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" WELSH NONCON= FORMISTS TO…

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WELSH NONCON= FORMISTS TO ARMS." The Liberal Government has introduced the Bill which Wales has been demanding for a generation. But the end is not yet. It seems very unlikely that the Bill will even now become an Act of Parliament. There is a sinister rumour that its sponsors have neither faith nor hope that it will. It has been described as a sop to humour the un- ruly and fiery Welshmen-Heaven knows that they are not unruly and fiery or there had been no Established Church of alien origin and spirit in Wales these dozen years. The introduction of the Bill has fanned into new life all the forces of anti- democracy in England. They are the old enemies of Welsh Nonconformist, and they have begun the battle against this long delayed, long over-due, measure of justice for Wales, in a spirit of bitter hatred and contempt of him. He must cast aside his diffidence-it is moral cowardice he must cast aside his religious charity-it is an offence to Heaven and join in the issue with a determination to fight remorelessly and to the bitter end. In that spirit must the battle be waged before the end comes and to postpone the issue still further will only make it more bitter and more remorseless when it can be delayed no longer. The battle is for him not merely one for religious equality it is a battle for the right to be a Welshman, and the power to enable his son to become a greater and a nobler Welshman it is a battle for the right to strive in his own way after a great and noble manhood, and to hold that path for his son and his son's sons for ever. His enemies mean to give him no quarter; he must give them none. His cry must be "Havoc"; too long has he been charitable. His enemies charge him with a purpose to destroy religion. He must cast the lie in the teeth of his accusers If religion needs the protection and the recommendation of the State to gain respect from others, the instinct to respect and to obey it dwells within his heart. He better understands the spirit of that religion which they and he profess than do those who think religion must be a parasite that clings to the edifice of State. Its appeal to him is greater when it comes in the humble guise of the meek and lowly carpenter of Nazareth, than it is when it comes supported with the pomp and majesty of worldly power. His religion was not born of the unholy marriages of Church and State it was fostered in defiance of both; and it lives to-day a mighty, bene- ficient and uplifting force that gets, and Deeds, no State protection. That other religion that stagnated—and worse-in spite of State protection, while his own waxed strong, is an alien-a symbol of his civil bondage thrust into the sphere of his spiritual life. He has proved to all the world that true religion needs no State pro- tection that it is true religion only when it ceases to be a parasite of the State. To assert that he would destroy religion is a lie. He demands that in his own country there shall be no alien maintained by the state in a position of superiority over his own religion. His claim is just before God and man let him fight for it now with all the ardour of his soul. His enemies accuse him of juggling with statistics to bolster up an unjust claim. They doubly lie he does not juggle with statistics, and his claim is eternally just, if justice be not a figment of the imagination of fervent spirits. It is true that he refuses to bring his statistics of communicants for comparison with those of his enemies. And rightly does he refuse. To admit that any just estimate of comparative efficiency could be based on a comparison of the number of his communicants with those of the alien church would be to renounce the basic principles of his religion. His enemies know this, or ought to know it, and they deliberately misconstrue his reluctance. The time has come for him to make that miscon- struction impossible for the future. What his religious charity has prevented him from saying in the past, he must say now without mincing his words. He reads his Bible, and finds there the simple rule that profession of repentance must precede the grant of the sanctions and sacraments of religion. He has made that the rule of his religion, but not so his enemies he demands satisfaction on that point from his communicants, but his enemies do not. The time has come for him to insist that in his own country his higher standard shall have justice done to it; that a church that offers all the sanctions of religion on a lower standard than his own, shall in his own country be longer specially recognised, protected, and supported by the State. It is not religion but irreligion-it is not the work of God but of the Devil, that obtains the protection of the State in his country to-day. When he speaks out, his enemies will accuse him of self-righteous- ness. The consciousness of the justice of his cause will make that weapon innocuous. And his enemies are already employing viler weapons. The presence of the establishment makes him a social pariah in his own country. The time has come for him to put an end to this. The assumption of social superiority founded on religion is always a hateful thing. It becomes doubly hateful when the assumption is made by those whose religious standard is lower than that which the spirit of the nation dictates, and the majority of the nation accept. In justice to his fathers, who taught him a noble religion in justice to himself, who has preserved the high principles of that great religion in spite of the prospect of social honour to be gained by embracing less exacting principles in justice to his children, who will desire to uphold those lofty and noble principles, he must fight the enemy who comes with State protection to sow taxes in his fair garden. He must fight with all his strength. If there is justice, he is fighting for it; if the right prevails in the end he will win. D.

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