lifications as to reading, writing and accounts, and of these I should require actual proof before I admitted them, their occupation in all large parishes would quite preclude that regular attention to a school, on which its success depends. But they are still more objectionable on account of their dependance upon the good-will of the clergy, though this I suspect to be the chief reason of their being pointed out by the Bill as suitable candidates.* The choice of the master is vested, as it ought to be, in the parishioners, who have to pay him, and who alone are interested in his competency; but this choice is subject to the approbation of the parson of the parish, who may reject the successful candidate, though coming before him with all the suffrages of the parish, and direct the parish officers to issue notices for a new election. "The parson has here," says Mr. Brougham triumphantly, "a veto, not a nominal, but a real and effectual veto." He is to assign no reasons. He is invested with a species of royalty. His sic volo is enough. By this means, the situation, says our popular senator, is prevented from becoming a matter of canvass, and the pined mode of performing a religious service." Of the desirableness of raising the characters of such parish-clerks as this, there can be no doubt; but whether the whole frame of national education should be bent and shaped to this object, and whether an act of parliament should be passed, the preamble of which asserts the necessity of teaching good morals, while one of the clauses provides for the possi bility of such a creature as the clerical mole-catcher being the parish teacher, are different questions. In so objectionable a Bill, one is glad to discover any provision which bespeaks a regard to liberty in the mind of its framer, and therefore it must not be overlooked, that it is proposed to be enacted that the schoolmasters under the act shall not be entitled by their houses and gardens, which are to be allotted them by parishes, to vote for members of parliament. Why is this, but because it is foreseen that in the constitution of the system, they will be under the influence of the clergy? As good an argument, surely, against the whole system, as for the denial of the elective fran chise. majority are precluded from electing an improper person. This is striking a blow on the face of democracythough the worst insult is that of giving the people a voice, and then rendering it nugatory by the clerical veto.. Contemplating the two last provisions of the Bill, we might almost be justified in giving it the title of "A Bill for raising the spiritual and temporal condition of that ancient order, the parish-clerks, and for enabling the clergy to exercise an absolute power over certain of his Majesty's subjects, and to stultify the proceedings of their parishioners." The visitation of the schools is to be all clerical. The officiating minister of the parish is to have access to them for the purposes of examination at all times. The ordinary of the diocese is ex officio visitor. By himself or the dean, or chancellor or archdeacon, he may remove the master or superannuate him on a pension after a certain term of service. The design of "uniting and knitting the schools" with the Church Establishment, is still and well kept up. All, in short, is of a piece. The minister, but with the advice of the churchwardens, it is true, though to them is given no veto, is to fix the rate of "Quarter-pence," as it is called, for the schooling. And he again, with the same advice, may recommend any very poor child to be admitted without paying. What is this but giving him the power of granting education freely to the children of his own servants, dependants and favourites; and in reality providing a gratuitous educafor offspring of poor Churchmen, which it is not likely that poor favour with the parish priest, whose ministrations they desert, or shew by their absence that they disregard, to obtain for their own families? Dissenters would ever be in sufficient Again, the minister is to fix the hours of teaching and the times of vacation. No book is to be used in the schools without his consent. The * By another notable provision for enabling the parson to rule in his own parish, he is to have the approval or rejection of any usher whom the master may wish to introduce into the school. 30 The Nonconformist. No. XIX. Bible is to be a school-book, but he may select what passages from it he pleases. And what more can the most eager proselytist desire than this? By a cento of unconnected texts, strung together with a little art, he may patch together a system which no Roman Catholic, no Unitarian, no Protestant Dissenter of any description, can suffer his children to learn. And I will not * For instance, he may string passages that, in an unnatural connexion, may insinuate the worst errors or the most offensive bigotry. He may take the following, and, "without note or comment," make them speak a language abhorrent to the pure Scriptures: The church that is at Babylon. 1 Pet. v. 13. This is no doubt very extravagant, but Church bigotry has done as extravagant things before now; and whether the thing be ever done or not, the objection is equally strong against putting the power of doing it into the hands of thousands of persons, amongst whom it is no breach of charity to imagine, that there may be persons lacking discretion or candour. But we may suppose another selection and framing together of texts which would be equally unjustifiable, wicked and mischievous, but which is not altogether without precedent. There are in some school, then, we will take for granted, children of Unitarian parents, with whom the parish parson may be in controversy, and to whom for this reason he may owe no good will. He wishes to mortify his antagonists, and he strikes them through the sides of their children. He may pity the children and wish to save them from the destructive errors which they are taught at home. What has he to do, then, but to give out the following lesson, pieced out in words of scripture? There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. John v. 7. 1 say, that the proposer of this Bill means that such children shall be excluded from his schools, but this I will say, that he has shewn himself quite careless as to their being admitted on terms that will render their admission honourable and beneficial. Very squeamish Dissenters indeed," he denominates such as object to his plan; but does he not know that honesty is always scrupulous, and that religious honesty in particular demands of a Christian, that for him and his he shall take no step that is doubtful? In agreement with the tenor of the Bill it is provided, that the Church Catechism shall be taught in the schools one half-day in the week, and that the minister may direct that this and such parts of the Liturgy as he may select shall be also taught on the Sunday evening. Liberty is given, however, to Dissenters to withdraw their children, on a statement of their Dissent, from this part of the public tuition. They are likewise permitted to take their children, the same notification being made, to their own places of worship on the Sunday: the children not thus exempted are to be led to the parish church. To the religious education of Churchmen, Dissenters cannot object; but though a minority, they are re justified in contending that a new and expensive establishment ought not to be created with this view, until it is proved that the old establishment is inadequate. Are not the clergy numerous enough, or endowed with sufficiently ample benefices, that they cannot undertake the religious instruction of the children of their own communion, but must have an order of spiritual assistants, invidiously appointed and supported, in a considerable measure, by those that can derive no spiritual help from them, and that consider their appointment a grievance ? He that believeth not shall be damned. Mark xvi. 16. ! The introduction of catechisms into schools which ought to be open, and profess to be open to all, is sowing the seeds of animosity and discord in the breasts of the young. Exemption from the religious learning of these establishments is a distinction. The rule and the exception both tend to divide children into the orthodox and the heterodox, the favoured many and the tolerated but despised few. It had been fondly thought, that the champions of the Lancasterian Schools and Mr. Broughan, the most eminent of that class of public benefactors, had for ever settled this point, and proved not only by argument but also by experiment, that religion and civil learning may be conveniently and usefully separated, each prospering the more for being unfettered by the other. * Mr. Brougham's parliamentary schools, if indeed he succeed in establishing them, will not be "schools for all." There will be no form in them for the children of Jews. Few Roman Catholics will suffer their children to be taught religion by a Protestant parish-clerk out of the "authorized version" of the Scriptures. And, we believe, for the reasons that we have assigned, that the bulk of the Protestant Dissenters will refuse to put their offspring under training for the Church of England. As far as their influence extends, they will resist the institution of schools, which they know to be designed to buttress up an Establishment which they cannot as Christians approve. The Quakers, and some other sects, will feel themselves peculiarly bound to oppose the operation of a system which recognizes the spiritual character of the members of the English hierarchy. But, at the same time, they cannot hope that their opposition will in many parishes be successful, and where it is not, the parliamentary school will effectually repress all others, and thus the Dissenters will be in almost as hopeless a situation as that in which they would have been under the memorable "Schism Bill," The Edinburgh Review, laying claim notwithstanding to the utmost candour and even friendliness towards Dissent, speaks of the opponents of Mr. Brougham's Bill in no very gentle or conciliating terms. These persons express their apprehensions strongly, and therefore they are intemperate. They wish to arouse their brethren to timely opposition to an injurious measure, and therefore they are "agitators." Their voice is not agree In these few remarks upon the Bill, I have been actuated by no hostility to the clergy, who are so unaccountably able to the ears of some half-dozen poli- "The real motive of the opposition "We certainly do not quote this for the purpose of entering into a legal argament with the Reverend author. We do not mean to take the trouble of reminding him, that all manner of toleration has now, for above thirty years, been the right of Dissenting teachers by statute, as it always was in sound policy and natural justice. Nor do we intend to upbraid him with referring, for the rights of the Church, to obsolete canons, which denounce a series of excommunications against persons guilty of omissions, habitual to almost every British subject, of whatever religious denomination. But we state the substance of Dr. Bell's suggestion, for the sake of recording the fact, that there exist certain persons, whose almost avowed designs are hostile to toleration, who are preparing the minds of the people for attempts to extend the powers of the hierarchy, who, not content with seeing the Established Church in possession (we thank God, in undisturbed, undisputed, unenvied possession) of the privileges so conducive to the temporal as well as spiritual welfare of the realm, would madly seek to extend her power, and lessen her security; to i 1 32 " The Nonconformist. No. XIX. made of supreme importance in it; but, at the same time, I do not deem it impiety to oppose the Bill because it exalts their dignities, and must fall under the censure which Mr. Brougham passes on objectors as turning their backs on the Clergy, whom Providence has raised up to give strength and stability to the plan." With the leave of this gentleman, who is no better divine than statesman, (and that he is not perfect in that character needs no further proof,) the agency of Providence is quite as much apparent in the exalt her name, and debase her character; to clothe her with new attributes, and bring into jeopardy her very existence. Now, therefore, we, in our turn, must be permitted to speak of dangers, and to occupy ourselves with alarms: we must presume to warn and admonish; we must denounce, as enemies to the peace and liberties of the community most certainly, but as worse enemies, if it be possible, to the welfare of the Church, and the whole religious interests of England, those who first, by half-concealed stratagem, and now by more than half-declared aggressions, undermining, where they durst not assault, and attacking what they hoped to find defenceless, would wage war against the dearest rights of the people, for the purpose of involving the clergy in trouble and shame, and lay society itself waste, in order that the Church might pass through the highest perils to the most certain corruption. Against the machinations of such men, we warn, above all, the wise and pious part of the sacred order to which they belong, and the temporal rulers, whose ears they may perhaps seek to gain, by promises of assistance and support. Distrusting both our authority and our powers of persuasion, we would warn both those classes, in the language of the most powerful supporter of the Establishment who was ever suffered to die unmitred The single end,' says Dr. Paley, [Mor. and Pol. Philos. II. 305,] ' which we ought to propose by religious establishments, is the preservation and communication of religious knowledge. Every other idea, and every other end, that have been mixed with this, as the making of the Church an engine, or even an ally of the State, converting it into the means of strengthening or of diffusing influence, or regarding it as a support of regal, in opposition to popular forms of government, have served only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses."Ed. Rev. Nov. 1810. XVII. 86, 87. existence of the Dissenters, and their readiness to oppose a plan which confers power on the clergy, at the expense of the people's independence of conscience, and of the improvement and happiness of their families. It is not denied that in a wise and liberal scheme of public education, the Clergy might be made use of; but let it be ministerially, as in the proposed Unitarian Marriage Bill, and not as here magisterially, with an unlimited discretion, and an arbitrary, irresponsible power. The Edinburgh Reviewer says, that the Dissenters have been silent under greater encroachments upon their opinions and property: they did not oppose the grant of a large sum of money to the poor clergy, nor the vote of a million for the erection of new churches: but if they did not here oppose government, a writer of less shrewdness than this might have guessed that the true reason was very different from their satisfaction in these measures. Let the Dissenters, however, learn a lesson of zeal and courage from such reproaches. Their silence, they perceive, is interpreted into acquiescence. It becomes a precedent; and if they ever afterwards speak out, they are charged with inconsistency, and even with faction. To urge upon Dissenters, as the Reviewer does, oes, the necessity of sacrifices for the public good, is in this case preposterons. To what are they to sacrifice, except to the complacency or ambition of the author of the Bill? They can give up only what regards their consciences; he has an easy surrender to make: his Bill is not essential to his own or others' happiness, and he may re-cast it so as to make it worthy of himself and of the great nation to whom it is proposed. The history of the sacrifices of the Dissenters is, in fact, the exposition of the loss of their liberty. By one concession they fastened the yoke of the Test Act upon their own necks and those of their children, and by another they lost, for a century, at least, the only probable chance of their emancipation. Nothing would be more dangerous to the Dissenters than that the legislature should presume upon their willingness to make concessions of conscience for the supposed public good. : : eir 1 se 1 d e t d S d t Were it allowed to proceed upon this principle, a very mistaken one, and one which no man could have adopted who knew the people to whom it relates, the present measure would speedily be followed by other and more fatal aggressions upon religious liberty. But let not the Dissenters be alarmed. The Education Bill will in all probability experience the usual fate of schemes involving a compromise of principle; its author may alienate the Dissenters, but he has not yet gained over the High-churchmen: and the mass of the nation, standing between the two parties, will look with suspicion upon the political tendency of a project, the immediate and certain effect of which would be the promotion of clerical ascendancy. Are not then the people to be educated? is the question of Mr. Brougham and his Edinburgh advocate. Undoubtedly, they must be educated to fit them for the times in which they live: and in the present eagerness of the public mind it is not probable that universal education can be long delayed. But, be it observed, that the alternative is not between this Bill and no national education at all. Other plans may be devised by which this great blessing may be secured, without bringing in such enormous evils as would render it a doubtful good. Of these the foundations must be placed in the opinion, the affections and the power of the people. And when any schemes of this liberal and comprehensive character are brought forward, it will be found that the Protestant Dissenters are not more jealous of their own rights and privileges, than anxious for the diffusion of all the means of knowledge and respectability and free * Upon such a Bill as this, supposing it passed into an Act, how easy would it be for an intolerant, artful and daring minister, in some moment of general panic, to engraft certain prohibitory clauses that should be exceedingly onerous and vexatious to the Dissenters! Those that would object to a direct innovation upon religious liberty, might acquiesce in a regulation of it, in one instance, and by a mere amendment of one act of parliament: and nothing said, But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no Ancient Churchwardens' Accounts. The following extracts from the Church wardens' Account in the Histories of Lambeth Palace and Lambeth Church, 4to. are interesting, as illustrations of the spirit of the times: "A. 1569. For ryngeing when the quene's majestie dined at my lorde's grace of Canterbury. "It might be at this visit, that her majesty, in so unprincely a manner, thanked Mrs. Parker for her hospitable reception, declaring that she knew not how to address her- Madam, I may not call you, and mistress I am ashamed to call you, so as I know not what to call you'-(History of the Palace, p. 55). The compiler of the Regulations of the Officers of the Primate's Household seems to have had no doubt in this respect; for when he mentions the archbishop and his lady together, he terms them their graces, and Mrs. Parker he repeatedly styles her grace. See Append. to History of the Palace, pp. 29, 30, 31, &c." "A. 1586-7. For rynging, when the Queen of Scots was put to death, Is. 4d. "This article is a glaring mark of the spirit, or I may say, of the barbarism of the golden age of Elizabeth; and adds weight to the many proofs that have been offered of the artifices devised to inflame the people against the unfortunate Mary, in order to countenance the resolution taken to put her to death. Much dishonour does it reflect upon the character of Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln, if what is reported of him is true, that in his sermon preached in Peterborough Cathedral at her funeral, he used these remarkable words, Let us give thanks for the happie dissolution of the high and mighty princess Mary, late Queen of Scotland, and dowager of France.' (Bibl. Top. Britan. No. XL. p. 57.) But if a prelate could thus prostrate his sacred office, and a queen be capable of jesting, whilst she was signing a warrant for the execution of a queen and her own nearest relation, (Robertson's Hist. Vol. II. p. 168,) can it be matter of surprise, that the ringers of a country parish, situated not far from the palace of their sovereign, should consider the day of Mary's execution as a holyday, and exhibit their customary demonstration of joy !" |