Between 1850 and 1860 there sat in St. Bride's Vestry, London, a
group of Christian churchwardens who twice a year sent agents to seize
property from my house in Fleet Street, because I refused to pay tithes.
Yet there are people who tell us without tiring, of the depravity of the
French revolutionists and atheists who laid, or proposed to lay hands
upon Church property. Yet these Christian officers, acting under the
eye of an opulent rector in the wealthiest capital in the world, seized
clocks and bales of paper on the premises of heretics, in the name
of the Church! Did not this disqualify the Church as ministers of
consolation? The greatest consolation is justice. Is it not spiritual
effrontery to despoil a man, then invite him to the communion table?
In our day by predatory acts, they confiscate Nonconformist property to
maintain Church schools. Can it be that heaven recognised agents engaged
in petty larceny? Are they intrusted with the keys of heaven? May the
priest be a thief? Can a man expect to be admitted at the Golden Gate
with a burglar's passport in his hand? There exist penal laws against
all who do not stand on the side of faith, which Nonconformists as
well as Churchmen connive at, profit by, and maintain. Is not this
destructive of their spiritual pretensions? Can they preach of holiness
and truth without a blush? No higher criticism can condemn Christianity,
as it is self condemned by resting on predatoriness. No person who does
not stand on the Christian side can leave property for promoting his
views, as a Christian can for promoting his. No Christian conscience is
touched at this disadvantage imposed upon the independent thinker. No
sermon is preached against it. No Christian petition is ever set
up against it. Neither the Church conscience nor the Nonconformist
conscience is stirred by the existence of this injustice. It would cease
if they objected to it. But they do not object to it.