66 AS AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



that I spoke of at the castle near Shrewsbury. As I entered, 

 it seemed to me to be in shockingly bad taste for a place of 

 meditation and worship. We attended the daily morning 

 service, and heard some fine gentle music the organ sweetly 

 played, and the singers all boys. 



I was glad to notice that our dissenting friends seemed to 

 have a pride and sense of possession in the cathedral, as if 

 they were not in the habit of thinking of it as belonging ex 

 clusively to those who occupied it, but as if it was intrusted 

 to them, and as well to them as to any other division, as 

 representative of the whole Catholic Church of all English 

 Christians. This way of looking upon &quot; the Church&quot; usurpa 

 tions is quite commonly observable among the dissenters. 

 It is not so honourable to them when applied to other things 

 than mere furniture, as, for instance, the giving the exclusive 

 teaching of religious doctrine to the children, or paupers, or 

 soldiers, in whom they have a common interest, to the State 

 Church, from a supposed necessity of giving it to some one in 

 preference to all others ; and if not to their particular church, 

 then of best right to the church of the strongest. The idea 

 that some State Church, separated from others by its doctri 

 nal basis, is expedient, and almost necessary, to a Christian 

 government, is quite common among dissenters. In my 

 judgment, it cannot be expedient, because it is very evidently 

 unjust. &quot;What is in the least degree unjust can never be ex 

 pedient for a state, the very purpose of which should be to 

 elevate and secure justice among the people who live under 

 its laws. 



Nor can I conceive of any thing so likely to strangle a 

 church as to be hung with exclusive privileges from the State. 

 For what are these 1 Bribes for the profession of doctrines 

 and the acceptance of rules of debatable expediency ; giving 

 encouragement, so far as they have any influence, (that they 



