their constitution. The resolution to maintain religious education substantially and effectively, and to put to flight all the theoretical difficulties by determined practical attempts, has been repeatedly shown. Take the case only of the London School Board. The proposal that the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given therefrom such explanations and such instructions in the principles of religion and morality as are suitable to the capacities of children '-allowing for cases of exception, but throwing in such cases the onus probandi on the managers, parents, or ratepayers of the district-was brought forward as soon as the Board settled down to its work. It led to a singularly interesting debate, conducted with hardly a trace of animosity, and opening up all the various aspects of the subject; but the result never was doubtful, even for a moment. An amendment of the Rev. W. Rogers, urging the Board 'not to commit itself to any resolution' on the subject, found no seconder. The next, by Mr. Chatfield Clarke, proposing to leave all religious instruction to voluntary zeal and effort, although it brandished the flag of religious equality and conscientious conviction, and invoked the hatred of denominationalism, was defeated by 37 votes to 4. The proposal of the Rev. B. Waugh, to 'read the Bible without religious note or comment,' fared even worse, and only mustered 3 votes against 41. And at last the original motion was carried by 38 votes against 3, and would have secured a larger majority, had not the rejection of an amendment for granting special privileges to Roman Catholicism led the Roman Catholic members to abstain from voting. It is hardly necessary to add anything to the eloquence of these figures; but the debate itself was singularly instructive, and especially so in respect of a speech by Professor Huxley, who, although somewhat patronizing in his tone towards established creeds, was very emphatic in his conviction that some form of religion and morality was essential to true education, and honest (and even generous) in his acknowledgment of what religious influence had already done in the great work. The above is but a specimen of the general tone of proceeding. There can be no question that the School Boards generally will seriously and carnestly endeavour to imbue their educational system with a really religious spirit. There may, perhaps, be a few secular schools, as there are a few now (e. g., those on the Birkbeck system); but they will be few and far between, unless there should occur any fatal difficulty in the working of an 'undenominational' scheme.

This historical retrospect is full both of interest and instruction. It seems to us conclusively to prove two things: first,

that

that religious education, and consequently religion itself, are about to pass into a new phase, bringing with it great trials and fraught with very important consequences; and next, that, even under these circumstances, the vitality of the religious spirit has shown itself most signally and most hopefully.

The novelty of the position is undoubted, and it forms a new era in the relation of Church and State, considered in its widest sense. It is, we suppose, an almost undoubted truth that this relation has, since Church Establishment became an accomplished fact, passed at least in this country-through three stages. The first is that in which the Church and State are considered as identical in composition; the former including all the inhabitants of the country in their spiritual character, and the latter the same persons in their temporal relations. The next is that in which the State is considered as distinct from the Church, but yet acknowledges the Church alone as the representative of all religious powers and privileges in the country. The third is that which recognises many religious bodies, each having its own organization and rights, conceding only a primacy, more or less defined, to the Established Church. With all these aspects the education of the country had, at different times, been connected; and recently it had passed into the last phase, giving a very shadowy primacy, if any, to the Establishment, and beginning also to introduce the principle of acknowledging a religious teaching distinct from all special religious bodies, although practically the working out of that principle was somewhat exceptional. Now, it will be observed, by the enactment of the Cowper-Temple clause, the State has established as a general rule what before it did but recognise exceptionally. It has inaugurated a national system of religious teaching, wholly dissociated in theory from any special religious body and its distinctive formularies. The Act implies the belief, to which the country has assented, that such a system of religious teaching is possible. It is clear that, if this belief be realized, it will exercise a most important influence over the status of religious bodies, and so on the great relation of the State to the Church or to the Church and the Sects. But into this we do not intend to enter. confine ourselves to the strictly educational aspect of the question; and in respect to this we wish to point out the entirely new circumstances under which the religious principle will have to work.

We

Its teaching and its teachers will be, to a great degree, deprived of the support and the authority which a Church, as an

Every one knows the immense preponderance of denominational (i.e., generally Church) schools under the old system.

organized

6

organized religious body, can always give. So far as they are commissioned they will be the officials of the State, or of the rate-paying community, considered as a portion of the State; and the State, as such, is being led, perhaps being forced, to assume more and more of a secular basis. The central authority does this absolutely by refusing even to recognise religious instruction in the schools; the local communities may at any time take the same course, although they refuse to do so now, without any inconsistency or absurdity. It follows, therefore, that the religious teachers of our new schools will be forced to rely simply on their own individual Christianity; every man will have to fight for his own hand' in the spiritual warfare; and the great masses, hitherto more or less closely organized and disciplined, will be broken up into a cloud of isolated combatants. Nor will the loss be limited to this. There is a great influence by which a Church tells from without upon a school connected with it, not only by its authority, but also by the sympathy, aid, and direction, which the very fact of its connexion brings out, and which, in country districts especially, have done so much to invigorate and exalt the character of our existing schools. All this will be lost, and we see nothing to supply its place; it will be hard to get up any enthusiasm for a school, which is created and maintained by the unattractive and unsympathizing power of mere law.

But, of course, these difficulties are but slight compared with the difficulty introduced by the attempt to be 'undenominational,' an attempt jealously watched by a small but acute party, who are most anxious to make it fail as a religious system, and glide down the smooth incline into the lower depth of secularism. The very principle is conceived of in two wholly different lights. One class interprets it as an undertaking to teach nothing of which any denomination can disapprove, giving practically to the most insignificant minority a power of veto, which a large acquiescing majority would be wholly unable to overrule. Remembering the marvellous diversity of bodies even calling themselves Christians, from the Ultramontane Romanist to the broadest Unitarian, remembering also that Jews or Mahometans are a denomination in the view of the Act, remembering that it might be the policy of secularists to water down the religious teaching by captious objections, instead of refusing it

*It is not even allowed to count as school-attendance under the New Code, although even to music and drill that privilege is conceded. Considering even the intellectual difficulty and value of such instruction, so jealous an exclusion of it from the cognisance of the Government savours a little of that working a principle to death, of which only mere doctrinaires are usually guilty.

under

under the Conscience Clause, it is not difficult to show (and it has been shown repeatedly), that by the application of the process of exhaustion, such interpretation is gradually destructive of all religious instruction whatever. Now nothing is more certain than that the inventor of the Cowper-Temple Clause, and the Prime Minister, who accepted it and so gave it a chance of becoming law, utterly refused this interpretation. Their intention was simply to provide that the schools should not be 'ticketed' as belonging to this denomination or that. They believed that, although it is impossible to draw out an undenominational creed, which even all Christians would accept, yet that there is a vast amount of common belief and teaching in the various systems, which include the great mass of the community, and acknowledge a common Bible, and that by a process of 'Natural Selection' this will hold the leading place in all religious instruction which is not avowedly designed for proselytism or controversy. Extreme opinions, they thought, must be left to the protection of the Conscience Clause and its power of withdrawal; and so the right at once of the minority and the (often forgotten) majority would be preserved. This is really the view which has been accepted by the country and the School Board generally. But a moment's thought will show that, like most of our English institutions, stamped with the marks of legislative compromise, it is a rough common-sense way of treating the question, which is easily open to attack from the adherents of more rigidly logical systems, and which depends wholly for its continued existence on the support of public opinion. We trust and we believe that it will be made to work. But it is obvious that under it religious teaching must be carried on under certain restraints; its shackles may be heavy or light according to circumstances, but in no case can they be wholly unfelt.

We have not dwelt upon these new conditions and new difficulties of religious instruction, because we think them likely to be fatal. On the contrary, we fully believe that the strong and almost vehement energy of the religious spirit so signally manifested through the whole of the Education question, will prove itself able to do what as yet it has always done-to adapt itself to new institutions, or adapt those institutions to itself, to gain even freshness and originality from the imposition of novel conditions, and perhaps to learn some of the lessons which those conditions imply. Is it too much to hope that if the experiment of a common religious teaching succeeds in our schools, it may do something to draw together elsewhere, to unity of feeling, if not unity of Church constitution, those who are now far too

much

much divided in the face of a common enemy? All who have had to maintain the principle of religious teaching must have felt how infinitely greater and deeper than all denominational' doctrines is the ground of a common Christianity. But it is very important that those who care for religious education should understand that, if the main battle is won, success has not been gained without much sacrifice, and that on their watchfulness, their sympathy, and their self-devotion at the present time, the extent and value of the victory will depend. We have already said that very much will turn upon the continued existence of the old schools, in which religious teaching has a larger and a more unfettered opportunity; yet to sustain these will be specially difficult; rates and subscriptions are not naturally coexistent, and from mere ignorance many may fancy that all can be thrown on the new system. It must be the business of the leaders of religious opinion to show that there is a special call for liberality and self-sacrifice here. Then again, it is certain that some means must be taken to supply that inspection in religious knowledge, which the Education Department relinquishes, but for which the Act leaves room. (Section lxxvi.) The injury done by this deliberate ignoring of the subject by the central authority and its separation from all others cannot be undone, but it may be compensated for by more thorough inspection, perhaps by greater reverence and earnestness of tone therein. We are glad to see that all religious bodies, and the Church of England especially, are alive to this need. Again, it is obvious that every exertion should be made to supply teachers, who shall be men and women of religious spirit and conviction. The Training Colleges, especially since they have been injured by the shortsighted economy of the old Revised Code, may probably be insufficient in number. It would be better to spend money in creating one new training college of religious education, than in erecting a score of new elementary schools. But, over and above these things, what is to be desired is that all who care for religious education should bring to bear on the future those subtle and powerful influences of sympathy and of opinion which give life to all practical agencies. So alone can School Boards, managers, and teachers be at once encouraged and restrained; so alone can the Education Department, now both liberally and honestly guided, be kept from reverting to some of the evil traditions of the past. The religious fortress has defied all attempts to storm it; let its defenders beware lest it be undermined in detail, and keep a bold and united front to the enemy,. 'ne dum singuli pugnent, universi vincantur.'

III. The last, and in some sense the most interesting, ques