SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
The English and Scotch are said to be rapidly coming to our ideas of the separation of church and State. A San Francisco exchange of July 11, contains the following interesting facts in regard to the disestablishment of the English church:— "The population of England connected with the English church numbers about 13,500,000, the opposition numbers 11,000,000. In Scotland, dissenters from the Established Church are already in the majority. The most influential dissenters in England are the Methodists, Independents and Baptists. The Methodists, including all their subdivisions, which are many, have, according to official returns, 9000 places of worship. Independents, 3500, and Baptists 2000. "The connection between church and State brings about some things that look and sound exceedingly queer to American eyes and ears, which have been trained under institutions founded upon principles which Mr. Jefferson learned from 'that little Baptist church.' For instance, efforts have been made to revise the book of Common Prayer, which in its English form is far more glaringly and egregiously obnoxious and intolerable to evangelical minds, than the American Revision. [We have heard of a conscientious English missionary bishop who, when he had certain services to perform, would habitually borrow an American Prayer Book.] But in order to revise the Book of Prayer, every proposed change must be laid before Parliament and passed upon just as any other law, or any change in the law. "The Standard commenting upon the matter says: 'Undoubtedly the book could be improved in some respects, but to set a body to doing the work, which is composed of not only Episcopalians, but dissenters of all creeds—Catholics, Jews and Bradlaughs—would seem to be rather an incongruous piece of business, and likely to result in changes which would be no improvement. Only think of our Congress revising a prayer-book!' Disestablishment must come, the consciences of pious Englishmen in the State Church cannot much longer submit."