THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND ITS FREETHINKING CLERGY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3197, 27 September 1881, Page 4

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND ITS FREETHINKING CLERGY.

I was surprised at the free thinking and the free speaking which I met with among English clergymen. Opinions as to the inspiration and the authority of the Bible, which not many years ago would have excited horror among all decent people, were expressed in private conversation by some of these gentlemen in orders with an astonishing absence of reserve. And the freedom, of the thinking and of the speech seemed to me just in proportion to the intelligence and the scholarship of the speaker. One of these revernend gentlemen (and in England the title "reverend" is strictly applicable only to clergymen of the Established Church), who was also a college don and a scholar of repute, eaid to tne, as we were discussing the value of the

"Speaker's Commentary," "I wish that every one of these men (the eminent divines and church dignitaries engaged upon the work) was obliged to prefix to e;ic!i book of the Peiitat"iic!j ar.d the Prophets a deehr/afcion, upon aw nonoui , , of the thai* at which and the person by whom he believes ib to have been written;" and ho emphosised " his honour" as if the honour of an English gentleman was something far more trustworthy as a guarantee of good faith than the professional declaration even of an English clergyman. The one came from the man as an individual ; the other wa3 merely given as the member of a hierarchy, in the way of " business." Tho truth seems to be that the thoughful and the scholarly divines of the English Church, those whose acquirements and mental independence fit them to be critical, are sorely perplexed by their position. For tho Church of England is a political institution so interwoven with the structure of English society that, should it be shaken, the whole social fabric might go to ruin. The feeling is prevalent (as I gathered, although I did not hear it littered), und it is reasonable, that doing without bishops would be the first step to dispensing with lukes. And what would England be wit aout dukes ? An Englishman might lead a godless life ; but could he lead a dukeless one ? And the dukes themselves and the minor noblee look forward with the gravest apprehension to the time when, Church and State being severed, a respect for rank and privilege will be no part of the English religion. For it is not to be concealed that the English Church is a gentlemanly institution. It not orly tec.cb.es the lower classes deference to superiors, but its influence does much to breed that very admirable character, the English gentleman. Its teachings are wholly at variance with the spirit of social democi-acy Its very catechism inculcates a content which is opposed to the restless and pushing tendencies of the modern times. The catechumen is made to say among other things, when asked what is his duty to his neighbour, "My duty to my neighbour is . . .to submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters ; to order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters ; . . . and to learr. and labour truly to get my own living and to do my duty in that state of life to which it shall please God to call me." But now it seems to be the accepted duty of every man of English blood, no matter on which side of the great ocean he may be, to get himself, with what speed he may, out of the state of life in which he is, into a better. The vh'tue of content is gone, and with it the grace of submission. —" England Without and "Within," by Eichard Grant White.