity he practises de facto, be it great or small, or practically nil The people's Church system is the people's inheritance as Christian Englishmen, and all they need is to realize this. Of course, I know that directly we take this line—in full open sympathy with many of the leaders of the Church—a very loud-voiced, confident, "influential" group of doctrin- aire Churchmen will publicly disown such a conception of the nation's power over the Church of England as " Erastian" and try to frighten us back. But we must again and again reply to such critics that, though their unquestionable zeal and social position give them prominence, they are otherwise almost a "negligible quantity" in the nation's life.
If a quarter of them wore absorbed (as they might well be) in the Roman Church and another quarter of them formed sort of anti-Papal " Old Catholic" Church apart (like the Irvingites), the remaining half would gradually understand and settle down happily ; while the great Protestant body, consisting of nine-tenths of the nation, would come to some friendly understanding under national authority. The Non- conformist " Churches " could at will be affiliated to the Mother Church under some system of Federal Home Rule—, like that at present enjoyed by denominational schools-r organically united with the National Church, but allowed complete freedom in the conduct of their own services and administration, with the privilege, in all probability, of holding occasional services, if they wished, in the cathedrals and parish churches.
Such traditional forms of dogmatic belief, compulsory' discipline, and established forms of worship as were revised and retained would be "offered," "authorized," "provided," "established; under the aegis of the National Church on much more elastic, progressive lines than heretofore, with far more liberty of thought and speech and act openly permitted, avowed, understood, and respected. The word "Erastian " in a self-governing country like ours is a mere survival from pre-democratic times that has lost its meaning, being out of relation with present conditions. The same men practically constitute both Church and State. The same Government safeguards and supervises both sets of institutions, the civil and ecclesiastical, as parte of the one Constitution, in their continuous evolution and development. To a true English- man "law" is not a mark of bondage but a bulwark of freedom, safeguarding and encouraging the healthy life of a progressive people as it moves from strength to strength.—I
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