[To ME EDITOR OP THE " SPEOTATOR.1 Sin,—For many years
I have been an interested reader of the Spectator, and have long regarded it as one of the best edited journals in the Empire. But, in common with a growing number of Britons throughout the world, I think it strange that you should not only speak of the Episcopal Church in England as the Church of the nation, but also describe those Christian men and women who do not worship in its buildings as Nonconformists. When you contend in your issue of August 4th that "the Church of England is the national Church because she does not exclude any Christian English- m'en from her ministrations if they are willing to use them, and because she is comprehensive enough in the matter of doctrine to allow a great, variety of belief," I fail to see the force of your contention. The Roman Catholic Church does not exclude any Christian Englishmen from her ministrations if they are willing to use them, but that fact does not make her the Church of the nation; and to be oomprehensive enough in the matter of doctrine to allow a great variety of belief does not make any Church a national Church, much less the Church of the nation. Besides, Christianity is not a matter of doctrine or belief, but a matter of life and conduct. Then I do not understand how you can claim that those persons who do not use her ministrations are " in law and in fact members of the national Church who do not conform." The majority of English people have been neither baptised nor confirmed in the Episcopal Church, and unless they were so baptised and confirmed they would be refused the Communion in that Church, and the ministers who baptised them would not be admitted into the pulpits of that Church. Yet you assert in the face of these facts that they are all members of the national Church. That is to me a singular assertion. It is true that the persons of whom I speak have not been turned out of the Episcopal Church, for the simple reason that they have never been really connected with that Church; but it is true that they could not connect themselves with it without subscribing to doctrines which they do not accept, and endorsing practices of which they do not approve. It seems to me, therefore, both inconsistent and unfair to call persons who have never had any connexion with the Episcopal Church either Nonconformists or members of the national Church who do not conform. As a Christian Canadian, I should think that persons who belong to the Established Church might be called State Churchmen, but that persons who belong to other Protestant Churches should be called Free Churchmen, and I wonder that the members of the Free Churches in England do not object to being described as Nonconformists.—I am, Sir, &c.,
GEORGE COULSON WORKMAN. Montreal, Canada.
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