Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/46

42 There is no country in the world where, with a free toleration of all religious diversities, with a free action of all religious sects, I wish I were not forced to say even with a direct encouragement of religious aggression, the bulk of the people is still so steadfast to the National Church as in England. In countries where toleration is granted, the Church has ceased to be the Church of the nation: in countries where the Church of the nation still contains the whole people, there is no toleration given. It seems, then, that the position of the English Church, and the hold it has over the mass of the people, despite of commerce and controversies, of free and even licentious discussion, of error and all the vices of a luxurious and self-guiding age, is a great and undeniable proof of its reality and energy It is a remarkable fact that, in other countries of Europe, education has estranged the confidence and attachment of men from the teaching and practice of the Church. It there has hold upon the poor; but the upper classes bear to it an empty, nominal allegiance. For the most part literature also is severed from faith. In England, on the other hand, where education is fullest, the Church is strongest; as education has advanced, the Church has rooted itself to a greater depth; every advance of education will directly confirm the hold of the Church upon the reason and will of the English people. It cannot be said, at least in an agricultural diocese, that it is not the