Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/58

46 Answer 1354.—"No; it leaves a discretion to the local managers, who either impose the religious instruction or not, as they think fit."

All this may be very "untrue" and very "faithless," but as a matter of fact the Roman Catholic body in England does act in this "un-Catholic" way, and inquiries have satisfied me that this exemption is honestly exercised to a large extent. The number of Protestant children in Roman Catholic schools is surprising, and though it would be absurd not to suppose that many converts are thus made, still it is not the uniform result. Pupil-teachers have entered Roman schools as Protestants, and left them as Protestants. And I heard the other day a good story in illustration of the system. A Roman Catholic clergyman was going a journey, and the Sister in charge of his school said to the children, "Let us all say a prayer for Father 's safe voyage and return." "That I won't," said one urchin, "for mother told me when I come to pray for nobody but God!" I quote this, not as a proof of the orthodoxy of the domestic theology of all Protestant parents, but in evidence of the kind of freedom which is practised and tolerated in Roman Catholic schools. And I have seen it shrewdly suggested that it might be quite possible to induce the Roman Catholic body to outbid the Church of England as the "denomination" readiest to educate Nonconformist children under cover of a Conscience Clause. It would be odd policy for the Church of England to profess herself less free or less disposed to accept it. Rome is certainly no more prepared to say that she cannot teach spelling and ciphering without teaching the Immaculate Conception than she is to recognise the infallibility of the Archdeacon of Taunton.

As to Nonconformists, I should be glad that the Church of England should have their respect and confidence, of course;