XIV DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 241 



and in the principles of the most advanced political and 

 social economy. His religion should be quite free from 

 sectarian prejudices, and his private opinions on religious 

 matters would be no subject for inquiry. He should, 

 however, be of a religious frame of mind, so as to be 

 able to work sympathetically with the clergy of the 

 various religious bodies in his district, and excite in 

 them neither distrust nor antagonism. He must have a 

 fair knowledge of physiology, and of simple medicine and 

 surgery, of the rudiments of law and legal procedure, of 

 the principles of scientific agriculture, and of the natural- 

 history sciences, as well as of whatever is considered 

 essential to the education of a cultivated man. 



He should not be allowed to undertake the care of a 

 parish till thirty years of age, and only after having 

 assisted some rector in parish duties for at least live 

 years. 



The duties of the parish rector would comprise, among 

 others, all those of the existing clergyman, hut he would 

 never conduct religious services of any kind. The parish 

 church, with its appurtenances, would however be under 

 his entire authority, in trust for the whole body of parish- 

 ioners, to be used for religious services by all or any duly 

 organized religious bodies, under such arrangements as he 

 might find to be most convenient for all. Any religious 

 body should be able to claim the use of the church as a 

 right (subject to the equal rights of other such bodies), 

 the only condition being that it should possess a perma- 

 nent organization, and that its ministers should be an 

 educated class of men, coming up to a certain standard 

 of intellectual culture and moral character. The State 

 might properly refuse the use of the churches to those 

 sects whose ministers are not specially trained or well- 

 educated men, on the ground that the public teaching of 

 religion among a civilized people is degraded by being 

 placed in the hands of the illiterate, and that such teachers 

 are likely to promote superstition and increase flmaticism. 



The rector might himself lecture in the church on 

 moral, social, sanitary, historical, philosophical, or any 

 other topics which he judged most suitable to the cir- 



VOL. 11. R 



