The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1894-02-07 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

ROMAN CATHOLICS AND SCHOOL BOARDS.  PASTORAL LETTER OF THE BISHOP OF  SHREWSBURY. In a pastoral letter of the Right Rev. the Bishop of Shrewsbury, just published, the following references to School Boards and the working of the Elementary Education Acts appear It is a favourite subject for self congratulation among men of our time that we live in an age of progress and social improvement ; that themarvellous advance of science and civilization has changed the old order and renovated the world, which is now tending upwards to an ideal perfection, to be realised bye-and-bye in a not far distant future; when the theories, that is to say, of our would-be guides and teachers shall have been worked out. Is there no other side to the picture! -Let us. grant that wages are increased, that railways are multiplied, that creature comforts abound for those who can Pay for them. But what of the squalid misery of our masses! What of the one hundred and forty million pounds spent last year in drink, resulting in brutal. crimes of violence and murder, ruining the family lifei of thousands and lowering the race both morally and physically, as the evil passes on to the generation'', which is to follow! What of the murders and suicides,.P the swindling and forgery which fill the columns our newspapers! What of that worst feature of our/ • times, the multiplication of divorces; breaking asunder. • the sacred tie of marriage, parting these whom Goa' has joined, countenancing and encouraging proffigacy„)! ' and defiling the sanctity of home! fruly it seemlier possible, even in this enlightened century, to cherish* a pleasant delusion and live in a fool'a paradise. 1 And if from these melancholy facts of our owls domestic life we turn to look abroad, what is the. ' spectacle that awaits us? What is the chief thoughti 1 and occupation of nations and statesmen! Is it not to add year by year to those mighty armaments on land and sea, which with their terrible engines of destruction are a standing threat to the world's peace, while devouring with cruel taxes the industry of a nation, and making slaves of its manhood by conscription! All this may be Progress, but whither and to what end? And if we ask its disciples where is the remedy i and how they will deal with these obstacle.m which impede the world's march on its way to tho perfect future they dream of, they tell us it must be by free education, untrammeled by dogma; and that we have only to multiply our Board Schools and all will be well. . _  We have had some experience of the remedy, and there are many who believe it to be worse than the disease ; and that the number of clever rogues and their evil doings are largely due to that false system of education in which God is left out and the minds of children crammed with superficial knowledge, while their moral sense is left untrained and too often corrupted, for want of the teaching which religion alone can give. Without this, as has been truly said, we have but sharpened their intelleots to do evil. We Impress upon you all once more the urgent necessity of defending your rights as parents to choose for your children the schools in which alone they can be instructed in the Catholic Faith, and tai aatektut jour resistance to the subtle policy that would crush them by multiplying costly and vexatious requirements; withholding from us at the same time all share in the rate we pay, and applying it to the the extension of those Secularist or semi-Christian Schools by which it in sought to supersede our own. We fully admit the obligation of parents to securse for their children such measure of simple elementary; , instruction as shall fit them for the ordinary datiese ' of life, and the right and duty of the State to seer that this obligation is fulfilled; but to go beyond. this, to meddle with the right of parents to the religious teaching of their children, and impose on us the burthen of a rate wholly in behalf WM others, while we are maintaining our own schools anit.k,, satisfying all just requirements, is a gross unfairneme and one so obvious that we believe no man of uprights mind, who will lay aside all party prejudice, can &A— t° acknowledge it. We must insist then on our claim to a just proportion of the rate we pay, and see that three who represent us are prepared to intain it. We have dwelt upon this as one of the chief practical religious questions of the day, and one which makes a special demand upon the conscience of every Catholic So much so that if our, tnemies could compass their object, clam our schools and force our children into those in which our religious teaching cannot be had, we should have to face this new penal law as our Catholic forefathers did those of their own day, and refuse at whatever cost to comply. In,. question where the voice of conscience speaks aloud, there can Le no compromise, and we must answer as Peter and John did to the Council of the Jews. If it be just. . .- to hear you earlier than God, judge  SUNLIGHT SOAP compErrnoNs. 232.000 PRIZES or BICYCLES, WATCHES, and BOOKS, Value £41,904.  ME FIRST OF THESE MONTHLY COMOOMPIaTiIONS