Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/33

21 right to demand ample security." In truth, a natural right of all the community cannot be made to depend in the case of a large part of the community on the mere will and pleasure of the clergy not of their own, but of another part of the community.

I am only concerned now to point out that the National Society, under the influence of something like this sentiment, will not formally endorse its own admitted principle nor consent to enforce its own habitual practice, and that, forsooth, from a feeling of sheer conservatism and supposed consistency; and I venture to predict that if the settlement of this question, which must more or less speedily be made, should need in any way to be disturbed in ten or twenty years' time—which I for one do not anticipate, if it be well considered and loyally accepted now then the Archdeacon Denison of the period will be found asserting the inviolable character of the sacred compact of 1865-6. For the fatal doctrine of finality which has wrought so much mischief, and arrested so much necessary progress, in politics and in theology, will always, I suppose, have its adherents.

Yet even here the National Society is open to an answer out of its own mouth, having said in a letter of the secretary (March 17th, 1849)—"It may reasonably be doubted whether it be expedient to impose upon the founders of schools any system of management which shall not be open to modification by competent authority at some future time." And I venture, therefore, to assume as certain that by changes in the Committee of the National Society, or otherwise, the policy of passive resistance will be now reversed, that the society will enter frankly into the discussion of