L I E) RARY OF THL UN IVLRSITY Of I LLl NOIS 1 PLAIN STATEMENT PACTS OE THE CASE AS BETWEEN THE ESTABLISHED CHUECH AND THE LIBERATION SOCIETY. WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE INFORMATION OF WORKING MEN. H. B. REED, Organizing Secretary to the London Working Men's Council for Church Defence. FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS. LONDON : W. MACINTOSH, 24. PATERNOSTER ROW. 1875. Pnce One Penny. THE ESTABLISHED CHUECH AND THE LIBERATION SOCIETY. DiSESTAELiSHMENT and DiSENDowMENT are two words representing a subject which has of late years engaged a very considerable amount of public attention. The subject to which they refer is to be found, in one shape or another, more or less, in every newspaper which circu- lates amongst us, and the various phases of this subject are discussed — generally with a great deal of warmth — in connection with most political and religious matters. Although many persons are to be found who have something to say upon the question of Disestablish- ment and Disendowment, there are very few who really understand what they are talking about ; and it is a singular fact, that the persons who talk the loudest, and profess to understand the most, are in reality those who possess the least real knowledge of the subject. And many persons — intentionally in some cases, unintentionally in others — hav^e thrown a false light upon the question at issue, and the result is that " confusion has become worse confused," and, where simple ignorance originally existed, compound ignorance is now to be found— that is to say, ignorance which thinks itself knowledge. This being the case, it is necessary that a simple, unvarnished statement of the facts of the case should be placed before the public at large, in order that those thousands of persons who have neither the time, the opportunity, nor the inclination to study the question in its purely controversial form, may have it in their power to learn briefly the chief points of the subject, in order that they may be qualified to form an opinion respecting it. We will endeavour, therefore, to put the matter in as simple and easy a way as possible, and at the same time to state the case from a calm unprejudiced point of view. In looking at our country as she at present exists, we find in our midst a very large number of persons professing the worship of the Almighty, and these are divided into various bodies or deJiomiuations, each body carrying out its services in a more or less different way. There are Church of England people, as they are called, Methodists of various shades of opinion, Independents, Baptists, and others too numerous to mention. All these, while disagreeing in minor points, worsliip the same God, and read the same Bible, and it might reason- ably be supposed that they would at least live at peace with each other, and direct tlieir whole energies to the service of God. That this is by no means the case, we shall presently see. A Society has been formed, having its head-quarters in London, with many branch societies in con- nection with it throughout the country, which is known by the name of '* The Society for the Liberation of lieligion from State Patronage and Control ; " or, as it is nioj'e commonly called, " The Liberation Society." This Society is composed of large numbers of Non-conformists (com- 3 prising persons who profess Christiauity, together with those who utterly repudiate it), and they are banded together for the purpose of brinoiug about the Diseatablishment and Disendowment of the Church of Eng- land. In other words, they desire to destroy the connection between the Church and the State, and to take away the property of the Church and apply it to other purposes. Let us first tal^e Disestablishment into consideration. The Liberation Society declares that the State has no business to interfere with religion ; that the State has no right to favour one Church or body of Christians over other Churches or bodies, by establishing it, or putting it above others ; and they assert, further, that the existence of an Established Church is '' a vfolation of religious liberty and re- ligious eguality." Now these things soem very fair and. proper, and many persons will no doubt think " exactly so." But let us analyse them, and examine them closely. Eirstly : If by the." State interfering with religion " we are to under- stand that the State, that is to say, the Government, has no business to control a person's religious convictions, or to force him to conform to any particular creed, we are quite prepared to admit the truth and justice of the proposition. But what, we ask, has this to do with the Church of England ? We appeal to the common sense and honesty of every Englishman, no matter what may be his religious views, to say if " the State " does interfere with religion in this way. And if it does not, what right has the Liberation Society to imply that it does ? Secondly : Whether the State has or has not the right to favour one denomination of Christians by " establishing " it, is a matter of opinion. But it has nothing whatever to do with the Church of England, and the Liberation Society is therefore only misleading people by implying that it has. Let us suppose a case. We will imagine that in Eng- land, for example, there is no Established Church in existence, and that the Government is about to select one out of many religious bodies to become an Established Church. We will suppose that the State does select one of these sects, and estaUisJies it, preferring it to the others because of its greater antiquity, the numbers of its people, the learning of its ministers, and its general pre-eminence over the others. Would the others, even in such a case as this, have any very great cause for complaint? And, indeed, something similar to this really happened in America a few years ago. Two hundred delegates met at Philadelphia to prepare a memorial to be presented to Congress, pray- ing that body to establish one of the religious denominations of the country in connection ivith the State. This, we must remember, was in the United States. The v^hole thing fell through, however, in con- sequence of the bickering of the various sects — all eager for the post of honour ! Let ua enquire how it really is with the Established Church in this country : is she " an Act of Parliament Church ? " does she owe her existence to the Statue: We most _ unhesitatingly answer, No. It i? not generally 'known, but it is nevertheless most emphatically true, that the 'Church of England lias existed in our land ever since the very earliest times of Christianity j indeed, some historians assert that St. Paul himself founded the Church of England, At any rate, the Church was planted in EtJL'laiid in a[)ostolic timpfj, and flwt Church has confiriued from then until now, through inany aod Viirious tt)rms ot civil Grovernnieui , up to I he presont day. 80 that, so far from the State having tour\ded the Church, the Church iu reality existed before the St;ite, and the State aud the Church have growu up together, side by side, through long ages, until they have become so intertwined that it is most difficult to see how their union could be severed. This being the case, what becomes of the Liberationist statement about the " State having no right to set up one religious body above another?" May we not fairly put it down as a piece of mere " clap-trap," designed to catch the ears of the unthinking multitude, without possessing the least particle of solid foundation ? And it is a very curious fact that this much-abused Church existed in this country for nearly one thousand five hundred years, imimvtiug to generation after generation of Englishmen and Englishwomen religious instruction and comfort, before Dissent, or any other form of Christian worship, was known or thought of! It may be as well to take this opportunity of correcting an error into which many persons fall, viz., that of supposing that the Church of Kome w^as the Church which existed in England before the time of the Reformation, and that the Church of England was not founded until then. This is a very great mistake, for the Church of England was quite a separate body, and at the time of the Reformation she simply discarded some erroneous doctrines which had crept in ; but her individuality remained undisturbed, in the same way that a ceiling, after some cobwebs which have accumulated upon it have been swept away, "is still the same ceiling, and not a new one. Thirdly. The Established Church is said to be "a violation of re- ligious liberty and religious equality." We ask, in what way ? It must be remembered that there are three kinds of Established or State Churches. 1st. The State enforced Church, such as existed, for ex- ample, in the Papal States, where the Church was crammed down the throats of the people, as it were, conformity being compelled, and no other form of religion tolerated. 2nd. The State paid Church, in which the Church is supported out of the taxation of the country. 8rd. The State recognised Church, auch as we have in England — a very different thing from either of the others we have referred to. Now, let us a^k ourselves the question, putting away all prejudice or par- tiality, and weighing the matter in a straightforward honest wa}', in what point does this State recognised Church of England violate re- ligious liberty? Does the Church compel conformity to herselJ ? JN^o. Does the Church or the Slate in any way punish persons who do not conform ? No. Is a man looked u]ion with any less respect or favour by the law of the land because he is a Dissenter? No. Is he treated with injustice by a magistrate or judge because he is a Dissenter ? No. Its he held back from any worldly honours or position if he does not conform to the Established Church ? JS^o. Are not all forms of religion tolerated in England ? Yes. Cannot Dissenters of any denomination build Chapels, and worship in any way they please ? Yes. Can they not baptize, marry, and bury in their own places, and with their own rites and ceremonies, witliout being interfered with in any way what- ever*!' Yes. Does not the law protect them and their property from insult and injury, in the same way that it protects Churchmen ? Yes. In plain English, do not Disseaiers have fair play in every sense of the terra ? Yes. Then, let us ask, is there any just cause of complaint ao^ainst the Established Church, or is there any reason why she should be continually abused and pulled to pieces ? It is perfectly certain that these things have only to be put before the people in a fair, candid way, for the injustice and inconsistency of the outcry against the Church to be clearly seen. There is another point in connection with this question of religious equality, which will serve to show the shal- lowness of the phrase. If the Liberation Society and its friends really desired to possess what they terra '' religious equality," they would act upon an altogether different basis. Instead of seeking to Disestablish the Church, they would try to get Es-taUished them- selves. In homely language, they have " taken hold of the wrong end of the stick." For a true and proper desire for equality consists in wishing to raise ypurself, not in endeavouring to displace others, and the fact that the Liberation Society proposes to pull down the Esta- blished Church instead of raising Dissent, shows most unmistakably that its so-called desire for " equality " is in reality nothing ol the kind, but simply a wish to drag something down, instead of building anything up. DISENDOWMENT. There are very few subjects upon which so much misapprehension exists, as that of the property which is held by the Church ot England. The most erroneous notions prevail concerning this property, and many people with no small pretensions to education and intelligence hold the most absurd and incorrect ideas upon the subject. This may be accounted for in several ways, and chiefly because, in the first place, much of the property of the Church has been in its possession for a very great number of years, so that its origin is not in all cases easily traced; and in the second place, because for a long time there hfwe been people (who must know that what they assert is utterly false) whose living has been obtained by working upon popular credulity, in spreading masses of falsehoods and misstatements respecting the Church, from one end of the country to the other. The time has come, however, when the working classes will no longer be left to hear these untruths without hearing also a full and explicit refutation of thijm ; and it may be emphatically stated that the Church has nothing whatever to fear from " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," being told concerning her. , " Right must triumpli at the last, So round and rcund we run ; Truth must tver come uppermost, And justice shall be done." The idea — a very wide-spread one — that the Church of England ia supported out of the taxation of the country, is most thoroughly erro- neous. The real fact is that the Church does not receive one sirnjie penny from the State, in any shape or ^orm. Nor is this an assertion tliat cannot be proved to tlie very fullest extent. If the Church is paid by the State, let the Liberation Society show the working men of England where the money cornea from. Here is a very simple and easy test. Each year the Cliancellor of the Exchequer for the time being presents to the House of Commons a financial statement— the Budget, as it is called. Now this Budget is an account of the national receipts and expenditure for the year. Under the head of expenditure we find, so much money for the Army, so much money for the Navy, so much for the Civil Service, and so on. How is it that we see nothing fur the Church ? There can be no trickery in the case : millions of money are not paid away without an account being given. Where is the ononey that the Chiirch received from the State/' Must it not be as clear' MS daylight to every sensible man and woman that the solution of this seeming mystery lies in the fact that the Church does not get any- thing at all from the State, for if it did, the account ivouU most certainly appear? Anyone, therefore, who imagines that in paying taxes he contributes to the support of the State-recognized (not State-supported) Church of England, is thoroughly mistaken, and reflection and enquiry will rid him ot his error. But, it is said by the Liberation Society, the Church of Eugland isi the National Church, and, therefore, its property is the property of the Nation. It is indeed the glory of the Church of England that she is the National Church, and by that we mean that she is the Church of the whole people — open to every one, ready to receive all, without money and without price. Not the church of a sect, of a party, but the church of the Nation at large — held by high and lov/, rich and poor, extending north and south, west and east, on Welsh mountain and on Kentish cliff, midst northern hills and southern valleys, in village and in town, always the same ! But to say that the funds at the disposal of this National Church are the property of the Nation at large, for other purposes than those of religion, is about as just as asserting that the money belonging to depositors in our National Savings Banks be- longs, not to the depositors, but to the nation ! A iew words as to the origin of church property may be useful. The wholeof the parochial endowments, and the pjirisb churches, may be truly said to be the voluntary gifts of persons — m.any of them long ages ago, for the purpose of keeping a church and a clergyman in the parish for ever. And in the same way that a private individual may now build and endow a church or a chapel (as many persons do), were the old parish churches of England built and endowed. In mai^y parishes, the salary of the clergyman is paid by tithes, that is to say, a portion of t'/e produce of the laud — now in most cases commuted or con- verted into a money payment. A very great deal of misapprehension exists with reference to tithes. Many persons suppose that they are a tax upon the land, butth's is a very great mistake,and has been shown to be so by very many eminent lawyers. Tithe is in no sense a tax. It is legal transferable property, which has been held for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it is in no way a burden upon the farmer, for when a farmer pays tithe, he pays so much, less in rent, an^ if tithes were to be abolished to-morrow, the farmers would not be a single penny better off, for they would have to pay increased rents. Two points 'to sup- FICTION. It is said that, The Church of England is a made Church." State- port these remarks with reference to tithes must suffice in this instance. 1st. A very large proportion of tithe property, that is to say, money payments as tithes, are held by laymen, and the amounts are duly paid to them without murmar. Many persons could be named who hold tithes — for example, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Somerset, and others. Who ever hears of any complaint being made of having to pay tithes to these layholders ? And does not the mere fact of private individuals holding tithe property show that it is not in any sense a tax or State payment ? 2nd. Blunt old William Cobbett, who certainly will not be accused of any undue partiality towards the Church, disposed of the whole tithe question in these few plain, straightforward words : — " I must say that tithes are not in themselves a hardship at all. If I did not pay to the parson I should to the landlord, and he would have it if the parson had it not." In order to put this question of Disestablishment and Disendow- ment in a still plainer manner, let us compare assertion with reality, fiction with fact, as follows : — FACT. The truth is that, The Church of England was never brought into existence by the State ; indeed, the Church existed in reality before the State had any being. The Church of England was founded more than a thousand years before that time. No new Church was founded in the time of Henry VIII. ; the Church which already existed was reformed, not created anew. If so, how is it that we find hundreds of Dissenting Chapels, their proprietors possessing fuU liberty, and enjoying the l^rotection of the law just as much as the Church of England does ? The Chu^'ch of England does not receive a single penny from the State, and its property was never at any time given by the Stale. The property held by the Church has been given to the CJiurch— never to the State. It has been given by private in- dividuals, and is held by exactly the same right as that according to which Dissenting bodies hold property. Let us sum up the whole matter by asking ourselves one plain, simple question, as regards Disestablishment and Disendowmeut — What good w^ould it no ? This is the real great issue, and we should look at the question calmly, and let no consideration but that of a desire to arrive at the truth influence our decision. This is a mighty and important question, which is not to be eettled by a lew clap-trap phrases and high-sounding terms, 1st. Would DisestahlisJiment and Disendow me7it do any good to the Church ? No. People who talk about the State bondage and fetters in which the Church is placed, really know nothing at all about the Church. The "fetters and bondage " ate a myth; they are like ghosts — much talked about, but never seen or The Church of England was founded at the time of the Reformation, by Henry YIII. The Church of England is 'a violation of religious liberty and religious equality. The Church of England is a paid Church." State- The property of the Church of England is " national property." felt. And ajgjain, to what reasonable man will it seem clear that the Church would be bettor off if she were disendowed ? In other words, who is there that will declare a man, or a Church, or a Society, better oft' if his or its means of support is taken away? Is it not sheer non- sense to say that the Church would be better oft" without her income than with it? 2nd. Wbidd Disestablishment and Disendowment do any good to the nation at large ? Would any Englishman be more free, more religious, more happy, than at present ? Would the working classes have better wages, better dwellings, better prospects ? Would food be cheaper and coals less dear ? All these are practical points, and points which concern the well-being of the people. But he must be a bold man who will dare to assert that the overthrow and spoliation of the Church would do any good in any of these things. 3rd. Would Dis- establishment and Disendowment decrease crime and pauperism, and do good to the cause of religion ? We most firmly declare that it would not. Whether the Church of England — which has given a Church and a clergyman for every Englishman, be he rich or be he poor — which has mapped out the whole of our land into parishes, so that every man, woman, and child is in some parish, and has a claim upon some clergyman — which has educated more than three quarters of the^ children of the country, and under whose influence England has become a great, a mighty, and a prosperous nation ; whether the Church which has done and is doing all these things is to be destroyed, and her power for doing good crippled, is a question which is left to Englishmen to decide. It is a question which goes far beyond all narrow sectarian or party limits. It concerns the great mass of the nation, and by the working classes will it be settled. The question of Disestablishment and Disendowment is one which, above all others, concerns the working classes. If it can be shown that the Church of England has failed in her work, that she inflicts injustice upon any one, and that the nation would be better off if she were removed, then Disestablishment and Disendowment may fairly be considered. But the Liberation Society has never attempted to prove any of these things, and it never will, for it knows that any attempt to do so would be a miserable failure. It is utterly impossible in a short paper such as this to show the question in the lengthy and interesting way that it may be, and is in other places, put forward. There are two sides to every question, and it is hoped that enough has been said to show working men that there is a strong Church side to this question, and that the arguments of the Liberation Society are utterly worthless when brought face to face with plain, honest facts. " Oh ! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches -vex the brain ; Who from the diuk nnd doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun." Crabbe. G. HiijL, Steam Printer, Westminster Bridge Road. «-*^- tr^