WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.
LTO TOR EDITOR or TRI "SPROTATOR.1 SIH,—Your ideal of the English National Church is a beautiful one (Spectator, April 24th). Would that it were realisable. But, alas! under present conditions it is a dream. And what Welsh (and all English) Nonconformists have to reckon with is the stiff reality of actual fact. The large majority of Anglican clergymen do not feel it to be their " duty to render the relations of the National Church with the Free Churches relations not of competition but of co-operation." Their view of their duty is not yours at all. They regard episcopacy as absolutely essential to the existence of any Christian Church. Without it religious bodies are but "societies." Their ministers are laymen. And though by virtue of a questionable participation in the benefits of one Sacrament they may go to heaven, and even be described as "brethren" on some earthly platforms, they have but one, and are therefere in the position of ex-, or at least non-, communicants. So long as these theories prevail (with more or less of logical coneistency) in the minds of the majority of English clergymen, Church fellowship and Christian co-operation with Dissenters are impossible, and cannot but be so regarded by all parties concerned.—I am,
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