xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 239 



healthful amusements, and show by his example the beauty 

 of a true and virtuous life that an institution which 

 should really do this, would constitute an educational 

 machinery whose influence on the true advancement of 

 society can hardly be exaggerated. 



But in order that such an organization should produce all 

 the good of which it is capable, it is above all things essential 

 that it should keep itself free from sectarian teaching, and 

 from everything calculated to excite religious prejudices. 

 So long as there is but one religious creed in a country, or 

 if the dissentients form a small and uninfluential minority, 

 the ordinary clergy may possibly effect much of the good 

 here indicated ; but with us this has become impossible, 

 owing to the adoption of a fixed creed by the Established 

 Church, and to the multitude of opposing sects, equal in 

 political influence, and perhaps superior in the number 

 and enthusiasm of their adherents. The earnest Noncon- 

 formist cannot look with satisfaction on a man who is 

 unjustly paid by the nation to teach doctrines which he 

 firmly believes to be erroneous ; while the conscientious 

 and well-informed sceptic can hardly respect one who is 

 not only often inferior to himself in mental capacity as 

 well as in acquired knowledge, but who professes to believe 

 and continues to teach as fact much that modern science 

 has shown to be untrue. The clergyman, on the other 

 hand, too often considers that every dissenting chapel in 

 his parish is an evil, and looks upon every Nonconformist 

 minister as an opponent. 



The time seems now to have come when we shall have 

 to get rid of the anomaly and the injustice of devoting 

 an elaborate organization and vast revenues to sectarian 

 religious teaching, while we loudly proclaim the principle 

 of religious freedom in all our legislation. In order to 

 get rid of an Established Church which is behind the 

 age, there are men who would not hesitate to break up 

 the whole institution, destroy or sell the churches, and 

 devote the revenues to support free schools or hospitals. 



Such a step would, I believe, be an irreparable loss to 

 the nation ; and I propose now to consider what means 

 can be adopted to preserve this great organized establish- 



