ties to carry the measure of relief proposed. Counter-petitions were sent in from both universities, much more numerously signed; and their advocates in the House and elsewhere appeared to think the question decided in equity by the preponderance of opinion within the universities; but the government and the Houses generally thought that the opinions of Parliament, the Dissenters themselves, and the public at large, were no less pertinent than those of the privileged university men; and the debate was long and ardent. The case of the exclusionists was destroyed by the existing Cambridge practice of admitting Dissenters to every thing but the honors. They might enter and study, and be on an equal footing with Churchmen till their twelfth term, when the demand upon them to sign the articles barred them from degrees. This was strongly presented by Mr. Spring Rice, in the debate on the Dissenters' Bill; while others showed how fearful was the snare to consciences in such a case, how power ful a temptation was presented to a young man to sign what he did not believe, and how injurious it was to the universities themselves, and to public rectitude, to enforce regulations which, in common with all religious tests, keep out the most valuable men, the conscientious, and let in the unscrupulous. On the other side, there was some ridicule of Dissenters for "feeling so deeply exclusion from the empty honor of a degree," and apprehension, that, if admitted to that, they would next crave possession of office and emolument in the universities: they were too small a minority to be worth altering the plans of the institutions for; yet they were so numerous, and increasing so fast, that they would soon overthrow the Church: the subscription to articles was a mere form which no reasonable man need scruple to go through; yet it was the bulwark of the Church, which must not be touched: the Dissenters would carry off so few prizes in life, compared with Churchmen, that it was folly to suppose they lost any thing worth debating about by the present arrangement; yet there was no saying what would become of the connection between Church and State, if the liberal professions were thrown open as freely to nonconformists as to members of the Church. Amidst these mutually destructive pleas, the ministers declared their judgment to be in favor of recurrence to the ancient liberties of the universities, and deprecated all argument from possible future consequences, not contemplated in the present measures, and which might very well be met in their own time, if they should ever arise. The scene at the third reading of the Bill was disgracefully clamorous, so that the Speaker himself was scarcely able to preserve his equanimity. The mover of the measure, Mr. Wood, could not be heard in his concluding explanations for the "jeering, shouting, coughing, and crowing;" yet he obtained a majority of 164 against 75, a proof that ministers had on this occasion, and in that House, asserted liberal principles with sufficient plainness. Nor did they fail in the other House; though there the Bill was thrown out by a majority of 187 to 85. The apprehension in this case was, that the Dissenters would endeavor to obtain a separation of the Church from the State. The promoters of Mr. Wood's Bill saw that to refuse what appeared to them justice to the Dissenters was more dangerous to the Church than any recognition of liberty of conscience. The Church really was at that time in great danger. The The Church High Churchmen and Dissenters were almost equally in danger. discontented at its connection with the State; and the intermediate parties were dissatisfied with its condition, and alarmed at its prospects. "The Church as it now stands," wrote Dr. Arnold in 1832, "no human power can save." He and other Moderate Churchmen, therefore, set to work to reform it, while the High Churchmen were proposing its being put under the care of its hierarchy, and the government were striving to disarm the enmity of the Dissenters, -as far as they considered that enmity reasonable, and the Dissenters were striving for relief from the liability to support a Church of which they conscientiously disapproved. Lord Henley. Dr. Arnold. Among the proposals offered by Churchmen for a reform of the Establishment at that time, the two most conspicu- Church reous publications were put forth by Lord Henley and form. Dr. Arnold. Lord Henley's plan was, that ecclesiastical affairs should be managed by a convocation; that the bishops should cease to sit in Parliament; and that laymen should be wholly silent about matters of Church doctrine. This was so contrary to all Dr. Arnold's views of right, that it called forth his protest in the shape of a pamphlet on Church reform, which, in that season of excitement, caused much and angry controversy. "I have one great principle which I never lose sight of," wrote Dr. Arnold,1 "to insist strongly on the difference between Christian and non-Christian, and to sink into nothing the differences between Christian and Christian." As he proceeds to say, all the world quarrelled with the one half of his principle or the other; but he succeeded in impressing his view at least upon the notice of society, if not upon its convictions. And so he did with regard to a truth, so obvious that it is difficult now to believe how lately society in general was blind to it, that the Church means, not the priesthood, but the body of believers. In every possible way he reiterated this, insisting that Christianity recognized no priesthood, — that the whole body 1 Life of Arnold, i. p. 381. of believers were equally brethren, and the clergy no more than brethren, till the truth took firm hold of the public mind, and the Tractarian party regarded Dr. Arnold as an impious leveller, and persecuted him for years with the moral weapons which alone the advancement of intelligence has left in the power of the bigot. Nothing, as it seems to me," wrote Dr. Arnold,1 after issuing his plan, "can save the Church but a union with the Dissenters." Under the conviction of extreme danger to the Establishment, and of the calamity which its overthrow would be to the whole of society, he proposed changes, which, as he afterwards said, ought to be considered in connection with the alarms of the time, as well as on their own merits, by which, however, he was prepared to abide. After offering an earnest defence of the Establishment, and a statement of its dangers, he proposed, as the only safeguard, the admission of Dissenters within its pale, an accommodation of hours, and throwing-open of churches, which would enable all to worship conscientiously under the shelter of the general Church; and such an alteration of the ordinary services as should admit of their being joined in by a large number of Dissenters whose differences with the Church were not radical. He not only defended the presence of the bishops in Parliament, but desired in every practicable way to amalgamate religious and secular interests. While of Church doing his utmost for the Church and people whom he loved, he had, however, little hope, from the injustice and insolence with which he saw the Dissenters treated by so-called advocates of the Church, and from the keenness with which, as he observed, the Dissenters understood and felt their principles and their position. "If you see my pamphlet and postscript," he wrote, "you will see that I have kept clear of the mere secular questions of tithes and pluralities, and have argued for a comprehension on higher grounds.2. . . But I fear that our reforms, instead of laboring to unite the Dissenters with the Church, will confirm their separate existence, by relieving them from all which they now complain of as a burden. And, continuing distinct from the Church, will they not labor to effect its overthrow, till they bring us quite to the American platform?" What answer were the Dissenters giving to this question? The Dissent- The plain answer was, that every thing depended on what was meant in this case by overthrowing the Church. If the Church was taken in Dr. Arnold's own comprehensive sense of the great body of believers, or in the more limited sense of a body of believers in any particular form of doctrine, neither the Dissenters nor any one else wished to overthrow, or in any way to interfere with, such a Church. But if Principles reform. ers. 1 Life of Arnold, i. p. 339. 2 Life of Arnold, i. p. 352. the meaning was an establishment which compelled its own support from those who disapproved of its doctrine and structure, it was certainly true, throughout that period, that a multitude of the Dissenters did desire the overthrow of the taxing and excluding power. Without concerning themselves about other people's belief and management of their own concerns, many of the Dissenters did exert themselves vigorously to obtain relief of conscience for themselves. Some helped to throw out Lord Althorp's measure for the commutation of church-rates, on the ground that it was not the amount of tax that they complained of, but the obligation to support a religious institution of which they disapproved. Several went to prison, during these and succeeding years, and lay there long, rather than pay a few shillings of church-rate. Many petitioned Parliament for the removal of the bishops from the legislature. Many demanded admission to the universities. Many agitated for a dissolution of the union between Church and State. And the body generally gave their support to the propositions of the ministers to reduce the Irish Church, to review the resources of the Church in England, to extinguish tithes, and to abolish pluralities. Some curious incidents are found scattered through the registers of these years, which show the temper of the times, amidst the convulsion of religious parties. The work called "Froude's Remains" opens to the reader an astonishing picture of the state of mind and mode of life of the early Tractarians, with their talk of the "detestable Reformation," "odious Protestantism," the insufficiency of Scripture, and its utter destitution of assertion and evidence of the chief essential doctrines of the Christian faith; and their fastings, forms, and strong tendency to monachism. An analysis and comparison of their principles and modes of belief, their forms and organization, present so curious and minute a resemblance to those of the Pharisees, as exhibited favorably by Josephus the Pharisee, as to make it astonishing that the parallelism could be overlooked by the members of the new sect themselves. From their great doctrines of the insufficiency of Scripture, the need of tradition, and priestly succession, to their daily religious forms, the resemblance is astonishing. Next we come to several occasions of great amazement to members of the Administration. Lord Althorp found Government himself worsted in an unexpected collision with refrac- circular. tory churchwardens, when he issued a circular to that body in England and Wales, preparatory to the institution of the ecclesiastical commission. The circular requested information as to the amount, ownership, and liabilities of church property in their respective parishes. Some took no notice, some declined giving any information, and some wrote in a tone of which the following extract may serve as a specimen. It occurs in the midst of a lecture to the Minister on the coronation oath, the sacredness of church property, and so forth: "It is the part of wise legislators to obtain the most accurate and authentic information, before they attempt to make enactments touching the property and vital interests of millions. Not so with the Administration in which your Lordship holds a prominent office: they pre-judge a case, administer to the passions and vices of the mob, to obtain their concurrence and support,—act in ignorance, and mar every thing that they pretend to mend.1 Nor are we satisfied that you and your colleagues have any more right to meddle with, so as to deteriorate, the property belonging to any clergyman, or any corporate body of the clergy, than the highwayman has to take your purse." We are here furnished with proof that liberty of speech was unrestricted in Great Britain in 1834. Next, we find Lord Grey, now old enough to be astonished at Perplexities nothing, wholly taken by surprise by popular rebukes of ministers. of his countenance of pluralities. He presented to the deanery of Down a clergyman who already held a living of 12007. a year, and gave as his reason, by the mouth of the Irish Secretary, that "it was not too much that such preferment should be bestowed on a son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland." "2 So open an avowal of church preferment following on political connection, was caught up with the eagerness to be expected at such a season of crisis; and so was the explanation, which the Premier found himself obliged to authorize, of the circumstances under which he had given a stall at Westminster to his relative the Bishop of Hereford.3 Amazed as he was at the censure incurred by acts till now so little liable to question, the fact was so, and he had only to acquiesce in it; as had Lord Althorp, in the Dissenters being offended instead of gratified by his proposed church-rate measure. The most striking scene of this class, however, appears to have been an interview between the Prime Minister and a deputation of Nottingham Dissenters. When these delegates presented their memorial, Lord Grey supposed that its contents were the same with those of other memorials from Dissenters; to which Mr. Howitt's reply was, that the paper itself would explain that better than he could, as the memorial proceeded from persons whose object was to express their own wishes, and not to look about to see what others were doing. They had prayed for the separation of Church and State. Lord Grey, who seems throughout this crisis to have been blind 1 Spectator, 1834, p. 35. 4 2 Hansard, xxiii. p. 599. |