The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-07 00:00:00

these words

" That it be an instruction to the Education Committee,
that the children of Roman Catholics shall not, in the Cor-
poration Schools, be required to use or read any book what-
ever against which their parents or guardians may have
conscientious objections."

If this motion should be carried, it would, at the
first blush, be equivalent to a confession of incompe-
tency on, the part of the Council or their Committee,
to frame any determinate, comprehensive, sound, and
unexceptionable plan of education whatever, and would
imply that they ought to cease from attempting a work
which they have neither the capacity to understand,
nor the firmness to conduct. If this motion were
carried, some other sect (as the Socialists, for instance)
might require, in the following week, that their chil-
dren "should not be required to use or read any book
whatever against which their parents or guardians may
have conscientious objections;" and in the following
week some other "denomination" might take up the
position; and if the Council yielded in one instance,
they would be bound by every tie of common con-
sistency to yield in every other; and the end would be,
that their schools would become a common nuisance—
a
disgrace to themselves—and. a plague to the com-

:'unity.
Mr. Bolton pays the Council the compliment o
asking it to frame and attest a record of its own inca
pacity. But this is not the worst feature of th(
overture ; fc,r, further, he asks them to set their sea
to this plea of fatuity in a matter, and upon an occa:
sion, and, we may say, by an instrumentality whicl:
involves the highest and most momentous considera-
tions concerning which it is possible for human
judgment to be exercised.
The Council is the appointed guardian of the rights,
and privileges, and interests of Liverpool ; and nu-
merous as are the trusts reposed in its hands, it will
be admitted that there is none to be compared with
that of preserving to the people the sacred truths of
religion, and handing down to the rising generation
the invaluable lessons and instruction which we have
ourselves received from our fathers. The Council
is now engaged in the high and honourable task of
repairing breaches which have been made by a resolute
enemy from without, and a treacherous party within--
of renewing the foundations and restoring the buttres-
ses, as well as proprieties of every kind which had
suffered seriously in an evil time; and at this moment
a proposal is made that the Council will halt in this
work, give up their projects of reparation and amend-
ment, and abandon those fruits of their long and hard-
fought struggle, which alone made victory valuable !
Such a proposition could only come from a deadly
enemy, or a most mistaken and deluded friend. Let
us look more narrowly into the matter.
The conquest which put the schools beyond the
controul of Conservatives, and caused them to be
constructed on their still unsubverted basis, was that
of Popery and Infidelity combined. That untoward
state of things and the fortunes incident to it, how-
ever, has happily passed away, and the Conservative
and religiously Protestant party are now restored to
an ample measure of power and authority. Still,
there is some unaccountable tardiness and hesitation
in their measures. Week after week has rolled on,
and still the schools—modified, controuled, directed,
aay, absolutely constructed by the united wisdom of
Popery and Infidelity—remain untouched; and Popery
and Infidelity begin to take courage, and have con-
cluded that they never will be touched, or touched to
that vital extent which they in their weak moments
had anticipated.

The constituents of the new Council are at a loss
to understand this, and grow impatient; there is a
flame gathering, and it will break out, if the Council
do not hasten in their movements; the people of Liver-
pool demand their award.

The question is extremely simple, and the choice of
the Council narrowed to this precise dilemma—the
four Popish priests of Liverpool, or the reverends the
rectors and all the clergy of the Established Church in
a body ? By which of these two bodies will our
Council abide ? That is the question.
The Popish priests protest against children of their
communion praying with Protestant or Church of Eng-
land heretics, and against their reading our Scriptures ;
the clergy of England's church will not acknowledge
the Pope-given rights of the ministers of the Pope's
church to put an extinguisher on the Bible, or to si-
lence the voice of prayer, or to dictate to governors or
freemen in this our land, and will not therefore give
their sanction or dedicate any portion of their valuable
time to schools in which such presumptuous, unjusti-
fiable, and mischievous interference is permitted. With
which body then will the Council side ? There is no
middle course left them ; they must declare for Popery
or for Protestantism ; we demand their reply.
It is perfectly useless to argue the question any fur-
ther; we are in a cleft stick, and shall find ourselves
only more tightly coerced by the alternatives which
press us, the further we advance.

It only remains to inquire what should be the
grounds, if any exist, of the reluctance of any Con-
servative member of the Council to give in hie adhe-

D the views of tire

lablished clergy

We are really at a loss to discover them. There is
nothing of the sort to be found in the declaration made
by each member of the Council at his initiation, bat,
on the contrary, much that seems directly to bind
them to it. The declaration is as follows :
DECLARATION UNDER GEo. IV. CAP. 17.
I. A B do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of
God, profess and declare, upon the true faith of a Christian,
that I will never exercise any power, authority, or influence,
which I may possess by virtue of the office of alderman (or
common councillor) of the borough of Liverpool, to injure
or weaken the Protestant Church, as it is by law established
in England, or to disturb the said church, or the bishops and
clergy of the said church in the possession of any rights or
privileges to which such church, or the said bishops, and
clergy, are, or may be by law established.

Were is a declaration against doing any act "to
injure or weaken" the Protestant Established Church;
and we put it to any honest and candid member of the
council to say, what is the tendency, or, rather, what is
absolutely the nature and character of that act which
would give to Popery a footing within our public
schools—would recognise the authority of popish
priests—sanction their bad acts—confirm their evil
tyranny—and, finally, banish the established clergy
and a host of Protestant children from these institu-
tions ? Would the doing of such an act be consistent
with a declaration "never to exercise any power, au-
thority, or influence required by the office of councillor
or alderman to injure or weaken the Protestant
Church" ? It would be manifestly otherwise;
it would
be a gross and pernicious violation of it.
Popery is the grand enemy, in these days, of our
religious institutions,—and now we shall know by their
decision of the pending question, whether the municipal
council of Liverpool is on its side—on the side of our
most deadly foe, or otherwise.

Liverpool is the Thermopyle of religious truth; the
council are appointed to defend the pass ; and it is n°
hyperbole on our part to say, that the entire nation
feels a deep interest in the stand they make. at such a
crisib.

But again we ask, what is the difficulty in the wal
of the council to act a faithful, a manly and decided
part ? Are they surprised to find that Popery and
Protestantism cannot concur—that if they choose the
Clergy they cannot have popish priests, or if they
choose popish priests they cannot have the clergy
that light and darkness—the systems of God and
Belie], cannot be made to blend e They would be glad
not to exclude either, or any party,—but we will not
allow ourselves to suppose that they entertain ideas a°
chimerical or absurd. We are not now discussing A
secular or temporal question ; we have got into a
higher, and, it must be confessed, a more stormy re-
gion. If we were merely debating some point °I
general education, our difficulties would be trifling, or,
perhaps, none at all : they arise because we are gray'
piing with questions of religion. We have determined
that the education in our schools shall not be Socinian,
or Popish, or latitudinarian ; we have determined that
it shall be based upon true religion; and hence the
controversy.

Now, we ask the conservative members of Lbe
council are they still inquiring with Pilate, " What Is
truth" ? or have they made up their minds on the sub-
ject ? If they have, then let them be confident, and
give to others the benefit of that instruction which they
have received themselves. In the schools they must,
under existing circumstances, have either no religlen
at all, or the religion of the Church of England. What
room is there for hesitation ?

Gentlemen of the council permit us earnestly to re-
commend it to you, to close at once with the views of
your excellent associate Mr. David Hodgson ; theY
meet with the full approbation of the vast majority of
your constituents ; his straightforward, manly, arid
uncompromising conduct on this question has won
him golden opinions of all sorts of men. Be assured
of it that in following his example, and coinciding with

his plans, you will be pursuing the path—the only
path alike of duty and of honour. With regard to the
self-stultifying, self-condemning, suicidal motion of
Mr, ex-Mayor Bolton, we presume you will have little
difficulty in disposing of it.