«i -tijkj 0m~^ ':^>^.i«? '".^ I i'Z THE PRIMATE AND CHURCH DEFENCE. SPEECH OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AT THE Airi^UAL MEETING OF THE CHUEOH DEFEK"OE INSTITUTION, ON MONDAY, JULY 9, 1883. " Separated from the State, the Church of England woukl be as strong as she was when the realm of England did not exist, but the separation would deprive the State of her very soul." — Speech of the ArcJiMshoj} of Canterhury at the Mercers'' Hall, June 1883. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE CHURCH DEFENCE INSTITUTION, 9, Bridge Steeet, Westminster. 1883. SPEECH OP THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. Ladies and Gentlemen, — It gives me great pleasure, and I feel it a very great honour indeed, to take my place here to-day as President of this Society, although I grieve to say that I can do little more to-day than take my place, for I have had to leave an important meeting of the Rochester Diocesan Society, and at four o'clock I shall have to be at the House of Lords. Still, I could not allow anything to prevent me from being with you even for these few moments. Among all the tributes that are due and are paid to the memory of him whose place I so unworthily fill, it may interest you if I tell you that, though I have been long a member of this Society, yet it had not come home to me with anything like the startling force that it ought to have done until I read parts of the addresses which were given by the late Primate. His sober judgment, which was strong to the last degree, and yet couched in language so temperate that none could be offended by it, im- pressed me, and I have no doubt that it impressed very large numbers of the English people. And now, in the very few moments that remain to me, I want once more to give utterance to the trite old saying that the true Church Defence Society is of course the Church. The organisations which are mentioned upon the first page of the Report, the devotion of the Church's sons, the won- derful way in which schools have risen on all sides and taken a more decided and earnest religious tone when the Church has had anything to do with them, the immense numbers of Churches and of Clergy that have been provided, the in^ 4 creased and increasing number of the services and the beauty of those services, and the mission work which has been going on in the Church — all these, depend upon it, address a very strong and telling argument to the enemies of the Church, and one which has come home to them in a way that must produce upon them, if it has time to do so, and if they have fair eyes to look upon it, the very self-same effect which it has produced upon ourselves. AV e have our independent reasons for knowing and being: sure that this is the Church of Christ in which we stand; but those very evidences would affect ourselves with much less force if they came without the application of the long story of the Church, and, above all, without the sight of the vi- tality which that institution has ever exhibited at the very hour in which her foes have been disposed to cry over her that, if she was not dead, she at least had fainted. But although the Church is the true Church Defence Society, yet, for all that, every particular function of the Church needs its own organ. You may say equally well that the Church is the true Church Temperance Society ; but who, with all the results that are before us, would think that the Church of England could do without the Church of England Tem- perance Society ? You may say that the Church is the true Mission Society, and so it is, of course ; but does she not need the great missionary societies which are the pride of England to be the organs of that particular faculty and nervous power which she exercises? And so here, too, although the Church is the great Church Defence Society, and the only real and lasting one, yet, nevertheless, she must have an organ through which to act ; and I trust and hope that this Church Defence Institution, which has battled through so many difficul- ties, will be recognised, and deserve to be recognised, as the Church's organ for this particular function. There is great necessity for the function and for its exercise. There is a great necessity in these days to inform the ignorant. When wo think of how the population has multiplied on every side, and of how far it has outrun education, and of the kind of things education- alists have to attend to, passing over some of the most important things in life and in death, we cannot wonder that there should be an immense mass of ignorance on such topics as ours ; and so there is, and it is the duty of the Church to inform it; and may she see her way to use the Church Defence Institution for carrying out that work ! But then there is not only the igno- rance of the helpless, but there is the ignorance of those who think they know, and who, thinking that they know, set to work at once to teach others ; and then there is the ignorance of all the ignorant who are taught ignorance by them. And this teaching of ignorance is upon a very great scale. We accept the figures as we accept a belief in the mistaken honesty of those who think it their duty to work against us ; and, if we accept those figures, it appears that they are dispersing three thousand of their publications every day. That, I think, is what comes from the statement which I accept — that three thousand publications are diffused every day — that against these we ought to be diffiising real knowledge. They make their appeal to the ignorant; and I do not say that they are wrong, considering the work which they think they have to do and the instrumentality which they must employ to do it. It will not be the well- informed that will do the work of destruction. It will not be the well-informed that will pull down the Church. It is the ignorant, or those who only possess that " little knowledge " which, we all know, is such a '^ dangerous thing." Take the very belief of the people upon the subject of the number of the members of the Church of England. There has been exhibited in time past — I hope there will not be exhibited again — a great objection to having the real religious census of England. If we all alike are anxious for the facts, why should there be any objection to our knowing really how many people there are belonging to every form of religious persuasion? There can be no real objection to it, and we ask for it as a matter of right, surely, at this particular time more than ever, when a Parliamentary Return taken upon mistaken principles — of course not intentionally — has been circulated widely, and contains the most erroneous possible statement of the work that has been done during these many years past. I will not stay to go into the subject, because the papers are happily ringing with exposures of the mistakes ; but I see that in one particular town that I know there are omitted the returns of no fewer than seventeen churches and six mission chapels and thirty-nine clergy. That is to say, the spiritual provision for eighteen thousand persons is entirely left out from the return. Well, I have no doubt that this arose through an utter mistake, but it is a mistake that ought not to have been made. Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us imagine — and do not let any- body persuade us — that there is no mischief done when you put upon paper a false return like that and circulate it, and then take it back again and say, " We are very sorry ; it is quite a mis- take ; it is not correct." It makes its impression, and unless it is followed very soon by a proper return and a true return, people will say, as they always do say, ''Well, at any rate, there may be a mistake in it; but it cannot possibly be a mistake to the extent that they tell us that it is." We ought to do our utmost to diffuse real knowledge upon all these questions, and upon a great many more. We ought to take, I am certain, very great pains with our publications. Those publications ought to be very clear; they ought to be very pointed; and they ought to be very well aimed for the sake of those farmers and those labourers whom, as we read, it is wished to interest in " changes which may have import- ant bearings upon their future prospects." I am persuaded, and you are persuaded too, not that those changes " may have," but that they will have, very important bearings upon their future prospects if they ever come to pass. Let us not put forth attacks, for I do not see that we want them — and I do not think that in any age the Church has prospered by attacks ; but let us do our very utmost to put forth facts among the people. I would say, let as, in the first place, put forth the facts of Church history. We have other societies diffusing the Scriptures and dif- fusing teaching upon the doctrines of the Church, It is our busi- i^ss, I think, to })ut out in popular forms and with perfect truth and with perfect correctness, as clearly and distinctly as we can, in great number and variety, true statements on the subject of Church history. I believe that we are not half alive to the effect which Church history has had upon ourselves, who, as children of the Church, have drunk it in from our very earliest years. I do not think that we analyse half enough the history of our own im- pressions and our own beliefs. I am sure that we quite under- estimate the effect that Church history would have upon the minds of those who do not like the Church. The Bishop of Durham said some time ago, exceedingly well, that Church history was an excellent cordial for drooping courage, and I say also that Church history is the true remedy for deficient faith in the Church. I do not believe that the mass of the people are aware of the very simplest facts. I know that those lectures which were alluded to, which Mr. Mason delivered in Cornwall, produced a real effect, not only by the clearness and the good temper and the readiness of his own arguing, but even by the tables of names which he hung up. The people were not aware what the succession of the Church had been. I would recommend every rector or vicar who is here to go to his dio- cesan registry and extract therefrom the names and the dates of the rectors and vicars who have preceded him from the very earliest times, and paint them up among the other memorials in his Church. I have seen the effect produced by merely that. Such a list, as Lord Macaulay said, " makes excellent pegs to hang history on." I have seen two or three Churches where the names of the rectors are put up, beginning, perhaps, Avith " Kalph, 1190" ; then, " William," of some j^lace in France or some village of England, "1200"; "John, 1202," and so on down to 1883; and, service after service, I have seen the people — men, women, and children — gathering around this, and reading the names with the utmost interest, and asking ques- tions about them. They had not the very slightest idea that there had been ever since that Church began, and long before it, a perfectly unbroken series of ministers of God, working in the place, and doing the self-same work that their own pastor was doing that day. The very simplest ideas of Church history are not known to our people ; and yet, if we would fill them with an inspiration, we had better give them the history of the Church. Every Englishman is what he is, chiefly on account of the history of England. There is one mode of attack which it is within the power of all of us to resist, and that is the attack which is based upon the assurance that we are a very divided house. As long as the world stands, great good will be wrought by men having different opinions and discussing them ; but I believe that, in spite of all our differences, there never was a time when any Church was so united within itself as the Church of England is to-day. The differences of times past have been about far more radical things, and have been pursued with far more animosity than the differences which exists in these days. Let us consider how our Lord Himself argues. He argues that He cannot be an emissary from the spirit of evil, because a house divided against itself would not stand. It would fall. And so we may say of ourselves. Were our divisions as real and as deep as our enemies will persuade themselves and us that they are, this house would not stand to-day. " A house divided against itself falleth." Let us lay that to heart in two ways. Let it be with all Christian people an argument for letting their differences be as few and their spirit as holy, as charitable, as comprehensive, as it can be. But, on the other hand, whilst that is going on, let us not forget to use for the Church's be- half the very same argument that our Lord used on His own behalf. This house cannot be divided against itself, or it would be much nearer falling than, with all the noble patient work for God which is going on within it, I, for one, believe it to be to-day. I have great pleasure in moving the adoption of the Keport. Printed for the Church Defence Institution, St, Stephen's Palace Chambers, 9, Bridge Street, Westminster, S.W. P; M hi>)^- ''-^.'-^'' -^vf m';^ '^M^ '.'/>''*. C4 r^>-' /? J>^'t ^. '>^v ''i»^^ «i .*ri. kr-'^^ ^y-<:f^m^. V--^^^.