The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-26 00:00:00

SCRIPTURAL EDUCATION.

A very interesting and important correspondence is at
present going on between the Rev. J. R. M'Ghee and the
Rev. Dr. Martin, of Killeshandra. The latter gentle-
man contends that the recent modifications in the National
Board of Education have taken away its main objection-
able features, and that a Protestant Clergyman can now
receive its aid without compromising his fidelity to the
Word of God, whilst Mr. M'Ghee maintains that it is
still his duty to stand completely aloof from all connection
with its assistance or operations. We have already given
au extract explanatory of Dr. Martin's views, we now
give the following unanswerable reply of Mr. M'Ghee :
" I renounce, as firmly as I renounce the principle of the
National Board, any desire to compel a child to read the
Bible against the wishes of its parents. I go farther : I
assert that no government on earth, in church or state,
possesses a shadow of lawful authority to set up such a
rule. I consequently assert that no minister has a shadow
of right to enforce such a pi inciple ; and if government
were to pass a law to compel, under penalties, the Roman
Catholics of Ireland to send their children against their
will to me to teach them the Bible, I would refuse to be
the agent of such iniquitous tyranny. Therefore, the
advocates of the board, who charge its opponents with
such a principle, assert what is utterly untrue ; and what
is sought to be given a colour to, by this sophistical
method of reciting the rule of the board. I do not
charge you, my reverend friend, with so intending it—you
take it from their reports, and I really hope and think it
has deceived you.

" But while I deny the right of the minister to force
the child to learn the Scriptures; in opPosition to the will
of the parent, I affirm that the parent, in denying the
child instruction from the Word of God, commits a fla-
grant offence against the authority of God. 1 repeat in
those words, which I am glad my reverend brother, you
willingly subscribe,' that the parent and the child,
being in a land where the Holy Word is known, are
bound at the peril of their immortal souls to know that
Word—to believe, and to obey it, as the source and
standard of true religion.' If the parent refuses to per-
mit his child to be instructed in the Word of God—nay,
considers it a dangerous book for his instruction—that
parent holds, as you willingly subscribe' with me a
false and anti-Christian principle.' And now, I ask,
what is my duty to that parent ? Most certainly not to
force his child to learn the Scriptures against his will—
not to arrogate to myself a power with which God has
not invested me, and with which man cannot invest me :
but which God has given to that parent alone, over his
child. But this is my duty, to which you also ' willingly
subscribe'— I should renounce, protest against, and
expose, both from my duty to God, to the parent, and to
the child, the falsehood and iniquity of such a principle.'
I should endeavour, faithfully and affectionately, to show
that parent his sin—that he was violating his duty, both
to God and to his child, when he did not bring him up
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord'—l should
tell him that if his priest forbade him to read the Word
of God, or to educate his child in that Word, it ought to
be a proof to him that that priest did not teach him that
Word, to which he feared to refer him for his doctrine—
that if his church forbade him to educate his child in the
Word of Christ, it ought of itself to show him that that
church could not be a Church of Christ. These things,
and many others, I should try to press on the judgment
and conscience of that narent, to lead him to his duty to
his child.

" If, then, that parent were to turn:to me and say—
' Your words have no effect on me. I will not allow my
child to read the Scriptures; but I wish him to be edu-
cated without the Bible. Will you teach him for me ?
Give him an education in other things in your school ;
but give notice when the Bible is to be read, then send
him home, and do not let him hear or read the Word of
God.' What must be my answer if lam an honest man,
and true to my principles—true to my God—true to my
church—true to the souls of that parent and his child ?
" I must say—' What, my friend ! I have endeavoured
to impress upon you the sin of which you are guilty to
your child, and the si❑ of which you are guilty against
God, in casting from you his Holy Word ; and do you
think I will be a partaker of your sin ? Do you think I
will dare to do for you, and wish you, that very act
which I tell you is an act of iniquity—an act of rebellion
against God? Shall I sanction, not only by my permis-
sion, but by my co-operation, the criminal principle, to be
impressed on the young mind of your unluppy child, that
the Word of his Creator and Redeemer is not a fit book
for him to read ? Shall I help to train him up in a prin-
ciple of the Father of Lies, and call myself a minister of
the God of Truth ? No, my friend : all education for
your child is worthless, if he is not brought up in the
knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal'—all
the wisdom in the world is ignorance and folly, if he does
not know that book which is able to make him wise unto
salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.' If he
is to perish through your sin, his blood be upon your own
head ! I must be clear of it. I will not incur the guilt,
that God should require it at my hands; I will not warn
the wicked from his way, and then help him to walk in

" Now this, my reverend brother, is, 1 submit, without
fear, to your upright and candid consideration, the honest
language and the peremptory duty of a man who really
and truly subscribes the principles which I have asserted
to involve uncompromising opposition to the National
Board of Education. To qualify yourself for obtaining
aid from that Board you must renounce the principles
which you tell me you subscribe as holy and true and
must subscribe and consent to act on this principle of the
parent, which you confess you hold to be false and anti-
Christian ; for this is the genuine rule, this is the real
principle, of th-tt iniquitous system. It is not, as they
pretend in their sophistical mode of putting forth their
rules, that no child is to be compelled to read the Scrip-
tures whose parents object ; for that no man denies. But
this is their rule : that the clergy shall be compelled to
teach children without the Scriptures, whose parents ob-
ject to the Scriptures—that thus the clergy shall be made
partakers of the sin of the parents—shall practically not
only admit it, but co-operate in it—shall thus act in direct
violation not only of their duty to God but of their own
sworn obligations as ministers of the Church of England
and shall be made, in the hands of the government, the
tools of administering the principles of the Papacy, and
shall be compelled to carry out, in the education of the
poor, the infamous fourth rule of the index of prohibited
books, which forbids the Bible, on the principle that ' it is
manifest by experience that more evil than good results
from the study of the sacred Scriptures.' This is the
real rule of the board—this is the real pith and marrow of
the case. It is not, as its jesuitical pretence puts forth,
that' due regard is to be had to parental authority, and
that no child is to be compelled to act against their prin-
ciples, and their duty to their parents ;' but it is this,
that undue regard is to be paid to the authority of the
Papal see—that there is to be no recognition or admission
of the supreme authority of God and of His Holy Word
—that it must bow to the dictate of the Pope—that no
regard is to be paid to the authority or duty of the mi-
nisters of Christ—but that they are to be compelled to
act in violation of their principles—of their duty to their
church—their duty to their countrymen—and their duty
to their God.

" And now, my reverend friend and brother, I must
here submit to your judgment and your candour that this,
and this alone, is the real question between us. I assert
that this is the principle—the real, genuine principle—of
the National Board. I assert that it is utterly irreconcile-
able by any human talent to the principles which I have
laid down as being opposed to it, when faithfully and truly
held by a man before his God. You say you willingly
subscribe these principles as holy and true. I leave it,
therefore, with confidence to your candour and truth,
that you must either retract or qualify, in some manner
that I cannot conceive, your subscription to the holiness
and truth of my principles; or you must admit the con-
clusion, that they are logically and ethically irreconcile-
able to the principles of the National Board.

A TOAST FOR TEETOTALLERS.—Here's to the man who
cut down the trees, who cleared the land, who ploughed
the ground, who planted the corn, which fed the goose,
that raised the quill, which formed the pen, with which
was w r:tten the total abstinence pledge.
To CHEESE MAKERS.—Churned milk being added to
cheese milk in the usual way, very much improves both
the quality and taste of cheese, and will prevent it rising
after it is made. Several old cheese makers in Notting-
hamshire are adopting the method with success.
AN AFFECTIONATE FATHER.—A gentleman connected
with the Indian army returned after an absence of ten
years. Immediately on his meeting with his father,
" Jamie," said the old gentleman, " ye've just been out
ten years, how muckle ha'e ye made ?" " Five hundred
thousand rounds," was the reply. " Ye should, ha'e
stayed there ten years, and made it the million. '