Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/35

31 fall into the hands of that community which has the best and most efficient teachers. Let the Church, then, make her contribution to this work; and, as an earnest, let us give the careful instruction of 14,000 or 15,000 catechists—a contribution which needs no grants of public money, no lists of private subscriptions. We possess it already. The clergy of England are the catechists of England; and this is the true basis of all national education in this country. Any scheme which thwarts or entangles the free exercise of the catechetical office of the Church is, so far, a pure evil; any scheme which excludes or slights it is shallow and feeble, and certain of defeat. Who can foretell what a work may be done in a generation by the united action of the whole English clergy acting as the catechists of the nation; what an order of light and purity may arise out of the darkness and corruption of our mines and factories; what a restoration of peaceful and paternal rule, of dutiful and glad obedience; what a healing of intense and inveterate schisms; what a power of beneficence and of benediction to the whole empire, and to the world.

It is with the highest satisfaction I am able to close this subject by adding, that the heads of the Church have proceeded to seize the opportunity thus afforded, by taking most effective steps towards providing education for the districts specially contemplated in the late clauses, together with the mining population; and that their undertaking has