The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-30 00:00:00

tracts were In many

piap

cupboards in variOns schools. •
rounds, observed this, end he ent

Scripture extracts not- being rl
by the local managers to the b
August, 1838, and the b

extracts

This was complained of
in Dublin, on the 31st of
ueezable, withdrew the

being

Hear.)

occurredi►i
This occurred in a popish school, under
a popish" priest ; the glimmer of light shed upon the sur-
rounding darkness by these extracts was unpalatable to him—
he, therefore, remonstrated, and the extracts were with;
drawn! (Hear.) The 26th section of the report made by
the board in the year 1829 had these words— We should
also state that we by no means insist upon having the Scrip-
ture extracts published by our authority read in any of our
national schools." Now the board was established for the
purpose of affording to children of Roman Catholic parents
some knowledge of the divine will through the use of these

extracts—henCe was it supported by Sir'T. F. Buxton and
other pious liberal members, and the public money was
granted for that purpose; but the board had betrayed its
. .

14-1.151, aim it non given up -yiSti part or tne irisn popu-
lation wholly into the hands of the Romish priests. (Hear,
hear.) He mentioned this to show that in dealing with the
board as it is now, theylwere dealing with a very different
thing to what the board was when first originated. If he
used strong language in speaking of the board, he must be
understood as not applying it to those who had the formation
of it, for the board had departed from the original intentions
of those who formed it. And if strong language was used
with regard to Lord Stanley, who had the purest motives in
all he did, he begged that Lord Stanley might not be made
accountable for the present doings of the board. Lord
Stanley intended that through the instrumentality of this
board, some light, if not the whole, should be caused to fall
upon the darkness of popery in his (Mr. Walker's) unhappy
native land. Next to the design of causing some portion of
divine truth to be disseminated through the length and
breadth of the land, was the grand object of uniting the va-
rious parties and sections in Ireland. England was fatigued
with stories of Irish misery and woe, and in order to heal
them, it was said " establish a system which shall unite all
the various conflicting parties in beautiful harmony and
order." This system was formed, and great sacrifices were
made to obtain this promised union ; and what had been the
consequence ? Why that you had now a board of education
in Ireland that had done more to dissever the various par-
ties and denominations in Ireland than anything ever perpe-
trated in the history of that country. (Hear, hear.) You
had a board of education directly endowing Popery, Pres-
byterianism, Socinianism, and every other schism that chose
to ask its aid. (Hear.) The rev. gentleman then cited a
letter of Dr. Cooke, of Belfast, dated the 11th February, in
the present year, in which that celebrated man said he was
free to confess that the government system of education ge-
nerally was just as had as ever, although the Presbyterians
had obtained some relaxation or modification of three of its
rules, by which they were enabled to have schools upon their
own principles. The same advantage, privilege, and oppor-
tunity of giving education upon a system peculiarly their
own that had been offered to the Presbyterians was, there-
fore, open to every other class and denomination, for it was
the principle of the National Society to afford equal facilities
for teaching error and truth. It was known before that this
was so, but now the matter was made perfectly tangible.
After another quotation from Dr. Cook, further exposing the
anomalies of the system endowed in Ireland with the national
money, one expression in which was this "if we join the
board we shall be prevented carrying light into popish dark-
ness," the reverend speaker proceeded to say that the object
of the deputation was to present to the notice of the meeting
a society which possessed peculiar advantages and facilities
for " carrying light into popish darkness." Hear, hear.)
The Church of Ireland had come forward as the teacher of the
young, and organized a system, whereby the word of God
would be given to them in its unmutilated entirety in order
that they might know the way of salvation, and come to the
hope of them that believe in Jesus. (Cheers.) Endeavour-
ing to fulfil His commission, the church was asking, through
the instrumentality of this society, the means of bringing be-
fore the people a full, large, and Catholic system of educa.tion.
Its object was to enable the parochial clergy in Ireland to offer
to all a religious education—to offer to every one within the
boundries of their parish a sound and Scriptural education—
the same system that it was now intended, he believed, to be
pursued in the corporation schools in this town. (Hear, hear.)
The rev. gentleman then contended that the clergy of the
Established Church ought to have the charge of the education
of the people, and he showed that this principle had been re-
cognized and acted upon from the reign of Henry VIII down
to 'the year 1825. They had not, however, a legal provision
now to effect this, hence they were compelled to apply to the
generosity of England. Not one farthing of the public funds
could they obtain for the education of the young, therefore
were they wholly thrown upon the liberality of the good people
of England and Ireland. When he stated that last year,
which was thesecond year of their existence, they raised nearly
£15,000 to extend the society, that they had in connection
1,100 schools, containing upwards of 60,000 scholars-20,000
and upwards of whom were Romanist children, he had shown
plainly that the society was prospering. It was conducted
upon sound principles, and as a guarantee for that, he would
mention that it was in union with the National Society of
England—that glorious institution established in this country
for the purpose of giving church education to all the children
of the land. It was taken into union at a meeting held in
London, and presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who expressed his satisfaction at the formation of the society
under the auspices of the Primate and Bishops of the Irish
Church, and upon principles which were scriptural and church
in their character. Their system of education, and their plan
in all its details was alike ; they had formed diocesan branches ;
they had twenty model schools throughout the dioceses ; they
had a training school in Dublin for the preparation of com-
petent masters ; and they were seeking, by close inspection,
to have the system fully and efficiently worked throughout
the length and breadth of the land. (Applause.) They had
come to this town under the patronage and sanction of the
rectors. In no case, indeed, did they presume to enter into
any parish to ask for support, unless they had the patronage
and sanction of the head of the ecclesiastical establishment
in the place. (Hear, hear.) After a few further recom-
mendatory observations the rev. gentleman moved the reso-
lution, and sat down amidst great applause.
The Rev. DAVID J AMES, in a brief speech, seconded the
resolution, and on being put from the chair it was unanimously
carried.

The Rev. W. A. BUTLER, Professor of Moral Philosophy,
in Trinity College, Dublin, moved the second resolution.
I rejoiced, sir, proceeded the rev. gentleman, to have dis-
covered upon my arrival in this city in the character of a
deputy from the Church Education Society for Ireland, and
1 through it, from the bishops and clergy of the Irish Church,
that in this city itself we were likely to find so large a body
of this most respectable and influential population, interested
in the very cause which we had ourselves come over here to
plead. As you, sir, have clearly shown in your most lucid
and perspicuous address at the opening of this meeting, we
are here as the advocates of principles identically the same
with those for which you yourselves, my friends, have been
struggling. The circumstances indeed may in some respects
differ, but the great principles for which we contend—to wit,
education founded upon the broad basis of the unmutilated
Scriptures of God, and superintended and guided and directed
by God's appointed clergy, these important principles are no
other than those which have regulated the Church Education
Society for Ireland, in behalf of which I and my brother emis-
sary appear before this meeting this evening. (Hear, hear.)
Aad yet it is true there are some differences, but not sub-
stantial differences, between the cases. The church that
undertakes to educate the poor in Ireland is situated, it must
be confessed, in some respects, in different circumstances
from the church that undertakes to educate the poor of Eng-
gland. How I feel when I behold before me in this room
so large a body of gospel taught, and gospel believing peo-
ple ! How I feel when I behold in this city so vast a mass
of persons instructed in the great fundamental principles of
the truth as it is in Jesus ! How I feel when 1 know that
the whole tone and current of public opinion in this great city
is enlisted in behalf of those immortal principles of divine
truth that are taught by our apostolic church ! When I be-
hold these things, is it to be wondered at that my thoughts
should wander across the sea that divides us and you, and
bring to my recollection that less happy land in which the
truth is in jeopardy as it were, in its own home, in which
the gospel of Christ, to be preached at all, must often be
preached amidst difficulty, persecution. peril, and dangers
of every description, and in which, in some instances (I do
not say in all, and perhaps I ought not to say in many) we are
not martyrs for the cause of Christ by our flesh, only because
we are martyrs from day to day for his cause ! (Hear, bear.)
It is not so with you. God has been pleased to place you in
different circumstances. (Hear.) Oh ! what circumstances
they are in which He has been pleased to place you ! Oh,
what it is to be citizens of an empire which God has des-
tined, as events have shown, to be the great citadel of His
pure and indwelling truth for the sake of an unbelieving and
unregenerate world ! Ob, what it is to be members of a
church, of which, more than of any other that ever existed,
we may confidently pronounce that God of old predestined
that from it should go forth those saving principles of divine
truth which he has ever intended should be the bulwark of all
true national advancement, the salt of the earth, the saving
principles by which the world's salvation was ultimately to
be secured ! This is the position which England occupies;
and in that position you, my friends, this evening are enabled
to share. Oh, from your vantage ground, from the height
of the position in which Providence has been pleased to place
you, from that elevated and eminent post which you are called
upon to occupy, we ask you to look down upon Ireland ! We
ask you to look down upon a country which is bound to so
many of you by the dear ties of family or of birth ! We ask
you to behold how dependent she is upon you for all that
makes life valuable, or eternity secure ; and in that con-
viction, and under that persuasion, liberally, openly, and
with all the energy of your honest English hearts to become
supporters of this last and greatest effort to enlighten Ire-
land, and make her what she ought to be, " great, glorious,
and free "—(cheers)—free by a divine enfranchisement, free
by a spiritual emancipation, free—not by that miserable free-
dom which is but slavery, that her boasted friends advocate
—but free by that divine unfolding of all her spiritual ener-
gies, by that service of God, which one of our own beautiful
collects has declared to be the only " perfect freedom. "
(Great cheers.) Now, my dear friends, the resolution lam
here to support, states to you a cardinal principle of the so-
ciety which wehaveundertaken toacivocate. It statesthat this
society is distinguished from other societies in one important
respect—that it comes before you chartered by the all but
unanimous patronage and superintendence of the legitimate
governors of the Church of Christ in Ireland. (Hear.) This
is important upon several accounts. It is important because
it forms a security, a satisfactory pledge for those who are
inclined to bestow their liberality upon the society ; it en-
sures to them that whatever they do bestow shall be devoted
to purposes such as meet the approbation of those who, by
authority of station, and by length of experience, are best
qualified to know what is suitable to uphold the church and
people of Ireland. (Hear.) This is a matter, I need not say,
of great and peculiar moment. You are " a thinking peo-
ple," as has often been said by one of' the most illustrious of
your popular leaders. You are " a thinking people ; "
moreover, you are a mercantile people. You naturally, be-
fore you enlist yourselves in any cause, require that a clear
statement should be laid before you, to ensure and ascertain
that what you do bestow shall be effectively administered.
The sponsors we put before you on behalf of the Church
Education Society for Ireland—[they are sponsors that no
other education society can bring forward]—are the Pri-
mate and the Bishops of the Church of Christ in the sister
kingdom. (Hear, hear, hear.) There is another aspect in
which the same matter may be viewed. Our denomination
is this—the Church Education Society for Ireland. We do
not call ourselves the Bible Society for Ireland ; we do not
call ourselves the Scripture Society for Ireland. It is not—
God forbid it should for a moment be imagined that it is—
that we do not make the Scriptures the cardinal point upon
which all our education is to rest ; but it is for this reason—
that in this society there is an additional element superadded,
over and above, to mere Scriptural teaching—an element in-
dispensable, as we conceive, whether we regard our wants as
ministers of the Anglican Church in Ireland, or the general
consistency and propriety of our proceedings as teachers of
Christ's undefiled truth. Our society, then, is this. We
offer education in the fundamental principles of the truth of
Christ to every living soul; we declare to every immortal
spirit, if that spirit is thirsting for the water of life, " ap-
proach near unto us," and, as far as the Spirit of God will
enable us, " he shall partake of the waters of life freely,
without money and without price." (Cheers.) That is our
fundamental principle. It applies to all ; it excludes nothing
but positive error. But, then, we cannot but remember that
there is a large body who are connected' with us by yet nearer
and dearer ties ; we cannot but remember that we, as minis-
ters of the Church of Christ in England and Ireland, have
undertaken to declare not merely the Scriptures as they
stand in the revealed page of God, but also the Scriptures
abcycoortduill
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tion, and from them transmitted to us, their successors.
(Hear, hear.) Therefore it is that to all those who have