III. STATESMEN'S RELIGION. "EVERY PLANT WHICH MY HEAVENLY FATHER HATH NOT PLANTED SHALL BE ROOTED UP."-(Matt. xv. 13.) THE MAYNOOTH GRANT AND THE POLICY OF WHILST all Dissenters are united in condemning the endowment of Maynooth College, some debate has arisen as to the best methods of carrying out their opposition to that measure; the main question being, whether Dissenters may join with Churchmen in this agitation, or confine themselves to their peculiar grounds of opposition to all state support of any religion. We trust, however, that this difference of opinion, on a practical point, will neither divide nor weaken the advocates and friends of a free religion, on that one principle which they hold in common, and on which they may still act in concert. The Anti-State Church association, alert on all opportunities, and jealous of its central principles, has issued its earnest warning, in a small tract entitled the Maynooth Grant; or, the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. From which we select the following main points: "Ought the Protestants of Great Britain to be compelled to pay for the support of Popery by grants of money out of the public funds? "To this question tens of thousands of voices will answer emphatically'No! the Maynooth Grant is an outrage upon our consciences-a curse to Ireland and a premium upon Romish arrogance and ambition; and we will give Parliament no rest until the act of 1845 is repealed, and the grant altogether abolished." But if the Episcopalian in England, and the Presbyterian in Scotland, has his Church supported by the State, in the name of fair-play, how can he deny to the Papist in Ireland the same privilege? They believe their systems to be true, and his false. He is of just the contrary opinion, and Parliament, which equally represents, and is, in fact, composed of all three, has no right to take upon himself to decide between them. "The truth is, that Romanists are entitled to claim from the legislature the same advantages as Protestants. Whatever one receives cannot with fairness be denied to the other. Look at Ireland-it is the Church of the minority which is made dominant, and which is enriched by reve nues once in the hands of the Church of the majority, but now wasted on useless dignitaries and a sinecure clergy. "The Established Church of Ireland is an anomaly to which the whole Christian world supplies no parallel; unions of eight or ten, or even more parishes, being consolidated to make up one rich living, that living without either church or manse, or Protestant congregation, its incumbent enjoying through a tithe-agent its large emoluments, and those emoluments wrung from a population who never behold the face of their minister, or hear from his lips one word of exhortation.'*—(Archdeacon Glover, in 1835.) "How, in the face of facts like these, can any Churchman, with a good conscience, ask the legislature to take away the few thousands a-year granted for Maynooth, without, at the same time, admitting that the Protestant endowments should be withdrawn also? And how can any Irish Presbyterian, who shares in the Regium Donum, and admires the golden rule, object to his Roman Catholic fellow countryman dipping his hand, at least, a little way into the public purse? Abolish the Irish Church, and the Irish people will not complain of the extinction of the Maynooth Grant; but redress the little wrong done to Protestants, and not the great wrong done to Romanists, and you will inevitably exasperate the latter, as seeming to make Protestantism a stalking-horse for oppression, and the scrupulosity of the Saxon a pretext for outraging the conscience of the Celt. "Let it never be forgotten, that one object which politicians had in view in increasing the endowment of Maynooth was the perpetuation of this very institution. The Irish Church,' wrote the Quarterly Review,' 'is, we have no sort of doubt, the frontier pass where the Protestant Establishment of the empire is to be fought for, saved, or lost!—and it is with the deepest concern, and most reluctant conviction that we avow our opinion, that, if a reasonable and honourable State-provision for the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland be not adopted, the Established Church of Ireland will be swept away by the irresistible pressure which our own folly and injustice will have accumulated against her.' In plain terms, it is necessary to bribe the Romish clergy with grants that the Protestant clergy may continue to receive tithes. "Members of the Church of England! you are bound to be just as well as Protestant; and, while you denounce Roman Catholicism, to act fairly towards Roman Catholics. In petitioning for the withdrawal of State favours from other religionists, you should be willing to give up those conferred on you. Your very love for your Church and for Protestantism should induce you to abandon the State support to which you • "The revenues of the Irish Church, according to the returns, amount to £711,534 -a sum which, by those who know anything of clerical returns, will not be thought to be an exaggeration. In addition, it has had, since 1800, £920,000 for the erection of churches and parsonages, and for glebe lands. Yet, in 1835, there were 425 parishes, containing less than 100 members of the Church of England, and 1841 in which it had not a single adherent. To the question, whether any and what duties were discharged by the cathedral dignitaries, the reply, there are not any duties annexed,' was returned in the case of sixteen denearies, nine precentorships, five chancellorships, seven treasurerships, two provostships, twelve archdeaconries, twenty-three prebends, and one canonry!" tenaciously cling. It is because that Church is established that you cannot expel from it Papistical principles, or the men who hold them. The heresiarch, Dr. Pusey, still holds his position in the University of Oxford, and declares that he will die in the Church of England-Mr. Denison is rewarded for his courageous Tractarianism by investiture with the archidiaconal office and Mr. Bennett, driven from Knightsbridge, finds secure refuge behind the skirts of a lady-patroness at Frome. "Protestant Dissenters! these are truths which you ought not to suppress even to co-operate with fellow Protestants against Rome. While remembering_that you are Protestants as well as Dissenters, forget not that you are Dissenters as well as Protestants. By fraternizing with you in this matter, Churchmen gain much, and lose nothing; you, on the contrary, gain nothing and lose much; for you conceal your principles,* which are sound, and leave unchallenged those of Churchmen, which you believe to be unsound. While denouncing the Popery of the Church of Rome, your mouth must be shut respecting the Popery of the Church of England. To gain a small point, you will forego a providential opportunity for helping to secure one infinitely more important. The clergy will gladly avail themselves of your powerful support in struggling against a rival Church, but will abate nothing of their pretensions, their exclusiveness, or their exactions. They will shake hands with you on the platform, and send the broker into your parlour. They will sink minor differences at the public meeting, and will cut you in the street. They will lead you on against the common foe,' but when the fighting is over it will be the Establishment, and not you, who will be lauded as the saviour of Protestantism. "Why should you descend from an impregnable position to occupy one from which logic and common sense can immediately dislodge you? Your hands are clean-HOLD THEM UP, NOT AGAINST THE MAYNOOTH GRANT ALONE, BUT AGAINST ALL GRANTS FOR RELIGIOUS Purposes. If you object only to a legislative provision for Romanism, Parliament will have a right to conclude that you are content to have a Protestant Establishment. If you confine your protests to the endowment of error, not merely do you assign to Parliament a function which, at other times, you declare it incapable of exercising; but the inference is legitimate, that if your dogmas were advantaged, you would be satisfied and silent. Resolve to make no speech, to vote for no resolution, and to sign no petition which does not give distinct utterance to your glorious principles, as opponents of all State-maintenance of religion, and you will thus help to purify Protestantism, while you repel Popery, and to obtain freedom for Churchmen while you consolidate your own. We entirely agree with this manifesto, as to the propriety of clearly condemning all endowments; but we are far from convinced that there may not be occasions on which Churchmen and Dissenters may unite for a common purpose, without any compromise on either side. "Some Dissenters will say, 'I always take care to let my principles be known on such occasions.' Yes! in a parenthesis of a speech of which Parliament and half the public knows nothing. Anti-state-church principles may, perhaps, be avowed, on Protestant Alliance platforms, but cannot properly be advocated, and, if they could, the temptation to be silent would; to most men, be irresistible." Nor is there any possibility of those persons "concealing their principles," whose opinions were well known,and inseparable from their persons and characters: acknowledged Dissenters are received on these occasions as such, and are no more supposed to abandon their opinions, than clergymen of the establishment. There may be some truth in the assertion, that certain persons are willing to recognize others when their own end is served, and to forget them afterwards; but such loss of acquaintance can be no calamity, nor any disturbance, except to minds of a very inferior order. Thus a We are rather disposed to the opinion, that much good may arise from such combined meetings, especially, since whatever may be supposed to be the private views of leaders, the masses have an opportunity of learning the true principles of Dissenters; and learn to look upon extreme men as not so dangerous as they may have been led to imagine. wall of prejudice is broken down, that is otherwise impregnable, and by which a barrier is erected against the influence of thorough Dissenters, beyond their own immediate adherents. Whilst to the Papists there is presented a view of Protestant union, which they regard with dismay, and which they would willingly dissolve. But, if the statement be true, in the tract quoted above, that the Irish Church is the frontier pass, in which the battle of establishments is to be fought; and if the Maynooth endowment forms the height and commanding fortress, to storm that, would be storming the strong hold of State-churchism, and is, therefore, by this reasoning proved to be the true policy of ANTI-STATE-CHURCHMEN. It is a mistake to imagine that, whilst thus uniting in a public meeting on general grounds, we may not, as the result of that meeting, petition Parliament on our own individual principles. As in Birmingham lately, whilst meeting under the title of " the Protestant Alliance," and agreeing to petition from churches and chapels, such petitions expressed whatever views were entertained by the different classes of Protestants. We cannot but think that this meeting was a fair illustration of union without compromise; nor can the most ardent lovers of thorough Dissent, have any reason to fear the occasions of expressing such opinions, as are recorded in the following brief account :* MAYNOOTH GRANT.-GREAT MEETING AT BIRMINGHAM, February 6th, 1852. A very large and enthusiastic meeting of the inhabitants of Birmingham was held in the Town-hall, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament to repeal the endowment of Maynooth College. The spacious hall was crowded in every part. The Rev. J. Č. MILLER observed, the proposition submitted is, that the endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth is wrong in principle, and that it has totally failed to realise the expectations of those Protestants who were favourable to it. It was wrong in principle! Was it the simple toleration of Romanists? No; for I am persuaded, Only those parts of the speeches are noticed which bear upon the question of union, or which relate to our foreign policy, and so are of permanent interest. that were the question of toleration of Romanists before the meeting, and had we been summoned together for that which could fairly have been designated as an act of intolerance to Romanists, hundreds now present would have been absent; and I doubt whether you could have gathered a meeting in Birmingham for such an object. Let it not, however, be forgotten, that toleration is one thing and endowment is another. It may very well suit the purposes of Romanists to hold themselves up as suffering persecution; but I maintain, that no man is persecuted simply on the ground that his Church is not endowed. prepared to say, as a Church of England minister, whatever be the merits or demerits of the question of endowment, that I should not consider the withdrawal of endowment from the Church of England as an act of persecution; but we must draw a broad distinction between endowment of Popery and anything else in this country; and, without the slightest attempt at flattery, I congratulate the nonconformist ministers of Birmingham on so large a number of their respected names on the placard and on the platform to night. I wish it to be distinctly understood, that should it ever seem right-I do not hope it will seem right to our friends about us on the platform-to hold a meeting in this hall against the endowment of religion, I should not consider them compromised by it. What I am prepared to assert to night, and what I am persuaded our nonconformist brethren feel to night, and what, no doubt, has brought every man of them on the platform to-night, is the conviction that the endowment of Romanism is the endowment of idolatry; and, if the endowment of Romanism be the endowment of idolatry, then, I say, that the endowment of Romanism is a national sin; and, in accordance with that able distinction drawn by Dr. M'Neile, as to what constitutes national sin. Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, are not national sins in the same sense as the endowment of Maynooth, for they are the aggregate guilt of individuals; but that is a national sin which is committed by the nation in its public and legislative capacity. But while I lay great stress on the fact, that Rome is an idolatrous Church, I would further claim the attention of the meeting, while, as briefly and plainly as I can, I give you an idea of what is the actual teaching of Maynooth, and to show whether an endowment of it is not wrong in principle. I have no hesitation in saying, and it is a strange assertion, if you were to rake Birmingham from one end to the other, there is not more filthy stuff -there is not a greater mass of beastliness and unutterable filthiness than is to be found in the class-book which you pay £30,000 a year to teach at Maynooth. We have signally failed if it was our endeavour to pacify Ireland. I do not lay all the mischief to the account of Romanism. I candidly believe, that Ireland has been a misgoverned country, and I also believe, that, in past years, the Protestant Church in Ireland has a great deal to answer for. I say, that the government of the Church in Ireland was made, by the ministers of the day, a machine for political agency, and that the good livings in Ireland were thrown away on the favourites of the minister. I blush for what some Irish bishops have died possessed of. These admissions are of great importance, and may even lead some to think, that the concession is on the side of the clergy; if there be any at all. |