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land, or of contentment in that country, or of settling the Irish question, while this enormous wrong stares an insulted nation in the face, and by giving a legal ascendency to a small minority, tends only to perpetuate the feuds and animosities which have warred in all ages against the prosperity of the country. There is a subtle power in this ascendency which penetrates and spoils all the springs of social life. The statesman that does not see this is blind; while he who is conscious of the existence of the evil, but shrinks from grappling with it because of difficulties, is either a political coward or a political trader.

New Publications.

THE ALMANACK FOR THE TIMES-For 1851. 2d.

NEW SERIES OF TRACTS.

1. CHURCH PROPERTY AND REVENUES. Price Fourpence. 2. "IT'S THE LAW;" or, the CHURCHMAN'S DEFENCE OF CHURCH RATES EXAMINED. Price One Penny.

3. THE CHURCH IN CHAINS. Price One Penny.

4. SCOTLAND AND ITS KIRK. Price Threepence.

5. FACTS AND FIGURES RELATING TO THE IRISH CHURCH. Price Three Half-pence.

6. THE CHURCH IN WALES.

ADDRESS to CHURCHMEN.
ADDRESS to WESLEYANS.

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.

1. The Anti-state-church Movement; its Design and Tendency. (8 pages.)

2. Plain Words to Perplexed Churchmen. (4 pages.)

3. A Side View of the StateChurch. (2 pages.)

4. "Political Dissenters !"-the Cry Examined. (4 pages.)

5. Who Constitute the National Church? (4 pages.)

6. A Clergyman's Reasons for Leaving the Establishment. (4 pages.)

7. The State-church not the Cause of England's Greatness. (2 pages.)

*8. Questions to Churchmen about Church-rates. (2 pages.)

1d., or 6s. per 100.

d., or 4s. per 100.

*9. Plain Questions Plainly Answered. (2 pages.)

10. A Model Law. (2 pages.) *11. A Question that Concerns Everybody. (4 pages.)

*12. Ought there to be a StateChurch? (2 pages.)

13. The Union of Church and State. (2 pages.)

14. Anti-state-churchmen vindicated by their Opponents. (8

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* May be had in the form of Hand-bills (1s. 6d. per 100); No. 10, as a Placard for street-posting, (4s. 6d. per 100); or ornamentally printed and mounted on Rollers and varnished (9d. each).

MIALL AND COCKSHAW, PRINTERS, HORSE-SHOE COURT, LUDGATE HILL.

Tracts of the British Anti-state-church Association.

. NEW SERIES.-No. 6.

THE

CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT

IN

WALES:

ITS PAST HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION.

"But for the efforts of Dissenters, Wales would have been a colony of the devil long ago."

Rev. W. Howels, of Long Acre Episcopal Chapel.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR THE BRITISH ANTI-STATE-CHURCH ASSOCIATION, AT ITS OFFICES, 4, CRESCENT, BRIDGE-STREET, BLACKFRIARS.

1851.

Price Threepence.

LONDON:

MIALL AND COCKSHAW, PRINTERS, HORSE-SHOE-COURT, LUDGATE HILL.

THE

CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT IN WALES.

INTRODUCTION.

WALES, strictly speaking, has no church establishment of its own. The natives of the Principality never speak of the Establishment among them as their Church, or as the Church of Wales. It is always, without exception, "the Church of England." And the name is as apposite as it is general. To all intents and purposes, it is the Church of ENGLAND. Formerly, there was an ancient British church, which for long ages resisted the power and the pretensions of the Church of Rome, as it appeared in England. That church, however, like the Sovereignty of Wales, passed away, after a noble struggle for its independence. When the church fell, the civil power was speedily crushed. The church, when it became subject to the see of Canterbury, became subject also to the kings of England, and in their hands it proved a fatal weapon when turned against Welsh Liberty and Independence. From that day to the present, it has been, like every state church, a political engine, in the power, and employed in the service, of successive governments.

The English public have been long accustomed to the cry of "Justice to Ireland," and, by its very frequency, have been almost led to forget the fact, that other por

tions of the empire equally stand in need of justice. The existence of a Protestant Establishment is considered as the great grievance of Ireland, and loud complaints are constantly made that an anomaly so palpable should be permitted to continue. Did politicians look at home, they would find another branch of the Establishment-system, from which the people are equally alienated. The injustice of taxing a whole people to support the church of the few is perpetrated, not only in Ireland, but in Wales, and that, if possible, under more aggravated circumstances.

The Church in Ireland is the church of one-eighth of the population. The church of England in Wales, is the church of only one ninth, or, according to some recent statistics, of a far less proportion of the people. In the Church of Ireland, generally speaking, the valuable preferments are held by Irishmen. In Wales, on the contrary, all the sees are held by Englishmen; and it has been lately asserted, that not more than one dean can write a sermon in Welsh, read his bible in Welsh, or write the days of the week without the aid of a dictionary. The wealthiest benefices are in the hands of Englishmen, who are in general near relatives of the bishops: a class of spiritual officers, who have never been guilty of neglecting to provide for their own households.

The moral condition of the Principality has of late received unusual attention from the public press of England, which has maligned the character of the people, and grossly caricatured the actual state of religion among them. To those acquainted with the details of Welsh history, the only wonder must be that any religion whatever is to be found in Wales. For centuries the church ruthlessly fought for the destruction of national independence. For centuries since, it has exerted all its energies for the crushing of the vernacular tongue, and the annihilation of the national existence of the Welsh. To anglicize the people in language and habits, it crushed popular liberty; kept from the people

*The Real Church of Wales,; p. 13. London: Partridge and Oakey.

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