Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/54

42 not by quarrelling with the State for pointing out the unsatisfactoriness to us, and requesting us to make an attempt at conciliation.

6. "Because the Church may not minister to the delusion that it is lawful to do that in a parish school which it is not lawful to do in a parish church."

I confess I am surprised at this so-called reason, which is to be "proof against argument or sophistry." It does not specify what it is that the Archdeacon thinks so wrong in either Church or school. Many things are so, no doubt; but to say, as these words do say, that nothing may be done in a school that may not be done in a Church is nonsense. Why, then, are the two buildings provided? But to put the most favourable construction on his words—viz., that there are no degrees or qualifications in the teaching of Christian truth—I ask, did he never hear of special services in a church? of sermons directed to one particular kind of audience? of sermons for children, sermons for men, sermons for women? Did he never, to come nearer the point, hear of "economy" in preaching? Did he never hear of the difference between the fideles and the catechumens? If distinction between children and children in the school is wrong, at least it cannot be so because such a distinction was never heard of or admitted in the Church!

7. "Because the Church may not place the parish priest in the false position of superintending secular education in the case of any one child in the parish school."

She does not do it, and she is not asked to do it. She binds him, through the National Society, "to superintend the moral and religious instruction of the children." The State binds him to