806

A NATIONAL CHURCH.

BY ARTHUR W. HUTTON, M.A.

THE subject on which I am to address you this afternoon may seem some what unconnected with that general series which has been carried on here during the past winter with so much success. I think, however, that I

shall be able to show you that this is not really the case. If there is one impression more likely than any other to remain fixed in the minds of those who have attended any considerable number of these lectures, it is this: That religion is an immensely important thing; that national welfare, and indeed human civilization and progress, have been intimately associated with religion throughout the whole period of human history; that while particular religions have sprung into existence here or there, have grown to maturity, and then have slowly died out or have left but flickering embers to commemorate their past importance, the religious spirit itself seems to be immortal, and men seem always to need a field for the exercise of their religious emotions, as much as they always need food, and drink, and clothing.

Now all the lectures of this course hitherto delivered have dealt with religions of the past or religions of the present. Next Sunday week, Dr. Stanton Coit is to speak on what may fairly be termed the religion of the future. It is true that he does not claim for ethical culture the name of religion-he holds that the use of the word in that connection might prove misleading. But since the essence of all that is best in all religions, past or present, lies in their inculcation of duty, in their advocacy of the paramount importance of righteousness, of morality, of ethics-for all mean the same thing; I do not think we need trouble much about the word, one way or the other. And before I go farther, it may serve to remove any possible misconceptions as to what I am driving at, when I proceed to state my views on the subject of a National Church, if I say at once that I profess myself to be a disciple of this religion of the future, a student in the school of ethical culture, a believer in the supreme law of righteousness; and if I do not add a disciple of Dr. Coit personally, it is partly because I claim to have played the part of his John the Baptist here at South Place; for, more than four years ago (before I had the pleasure of hearing his name or of learning anything about the movement for ethical culture in America), in a lecture delivered in this hall one Sunday morning, on the moral training of children, I followed-crudely perhaps, but definitely the same general lines that are now so ably enforced here, week after week.

My business, however, this afternoon, is not to speak on ethical culture, but on a National Church; and I shall place before you my grounds for holding that, in view of the transition, slow but inevitable, from the old to the new, an organization such as we in England possess in our National Church, is of immense value; and that instead of being destroyed-supposing its destruction to be possible—or, instead of being handed over to what would thenceforward be a narrow and powerful sect, it should remain a department of the State, and be popularized, liberalized, nationalized, so as to provide a home, as free as may be from pettiness and obscurantism, in which the national religious sentiment may develop naturally.

Starting, then, from the point of view that religion is the highest form of education, that its inculcation and its practice mean the training of the moral sense; and leaving out of sight for the moment the fact that popular religion invariably associates a great deal of superstition with this system of ethical training; we are pointed towards the conclusion that, on principles which may be described as socialistic, there is nothing inconsistent with justice in the abstract idea of an Established Church. On the contrary, if it be right that the community should combine for elementary education, and for technical education, it cannot be wrong that it should further combine for ethical education. And if it were possible to establish religion in this sense of promoting the highest intellectual and moral cultivation of the individual, whether youthful or mature, it would, I take it, be the duty everywhere of the State to establish religion. It is only because religion is so confused in men's minds with Ecclesiasticism and Clericalism that this common-sense view of the matter is neglected or forgotten. But the case we have before us is not an abstract one; and while I shall have to admit that some aspects of it render it less favourable to my contention, I hope to be able to point out that on various grounds the reasons for retaining an existing Establishment, such as we have in the Church of England, are weightier than the more abstract reasons by which a State maintenance of religion in general would be defended.

Now, in order to clear the ground, I will first indicate certain questions partly political and partly ecclesiastical, with which I have nothing to do. The Disestablishment, twenty years ago, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland has no bearing on the case before us. That was not a popular Church, but a garrison Church. It represented the English conquest of Ireland, and very little else. In my sense of the term it was not a State Church, for it was a foreign State Church; and on the principle of popular supremacy it was bound in justice to be deprived of its ascendency. None of us regret its Disestablishment; some of us, however, do regret the far too partial Disendowment to which it was subjected. Those funds, of which it had the administration as an Established Church, were national funds, bequeathed originally by pious Irishmen in olden times for the maintenance of the Catholic religion, and diverted from their original intention at the time of the Reformation. You may say they should have

been restored to the existing Roman Catholic Church in Ireland; and at the first hearing this sounds most plausible. But on reflection we see the justice of the contention that the national welfare is to be preferred to all else; and since no living Catholic in Ireland could be said to be wronged by not having these funds transferred back to his Church after three centuries of misappropriation, we are allowed to conclude that what was originally intended for the benefit of the nation, and especially of the poor, is best devoted to the service of the whole nation, in such matters as edu cation, which concern its social welfare, and that apart from the narrowing guidance of conflicting Churches. I do not say that Ireland ought not to have an Established Church-that would be in conflict with the general principle I am advocating; but an Established Church in my view should be the popular Church; and in Ireland, as things are now, that would be the Catholic Church; and on its own principles the Catholic Church could not associate itself with the State and submit to popular government on those terms which alone are in my judgment admissible—viz., the acknowledgment of the supremacy of the State of the Irish State that is, of course, in the present case, as representing the Irish people. But in any case, so large a share of these endowments ought not to have been wasted, as they were, in pensioning off worthless clergymen, who never had any duties worthy the name to perform; and who, as soon as they were sure of their money, retired to idle away the remainder of their aimless lives at various fashionable watering-places.

Then, again, as to the case of Scotland. Here, it appears, a majority of the people are in favour of Disestablishment; and if they continue to be of that mind, of course Disestablishment must come. The case differs considerably from that of Ireland; but it is equally a theological prejudice which makes a liberal Establishment of the kind I have in view impossible in Scotland at the present time. Two-thirds of the population of Scotland are convinced that an alliance between Church and State is prohibited by the words of Christ, when He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Of course with such transcendental reasoning as this you and I have nothing to do. Our religious kingdom belongs to this world, and to no other; it is the reign of righteousness on earth that we seek to establish. Such it would seem was also the aim of Christ; but if two-thirds of the Scottish nation, sincerely holding Him as their Master, are of opinion that He condemns Established Churches, but looks with favour on the United Presbyterians and the Free Kirk, they must on liberal principles have their own way; and certainly if Disestablishment brings about, as some think it will, the fusion of the three Scotch Kirks, which do not differ from each other on theological grounds, none of us will regret that it has been accomplished.

The case of Wales must also, I think, be dissociated from that of England, on account of the intense unpopularity of the Anglican Church there. It is a striking example of the folly of attempting to maintain a State Church

on any other than a popular basis; and Prime Ministers in their appointments of unsuitable bishops have been as much to blame as bishops in their appointments of unsuitable clergymen ; and both are responsible for the existing state of things. Now that Disestablishment in Wales has found a place on the political programme, it must, I suppose, sooner or later come; but after it has come, and when the term “liberal" has come to mean in Wales more what it means with us in London, I think it will be seen that the local population has suffered by surrendering buildings, that were really national property, to an ecclesiastical sect, together with a portion of national endowments-the remainder having passed to the central government, and so ceasing to be under local control. That at least is what is meant by Disestablishment and Disendowment as now proposed.

In the case of England, however, it is less clear which way the popular will inclines; and while that is so, it is the duty of every one who thinks he sees a more excellent way than that usually advocated, to point out what he believes to be the dangers of the one scheme and what the advantages of the other. Now the great mass of Englishmen who are not members of the Established Church, in the sense that they do not believe the doctrines contained in its Creeds and Articles, and do not attend its services-that is to say, about five-sixths of the adult population-are rather indifferent to the Church than hostile to it. I cannot deny that there are various reasons which might fairly make the Church unpopular. Its clergy are mostly out of sympathy with liberal movements. They are in many cases in receipt of incomes altogether excessive in proportion to the amount of work they do. They do not hold that honourable position in regard to learning and intelligence which the clergy in other countries and at other times have done. Occasionally we hear of grave scandals in the ecclesiastical world, and the ridiculous complexity of the existing ecclesiastical law renders the adequate punishment of the offender difficult, if not impossible. Still, when all has been said, I do not think that the clergy of the Church of England are on the whole unpopular. In the towns especially you will often find earnest, hard-working men-such as Mr. Barnett, of St. Jude's, Whitechapel— who in no patronizing or pharisaical spirit has really the interests of the people at heart; and, what is to my purpose this afternoon, this spirit seems now to be the growing one, while many of the old ecclesiastical pretentions are silently laid aside. I will give you an illustration of what I mean: A few months ago I was invited to attend a lecture to the London clergy, given at Sion College by Mr. Henry George, and I went. Now you know what kind of a lecture Mr. George would give, so I need not describe that. But the striking thing was the sympathy and enthusiasm which his lecture evoked. It is true there was one old clergyman who listened sadly for a short time, and then, shaking his head, gathered together his umbrella and great coat, and walked out. But there were over a hundred present, and the great mass of them cheered Mr. George over and over again. A few years ago this would have been quite impossible;

and what is the reflection that it suggests? Why, that if the Church, in spite of the iron bars and gates and bolts with which it has been fenced about, thus shows signs of becoming liberalized from within, it is no small encouragement to those of us who would seek to accelerate that liberaliz ing process from without. And now, without further preface, I will give you a sketch of what I think the main features of that process should be.

On the one hand it would be a process of freeing the Church from theological and ritual bonds, a matter which would simply be accomplished by the repeal of the Act of Uniformity. I suppose it is not popularly known that the authority which the Prayer-Book possesses in the Church is in virtue of its being the schedule to an Act of Parliament passed nearly two hundred and thirty years ago by the royalist lords and country gentlemen who brought about the restoration of King Charles II. I will not deny these men their merits in their own time; but it is obvious that a body of reactionaries, such as they were, have nothing whatever in common with the progressive religious spirit of the nineteenth century; and yet it is solely in virtue of an enactment approved by them that the Church has become the exclusive body that it is. It was their doing, for example, that none but episcopally ordained clergymen can hold office in the Church. I do not suppose that the full liberty which this simple repeal would secure would at once be realized in practice; nor, indeed, do I think it desirable that it should be. It is right that the system in possession, which long use has endeared to thousands of devout and susceptible people, should be tenderly dealt with. It is only gradually, therefore, that the old order would change, giving place to the new-the new being ultimately that a rational religious service (if service it be rightly called), such as that held here on Sunday mornings, or something better in the same line, could be held (say) in St. Paul's Cathedral, followed by a sermon (if sermon it be rightly called), in which human effort would be invoked to bring about some amelioration in the intellectual, social, or moral condition of those who must stand in need of such aid. In a word, the resources of the Established Church would be devoted to the service of humanity. I say that the mere repeal of Charles II.'s Act of Uniformity would open the way for this desirable consummation-desirable, that is, from the point of view of liberal religious thinkers-but it would not by itself accomplish it. The repeal would free the Church from the cold grasp of the seventeenth century, but the warm touch of the living nineteenth century would be required to bring it abreast of the modern world. How is this to be accomplished? Simply by bringing it under popular control. In theory it is so already; but the control is so very indirect that it is hardly perceptible in its effects -indeed it must, of necessity, be ineffectual as long as the Act of Uniformity is retained, which is absolutely prohibitory of any liberal growth or [ movement. Still, in theory, the Church is at this moment under popular control; for it is subject to the Royal Supremacy, which is exercised through the Ministry, which comes into power by the presence of a majority