THE ANCIENT FUNDS OF THE WELSH CHURCH.
[To TRY EDITOR Or TEX " SPECTLTOR."I SIR,—It is interesting to find that not all " Liberationists " are enthusiastic for the diversion of the meagre funds of the Welsh Church to such purposes as the provision of public washhouses. Dr. Macfadyen's suggestion is at least an advance upon that proposal. But for anyone who has followed during the last few weeks the utterances of Mr. Ellis Griffith to sup- pose him capable of dealing with the arguments of Church defenders in the matter of the Church's right to the use of her endowments seems almost impossible.
Mr. Ellis Griffith's inaccuracies have been again and again exposed; his historical blunders have been only surpassed by the brilliant originality of the statistical methods of Mr. Morgan Gibbon ; Mr. Ellis Griffith was perhaps wise in his generation when he abandoned argument the other evening at the National Liberal Club and indulged instead in wild abuse of the Church which he and his followers are apparently bent upon crippling ; it is difficult to imagine that Dr. Macfadyen can approve such methods of promoting what he apparently looks upon as a righteous cause.
Sir, I have lived the greater part of my life in Wales, and
I have a great admiration for the Welsh people; but I have no hesitation in saying that the cause of Disestablishment in Wales is a cause that has lost ground, and is losing ground to-day, simply because the thoughtful Welshman can see nothing but wanton cruelty in the proposal to take away, in the name of religious equality, all but a fraction of the endow- ments of the Welsh Church—which is certainly the most progressive religious body in the Principality. To suggest that this wrong should be carried through in order that the funds may be used "for work connected with the presentation of the Christian religion in its . . . ethical aspects," when a vast number of religious men regard such an act of disendowment as ethically indefensible, and as calculated to hinder inde- finitely that greater co-operation between all religious bodies which both Churchmen and Nonconformists desire, is almost tragically inept. How the disendowment of the Welsh Church can prove anything but a disaster to the Christian religion I cannot see.—I am, Sir, &c., A LIBERAL CHURCHMAN.
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