However complete the harmony between Church and State
might be, the Church ought to have a corporate life of her own. She
requires such independence as may enable her to be herself, to do her
own work, to act according to the laws of her own being. This is
necessary even that she may discharge adequately her own function in the
nation.
It is not part of my duty now to inquire in what respects the Church of
England lacks this freedom, or whether such readjustments in her
connexion with the State can be expected as would secure it to her,
implying as the making of them would that, although she does not now
include among her members more than half the nation, she is still for an
indefinitely long time to continue to be the official representative of
religion in the nation. But I would urge that when these points are
discussed the question should also be considered whether, in a nation
the great majority in which profess to be Christian, the State ought not
to make profession of the Christian religion, which involves its
establishment in some form, and whether there are not substantial
benefits especially of an educative kind to be derived therefrom for the
nation at large; and if so how this can in existing circumstances be
suitably done.
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