CHURCH AND STATE. 257 



They were not necessary to the harmony of the modern work 

 with the old ; were, I think, discordant, and what they were put 

 there for I don't know. Extensive alterations had lately been 

 made in the choir, and it was the most convenient hall for public 

 exercises that I recollect to have seen in any English cathedral. 

 The ceiling was painted (in encaustic) in the bright-colored 

 bizarre style that I spoke of at the castle near Shrewsbury. As 

 I entered, it seemed to me to be in bad taste for a place of med- 

 itation and worship. We attended the daily morning service, 

 and heard some fine, gentle music the organ sweetly played, 

 and the singers all boys. 



I noticed 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 exclusively 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 

 " the Church" usurpations is quite commonly observable among 

 the dissenters. It is not so honorable to them when applied to 

 other things than mere furniture ; as, for instance, giving the ex- 

 clusive 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 doctrinal 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. What is in the 

 least degree unjust can never be expedient for a state, the very 

 purpose of which should be to elevate and secure justice among 

 the people who live under its laws. 



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I 



