Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/63

51 One word on the last sentence in the reason. Nothing is said in the clause to bind the clergyman to teach "no faith at all." He is only not to teach the child that doctrine to which the parent conscientiously objects. Legally, he is only bound not to teach what can be proved to be distinctive doctrine of the Church of England, as against the particular sect to which the parent of the child belongs. Practically, it comes to an embargo on certain parts of the Church Catechism. And that a clergyman cannot teach the Christian faith without the Church Catechism I wholly deny. The risk of taking unintentional advantage of the confidence of parents would be met by a general avowal to such parents, "Your child will be taught with the rest in the Bible lesson; I can make no difference beyond what is in the bond—viz., exempting him from learning the distinctive formularies, the Catechism and the Articles." In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred no further objection would be made. In nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand—should they arise—the complaint, if made, could never be substantiated.

15. "Because the Church may not allow the denominational system, which is the only system upon which it is possible for her to co-operate with the State in respect of education, and upon which all the proceedings of the Committee of Council were based from 1839 to 1858, to be impaired by the establishment of a new order of Church schools, which shall be neither denominational nor undenominational, but a confusion of both, and possessing no principle save that of secular education."