Strongly attached as we are to the maintenance of the
connexion between the Church and State in England, we realise that under the conditions prevailing in France it has become impossible to have an Established Church. The constitution of the Roman Church in effect forbids a national Establishment in France. Only a national Church can justly be Established. But to be truly national a Church must be widely comprehensive, and anxious to include, rather than to exclude, varying forms of Christian belief. It must also be willing to subject itself to the will of the nation and the law of the land. But the Roman Church, for good or ill, declares itself the vehement opponent of comprehension in any form, and is determined to submit itself, not to the will of the people and the law of the land, but to a foreign ecclesiastic. There is nothing wicked, or even necessarily unpatriotic, in that attitude, but it is an impossible foundation for a national Church.
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