HC Deb 31 July 1878 vol 242 cc829-49

(Mr. Assheton Cross.)

[BILL 197.] COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Assheton Cross.)

MR. J. COWEN

, in rising to move— That, in the opinion of this House, it is undesirable, so long as the Episcopal Church continues to be established by law, to increase the number of Bishops, said, the Bill before the House proposed to deal with the internal arrangements of the Established Church. He was not a member of that Church. He did not believe in all the 200 or 300 propositions contained in the Thirty-nine Articles. The rule of a Church by a Hierarchy of Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests, was, in his judgment, despotic in principle and unwise in policy. English Episcopacy in the past had been a persecuting body; and to-day its spirit was narrow, illiberal, and exclusive. Its Representatives in the other House of the Legislature had only been conspicuous there for their hostility alike to political freedom and commercial and social progress. He knew that these principles were not shared by many Members of that House. He was not arguing in their defence. He was merely stating them to show how inconsistent the law was, which required a person entertaining such, views to give an opinion upon the mode of management of a Church to which both on points of rule and doctrine he was so strongly opposed. That was the penalty imposed upon Churchmen for maintaining the connection between their communion and the State. If they took State pay, they must submit to State control. The two were reciprocal —object and measure. If they surrendered the power and the prestige that sprang from a Government alliance, they would be freed from such interference; but as long as they retained it, the doctrines and government of their Church would be subjected to the criticism, and, to some extent, the control of Jews as well as of Christians, of adherents of the Presbyterian, the Papal, and the Greek faiths, as well as of Episcopalians. They must endure the comments of all manner of Dissenters, from the orthodox and evangelical Methodist to the latitudinarian Rationalist. He felt the incongruity of such a position so much, that he would have abstained from interfering in the discussion had it not been that the district in which he lived was directly affected by the Bill. It did not propose to increase the number of Bishops in the House of Lords, it was true; but the Bishops created by the measure might be, and in some cases would become, Members of the other House of the Legislature. It was only right that the House of Commons should have an opportunity of passing in review a project that proposed another mode of making fresh Peers. But while admitting the force of that demand, the absurdity of calling on a man holding his opinions to pass judgment on the internal affairs of the Church was so palpable, that had it not been that the Bill proposed to fasten a Bishop on the borough he represented, he would have been content to give a silent opposition to it. His first objection to the proposal was that there was no popular demand for it. The number of Petitions that had been presented in its favour, the number of meetings that had been held in its support, were insignificant. Through the ordinary avenues and agencies by which Parliament was made acquainted with the drift and strength of public opinion, no expression of feeling in its favour had been manifested. The only persons, as far as he knew, who had concerned themselves for the Bill were women, clergymen, and that small but intelligent section of laymen who took an aesthetic and architectural interest in ecclesiastical matters. The Government complained, and not without reason, of the backward state of Public Business. The Session began three weeks sooner than usual, and it was likely to continue a fortnight longer than was customary. There were still 30 Bills and Resolutions on the Order Book promoted by the Ministry. Some of them were only formal; but others were of first importance. A Bill that was recommended in the Queen's Speech— that for codifying the Criminal Law, and which, he cheerfully allowed, reflected credit on the Administration, and redounded to the honour of the hon. and learned Gentlemen who had introduced it—that Bill, which he believed would, if carried, more intimately affect the ordinary life of the common people of this country than any that had been passed of recent years, had been abandoned in consequence of the want of time to discuss it. Another measure that the Government were pledged in honour to promote—the principle of which had been discussed in that House for 30 or 40 years, and which proposed to give representative government to the counties—had been relegated to the limbo of Parliamentary innocents. Other proposals submitted by the President of the Local Government Board, not of great importance, but still useful, had been dropped after their course in the House had been considerably advanced. The reason for these abandonments was that the Ministry had not sufficient time at their disposal to discuss them. Yet they were called upon to debate a Bill to-day which there had been no expression of a desire for on the part of the public. He did not presume to advise Ministers how they should use the limited time at their disposal before Parliament rose. It would be an offence on his part to give advice on such a subject; but he believed he was speaking within his right as a Member of Parliament, when he said he thought it would be wiser for them to devote the remaining days of the Session to the promotion of measures that were really wanted, and not to the promotion of Bills like the present, which interested only a fraction of the public. And a fraction of the fraction alone were anxious for the enactment. The Bill proposed to establish a Bishopric in Northumberland. There was once a Bishopric in that county—that of Lindisfarne. It existed in the mists of history. Pleasant memories, however, of the lives and labours of the Lindisfarne Prelates had descended even to the present time. Those men were really pastors of their flocks. They interested themselves in the material and moral, as well as in the spiritual, welfare of those amongst whom their lot was cast. They were the guides, philosophers, and friends of their neighbours and parishioners. But they lived before the time when Bishops had begun to raise their mitred fronts in Courts and Parliaments. There was not one attribute in common between the ancient and apostolic Bishops and the modern Ecclesiastical creations. No one, he believed, would object to an increase of such Bishops as there once lived at Lindisfarne; but what they did resent was the increase of such State officials as the Bill before them sought to establish. There had been repeated attempts to found a Bishopric in Newcastle. Edward VI. proposed to start a See there. Queen Elizabeth revived the project; and that stout old Presbyter, John Knox himself, was once thought of as a Prelate. When the Bishopric of Ripon was founded in 1836, and that of Manchester was created in 1847, the idea of a Bishopric in Newcastle was once more mooted. In 1851, and again in 1854, the scheme was submitted to the other House of the Legislature, and discussed in clerical gatherings by Dr. Philpotts and others. Up to this time, however, the scheme had never resolved itself into practical shape. He recalled these facts for the purpose of observing that all the projects for establishing a Bishopric had been made by Monarchs, or ministers, or clerical bodies outside and away from Northumberland; by men, indeed, who were ignorant of the modes of thought and feeling of the population for whom they aspired to legislate. He had a fair knowledge of the history of Newcastle, and he could not call to his recollection a single occasion when an effort of any importance had been made outside the Clergy in favour of the establishment of a Bishopric, except that commenced by his old Friend, the late Sir John Fife, some 23 years ago. A proposition to petition in favour of a Bishopric was made by that gentleman; but it was drowned in a sea of good-natured banter and derision. They required many things in Newcastle. They wanted a purer atmosphere and a higher culture —they wished to be freed from the material contaminations consequent on their rough and energetic industries, and to have put before the people a more artistic and elevated ideal of life—but they did not want a Bishopric. They did not want planted down in their midst an institution that would tend to weaken the springs of intellectual independence, and cast a fetter over thought. ["No, no!"] Well, they had a Bishopric at Durham, and that was near enough. It was somewhat remarkable that, although the Church of England had for generations drawn a larger measure of wealth from the Diocese of Durham—considering its size and considering its population—than from any district of like extent in the country, yet that Body never had, and had not now, any strong hold on the affections and convictions of the people of the North. It was difficult to measure the strength of different religious Bodies in the country. Statistics were at best misleading, and yet they were the only means by which an approximate estimate of the position of the Churches could be formed. When the Census was taken in 1851, an attempt was made to enumerate the strength of all the sects in the country. On a given Sunday in March of that year, all the people who were found attending churches or chapels were counted, and the numbers recorded in the Census Papers. It was hoped that by such means some approximation could be formed of the relative strength of the competing Bodies. On the day in question, there were found attending the places of worship in connection with the Church of England, in the county of Northumberland, 37,000 persons; in the county of Durham, 29,000 persons—in all 66,000. On the same day there were attending the Dissenting chapels in Northumberland, 65,000 persons; and in Durham, 50,000—making a total of 115,000. In the two counties, there was an attendance in the Catholic churches of 15,000. In round numbers, therefore, on the day named, while there were only66,000 persons attending the Church of England in the Diocese of Durham, there were 130,000 attending the Nonconformist and Catholic chapels; or, to put it in another way, the attendance in the Church was a little more than one-half what it was at the other places of worship. But these figures did not represent correctly the relative strength of the various Bodies. Knowing that the attendance was to be counted on that day, efforts were made by all parties, no doubt, to have as large a number present as could be obtained. To, the Church the children of the National Schools, Sunday Schools, the inmates of hospitals and asylums, and the poor people from the workhouses were all drummed up with a view of augmenting those to be counted. If reasonable deductions were made for such exceptional worshippers, and only independent men and women were reckoned, it would be found that the comparison between the Church and Dissent was more favourable to Nonconformity than those figures at first sight showed. Other information was supplied by the Census in that year, which he would quote from. It had been estimated by clerical experts that no district was sufficiently supplied with church accommodation that did not provide sittings for at least 50 per cent of the population. Some people contended that instead of being 50 per cent of seats, there ought to be 75. But Dr. Chalmers—whose authority, he believed, would be accepted by all parties—split the difference, and said if the churches had seats for 60 per cent of the population, that that would be enough. Now, at the Census in 1851, the proportion of sittings to population provided by the Church in Durham was 17 per cent; in Northumberland, 18 per cent; and in Newcastle, 11 percent; while the proportion of sittings to population provided by the Nonconformists in Durham was 28 per cent; in Northumberland, 30 per cent; and in Newcastle, 22 per cent. This Return showed that the Dissenters and the Catholics not only attended places of worship in greater numbers than the members of the Established Church, but they provided, at that time, twice as many sittings. Hon. Gentlemen would, no doubt, contend that this information had reference to a time that was long since past. To use a well-known phrase, much had happened since then. The population and wealth had both increased. Not only the character of the community, but the aspect of the country, had changed. He was free to admit that the Church of England had made great and honourable efforts during the last quarter of a century. They did not possess now similar official Returns to those they had in 1851; but he was able to quote, from a publication issued with the sanction and under the patronage of the Bishop and Clergy of Durham, figures that would show what had been recently done in that district by Churchmen for the propagation of their faith. During the episcopate of Dr. Baring, there had been expended in building new churches, £267,723; in restoring and enlarging old churches, £119,313; in establishing burial grounds, £12,825; in building schools in connection with the Church, £109,378. In all, there had been raised by Churchmen in the Diocese of Durham, between 1863 and 1876, no less than £509,239. He quoted these figures to the honour of that sect. He knew that in the North of England cynical and censorious people were accustomed to explain this large expenditure by declaring that it was the result of the abnormal prosperity of the coal and iron trade a few years ago. Coalowners and ironmasters had amassed wealth rapidly, and it had become a sort of fashion with them either to build new churches or to improve old ones. Men who were not distinguished for their personal piety strove to make up for individual deficiencies by providing better church accommodation for their less affluent neighbours. That he knew was the reason given by some hypercritical persons for this large expenditure. But he dismissed such an atrabilious way of accounting for what had been done; and he held that it reflected the highest credit on the liberality of the Church in the North of England that, during the last 13 or 14 years, they had collected for it an annual sum of something like £36,300. If he was to draw any deduction from these figures, it would be this—the liberality that Churchmen had shown went to prove that when the necessity arose they were not only willing but capable of providing for religious ordinances amongst themselves. It was a common argument with the opponents of Voluntaryism that the Church could not sustain itself without State help. He thought the fact that the Church in the Diocese of Durham could find men sufficiently liberal to contribute yearly such a handsome sum as upwards of £36,300 for religious and ecclesiastical purposes was a conclusive answer to this objection. He was astonished that members of the Church of England— who were continually complaining of the thraldom under which the Church had to live—did not throw themselves on the liberality of their partizans, and sever their connection with the State at once and for ever. What had been done in Durham was a proof that if Churchmen so desired, they could easily sustain their Body without extraneous aid. But if the Church had increased in numbers and in influence during the last 25 years, Dissent and Catholicism had not stood still. If it was difficult to get accurate statistics as to the state of the Established Church, it was much more difficult to get dependable figures showing the position of the various Nonconforming Bodies. There was not one organization, but several; and it was not easy to collect statistics showing their progress over a given period and area. But, from the information he had been able to obtain, he was justified in saying that in the two counties of Durham and Northumberland the Dissenters and the Catholics had, during the last quarter of a century, not only expended as large a sum in building chapels and schools as the Church had done, but they had absolutely expended one-half as much again. The consequence was that the position of the different Bodies to-day was not altered for the better, so far as the Church was concerned. On the contrary, Dissent and Catholicism had increased, not only as fast and as much as the Church, but they had progressed fully one-half more. That was so far as the erection of churches, of schools, and the attendance at them were concerned. It might be taken, therefore, that the position of the different sects had not substantially altered since 1851, and what alteration had been made had not been to the advantage of the Established Church in the North of England. There were, in that district, a number of old English Catholics. They were not a numerous body, but they were an influential one. They were the representatives and descendants of the men who espoused the cause of the Stuarts under the leadership of the ill-fated Lord Derwentwater, Lord Widdrington, and General Forster. There had been a large immigration of Irish workmen to the North of England during the last 25 years. Wherever there were mines and factories their Irish fellow-countrymen came, and the Catholic Church had made great and important strides over the period to which he was referring. They now constituted a powerful and energetic Body. The Nonconformists were numerous; but probably not so numerous, proportionately, as they were in some other counties of England. The two most growing Bodies were the Methodists and the Presbyterians. All persons concerned in mining operations were under a lasting debt of gratitude to the Methodists for the energy and devotion with which they had carried not only religious, but secular instruction to the distant pit villages and obscure manufacturing districts. When the Church was revelling in indolence and wealth, the poor Methodists were engaged in this work of Christian enlightenment. The Church of England had recently attempted to follow in their footsteps; but they only followed at a considerable distance in the rear. Episcopacy had never been popular in the Northern part of the Island. Some might remember the incident of Jenny Geddes throwing a three-legged stool at the head of a Church of England clergyman when he attempted to use the English Prayer Book in an Edinburgh kirk. This good lady gave forcible, though not very polite, expression to the popular feeling against Prelacy at that time. She typified and accentuated the Scotch dislike to Episcopacy. The feeling that existed 200 years ago lives to this day, only its expression may have been moderated. Large numbers of Scotchmen had come across to Northumberland and Durham, and brought with them their intelligence, their personal energy, and enterprize, and, at the same time, their religious convictions and their form of worship. The Presbyterian Church was now a powerful organization in these two counties. They might put it as they liked—they might explain it as they chose—but Episcopacy was an Ecclesiastical Autocracy. Presbyterianism was Ecclesiastical Constitutionalism, or Republicanism. The latter form of Church government was much more adapted to the breezy, independent, and democratic atmosphere of Tyneside than the former. Hon. Gentlemen opposite would tell them, in reply, that the statistics that he had adduced, and the arguments he had drawn from them, instead of making against the Bill, made in its favour. They would contend that if the Church occupied comparatively such an inferior position, instead of being an argument against making more Bishops, it was an argument in favour of creating them. He knew that he would be encountered by that mode of reasoning, and he would reply to it by anticipation. It was a settled principle of political economy that the supply should be regulated by the demand. What he maintained was that there was no demand for another Bishop in the North of England; and there was, therefore, no need to supply one. Hon. Gentlemen resented the application of the principle of political economy to Ecclesiastical questions. They held that if there was no demand for churches, or for Bishops, the demand should be created, and the State should be called in to assist its creation. He considered that such a procedure was unjust, and for this reason—the Government of this country was the Representative, or supposed Representative, of the entire people. There were upwards of 30,000,000 of inhabitants in these Islands. Some were Jews, and some Christians—some Protestants, and some Catholics. There were men of all faiths, and men of no faith. The Government derived its strength and its authority from men of these varied religions; and he contended that it was unfair to use the power that the united Body gave for the purpose of propagating the doctrines of one sect. Let hon. Gentlemen realize their position by considering how they would feel if they were Dissenters from the Established Church. Suppose the doctrines of the Church were Unitarian, or suppose they were Papal, how would conscientious Episcopalians like to have the power of the State used for the purpose of propagating Unitarian beliefs or Catholic beliefs, from both of which they strongly dissented? They should act upon the Scriptural injunction, and do unto others as they would like to be done by. He held it was no part of the duty of a Government to proselytize in favour of either one form of religious worship or the other. The Government had no right to undertake the work of religious revivalists. He was met on that ground by being assured that the Church was a very cosmopolitan Body. Men holding the doctrines of Dr. Colenso, or the doctrines of Dr. Pusey, could be equally accepted as members. No doubt this was true, and that the Church of England called everything fish that came to its net. It was organized in a way calculated to gain support from all quarters. It had a Papal Ritual, a Calvinistic Creed, an Arminian Clergy, and an Erastian form of Church government. Such a composite organization, he would be told, might be sustained without any serious injury to the conscience of anyone. Acting up to this idea, whenever Churchmen attempted to find arguments in favour of fresh Bishops, they invariably reckoned up the population, and based their demand on the fact of its increase. In the case to which he was specially directing the attention of the House, for example, the population of the county of Northumberland was 400,000, and that of the county of Durham 700,000—in all about 1,100,000. This was nearly double what it was a few years ago. There was no part of the country that had increased more rapidly in population than the county of Durham. The argument of the supporters of the Bill was, that if one Bishop was required when the population was half what it was now, two Bishops were required at the present time. He did not allow the force of that mode of reasoning. It went upon the assumption that the increase of population had gone entirely in favour of the Church. This was not the fact. As he had shown, the adherents of the Church were not as numerous as the adherents of the other Bodies. He repudiated entirely the idea that the religion of the nation and the religion of the State were one and the same. The religion of the nation was Christianity— the religion of the State was Episcopacy. The Episcopalians, therefore, were not warranted, in calculating the necessity for a new Bishop, in holding that the increase in population had gone to swell their numbers only. During the last two generations, the population of England had doubled; but the increase in the numbers of beneficed clergymen in the Established Church had only been at the rate of 15 per cent. He repeated that while the population had doubled, the provision made by the Church had only been at the rate he had just named. Even in providing places of worship, the Church had not kept pace with the population. In 1725, the proportion of churches to population in England was one to every 760 persons. In 1851, there was one church to every 1,273 people. In 1875 there was one church for 1,497 people. In other words, while the income of the Church had steadily increased, and. the population had largely augmented, its relative hold on the people had steadily decreased, even during the last quarter of a century. They were told by early Ecclesiastical writers that when the Emperor Constantine proclaimed territorial jurisdiction for the Bishops, a weird and wistful voice was heard declaring through the stately chambers and corridors of the Byzantine Palace—"This day poison is poured into the Church; this day poison is poured into the Church." No one knew from whence the strange warning came, and no answer was vouchsafed to it. A reply, however, might now be sent through the long vista of years, and the experience of the Church of England might be cited as proving the truthfulness of the prediction that was uttered 1,500 years ago on the banks of the Bosphorus. The bane of the Church of England—the canker that was eating its heart away—was its wealth and its poverty. At one and the same time it was the richest and the poorest Church in Christendom. They had huge heaps of money scraped up in favoured places, and the persons that possessed it lived in splendour and luxury, while all around them were poverty, desolation and often want. The revenue of the Church was £7,300,000 a-year. Of this £530,000— more than half a million—was distributed amongst 172 men. These were the Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and other Church and Cathedral dignitaries. The average annual income of the older Bishops was £6,000 a-year—or, to put the figures more correctly, it should be said that it was £5,600 a-year in cash, and £400 a-year for the rent of the palaces and castles that they lived in. This was the average; but some had incomes much in excess of it. The Archbishop of Canterbury had an annual income of £15,000 a-year and two Palaces. In some Privy Council Order it was shown that His Grace had nearly 500 acres of land for pleasure ground. He could not recognize any resemblance between a Bishop with two palaces, an income of £15,000 a-year, and pleasure grounds 500 acres in extent, and the humble fishermen of Galilee, whose principles he professed to teach, and whose lives he aspired to emulate. He invited the House to contrast the incomes of these high authorities of the Church with the salaries of the working Clergy. There were some 13,300 beneficed clergymen in the Church of Eng- land, and their average incomes were £270 a-year. The average income of the clergymen in the county of Durham was about £350 or £360 a-year. But these figures did not correctly describe the incomes of the Clergy. Several of them had incomes amounting to £1,000, £2,000, and £3,000 a-year, and others had much less than the average amount named. A few years ago there were in England 297 clergymen receiving under £50 a-year; 1,629 receiving under £100 a-year; 1,602 receiving under £150 a-year; and 4,882 receiving under £200 a-year. This state of matters, which he could not do otherwise than describe as disgraceful to the Church, had been somewhat improved of late by the action of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Things were not so bad now as they formerly were—but still, even in 1873, there were 1,163 ministers in the Church of England receiving only £100 a-year, and there were 3,189 receiving between £150 and £200 a-year. The average incomes of the curates was about £80 a-year—very little better than an ordinary mechanic or miner in prosperous times. There were societies in existence for the purpose of collecting funds for educating curates' children, and for supplying them with increased incomes and clothes. Every year he received circulars from bodies of this description, asking for contributions for these purposes, and soliciting, also, cast-off wearing apparel for the poor curates of the Church of England. The Bishop of Manchester, speaking recently, declared that there were curates in the Established Church that got flesh meat for their dinners as seldom as the agricultural labourers of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. He had seen statements in the clerical papers to the effect that some of the poor ministers were unable to provide firing in the cold wintry weather. This condition of things was derogatory to the Church of England. They might explain it, or apologize for it, or excuse it as they chose; but the broad fact still remained, that while one section of the Church received incomes superior to that of the Prime Minister of England, the men who did the work were subsisting on salaries totally inadequate to maintain them in ordinary decency. If, instead of proposing to increase the number of Bishops, the earnest members of the Church of England would set about a re-distribu- tion of the vast funds which that Corporation possessed, they would accomplish both for their Church and country a much more useful and honourable work. It was useless to expect that the Church would ever have any hold on the affections of the people while these gross anomalies existed. It might wield a certain weight in special circles; but it could never touch either the hearts or sympathies of the nation while its resources were so unequally and so inequitably dispensed. The people asked for more light, more mental liberty. They required a better appreciation of their responsibilities as men and as citizens. They wanted a broader diffusion of the principles, and a more faithful practice of the spirit and the teaching of the Founder of Christianity, and it was proposed to give them more Bishops, more sleek and oily parsons—more of a superficial and artificial Ecclesiasticism. They should have an Institution—call it a Church if they liked—not of priests, but of, and from, and for the people, into which any man, however poor, and however ignorant he might be, could enter and take a heart to be purified, an intellect to be enlightened, and a spirit to be elevated. They wanted a Church in which there was absolute intellectual freedom, and complete Christian equality, which would be a place of refuge for the weary, of shelter for the poor, of solace for the sick, of help for the desolate, and of tribuneship for the oppressed —not a ring of Parsons and Bishops rolling in wealth, and "swaggering in the foretop of the State."

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it is undesirable, so long as the Episcopal Church continues to to established by law, to increase the number of Bishops,"—(Mr. Joseph Cowen,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

said, he would not enter into any discussion in detail with respect to the points raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle; because he had, only two years ago, fully expounded the question on the occasion when the Bill then introduced was passed. The case was a very simple one. The sole object of the Bill was to enable the Church of England to do her duty as long as she was by law established. He thought it was hardly generous or wise to prevent her doing so, as would happen if the Bill were defeated. The real fact of the matter was, there was more need of Bishops. The work of the various Dioceses had, in consequence of the increase of population in certain parts of the country, vastly grown; the Bishops were over-taxed in their energies, and it was necessary that other Bishoprics should be appointed. He had had letters from Bishops, pointing out the need of further machinery being provided for Church purposes, some of which were even of a painful nature. There was no more hard-working class of men than the Bishops. He asked in no sectarian spirit whether, for instance, the labours of the Bishop of Manchester had not conduced greatly to the benefit, moral, spiritual, and even material, of the Diocese over which he presided? He had received a letter from the Bishop of Durham, in which he said that the churches in the Diocese of Durham had increased since 1857from 171 to 342, or 70percent; while the number of Clergy in the same time had risen from 222 to 531. He could not believe that the House would refuse the power which the members of the Church now asked. The case had been pressed on the Government two years ago, when the House passed the second reading of the Bill by a very large majority. The Bill was designed to accomplish Christian, and not sectarian work. He appealed not simply to the Christian feeling of the House, but to its candour and generosity, to deal fairly by the Church, and give its members the power of carrying on its work which was not refused to every other religious Body.

MR. E. JENKINS

said, no doubt, there were many reasons why some hon. Members might wish to avoid entering upon the details of this question. But the House had a certain duty to perform to its constituents outside, and they were bound not to allow such a measure as this to pass without fairly discussing it. Hon. Members opposite might feel pained because on this side of the House those who were not members of the Church of England entered upon the discussion of the measure. That state of things, however, was due to the ano- malous position in which the Church was placed in relation to the House of Commons, and he could not sit in that House without vindicating its rights to interfere in any discussion. What, he asked, was the object of the Bill? It was enough to startle a man, and would startle any Christian. It would startle St. Paul, he was sure, could he walk into the House and open the Bill, for what did the Bill contain? It stated that Her Majesty, by Order in Council, might found new Bishoprics. He asserted that it was not in accordance with the consistency of the position of the House that they should be asked to give their sanction to such a proposal. That state of things could not exist in the Church of England for a very long period, and it was by no means honourable to Christianity that four Bishops should appear on the floor of the House and ask to be raised to Bishoprics? He objected to the Bill, among other reasons, because the Bishops already in existence were not doing their duty. Some of them, in fact, were openly defying the Privy Council; and whilst they received State pay, they taught doctrines utterly at variance with the requirements of the law. As an instance, he cited the case of the Bishop of Bombay, who, at a recent meeting held at Oxford, spoke in favour of the Churches of Christendom being re-united. In other words, he expressed himself in favour of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church being brought together. That alone was sufficient to cause him to resist the Bill.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

admitted that additional Bishops were required in the Church of England, and said, he would have voted for the Bill if it merely enabled persons to contribute voluntarily towards their support; but he objected to taking the overpay of the existing Bishops for the establishment of new ones. He should, therefore, vote against the Bill.

MR. SULLIVAN

said, this was the third or fourth time since he occupied a seat in the House on which he had listened to discussions upon Ecclesiastical matters; but, as he was a Roman Catholic, hitherto he had abstained from any part in the debates. However, he could not now forgive himself for having been so long silent; for it was an anomalous and hardly a creditable circumstance that the truly domestic affairs of any religious community in this country should be brought before that House, to be determined by the votes of Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, and men of every shade of religious belief. The time had arrived when, in justice to the conscientious feelings of the members of the Established Church, these matters should be withdrawn from the decision of that overworked and overtaxed Assembly. The position which he, as a Roman Catholic Member of the House of Commons, was placed in was a rather peculiar one, and it really was not easy to decide what course he ought to take. How could he abstain from voting upon this matter without giving up his functions as a Member of Parliament; and how could he give a vote upon it unless he was in a position to decide what was sound Protestantism and what was not sound Protestantism? He must respectfully tell members of the Church of England that, before they asked for such measures as these, they ought to emancipate the Church of England from State control, and that their first step should be to obtain for the Church of England home rule and self-government by restoring Convocation, and making that body a reality. He spoke as a Catholic who wished to see the Protestants of this country enjoying in Church matters that full liberty of conduct which he claimed for his own communion. Would it not add to their dignity if they were to free themselves once for all from the meddling interference of that House? This was the first time that he had ever spoken upon this subject; but he thought it was only fair that he should state his views.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) had stated that this was the first time he had ever spoken upon this subject; and he could only say that he hoped his hon. and learned Friend would not favour the House again upon it with such a speech as he had just now made. For his own part, he must confess that this was one of the rare occasions that he found himself out of sympathy with the views of his hon. and learned Friend. He had had occasion to converse with Roman Catholics in Ireland frequently upon this subject, and he thought that an entirely different view was held in Ireland to that entertained by his hon. and learned Friend. Prior to the year 1829, Catholics did not make it a part of their creed that they were to endeavour to destroy the Established Church of this country. The establishment of a State Church was one of the strongest doctrines of the Catholic religion. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members might say "No, no;" but he thought it was an established fact nevertheless. In every country in Europe where it was possible there was a Roman Catholic Church supported by the State. In this country there was a Protestant Church established by the State. He quite agreed that his hon. and learned Friend was quite entitled to object to Protestantism in this country; but he did not think he ought to interfere in Protestant matters. He had always voted, and always should vote, in favour of measures of this kind. They all knew perfectly well that in the regulations of the affairs of life it was essential to have some superior authority; and if they took the modern appointments of Bishops in the Church of England, could anyone say that the recent creation of Bishops in the North of England, especially in the case of the See of Manchester, that the creation of those additional Bishoprics had not been productive of unmixed good? He did not think it was an honest line of argument on the part of hon. Members to pretend to point out blots in the government of the Church of England, and to profess a desire to see them removed, when the real object was to do away with the Established Church altogether.

MR. RICHARD

I have no desire to interfere in the controversy between the hon. and learned Member for Louth and the hon. Member for Galway, as to the sentiments and obligations of Roman Catholics on this matter, though certainly I should have thought that the hon. and learned Member for Louth was the better authority of the two on such questions. I can assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that it is extremely distasteful to me to have to discuss questions of this nature in the House of Commons; for I feel that it is very difficult to do so without saying something that may be offensive to many whose character I greatly respect, and whose religious susceptibilities I would not willingly wound. But it is not our fault that matters of this kind are thrown down for discussion on the floor of this House. I think I can understand and sympathize with the repugnance which many members of the Church of England must feel on such occasions. For the members of any Church to have the most sacred matters pertaining to its doctrine, discipline, and internal economy and administration, dealt with and decided by persons of all kinds of religious opinions and of no religious opinions at all, is a thing totally at variance with my notions of what a Christian community should be; and I am astonished that the humiliation of it does not become intolerable to the serious members of the Church of England. In a former Session, when the first of these modern Episcopal creations wore proposed to the House, I ventured to state my views in opposition to the Bill at considerable length. It is not necessary that I should repeat in full the arguments I then used. I retain all the objections I then expressed to this kind of legislation. I have no wish, by my consent, to take part in the creation of any more of these politico-ecclesiastical officials, whose existence, in my judgment, is not an advantage to either Church or State. As Nonconformists, we object that any class of men should be authorized by the State to perform ecclesiastical and spiritual functions. And we object, further, that these Bills proceed on the assumption that the whole population of this country are members of the Church of England. That is always taken for granted. We are told that in such and such a district there are so many hundreds of thousands of souls who, in effect, are without Episcopal supervision, totally ignoring the fact that there are millions of people in this country who have renounced their allegiance to the Church of England, who do not require, and will not accept, Episcopal supervision. It is not very easy to understand who wants more Bishops. There are a few rich people who are willing to subscribe their money for this purpose; because, perhaps, they consider that a Hierarchical religion is more aristocratic and respectable. But there is no evidence that there is any general desire among the members of the Church of England itself for a multiplication of these officials. Nay, indeed, there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. If we may take the papers and periodicals which represent the various shades of opinion in that Church as any test, we may confidently say that the prevailing feeling is, not a desire for more Bishops, but utter distrust and dislike of those who already exist. Some attempt has been made to galvanize public opinion on this subject. I do not know whether the House is aware of it, but there is a Society in existence for the propagation of Bishops. It is called a "Society for Promoting the Increase of the Episcopate." It is constituted under very high patronage. Among its Vice Presidents there are two Dukes, three Earls, ten Bishops, and two Lords. But it does not seem to inspire much enthusiasm, for, in the year 1874—that is the last Report I have seen, which I now hold in my hand—the total amount of its subscriptions was only £112 1s. 6d., and of that £50 was subscribed by the Duke of Buccleuch. So that, measured by pecuniary contributions, the entire amount of interest felt by the members of the Church of England throughout the Kingdom in the increase of Bishops amounted to £62 1s. 6d. plus £50 worth of interest felt by His Grace of Buccleuch. And how is this interest expressed by Petitions? I have looked at the list of Petitions presented this Session, and up to the 9th of July I find that they numbered 73, signed by 1,545 persons, most of them from clerical bodies; but not only are the persons very few who are in favour of an increase of the Episcopate, but those who do favour it do not wish to see it extended on the lines of this Bill. The Society to which I have referred, three or four years ago, addressed a series of questions on this subject to all the rural deaneries in England and Wales. The first question was, whether more Bishops were necessary and desirable? the second, how they should be paid? and the third, whether the Bishops of the new Sees should have seats in Parliament? I believe there are about 750 rural deaneries in England and Wales. Of these, 460 had replied in 1875. On the first question, there was considerable unanimity; on the second, there was much difference of opinion; on the third, whether the new Bishops should have seats in the House of Lords?—the result was this. Out of 450 rural deaneries, 360 were opposed to the Bishops of the Sees that should be created having seats in the House of Lords, by rotation or otherwise; 54 were in favour of a rotation clause; and only three returned an answer in favour of the new Bishops being in Parliament. But this Bill disregards the voice of the Clergy on the matter, and does provide that the new Bishops should have seats in the House of Lords in their turn. I believe there is also great dissatisfaction among the members of the Church of England as to the way in which these Bishops are created. The Church itself has no voice in the matter. That cannot be helped, of course, while the Church is connected with the State. But it is certain that many feel bitterly the anomaly that such a power should be virtually lodged in a House constituted as this is, and it cannot be constituted otherwise; for, so long as it is a Representative Assembly, it must represent all classes and creeds and opinions. For my part, I hope the Church of England will attain the liberty enjoyed by all other religious Bodies. I believe that the humblest Dissenting or Methodist Church in the Kingdom would resent any magisterial or political interference in the appointment of its ministers and the regulation of its affairs as an insult and an ignominy. Let the Church of England, then, have the same liberty and the same power as these possess. But she can have this only on one condition—that of renouncing her exclusive privilege as a Church protected and patronized by the State.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

said, he did not think it was a desirable thing for the Episcopal Church to ask that House to interfere with its affairs; but as long as the Church was connected with the State, it must submit to what the House of Commons did.

It being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.