Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/52

40 in which excellent results have arisen. Not only have converts from Dissent been obtained by this means, but the Church principles of the school have been more clearly defined, brought into relief, and ingrained in the Church children, in consequence of the difference of treatment between them and the children of Dissent." This surely stands to reason. And if any one replies that, after all, not having to learn the Catechism is certain to be more popular, prized as a greater "privilege," than having to learn it, and that there is more chance of the exempted children pitying the catechised than the catechised the exempted, I would ask him, Did he never see or hear of the effect of setting up a special department or a modern section in an old-fashioned public school? Surely it would be a long time before Nonconformist children had by any means the best of it in a Church of England school. I am aware that the objection raised goes deeper than this, but I seriously answer the Archdeacon by saying that he is not called upon by the Conscience Clause to deny that the Catechism is a "privilege" and "essential;" on the contrary, it gives him the opportunity of putting the "essential" nature of the "privilege" in the clearest light he can possibly contrive.

5. "Because the Church may not minister to the delusion that the reading of the Bible is the same thing with teaching and learning religious truth."

The Church is not asked to do so. Nor am I aware that the opinion which the Archdeacon describes as a "delusion" is ever maintained by the advocates of the Conscience Clause, viz., that bare reading of the Bible is equivalent to teaching and learning religious truth. I do not suppose, however, that the Archdeacon means to deny that such reading is a very essential element in that teaching and learning. "We need not, however, discuss it. No clause, no rule, no interpretation has ever limited the religious instruction to reading the bare letter of