The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

those who, from ignorance and religious or political dis-
union, kept away at present. There was no necessity what-
ever for abandoning the formularies of the Established
Church.

The right rev. prelate then alluded to the estab
lishment of the Church of England Educational
Society as an effort, supported by most unwarrant-
able statements, to divide the supporters of the
National Society. The National Society had con-
sistently gone on its course, yet he believed that un
less they had something more in the work of educa-
tion than sound arguments to maintain them, sound
principles to guide them, and money to enable them
to build schools, they would fall short of a satisfactory
result :

The children must not only be taught to read and write,
not only have instruction in all those elementary branches
of philosophical science which were now, through the
Government money, forced upon the children of the poor,
they must not only have the principles of the Church im-
pressed upon them, but they must have beyond the know-
ledge imparted that which seemed sadly lost sight of in
the present day, namely, the influence of the mind and
heart of the teacher. In fact, the teacher himself ought
to be the minister appointed by God to be the instructor
of the children of the poor. Hitherto they had erred in
concluding that the money expended in the erection of
school, and in the training of teachers was all that was
requisite, with the terms of union, to educate the children
of the poor. They had erred, and they were now reaping
the fruits of the error. They assumed, and with manifest
truth, that the Church was by divine appointment the
teacher of the members of that Church ; and they also
rightly assumed that, as there was a visible Church, so
there must be an apostolic commission.
T;18 terms of that apostolic commission, if they were
truly attended to, were these,—" Feed my lambs ;
feed my sheep." But how had they practically
carried out that commission'-

In their Prayer Book they had not only evidence of
their Protestant feeling, but the curate had positive direr-
Bons, at an appointed time in the service, to catechise
those brought to him for instruction. But what had
really been done ? Undoubtedly the sheep had been cared
for, and the apostolic commission had been recognised in
the matter of preaching sermons to those who, being grown
up, could be interested in questions of theological discus-
sion. But the poor children, the lambs of the flock, had,
by the selfishness of the sheep, been driven from their
appointed mode of public service. The appetite of the
elder members for excited sentiment bad been pandered
to, and the children had been sent into schools, where he
wished he could see with honesty and truth they had re-
ceived that spiritual instruction which had been denied
them at the time and place appointedjby the Church for
their training. Now why was this? Whenever catechis-
ing was spoken of it was met by the grown-up people in
the congregations with the remark, "Oh es, it may be in
the rubric, and it may have been once done ; but it is so
uninteresting, it is done so badly." And yet these very
people did not see that the argument applied just as much
in connection with the apostolic commission as to preach-
ing. The congregation might just as well say that they
would desert all the churches unless all the clergy were
gifted with eloquence and could excite and interest them
in the pulpit. He believed that the clergy, as a body, had
done wrong in abandoning the practical spiritual direction
and influence of the children of the poor to teachers and
superintendents. Whatever they might say in public or
private—whatever formularies they might use, and what-
ever hooks they might teach from, he was satisfied that
they would never get that spiritual effort which the Churclt
herself looked for as the evidence of a sanctifying faith,
except the man, the living instrument, thought less of his
pulpit work than of the practical and influential striving
and struggling to educate the poor. He was glad to see
the children parse grammatically the most difficult ques-
tion which the Government inspector chose to teaze them
with, and that they had an acquaintance with history and
geography ; hut that did not altogether satisfy him. What
he wanted to see, above all, was those efforts of Christian
teaching which reached the heart and affected the faith.
They ought to have the influence of education rather than
the intellectual efforts of teaching.

The meeting was subsequently addressed by the
Dean of Lichfield, Archdeacon Moore, and the Rev.
Canon Lonsdale, son of the bishop of the diocese,
and the proceedings were then brought to a close.