Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/19

15 Now what about the teaching in the Parish Church, if the duty of teaching in the Parish School, and, in its measure, the teaching itself, is to be adjusted according to the supposed claims of the Sects. The House will bear in mind, Management Clauses say, "the moral and religious instruction of all the children attending the school." Then comes "Conscience Clause" proviso, and takes some of the "all" away—restricting the exercise of the duty and damaging the teaching itself. Now the analogous grievance would be that it is a hardship upon a conscience that a Dissenter, in a place too poor or too small to have a meeting-house, should have to sit and listen to formularies and teaching^ in the Parish Church, from which he dissents. Is it contemplated then that the teaching in the Parish Church is to be accommodated and adjusted to meet the case of this grievance? This certainly would bring the Parish Church into harmony with the Parish School under a "Conscience Clause," and it is the only logical result of the "Conscience Clause" principle, unless indeed you sever absolutely between the Parish School and the Parish Church, and make the first a place for secular instruction only in the case of every child, which it is not proposed to do. Now I am for preserving the connection between the two intact; and, as I do not suppose there is any idea, as yet, of putting forward the claim I have adverted to in respect of the teaching in the Parish Church, no more, I say, ought it to be put forward in respect of the teaching in the Parish School. For a principle not applicable to a Parish Church is not applicable to a Parish School. Is it said, every parishioner, Dissenter as well as Churchman, has the same right to come to the Parish Church, but you won't let the Dissenter's child come to the Parish School? No doubt he has the right; but the difficulty proposed is a fallacy. It is not only the presence in the body in either case that is the question—but also what he comes to receive; and this can no more be changed or modified in the one case than in the other. There is also the fallacy of confounding times and circumstances. The Parish Church was built with the money of