The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1838.

TO THE MOST REV. D R. MACHALE.

MY LORD,—As I have never been honoured by your Grace
with any communication on the subject of National Educa-
tion, except what has reached me indirectly through the rb-
lie Press, I hope I shall not be deemed wanting in courtesy to
your Grace, by adopting the same public method, for the pur-
pose of calling your Grace's attention to the injustice of the
aspersions which your Grace has thought proper, in your late
address to the Clergy and Laity of the dioccss of Tuam, to
cast upon the system of National Education, with which I am
intimately connected, and, of course, upon myself.
Finding but little in that address which was not Fully an-
swered by anti&pation, in a published letter, which I took the
liberty of addressing to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, my
observations at present shall be but few.
I despatch at once your Grace's remarks about the "
Mary, full of grace," by a mere reference to that portion of the
Scripture Lessons, which is taken from the first chapter of St.
Luke, the slightest inspection of which will be enough to
prove, that the Commissioners were so far from translating the
text alluded to in the way which your Grace insinuates, that
they did not attempt to translate it at all. In a passage
which is enclosed within brackets, for the avowed purpose of
showing that it is not to be considered as Scripture, the words
" peculiarly blessed" are applied to the Virgin, not, however,
as a transla.ion of the Greek word signifying " full of grace,"
but as a paraphrase of the words " blessed among women."
How can your Grace justify the misstatement, which your
Grace's remark about the Hail Mary but too clearly implies?
Surely it is not possible that such a misstatement could have
been delibera'e.
The argument by which your Grace attempts to prove the
accuracy of your former assertion, that the Commissioners of
Education regulate, through their insp?ctors, the quantity of
religious instruction to be given to the people, exhibits a spe-
cimen of logic so exceedingly curious, that it is quite deserving

of notice.
The Commissioners allow the National Schools to be given
up two days in every week, in order to afford the respective
pastors of the children an opportunity of giving them as much
religious instruction as they choose ; and, besides these two
days, they allow the Managers, on every other day of the
week, to appoint as many hours, prov.dcd they do not clash
with the time necessary for joint instruction, as they may think
proper for the same religious purpose. From these premises,
which are sufficiently clear, your Grace jumps all at once to
the conclusion, that the Commissioners are, therefore, guilty
of the grievous charge of attempting to regulate the quantity
of religious instruction which the children—yLur Grace said,
on a former occasion, the people—are to receive. " The
quantity," your Grace gravely observes, " is regulated by the
hours allctted to religious instruction." Could your Grace
have been really serious in drawing from such premises such a
conclusion? Perhaps so: for even old Homer himself, whi!e
engaged in composing his undyinr, works, was sometimes, as
we read, known to slumber ; and, if he were not blind, I
would add, with his eyes open.
The objection drawn from what has been said, in one of our
books regarding the creation, has just as little argument as
the last to recommend it. Surely, in the present sate of
science, your Grace would have been somewhat ashamed to
urge it, if you had read the learned and orthodox work of Dr.
Wiseman on the connexion of science with religion.

In allusion to powers exercised by the National Board,
" which none could approve," your Grace says, " Such, for
instance, is the power of permitting toe vernacular Scriptures,
In or out of school hours, whether ►n separate or joint educa-
. . . . without the permission of the ordinary

lon .

of the diocese in which such vernacular versions arc read.'
Your Grace is aware that the Board does not permit the read-
ing of the Sacred Scriptures in National Schools, during the
time of joint instruction. Why, then, does your Grace, by
the studied ambiguity of your language, seem willingly to in-
sinuate that it does? During the time set apart for separate
religious instruction, it, of course, permits—that is, it does not
prohibit (how could it ?)--the use of the Sacred Volume, to
those who may choose to avail then:selves of it. But how
this mere non-prohibition can interfere with the authority of
the Ordinary (were it even admitted to be such as your Grace
represents it) I am quite as much at a loss as, I nm sure, all
the rest of the world will be, to comprehend. It really makes
one melancholy to reflect on the pitiful straits to which a
great mind may be reduced in labouring to sustain a helpless
CdU'C.

I pass over various such objections, the futility of which it
will not be difficult to discover, and I come to the point on
which your Grace seems principally to rely for support—
namely, that the opposition of your Grace to the system of
National Eduction is in accordance with the sentiments of

the great majority of your episcopal brethren. In my letter,
already alluded to, addressed to the Roman Catholics of Ire-
land, I demonstrated, on the unquestionable testimony of two
distinguished prelates, who could not be deceived as to the
fact, that this assumption was at utter variance with the truth.
As, however, your Grace, with a stretch of boldness which
few would venture to imitate, seems to throw a doubt upon the
validity of even their testimony, chiefly because they did not

refer to certain episcopal resolutions passed in 182-6, it may
not be inexpdient to examine, somewhat at large, whether
those resolutions can now be brought forward, with any kind
'of fairness, against the National System.
It is quite true that the Catholic Bishops, when harassed
by a system of proselytism under the guise of education, did
deem it right to come to the resolutions which your Grace has
quoted, as the only means which then appeared practicable,
for securing the faith of the children who attended the schools
of the Kildare-place Society ; and, had no sufficient guaran-
tee been devised as a substitute for the conditions mentioned
in those resolutions, the Bishops would, without doubt, have
adhered to them sternly and perseveringly. But a new era
arose. The system of Education, now justly called National,
was proposed as an experiment. The Bishops saw in it what
they considered a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the re-
ligion of the children educated under it. It appeared to the
great majority of them to secure, with sufficient efficacy, the
object which they had in view in the adoption of the previous
resolutions; and it was, therefore, allowed, as a substitute for
them, to spread, without opposition, from any quarter, over
the whole face of the country. Your Grace's ever-to-be-la-
mented predecessor in the See of Tuam had signed the reso-
lutions of 1826: and, yet, without once thinking that he was
violating the spirit of them, he was among the first to em-
brace the new system, by the establishment of a National
School at Tuam. The illustrious Doctor Doyle, than whom
there was not a more uncompromising champion of the faith,
and who had also signed the same resolutions, was so con-
vinced that the new system contained an adequate substitute
for the security which he had previously sought, that he issued
a circular letter to his Clergy, recommending them to encour-
age the spread of National Schools throughout every parish in
his diocess. Still further : from the time of the commence-
ment of the National System, until the middle of February,
1837, there were six General Meetings of the Catholic Bi-
shops of Ireland held in Dublin. During the whole of that
time it was advancing under the eyes of the Prelates, in all
directions, through the country. And, yet, in not one of those
meetings was there a single resolution ( I don't say passed,
but even proposed), to condemn it, as falling short of the
terms previously insisted on. I now proceed to still more re-
cent testimony to prove, that the National System was freely
accepted by our Prelates, without the least dread of your
Grace's favourite resolutions. And as your Grace ( I cannot
conjecture why) has thought it right to insinuate that certain
circumstances of the North of Ireland have placed some of its
Prelates under the necessity of being more pliant than their
brethren elsewhere, I will go at once for testimony to the ex-
treme South, where no such circumstances exist.
The Bishop of Kerry, tinder date of the Bth of March last,
after expressing the satisfaction which his Lordship and his
Clergy felt at being relieved from the annoyance of the Kil-
dare-place Society, writes thus :
" I besides consider, that almost all the Bishops of Ireland
(perhaps there is not a single exception), are pledged to the
present system, because they all, either personally or through
their Clergy, have applied for aid to the present Commis-
sioners to build Schools, and to pay the Masters;
which, most
certainly, should not be done if any substantial objection was
entertained by them. In conclusion, I pray your Grace to
affix my name to any document you may draw up in approval
of the system that now exists."
The Bishop of Limerick, under the date of the 7th of March,
after alluding to the unsuccessful attempt which your Grace
made at the February meeting of the present year, thus
writes :—.
" But to come more directly to your Grace's questions, I
am of opinion that if the Bishops of Ireland were now to
tergiversation. I s
discountenance the established system of education, they
would subject themselves to the charge of inconsistency, if not
o
am,of t
h ithis therefore,
country,
under
i and the
religious,
eml
iogsito
u s, than
unquali-
fied conviction, that few circumstances could be more disas-
trousf
to he
iest
that your Grace should cease to be a member of the National
Board."

But why need I harass your Grace by the lent*b recital of
similar testimonies, when I can come at once to the object
which I have in view, by producing your Grace's own impor-
tant and conclusive testimony to sustain me? So lately as the
30th of May, last year, an application, bearing your 'Grace's
well-known signature, reached our Board, praying for aid to-
wards the establishment of a National School in Hollymount.
By that signature your Grace distinctly renounced, under
your own hand, your adhesion to the conditions required by
those same resolutions, which you now hold to be so inviola-
ble, and you accepted, in their stead, the National System.
With what consistency can you now bring them forward, as if
they were of fixed and unalterable obligation?
I: is true that your Grace's application was, unfortunately,
of such a nature that the Commissioners did not think them-
selves at liberty to accede to it. It was for a sum of money,
to establish a school in the dwelling-house of the Rev. James
Mac Hale. What new light this disappointment may have
thrown upon the National System, it is not for me to guess.
lot
nh without any
Commissioners,
But it appears that, on the following. February, in a meeting of
Bishops, from which a severe illness compelled me to be absent,
previous
in no
and after some of the Prelates had. retired, }our Grace, as I
communi-
cation w.
a m
wit with informed,
under date of
very measured terms, for their imputed partiality in the dis-
m
tribution of the education grant, and to harangue the meeting
thought o
tuog ht
animadvert r proper,
on the dangerous tendency of the system which they admi-
PPrelate some
Prelate, who
Itnvhi
ase
st admi-
nistered.
tdt
ht .1
es s
fPt Part
ta o
—r fc thisast,heard scenebyf isoa
rnr othusothn another
described,
respected.
Southern
(I cannot all it specious)
.declamation against the propriety
of surrendering the instruction of the people committed to
our care to a Government Board, or to any other Board; but
I did not think it deserving of any attention, as it was plainly
not only, in argument, a begging of the” question, but, in fact,
manifestly at variance with the truth."
My Lord, these statements have been wrung from me. /
withheld them long, in the hope that at some moment of sober
reflection, a blush might ultimately steal and burn upon your
Grace's cheek, at the thought of continuing to pursue a course
regarding the concerns of our common religion, at open va-

riance with the known wishes of the great majority, and ap-
proved of, I believe, by none of your brother Prelates.
I now retire from this controversy, which has been forced
upon me; and I do so with the consciousness that I have been
drawn into it by no consideration of personal feeling, but
merely by a sense of public duty, at a time %hen longer silence
on my part would have been injustice.
Before, however, I finish, I beg to offer your Grace one
word of consolation. Your Grace seems to think, that the
very atmosphere of our training school is tainted with the
poison of heresy. Permit me now to inform your Grace, that
of the masters now there in a course of training, seven-
eights are of the ancient faith ; that many of them evince
much piety by their frequent recourse to the Sacraments ;
that all of them have an opportunity of receiving religious in-
struction within the School, one day in the week, besides the
additional opportunities afforded on the Sabbath ; and that
it is nearly impossible, should any attempt be made on the re-
ligious opinions of such men, that it could escape immediate
detection and exposure.
Having now, as far as my slender abilities would permit,
endeavoured to dissipate the alarms which your Grace studied
to excite, relative to the system of National Education ; and
having, at least, in some manner, enabled the public to judge
between your Grace and a few, on the one hand, and " the
vast majority of the Catholic Hierarchy and Priesthood of
Ireland" on the other, it only remains for me to recommend
the result to the over-ruling providence of that gracious God,
who his so long protected our holy faith, under the grievous
trials through which He has conducted it in safety, and whose
merciful interposition I daily invoke for its wider extension
and unbroken perpettriv.
With the sincerest wishes for your Grace's happiness,
I l ave the honour to remain, my Lord,
You. Grace's humble servant and brother in Christ,
+ D. MURRAY.
Dublin, Bth November, 1838.

P. S.—l have to apologize that it was not in my power to
claim your Grrce's notice earlier, as my temporary :bsence
from Dublin prevented me from having immediate access to
some of the documents to which I was desirous to call your
Grace's attenticn.