The General Endowment Theory.

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large principle upon which they found their proposals. They say, as O'Connell used to say, let every man send for his own priest as every man sends for his own doctor. But I have no intention to discuss with the Liberation Society the mighty question involved in the voluntary principle. All I say on behalf of myself, and of those who, like myself, have a prejudice in favour of Church establishments, is this, "If you seek to re-constitute society in the United Kingdom on a new principle, do not satisfy yourselves with attacking the wall where it is weakest; do not give us your revolution in driblets ! let us consider the whole breadth of your proposed change-above all, do not forget altogether what is good for Ireland while you are seeking to emancipate mankind." Yet to this point they seem to have paid little attention.'

If we know anything of the Liberation Society, this is just the point to which they have paid most attention, only Earl Russell does not happen to know it. They have, from their outset, attacked for the most part, not the most unfavourable illustrations of the State-Church system, but the principle upon which that system rests, which, we should think, is attacking what Churchmen conceive to be the least vulnerable part of the wall, namely, its very foundations. They may, in their judgment of their opponents, have committed many errors, but want of courage is the last thing which we should have expected to be ascribed to them.

Nor is want of courage, as we all know, a failing of Earl Russell's. He boldly justifies the endowment of all sects, because, although he considers that the Protestant Established 'Church of Ireland is the main grievance of which the people 'have to complain,' and that the present state of Church 'endowment would not be borne in any country in Europe,' he also considers that what he is pleased to term the destruction of the Protestant Church in Ireland, with the withdrawal of all other endowments of religion in that country, would be a misfortune.' It would, he thinks, or we should now perhaps say, thought, manifestly check civilization, and arrest the progress of 'society.' Therefore he concludes, or concluded, that the endow'ment of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the endowment ' of the Presbyterian Church, and the reduction of the Protestant Episcopalian Church to one-eighth of the present Church ' revenue of Ireland, would be just and salutary.' He would not create, or have created, two other Established Churches, for he proposed to disestablish the present State-Church.

We know not yet whether any and what members of the Liberal party still share in the delusion that such a scheme as this would be practicable. We do, however, know that not

On the

many weeks since some of its most eminent adherents were in favour of Earl Russell's plan for the settlement of this grave question. The exigencies of party warfare may possibly bring it in some modified shape before the country again, and we are quite certain that many Tory Churchmen would have no objection to it. Now, we can fight the latter with pleasure, with confidence, and, we think, with success; but we should deeply regret to be compelled to fight the former. It must, however, be understood that happen what may to any or to all Liberal administrations and parties, even if it should come to the return of none but Tories for Birmingham, Manchester, and London, the Dissenters will oppose, with a union that has never before characterized their action, every proposition for the further endowment of religion in any part of the British empire. They will carry with them, in this case, the strongest religious convictions and some of the most cultured intellect of the country. Nor need they be despised for taking what may appear to be, and what would certainly be stigmatised as, narrow ground. It has not been the habit of Dissenters, in any past political crisis, to adopt a merely sectarian basis of action. Possibly they would have been better off, and have been really more respected, or rather feared, if they had done so. question of ecclesiastical endowments they can take, as they took during the Maynooth agitation, a consistent and broad principle of action. They believe that a true statesman, who has at heart the highest welfare of his country, and who wishes to secure for her a settlement of all religious difficulties in the interests of justice as well as of peace, would aim at the entire disendowment of all sects. They can defend this position not alone on religious grounds, although, if it were left to themselves, they would prefer to take that course, but they are not shut up to it. The highest qualifications of a statesman are not by any means confined to blue blood or to drawing-room circles. If the history of England were read as it ought to be read, it would long ago have been recognised that the greatest political foresight has invariably rested with the Nonconformist section of the Liberal party. Their platform,' to adopt an American phrase, settled years before others have taken notice of it, has always been the platform upon which that party has ultimately been compelled to take its stand. They have settled their own convictions, sometimes a whole generation or many generations before the bulk of the people have adopted them. They have been the pioneers of liberty, and of social as well as of political and ecclesiastical reform. In a word, they have possessed the best quality of statemanship, which is not to

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The Recent Debate.

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adapt oneself to the varying exigencies of the moment, but 'to see beforehand what is just and righteous for a nation to do, and then to bring round the nation to one's own standard. To political diplomacy and strategy they may, indeed, be strangers, but they have seldom been destitute of political sagacity, and never wanting in faith, even to the extent of self-sacrifice. Now, the opinions of such a party are, we think, entitled to respect from statesmen of all classes;-and their opinion now is, that any extension of the system of religious endowment would be fatal to all the best interests of the nation. More than this, they think that the time has come when the question of endowments, tested in the case of the Irish Church, ought to be tried before the country; and they believe that, if it should be fairly tried, it will be settled in their favour. As Englishmen, and not merely as Dissenters, as Christian men, and not merely as sectarians, they are persuaded that the happiest and the proudest day in the history of their country will be that in which the State at last recognises the all-sufficient power of Christ to sustain His own Church, and at last does, in religious matters, equal justice between man and man. On no other basis can the full prosperity of both Church and State be secured.

The four nights' debate in the House of Commons on Mr. Maguire's motion has happily, for the present at least, dispelled the fears which were raised by the publication of Earl Russell's untimely proposals. The clouds have lifted up, and we can see for what and whom we are fighting. We regard this debate as, on the whole, one of the most important that has ever taken place in the English Houses of Legislature. Mr. Disraeli's personal success as a leader of party had somewhat turned the brains of some of our public writers, but his scheme for the conciliation of Ireland has gone a good way towards destroying the illusion as to his qualities of statesmanship. What can be said of a First Minister of the Crown who deliberately allows his Irish Secretary to propound a scheme for the endowment' of a Roman Catholic University in Ireland, and who, when he finds that the scheme is unpopular, as deliberately ignores the proposals made at his instance, and says that no endowment is proposed? If such agility consists with political wisdom, or the ability to govern a nation, it is the first time that those qualities have ever been so closely united.

But the destruction of the political prestige of the Tory party and its leader is of small importance in comparison with the declarations of the chiefs of the Liberal party. We feel profoundly grateful for the courage with which these have been enabled to take their stand, at last, upon a principle, and

scarcely less for the remarkable unity which pervaded their counsels. No speeches were ever more worthy of the great occasion which called them forth, or of the great end at which they aimed, than the speeches of Mr. Fortescue, Mr. Mill, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Gladstone, upon the ecclesiastical condition of Ireland, and the remedy for the unhappy state of that unhappy country. It is something to have reconstructed the scattered materials of the Liberal organization; but it is infinitely more to have given it a great and patriotic end at which to aim, and that that end should be the disestablishment and disendowment of the worst State-Church in this country. It is remarkable that Earl Russell should have addressed himself in his letter to two of the most prominent speakers in this debate Mr. Fortescue and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Fortescue replied to Earl Russell's proposals by characterizing the Established Church as the greatest scandal of the country, and by saying it was impossible that it could be allowed to remain. It 'was maintained,' he said, 'in one country by the external 'force of another, and its abolition had passed far beyond 'inquiry.' He deprecated any application of its revenues to ecclesiastical purposes. To you,' said Earl Russell, it belongs to 'take a lead in this great work-not of disendowment, but of re' endowment-which will cause you ever to be remembered 'in Ireland as one of the worthiest and most enlightened of her 'sons.' Mr. Fortescue has taken a course which may lead to his name being held in such deserved and affectionate remembrance, but he has done so by refusing to listen to the counsels of his former chief.

There is another passage in this unfortunate letter, in which the noble author made an appeal to Mr. Gladstone. He said,

'If, then, we can find a man with the brilliant oratory of Canning, and the sterling honesty of Althorp, it is to such a man that the destiny of this country and the prospects of Ireland ought to be consigned. The University of Oxford, overflowing with bigotry, might indeed reject such a man, but I feel persuaded the great county of Lancaster would never fail him, nor would the country at large cease to celebrate his pure and immortal fame.'

This is Mr. Gladstone's memorable reply :

'I will only say that in my opinion those who wish to preserve the Church of England in the position of dignity, stability, and of utility which she now holds, will do well to found her claims upon the labours she performs, upon the services she renders, and upon the affections she attracts from the masses of the people, including that vast number within her communion, and the no small number of those who are beyond her pale, and that those will not do wisely who

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venture her fortunes on such a crazy argument,-if I may use such an expression as that, which applies to the Established Church of Ireland, with its handful of adherents, applies with equal force to the Church of England, with its millions upon millions of supporters. In the settlement of the Irish Church that Church as a State-Church must cease to exist. . . I am not going to discuss the respective merits of "levelling up" or "levelling down," but "equality," understood in the sense of grants from the exchequer in order to bring the general population of Ireland up to the level of the Establishment, or understood in the sense of plans for dividing and redistributing the income and revenues of the Establishment in salaries and stipends to the clergy of the several communities. These are measures which, whether they would have been beneficial or not at other times, have now, in my opinion, passed beyond all bounds of possibility; and it is vain and idle for us, as practical men, charged with practical duties, to take them or to keep them in our midst. My opinion, then, is, that religious equality is a phrase which requires further development, and I will develop it further by saying that in religious equality I, for my part, include in its fullest extent the word-the very grave word I do not deny, and I think we cannot be too careful to estimate its gravity before we take a conclusive step-the very grave word dis-establishment. If we are, in my judgment, to do any good at all by meddling with the Church in Ireland, it must be by putting a period to its existence as a State-Church. No doubt it is a great and a formidable operation. To constitute into a body of Christians, united only by a voluntary tie, those who have now for nearly three centuries been associated more or less closely with the State-under the Tudors directly associated with the State, and by the Act of Union, seventy years ago, brought still more closely into relationship with the civil power-that is a great and a formidable task; yet my persuasion is, that in removing privileges and restraint together, in granting freedom in lieu of monopoly, a task will be proposed to us which is not beyond the courage and the statesmanship of the British Legislature.'

Here is the new platform for the whole Liberal party, and here is an object worthy of the highest ambition of the greatest statesman. And, whatever distrust of Mr. Gladstone may have been felt by some of the members of this party before these words were uttered, there is now no room for the vestige of such a feeling. Mr. Gladstone's intellect is of a peculiar character, but it has one marked distinction; it never goes back. Whatever height it attains, it keeps. Nor does it ever narrow. Most statesmen change their opinions in an arbitrary and unequal manner. They suddenly become broad in one direction, while remaining strait' in another. This is not Mr. Gladstone's case. His development is singularly progressive and equal. Whatever new truth he sees he holds with a tenacity