Page:The Lesson of School Board Elections.djvu/12

 the Church is brought to bear upon their religious tone, while the absence of all fetters upon the religious teaching should help it to greater definiteness and vigour. But besides this, their reflex action on the new schools is of at least equal importance. To lose it would be to our view, nothing short of a calamity to the Christianity of England." I think you will agree with me that this is an important and a suggestive extract: and in enlarging upon one or two of the topics which it suggests, I will conclude the remarks which I fear may have detained you too long. It seems to me that we are all sadly prone to forget the lessons which experience should teach us. This, which is almost a common-place with preachers on matters of personal religion, is equally true with regard to the conduct of nations and communities.

Thus, for example, in England we are ready to rush into a system of "unsectarian" teaching, without reflecting that the system has been tried by our intelligent friends on the other side of the Atlantic, and that the result—to religious minds—has not been successful. I trust, therefore, that none of us will be deluded by the smooth working of the School Boards, into the fancy that they can afford to the children of our fellow-countrymen that religious education, which, as Churchmen we are bound to offer. And again, I would respectfully impress upon you that the best chance of preserving anything deserving the name of religious teaching in these new schools is—as the Quarterly Reviewer suggests—the preservation of a very high standard—may I even say the establishment of a higher standard?—in our own. For their sakes—as well as for ours—let us not "shun to declare" to our children "all the counsel of God." I think we are apt, in our poor conception of Divine things, to fancy that we may safely teach this, and omit that, forgetting how infinitesimal after all our best knowledge is, and not recognising, what I believe to be the