Page images
PDF
EPUB

Founders. For instance, in what sense does a Wesleyan Methodist minister enjoy more "liberty of conscience" than does a minister of the Established Church? for the freedom of each is limited by the rules of the denomination of which he is a member. A minister of the Church of England or of the Church of Scotland is bound to conform to the laws which govern his Church; while a Wesleyan Methodist under the Chapel Model Deed of 1832 is "not free" to preach-"If he shall maintain, promulgate, or teach any doctrine or practice contrary to what is contained in certain notes on the New Testament commonly reputed to be the notes of the said John Wesley, and in the first four volumes of sermons commonly reputed to be written and published by him." Of course, if it could be proved that the State created or purported to alter the doctrine of the Established Church, such action on the part of the State would be morally and theologically indefensible, but on this matter the authority of the late Lord Selborne is clear. "No State legislation in England ever affected the Creed or the Orders of the Ministry of the Church otherwise than by adding certain sanctions of law to what the Church had from the beginning received: no such legislation as to doctrine or worship -certainly none which is now in force-took place, except in confirmation of what had already been determined and agreed to in the Synods of the Church." And in the 37th

Article of Religion it is laid down that "we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's Word or of the Sacraments." Again, if it is urged that Convocation cannot amend the doctrine, ritual, or substance of the Church without the sanction of the Crown evidenced by an Act of Parliament,-a constitutional practice essential to any theory of Establishment,-it may be answered that in like manner Nonconformist denominations without losing their endowments cannot effectuate any change in their tenets except under the Dissenters Chapels Act, 1844, or a special Act of Parliament giving them power so to do. The two fundamental objections urged by Nonconformists against Church Establishments therefore fall to the ground. Church Establishments are not found to be either "an encroachment upon the rights of man, or an invasion of the prerogatives of God."

The Royal Supremacy over Church and State has remained unchallenged for at least 300 years. As Head of the State, the Sovereign in the last resort has jurisdiction to decide every dispute in ecclesiastical as well as in civil matters. This jurisdiction has been exercised from the earliest times, and was confirmed by the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164. It may be that the Sovereign should act in causes relating to doctrine and ritual solely upon the advice of the Bishops in Convocation, or of other ecclesiastical persons, although up to the present time

no such custom has prevailed. Armagh pointed out to a meet

It is at least an open question whether an ultimate tribunal in ecclesiastical matters so composed would command universal obedience from the clergy, but it is quite clear that to refuse to support the Establishment, unless this change is carried out, is to endanger the parochial system, and thereby to expose the nation to the perils of materialism.

A Church Establishment confirms the privileges of the clergy, and invests the laity with a legal right to receive the ministration of the Christian faith. It is only under the parochial system, which is an incident of Church Establishment, that the Church can readily fulfil its sacred mission of seeking and saving those that are lost.

The Bishop of Peterborough, in the course of an historical address in the House of Lords in defence of the Establishment in Ireland in 1869, was careful to explain that "an Establishment is not its endowments: of course not, any more than a man is his purse, --but to deprive a man of his purse may have an uncomfortable and unpleasant effect not only on his moral but on his spiritual nature." The issues raised by disestablishment and disendowment are not identical, but when the meaning of disestablishment is understood, the effect of disendowment can be more fully appreciated. It is seen to be an invasion of the rights of the laity as well as a means of "plundering the parson." The Archbishop of

ing of Members of Parliament held at the House of Commons in May 1912 that the clergy of the Church of Ireland have decreased in numbers since the disestablishment of the Irish Church from 2050 to 1460, owing to the inability of the Church to provide resident ministers. Now it is a cardinal Tory principle to attach more value to experience than to experiments, and when it is realised that the effect of disendowment, for example, in Wales, would be that out of a total of 984 incumbents, 220 would be totally deprived of their present emoluments, and 75 in addition would be left with less than 58. a-week to live upon, and when it is appreciated that the only minister in many of these parishes (situated as they are for the most part in the Uplands of Wales) is the resident minister of the Established Church, the laity will not be prepared readily to give up, either in their own interests or in those of their children, their immemorial right to have the Christian faith ministered to them.

It must not be forgotten that it is not the intention of the Radical Government to disestablish and disendow one denomination in order to establish and endow another. It is the intention of the Radical Government to annex secular purposes property held in trust for the propagation of Christianity. Upon what principle can such a scheme be justified? No one disputes the proposition which Lord Romilly

for

(Master of the Rolls) laid down It is not only the clergy but in 1869, that "if a Corporation the laity who have vested does not answer the purpose for which it was established, or fulfil the duties for which it was instituted, the State, according to all principles of good government, has full power to deal with it." Nor is it contended, if the Church has failed in its purpose, that its endowments should not be taken from it and applied to other religious purposes; but in fact it is beyond controversy that the Church in Wales is fulfilling its trust with conspicuous success, and no higher tributes to its work could be paid than those which have been bestowed upon the Welsh Dioceses by Mr Gladstone and Mr Asquith. Nonconformist enemies of the Establishment, however, desire to see the Church dismembered, not because it is weak but because it is strong; not because its influence is waning, but because year by year its teaching is proving more attractive to the people. They urge that the advanee of the Church involves the decline of Nonconformity, but why, on that ground, ought the Church in Wales to be disestablished and disendowed? Further, Mr Gladstone in the case of the Irish Church promised that "every vested interest shall receive absolute compensation and satisfaction."

rights in the Established Church. What compensation are laymen to receive under the Bill for the loss of a vested and legal right to receive the ministration of the Sacraments? The obligations of the State towards corporate property are analogous to those of a trustee. Upon what principle is & trustee justified in appropriating to himself the property of which he is the fiduciary? To these questions no satisfactory answer is suggested or can be given. The Welsh Disestablishment Bill will cripple the resources of the Church without conferring any benefits upon Nonconformity. It will strike a blow at the rights of the laity, and at the same time profoundly intensify sectarian bitterness, and if it is placed on the Statute-book every other Church Establishment will be threatened with a similar fate. Is it possible to prevent its passage into law? In one way only can such a catastrophe be averted and the attack upon the Church brought to nothing, and that is by explaining to public audiences that the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church involves not only the spoliation of the clergy, but an invasion of their immemorial legal rights.

ARTHUR PAGE.

SANDERSON'S VENUS.

BY ST JOHN LUCAS.

A FEW years ago visitors to Rome who had permission to inspect the private apartments of the palace of Prince Montegrigio (who married Miss Sadie Van Gugg of Manhattan and bitterly regretted that rash and wellnigh involuntary act) might have seen in a corner of the piano nobile a picture of rare and curious charm. It was a representation of the Holy Family, and the grouping of its figures followed the usual convention: the Madonna was enthroned beneath an arch of rocks, which had apparently been copied by the artist from a pile of brown cardboard boxes; the Holy Child was on her knees; His left hand held a rose, and His right hand was raised to bless a diminutive and swarthy St John Baptist, who wore a neat little coat of camel's hair, and had thrived obviously on a diet of locusts and honey. In the background was a pleasant Tuscan landscape of small buff-coloured hills, dotted with dark-green trees and intersected by narrow white roads, along which were travelling somewhat incongruous camels and persons in turbans. On the extreme right of the picture was & corner of Florence, with Giotto's Campanile and the towers of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Badia clustered above it, and

I.

the Arno, in startling streaks of blue and silver, gleaming below.

To the casual tourist there was nothing especially remarkable in the picture, but to any enthusiast who was on the watch for the beauty that lurks shyly in dim places and dusty corners it had an extraordinary and individual appeal. The yellow-haired, grey-eyed girl who sat to the unknown painter for his Madonna had certainly possessed a loveliness which seemed to these enthusiasts more wonderful than the beauty of the Venus whom she faintly resembled the masterpiece of Botticelli in the Uffizii. Her eyes, though full of dreams, were bright; her lips a living red, and her neck and bosom had the warm pallor that seems to waver and change whilst one looks at it, the mysterious pallor of a white flower in the dusk. She was dressed in a very simple, dull blue robe that was open to the breasts, and her slender throat rose from it like a lily. Pater says somewhere that the Madonnas of Botticelli always seem depressed by the intolerable honour that has come to them. There was no sign of depression in the face of the Montegrigio Virgin; she looked proud, she looked triumphant, and though she was still a slight

girl, she even looked imperious. Her spirit, in fact, was rejoicing, and she was quite happy in knowing that from henceforth all generations would call her blessed.

This is not the place, nor have I the capacity, to describe in detail the technical merits of the picture. It is enough to say that though the background was commonplace and the composition conventional (if we except the figure of Saint Joseph, who was asleep on a rock with his mouth widely open), the Virgin herself betrayed the hand of a master in every line-a master completely individual, whose other works, if they were in existence, would be recognisable at once. She gave one, somehow, the impression that she was not idealised from the model, but that she was 8 careful portrait of some girl with a strong and beautiful personality, some proud daughter of Florence whom the painter watched and loved. There was a certain detail in the picture which seemed to support this impression on one side of the Virgin's throat, at the curve where it joined her lovely shoulders, was a faint fleck of colour, as if a tiny crimson petal of geranium had fallen and rested on it. That this could be due to a slip of the brush which the painter had omitted to correct was highly improbable; possibly it was caused by a decay of pigment, but in reality there was little doubt that it was meant to represent a so-called birthmark which had actually

belonged to the lady who had done the painter the honour of sitting to him. One knows that in the time of the Renaissance such a mark on a lovely body was often considered a beauty rather than a blemish, and the painter, no doubt, felt that he was paying a compliment with his accuracy.

Of the picture's history nothing was known. Prince Montegrigio and his wife (who had obtained culture by attending æsthetic tea - parties in Boston) were collectors of works of art, but their tastes were omnivorous rather than eclectic. They acquired the Holy Family and many other of their artistic treasures at a sale of the effects of an eccentric old Englishman who lived and died alone in a room on the Ripetta; and I regret to say that it still hung amongst the sham Primitives, doubtful Correggios, and unmistakable Sassoferratos and Carlo Dolcis which had formerly been its neighbours. The Princess, after consideration, labelled it with the great name of Leonardo da Vinci, but subsequently, acting under the advice of some artistic friends, she changed the name to that of Botticelli. Other friends, even more artistic, induced her, somewhat against her will, to alter this ascription to the simpler one of Ignoto. But she always asserted privately to relatives and friends from America that it was by one or the other of the two grand

« PreviousContinue »