Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/27

23 decent reason to be given for mashing up children of the Church and children of the Sects into one till you get a sufficient number to build a school for. Are numbers to be made in this way the test of things religious? Is a parish school a thing of numbers only? Is it not monstrous that such a proposition should ever have been gravely made at all? Is it not a bad time with a people when such a proposition is not scouted as soon as it is made.

But, if, as it has happened in many cases, parishes show a sufficient number of Church children to build a school for with help from Government, what has it to do with the question of their rightful claim that there arc Dissenters in the place who want a school too.

Mr. Lingen would have not only Dissenters in esse considered, but Dissenters in posse. This is "liberality" caricatured, and may be dismissed with a laugh. There is another suggestion which may be noticed here. In a late letter, published in The Guardian he would appear to be trying his hand at a compromise or something of the kind—that children, whose parents object to the religious teaching of the Parish School may be withdrawn from it at certain hours. Now, nothing could be more vicious than this, or practically more absurd. It is vicious, because it forces such children into the school for "secular education" only. Besides it contradicts the great principle that the religious teaching of the school is not a thing apart, but, as it were, a golden thread running throughout the whole piece, and binding all the parts together, so that what was begun with prayer in the morning ends with prayer in the evening. It is practically absurd, because it seems impossible to say what is to be done with the "withdrawing children." Are they to go into a corner of the school, and look on in silence, or into the play ground and make a noise. The whole notion is really ridiculous, and it is very astonishing that some great authorities should have thought it worthy a moment's consideration. If then there be