CHAPTER XIV 



DISESTABLISHMENT AND D1SENDOWMENT : WITH A PROPOSAL 

 FOR A REALLY NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND 



THE wide-spread agitation for the disestablishment 

 and disendowment of the English Church calls for more 

 notice than it has hitherto received from those who, while 

 agreeing with the necessity for some such movement and 

 the abstract justice of its main object, do not look upon 

 the existing Established Church merely as a powerful sect 

 whose prestige and influence are to be diminished as soon 

 as possible and at almost any sacrifice. 



At the various meetings in favour of disestablishment 

 (some twenty years back), little or nothing was said 

 as to the details of the proposed or desired legisla- 

 tion ; no scheme was formulated as to a practicable and 

 beneficial mode of applying the national property now 

 held by the Church, or of preserving and utilizing for 

 national objects the parish churches, cathedrals, and other 

 ecclesiastical buildings spread so thickly over our land, 

 and which constitute a picturesque and impressive record 

 of much of our social and religious history for nearly a 

 thousand years. The only thing we have to guide us as 

 to the aims and objects of these agitators is a constant 

 reference to recent legislation in the case of the Irish 

 Church, and we are therefore left to infer that some very 

 similar mode of dealing with the English Church, its 

 property and its buildings, is what these gentlemen have 

 in view. But if this be so, it is surely the duty of all who 

 have the social and moral advancement of their country at 



