In a visitation charge to his clergy on Monday the
Bishop of Durham described the Establishment as " an anomaly which is ceasing to function even tolerably." The nineteenth century, he said, destroyed the " Anglican monopoly " of the House of Commons by admitting Nonconformists, Roman Catholics and even Jews and atheists, so that the justification of the Establishment— that the rulers of the Church were all churchthen—was swept away. " I am brought, therefore, though very reluctantly, to the conclusion that we must look to Disestablishment for the final solution of our problem." Such a pronouncement will no doubt strengthen the already large Disestablishment party in the Church. We are sorry that the Bishop of Durham should seem to despair of getting for the Church under the Establishment the strictly spiritual autonomy which would be a happy alternative to Disestablishment. We agree, 113wever, that if that spiritual autonomy which the Enabling Act seemed to promise, but when the test came failed to give, is not achieved by consent within a reasonable time, Disestablishment will be the only cure.
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