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Lecture been thrust out of the Church by the legislation of 1662-Wesleyans who were originally ardent Churchmen, but had separated from the Church because its leaders had not known how either to control or to turn to good use the fervour or fanaticism of passionate religious conviction-the Roman Catholic gentry, who, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed the most conservative part of the whole community-Unitarians who till 1813 had not enjoyed the protection of the Toleration Act, and, under a sense of bitter oppression, had sympathised with French Revolutionists-philosophic sceptics, such as Bentham and James Mill, who contemned and distrusted every kind of ecclesiastical power-each and all stood, either openly or secretly, outside the pale, and hostile to the pretensions of the Established Church.

The privileges of the Establishment were, to large bodies of Englishmen, intolerable grievances.

The marriage laws, which forbade the celebration of marriage otherwise than in accordance with the rites of the Church of England, outraged the selfrespect and in some cases offended the conscience of Nonconformists; the tithes, and, above all, the mode of their collection, were a hindrance to the proper cultivation of the land, and made the parson of the parish, in the eyes of farmers who had no objection to the doctrine of the Church, stand in the position of an odious and oppressive creditor.

In these circumstances observers of the most different characters and of opposite opinions felt assured that the Church was in danger. In 1833 Macaulay wrote that in case the House of Lords

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should venture on a vital matter to oppose the Lecture Ministry, he "would not give sixpence for a coronet or a penny for a mitre"; and Dr. Arnold was convinced, as is clearly shown by his pamphlet on the Principles of Church Reform, that the Church Establishment was in extreme peril. In 1834 the author of the first of the Tracts for the Times anticipates for the Church and its leaders not only disestablishment and disendowment, but violent persecution. He proclaims to every clergyman throughout England that, "black event as it would be for the country, yet (as far as they [the Bishops] are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods, and martyrdom.' In this language there lurks a touch of irony, yet Newman was far too earnest a zealot to threaten perils which he knew to be unreal, and far too skilful a rhetorician to betray fears which his audience would hold to be ridiculous. When he published his appeal, Ad Clerum, thousands of churchmen believed that the Church of England was threatened with spoliation, ruin, and persecution; and men of the calmest judgment assuredly anticipated, whether with regret or with satisfaction, a revolution in the position of the Established Church. Between 1830 and 1836, then, it was assuredly no unreasonable forecast that the future of the Church of England might be summed up in the formula, "either comprehension or disestablishment"; the Church must, men thought, either embrace within its limits

1 Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay, i. p. 303.

2 See Arnold, Miscellaneous Works, p. 259; Stanley, Life of Arnold, i. P. 336.

3 Tracts for the Times, No. 1, p. 1.

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Lecture the whole, or nearly the whole, of the nation, or cease to be the National Church. No one could at that time have believed that the ecclesiastical legislation of the nineteenth century would fail to touch the foundations of the Establishment, or would pay any deference to the convictions or to the sentiment of the clergy. The experience of more than seventy years has given the lie to reasonable anticipations. The country has, since 1832, been represented first by a middle class Parliament, and next by a more or less democratic Parliament, yet has not sanctioned either comprehension or disestablishment. In all ecclesiastical matters Englishmen have favoured a policy of conservatism combined with concession.' Conservatism has here meant deference for the convictions, sentiments, or prejudices of churchmen, whenever respect for ecclesiastical feeling did not cause palpable inconvenience to laymen, or was not inconsistent with obedience to the clearly expressed will of the nation. Concession has meant readiness to sacrifice the privileges, or defy the principles, dear to churchmen whenever the maintenance thereof was inconsistent with the abolition of patent abuses, the removal of grievances, or the carrying out of reforms demanded by classes sufficiently powerful to represent the voice or to command the acquiescence of the country.

What have been the circumstances that have given rise to this unforeseen and apparently paradoxical policy of conservatism and concession? To put the same inquiry in another shape: What have been the

1 See Reign of Queen Victoria, i., Religion and the Churches, by E. Hatch, pp. 364-393.

conditions of opinion which, in the sphere of ecclesi- Lecture astical legislation, have prevented the dominant liberalism of the day from acting with anything like its full force, and have in many instances rendered it subordinate to the strong cross-current of clerical or Church opinion?

These circumstances or conditions were, speaking broadly, the absence of any definite programme of Church reform commanding popular support; and the unsuspected strength of the hold possessed by the Church of England on the affections of the nation.

The Whigs certainly failed to produce any clear scheme of ecclesiastical reform. By no two men are they more fairly represented than by Sydney Smith and Macaulay. Neither of them was a zealous churchman, neither of them entertained any respect for clerical opinion or prejudice, but neither of them advocated any scheme of ecclesiastical reform. If Sydney Smith had believed that any extensive change in the position of the Establishment was desirable, he would assuredly have spoken out his mind. He had shocked the religious world and, as he no doubt well knew, had ruined his chance of high preferment by his expressed distrust and dislike of English missionaries and the missionary spirit. He perceived the failings and hated the cant of zealots, and in no way recognised their virtues. Religious enthusiasm meant to him, as to most eighteenth-century reformers, nothing but intolerance and ignorance. Any change which might give freer play in the Church to religious fervour or fanaticism was hateful to him. Hence, as regards ecclesiastical

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Lecture affairs, he was simply a Tory, and was indeed more averse to amendments in the administration of the Established Church than were intelligent Conservatives. Inequalities in the incomes of bishops or of clergymen were, he argued, a benefit to the public; the offer of a few large prizes was the cheapest way of remunerating clerical success, and—a far more important consideration in Sydney Smith's eyes than economy-constituted the best means for tempting scholars and gentlemen to take orders, and for excluding ignorant enthusiasts from the ranks of the clergy. 'Beware of enthusiasm and cant, and leave the Establishment as far as possible alone." Thus may be summed up the only ecclesiastical policy suggested by the most keen-sighted and the ablest exponent of Whig doctrine.1 Macaulay was by temperament and training opposed to ecclesiastical pretensions, and, in accordance with the historical traditions of the Whigs, might, one would have supposed, have favoured some scheme for the comprehension of orthodox Dissenters within the National Church, but his name as a statesman cannot be connected with any policy of this description. His celebrated review, Gladstone on Church and State, leads to the practical conclusions that the ecclesiastical should not be allowed to interfere with the civil

1 In Ireland, indeed, Sydney Smith favoured, in common with most of the Whigs, the policy of concurrent endowment; he showed no wish to apply it to England. In this there was no inconsistency. The maintenance in Ireland of a Church hateful to the vast majority of the people was exactly the kind of wrong which Sydney Smith and the Whigs felt most keenly. Concurrent endowment, moreover, might possibly cool the fanaticism of the Roman Catholic priests, and, as far as was compatible with justice, prolong the existence of the Protestant Establishment.