Excerpt from Speech of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P., In the House of Commons, May 16, 1873: On Mr. Miall's Motion for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church Which my hon. Friend the member for Bradford founded himself in the course of his argument. With respect to my hon. Friend the member for Bradford himself, I have often had the pleasure of hearing him. I am always certain to find in his speeches great ability, careful examination and research, and evidence palpable of goodwill towards all men. (hear, hear.) Let us consider what the motion of my hon. Friend is. He invites us to assert five propositions. The first is, that the Establishment by law of the Churches of England and Scotland involves a violation of religious equality the second is, that it deprives those Churches of the right of self-government the third is, that it imposes on Parliament duties which it is not qualified to discharge the fourth is, that it is hurtful to the religious and political interests of the community; and the fifth is, that, therefore, they ought no longer to be maintained. I am not prepared to adopt these pro positions. I feel it impossible to discuss them in the manner in which they ought to be discussed. They are propositions with an enormous sweep and volume, on which he has entered at some length, but not at a length nearly sufficient to do justice to the vast importance and immense complications of the matters involved. They have been, and may be again, the subject of lengthy and comprehensive! Speeches. They may occupy for months and years, at some period or other, the attention of this House; but I do not think that we are qualified at this moment, any more than we are disposed, to attempt to deal with them in a manner which their importance and difficulty would demand. My hon. Friend has stated one side of the case. He founded himself not on a violation of religious equality, but upon the sufferings of the Church of England itself, upon the difficulties that it undergoes, Upon the hopeless helplessness of its condition, upon the proposition which he asserts that there are but few members of the Church of England who will not admit that if she were disassociated from the State she would be relieved from many disadvantages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.