Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/40

36 into the Parish School. Church Education and Secular Education cannot co-exist in the same place. Either Church Education must get the better—in which case, so long as this remains so, the "Conscience Clause" stands part of the Trust Deed only as a memorial of injustice and false principle, but stands there a weapon for every evil hand, always ready to be raised and turned against the Church as occasion may serve,—or Secular Education must prevail, as it probably will in all cases where there is a "Conscience Clause:" in that case the school is no more a Parish School.

I submit that I have proved my case point by point. If any man has anything to say against it or any part of it, I shall listen, I hope patiently; though it be a hard thing to be patient when the keeping of the Faith and thence the well-being of the Church and the honour of is concerned, patiently to listen to reasoning which I know all the time, as well as I know that I am a living soul, to be unsound and dangerous, and to have for its only recommendation that it substitutes expedients for principles, and is the expression of a loose and shallow and unfaithful time.

The time wants "Broad Church"—that is, no Church at all. (See Article xix. and compare Broad Church with it). The time wants no objective faith—that is, no faith at all. The time wants "Secular Education"—that is, no education at all. It was only the other day that a great meeting was held at the Mansion House, to set on foot a scheme for the so-called "Education" of the middle class of this huge city. It was presided over by the Lord Mayor of London. It was attended by great numbers of chief citizens. It had its origin in a move made by a priest of the Church of England. In the resolutions passed by acclamation at that meeting there is no word about religion. It is only referred to by implication, and the expression that the "Education" was to be "wholly unsectarian." We all know what this means: Church and Sect are to be