the resolution to strip off the convictions they had so often professed, and to don the livery of Dr. Foster, practised observers might well have been pardoned for concluding that the impost was doomed. The force by which it was supported had steadily and rapidly dwindled. The agitators by whom it was menaced had gained a strength which they had been unable to obtain even in the first flush of Reform enthusiasm. Mr. Hume's motion in favour of total abolition in 1834, two years after the passing of the Reform Bill, was negatived by a majority of 116. In 1859, when Lord Palmerston and his colleagues made up their minds to take the final plunge, this majority had been transformed through successive gradations to a majority of 74 the other way. The Committee of Laymen, with the energetic Mr. Knott at their head, had in vain for several years strained every nerve to rouse the clergy to a sense of the danger that was upon them. All efforts seemed in vain. The four Ministers concluded, on grounds apparently ample, that the moment had come for a judicious and decorous conversion. Never did fate so flout the calculations of politicians. Almost before their resolution could be carried into action the wind had shifted. The very division in which they finally sealed their change of faith was the first that gave an intimation of the reaction that was at hand. They had the satisfaction of seeing that they had changed too late, and yet too soon. If they had gone a little sooner, they might have induced the world to believe that their conduct was determined by something higher than the pliant docility of a Minister in distress. If they had waited a little longer, they might have avoided the inconvenience of linking themselves to a decaying cause. Which way the even balance that now divides the House of Commons will finally incline, it is, of course, difficult to predict with certainty. But it is quite within the range of political contingencies that opinion will declare itself as strongly for Church-rates as a few years ago it seemed to declare itself against them. In such a case, no doubt, the tide of conversions will turn. 'The course of action which candidates understand perfectly well' will begin again its mysterious operations on the parliamentary conscience. The polite regrets and wordy professions of devotion which have hitherto been reserved for the benefit of the Church will be brought out again for the solace of Dissenters. Sir James Graham will profess that he has been all his life a consistent friend of Nonconformity, and that it is with the deepest pain he finds himself compelled to admit that it is time to trim his sails to the changed wind. The procession of enlightened Tories, and Whigs in search of a political belief, and shaky representatives of every complexion, will form again,

and

and will tramp back again with unabated docility across the political stage; and lagging in the rear, with faces doubly penitent and explanations doubly inexplicable, the four reconverted Ministers will doubtless close the train. We trust to live to see the day when, on the principle of bending to the popular breeze, they will return to an enthusiastic advocacy of Church-rates, and will find that, spite of their absence, nothing has been lost except their honour.

We ought not to venture to put this dream of the future in any form stronger than that of a wish; for the boldest political prophet will hardly venture, after past experience, to speculate on the future of this question. The shades of the recess have closed over an indecisive battle, and no man can foretell the issue of the morrow. But the interval may be profitably devoted to a consideration of the policy which the present condition of the question prescribes to the friends of the Church. Lord Derby has declared his hope that the recent division will lead to an equitable settlement of the dispute, and many Liberal members have expressed their desire for a compromise. It may be assumed, therefore, that a serious attempt will be made next session to elicit some satisfactory settlement out of the innumerable projects of compromise which the discussions on this question have engendered.

The friends of the Church have every reason to wish that this question should be settled. Whoever is chargeable with the guilt of making it a source of constant irritation, the fact remains the same. It has been for years a running sore in many of the largest parishes in the kingdom. There is scarcely a pastor of a populous district but knows by sad experience its virtue in breeding animosities and bringing upon his parish the plague of parochial faction fights. It supplies a dream of local distinction to the ambition of vestry politicians, a ready-made implement of annoyance to the busy-bodies of each small community, a convenient form for giving effect to every passing discontent which the clergyman or the Church of England may have aroused. As a matter of taste, it is not agreeable to a clergyman to be turned into a party leader, and to be forced, as part of his office, to stand the fire of personal attacks of which a party leader is considered to be the legitimate target. And it aggravates very seriously the difficulties of his position. Evil always results from any connection in men's minds between pastoral activity and worldly gain. To some extent the connection is inevitable; but the less it is obtruded upon the world's eye the better. To make a clergyman the head of an association for the levy of a parochial tax upon a minority to whom it is dis

tasteful,

tasteful, for purposes in which he is popularly, though most unjustly, held to be peculiarly interested, is to make a formidable addition to the obstacles against which he already struggles. His acts are viewed with suspicion, and are imputed to the money-getting, and not to the pastoral, moiety of his character. All the good he does or attempts is attributed to a desire to make his interest stronger in the parish. The spirit with which at election time all acts of kindness or usefulness are regarded, becomes the constant temper of a portion of the parishioners. If he is civil, or forgiving, or active, or eloquent, his good qualities are only counted as additional proofs of his efficiency as an electioneering agent. It is almost vain for him to preach the Gospel when it is looked upon only as a portion of the oratorical capital of an astute party chief. It is a bad thing for a clergyman to be at odds with any portion of his parish; it is a still worse thing if that difference should spring out of any dispute about money; but it is worst of all when that question of money is embroiled and perplexed by the prejudices and the acrimony of political hostility. All these evils the Church-rate, in its present condition, brings upon a considerable number of parishes. Many clergymen have been fain to lay this unquiet spirit even by the complete and absolute sacrifice of the rate. Such friends of the Church as Sir John Trelawny and Mr. Bright have been loud in their eulogies of this plan of pacification, and have been moved, as they tell us, by their general solicitude for the interests of the Church, to recommend it for general adoption. But the results of the experiment, where it has been tried, have not been encouraging. The voluntary principle has been appealed to in all confidence, and has lamentably broken down. It is found in practice to invest the clergyman with a character almost more odious, and to dig a gulf between him and his parishioners almost more impassable, than is done by the turmoil of a Churchrate contest; and it is both inadequate and precarious as a source of supply. The clergy are turned into an organised body of begging-letter writers, and their churches, in spite of it, fall into ruins. These facts were established from experience by the witnesses before the Lords' Committee. Birmingham is the classic land of Voluntaryism. It is the place where the agitation of this question originally commenced, and where, for a space of thirty years, the churches have been thrown upon their own The inhabitants are wealthy, the clergy energetic, and the churches are well filled. But all these advantages do not supply the place of the discarded Church-rate. Some of the clergy gave their evidence before the Lords' Committee, and much of it is worth deep consideration. We have only room for

resources.

a few

a few extracts. Dr. Miller, of St. Martin's, was the first witness called :-

6

178. The Duke of Marlborough.-But speaking as to the practical inconvenience of the present system in your district, are you able to state whether there is great difficulty experienced in providing the sums necessary for the performance of divine worship as well as providing for the fabric? There is, in many parishes, the greatest possible difficulty. The present system, as carried on in Birmingham, is a perfect millstone round the necks of a great majority of the ministers of the town. I do not speak from theory or opinion; I speak in that respect from my knowledge of facts.

'Is it not the case at present, that, whether for the building of churches or the erection of schools, the clergymen are obliged to make very widely extended appeals not only to their own people, but to persons very foreign to their parishes?—The truth is, that begging

is now a chief element in our duties.

Then if the provision of the funds necessary for repairing the churches were thrown upon the voluntary system, would it not oblige the clergyman to extend his begging operations very largely ?-He would have to extend them, and, as a result of my own observation of Birmingham, I should say that he would extend them unsuccessfully, and that the churches would go to decay.

'Would it not very seriously interfere with the time which he gives to his parochial duties? It does now most seriously.

'Would it not add very largely to his anxieties?-It does now most heavily.

'And in these ways very seriously prejudice his spiritual work? We all feel in Birmingham that we are becoming more and more secularised every day: we get on by constant begging.'

Other witnesses give similar testimony. The general tendency of the evidence is to show that in those places where the much-vaunted support of the voluntary principle has been relied on, it has done worse than fail. It has brought the clergyman before his parishioners in the light of a beggar, for he has very little time for anything else; and they have learnt to look upon him in the light of a beggar, and treat him accordingly. But it has failed, even in return for any amount of mendicancy, to yield the requisite supplies. There is nothing wonderful, or even disappointing, in this result. The success of Dissent under the same principle furnishes no sort of precedent to the Church. The two systems work with different aims and under totally different conditions. The Church offers her ministrations in proportion to men's needs, not in proportion to their wishes. It must often happen, therefore, that she offers more than they wish to have, or are willing to pay for. Dissent adapts itself to the commercial principle of supply and demand. It provides religious privileges for all who are prepared to purchase

them,

them, exactly in proportion to the inquiry made for them in the religious market of the time. One, according to the law of its existence, takes no heed of the periodic ebb and flow of religious feeling, but makes the same provision for a lukewarm as for an enthusiastic age. The other regulates its supply exactly in proportion to the zeal or the indifference of each succeeding period. It is obvious that the two different systems must require two different methods of support. Voluntaryism may be fatal to the Church, and yet be well fitted for Dissent. For voluntaryism is a dependence upon religious zeal; and the offerings of religious zeal are as transient and precarious as the bounty of a mountain torrent. Its stream will flow with almost superfluous munificence in one age, and in the next will nearly be dried up. If the supply is to be perpetuated in steady and even quantity, it must be economized by artificial contrivances. Endowments are the tanks which catch it when it overflows, and store it against the next period of drought. It is the maintenance of costly fabrics, which can never be abandoned or disposed of, even in the slackest age, that makes a church-rate necessary to the Church. Dissenters do not tie themselves to a locality. They do not commit themselves to a building too costly to be relinquished in case of need. They bear in mind that a chapel is a speculation which may very possibly break down, and they regulate their outlay accordingly. The evidence before the House of Lords went to show that meeting-houses had been built at the price of not more than seven-and-twenty shillings a sitting, or at the rate of 2007. for a congregation of 150 persons.* Such an edifice is no mortgage on the zeal of future generations. If a season of adversity should come, if a popular preacher should die, or rival attractions draw away a large portion of his supporters to the pulpits of some other sect, the Ebenezer is sold for a warehouse, and the congregation resolves itself into its component atoms. But the old church must be kept in repair through all vicissitudes of parochial fervour or clerical popularity. It is in this sense that the church-rate involves the question of an Established Church. It is precisely because she is established, and therefore subjected to permanent burdens, that the Church requires a church-rate.

A settlement of the question, therefore, to the friends of the Church, must mean some plan that, while it abates the evils, secures the payment of the rate. All propositions must be laid aside which start on the principle of abandoning its legal obli

* Of late years a taste for architectural decoration has been spreading among them, and they possess many buildings to which our remarks would not apply. But these have existed for too short a time to have tested the possibility of their continued maintenance under a purely voluntary system without endowments.

gation.