SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
Finder this heading as notice such Books of the week as hare not hews reserved for review in other forms.] .Disestablishment and Disendowment. By J. E. C. Welldon, D.D. (Smith, Elder and Co. 3s. 6d. net.)—Bishop Welldon makes a very reasonable and temperately toned statement of the case. He concedes that the Church might gain in some respects from dig- establishment and disendowment, but he gives good reason for thinking that the State would lose more. After all, the great advantage of the Establishment is the guarantee that all over the country there are Christian worship and Christian teaching. Take it away and these would inevitably disappear from many localities. in thousands of rural parishes the church is the only place of worship ; in all but a small minority the clergyman is the only resident minister of religion. The weak point of the system is, we think, to be found in the patronage. It puts and keeps a number of men in places for which they are not suited. So long as there are sonic thousand cures of souls which are regularly marketable pieces of property we shall have scandalous cases of inefficiency and vice. The Church of England clergy will compare favourably, as a whole, with any in the world, but it is afflicted, owing to the patronage system, with an undesirable residuum.
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