Mr. Chamberlain, replying to a communication addressed to him by
the Rev. W. T. McCormick, vicar of St. Matthew's, Brighton, discredits the report,—which is indeed absurd • enough,—that any attempt is to be made next Session to disestablish the English Church. He holds that the Welsh Church will be attacked first, and then the Scotch. If the Scotch Church is not attacked till after the Welsh Church has been disestablished, we think that even the Scotch Establish- ment will be pretty safe. There is no separate Welsh Church, unless, indeed, there be a separate Cornish, or Yorkshire, or East Anglian Church. Mr. Chamberlain expresses the hope that, when English Disestablishment comes, it will be due to the growing conviction of English Churchmen that their Church would gain by separation from the State, and he does not think that " the matter is yet ripe for settlement." There we quite agree with him. But can the Welsh Church, which is but a part of the English Church, be distinguished from it, any more than the ripe spot on an unripe peach can be gathered without plucking the whole peach ? Even Mr. Gladstone has given it as his opinion that that disentangling of the Welsh Church would be a most delicate and difficult enterprise.
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