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67 and ready settlement it would be sure to receive. I do not dwell upon the kind of criticism that the opposition to the clause has received in the best and most thoughtful, as well as in the most hectoring and intemperate, portion of the press. I only say, depend upon it, the course of modern politics, the drift of liberal legislation, will never be reversed. And I do appeal earnestly to all her intelligent sons to beware how they thwart the growing sense of the Church's obligations to be generous and comprehensive which is manifested by our political leaders of all parties and schools—by the party which is supposed to be the patron and conservator of the Church as she is, no less than of that which is accused of surrendering her rights and assailing her faith. I need only mention the well-known advocacy of the clause by a Tory leader like Sir John Pakington, Chairman of the recent Committee of Inquiry into the Working of the Education Department. But I venture to quote a few sentences from the speech of a still weightier politician, from which I rejoice to infer, not only that one of the best judges and highest examples of the value of education, and a gentleman and statesman of the first rank, comprehends the difficulty of extending elementary education to the lower ranks of society, but that by the cordial support of its principle on the part of the Conservative leader, the Conscience Clause has been taken out of the category of Parliamentary party questions.

The Earl of Derby, in a speech at Liverpool, on the 10th of October, 1863, at a meeting in aid of middle-class education, said—

"Before I pass from the observations upon the education given here, I ought to mention one subject, which is not only of the highest but of unparalleled importance—I mean that in all cases and in all the schools—the highest, and the lowest, and the middle—they make an essential part of the education here given,