IRISH AGITATION "HOME RULE" JOHN MITCHEL. attended the succession of the new government to power. Measures for simplifying the transfer of land, for completing the reconstruction of the judicature, for improving the dwellings of the working-classes in large towns, for amending the sanitary laws, preventing the pollution of rivers by the operation of factories, the waste of mills, or preventible discharge of sewage and other noxious matters, all were to receive attention. And a bill was also to be laid before the house for the amendment of the Merchant Shipping Acts. Among other matters to be considered was one of great importance, namely, legislation for the purpose of protection against personal violence, and for more effectually securing the trial of offences by appointing a public pro secutor. Among other proposals it had been suggested that some of the exceptional or temporary statutes for preserving the peace in Ireland might be dispensed with; but parliament had scarcely met before John Mitchel, the Irish agitator, who had, as we have seen, been transported for the part he took in the rebellion of 1848, reappeared upon the scene. It will be remembered that he had broken his parole and had escaped to the United States, where he became a naturalized American. It was, of course, obvious enough that he was precluded on both grounds from representing a constituency in the House of Commons. By becoming a naturalized subject of another state he had forfeited his rights as a British subject, and as he had not fulfilled the term of his sentence he was still a convict. These considerations were so far from influencing him and his supporters, that they were regarded as affording an extraordinary opportunity for raving defiance against England by electing Mr. Mitchel as member for Tipperary, and insisting that he should enter the House of Commons, where his brother-in-law, John Martin, sat as member for Meath. Mitchel, who was in very ill health, had issued an address from New York to the electors of Tipperary, declaring himself to be in favour of Home Rule, by which, he explained, 293 he meant the sovereign independence of Ireland; the total overthrow of the Established Church; universal tenant rights (his address did not specify what were the conditions he would insist on) and abolition of ejectments (by which it would seem that he meant the right of the tenants to keep possession of the land); free education—that is, denominational education for those who like it, secular education for those who like that, with the express organic provision of law that no persons should be taxed for the education of other persons' children; and the immediate liberation of those prisoners of state whom the English government kept in prison as Fenians. That was his declaration, and so far as it was explicable at all, it at least had a merit which some subsequent declarations of "HomeRulers," ," "Land-Leaguers," and others have lacked: it was distinct in its emphasis. That compliance with it would have been impossible, not to the English government alone but to any government-even to a conceivable Irish government, was nothing to the purpose. the purpose. Tipperary evidently cared for nothing more than that the candidate was the irreconcilable opponent of England, and sought to force himself into the British legislature. That, at all events, seems to have been the conclusion of those electors who returned him without opposition. The next day he landed at Queenstown, and parliament had to decide what was to be done with him. Without delay Mr. Disraeli gave notice of a motion that John Mitchel, having been adjudged guilty of treason-felony and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years, and not having endured the full term of his sentence, nor having received pardon under the great seal, has become and continues to be incapable to sit in parliament. He also announced that he should move for a new writ for Tipperary. A curious legal debate followed, during which the attorney-general admitted that Mitchel could not be proceeded against and compelled to serve out his original sentence. He might have been arrested for prison-breaking, but it had not been worth while to arrest him; and it was argued that having been adjudged a felon, and not having either completed his sentence or received a pardon, he remained a felon and could not sit in parliament. The debate continued, and the proposal of Lord Hartington and Mr. Forster for a committee was resisted by Mr. Disraeli, who declared that there were no contradictory opinions which needed reconciling. The proposal was rejected without a division. Mr. Disraeli's resolution was agreed to, and the new writ was issued. The Irish "National" papers published denunciations and exciting appeals. The new writ was issued and another candidate appeared-Captain Stephen Moore. Mitchel was re-elected by a large majority, but Captain Moore claimed the seat, since the votes given to his opponent were illegal. The question was then tried by the Irish Court of Common Pleas, which found in his favour. Mitchel, who would make no defence, then declared that he would become candidate for each county of Ireland in turn, so that they might all be disfranchised, and so awaken the Irish people to their oppression; but he was unequal to the task. Before he could commence such an undertaking the excitement he had undergone acting upon an enfeebled frame caused his death, which took place on the 21st of March, at Drumlane, near Newry. His brother-in-law and staunch supporter, John Martin, a man who, in spite of some extreme views, was much liked in the house by members of both parties, was taken ill while attending the funeral, and died a few days afterwards. It may be mentioned that at the same time that Mitchel was elected in Tipperary, Dr. Kenealy, the barrister who had become so notorious for his defence of "the Claimant" in the Tichborne trial, was returned for Stokeupon-Trent. So disinclined were the members on all sides to recognize him, that no two persons were found to give him the usual introduction to the house, and he was obliged to come forward alone to take the oaths and his seat. He frequently afterwards contrived to make himself so offensive as to justify the dislike that had been manifested, but there were some reasons to suspect that he was suffering from mental disturbance, aggravated if not caused by the strain he had endured, and the result of the case which he had so inveterately argued to the end. We can scarcely leave this period of our story and enter upon the brief chapter that will indicate rather than narrate the social and political progress of the late seven years, without once more glancing at the attitude assumed by a certain number of the clergy, who, with a section of their congregations, refuse obedience either to ecclesiastical or to civil authority, though they retain the assumption of belonging to the church which is supported and defended by both. If the Ritualists represent the Church of England and the national observance of religion, then it is time that disestablishment and disendowment should be effected; they are doing their utmost, whether they mean it or not, to aid the opinions of those who declare that the Church of England so called is only one among many religious bodies, and should no longer claim to be national in any special sense, but should form itself into a kind of church union represented by a council or assembly, much as one of the large nonconformist bodies is more or less represented by what is known as the Congregational Union. To no such union would the Ritualistic priests and people be likely to conform. The congregations which they represent practically acknowledge no external authority for the regulation of church observances, and differ more from the Evangelical or Low Church bodies than the latter do from most forms of dissent or nonconformity. It is usually supposed that the Ritualists are more in sympathy with the Church of Rome, and it is obvious enough that they imitate the Romish ceremonial, elevate the paten, use incense, observe genuflexions, separate themselves from the congregation by screens, deck the altar, and even celebrate the communion under the name of "mass." It is doubtful, however, whether these apparently Romish inclinations have induced the Papal Church to seek for couverts in Ritualistic congregations. That church would scarcely be likely to regard with pleased expectation, the accession of people or clergy who are distin ABOLITION OF COMPULSORY CHURCH-RATES. guished for disobedience to the authority under which they profess to remain, and for disloyalty to the repeated injunctions of the superiors, to whom by their very office they have promised to be dutiful. 295 bols, and strange ceremonies, which had a weak because an uninterpretable resemblance to those of the Romish chapel. Some of the churches where these practices were observed had been built or endowed by private munificence, and this made the interposition of the bishops more difficult. In many cases the introduction of what had come to be called Ritualism (though it was not only in excess of, but contrary to the settled ritual of the Reformed Church) aroused the bitter opposition of a large number of the congregation, the "rector's warden," the "people's warden," and the synodsmen became leaders of opposite factions; and scenes of scandalous disorder ensued because of the attempts of the reforming party to prevent Romish innovations. The painful riots which had disgraced St. George's-in-the-East were repeated in some other parts of London at this time, and at a later date. In some instances the service was interrupted, and actual fighting went on inside and outside the church. Appeals were made to the bishop of the diocese, whose declarations were disregarded by the "priest." All was confusion and disorder, and the house of God was profaned, the name of religion dishonoured. Earl Russell had come to the conclusion, that until the religion of the Church of England became assimilated to the religion of Rome, of St. Thomas Aquinas, and of Aristotle, the Ritualists would not be satisfied. Perhaps he did not see that before that could take place either the Ritualistic clergy must be the prevailing body in a church, the authority of whose bishops they only acknowledge as a mere matter of convenience, or they must join the opponents of all ecclesiastical authority supported by the state, and therefore reduce the so-called Church of England to an important and generally recognized sect, the members of which, however, would no more authoritatively form a national church than do the Wesleyan Methodists, the Baptists, or the Congregationalists. But let it be remembered, that though many of the "Ritualistic" clergy displayed what to ordinary people appeared to be an absurdly dogged obstinacy, by persisting in wearing certain costumes, and introducing peculiar gestures and postures in the service, decking the altar with flowers and candles, using a monotonous twang in the sermon and a gabbling recitative in the prayers, as though these were things to hold to and be martyred for, there were others who, having fallen upon times of church restoration, open pews, memorial windows, and choral services, held that the whole mode of conducting the service needed to be made more picturesque and emotional in order to awaken the sensibilities. There were young men who, apart from the merely sensuous revivals of ceremonial, were devoted workers, and assiduously visited the poor and the sick, organized charitable efforts, and set about improving or establishing schools, societies, week-day meetings, and even concerts, lectures, and recreations among the members of their churches and the inhabitants of their districts. The number of these, however, did not counteract the effect produced by the more fanatical upholders of ornamental dresses, mysterious sym-self with a stolid opposition nor give way to The aspect of affairs was somewhat different from that which prevailed at the time of the St. George's-in-the-East riots, for before the struggle became violent, compulsory churchrates had been abolished. In February, 1868, a bill, introduced by Mr. Gladstone for the abolition of compulsory church-rates, was read a second time amidst considerable opposition, with respect to which Lord Cranborne asked what was to be gained by adhering to the principle of ": no surrender." That question, he said, was to be answered by the circumstances of the time. We must look not only to the position of the nation out of doors, but to the course of events in the house; the principles upon which parties guided their movements, the laws by which public men regulated their own conduct. He did not think that any gain to the church would result from prolonging the contest; and though he gave up any possession of the church with the deepest reluctance, he could not content him that tendency, by which it seemed so many were apt to be affected, of pursuing for many years a steady obstruction, and then giving way to an unreasonable panic. It was wiser to accept the terms offered them, because they might go further and fare worse. These terms stopped short of actual abolition; but the rates were made voluntary, inasmuch as their payment could not be compelled by legal process. The act passed on the 31st of July, 1868, and its preamble stated, that as church-rates had for some years ceased to be made or collected in many parishes by reason of the opposition thereto; and, in many other parishes where church-rates had been made, the levying thereof had given rise to litigation and ill feeling, it was expedient to abolish the power to compel payment of such rates by any legal process. The first section of the act provided that no such process could be taken for the enforcement of payment of any church-rate made in any parish in England or Wales. Thus this vexed question was at last settled. While we are noting this subject it may be observed that the introduction of the Elementary Education Act again revived the question, not of church-rates, but of the payment of rates for the partial support of denominational schools by grants, in places where there was no demand for the establishment of a board-school, the provisions of the existing voluntary rate-aided schools being sufficient for the instruction of the children. For some time the discussion grew clamorous on this subject, and doubtless, from the point of view of the Dissenters and those who demanded a merely secular education, the support of denominational schools by a grant from the rates appeared to be objectionable. Just as under the modified forms of the old system, church-rates, when voted by a majority of ratepayers, had been payable by all householders, these school-rates were payable by all householders, if the supporters of church schools were sufficiently numerous to sustain them against the demand for affiliation of the parish or district to that of the school-board and the provision of a board-school. As a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette said even as late as January, 1874, the positions respectively occupied by the contending parties, seemed to be "We will not pay denominational fees, because it does violence to our religious scruples;" and, "You must pay denominational fees, because to refuse them does violence to other people's religious scruples." As a matter of fact, the general sense of public opinion soon rectified this impression. The operation of the school-boards, and the manner in which it satisfied the requirements of various classes of the public, helped to assimilate the voluntary rate-aided schools, and even in rural districts the working of the Education Act has gradually established board-schools in place of many of the ineffectual and illsupported schools formerly maintained by voluntary subscriptions aided by occasional grants. It will be perceived that what we have now been considering has its bearing on the question of Ritualism, for it is easy to understand that Dissenters, or men of decidedly Protestant views, regarded with dismay the probability of being required to send their children to the schools of those other Dissenters or Nonconformists who yet were recognized as belonging to the Church of England, though they stood on the Romish side and were known as Ritualists. It will be seen, too, that all these subjects had a very direct relation to the question of possible church disestablishment. That was a matter on which people were compelled to think seriously; and though the disestablishment and disendowment of the church in Ireland had no necessary connection with, and was not at all preliminary to, any movement affecting the Establishment in England-the relations of the church to the two countries being essentially different — men looked the proposal in the face. Mr. Gladstone did. The arguments of those who opposed church disestablishment in Ireland on the ground of the probability of its being followed by a similar measure in England did not cause him to protest too much. In that chapter of autobiography, written in September, 1868, in which he refers to his early declarations with regard to the church, and his correspondence with Lord Macaulay, he says: MR. GLADSTONE ON THE CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. "I can hardly believe that even those, including, as they do, so many men both upright and able, who now contend on principle for the separation of the church from the state, are so determined to exalt their theorem to the place of an universal truth, that they ask us to condemn the whole of that process, by which, as the gospel spread itself through the civilized world, Christianity became incorporated with the action of civil authority and with the framework of public law. In the course of human history, indeed, we perceive little of unmixed evil and far less of universal good. It is not difficult to discern that (in the language of Bishop Heber) as the world became Christian Christianity became worldly: that the average tone of a system, which embraces in its wide-spreading arms the entire community, is almost of necessity lower than that of a society which, if large, is still private, and into which no man enters except by his own deliberate choice, very possibly even at the cost of much personal and temporal detri ment. But Christ died for the race: and those who notice the limited progress of conversion in the world until alliance with the civil authority gave to His religion a wider access to the attention of mankind, may be inclined to doubt whether, without that alliance, its immeasurable and inestimable social results would ever have been attained. Allowing for all that may be justly urged against the danger of mixing secular motives with religious administration, and, above all, against the intrusion of force into the domain of thought, I for one cannot desire that Constantine in the government of the empire, that Justinian in the formation of its code of laws, or that Charlemagne in refounding society, or that Elizabeth in the crisis of the English Reformation should have acted on the principle that the state and the church in themselves are separate or alien powers incapable of coalition. 297 government as the basis of political constitutions. The other is the disintegration of Christendom from one into many communions. As long as the church at large, or the church within the limits of the nation is substantially one, I do not see why the religious care of the subject, through a body properly constituted for the purpose, should cease to be a function of the state, with the whole action and life of which it has throughout Europe been so long and so closely associated. As long as the state holds by descent, by the intellectual superiority of the governing classes, and by the good-will of the people, a position of original and underived authority, there is no absolute impropriety, but the reverse, in its commending to the nation the greatest of all boons. But when, either by some revolution of institutions from their summit to their base, or by a silent and surer process, analogous to that which incessantly removes and replaces the constituent parts of the human body, the state has come to be the organ of the deliberate and ascertained will of the community, expressed through legal channels, then, indeed, the inculcation of a religion can no longer rest in full or permanent force upon its authority. And when, in addition to this, the community itself is split and severed into opinions and communions, which, whatever their concurrence in the basis of Christian belief, are hostile in regard to the point at issue, so that what was meant for the nation dwindles into the private estate as it were of a comparative handful, then the attempt to maintain an established church becomes an error fatal to the peace, dangerous perhaps even to the life, of civil society. Such a church then becomes (to use a figure I think of John Foster's) no longer the temple, but the mere cenotaph of a great idea. Such a policy is thereafter not simply an attempt to treat what is superannuated and imbecile as if it were full of life and vigour, but to thwart the regular and normal action of the ruling social forces, to force them from their proper channels, and to turn them by artificial contrivance, as Apollo turned the rivers of Troas from their beds, to a purpose of our own. This is to set ca But there are two causes, the combined operation of which, upon reaching a certain point of development, relaxes or dissolves their union by a process as normal (if it be less beneficial) as that by which the union was originally brought about. One of these is the establishment of the principle of popular self-price against nature; and the end must be |