The simple truth is, that the history of the Welsh Church is only a crucial illustration of the invariable and inevitable evils that attend State establishments of religion. It is true that in its case these evils appear in a somewhat aggravated form, from the attempt made by the English Government to treat Wales as a conquered country, and to employ the Church as an agent in the extinction of its language and nationality. But when the life of a Christian Church is made to depend not on the faith, love, and liberality of its own members, and the presence and blessing of its Divine Master, but upon the protection and patronage of the civil government, and when, as a necessary consequence, the administration of its affairs falls into the hands of worldly politicians, who use it as an instrument of State, what can be expected but what always has ensued, that its spiritual life should wither, until those who seek real religious nourishment from its breasts are driven in sheer desperation to seek it elsewhere?
Indeed, it is curious that the friends of the Welsh Church, while enumerating the secondary causes which have led to her ruin, do not find their way, which they may do by a single step, to the right conclusion as to the primary cause from which all the others spring. Our Church, they say, has suffered grievous injustice from the alienation of her revenues, from the appointment of unqualified persons to all her highest offices, from the most flagrantly corrupt use of patronage, from the neglect of native talent, from laxity of godly discipline. But who has alienated her revenues? The State. Who has made those unfitting appointments? The State. Who has exercised patronage so corruptly? The State and its nominees, the bishops. Who has overlooked native talent? Again, the State and its nominees. Who has neglected to enforce godly discipline? Still, the State and its nominees. Yet, when it is proposed to strike away the fetters which bind them to the power that has thus maltreated and oppressed them, they hug their chains with frantic vehemence, and even use them as weapons with which to assail those who would fain assist in their liberation.
But let us now inquire into the condition of the Church in our own day. And in the phrase 'our own day,' we suppose we may include a period of twenty-five years. We have previously observed that, for a long time after the revival of religion which stimulated the Dissenters in Wales to such extraordinary activity in providing the means of religious instruction for the people, the Church continued sunk in utter apathy. It is impossible to find a more conclusive illustration of this, than is afforded by the following statement of the comparative progress made in church and chapel accommodation during the first half of the present century. It is founded on the Census Returns of 1851, and appears in Mr. Richards's 'Letters on the Social and Political Condition of Wales,' where it is cited on the authority of a very accomplished statistician, the late Mr. Plint of Leeds. North Wales, in 1801, stood thus as to religious accommodation:—
| Sittings | Proportion to all Sittings | |
| Church of England | 99,216 | 75·2 |
| All others | 32,664 | 24·8 |
| Total | 131,880 | 100·0 |
In the fifty years following, the population increased from 252,765 to 412,114, or 63 per cent. To have kept up the ratio of sittings to population by each of these sections of religionists, the former should have supplied 62,505 sittings, and it did supply 16,164. The latter ought to have supplied 20,576, and it did supply 217,928. The Church of England fell short of its duty 73·5 per cent., and all other denominations exceeded it 950 per cent. The ratio of sittings to population, which, in 1801, was 52·1 per cent. (5·9 less than the proper standard, according to Mr. Horace Mann), was, in 1851, 88·9—that is, 30 per cent. above it.
South Wales, in 1801, stood thus:—
| Sittings. | Proportion to all Sittings. | |
| Church of England | 133,514 | 61·8 |
| All others | 82,443 | 38·2 |
| Total | 215,957 | 100·0 |
The population increased from 289,892 to 593,607, or 105·5 per cent. The quota of sittings required of the Church was 140,854; it did provide 15,204. The other denominations ought to have provided 86,975; they did provide 270,510. The Church of England fell short of its duty 89 per cent.; the other denominations exceeded it 211 per cent. The ratio of sittings to population in 1801 was 74·7 per cent., and in 1851, 84·5. Can the force of antithesis go further.[165]
But we must descend a little more into detail, and furnish some practical illustrations, still taken from the testimony of Churchmen themselves, as to the condition of their Church in Wales in these modern times. In 1849, Sir Benjamin Hall made a speech in the House of Commons, in which he described the state of things at that time, especially in the diocese of St. David's. He spoke of the total neglect of archidiaconal visitations, of the small number of services performed in the diocese, and of the ruinous and deserted state of the churches. Here are a few extracts from his statement, taken, we believe, from the Report of the Commissioners on Education:—
'No. 1. Kemys Hundred.—In the whole country between Fishguard on the north, and the Precelly mountain on the south, there is no day-school, and the state of the church exemplifies the neglect in which the population of the parishes are left. The churches of Llandeilo and Maenchlogag are in ruins. In that of Morfyl the panes of the chancel window were all out, the inside of the church wet, as if just rinsed with water—indeed it had been, for the afternoon was raining.