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still love to visit the old house "at home." | penalties, and many a struggle, but it has Windsor and Westminster are not forgotten gradually been lessened and removed, and we in the capitol of Washington; and I believe now begin to see the end in view. The writ that our beloved Queen has more of American de hæretico comburendo was, for the last goodwill and affection than any of their own time, executed on the bodies of two Arians Polks or Pierces. The consequences, how- in the reign of James I. (A.D. 1611.) Corever, of these tendencies and feelings is poreal persecution for dissent ceased some greatly to embarrass reform. We cannot 170 years ago, on the advent of the Prince rebuild until we have first unbuilt, and we of Orange; disability after disability has dare not proceed with vigour lest we should since been removed; Toleration and Emanbring our good old house about our ears. cipation acts have been passed; Test and The inferior workmanship of the past is Corporation acts have been repealed, in removed piecemeal, and one little party wall favour of religious freedom. The Dissenter after another is destroyed by inches. Our may now sit in the House of Commons and neighbours the French, whose impetuosity at the Privy Council Board, and may hold will brook no delay, have had so many any civil office in the land. Exclusion, in downfalls in their specious political archi- short, is confined in civil matters to the tecture, that we seem to have been frighted universities, and has been partially banished into unreasonable timidity. We scarcely from thence this very year. But still, so dare propose to break out a window to let thoroughly is the State Church system built in light and air: a host of F. J. L.'s, and into our social constitution, that we are comH. D. L.'s, as so many political oilmen and pelled to struggle for this last boon; we tallow-chandlers, will be ready to raise a cry scarcely dare even yet openly and directly against us. Sunlight is no sooner sug- to attack the root of all this mischief-the gested,unchristian and impolitic connection between religion and the civil power-the unholy alliance of Church and State. Alas! that we should be compelled to retrace the crooked path of error with such slow and painful steps, and to unbuild the untempered wall with such wearisome caution.

"Than straight the established lanthorns
Are moved with hate of day,
And loud the lawful rushlights
Against the change inveigh."

The present debate not unnaturally suggested the above thoughts, and they in return appear to illustrate the debate. Our forefathers, like ourselves, had many a struggle for religious liberty, but unfortunately they only succeeded in changing external for internal persecution. The people of England early and steadily opposed the pretensions of the church of Rome, and, except when betrayed or discouraged at home, they always opposed them with success. Henry III. had the active sympathy of the nation, until, by the unfortunate murder of A'Beckett on the steps of the altar, he brought himself under the ban of popular superstition. John was supported in his opposition to Innocent, whose papal interdict was set at defiance by the nation at large; and when the pusillanimous monarch yielded in abject fear, his barons stood aloof for awhile, and then hurled him from the throne. But, alas! the crafty and unscrupulous Henry VIII., who ended this lengthy struggle, made himself an English pope, and established himself as the head of a State Church. This mischief has cost us heavy

One would imagine that few persons could hesitate to pronounce judgment in favour of opening the universities to Dissenters, after five minutes' reflection upon the outline sketch of the progress of toleration given in the foregoing paragraph. The Church has evidently no excuse for denying this last boon: it has either gone too far in its concessions to Dissent, or else not far enough. It is all very well for H. D. L. to glory in the tolerance of his church at the present day, but he surely must perceive the utter inconsistency of an established religion with any such toleration. When Henry VIII. established the essential doctrines of popery as the national creed by "the Bloody Law of the Six Articles," and threatened all impugners thereof with the stake or halter, he was consistent; every subsequent act of relaxation has been an absurdity. When Edward VI. (5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 1) made Nonconformity a penal offence, and enacted that anyone attending religious services other than those appointed in the Book of

Common Prayer, should suffer imprisonment, and for the third offence imprisonment for life; and again, when Elizabeth (1 Eliz., c. 2, sec. 14) enacted that a fine of twelvepence should be levied by the churchwardens on all those who failed to attend some "place where common prayer shall be used" on Sundays and holidays, they simply acted up to the theory of an established church;* the present acknowledgment of Dissent, on the other hand, is a pitiable self-contradiction. To establish a creed, and then allow people to believe it or not, is no whit more sensible than to impose a tax and leave people the option paying or refusing to pay. Establish a religion, and allow the Dissenter equal civil rights; we might as reasonably pass a toleration act to except professed smugglers from the penalties of the customs' acts. Establish a national church, and allow her members to withdraw with impunity from her communion; we might as well legalize desertion in the army, or mutiny in the navy. Establish a national religion, and then repeal the test acts, by which it was fenced, in favour of Dissenters;-we might as consistently modify the oath of a cabinet minister, for the express purpose of admitting red-republicans to power. Proclaim the Queen "Defender of the Faith," and then persuade her to allow the Dissenter to teach and preach contrary to that very faith; -the genius of Shakspere supplies the only parallel to such absurdities. Would that Churchmen could be brought to view these things in their true light, and they

* The reader will perhaps be surprised to hear that these statutes (though fallen into neglect) were a part of English law eight years since; they were repealed in 1847, by the 9 and 10 Vic., c. 59. This fact should induce H. D. L. to moderate the jubilant tones in which he sings

the tender mercies of his church.

+"Dogberry.—* * * This is your charge; You are to comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand in the prince's name.

2nd Watchman.-How if he will not stand?

would then perceive the deep truth of that utterance of Divine wisdom-" My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight;" they would see that the idea of a tolerant State church is at once an insult to their own understandings, and an attempt to falsify the words of Christ. To place religion in the seat of power-to make her a kingdom of this world, and then to strike the civil sword from her hands, is a bitter mockery which can only be paralleled by the conduct of those who arrayed Christ in the crimson robes of empire, and bending the knee before him, saluted him with the irony of malice-" Hail, King of the Jews!"

I am not Quixotic enough to feel any very sanguine hopes of the conversion of F. J. L.; but I hope the foregoing remarks will suffice to awaken some Churchmen to a sense of the untenable position which the Establishment now holds, and thereby induce them not only to concur in the freedom of the universities, but also in the further attempt to sever the union of Church and State. We wish to see this great end accomplished rather by internal revolution than by external contest: we dread the embitterinent and antagonism of a long political contest,-but, by one means or other, the Church of this country must sooner or later cease to be a State church; until then, there is no security for the Dissenter. I need only turn to F. J. L.'s article to show that I have been arguing no imaginary theory. In p. 302 he says, "If, then, the nation, as such, profess a religion, it should use every means, direct and indirect, short of actual persecution, for its furtherance and support." I beseech the liberal Churchman to study the sentence. shut the Dissenters out from the advantages of the secular teaching and fellowships of the Universities, is "short of actual persecution," of course it cannot be "actual persecution" to shut them out from State employment, from civil preferment, and from municipal office; we may therefore at once

If to

Dogberry-Why then, take no note of him, but re-enact the Test and Corporation Acts. If

let him go.

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dissent unfits a man to receive education, much more must it disqualify from communicating education; we may therefore forbid any Dissenter to teach in any kind of school. How much further F. J. L. would curtail religious freedom, I know not; but in view of the sentence just commented upon, I pointedly call upon him to define, with the

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utmost logical precision, the exact meaning | tics, and our army and navy ought to exert which he applies to the phrase, "actual per- all their powers of destruction for the extensecution," and also clearly to distinguish the sion and increase of Anglican Christianity. principles (if any) which will justify exclu- Certainly we think that Nicholas might find sion in the universities, and yet banish it an apology for his Te Deums over the ruins from parliament. The idea that a youth in of Sinope, in the pages of Mr. Gladstone's his teens is to be tabooed from the study of work. "Render unto Cæsar the things science and philosophy at Oxford, unless he which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things believes in the doctrines of the Church, but which are God's," is here represented not as that a confirmed Dissenter of mature age an eternal truth, but as a temporary policy, and judgment may share in the deliberations to suit the exigencies of the time at which of St. Stephen's, and join in a debate on it was uttered; and thus the Establishchurch property and other ecclesiastical mentarian makes Deity the author of decepsubjects, is surely the most preposterous tion, and translates the words of Christ by folly which ever the brain of man conceived. opposite language. "Render, " says he, I might here leave the "Establishment unto Cæsar the things which are God's;" question with the reader, but I cannot help i. e., place religious faith and worship in craving his attention, for a moment, to the Cæsar's custody,-and render unto God the lame defence of a national religion offered by things which are Cæsar's; i. e., put Cæsar's F. J. L., p. 302: "By such institutions," we sword into Religion's hand. Now I maintain are told, "the heart of a nation is made that the words of Christ, in their simple imsound. an improved moral atmosphere is port, forbid any connection between civil diffused. virtue and honesty are publicly power and religion; and further, that if encouraged, and vice is publicly discouraged." Christ could have been guilty of reserve, I accept the challenge here thrown down. double entendre, and equivocation, he would The Papal States, Naples, Russia, and Spain, have been an impostor, his gospel a falsehave national churches, while the United hood, and his followers dupes. Again, States has none; I demand, therefore, from J. F. L. thinks (p. 332, col. 2) that a naF. J. L. an explicit reply to the question- tional church is as reasonable as a private Which of these nations stands highest in missionary society, but the idea is mere respect to honesty, virtue, and moral sound- folly; he commits the same absurdity as ness? Which is the better principled and the advocates of the Maine Law, who argue better governed - Washington or Rome? that because a certain part of the nation, Compare Naples, where Francesco and Rosa who are teetotallers, think it a great good, Madiai linger in a dungeon for reading the that therefore it ought to be enforced! These Bible-where Miss Cunningham is arrested benevolent individuals, having broken our for distributing tracts, and where the enor- decanters and taught us our catechism, mities of priestly power drew forth an indig- would probably in due time direct what nant pamphlet even from the chief advocate books we should read, forbid us to cultivate of establishments (Mr. Gladstone) with cucumbers for fear of cholera, regulate the England, where the national church is consumption of beef, and establish a national scarcely more numerous or more powerful pattern for our outward adorning. We imathan its opponents! Again, F. J. L. tells gine, however, that free-born Englishmen us that "All power should be used with will demur to this theory in all its ramificareference to God's will," and these words are tions; in fact, it is nothing less than a explained to mean that a government ought scheme for turning society into a gaol, and to establish and support a religion at home; making Government chaplain, doctor, and but why should we stop there? "All turnkey to the establishment. power" must include the machinery of the Foreign Office as well as of the Home Office -of Portsmouth and Woolwich as well as of Scotland Yard and Downing Street. Our ambassadors, according to this Gladstonian logic, ought to negotiate in favour of the English Church as well as of English poli

Lastly, on this head we notice F. J. L's assertions that the voluntary system is "miserably ineffective" and "utterly inefficient." Now I have already shown that Voluntaryism is four and a half-fold more efficient than State aid, even within the pale of the Church (see p. 389); and Mr. Mann (Cen

sus, pp. 131, 140) states that the increase of Church accommodation during the period 1801-1851, amounts to 1,028,032 sittings. Dividing these between private benefaction and State aid, in the above proportion of four and a half to one, we find that in the Church Voluntaryism has provided about 840,000 sittings where State aid has provided 188,000. Again, Mr. Mann informs us that Dissent, during the same fifty years, has provided 4,013,408 new sittings; adding to these the 840,000 provided by Episcopalian Voluntaryism, we find that the "utterly inefficient" voluntary system has provided 4,853,000 sittings where State aid has provided 188,000; in other words, the voluntary system provides a seat in God's house for twenty-five and a half persons, wherever State aid provides for a solitary worshipper!! Now, I call upon F. J. L. either to declare the census tables to be a gigantic fraud, or to deny the common rules of arithmetic, and maintain that twenty-five is less than one, or to confess the untruth of his former assertions, to retract them, and to offer such apology to the injured majesty of truth, and to the brethren whom he has misrepresented, as his own conscience shall dictate.

The article of H. D. L. mainly consists of a reply to Rolla; it is therefore not our place to remark on his arguments. But in concluding this article we must notice the extraordinary delusion (which he professes to maintain, p. 392) that the universities are "private property." F. J. L. is too cautious to make the same avowal openly, but it evidently lies at the root of his assertion that there is "no difference between the universities and other church property," and of his whole reasoning, pp. 303 306. Happily we have no need to argue this question; we can appeal directly to competent authority. I presume that most readers are aware that the two universities, together with the colleges in connection with them, are corporate bodies ;* but those who are in

* Universitas and collegium are the Latin law terms for "corporation."

clined to trust the confident assertions of writers like F. J. L., may probably imagine (as I believe be, in all good faith, does) that they are ecclesiastical corporations. The question, however, has long ago been decided in our courts of law in the opposite manner; the case of Rex v. Cambridge, ViceChancellor, 3 Burr. 1656, laid it down that the two universities are civil lay corporations, of the same character therefore as the colleges of physicians and surgeons. Surely, then, the Dissenter has as much right to the privileges of the former as to those of the latter. Will F. J. L. or H. D. L. pretend that the medical profession should be confined to members of their own church? But, independently of these considerations, it is to be remembered that a corporation is a creature of the law, to which certain powers and privileges have been granted (as, e. g., the power of framing laws which shall bind individual members); for the effectual carrying out of the purposes for which it was instituted. If, therefore, a corporation fail to accomplish the end for which it was intended-if it enact bye-laws contrary to the law of the land, or manifestly unreasonable and inconsistent with the public welfare, Government has a right, both morally and legally, to interfere. universities we have shown to be civil lay corporations; to enact a religious test, as the condition of entrance, is to contravene this character, and to change them virtually into ecclesiastical corporations: hence Government is bound to interfere. In accordance with these remarks, it has been held that a byelaw, enacted by a trading corporation to limit the number of apprentices which each member should take, is illegal; how much more, then, ought parliament to interfere when bye-laws (to which in an age of tyranny it had given legislative sanction) limit the class of individuals who may participate in the educational advantages of our universities. Oxford and Cambridge are civil lay corporations, public institutions; to pretend that they are, in any sense, private, is an untruth in fact, and an absurdity in theory.

B. S.

The

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-IV.

MR. EDITOR,-In common with your numerous readers, we have read with deep interest the debate which has appeared in your

pages on this important subject; for although Parliament has recently discussed it, and pronounced legislatively upon it, the people

of England have no faith in the infallibility of any order of men, and are prepared on all occasions to think and speak for themselves. It may be decreed that the universities shall be open to persons of all religious opinions, or of none, but the "ought" of the question remains untouched. We were glad to find H. D. L., in your last number, pouring a little water on " Rolla's" fearful looking firebrand, and maintaining his position with the dignity of a Christian gentleman. We cannot but regret the acrimony which was introduced into this debate by the opening writer on each side, also the strong tendency which has been manifested thus far to make it a dispute between Church and Dissent, instead of a question of simple equity and common justice. We were somewhat surprised and pained to find your able contributor B. S. doing this, for his articles we have in general greatly admired. He commences as an "individual Dissenter," rather than a patriotic Englishman. Now we would have it distinctly borne in mind that the question is not merely one respecting the admission of Dissenters to the universities, but the admission of persons of all religious opinions, including, of course, Roman Catholics, infidels, and even idolaters, if they choose to apply. Now we think every sincere Protestant will be prepared duly to consider this fact before he sanctions the surrender to our enemies of these important positions, which have hitherto been held by our friends. Respecting this part of the subject it has been ably said: "Those who think that Popery is unfavourable to the moral and intellectual liberty of mankind, will appreciate the gravity of the practical difficulties which the introduction of Roman Catholics into Oxford -would create. In the present temper of men's minds respecting religious questions, both at Oxford and in the country at large, -whilst angry controversies are still raging, and the battle between the churches is still at its height, a fatal blow would be dealt to the peace and studies of the university, if the Roman Catholics were allowed to break in upon the inmost life of an institution in which almost every building and every endowment would supply unfailing materials for irritation and contest. Scenes might take place at Oxford little less disgraceful than the Stockport riot, or the ancient battles in Logic Lane."

B. S. next notices the question of Church versus Chapel goers, and appears to delight in placing them in unfriendly juxta-position; then, after going into the subject of the recent census, he at length comes to the real question at issue; but here, with an inconsistency unworthy of himself, he commences by taking for granted that which ought to have been his great object to prove. Availing himself of the assertion of the Oxford Commissioners that the universities are national, and of the admission of F. J. L. that they are so "in every fair and proper sense of the term" in the same sense as the Established Church is said to be the National Churchhe overlooks the distinction so properly pointed out by H. D. L., viz., that "they are private property supported by the State, and in this sense national; but they are not public property supported by the State, and in this sense not national." With as much consistency as our friends exhibit in seeking to throw open the universities, might men of all religious opinions seek to enter the Church of England, and become possessed of its property and revenues, on the plea that it was the National Church, and they formed a part and parcel of the nation. Surely our opponents would not go thus far; if they would, let them openly declare it.

B. S., continuing in the erratic course in which he commenced, asserts that the universities. were designed not for religious but secular instruction. This assertion he does not further attempt to prove than by saying that, as the Church is for the religious education of the people, the universities must be for "the secular instruction of the community," forgetting that the latter might have been designed to be subsidiary to the former. As to the statement that the Church is to train the moral being; the universities the intellect of the nation; he forgets that it would have been contrary to the Anglo-Saxon genius, as well as to true philosophy, thus to separate religion from science, and to divide those branches of human knowledge which ought ever to go together hand in hand, blessing our race.

In proof of our position we may quote from a document prepared as far back as the time of Archbishop Laud, in which every undergraduate is required to have a tutor, whose duty it is "to imbue his pupils with good principles, and instruct them in approved

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