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

15 scholars as fixed by {these presents, or as the case may be), and shall not authorise any other religious instruction to be given in the school."

Here I would leave its history, but the few remaining letters in the correspondence to which I am referring are interesting, and to notice them here will enable me to dismiss the National Society henceforward.

The secretary of the society writes on the 1 6th of December, 1863, that the society will take the clause into consideration next February, and asks two questions:—

1. How will it be determined that there is room for one school only?

2. Does the clause exempt from all religious instruction? if not, from how much, and from what?

The Secretary of the Committee of Council answers thus:—

1. There is no room for two schools if the number of children is anywhere under 150.

2. The clause is not intended to exempt children from any religious instruction that their parents are willing they should receive.

On the 5th of February, 1864, the National Society returns what is really its final reply, its first and last and only answer and ultimatum—a single shake of the head, and a simple and solemn Non Possumus:—"They are not prepared to alter the terms of union with the society."

The Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education tries to make them explain themselves. "Do my lords rightly infer that the addition of the clause to an ordinary trust deed would forfeit all or any of the benefits of union with your