ot mean by that that you will not find a majority
of ecclesiastics who hold that it is, to put it mildly, a
deplorable policy and very imperfectly Christian.

"However, I have said all this before, both in public and now
again in answer to your questions; and I think that, at any rate
so far as I am concerned, I shall not be to blame if the nation
accepts the proposed change under a misapprehension.

"You see, gentlemen, the attempt that ended fifty years ago--the
attempt that was called in its day Protestantism--to establish a
religion which was to be secondary in any sense to the State,
failed and failed lamentably, in spite of the noble lives that
were spent in labouring for such a compromise. For it is the
whole essence of a Supernatural Religion to be supreme in it own
province--the very adjective asserts it; and any endeavour to
compromise on this entirely vital point is in itself a denial of
the principle, For a while this was not perceived. Men regarded
the Christian Church--or rather, that which they took to be the
Christian Church--merely, on its earthly side, as an organization
comparable to a State. They did not seem to see that Religion
must always have a wider basis than any secular body, since it
deals with eternity as well as with time, while the State,
professedly, treats only of temporal things. The consequence was
either conflict, whenever supernatural elements clashed with
natural; or else the subservience of Religion, and its consequent
loss of prestige, as well as of its supernatural character. A
National Church, therefore, is a contradiction in terms, since it
asserts that that which is in its very nature larger than this
world must yet be confined within the limits not only of this
world, but even of a part of it. . . . Well, I need not labour
that point. You grasped it, gentlemen, even before you were good
enough to ask me to give evidence before this Commission. I felt
it, however, only right that such conditions should be reiterated
and recorded before matters went any farther.

"The Church, therefore, is perfectly content to remain as she has
always remained in this country for the last four centuries--a
free society governing the consciences of her children. Or she is
content to take outwardly and officially that position which she
has always, at least tacitly, claimed, and to reassume her civil
dignity and her civil responsibilities. But she is not content to
waive any of those Divine