Churchmen, instead of its being the bull-ring where brawling Nonconformists are to bait the Church and its minister. A third party has happily died away, which attempted to compromise the question by abandoning that portion of the rate which related to worship expenses, and only retaining a fabric rate. The evils of this proposal were patent. If the Dissenter were expected to pay the rate cheerfully, because his rate was not meant to pay for surplice or Prayer-Book, but only for walls and roof, he would, if he were a logical man, be very willing to accept the proposition, and rejoin: 'Very well, here is my rate, now give me my share of the walls and roof. You demand the payment from me, because you tell me these churches are national edifices, devoted to the worship of the Almighty by the whole people. I am one of the people; the congregation with which I worship belongs to the nation; make it possible for us conscientiously to worship God, according to the form in which we can join, within that building.' This line of argument would have been perfectly unanswerable when addressed to persons who had purposely converted the Church-rate into a fabric-rate for the sake of netting the Dissenters' quota. There was the example also of the manner in which the Government had usurped the fabrics of the Churches in many continental States, to point a moral against a usurpation, which would have been precisely similar in character, though perpetrated by Demus, and not Tyrannus. Still, some people of great intelligence have been found to urge the scheme, but within the last year circumstances seem to have really startled them, and to have contributed to silence a proposition which had better never have been uttered. The indefensible and uncanonical concession of the Bishop of Calcutta, in permitting to Presbyterian ministers the joint occupation of Churches within his diocese, startled and shocked good Churchmen; and Sir Morton Peto, with that blundering audacity which the Liberation Society mistakes for bold policy, endeavoured to get in the point of the wedge with his Nonconformists' Burials Bill, and only succeeded in pinching his own fingers. He has thus fairly put Churchmen on their guard, and we shall be greatly surprised if any proposition tending towards the system of omnibus Churches can again win any favour in their eyes.
The first authoritative proclamation of the exemption policy synchronised remarkably with the turn of the tide in favour of the retention of the ancient custom of Church-rates, for it was contained in the report of that committee of the Duke of Marlborough, which sat during the sessions of 1859 and 1860, and which elicited those answers of Dr. Foster and Mr. Morley, which finally unmasked the Liberation Society.
