[TO THB EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOR.1
S1R,—Your correspondent "A Dissenter" makes the astounding assertion that "the primary object of the Church is to attack Dis- senters." Now I do not hesitate to say that if you take an equal number of Church and Dissenting sermons, you will find ten Dis- senting attacks on the Church for one Church attack on Dis- sent; and further, that the Church has utterly failed to produce anything that can compare for persistency and vigour of attack with Mr. Spurgeon's published sermons. But this is not the point
I wish to bring out. I have the strongest conviction that if Dis- establishment were accomplished, we should see as the immediate result a united and sustained attack on Dissent which would be far more serious than the desultory skirmishing attacks which now proceed exclusively from the High Church camp. Even the Irish Church has been careful on Disestablishment to retain the exclu- sive title of "The Church of Ireland ; " and if in England the State connection should be severed, the exclusive pretensions of the Church of England would be not mitigated, but intensified, and numbers of men who have been content hitherto to maintain the defensive line of the State establishment would at once assume the offensive position of Apostolic succession, Catholic order, and the rest of it. A very distinguished layman remarked to me some years ago that at present our hands are tied by the Establish-
ment, but that Disestablishment would at once set us free to "go in" vigorously at the Dissenters.
Whether this is a desirable prospect for either the Church or Dissent, I would ask both parties seriously to consider.—I am, Sir,
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