[To TRH EDITOR or SIR "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—I have no desire
to carry on a controversy with an editor—especially a courteous and generous editor—in his own paper, but questions of fact are more easily dealt with than questions of opinion. A sufficient reply to the statement that Churches are at present equal before the law is to note how different would be the state of things if that were now the condition in England.
1. A free interchange of pulpits would be possible. Dr. Horton might preach at Westminster Abbey and Mr. Meyer at St. Paul's; Canon Henson might preach at Highgate and Dr. Gore in the City Temple.
2. All disabilities attaching to Nonconformity in the matter of degrees, schoolmasterships, public appointments, and the administration of pre-Reformation funds would be removed. It would be open to the University of Oxford to honour itself by giving Dr. Fairbairn a Doctorate of Divinity, which at present it cannot do. It would be possible for the same university to appoint Professor Peake (Dean of the Theological Faculty in Manchester) to be Hampton Lecturer, which at present it cannot do. It would be open to the Uni- versity of Cambridge to elect Mr. Rendel Harris to a New Testament Professorship, which at present it cannot do. It would be possible for the authorities at New College, Oxford, to invite Dr. Horton to preach in the Chapel of the College, where he was himself educated, which at present they cannot do. It would be possible for the Education Committees, which direct the Council schools, to appoint the best man or woman on their staff, even if a Nonconformist, to be head-master or head-mistress in over 16,000 Council schools, where at present their choice is limited to members of the Anglican Communion. It would be possible for the governors of our great public schools to appoint Free Churchmen who have distinguished
themselves in education as masters and bead-masters, where at present their choice is limited to men who have been edu- cated in Anglican traditions. And so one might go on through the whole schismatic condition of English society.
At present social justice and religious progress are both hampered because Parliament maintains an arbitrary defini- tion of the Christian religion invented to suit a political necessity 250 years ago and frequently not seriously defended now even by those who profit by its operation.
We have a right to ask Parliament to remove restrictions 'which hinder and hamper the full development of the Christian religion. If we regard the continuity of Christianity in England as distinct from the continuity of its ritual and its endowments, the Free Churches represent one line of spiritual development in the Church of Christ in the British Isles.
My own conviction is that the finest piety and most con- scientious Christian conviction bred in the pre-Reformation Church was offended by the political establishment of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Much of it became Noncon- formist and has remained so.
The time has now come for a policy of conserving spiritual forces and energies in England. Only such a policy can seriously stem the advance of materialism and its associates. The future belongs to the ecclesiastical statesman or spiritual leader who can conserve our moral resources and our spiritual ideals and bring into co-operative alliance forces which are now wasting themselves in fruitless and often meaningless
friction.—I am, Sir, &c., DUGALD ItACPADYRN. 35 Jackson's Lane, Highgate, N.
[We can see no inequalities before the law in Dr. Macfadyen's list. The proof that there is none may be found in the fact that a Bill for Disestablishment and Disendowment would not by itself alter, but would rather intensify, the narrowness of the Anglican Church of which be complains. We hate exclu- sion, and desire a comprehension more perfect in the National Church; but turning that Church into an episcopal sect in which Nonconformists will have no rights will clearly not make for comprehension.—ED. Spectator.]
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