Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/45

41 Again:—
 * Because a "Conscience Clause" stereotypes for a parish school a system which is faithless and secular, in place of one which is faithful and missionary.

Again:—
 * Because a "Conscience Clause" degrades the office of the parish priest;
 * Because it degrades the office of the parish schoolmaster;
 * Because it lowers the character and impairs the power of the teaching of the Church upon the minds of all the children of the school to which it is applied.

For these reasons, and for others which I do not repeat here, of equal force and cogency, I say that a "Conscience Clause" is neither "just" nor "safe."

If every other reason for having nothing to do with any manner of "Conscience Clause" could be got over, this reason cannot be got over—that to accept it damages the whole position of the Church, and impairs its power of holding fast the trust committed to it, to teach the Faith.

Now, seeing that everything is to be said against *' Conscience Clause," and nothing for it, the question naturally arises. How came the Committee of Council to introduce such a thing at all?

The question is easily answered, but the answer is not creditable to the introducing body.

They were told that they must cut down the education grant. How was it to be done? It might be done, as it has been, in two ways. 1. By "Revised Code;" 2. by "Conscience Clause." The second of these two ways of saving money was, no doubt, welcomed by the Council office with an especial welcome; being a great step towards the establishment of the comprehensive and undogmatic, that is, in the end, of the secular system. For a comprehensive system which comprehends a child to whom you