Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/36

24 II. I would pass at once to some of the larger questions of principle which are involved in the application of the clause, but that so much misconception and misrepresentation has taken place with reference to its actual terms and its practical effect, that I think it desirable, if the meeting will allow me, to deal with these in some detail. And it strikes me that the most convenient and effective method of doing so, in addressing a meeting mainly clerical, will be to meet the issues involved, at the points which have been already publicly raised, in the Church Congress at Norwich. The notable features, as you know, of the discussion there were a speech from Archdeacon Denison, containing seventeen reasons for resisting the clause, and the production of a correspondence between a country clergyman and the Council Office, which had the effect of converting a distinguished advocate of the clause into an opponent of it. And between them they raised all or nearly all the issues that can be raised, in so practical and so comprehensive a shape, that I need make no