The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-16 00:00:00

NATIOI4AL rDUChTION

The following extracts from a speech delivered by the Rev,
Hugh M'Neile, at a meeting of the Glasgow Educational
Society, in 1836, will now be read with interest :
" If I understand the object of your meeting right, it is
to improve, to extend, and in so doing, to secure an efficient
sysoon of parochial education in Scotland. You judge that
such a system, in order to prove a real blessing to your
country, must be based upon the fundamental truths revealed
in the Word of God, and carried on under the wise superin-
tendence, watchful coutroul, and paternal solicitude of your
national church. Such a view of the subject is not novel—
such an arrangement of the system is not an untried theory
in Scotland. In the earliest standards of your national
church (the first and second Book of Discipline) composed
by men who, in the midst of personal difficulties and destitu-.
tion, forgot their own temporal poverty in the noble ambitisea
and unwearied efforts to bequeathe spiritual wealth to the'ir
Country, thereby exhibiting that sublime feature of the ape s-
tolical character, ' poor, yet tasking many rich,'—it mats
recommended that the youth of every parish should he
brought under instruction, that provision should be made to
maintain schoolmasters; and until schools were set up. the
duty of teaching the children devolved upon the readers. These
readers, as I understand the arrangement, were suboresinate
to the ministers and elders of the parish; so that the education
of the country was thus at once placed under the inwaediate
direction of the national church. To carry this into effect, the
land of the parish was taxed in 1633 to supply the salary of the
schoolmaster. A similar act was passed after the Revolu-
tion. The consent of the landed proprietors, and the success
of the measure in parliament, were mainly—l believe I might
say entirely—owing to the exertions of the church. The
first appointment of the schoolmaster was vested in the lan-
ded proprietors; but no schoolmaster could obtain the ne-
cessary certificate for entering on his important avocation
till he had been examined by the Presbytery. His religious
opinions, his moral habits, and his literary attainments were
thus subjected to a competent scrutiny. It was morally im-
possible that the Presbytery could be materially deceived.
The literary qualifications of the candidate could obviously
and easily be ascertained even by strangers--not so his moral
habits ; but the Presbytery being resident on the spot, and
conversant with all the individuals and all. the rumours of
the neighbourhood, were in the best possible situation for
guarding against deception ; and with regard to religious
opinion, they not only subjected the candidate to an oral
examination, but required of him to sign the Confession of
Faith. Such were the jealous and salatary guards which
your forefathers erected around the we'.l-springs of the pa-
rochial education of their beloved country. They knew that
securing the fitness of the masters, they were securing, as
far as human power can reach, the value and efficiency of
the schools.
" I have seen with pain, in the appeal of your Glasgow
Educational Society, the assertion, that the character of
your popular parochial education is now low ; that not the
continuance, but the restoration, //fa good system is now re-
quired. Permit me, sir, to say, rhs a stranger, that I trust
Scotland has rather slumbered than degenerated ; that al-
though her hands may have beer. slack for a season, not keep-
ing- pace with the increasing 4Psi:Elands of her multiplying
population, yet her heart waketh—that the sound, sterling
indomitable principle of Christianity is still within her, and
ready, in the hour of ascertained peril, to put on a vigour,
and assume an attitude, and utter a voice which will make
the stoutest of the enemies of her ancient institutions to quail
—which will extend her national education over the multiply-
ing thousands of her national family, and preserve and per-
petuate it, in its fountain ansi in its streams, under the Chris-
tian superintendence of her national church ; and which, with
a look of lofty, stern, and righteous decision, will wither the
arch enemy of God and wan, who, under any pretence what-
soever, would deprive the least or poorest of her sons or
daughters of the unrestricted use of the unmutilated 'Word
of God. (Loud and continued cheering.) I hail that cheer
as a token of good. Whatever may be said of some persons
and some places in Scotland, it is perfectly clear that all
Scotland is not asleep. But permit me to say, without
offence, cheers are cheap—means must be used. We are en-
gaged in a warfare, Nshere not the shout only, but the sinews
of the soldier are required. The church cannot now
so prevail with men of property as to secure parliamentary
success to measures in support of Christian education.
What then is the church to do? Much has been said, and
much is likely to be said, upon the voluntary system. What
seems to be cow monly intended by that phrase cannot be
too strongly reprehended ; hut, I confess, I cannot but ap-
prehend that, owing to the treachery of the human heart,
there is sonic danger, that while we repudiate the voluntary
principle, we may neglect, or omit, or postpone what ought
to be our voluntary sacrifice. The voluntary system, if
pleaded as r. substitute for national support, in order to ex-
culpate the nominally Christian government which withholds
such support from the Christian church, is nothing else but
disguised infidelity. But if it be insisted upon as an ad-
dition to any amount of national support, it is an imperative
Christian duty. We may truly say, woe to the government
which leaves the Christian church to the unassisted support
of its own voluntary contributions ! and with equal truth we
may say, woe to the church which is not liberal in voluntary
contributions, whatever support it may receive from govern-
ment., And I would add, that owing to the perverseness of
our nature in abusing our blessings, the blessing of national
support to the church has been abused. We have grown up
so much in the habit of having our church and our ministers
maintained for us, almost without perceptible cost, that we
are now unaccustomed, and correspondingly unwilling, to
mike any thing amounting to sacrifices for them. While,
in the meantime, the population of our country has so out-
grown the accommodation in our churches, the harvest has
become so hopelessly impracticable to the present number of
labourers, that if sacrifices be not made, and sacrifices on a
scale of primitive beneficence, the surplus unreclaimed popu-
lation will soon outnumber and overwhelm all the rest in the
rising tide of atheism and unrighteousness. An effort then
must be made. Money must be given. Churches and mini-
sters, and schools and schoolmasters, must be multiplied."
The rev. gentleman, after urging the high duty of private
liberality to give real efficiency to any grant of public
money, advanced into the difficulties of the system propounded
by our liberal rulers of those days, and after discussing them
he said, " What then is to be done ? It is clear that it
comes to this—if there be no revealed truth, and if the matter
he a matter of population and preference, then assuredly
they are right who say, pay all or pay none; and since
opinion like matter is infinitely divisible, and the pay-all
principle would involve at last the paying of any or every in-
dividual who chose to dissent from other individuals, the
only practicable scheme would be to pay none. But there is
revealed truth—and it is curious and instructive to mark the
animus of the powers that be in different ages of the world
towards that truth. History supplies us with two remark-
able instances of toleration ; they vary in detail, and are
characteristic of the feelings towards christianity of the re-
spective parties. The first is the Emperor Constantine—l
follow an authority which will not he suspected of partiality
towards our religion—the eloquent but sceptical historian of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Concerning
Constantine, he says—' He invites and exhorts, in the most
pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate
the example of their Master : bet he declares that those who
still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial light, may
freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods.' Thus it
is clear that he gave free toleration to the religious rites of
the pagan idolaters. But what follows in the history proves
that he suppressed by authority those practices of the ido•
biters which were of injurious tendency to the commu-
nity. ' After the example of the wisest of his pre-
decessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous penalties,
the occult and impious arts of divination ; which excited the
vain hopes and sometimes the criminal attempts of those
who were discontented with their present condition. An
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles which had
been publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effemi-
nate priests of the Nile were abolished, and Constantine dis-
charged the duties of a Roman Censor when he gave orders
for the demolition of several temples of Phoenicia, in which
every mode of licentiousness was devoutly practised in the
face of day, and to the honour of Venus. The distinction I

allude to is' between the truth and the tendency of religious

opinion. Truth justifies preference ; but it is only well-
ascertained injurious tendency to the community that justi-
fies prohibition. We have not far to look for the modern
parallels to those evil practices and licentious rites which
were prohibited, and those lying oracles which were silenced
by Constantine. I need scarcely mention what will be at
once suggested to every intelligent inquirer, the Rheiinish
Notes, Peter Dens, and the Confession-box, in which it is
difficult to say which is most triumphant—divided allegiance,

systematic Perjury, absurd superstition, or contaminating
immorality. (Cheers.) These are before the country, with
the instructive disclosures connected with them in these our

own days."
" The second instance of toleration to which I referred,
was by Julian the Apostate. It is thus described by Gibbon :
of Julian he says—" Actuated by these motives, and appre-
hensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian
surprised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a
statesman or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabit-
ants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal tole-
ration.' But instead of exhorting his subjects to embrace
Christianity, after the example of Constantine, he encour-

,
aged the various existing heresies. ' The Pagans received a
gracious permission, or rather an express order, to open all
their temples; and they were at once delivered from the op-
pressive laws and arbitrary vexations which they had sus-

tained under the reign of Constantine and his sons. At the
same time, the bishops and clergy, who had been banished
by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and restored
to their respective churches—the Donatists, the Novatians,
the Macedonians, the Eunotnians, and tbose who, with a
more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the
52 Council of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their

theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the
hostile sects, that he: might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of
their furious encounters. The clamour of controversy some-

times provoked the Emperor to exclaim,—' Hear me! the
Franks have heard me, and the Allemanni ;" but he soon dis-

covered thus he was now engaged with more obitinate and

implacable enemies."

The distinction between the two cases is remarkable ; and
what have we now ; Is it Constantinus, or is it Juliann'

Redivivus? Is it the enlightened and discriminating tolera-

tion of the Christian Emperor? or the indiscriminating
encouragement of the Apostate ? Not Constantine—but Ju-

Tian. (Applause.) Error of all sorts is encouraged. The
clamour of contending parties is excited, and the voice of
authority in Great Britain bids fair to share the fate of the
imperial voice at Rome. Hear me! the Franks have heard
me, and the Allemanni !' Yes—but you have now roused a

power which will not hear you, but under which yourselves
must fall. (Tremendous cheering.)
" But though union in religious opinion appears hopeless,
may there not be unity of plan in communicating literary in-
formation ? We answer no, if literature be dissociated from
religious principle; because the true Christian cannot con-
sent to spend his own time or consume the time of others in
what has no connexion with eternal salvation. The salvation

of men's soul is with him as it was with his Divine Master,
the main object to which every other consideration must be

subservient

General literature by itself has no tendency to

promote salvation. Connected with Christianity, we rejoice
to disseminate it far and wide, but not by itself. General
knowledge has no power to alter the human will. We deny

_
not that it has power to refine the manners ; but we stre-
nuously deny that it has any power or even tendency to renew

the heart. It has power to make men change one description
of sin for another; but it has no power to make any man hate
sin as committed against God. It has a tendency to convert
the bold outrageous highwayman into the sly gentleman-like
pickpocket—the midnight burglar into the midnight forger or
coiner—the savage into the member of society. It can invent
and multiply disguises to conceal the vilenesses of our fallen
nature, like the haggard misery o❑ the cheek of a veiled and
painted harlot ; but it has no power to minister true peace to
the wretched--to apply balm to the wound, or convey the
pulse of health to the feverish frame of this harlot world. It

is powerful to civilize—it is impotent to save. (Cheers..
With all its wisdom, the world by wisdom knew not God
.•

Egypt was celebrated' for its learning; yet Egypt continued
idolatrous of a cow and a reptile. Chaldea was celebrated
for its astronomical attainments ; yet Chaldea continued sunk
in idolatry. Greece and Rome were celebrated for orators,
and statesmen, and poets, and painters, and sculptors, such
as never have been excelled ; and yet the climax of their at-
tainments in religion is the memorable symbol of their igno-
rance. In the emporium of their civilization, the city of
Athens, the altar erected by the wisest of their philosophers
was inscribed 'To the unknown God The youngest child
of intelligence in any of your parish schools is wiser unto sal-
vation than were the united sages of Greece and Rome.
(Applause.) To know God is eternal life—to know him
in Christ Jesus, our Father and our Friend—just, and
the justifier of the ungodly—perfectly just, and the free
justifier of the most ungodly—not to guess at him as a
compound of imperfections. but our God is perfect—
infinitely just, without the slightest tarnish on the equity
of hia government in heaven : and infinitely merciful, without