CASSOCKED M.P.'s.
THE town of Reggio, in Modena, desires to send Father Passaglia to Parliament, and the able theologian who, orthodox to the backbone, may yet end by founding an Italian, and therefore schismatic church, has accepted the proffered honour. Italy, therefore, finally accedes to the principle that priests may be representatives, and in so doing departs from her English con- stitutional model. Priests have, it is true, sat before in the Parlia- ment of Turin ; but they have been unknown men, returned by mountain districts, and this deliberate choice by a city of the greatest living Italian priest, really commences a new e'dinte, holds out, for example, to all successful preachers a new and a great career. It may be worth while for Englishmen, with a vast theo- logical discussion impending which will in the end remodel every ecclesiastical institution, to consider whether their own practice is wise, whether the Italians may not have hit on the more prudent course, and whether, by driving the clergy from the free air of Parliament, they are not injuring the intellectual culture of the entire people. By a curious fiction, maintained because like many other fictions it suits the temper of the nation, English clericals are supposed to have a Parliament of their own, a noisy assem- blage of bishops and bigots, which exists on condition that it shall never say anything worth hearing, or do anything that can interest any human being. Consequently as a priest cannot, conveniently, sit in two places at once, the House of Com- mons is shut to the minister of the Established Church. Is that wise ? It is certainly not logical, for the Nonconformist minister is not only eligible, but very frequently sits, and we know of nothing which should prevent Irish Catholic priests, if honestly lOyal, from sending themselves to Parliament, instead of their lay nominees. Arrayed, if the little boys outside permitted, in full canonical pomp, they would be an odd and a novel feature in the debates ; but they would talk just as easily and at least as temper- ately as the quaint folk whom FatherDaly knows how to marshal so well, and who understand so perfectly how to worship God and Mammon, to vote against the freedom of Rome, and to shriek for a Galway subsidy. Still the priests would be admitted only as s”ssenters, and the question is whether it is expedient for any constitutional country to shut out its recognized clergy from this particular form of power.
It is of no use to raise the argument that the clergy must not be secularized, that a minister must not be a politician any more than a trader, a member any more than a goldsmith or publican. That argument might, if honest, be met on its merits, but in the present state of the world it is transparently hypocritical. The clergy are not debarred from politics anywhere in the world, and exercise in every country vast political influence. Rome, indeed, openly sanc- tions the principle, and her cardinals sit unreproved in the senates of France and Austria, wield secular power in Italy, and are every- where engaged openly as well as secretly in warm political strife. Cardinal Wiseman would smile at the theory which should prevent his interfering on principle in a Galway election, for is it not the right of the Church to " bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron?" Hildebrand thought so certainly, and cardinals are apt, as a rule, to agree with Hildebrand. The Greek Church, though less pretentious, still makes of its bishops judges ; and, as Mr. Kinglake has pointed out, the protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey involves almost all internal secular administration. In Protestant Sweden the clergy have a House which votes on every, thing from firstfruits to the new tariff ; and in Prussia, where the Royal authority interferes with all action, the Church is still the best ally of the independent Liberals. In Belgium, the priest- hood prohibit a poor law ; and in Italy their adhesion is the first object of every administration. Even in England the Church is strong enough to attract a political Voltaire like Mr. Disraeli, the country rectors are the mainstay of the great Conservative party, and the clergy are strong enough to coerce Parliament—as in the Divorce Bill—into the dangerous course of exempting them from obedience to the law. In local elections their influence is enor- mous, and even over the nation their aggregate authority is great —in Scotland greatest of all. They are allowed to vote, and constantly take part in elections ; they are often dictators of Poor-law Committees ; a considerable section of the magistracy is still composed of men in orders ; and among our political writers priests are neither fewest nor least influential. The fear of secularizing the clergy is unfounded, and, indeed, the need of a kind of secularization is the greatest felt in the Church. There is a want of some link which shall bind the clergy to those they strive to instruct, some chain of sympathy between the lay and the clerical mind which may enable the pastor
to understand the inner wants of his flock. At present, he is too apt to understand them as an actual shepherd might those of actual sheep—viz., by patient and acute observation entirely from the outside. He can recognize disease, but not the symptoms which foreshadow it ; appreciate health, but not the signs which show that in the sick vitality is still strong. The contact of active political life might do for our clergy what the confessional does for the Romish Church, with this additional advantage. The confessional instructs only the individual, political life soon raises the power of an entire class. Admit the rector to a chance of a seat, and all clergymen would begin to view every great subject, first, from its spiritual or highest side, and then from its political and more multiform aspect—a process decidedly beneficial to breadth and depth of view. There is a tolerance, a broad practical Christianity in the view of many men of the world, to which clergymen, unless of the very best class, can no more attain than artists or savans can. They would have made a great step towards its attainment when they habitually considered every proposition in two very different aspects We should soon cease to hear of clergymen objecting to the census because David was punished for numbering Israel, or debating whether extempore speech did not leave more room for the Spirit than written sermons—whether, that is, Mr. Spurgeon, who talks, is not nearer to God than Isaiah, who wrote.
In principle, the argument is all in favour of the clergyman's right to be enfranchised, and be it remembered, the principle being always liberty, the onus of proof lies always with those who wish to restrict it. Two objections in practice must, however, be considered. The bishops are in Parliament, and are certainly not more enlightened than the rest of their brethren out of it. That assertion, which will be instantly made, proves little, for even were it absolutely true—and Archbishop Whately and Dr. Tait are both Parliamentary Bishops—still bishops are selected too late in life to be educated by anything save misfortune. The heavy atmo- sphere of the Peers, sweet-scented but enervating, is not a true political air, and though peers are manlier men than bishops, it is not in the gilded chamber that they learn manliness. The other is much more formidable, and we suspect secretly weighs down all strict or logical thought. There is, on most re- ligious subjects, no accord between the educated mind of England and the mind of its voting class. Consequently there can be no accord between the House and the very few clergymen whom constituencies would elect. A Maurice or Kingsley, Whately or Hook, might be welcomed into the House, but rather Urquhart than Dr. Cumming, Mr. Whalley than Mr. Ryle. The electors would take, nine times out of ten, either a rector of great posses- sions, who would be one more country gentleman, and wholly with- out distinctiveness, or a popular preacher who would be an unmiti- gated nuisance, or a Calvinist of the narrower sort, out of tune with everything around him. There is no possibility of avoiding that danger; but it seems, to 118 at least, one which it is somewhat weak to fear. Such a man, once in the House, would become by mere force of attrition a rounder-minded man, and would inevitably impart his new light, his fresh tolerance, and novel experience to the knot of congregations which sent hint up. At present, the nal row worshippers are made still narrower by the pressure of their single idea on the mind of their worship-leader.
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