want also must be supplied: if churches, that also. Unless the work were to suffer, those Churchmen of the living generation who might have the will and the means, must find out of their own pockets that sum of £4,121,700, or something very like it, besides parsonages and churches, if taken away, and so much more as might be necessary to maintain upon a proper footing the episcopal government and diocesan organisation of their Church. In other words, the practical effect (I must suppose the design, for reason as well as law presumes men to mean the necessary or natural consequences of their actions),-the practical effect of a general disendowment of the Church would be to inflict a fine or penalty of considerably more than £4,000,000 a year upon the members of the Church of England, who are certainly as loyal subjects and useful citizens as any of those who seek to do them this wrong. Can it be supposed that a burden of that kind, and of that magnitude, could be thrown upon the Churchmen of one generation, who might be willing to make the needful sacrifices, without crippling their means of doing good, and of meeting the public, charitable, social, and private demands upon them, in a multitude of ways; or that it could be endured by them without an acute and lasting sense of oppression and injury?

"The other alternative is, that the want would not be adequately supplied; that for a considerable time at all events, huge gaps and breaches would be made in the parochial system of the Church of England. And this, it may most reasonably be thought, is the probable alternative. Mr. Gladstone has, indeed, expressed 'a strong conviction that if this great modification of our inherited institutions shall hereafter be accomplished, the vitality of the Church of England will be found equal to all the needs of the occasion.' This is a very high tribute to the Church. But the adjustments and the sacrifices which so violent a revolution-likely enough to bring other revolutionary changes in its train-must render necessary, could hardly be made over the whole kingdom all at once; and the pressure of the times in which we live upon most men's resources is even now severe. In this alternative, both the richer and the poorer Churchmen would, in varying degrees, be sufferers: the richer, in so far as they might actually bear the burden, and contribute to supply the want; the poorer, from any share of it which might fall

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upon themselves, as a similar burden now falls upon the Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland; and still more from the deprivation or diminution of the benefits of a settled ministry, in those places where they might for the time be altogether lost, or materially reduced, which would usually be the poorest places, where there might be nothing else to make up for the loss."

There are three points in this quotation which may be amplified and emphasised. Assume that the devotion and generosity of Churchmen will supply the necessary £4,121,000 a year for the Church's needs. Will they, however, find that huge sum, and yet continue to give as before to all the multifarious "charitable, social, and private demands" upon them? After all, the private

wealth of the country is not illimitable. There are proper and necessary circumscriptions to the generosity of the most public-spirited men. The war in South Africa is supplying us with some useful evidence on this point. The subscriptions to the many funds connected with this. war are magnificent in amount. But it is notorious that they are not a purely additional drain upon the pockets of their generous donors. In very many instances they are in substitution for other payments to other objects which are, at all events temporarily, foregone and sacrificed. To a very large extent they are depleting the present subscription lists of hundreds of good charities and institutions and societies of all kinds. And so it would inevitably be, were Churchmen to be called upon after disendowment to produce this vast new income for the Church in addition to the £7,500,000 a year, which they are now subscribing.

The second point is this. Lord Selborne remarks, “the pressure of the times in which we live upon most men's resources is even now severe." Yes, but this was written in 1886. And since then many causes have contributed to make this pressure even more severe upon all but the

very rich, and the wage-earning classes. The continuous growth in the functions assigned to and expected of local administration, urban and even rural, has produced a corresponding increase in the burden of local taxation. The course of the war in South Africa must inevitably lead to a great expenditure, which will be met mainly by these same already heavily taxed classes. But this will not be the only fiscal result of this war. It is already obvious that our prepared and organised imperial strength has not marched with the expansion of the empire and the growth of its responsibilities. It is a truism that the inexorable rules of fashion, or society, or civilisation (call it what you may) have imposed upon these same classes an ever more and more expensive habit of education, and of life in almost all its aspects. The third point is closely connected with the second. Lord Selborne says that the chief difficulty of reorganising the parochial system, and of ensuring a settled ministry, "would actually be found in the poorest places." Precisely any measure of disendowment must make its most immediate and acute effects felt in rural districts, and most severely in those parishes of such districts where there is no residential and well-to-do class beyond those tied to the soil by proprietary or farming interest. But, as all the world knows, these are just the places where the long-continued lowness of the price of agricultural produce has, even under existing conditions, made it difficult to carry on satisfactorily the parochial work of the Church. In fact, it comes to this; the evil effects of disendowment will be least felt where population is thick and wealth abounds; they will be most severely felt where population is thin, and the well-to-do are few and far between. In other words, disendowment will be least injurious, or even innocuous, where its evil results could be most easily repaired; it will be most mischievous where it will be most difficult, if

PROBABLE EFFECT OF DISENDOWMENT III

not impossible, to cure the mischief wrought by it. How can any earnest Churchman contemplate this prospect with equanimity? How can religious men of any creed regard it with indifference? Nay, how can any seriousminded Englishman, who gives the least care to the wellbeing of his countrymen, but shrink from thus jeopardising the efficient working, perhaps even the continued existence, of the fixed parochial ministrations of the Church in the agricultural counties? As Lord Selborne says, "if a law-giver were devising ideal institutions for a nation, I do not think he could imagine one more beneficial than that, in every place where any considerable number of people have settled habitations—in every such place as our parishes are-there shall be at least one man, educated, intelligent, and religious, whose life shall be dedicated to the especial business and duty of doing to all the people of that place all the good he can,” etc., etc. (pp. 248, 249). And yet there are Churchmen who, in their explicable desire for disestablishment, would lightly, through disendowment, level a crushing blow at this precious inheritance of our land-who would paralyse, at all events for a time, this "ideal institution" just where it is most needed, just where it will be most difficult to replace its beneficent action by any elevating social influences. Many of the economical tendencies of the time are telling against the prosperity of remote and purely agricultural villages. Surely we may appeal to Churchmen to save our villages from the further calamity of the possible loss of their ancient privilege, the permanent and secured ministry of the clergyman of the Church of England. I have dwelt upon this particular possible consequence of disendowment, partly because it is one which my lot in life happens to make of special interest to myself, and partly because it is a contingency, the public and social evil of which will, I think, touch many

minds which do not regard this question entirely from a denominational or ecclesiastical standpoint. But, after all, this is only one illustration of the probable effects of disendowment. Disendowment must injuriously affect-at all events for some time-every portion of the organisation of the National Church, which has never been so spiritual, so zealous, and so beneficent in its manifold labours as now. It must withdraw from spiritual objects an income which can only be replaced, if replaced it be, by excessive sacrifice on the part of the Churchmen to the detriment of all kinds of good works. And for what will religion be called upon to receive this heavy punishment, and to suffer this grievous loss? Who, and what, are to be the gainers by this gratuitous transfer of funds from sacred to secular uses? The gainers-the only gainers-will be the particular philanthropic fads that may chance to find an ephemeral favour with the accidental party majority of some one, possibly short-lived, Parliament.