In fine, where there is a large body of people hesitating which creed to adopt, (as was the case in England during the reign of Elizabeth,) or where there is indifference or ignorance about religious matters, arising from the want of pastors, (as is the case in some of our large towns and manufacturing districts,) a State-endowment may be effectual in propagating religious doctrine. But where the boundaries of sects are well-defined, and their religious convictions deeply rooted; where an active, zealous body of unendowed clergy exists; where there is no religious indifference, but, on the contrary, a jealous maintenance of the distinctive doctrines of the particular creed, and a sensitive abhorrence of proselytism; where every member is regarded as the property of the congregation, whose defection to another sect is regretted as a common loss, and whose seduction is resented as a common injury-there the endeavours of an endowed clergy to draw the entire people within their fold, however earnest and unremitting, will certainly fail of success.

Upon an impartial consideration of the question, it will probably be seen that the beneficial influence of endowment, in religious matters, is felt less in the promotion of truth, than in improving the moral character of the minister as respects his flock, and in elevating

may sometimes be on the side of the Established Church; but the arts of popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes, are constantly on the side of its adversaries. In England, those arts have been long neglected by the well-endowed clergy of the Established Church, and are at present chiefly cultivated by the dissenters and by the methodists."-SMITH, Wealth of Nations, b. I. ch. 1, art. 3. The example of the Church of Rome might alone have convinced Adam Smith, that his proposition as to established churches required much limitation. But these remarks indicate the advantages of zeal, which may belong to an unendowed clergy.

and purifying the style of his teaching. A clergy dependent on the voluntary donations of their congregations are less likely to exercise a wholesome and independent influence upon their hearers, to abstain from fanatical appeals to their fears and hopes, and to preserve a sober and even course, than a clergy whose means of subsistence are derived from a fixed endowment. This effect of Endowment, however, does not properly belong to its power of propagating opinion, and therefore need not be here examined.

When a government tolerates no other creed than that which itself thinks good, and extirpates all other sects, diversity of religious opinion is prevented, and the opinion of the ruling power is the declared standard of religious truth. But when the government tolerates all religious opinions, and thus permits the existence of a plurality of sects, it must, if it desires to endow the clergy of one church exclusively, select the creed of the majority of the people.* If its choice was made solely on the ground of its obligation to promote religious truth, it could not consistently stop at an endowment of the orthodox creed, but must proscribe the heterodox sects.

* Vatel, Law of Nations, § 130, lays it down generally, that the religion of the majority of the people ought to be established by law, and become the religion of the State. The case of Ireland may seem an exception to this rule, inasmuch as, in practice, Ireland is treated as a separate country: but it is to be borne in mind that the arrangement was made by the Protestant government of England; and the defenders of the Established Church of Ireland generally refer to its union with that of England, and say that the population of both countries ought to be taken jointly, in which case the Protestants are a majority. If Ireland had been an independent State, the entire church-endowment would not have been given by its government to the Protestant clergy.

Now, on merely political grounds, there is much to be said in favour of endowing the clergy of the numerical majority of the people. If the endowment is to be exclusive, this is the most equitable and useful application which the State can make of the church property. But this system, though productive of considerable practical advantages, is nevertheless liable to serious objections. In the first place, the opinion of the majority of the population is not a correct, or, indeed, a recognised standard of belief, even in secular matters. In religious matters, it is still less applicable. The smaller sects, each of which constitutes an inconsiderable minority of the population, utterly repudiate any such measure of truth, and recognise only their own conscientious convictions, and the dicta of the teachers whose authority they reverence. By adopting this criterion, the State admits its own unfitness to judge of religious truth; and yet it refers to no other judge of acknowledged competency. In the second place, exclusive endowment, though less oppressive and intolerant than a proscription of religious error, and less offensive and vexatious than a system of State proselytism, nevertheless implies political inequality on religious grounds, and therefore creates a certain amount of religious discontent and discord. The unendowed sects, though they cannot complain of the intolerance of the government, yet complain of its partiality; and transfer to the political institutions of the State a portion of the dislike with which they regard a rival, but more favoured church.

Owing to these difficulties, both in theory and practice, two other plans have been resorted to by the governments of countries in which there is a plurality of Christian sects. One of them sacrifices the principle of church endowment-the other widens its operation.

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The one is, for the State to abstain altogether from the recognition of any religious body, from the establishment of any political standard of religious truth, and from the endowment of any church; the other is, for all the Christian churches and sects to be concurrently endowed by the State. Both of these plans avoid the evils of religious inequality-the latter by admitting, the former by rejecting, all sects indiscriminately. Neither of them sets up the opinion of the majority of the people or any other political standard of religious truth. The former is adopted in France, Belgium, Prussia, and other continental States, and, to a certain extent, in the United Kingdom; inasmuch as the Episcopal Protestant Church is established in England, while the Presbyterian Church is established in Scotland, and endowed in Ireland*—not to mention the colonies. The latter plan is adopted in the United States. The old system of exclusive toleration still subsists in the purely Catholic States of Southern Europe.

§ 7. Besides endowing the clergy of a particular sect, and defraying the expenses of its public worship, the State may also seek to promote religious truth by an interference with Public Instruction. It may establish schools having a certain religious character, and it may afford facilities for religious instruction of the same complexion. Its influence over public instruction may be exercised for the purpose of favouring the doctrines of a certain religious persuasion, so as to confirm some children in their actual faith, and to convert others to that faith.

* Mr. Gladstone, The State in its Relations with the Church, ch. 3, § 47, sees no decisive objection to this system. He thinks that the connexion of the State need not, in all cases, be exclusively with one church.

Arguments similar to those which have been used above, in the case of ecclesiastical endowments, apply in the case of public instruction. Where children remain untaught in religion, from the want of teachers, and from mere neglect and indifference about religion, there the establishment of schools by the State, and the supply of religious instruction, will promote the spread of the peculiar religious opinions which may be inculcated in such schools: but where a spirit of sectarian repugnance exists, and the religious doctrines taught in the schools are considered by the people as unsound, parents will not send their children to receive the instruction, even gratuitously, or permit them to become attendants for the purpose of learning what they themselves believe to be error. Hence the establishment of government schools, for purposes of religious proselytism, may be expected to be attended with no better success than that which accompanied the Protestant Charter Schools of Ireland.

The objections to an exclusive assistance of the schools of one religious denomination by the State, when the funds granted come, not from a permanent endowment, but from the annual taxation, have been so strongly felt, that in most modern countries, which give a public aid to instruction, the grant has been divested of an exclusive character, and has been made indiscriminately to schools of all religious sects. The principle of Concurrent Endowment, which has been more reluctantly admitted with respect to the maintenance of public worship, has been more readily applied to the assistance of public instruction.

§ 8. Besides punishment and reward, endowment of the clergy and public instruction, the only means available to the State for the promotion of religious truth,