also, when we have done our utmost to make him "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."*

I do not mean by these observations to charge any friends of education, who disavow such a purpose, with intending to reject the scriptures altogether. But if the knowledge of the Bible is to be but an item in the catalogue of a poor child's acquirements, as is very likely to be the case if too much is aimed at, and if schoolmasters are to be tempted to seek their own credit by having a variety of such things to exhibit in their pupils as worldly parents are wont to over-estimate, the practical effect, in a general way, will be apt to be, that whilst we are careful and troubled about many things, the one thing needful will escape us utterly.

Another question arises here. Granting what has been said; how is the matter to be settled, as education becomes general, between persons of different religious persuasions? Are we to agree to the liberal scheme, as it has been called, of rejecting all peculiarities in order to teach those broad and fundamental truths, which all called Christians are agreed upon? Alas! which be they? I hold that this cannot honestly be attempted, and I hold, too, that it is impracticable. Liberality doubtless is a good thing; but because

* 2 Tim. iii. 15.

this is generally admitted, it hath fared with liberality as it is wont to do with other good things in this world. I mean some very bad things have called themselves by its name. And in this scheme, we have an instance. For the liberality here pretended can be nothing but an unrighteous compromise, and that will never be assented to, except it be either by such as have some private, or perhaps even sectarian, design in view, which under special circumstances this mode may further in the issue, or by people very easily deceived by names and pretences or else by those who in their hearts are indifferent to truth altogether. It cannot, I think, be denied, that we are bound in conscience to support, and on all fit occasions to avow, the principles which we have conscientiously and deliberately adopted, or that if we undertake the office of religious instructors, we never can be justified in withholding from those whom we profess to bring to the knowledge of salvation, any truth which is necessary to that end; and which we might communicate. But if we adhere to this liberal plan, how is the first of these things to be done, or the last avoided? If in so broad a matter as the conducting of education, we dispense with our church's creed and formularies, we renounce virtually our profession as churchmen-and if we dispense with all peculia

rities, we dispense in fact with everything. For what gospel truth is not questioned and impugned by some or other? But indeed I think we may, in this case, as in every other in which man is concerned with man, gather sufficient instruction from a faithful application of the plain rule" Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye unto them." Give to the poor just what ye yourselves desire to receive, or having received are determined to abide by. This is the charitable way, and the honest and the safe way, too; and in my mind the only way. It is an awful matter, doubtless, to be teachers at all, in things which concern men's souls. But it is God's ordinance that there should be teachers, and if so, we have need, first, with much caution and much prayer, to settle our own religious principles. But having so done, what we are thus come to, as far as our pupils can receive it, we must inculcate. And if we teach the children of the poor neither more ror less, nor other than we teach our own children, and would on no account keep back from them—just that and nothing else which we make the sole basis of our own comfort and confidence in the prospect of death and judgment, we are then as charitable as we know how to be, and give at the same time the best security for our integrity which the nature of the case admits of,

whilst we escape ourselves from under the malediction" To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."*

Here also, however, I desire not to be misunderstood. I do not mean to accuse of compromise and desertion of their principles, those of other communions, who support the many schools now in existence from which the inculcation of all peculiarities is professedly excluded, because I know the fact to be, that they are wont to have what appears to them a remedy-the children being instructed out of school-hours, and on the Lord's day especially, by their respective ministers or their agents, when, of course, they may and do inculcate their own tenets. But whilst, on the one hand, this, as far as it goes, is a testimony from those parties themselves to the truth of my general argument, I must say, on the other hand, that such a provision is, as far as we of the Church of England are concerned, utterly unsatisfactory and insufficient. How far it may suit the arrangements and meet the demands of others, it rests with themselves to consider. But for our own part, we shall decide respecting the adoption of things of this nature by looking to what is likely to be the practical working of them. The great majority of ourselves have quite as much to do on the Lord's day in our

* James iv. 17.

churches, as our health and strength and animal spirits can carry us through, animated as we may be with zeal for the souls of men, and supported, as in that case we shall be, by divine grace. We cannot, therefore, do all that is necessary for children on that day, though, as I shall show, we may do something very considerable, provided only that we may have free access to them on other days. And they are, besides, the lambs of our special flock; and why should we, or how can we, voluntarily surrender our right of access to them at any time? We never can so conveniently or so effectually instruct them as when we have them in their schools, with their Bibles in their hands. This point, therefore, we may not concede; the schools which we support must be those exclusively wherein we can take our proper station and discharge our functions towards the souls committed to us, at our discretion, and as we have leisure and opportunity, without let or molestation or undue interference on the part of any. We may not desert our post nor surrender a tittle of our advantages.

Having, however, such schools as I have spoken of, and such right also of free entry, we have then a stepping-stone and an auxiliary of which it behoves us diligently to avail ourselves, and especially, as by means of it we have very great facilities for doing our work as catechists.