worship by troops should be consecrated, and it is not his intention to sanction it in other cases." The Committee of the General Assembly seem to me to have got the best of the argument about the moral right of control.

Dr. Marshall, dealing with the legal right, informed the Secretary of State that the Committee would use all constitutional means to alter the law which gave exclusive control to the Episcopacy. They call the law invidious and unjust, and expect to be supported by the country (p. 43); the Church and people of Scotland will not accept the words "after obtaining the sanction of the Metropolitan" (p. 45). Lord George Hamilton takes no notice of these threats; he can afford to rest tranquil with a Government majority of 150 in the House of Commons, especially as there has been no sign of any real pressure by Scottish Members on either side of the House to secure any relief to Presbyterians.

The Church of Scotland has, however, accepted an offer from the Secretary of State of new churches at large military stations where the Church of England will not adjust matters (pp. 27, 32, 41). There are, however, plain objections from the point of view of religious equality: The Church of England remains sole master of the existing buildings; the Church of Scotland and the Wesleyans are to be huddled together, and probably the other Presbyterian Churches and the English Nonconformists will be driven into the same pen. This is a step towards treating them, and the Church of Scotland also, as Nonconformists; while the Church of England gets the older Government buildings for its separate use. The money for the new churches, ordered by a stroke of Lord George Hamilton's has pen, to be paid by the unrepresented Indian taxpayers.

Lord G. Hamilton writes: "The Church of England, to which community the overwhelming mass of the British in India belongs, has been recognised by successive statutes, and in the great majority of cases the churches used by it have been consecrated." In this appeal to Statute Law, I

think he ignores the facts pointed out in my article to show that for two centuries that Church got on without any consecrations at all; he ignores also the unchallenged statements of the Rev. John Taylor, Senior Scottish Chaplain, that an Indian Bishop has no legal right to "exercise any episcopal functions whatsoever, either in the East Indies. or elsewhere," without leave of the Queen, and that these same Letters Patent do not empower him to consecrate churches (p. 34).* Lord George Hamilton refuses pointblank the General Assembly's proposal "to effect legislation to alter the existing law, which hands over the control of churches built for all Protestants to the authorities of one denomination." He declined also to lay down a rule to prevent the consecration of garrison churches at present unconsecrated; but he ordered that this rite shall not be performed, except where there are other buildings for Presbyterian and Wesleyan worship. The general effect seems to me a good step towards further establishment and fresh endowment of the Church of England as THE Church of India, with the usual resort to statute, the Secretary of State for the time being, who may be a Wesleyan, or a Unitarian, or a Roman Catholic, asserting the right to order or forbid a spiritual act like this of consecration, and being morally sure that he will be obeyed, as the Indian Bishops

I think Lord George Hamilton ought at the very least to have noticed the Rev. John Taylor's views, which coincide with those of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and are fully confirmed by Sir C. Ilbert's Digest of Indian Law." Mr. Taylor wrote (p. 34): "The church at Solon has not been consecrated. I shall deem it a favour if you will let me know whether or not the permission of the Bishop's commissary was required to enable our congregation to hold service in it. With reference to this church at Solon, I beg most humbly to suggest that it would save a great amount of trouble and injustice to Church of Scotland congregations in the future if this building were not consecrated. In the Act of Parliament which created the bishopric of Calcutta, and is the charter of Indian bishoprics, I find the following, section 51: 'Provided always, and be it further enacted, that such Bishop shall not have or use any jurisdiction or exercise any episcopal functions whatsoever either in the East Indies or elsewhere, but only such jurisdiction and functions as shall or may from time to time be limited to him by His Majesty by Letters Patent.'"

may be recalled at his pleasure, and depend on him for pay and allowances, furloughs and pensions, and have no episcopal functions, except what this Cabinet Minister allows by Letters Patent.

This is the price the State Church of India has to pay for its legal and social exaltation over other Christian Churches, and for its subsidies out of the Indian Treasury; but I am sure many of its holiest members will be pained at the straightforward, naked terms used by the Secretary of State about putting "pressure" on its ministers to force them to open the consecrated buildings to Presbyterian services. Though the Episcopalians rely, not on the consecration, but on the voluntary trust-deeds as separating the church "from all profane or common uses," and though their liberal assent, until Lord G. Hamilton's time, shows that they do not now, and never did, hold Presbyterian worship to be either profane or common, I am sure that many devout persons, however Erastian, will regret and resent the claim of Cæsar to control a branch of the Church of Christ, especially those whose deepest feelings respond to the battle-cry, For Christ's Crown and Headship." Lord George Hamilton's proposal is as follows: "That when any considerable number of Presbyterians are quartered at a station where the requirement for accommodation is fluctuating and uncertain, and only one place of worship exists, which is consecrated, the authorities of the Church of England shall be pressed to give reasonable facilities for its use by Presbyterians" (p. 46). In reply to Dr. Marshall's piercing questions, "Lord George Hamilton thinks that it must be evident from his letter that the pressure spoken of was pressure by the Government authorities, civil or military, exercised, where necessary, upon the authorities of the Church of England, and the reasonableness of the facilities to be granted would be a point for the consideration of the authorities exercising the pressure."

To me, after many years of official service, it seems undesirable that a powerful Government should interfere,

even with wrong-headed or unreasonable clergymen, in affairs of religion. This will be bitterly resented if, as in Sir Henry Fowler's case, the Secretary of State happens to be a Nonconformist. Moreover, as both the State and the two established national Churches concur, both in their writings and in acts extending over very many years, in plainly holding that it is seemly and right that consecrated churches should be used by Presbyterians, the Secretary of State might well have settled the whole matter once and for all by the simple legal means advocated by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Instead of these trust-deeds giving the whole control to the Anglican Bishops, subject to this State pressure, he ought in future trust-deeds to reserve the rights of other Churches, and might well have passed an Act giving back such rights where they have been incautiously assigned away by the lawyers. All religious bodies gladly obey general laws, but all resent State compulsion in regard to occasional ceremonies and consecrated ministers. No reason has been given for departing from the custom of the army at home, as defined by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman in the Aldershot case, nor for abolishing the ancient custom of the Government of India. As I said before, "Churchmen in India are not Pharisees, neither are they inclined to be unjust to sister Churches; and even if some Ritualists among the Chaplains may have to be tenderly dealt with, the views of these few must not over-ride a long-established practice, well suited to the wants of the army, sanctioned by the Indian Episcopate, and pleasing withal to the Presbyterians." The results would be widespread, and thus far more serious than the bogey conjured up by the Archbishop of Canterbury (p. 8) to frighten Lord George Hamilton-to wit, the possible use of these churches "by Unitarians, for instance, holding doctrines quite outside the Christian faith." No Anglo-Indian believes in this danger, as no Unitarian is likely to become a Secretary of State; and since Lord George Hamilton has avowed his readi

ness to exercise his ecclesiastical discipline by means of pressure," he can easily exorcise the unorthodox beforehand by sending a timely despatch, in the spirit, if without the poetical vigour, of Wesley's well-known hymn :

"The Unitarian fiend expel,

And send his doctrine back to hell."

My comrades in India may object that the Secretary of State, having to consider the feelings of sixty millions of Mussulmans, all Unitarians, must use more cautious rhetoric than what is permitted to hymn-writers or Archbishops. I quite agree, for while we render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, we are loath to concede any jurisdiction over religious doctrines or dogmas. This Blue Book certainly leaves the impression that the time has come to loose those hampering bonds, official and pecuniary, which tie the Church in India to the India Office at Westminster. These Letters Patent, those Government Resolutions, and voluntary trust-deeds, full of habendums and tenendums, must not be reckoned among things Divine.