THE ENDOWMENT OF RELIG-
ION AND CHRISTIAN LIB-
ERALITY IN THE LIGHT
OF WELSH HISTORY.

BY REV. R. G. JONES, D.D., UTICA, N. Y. At first sight the endowment of religion, whether by State or individual, appears very desirable and delightful. There are many professing Christians who regard the contribution-box as a great nuisance, and think that collections for the support of religion are necessary evils to be borne because no better plan can be devised.

To such it would appear very desirable to have the Government build a splendid house of worship, furnish it thoroughly, find a good preacher, a gentleman well educated, pay his salary, with all other expenses--the organist, the chorister, the sexton, and everything else-then invite them to take their seats in well-cushioned pews to enjoy good music and hear a good sermon, all free.

But as the State must always control a church where it pays the expenses, perhaps it would be better to have some good Christian at his death leave enough money to build a church and an endowment to pay all expenses. But Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Therefore it can neither be controlled or supported by the Governments of this world, nor in any other way successfully, except by the voluntary contributions of the living worshipers.

Good men thought that the Millennium had come when Constantine and the Roman Empire began to aid the church. But that was the greatest calamity and curse that ever befell the church of Christ, for then it became the creature of the State, the slave of earthly governments and a false church. John, in the Book of Revelation, aptly describes the change. In chapter 12th is a woman clothed with the sun, the true bride of the Lamb,

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obliged to flee into the wilderness from the persecution of the dragon. In chapter 17th there is a woman coming out of the wilderness clothed with all earthly adornments, depending upon an earthly government, pretending to be the bride of the Lamb, but drunken with the blood of saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus Christ.

It is very singular that good men did not observe the mistake for ages. Many saw that the church and State did not work well together, but they thought they were not properly adjusted, and that able body, the Westminster Assembly, spent years trying to fix matters and harmonize church and State.. Yea, even the Puritans of New England spent many years trying the same thing. It does not seem to have occurred to any great number until the time of the immortal Roger Williams, that church and State could never work together. New England gave it up, and other countries have followed. Professedly there is no State church in America, yet we find the Government giving and the church receiving aid under some excuse or another frequently.

During the last six years, Protestants received nearly three-quarters of a million from the general Government for teaching religion to the Indians. The Catholics received a great deal more. Now the Protestants have all refused to receive any more Government aid for that purpose, and therefore the Government must refuse to aid Roman Catholics. The State of New York is dreadfully robbed in this direction. Within a few years past the city of New York has given property to Roman Catholics valued at three and a half million dollars. In seventeen years they have had $11,000,000. It is said there are taken from the New York treasury every year $600,000, of which $25,000 are

given to the Jews, $65,000 to Protest ants, and $510,000 to the Roman Catholics. "National Danger in Romanism," by Rev. I. J. Lansing, p. 312, vol. 2, No 3 B.

The above shows that there are some in America who aim at uniting church and State. That this is not desirable, but very dangerous, is illus trated by the history of the connection in Wales. The English Government has been for about four hundred years supporting a church in Wales which professes to have been there since the days of Paul! But it has proved a failure, leaving the Welsh nation in ignorance and total moral darkness until the rise of dissenting denominations within the last three hundred years, who, without State aid and in spite of persecution, opposition, discouragements and poverty, have evangelized the Principality and made it morally and spiritually the wonder of all nations who know it. Now the nation, understanding the nature of Christ's kingdom and seeing the uselessness of a State church, has arisen in its might to demand that the English Government sever the connection between the church and the State in Wales.

Scotland is also aroused and England will soon awake and take the matter up in earnest The Archbishop of Canterbury cries out that Gladstone is robbing the church in Wales, whereas it is the State church that has been robbing Wales during the last four hundred years, without giving it any adequate compensation.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has not cared enough for Wales to visit it once in the last eight hundred years, till within the last four years he came because the church is in danger. But the end has come on the unnatural and wicked connection in that part of the British Isles, if not throughout the whole land.

Whatever good Gladstone may

do by giving Home Rule to Ireland, he will do much more good to the church and the world at large by the liberation of the church from the State in Wales. That act will in ages to come, as men understand better the nature and spirituality of Christ's kingdom, redound much more to his honor than any other act of his illustrious life. I believe the Church itself will gain much by the change. I am sure the nation will.

Any endowment for the support of a church is injurious. 1t kills the spirit of liberality. The plan of Christ has been, and still is, that the preacher of the gospel shall live by the gospel; for him that is taught in the word to contribute to the support of him that teacheth. This brings the teacher and the taught into sympathy, without which the preacher of the gospel will do little or no good. There is a law always in force that every one shall receive a blessing in proportion to his liberality. He that soweth (giveth) sparingly shall reap sparingly; he that soweth liberally shall reap abundantly.

If the minister is supported by the State or any other endowment left by good people, there is danger of his growing careless of his work and his flock, as many have; while on the other hand a free gospel is not appreciated, however good, pure and zealous a preacher may be. Even Paul had to confess that he had wronged the Corinthians by preaching the gospel free unto them. 2 Cor. 12: 13.

The Welsh people are very fond of hearing the gospel preached and very anxious for religious knowledge. The Government has for hundreds of years provided places of worship in every parish and placed in there a gentleman and a scholar, some very good preachers. But the people did not attend to hear them when they had no dissenting preachers. Neither do they now, when the majority attend

the means of grace every Sabbath. They have built places of worship at their own expense and provided for themselves a ministry sometimes educated, often not. Yet they support their ministers and appreciate their preaching.

The unpopularity of the Episcopal church in Wales is due to its being endowed by the State and not to its ministers, as a rule. Every endowment does the same mischief. Many old Nonconformists about two hundred years ago endowed several dissenting churches in Wales. Nearly all so endowed have either died out or gone over to Unitarianism.

As the celebrated Williams of Wern came once in sight of Troedrhiwdalar, an old Congregational church in Brec onshire, he exclaimed, "Here you are two hundred years old, an endowment of fifty pounds a year would have killed you long ago." Another great evil connected with State or other endowment is the chance given for wicked men to rule the church, or as John puts it in Rev. 11: 2, "The Gentiles treading the courts of the temple and Holy City under foot."

But

All earthly governments are made up of mixed characters, Jews, infidels, libertines and many good men. they are all rulers over the church if it receives State aid. They have the right to determine its creed and order all its religious ceremonies ; yea, choose its ministers and locate them. Such a body cannot appreciate the spirituality and purity of religion. They are quite as likely to favor individuals and

churches far from the truth as those who walk uprightly if they conform to some outward tests.

LITERARY NOTES.

SEVERAL new works of interest will shortly be issued from the Welsh press. It has been announced for some time that we are to have volumes of sermons by the Revs. W.

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Evans, Aberaeron; B. Davies, Trelech; and the late Rev. Dr. John Thomas. Now it is stated that the Revs. Dr. John Hughes, Carnarvon, and Thomas Roberts, Mold, are preparing volumes of sermons, and the son of the late Dr. David Saunders is editing a volume of his father's sermons. The Rev. 0. L. Roberts is writing descriptive sketches for "Yr Oriel Annibynol"; the Rev. J. Spinther James, M. A., is writing a History of the Baptists; and the Rev. J. Evans-Owen, Llanberis, purposes bringing out a short Probert, whose commentary on the Romans History of the Independents. Dr. Lewis has sold so well, is engaged in writing another on one of the Epistles. Dr. David Roberts, Wrexham, has completed the memoir of the "Prince of Welsh Areachers"Dr. W. Rees; the Rev. Hugh Rees; the Rev. Hugh Jones, Liverpeol is preparing a biography of the late Rev. Samuel Davies; and Dr. Cynddylan Jones has been engaged to write the memoir of the late Rev. E. Matthews, Ewendi.

MR. JOHN GWENOGFRYN EVANS, the Welshpalægraph, is doing evcellent work in bringing out Old Welsh texts. The "Red B ok of Hergest." in two volumes-1, "Mabinog

ion": 3, "Brut"; the Black Book of Carmarthen," the "Book of Llan Daf," have already been published, and the works of "Dafydd ab Gwilym" are in preparation.

AFTER an interval of several years the third part of the "New Dictionary of the Evans, including the whole of the letter C, Welsh Language," be the Rev. D. Silvan is now completed, and will shortly be issued to subseribers, by Messrs. W. Spurrell and and Son, Carmarthen.

THE Rev Dr. Pan Jones. Mostyn, is preparing a memoir of the "Three Brothers of Llanbrynmair"-i. e., Rev. John Roberts (J. R., S. Roberts, M. A. (S. R.), and Gruffydd Rhisiard.

PROFFESOR Boyd Dawkins lectured on Britain under the Romans before the Chester and North Wales Archæoligical and Historical Society last week.

PROFFESSOR Silas Morris, M. A., has been

appointed editor of "Seren Gomer." in succession to the Rev. H. Cernyw Williams of Corwen.

NOTES FROM WALES.

THE REV. Rowland Williams (Hwfa Mon), Llangollen, has acccepted the invitation of the Committee of the Chicago Eisteddfod to adjudicate on sorne of the chief poetical competitions and to represent the Welsh bards at the national gathering.

THE marriage of Mr. J. E. Lloyd, M.A., Registrar of the University College of North Wales, and Clementina, daughter of the late Mr. J. C. Miller of Aberdeen, took place at the Belmont Street Congregational Church, Aberdeen.

The Rev. Dr. T. C. Edwards leaves Cardiff in May to resume his old pastorate at Edwardsdale, Pa.

AT the last Monthly Meeting of the Lleyn and Eifionydd Calvinistic Methodists, it was resolved to send the sympathy of the meeting with Principal Owen, of Lampeter, on the death of his father, who was a faithful deacon of the Calvinistic Methodist Church at Llanengan.

As the result of visits made by the Rev W. Hopkin Rees of Chi Chou, China, to the Welsh Colleges at Bangor, Brecon, and Carmarthen, three students from each college have offered themselves to the London Missionary Society.

MISS H. M. HUGHES of the Training Department of the University College of South Wales, has boen awarded one of five special Gilchrist Traveling Scholarships of £100 to enable her to spend two months in America this year in studying and reporting upon secondary schools and institutions for the traing of women.

A SPECTACLE was seen on Sunday recently in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, which has not been seen for some hundreds of years. The occasion was a sermon by Father Ignatius, of Llanthony Abbey. There was an enormous congregation, the galleries being packed with undergraduat-s, while the body of the church was crowded with senior members of the University.

THE remains of Mr. R. Iwan Jenkyn, F. K. H. S., who died lately, at the age of thirty five, were buried at Aberystwyth. While in

charge of an elementary school at Bethesda he instituted St. David's Day concerts which were most popular. Two years ago he undertook the editorship of the Glamorgan Free Press.

CONGREGATIONALISTS are making preparations to celebrate the tercentenary of the martyrdom of Penry, Greenwood and Barrowe, who were executed in London in the early part of 1593 for adherence to the principle of freedom of worship, which was an article of faith with the old independents. Greenwood and Barrowe were hanged at Tyburn, after having been once carted to the gallows and then reprieved for one day, while John Penry-who declared, at the mockery of a trial given him, "If my blood were an ocean sea, and every drop thereof

were a life to me, I would give them all, by the help of the Lord, for the maintenance of my confession"- -was executed at Southwark.

ST. DAVID CELEBRATIONS.

St. David celebrations seem to increase every year. Banquets or entertainments were held this year at New York, Wilkesbarre, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Racine, Minneapolis, Scranton, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Washington, Buffalo, San Francisco, Fair Haven, West Pawlet, Vt., Cleveland and in various other places through the country.

THE NEW YORK ST. DAVID'S SOCIETY held their annual banquet at the Metropolitan Hotel, where a large number of the loyal sons of Wales assembled to do honor to their fatherland, their patron saint and the traditions of their ancestors. Hon Ellis H. Roberts, president of the Society, acted as to istmaster. Among those present were ex-Judge and Mrs. Noah Davis, Dr. and Mrs. P. et, Horace B Perkins, Miss Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel H. Arnold, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jones, Mr. and Mrs. R. W, Hughes, Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Williams, Wm. James, John E. James, C. F. Doane, C. F. James, the Rev. and Mrs. D. Parker Morgan, Miss Maria Appleton, Edward D. Appleton, Mr. and Mrs. Mosher, Mr. and Mrs. M. V. Powell, Mr. and Mrs. William A. Rees, Mr. and Mrs. E. Saunders, Miss E. Evans Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Edwards, Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Lewis, Miss Lewis, Rev. and Mrs W. C. Roberts, Mrs. Ellis H. Roberts, Ellis H. R. Brooks, Miss M. A. Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Clark Bell, Mrs. W. H. McElroy, George M. Lewis, Mr. and Mrs. Richard V. Lewis, Mr. and Mrs. William Miles, Jr., Dr. and Mrs. Warren A. James, Mr. and Mrs. Henry N. Morgan, Miss Carrie Morgan Howell C. Rees, Miss Clara Thomas, Miss Marie Thomas, Thomas C. Powell, Mr. and Mrs. John G Jenkins, Miss Eva Jenkins, Miss Lille Jenkins, William Powell, D. Jenkins, Hugh Roberts, William Jeremiah.

After calling the meeting to order Mr. Roberts said: "It is my great privilege to bid you welcome to this festal board. I cannot deny myself the privilege of asking you to recall the memories of the land of our Fathers, those shores which the sea washes so beautifully, those vales beside the rivers, those picturesque mountains. We shall never forget the scenery while a drop of blood tingles in our veins." Mr. Roberts ended by asking all to rise and drink to the President of the United States. "The Star Spangled Banner" was sung in response. All then rose again and drank to the Queen