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a -.-"' THE msHOP .)OF ST.…

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a THE msHOP .) OF ST. ASAPH ..ON THE DEFENCE OF THE WELSH CHURCH. 0a Tuesday, meetings in defence of the Welsh • Church were held at Shrewsbury, when the principal were tho fietTji of Bradford, Liord K^nyon, •ad the Bishop of St, Asaph. We gire the speech of tk« latter. The BLIJOP OF,ST, AMPH, in speaking to the first resolution, remarked that the question of the position of the Church in Wales was of momentous alike to and thft Church, ana, from whatever point of *iew it might be approached, it Fusrited at the hands of those who discussed it sobox-mir,deduess and honesty. The Church in the foat dioceses of the province of Canterbury, com- pririag the twelve counties of Wales, together with varts of England, did not concern Wales only. I)Wed plainly, it was simply an attempt to attack i th* Church of England as a whole, and to shatter her power by disintegration. The question, therefore, eernd English Churchmen quite as much and <jui(e as profoundly as it affected them in Wales. > 5*tie first argnment for the proposal was the national Argument. Now, he did .not wish to deride Welsh -jUttioofeiity, but it was no easy matter to define it or to opoeify the exact territory inhabited by the Welsh wtwa. The Welsh language—a token but not an almoluto proof of Welth nationality- was steadily fcegdittg from all the border districts, and was less And IMI8 spoken in the towns. There was an extreme Jimenity in defining the essentials of Welsh usUounUty-a difficulty not diminished if they took dcmrrnf and not language as the test of nationality. ^Jonanxou-Sflnao people would see that Welsh riation. Ality «M a charming sediment, but like other 4gkazmit it may be used by dishoneet and interested Mople to promote ideas which are very hurtful and siiechievoKS. Nationality was a dangerous, because! Jk vague, theory. Then all to the work and numbers 4beary. Walts, they were told, was a nation of Dfoceonformists. Whatever might be the virtues of Welch Nonconformity, modesty and depreciation in 4eadmi6ting their numerical strength was not one of them. More than half the people of Wales, according -to Nonconformist official figures, were not Noncon- formists- If numbers were to be the test of the Church Is Wales, ilbe would stand the test better than many Jorge districts in England. If work and activity and itarotioo were to be the test, Churchmen in Walee ?^peaie<i confidently to the record of the last 50 years, be*t opponents pointed to the Parliamentary repre- aontatioa of Wales, but the simple transference of ..4.. votes at the last election would have given the lrieadc of the Church half of the representation of Wales. The Bishop then proceeded to deal at length Wick the spoliation argument, 'nd after quoting .at notable utterances of N Freeman, Lord Selborne, Lord Chancellor Eldon: t',md Brougham, Sir James Wilde, and Mr Gladstone in support of his omm, remarked that the man who could stand up and my that the Church belonged to the nation was ignorant or unprincipled. They were told how «tee<Mt!ful the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Cha-rh had been. Since 1871. the census tttarns prdve that the Church in Ireland had steadily Aecresood in numbers—and it is notable that that decrease has daring the last ten years been 25 per tfeot greater than it was during the previous ten yean. True, the population in Ireland bad also de- creased during the same period by emigration, but it amW be remembered that in Leinster and Ulster, where eaven-eightb8 of the Church population reside, tire take of emigration is ten per thousand, while in Ma&eter and Connaught it is seventeen per thousand. tbc month he had written to the Irish bishops a ask what had been the effect of disendowment upon the Church in Ireland. The Bishop of Tuam said, We kjsfc grievously by disendowment" the Bishop of Kiltaloa, On the whole the blow dealt to us, kcwifver softened, has been most lamentable"; the Stebop of Ossory, M It is the State more than the Cfaureh that has suffered most severely by disendow- ftteat"; the Bishop of Meath. the Archbishop of .Armagh, the Bishop of Derry, and Dr Salmon, the provoet of Trinity College, Dnblin, also wrote in a Similar strain. What their opponents aimed at was the Chareb of England as a whole, and he really thought that le*-g harm wonld be done to the Church of Eng- land by; disestilblishing or by disendowing her than hj dietptegrating her. The disestablishment of the 4&areh in Ireland had been most mischievous and disastrous in its effect, and he (the bishop) was con- -Viaced that similar measures in Wales would embitteir.L hundredfold the relations between Church act Nuaeonformity, throw back the work of the Church, and weaken the influence of religion. They, as CUrekelen. did not claim a penny of endowments to which they could not show the same title that KoBoOf< £ ortmsts could show to theirs. and if it was teA for the State to take from the Church the endow- given to her by her own children, it was jmaUf last to de the same to Nonconformists. £ tee*e&ng, the bishop contended that the inter- <jf secular and spiritual interests by Non. oouiarmi&t ministers in Wales did not promote re- PfioMj and he mentioned that in one small tows in Ida 0WB. diocese where the deacon of a chapel was a j liberator Building Society agent, £ 7,000 had been In& lipy poor members of a poor oommunity. He .ed with suspicion the claims of their opponents ■fhr* ft»y did not desire to reflect upon the clergy of ia Wales, and contended that the proposal for ■ thf drsaefcablishment and disendowment of the Church fa Vfalea did not rest upon truth and justice. Their qppomnt# said the time for argument had gone by. Ait* tree, because they never rested their case upon moiii argument, but upon appeal to passion and ty. and spite and greed. He asked them as JSbgluUi Churchmen to remember that the cause of itfceChareh was theirs as well as the cause of Welsh V^trarshinen. Yell.. more theire, because while the Ouseeb of Wales were defending an outpost, the tfjogtisk Churchmen were charged with the protection ..IIl the gasincitadel.

ICS. LLOYD-GEORGE REPLIES.…

LLANLLUGAN.

ABERMULE.

BUCKNELL.j

CHURCHSTOKE.

KNIGHTON.

SHREWSBURY.

KNIGHTON.

FOOTBALL.

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