are speaking to her in very articulate tones. Ireland and Wales have proclaimed themselves realms of Nonconformity. Scotland has gone far, even numerically, in the same direction; while, in weighty principles, earnest problems, stirring voluntary practice, she has gone much farther. It is well, perhaps, that the triumphs of Voluntaryism should begin with the minor and outlying kingdoms. They are good out-posts-convenient limbs to experiment on; the prelates themselves are only too ready to express the fear that precedents and problems worked out in them are likely to overflow on mighty England.

Ernest.-Among these auspicious signs, it may be well for us to remember that the best of all is the vital power of religion itself.

Mr. Fairfield.-Nothing could be truer than that, Ernest. Civil Establishments are one thing, religion another. He who confounds them, says Locke, “jumbles heaven and earth together." The former profess to keep the latter alive: as well might a geological society profess to establish the foundations of the earth, or an astronomical society profess to help the sun to shine. Religion will take leave to live and grow, independently of such help; and very vital must it be to have not been long since helped to death! What legislation, backed by ever so many penalties, can either make or keep a nation's faith? As authoritative instruments in the province of conscience, such enactments are simply nil. Their voice is not heard in that spiritual domain where Sinai's thunders are rolling, and the still small voice of Gospel love is stirring the soul. There the soul

and its God meet on ground where even Cæsar must stand aside, and where his authority is not needed, and is in no wise to be tolerated. Hear, then, in a sentence,

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.

State Establishments of religion are an impiety, an impolicy, an absurdity, an injustice, and therefore a huge mistake. They usurp God's prerogative, invade the rights of conscience, set class against class, endanger States, impede truth, stereotype error, freeze the springs of Christian beneficence, and, like the fabled tunic on Hercules, envenom what they pretend to bless and protect. Within their pale may be as much religious life and zeal as you choose to claim; but they are there not by reason of, but in spite of, the State Establishment.

law:

Voluntaryism, on the other hand, is express Christian "Even so hath the Lord ordained." It is scriptural throughout: it rests on the Old Testament as well as on the New; whereas the State-method is taught by neither, and is condemned by both. It is rational, for it is in harmony with the laws of mind, and with the laws of truth. It is right, for who is the ruler that may step in between any soul and its God when he cannot answer for that soul, or 66 give to God a ransom for him ;" but, poor sceptred sinner that he is, must, equally with the meanest, "stand in his own lot at the end of the days." It is peace-promoting, for it invades no right, causes no friction, creates no jealousies, takes up no political shibboleth, and gives the freedom it claims and takes; "against such there

is," or ought to be, "no law." It is ennobling, for it concedes to the poorest a domain of inviolable sacredness which even kings must respect; it brings down the high and exalts the low; and it not only leaves to free play, but summons to responsible action the deepest and loftiest principles of our nature. In a word, it is effective. Witness this, primeval victories of the Christian faith! Witness this, voluntary religion, in our own and other lands! It never betrayed any, even in the most "troublous times," who threw themselves trustfully upon it. And it never will, it never can; for it only leaves our Divine Christianity to open her own infinite fountains, wield her own heavenly influences, and carry them, free as the winds and the common sunshine, to the ends of the earth. Its symbol is, not kings and armies, but a winged angel in mid-heaven, bearing the everlasting Gospel to all peoples and tongues. It has resources enough for this. Talk of the powers latent in science! Think of the power

that slumbers latent in the Christian Church. What electricity and steam have done in this age, since they were called forth from their latencies in nature, would but faintly illustrate the world-heaving forces that lie latent in all our Churches. In primitive times, "the godly examples," says Merivale of Christians, and especially of Christian martyrs, caused " thousands, nay millions of conversions." Let modern Christianity only look with eagle vision into the face of the Sun of Righteousness, and pray for the Divine Spirit, and plume her heavenly wings, and the same effects would follow still. Determine, my dear young friends, to do your part. Be loyal to noble Nonconformity, not for its

own sake, but for the truth's sake that is in it. Leave it to weaklings to blush for the respectability of a cause glorified by the names of Cromwell and Milton, and consecrated with the blood of martyrs. Let these young Demases go; they will not much enrich the Establishment, or impoverish Dissent. As true Voluntaries, be you all life and action. Consecrate to it your entire individualism. "Live while you live;" and live throughout the breadth and depth, as well as length of your life. "He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."

APPENDIX.

A.

A writer in Frazer's Magazine for January, 1866, gives some interesting statistical details on this head. He says:-"According to the last Census, there were in Kildare diocese, in 1861, 12,499 members of the Established Church, 84,590 Roman Catholics, and 1,280 Dissenters. Of the 40 benefices of Kildare, 20, or one-half of the entire number, have a Church population ranging from 7 to 157 for each benefice." These 20 benefices comprise 36 parishes. They average 74 Anglicans, 5 Dissenters, and 1,254 Roman Catholics to each benefice. In the Dublin diocese, which would be chosen by the advocates of the Irish Church as its most favourable representative, matters are not much better. In 1861, 28 benefices, containing 49 parishes, were found to have an average population, for each benefice, of 85 Anglicans, 10 Dissenters, and 1,289 Roman Catholics. And the total population of the diocese in 1861 was as follows:Established Church, 100,267; Dissenters, 16,146; and Roman Catholics, 396,916.

B.

:

By way of isolated illustration, I add the following morsel. The Times of September 20, 1866, says: "In the four dioceses over which the Bishop of Killaloe presides, the total population, according to our correspondent, is 355,079, while the Church population is but 15,905, the net income of the Established Church being £20,154. Any man with a sense of his duty, or even of his dignity, would have felt, one would have thought, not a little dissatisfied at such a position. The allegiance of 1 in 23 souls is a poor result to show for a Bishop, a complete staff of clergy, and £20,000 a-year. It is, indeed, to a simple statement of such plain facts as these that the present feeling on the subject of the Irish Establishment is mainly due. It is only necessary for a Bishop to open his eyes to bare statistics in order to