cribed in an autobiographic note of 1897:--

The primary idea of my early politics was the church. With this was
connected the idea of the establishment, as being everything except
essential. When therefore Dr. Chalmers came to London to lecture on
the principle of church establishments, I attended as a loyal
hearer. I had a profound respect for the lecturer, with whom I had
had the honour of a good deal of acquaintance during winter
residences in Edinburgh, and some correspondence by letter. I was
in my earlier twenties, and he near his sixties [he was 58], with
a high and merited fame for eloquence and character. He subscribed
his letters to me 'respectfully' (or 'most respectfully') yours,
and puzzled me extremely in the effort to find out what suitable
mode of subscription to use in return. Unfortunately the basis of
his lectures was totally unsound. Parliament as being Christian was
bound to know and establish the truth. But not being made of
theologians, it could not follow the truth into its minuter
shadings, and must proceed upon broad lines. Fortunately these
lines were ready to hand. There was a religious system which, taken
in the rough, was truth. This was known as protestantism: and to
its varieties it was not the business of the legislature to have
regard. On the other side lay a system which, taken again in the
rough, was not truth but error. This system was known as popery.
Parliament therefore was bound to establish and endow some kind of
protestantism, and not to establish or endow popery.

In a letter to Manning (May 14, 1838) he puts the case more bluntly:--

Such a jumble of church, un-church, and anti-church principles as
that excellent and eloquent man Dr. Chalmers has given us in his
recent lectures, no human being ever heard, and it can only be
compared to the state of things--

Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia coelum.[99]

He thinks that the State has not cognisance of spirituals, except
upon a broad simple principle like that which separates popery from
protestantism, namely that protestantism receives the word of God
only, popery the word of God and the word of man alike--it is easy,
he says, such being the alternatives, to judge which is preferable.
He flogged the apostolic succession grievously, seven bishops