Page:The Conscience Clause in 1866.djvu/40

36 will submit yourself to the Roman Catholic teaching and religion." Sir, there is no Conscience Clause for Roman Catholic schools.

A second class holds that the true way to salvation is to read the Holy Scriptures in reliance on one's own conscience and private judgment, aided by the light which the is always willing to impart to the sincere inquirer. This also is admitted to be a religion. It is not the Established religion of the land, but it is the faith of a large and influential portion of our fellow-subjects, of whom I desire to speak always with the esteem and respect which is due to their undoubted piety. The Government does not professedly favour this form of religion more than the other, but it is justly bound to protect it from disturbance in its own schools. Accordingly, there is no Conscience Clause for schools founded on this principle. In the British and Foreign schools, where it is taught and exemplified through all the instruction of the day, no child is permitted to retire from the Bible class, or to except to the authority or interpretations of the teacher. No man can go into these schools and say, "I want the benefit of your teaching for my child, but I do not want him to be taught that, by reading the Holy Scriptures, and by praying to, without any other help or direction, he can find his way to heaven." There is no Conscience Clause for schools founded upon the sole and exclusive right of private judgment.

Next comes the third view of religion; a view which insists upon the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures, vindicates the right of private judgment, and maintains the necessity of absolute submission to the teachings of the ; but which at the same time combines with that belief a fixed conviction that has established in the world a visible Church, that He has provided an Apostolic succession for its direction, and set apart a particular order of men, in whose hands He has placed the ministrations of the Holy Sacraments, and other means of grace. Now I want to know, sir, why this is not a religion as much entitled to the respect and forbearance of the State as any other? Why are its professors to be treated in a different way from those of the other two? There is one distinction that I know of—that this happens to be the religion of