belongs peculiarly to the parents of the several children who frequent our national schools; and that, provided their wishes, in that respect, be complied with, the state will have done its duty. This is a view of the subject which has lately been put forward by some few of the Irish clergy, as a means of reconciling the remainder of their body to the Education Board, and securing, for the benefit of Protestant children, if not a portion of the national grant, at least some participation in its advantages. Coming from the quarter it does, such a proposal is entitled to respect; and we will bestow upon it as calm and as dispassionate a consideration, as its respected propounders can require. In the first place, does not the state discharge its whole duty, when it regulates the religious bringing up of children, according to the wishes of their respective parents? It does not. If it be bound to promote Christianity, when it suffers itself to be thus restricted, it either forgets or abandons the most important part of its Christian duty. It mistakes negligence for liberality, and indifference for toleration. But, are not parents to have a conscience; and, is not that conscience to be respected? It is; but they are also to respect the conscience of the state. A Christian legislature should, in its wisdom, devise a plan of national instruction, which in their judgment, may be best calculated to promote the knowledge and the practice of our divine religion. Many who dissent from the national creed, cannot, probably, go the whole way along with them, in the principles upon which this national system is to be constructed; and they are, accordingly, at perfect liberty to establish, for themselves, any other system, by which their own peculiar views may be best promoted. We would secure to them their indisputable privilege to think and to act for themselves; and, having done so, they can require no more; they cannot claim it as a privilege that the state shall not take the best means in its power, for promoting the moral and religious wellbeing of its members. To admit such a claim, would be to banish national Christianity. If one sect may prefer it, every other may prefer it also; and thus, verity after verity of the Christian scheme, would, one by one, be blotted out, until religion itself was totally extinguished. The claim of the Roman Catholic to that sort of consideration which is now contended for, is not better than the claims of the Quaker, the Independent, the Arian, or the Socinian; and, to admit such claims to the extent required, would be to make their intolerance the regulator of our liberality, instead of making our own liberality the regulator of our toleration. would, in fact, carry indulgence towards others to an extent that would amount to intolerance towards ourselves. That would be liberality with a vengeance! It The respected gentlemen who have put themselves forward in this business have, in truth, mistaken the real question. There can be no doubt that every parent in this country possesses the right of bringing up his children in what he conceives to be the right way. With that right the state interferes not. But when he urges it beyond the most perfect liberty to profess, and to practise his own mode of religious belief, and requires that the state shall teach no other, he claims, we humbly think, what is not warranted by either reason or Scripture; and what cannot be conceded without a compromise of Christian truth, and an invasion of Christian liberty. "But are not the scruples of our erring brethren to be respected ?" They are, as scruples; but they are not to be made the foundation of claims, which, urged to their full extent, must lead to a severance of the connection between Church and State, and to the disuse of any public or authoritative inculcation of the national religion. The leading idea by which our friends in Derry seem to be deluded, is, that by abandoning all peculiar care of religious, they will obtain some indefineable control over general education; and that the schools at present under the exclusive supervision of Roman Catholics, will be brought under their influence in such a way as, that, even though they should not do them much good, they may prevent them from doing the state much evil. This appears to us to be a chimerical expectation. In any such partnership as they propose to themselves, the greater must always predominate over the less; and instead of their exercising a salutary influence over the benighted majority, the benighted majority, and their spiritual rulers, would exercise a most pernicious influence over them.* In abandoning their bounden duty of taking care of their own, and holding up to the community at large a model of national education, such as they deem best and wisest, for the purpose of aiming at an authority which they never will be permitted to exercise they are catching at the shadow, while they lose the substance. We could easily conceive (if our respect for the promoters of this scheme did not forbid the supposition) such advice given to them by some Talleyrand in canonicals, who has his own ends to serve, and who, in exhorting them to cast themselves down from the pinnacle of the temple, may tell them that, in so doing, they will only more conspicuously commend themselves to the favour of God. "Get thee behind me, Satan," is the only answer which he should receive from faithful men, who are resolved to abide by the "rock of ages," and to rely upon the divine protection in the performance of their duty, how ever painful or difficult it may be, rather than deviate, in the least, from the strict line of duty, from a pre sumptuous hope that they may, in such wise, more effectually obtain the divine protection. We are very desirous of dealing tenderly with the gentlemen from whom this suggestion has proceeded ; because we are willing to believe that they were solely actuated by a desire to heal divisions, and were under the firm persuasion that, upon the whole, religion would be benefitted by their project. But we must tell them that their proposal was very ill-timed, and that there never probably was a time when it was less expedient. The Irish clergy amidst all their privations, were earning undying reputation for themselves, by the steadiness with which the antiChristian education project continued to be resisted. In England and Scotland the people were beginning to open their eyes to the monstrous wickedness of such a project. It had lost some of its most ardent supporters. Every one began to see clearly that it must throw the whole education of the Protestants of Ireland into the hands of the priests. And the disclosures which took place upon the intimidation com The following we extract from a very able essay entitled, "Thoughts on the Elements of Civil Government," which we regret exceedingly that our space does not permit us to notice at present as it deserves. Speaking of an attempt at the united education of Roman Catholics and Protestants, upon the principle adopted by the National Board, the writer observes : "The attempt will fail, because, although the Protestant prejudice against the plan did not exist to obstruct the success of the experiment by an absolute abandonment of it, there are causes which would necessarily and effectually render the project of united education of both classes abortive. First, the overpowering superiority in numbers of the Roman Catholic children in all the schools, and in whom an hatred of the name of Protestant is coeval with their first perceptions; an hatred which would not certainly be mitigated by the presence of a popish schoolmaster, and perhaps a popish priest; in this united system, this would almost inevitably make these schools rather arenas for personal conflicts than peaceful seats of literary or religious instruction. Next to this, another cause not less powerful would operate against their plan-it is this; that however zealous the Protestant clergy might be in attending to the religious instruction of the Protestant children, they would necessarily constitute a very small minority compared with the numbers of the Popish clergy, who in the case supposed would perpetually hover round the schools in the true spirit of theological hatred, and probably, if we may judge from the tone of Bishop M'Hale, and the Popish press towards the insulted clergy of the Protestant Church, would display an insolent arrogance, suggested and supported by the consciousness of a surrounding and resistless physical force, that would quickly compel the Protestant clergy to abandon this unequal contest. How various indeed, and numerous, are the topics which would hourly furnish matter for invective and exasperation of feeling between those two classes of priests, if, in every such school, they were to meet daily? what sources of virulent abuse from a rancorous press against the Protestant clergy already vilified with such perfect impunity! Surely they need not be brought to the recollection of any man whose eyes and ears are not closed against all that daily events, and the scandalous and scurrilous filth of the daily press, obtrude upon his observation. It is assuredly in the highest degree absurd, to hope that the clergy of those two opposing and conflicting sects could meet in the same places and for religious purposes, and surrounded by the respective disciples of those sects, without violations of public peace and Christian decorum, which never could be tolerated." mittee in the House of Commons, respecting the manner in which the spiritual influences of that body of men had been abused, were quite sufficient to convince all, who are open to conviction, that to abandon the education of the people to their influence, would be to take the most effectual means for the severance of British connection. This salutary persuasion, we repeat it, was rapidly upon the increase. In many places the constituencies impressed upon their representatives the necessity of imposing some check upon the progress of Romish ambition. Various associations started up, and are, this moment, in active operation, having for their object the detection and exposure of the various expedients and subterfuges, and disguises, by which the grasping and dominant character of popery was manifested, even when it was attempted to be concealed. The education project, in particular, seemed likely to be subjected to a search ing examination. The speech of the Bishop of Exeter during the last session, produced a great effect. Many noblemen opposed to him in politics, were convinced that a system chargeable with the grave abuses which he so powerfully detailed, was not calculated to produce any other than a most unhappy effect upon the character of the Irish people. Thus, all things were working together for good. Light was every day breaking in upon the legislature, by which, sooner or later, they must be thoroughly enlightened; and a little more of steady perseverance on the part of the Irish clergy, in their opposition to a system which could be only fruitful of demoralization and sedition, seemed all that was necessary to produce that salutary reaction in public opinion, from which upon that particular subject, the most desirable results might be expected. Is it not, therefore, to be lamented that the apple of discord should be thrown amongst the Irish clergy, just then when unanimity was most to be desired, and that a pernicious project of deceptive liberality should receive the sanction of respected names, just then when the weak, and the wavering, and the corrupt, were desirous of some excuse for retreating from a position, which they had felt themselves called upon to occupy, as churchmen and as Christians. And here we would have concluded, had not a new document made its appearance, which exhibits, under a new and a more suspicious phase, the con duct, of some of our brethren in the north of Ireland. We were led to believe, from the first manifesto put forward with so much apparent modesty by the Derry committee, that, if the clergy in general throughout Ireland dissented from it, it would be withdrawn. Nor were we singular in our opinion. That able paper, the Dublin Record, has given expression to a similar persuasion : "Any one reading their official document must have imagined that they had not the remotest idea of acting an isolated part in the transaction, but that they would have deferred to the opinion of their clerical brethren, as soon as that opinion should have been obtained." Well-that opinion has been obtained, and it is decidedly against the Derry proposal. The clergy of Ireland, amid all their sufferings, have nobly vindicated themselves from the suspicion of affording any countenance, direct or indirect, to a propositiou which would have made them consenting parties to a measure which would have handed over the education of the population of Ireland to the Most Rev. Peter Dens Murray, and his popish, and infidel, and latitudinarian colleagues. But our Derry brethren are not only not convinced by what has been done, of the inexpediency of their proposal, and of the mischief of, at the present moment, sowing divisions amongst the clergy, but they have issued another manifesto, reiterating their proposition, and treating with the most contemptuous indifference the almost universal dissent from it of the rest of their brethren in Ireland. When it was doubtful how it would be received, they were modest and humble; when that is no longer doubtful, they are confident and proud, and seemingly willing, themselves alone, to take their stand beside the Education Board, and to aid in giving permanence to a system, which, we confidently pronounce, is the greatest curse that has ever been inflicted upon the country. But if the arrogance of these gentlemen has surprised us, their ignorance has surprised us still more. It seems that it is only very recently that they have been led to suppose that there were any who suspected that education, divorced from religious instruction, was an evil rather than a good. This displays a want of reflection, a want of information, or a want of honesty, greatly to be deplored, in a body of the Derry manifesto would have done well to digest, before they gave utterance to their flippant and sneering allusion to the weak persons who could for a moment doubt that any thing but good, or at least predominant good, must be the result of mere literary education. The following passage from our able contemporary, Blackwood, of the last month, (our readers will hold in mind, that it is our object in making these citations, not merely to confirm our views, but to corroborate our authority,) is still further illustrative of the practical effects of permitting a spiritually unenlightened population to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. men undertaking to be the guides and the instructors of their clerical brethren, and which causes in us feelings more powerful than astonishment, from the respect which we hitherto entertained for some amongst those who are subscribers to the Derry resolutions. As therefore, we do not wish to appear to stand alone upon a question of such vital importance, we will subjoin, from the first cotemporary publications which are at hand, an extract or two, which may serve to shew that we are not singular in the notions which we have put forward in the preceding pages, and that, to cultivate the intellect while the morals are neglected, (and neglected they must be in any system which precludes a specific mode of Christian instruction,) is but to enlarge "In France, we need not now tell our the sphere of human depravity, and readers, an experiment has been made on accumulate the incentives which a great scale, for the last half century, of tend to the perversion of our nature. extending, as far as possible, intellectual The Church of England Quarterly Re- cultivation, and at the same time depressview for January, 1837, has the following religion, so as to render it, in all but ing passage: "This is a truth of all time, but one which takes an emphasis from the dangers peculiar to an advanced stage of civilization. pre "Now the knowledge of the obliquities Thus there will be substituted, in the This is surely a view of the matter which is entitled to a respectful consideration, and which the authors of VOL. IX. the rural parishes, practically speaking, a mere enfeebled relic of the olden time. Now, attend to the result of this great experiment upon the growth of crime, and the progress of human depravity, as evinced in the accurate and elaborate statistical tables of M. Guerry, a liberal writer, enamoured of popular education and democratic institutions, and who is, in consequence, utterly bewildered by the result of the returns which he himself has digested in so luminous an order. The result is thus given in his own words, which have been quoted with great candour by Mr. Bulwer, in his France, or the monarchy of the middle classes. While crimes against person are most frequent in Corsica, the provinces of the south-east, and Alsace, where the people are well instructed, there are the fewest of those crimes in Berry, Limousin, and Britanny, where the people are the most ignorant. And as for crimes against property, it is almost invariably those departments that are the best informed that are the most criminal a fact which, if the tables be not altogether wrong, must show this to be certain, that if instruction do not increase crime, which may be a matter of dispute, there is no reason to believe that it diminishes it.' "To illustrate this important statistical truth, M. Guerry has prepared maps of all the eighty-six departments of France, from which it distinctly appears, that wherever the number of educated persons is greatest, there crime is most frequent, and that wherever it is least, crime is most rare, and without any regard to density of population, the prevalence of manufactures, or almost any P other cause. The tables on which these maps are founded, drawn from the laborious returns which the French government have obtained from all the departments of their empire, are so important, and so utterly fatal to the whole school of intellectual cultivation, that we make no apology for transcribing them in a note for the information of our readers." (There is a note appended to this passage stating, that the editor has been obliged to leave out the tables an omission which, considering their critical importance at the present crisis, in so widely extended a work as Blackwood's Magazine, is exceedingly to be deplored.) "With truth does the liberal but candid Mr. Bulwer add, Mr. Guerry bowls down at once all the nine pins with which late statistical writers have been amusing themselves, and again sets up many of the old notions, which from their very antiquity, were out of vogue.'" Nothing but want of space prevents us from enlarging, by references to America, and to other countries, the proof, that mischief, rather than benefit, is to be expected from any system of literary instruction, in which man's moral nature is neglected. The Derry gentlemen make a general allusion to countries under a despotic form of government, as proving the converse of the proposition for which we contend; but they adduce no details in corroboration of their views; and even if they did, they could prove nothing to the purpose-because the experiment could not be fairly tried in despotic countries, where external constraint may often compensate the deficiency of internal principle, and where men may be compelled to cease to do evil, although they would not of themselves have been inclined to do well. That a great deal of instruction, not tending to any useful end, is at present afforded in the country, is most true, and true it is, that we cannot prevent it. But we may, at least, avoid being responsible for it; and its very existence is the very reason why we should be more than usually energetic in setting forth the advantages of that more complete system of instruction which it is our privilege to know and to value in such a way as may best exhibit our decided opinion of its superior advantages. What, then, would we have the friends of the best interests of Ireland to do, in the present critical emergency? We think there is but one safe course, and that, we have clearly indicated in The the preceding pages. They should fall back upon " The Association for Discountenancing Vice." They should make that, and not the Kildare-place system their Torres Vedras in the approaching contest. The truth is, that infinite mischief has arisen from the folly (so epidemic amongst even excellent people of late years,) of coaxing the people to be instructed. same sort of solicitation has been employed by benevolent men, to induce them to suffer their children to attend the various schools which Christian zeal has established in the country, that is, had recourse to by those who are candidates for their votes at contested elections. And the consequence has been, that they have been led to ascribe the same kind of interested motives to exertions of the one kind, as might very fairly be attributed to exertions of the other. This has caused a prejudice against the very thing which they were desirous of recommending; and any desire of edu cation which might have been awakened amongst the people, has been accompanied by a suspicion of the instrumentality by which it is sought to be diffused. This suspicion is, of course, not discountenanced by the Romish clergy; and thus, superstition comes in to aid their distrust, and many of the poor people are led to believe, that, to consent to receive instruction upon the terms upon which it might be imparted to them in many of our schools, would be little short of the guilt of selling their souls to the arch enemy. Now, it is our persuasion, that any violent assault upon a prepossession like this, would only, for the present, aggravate the evil. It is an impression which can only be removed by time, and by exhibiting, steadily and perseveringly, the advantages of the system which they are taught to regard with so much abhorrence. And we appeal to facts for the proof, that much was doing, and much is doing, in this quiet and unostentatious way, to win their confidence and excite their gratitude, and induce them to accept, with thankfulness, the education that has been provided for them by our Church of England Association. They felt, that it was not only given freely, without money and without price, but, that no unfair means were employed to interfere with their religious opinions; and their respect for and attachment to the system, which thus provided them with useful knowledge, while that knowledge |