the very words of prayer and praise which must be addressed to God; and they did this so effectually that their work remains still with little alteration. In the Anglican establishment it still holds true that no minister shall deviate from the appointed forms of belief, or alter the prescribed words of the services, however much his private conscience, or that of his people, may be offended by their

use.

men.

The necessary consequence of this rigidity and narrowness of constitution was, and is, that multitudes from the first have been and are compelled to stand apart from the Established Churches; and by so doing they are necessarily deprived and lose their share of the privileges of one kind and another which have usually gone with the particular form of religious belief and worship specially recognised by the ruling or State power. This condition of exclusion and deprivation, as attaching to the Nonconformist bodies of Great Britain, is being gradually recognised by our statesThe remedy, too, has been in some measure applied, and is being still applied, as the national conscience becomes more enlightened and the practical injustice of the established system is being more fully and clearly seen. No thanks to the Church, however, as a body, for these concessions to just principle. It is the State alone to which we owe them. Nor has this gradual recognition of the rights of others been brought about without heartburnings and conflicts. It may be said to have commenced in earnest with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, more than half a century ago. Its latest fruit is the Burials Actits latest, but, it is very safe to say, not its last; for it cannot be doubted that the course of just reformation must go on, until every right and privilege and endowment of every kind, which the nation has to bestow in connection with religion, shall be attainable alike, so far as the nature of the case allows, by every subject of these realms.

It is not practicable here to enter into many details; but it may be permitted to illustrate this position by referring to a case, in the national life of our day, to which these remarks appear to be especially applicable. The Principality of Wales is eminently a land of Nonconformists. A large proportion of the people-probably three-fourths of themare outside of the national Church; nor can they, from one cause or other, conscientiously enter it. But does this, however it may have been brought to pass, afford any just reason why all these people should continue to be deprived of their just share of the substantial means and advantages which have come down to us from the past, and from common ancestors, for the maintenance of religion and of religious services and institutions? Is there now any sufficient reason in the nature of the case why all such advantages should remain so exclusively in the hands of a minority of the whole people?-of a minority, too, who are so well able to provide for themselves?-those who constitute that minority being so largely provided for and favoured, while all the rest are left uncared-for and unaided? Such questions as these are equally applicable to England, and, though perhaps in a less degree, to Scotland also. It is not only a Burials Act that is required to put an end to this great anomaly; but a change of a far more comprehensive and effectual kind, whether that change shall come in the form of what is termed "disestablishment," or in that other and perhaps better form of the equal admission of all existing religious communions to the fullest advantages of national recognition.

Time was, indeed, when there was a degree of reason and a show of justice, in giving all that the nation had to give for the service of religion to the one national institution, because it comprehended the vast majority of the population of the country, while those who stood apart from its communion were comparatively unimportant in point of

numbers. But that time is long past; the relative proportions are greatly changed; and with this altered relation of parties to each other, the time has come when the whole question of national endowments in connection with religion claims reconsideration, and when all the sects and parties of religious men must be treated by the State power with the same equal justice and impartiality. If some are admitted to privileges, all must be admitted; if some are excluded, all others must be excluded with them.

Here, however, there comes in a consideration of obvious importance, to which a few words must be given. No wrong would be done to the existing Establishment by admitting a larger portion of the nation to share in those material benefits of national recognition of which it has for so long enjoyed the monopoly. Due regard should no doubt be paid to personal interests, and to any rights of property that may be involved. But this being understood, it should be remembered that the property of the existing Church is not to be looked upon as its own by any natural or absolute right of possession. It is essentially a Trust held for the benefit of the nation at large; and if the spiritual well-being of the nation should call for a change in the terms or the manner of that Trust, the same National Will which committed it to the keeping of its present holders may properly and justly make any change which appears to be required by altered circumstances. The nation is not to be bound for ever by the judgment of Queen Elizabeth and her counsellors, and we may be very sure it will not be so.

Here, too, it may be observed that the political or State power which called the existing Establishment into being, which appointed the form which it should assume, and also the revenues out of which it was to be maintained, has often interposed since in the control and regulation of Church affairs-as, for example, in settling the Act of

Uniformity. It has mostly done so in the interest of the Church itself, and has added to its means even from the general resources of the country, as well as by allowing and securing to its use the benefactions of private individuals. It has interposed thus in the interest of the Church, and thus, therefore, it may rightfully do so again in the interest of the entire nation. The right to do this the State has never renounced; and if it is to treat all its subjects alike, with impartial justice and impartial liberality, it cannot refuse to exercise it once more ;-to exercise it this time, if it shall see fit, even by the admission of those who are now excluded to the position of favour which is at present held by a portion only of the whole people.

In any reformation of this kind, however, it is important next to observe the State power should not attempt, and need not attempt, to impose a Creed, to prescribe the forms of worship, or the words of prayer, to be used by the congregations. This may possibly have been once expedient in the old dark days of popular and even clerical ignorance, which it may be hoped are now passing away. But yet it is clear the State, as a political body, has no faculty for the discernment of religious truth; and it should not attempt to play the Infallible. We are sometimes, indeed, told that in case the State should be led to comprehend, or propose to comprehend, all the various denominations as equal members within one national religious body, one comprehensive National Church, it must needs impose upon them some common Creed. But why should it do so? The State, as the representative of the nation, when it establishes a chair of geology, or a school of chemistry, does not think it necessary to prescribe the teaching to be given in either case; nor ought it to attempt to do so in the case of religion. The ministers of religion, with their congregations of every name, are entitled to be left at liberty to profess and to teach what they may see, or think they see, to be

divine truth; and although diversity of profession and of teaching will necessarily result from this principle of liberty, this, again, affords little reason for allowing either sovereigns or Parliaments to interfere with the inalienable rights of the private conscience.

Diversity, indeed-diversity of thought and belief—like difference of feature, is plainly one of the conditions of human existence. It is found everywhere, in every house and family, even in the midst of the most substantial unity and harmony in the greater essentials; nor can we divest ourselves of it in the finer and more elevated region of things spiritual. That diversity, therefore, should be the outcome of religious liberty, should neither surprise nor distress us. It is more to the purpose to accept it, as the evident intention and an admirable provision of Divine wisdom, and as being, therefore, within limits, an essential element of healthy Church life.

But here the objection may be raised that, without some definite Creed imposed upon it, and binding, or supposed to bind, its members together by a common assent to fundamental truths, the existence of a Church is inconceivable; that, indeed, a Church so constituted would be impracticable and "anarchical." This has in substance been recently said, and by an eminent and liberal-minded man. In reply, let it be remembered that a Church is, by its origin and nature, a religious and a Christian institution,— one or other, or both. As such, it involves two things: first, that its members are joined together for the worship and the service of God, to help and encourage each other, in common sentiments of devotion, to the divine will, so far as this may be known to them; secondly, a Christian Church involves and implies the acknowledgment of Christ as head, with the love and reverence to Him which the word discipleship properly expresses. A National Church should doubtless be founded upon the broadest basis