The Dean of Carlisle, in an excellent letter to Tuesday's
Times, calls attention to the odd inaccuracy which is so common, not only amongst the enemies of the Established Church, but also sometimes amongst its friends, in reference to the powers of the State over the State Church. Mr. Bright, for instance, had spoken of the State as supplying to every parish in England ministers of the Gospel to teach the farm labourers. In point of fact, except in the case of Crown livings, which are relatively very few, the State does not place over any English parish ministers of the Church. The Bishops and ecclesiastical corporations appoint many of them, private patrons more. It is not the State which supplies these ministers of the Church, and the Dean of Carlisle, who for thirty years has found himself able to say " ditto " to Mr. Bright in almost all matters except those of religion, complains of the misleading character of such statements. Dr. Oakley is quite right. Whatever may be the weak points of the Establishment, it is not one of them that the religious teachers of the people at large are chosen by secular authorities for their own secular purposes ; and any language which implies so gross a misrepresentation of the facts, carries men's minds off on a wrong track.
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