THE COLONIAL CHURCH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 86, 28 August 1852, Page 4

THE COLONIAL CHURCH.

The London Guardian thus notices the bill introduced in the Commons to afford relief to the Colonial Church :— Mr. Gladstone has redeemed the promise which he made at the close of the last session of Parliament, to introduce a Bill for the relief of the Colonial Church. The terms of the measure, even at this political crisis, will not fail to receive from Churchmen the attentive consideration which its subject eminently demands. Its prominent feature may be said to be the excessive caution with which it is confined to the limits imposed by the political necessities of our time on all legislation for the Church. Of the eight clauses which the Bill contains, six are occupied with the description of the persons and things to which its regulations do not extend. The rights of property, the liberties of nonconformists, the royal prerogative, and the authority of the See of Canterbury, are scrupulously protected from colonial intrusion on their integrity. A first glance at the Bill almost suggests the idea that it is designed to fetter, rather than to enfranchise, the Church in our dependencies. Ecclesiastical intolerance is certainly the last fault with which Mr. Gladstone's measure can justly be charged. We do not, however, on this account flatter ourselves that it will escape opposition from those whose vocation it is simply to obstruct all efforts in behalf of the restoration of the Church's life. The only ground on which they could be induced to abstain from interference would be an expectation of the failure of the scheme to effect its purpose. If it is likely to be useful they will want no other reason for making a determined resistance to its enactment. They sympathise with the full effrontery of Sir De Lacy Evans, who declared in the Parliamentary discussion, out of which Mr. Gladstone's promise arose, that he was " decidedly opposed to synodical action." They would prohibit the Church from settling her internal differences, or organising her means of action, not on account of any defect in her title to possess such a power, but because they hate her very existence, and consider any means legitimate by which she can be humbled or despoiled. They will probably urge, without regard to notorious facts, that the Colonial Church derives advantage from her connection with the Establishment at home, and that she is therefore bound to take some trifling disabilities as a make-weight in the bargain. We have heard Mr. Bright object to a plan for the division of populous parishes merely because it would tend to the greater efficiency of the Church ; we are quite prepared, therefore, for the opposition of the clique to which he belongs on the present occasion. Objection may indeed be taken to Mr. Gladstone's measure on very different grounds, and by a widely dissimilar class of opponents. There are some minds of that critical temperament that cannot be satisfied with any scheme which does not imply a complete and perfect adjustment'of the matters lying within its scope. Perhaps the eminent author of the Bill himself may not be wholly free from a temptation which often besets men of great ingenuity and analytical power. To such minds it will occur that the Bill does not provide any machinery for synodical action in the colonies, that it leaves all the relations between Bishops and their dioceses unsettled—in short, that it throws no light on the course of action to be adopted in the Churches which it is designed to relieve. They will draw a startling picture of future perplexities, of conflicting '.legal rights, and of religious differences, which there will be no court of appeal to smother or compose. They will urge that the English Legislature ought not to open a page of the Statute Book devoted to so important a topic, unless it he prepared with a code of ecclesiastical laws, and a system of Colonial Church government. * 'The true answer to such objections is, that the kind of settlement thus demanded would he not only extremely difficult, but also eminently unwise. The object of the measure on which we are commenting, is precisely to avoid the complication with English interests and with the conflict of temporal and spiritual

rights, which under our own constitution is inevitable. If the internal action of the Colonial Church is to be worth anything, it must take its shape and character from its own necessities, and have regard to its own means of doing its spiritual work. If the dictation of the Office in Downing-street has been found to be an intolerable restraint on the development of distant communities in their own natural administration of secular matters, far more grievous must he the meddling of home authorities with the freedom of religious life in our colonies. We should be attempting to exercise the authority of the Vatican over a more widely extended sphere, with far less opportunities of gaining correct information, or exercising a decisive control. It is strange, indeed, to hear some, who loudly protest against the Universal Bishopric of Rome, eagerly contending for an unlimited power of appeal to the See of Canterbury from the vast domains of Great Britain in all corners of the world. The same declaimers who abuse the Pope and Lord Grey set their faces against the logical demand of Churchmen in Canada and Australia for the civil and religious liberty of which those potentates are reckoned the determined foes. Mr. Gladstone's Bill, then, is consistent in this, —that it decides nothing. Its purpose is to give freedom ; what use shall be made of that freedom it rests with our brethren across the seas to decide. That they may sometimes err in their deliberations we are not sanguine enough to deny; but we are sure that their errors will be ultimately corrected, and that even mistakes in non-essential matters will be preferable to the inaction to which they have hitherto been condemned. Eighteen centuries of ecclesiastical history will furnish them with precedents for their conduct and warnings of the dangers in their path. The proceedings of their Bishops during the last two years give us abundant reason to hope that they are neither ignorant of the one nor indifferent to the other.