The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

hand, that system has been so contrived as to prevent the majority of the Protestant clergy and laity from uniting themselves with it. The complaint, therefore, of Mr. LEFROY, on behalf of the Church Education Society, is by no means the converse of the com plaint of Mr. MAGUIRE on behalf of the Popish Church. The latter complains, not of not getting anything, but of not getting enough : the other co mplains, not of not getting enough, but of not getting anything—of a system being called National which imposes a condition on the great majority of the Established Church, which con dition works, for them, absolute exclusion from its benefits. Now, it is quite clear that these two complaints are essentially different in character, and therefore that in the mind of an impartial observer they do not neutralize each other. If the demand of the Church Education So ciety was to establish such new rule as would raise in the minds of the Irish Roman priests an insuperable conscientious obstacle to their con tinuing in connection with the National Board, this demand, unreasonable as under existing cir cumstances it would be, would only be the exact equivalent to the practice which now exists, and which the supporters of the National Board require should be maintained inviolate. But the requirements of that Society are of a far humbler, and, as we think, of a far juster nature. All that they ask is, that the rules of the Board should be so modified as to enable them to take advantage of the benefits which they would derive from bringing their schools into connec tion with it. They say,— "We do not ask you to alter a single rule af fecting the existing national schools—let them go on as heretofore, if so it ought to be ; but let us manage our existing schools as we do at present, and withdraw the rule which now operates for their exclusion, by which we are forbidden to read the Bible to all the scholars that frequent our schools. Our ordination vows (vows not of our own framing) impose this duty upon us ; we cannot receive into our schools a child to whom we are prohibited from communicating the Word of God." Surely this is a most reasonable request on the part of the Protestants of Ireland. It is met chiefly in two ways. First, the religious liberty of the child, it is said, would be outraged, by compelling it to read, or hear read, that to which it had a conscientious objection. What, they cry, would you introduce a compulsory system into your schools ? And it is perfectly won derful how many Solomons are caught by this very plausible question. But the answer to it is this—How is it possible to carry out any system of school discipline without compulsion ? What is the meaning of the word Master, if it do not imply the possession of compulsory authority over those of whom he is the master ? With draw the principle of compulsion from any school, and anarchy is the necessary result—it ceases to be a school. To say then that a child is under a system of compulsion who goes to a school where, by the rules, he is obliged to listen to the Bible,—and not under a system of compulsion, when he is compelled to sit quiet, not to disturb his companions, and to learn his task,—is to talk arrant nonsense, and to affirm and to deny the same thing with the same breath. Compulsion, then, is the essential element of a school ; but although this is the kind of com pulsion about which those who use the argu ment are really speaking, it is not in reality the kind of compulsion which they mean. The compulsion which is act u ally i n th e i r h ea d s is the compulsion of the parents ; because the child is under compulsion, they deceive them selves into imagining that the child's parent is under compulsion. They jumble the two kinds together, and extract from the two the compul sion which they denounce. Now, we have shown that compulsion on the child is a necessary consequence of his being sent to any school ; therefore, to that there can be no possible objection. The objection, and doubtless it would be a valid one, is to compelling the parent. How then, we ask, can the parent be Placed under compulsion ? If he sends his child to a school where he knows the Bible will be read to him, and if he is under no kind of compulsion to send him there, but does it volun tarily, of his own free will, what becomes of this c° ll3 Pullioli argument ? The parent acts a volun- THE PRE S S, JULY 17, 1858. tary part. The National Board, too, be it ob served, has taken good care to establish in the proximity of every Church Education school, a National school. The parent, therefore, can always choose between them—he need not send his child to the former unless he likes it; but if he happens to like it best, and has the courage to brave the indignation of his priest, are we to be gravely told that a system of compulsion is es tablished, because the child is made to conform to the discipline of the school to which his parent, with a full knowledge of the nature of that discipline, deliberately and advisedly sends him ? The truth is that the only improper compul sion in the whole transaction is when the Roman parent is compelled by the threats of the Roman priest to withdraw his child from a Scriptural school ; and in seconding this compulsion the whole weight of the Government and of the National Board is thrown in—these powers posi tively, by their system, backing the priest against the parent, and being guilty, in the worst way, of doing the very thing against which they make the loudest outcry. We have dwelt so long upon this compubion objection, that we can only very briefly touch upon the other. It is this : " If the demands," it is said, "of the Church " Education Society are conceded, it will de " stroy the National system." We do not think it will : but if such is the result to be expected, we can only say that it is hardly possible to con ceive an argument which implies so strong a condemnation of the existing system ; for it affirms that that system can only be maintained by acting with gross injustice towards the main body of the Protestants of Ireland; and a system which can only be maintained in that way, is a system which stands self-condemned, and is surely not worth preserving. " SPECIAL SERVICES." Baru of the Bills for authorizing " Special Services" in halls and unconsecrated places have failed, and been withdrawn. Thrown back on the former state of things, and finding the law to be quite uncertain and obscure, the Committee which had commenced the Exeter hall movement, in the Spring of 1857, now reverts to its original plan, and has made arrangements for a second series of " SPECIAL SERVICES," the commencement of which we have just seen. The success of this second attempt must be at least doubtful. Westminster Abbey has been opened, and will prove a formidable rival to Exeter-hall. The Dissenters have occupied the latter place for two or three months past, and they found the audiences grow more and more slender, till at last they brought their preachings to a close. It is more than questionable whether the Churchmen's Committee will be able, now that the novelty has worn off, to revive that interest in the " Exeter-hall Special Services" which formerly existed, and which will be needed, to supply that large building with " crowded congregations." And the question constantly recurs to the mind,—" Is this the fitting remedy for the exist ing evil? Do these Special Services suit the exigencies of the case ?" What was the evil which incited the Exeter hall Committee to make this particular effort ? It was, there can be no question, the absence of the working men of London from public worship. The fact is, unhappily, too certain and too no torious, that the myriads of our working men are not found either in the churches or the meeting houses, on the Sabbath-day. Neglect of public worship has grown into a settled habit, with at least three-fourths of the labouring classes of this metropolis. Such being the fact, we cannot feel any anger with a party of Christian gentlemen who resolve to make some effort to attract the working men into some new place, for a Sunday evening's occupation. Their purpose, beyond all doubt, is 675 good, however open to question their mode of operation may be. The hesitation which we have always felt as to the expediency of this particular movement, has arisen from our not seeing its applicability to the existing case. The working men of London do not much frequent our parish churches. This is to be lamented ; but how shall it be cured ? Surely, the rational way is, first, to search out the reasons of their absence, and, secondly, to find a remedy for those particular evils. Now, beyond all doubt, the reasons of the absence of the working classes from our churches are twofold. The chief reason is, that they are not welcomed to our churches—that they are not accommodated therein, as men would naturally accommodate those whom they desired to see. A description of the reception of a mechanic in one of our London churches, which appeared in a London newspaper about three years ago, is so just and so graphic that we can do no better than simply to copy it Now, the week's work being over, the son of toil turns out into the fields for his Sunday morning walk, and after a long ramble he hears the bells ring for morning service. The sound arrests his attention, and he thinks he will go to church, and concentrate the various grateful emotions that the pure air and the contemplation of Nature in all her beauty have recalled to his smoke-dried brain. He looks down at his cord trousers and laced boots, as he approaches with some misgivings on seeing the smart people coming up; but as he passes throu g h th e church yard he reads on one tombstone, God is no respecter of persons ; ' and on another, Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' So, remembering his coat is decent black, and his shirt-front clean, he ventures inside. But how is he treated when he gets there? For a long time he stands, hat in hand, at the top of the aisle, inhaling the fumes of Eau de Cologne, and making way for fine folks every moment, who stare at him rudely as they pass to their pews. He soon begins to think this is no place for him, and that he was never intended to go there. Over the velvet-topped pew-door on his right he sees Dives frowning down upon him with an air of afflicted respect ability ; and on the left old Mrs. Millefleurs drops her gold eye-glass, and stretches hastily across her three stately daughters for the patchouli to purify the tainted atmosphere. The stern glance of the clerk in the reading-desk has nearly led him to a determination to retreat, when a creak from a boot and a tap on the shoulder cause him to start and turn round. By degrees his self-possession returns, and he finds himself in the awful presence of that concentrated sublimation of illustrated snobbishness, the gilt edged beadle. Not quite sure whether he is about to be expelled vi etarmis, or whether he is not then in actual custody, he is aroused by a sepulchral intimation from somewhere amongst the gold lace and buttons, that Them's the free seats.' Getting up into the dark corner indicated by that immense functionary, he meekly takes his seat amongst some woebegone specimens of antiquity, decked with the parochial blue check and the union button. " Disappointed and dissatisfied he comes away, and perhaps during a long life he never enters a church again. lie may become in after years a Paxton, a Cubitt, or a Peto, and by his position set an example to thousands ; but the chances are, he will never forget the slight put upon him at the church, and he resolves to resort in future to the modest Dissenting chapel, where he is treated as a man and a Christian. This, I venture to say, is the feeling with thousands." This is, in the main, a fair description of the real state of things in many of the great churches of London. There is no disposition on the of the working men of the met ro p o li s t o go AV they are not welcomed. So they avoid the churches, and prefer to go, a few to the meeting houses, but the great majority to the parks and tea-gardens. And hence we find, that on Regis tration Sunday (March 30, 1851) the churches of Westminster, which have accommodation for 53,082 persons, had, at the evening service—the one most used by the poor—only 15,097 atten dants. The population was 242,345; the at tendants at church, only 15,097. As we have said before, we cannot blame, or feel surprised at, any benevolent persons, who, alarmed at this state of things, rush forward ti