xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 253 



bring them back to the fundamental purposes they were 

 originally intended to fulfil, and which the conditions of 

 modern society its terrible contrasts of profuse wealth 

 and grinding poverty, of the noblest intellectual achieve- 

 ments with the most degrading ignorance, of the most 

 pure and elevated morality with the lowest depths of vice 

 render perhaps of more vital importance to our national 

 well-being than at any previous epoch of our history ? 



Shall we preserve and re-create, in accordance with the 

 principle of religious liberty, or shall we utterly abolish 

 our great historic National Church ? 



