have mistaken for facts-sometimes in declamatory and wordy invective, which he wishes to pass for argument-not unfrequently in the way of insinuation, to have it believed that the system of Mr Lancaster is, both in its design and its tendency, hostile to the Establishment. The same line of attack is followed by Dr Bowyer, and all the other assailants of the new plan. With respect to the design, a very few words will suffice. Take this specimen of the fairness of these watchmen of the Church. Mr Lancaster had said, I long to see men who profess Christianity contend, not for creeds of faith-words and names-but in the practice of every heavenly virtue.' Mr Pope had uttered the same sentiment a century ago, without wishing the downfal either of the Romish or English Churches; and every pulpit in Protestant Europe, we dare to say, has promulgated the selfsame thought every year since the days of Luther. What is Professor Marsh's inference from this passage-the construction which, in his charity, he puts upon it? Mr Lancaster, therefore (says he), must long to see the Church of England abandon her creed and her name.' (p. 13.) Some one having mentioned the institution of a school, in which bigotry and intolerance should have no share '-meaning, most obviously, a school which should be open to the poor of all religious persuasionsthe Professor straightway complains, that already the doctrines of the Church are called bigotry, and its constitution intolerance.' (p. 15.) He takes it for granted, that the dissenters at all times are labouring to effect the downfal of the Church; and cannot imagine that either Mr Lancaster, or those who support him, should have any other views. He forgets, that their views are wholly confined to teaching the first clements of knowledge-elements equally necessary to the churchman and the dissenter, and altogether independent of the forms of faith which they enable the infant mind to imbibe. Great as this misrepresentation is, we find Dr Bowyer, in one passage, exceeds it; and we regret to find it, for it stands single, in a discourse otherwise fair and liberal. It seems (he says), whatever may be the religious persuasion of the master, we are to suffer the children of parents belonging to all sects (for our Establishment is only treated as one of them) to be admitted promiscuously, and each child to be taught in one and the same school the peculiar catechism, or formulary, of his own sect; so that our children will have the edification of hearing the Unitarians deny the Divinity of their Redeemer, rail at the doctrine of the Trinity, and reject the atonement of the Mediator; another sect treat the holy Sacraments with scorn, as mere matters of human institution a third division set forth the natural equality of mankind, and undermine

undermine the foundations of all government; all concurring in the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, &c. ' (p. 17.) To all which we can make but one answer,That it is perfectly false; and wechallenge this reverend gentleman to produce a single school, either on Lancaster's plan, or indeed on any other, in which such doctrines are taught, and such demeanour held. In truth, if he can find such an instance, he may go before the civil magistrate, by indictment or information; for he has enumerated a list of temporal offences. Surely, surely, he must have known, while composing this invective, that in the Lancasterian schools Christianity alone is taught, from the Bible; and that as no particular Catechism is preferred (which is the very charge brought against the system), so it is impossible that any should be attacked.

But the tendency of this neutrality is severely handled; and this is one of the chief topics of these reverend alarmists. The proposition is broadly stated, that if the children of the poor do not learn religion at school, they will not learn it at all. The parents of children, who are objects of public charity, are for the most part incapable of teaching religion to their children. And, if they send their children to a Sunday school according to their own persuasion, the peculiar doctrines, which the children will hear one day in the week, can hardly make a lasting impression, when they are continually hearing of generalized Christianity during str days in the week. Where children go daily to school, the religion, which they are afterwards to profess, should be an object of daily attention. They must learn their religion as they learn other things; and they will have much or little, according as their education supplies them. To assert, that our religion is not dependent on our education, is to contradict the experience of all ages and nations.' (p. 12, 13.) Here is a sly assumption, lurking under a single word, religion.' Does not Mr Lancaster teach religion? The truth is, that he teaches scarcely any thing but the Holy Scriptures: but the Professor gained a good deal, he was well aware, if he could confound the. not teaching one particular creed, or form of belief, with the not teaching any religion at all. He then makes another stride; and asserts, but without even the pretence of an argument, that if children are not taught the National Catechism, they not only will grow up ignorant of the Church's doctrines, but inimical to its establishment; and then, as if he had proved this strange position, he enumerates the great powers of the new system, and the vast numbers which it is capable of educating-inferring from thence, that it is dangerous to the Church, in proportion to its powers-and that consequently this plan, being accompaVOL. XIX, NO. ST. nice

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nied with such religious instruction as is calculated to create indifference, and even dislike, to the established Church-the most powerful engine that ever was devised against it, is now at work for its destruction."

Upon reading this statement, and marking especially the very high tone in which it is conveyed, one is really tempted to conceive, that there are already provided by the Church the means of religious education, according to the Professor's notion of it; that all the poor of these realms may receive from the clergy of the Establishment the knowledge of its peculiar tenets, which, it seems, can only be obtained in early infancy, and which, if not imbibed with the alphabet, will never be received at all;-in short, that Mr Lancaster's system is in danger of disturbing one already completely established, and of substituting, for vast numbers of free schools where the poor are now trained in knowledge and religion, seminaries where temporal knowledge may be dispensed, but the interests of the soul are neglected. Yet it does so happen, that the National church hath done nothing towards the education of youth, except what we have already cited from the sermon of Dr Marsh himself;-that, leaving the ordinary branches of instruction wholly untouched, she has only required, and most properly required, from her ministers, a careful regard to the religious education of youth;-that, consequently, Lancaster's schools, far from being a substitute for her institutions, or in anywise derogatory to her ordinances, form an appropriate and even an essential part of them; and that we who say-let the poor be taught reading in whatever way is most effectual, and let the clergy, upon this stock, and by the means which it affords them, engraft religious instruction-speak the very language of the Church of England, and conform to her spirit. Mr Lancaster goes, however, a step further than this; for he teaches, not merely reading, but Christianity; and says, let the clergy of the various persuasions to which you and your parents may severally belong, continue the good work which I have begun, and build up their creeds upon that foundation which I have laid deep in your minds, by imbuing you with the word of God as delivered in his Scriptures. For it is in vain to disguise this matter, and, under a multitude of words, and by soleinn sentences or frothy and turbulent declamation, to cover the real substance of the question. We return always to the plain statement which has so often been made, but which, in truth, comprises the whole gist of the controversy. The new system teaches reading, writing and accounts; and it enables its pupils to learn every thing which books can afterwards teach them. On its enemics lyes

the

the burthen of proving that there is any necessary connexion between the catechism of the church and the rudiments of the language in which it is written. It is for them to show the dangers of instructing children in that which enables them to learn any catechism; and if they shall point out any reason for uniting the catechism with reading and writing, any more than for uniting the psaltery of David with music, or the groupes and scenes of the holy writings with painting, they will do what, as yet, they have not even once attempted, although it lyes at the very root of their whole argument.

We have touched upon the main propositions which constitute the groundwork of these attacks on the new system; but it remains to say a few words respecting another view of the subject, which at first sight is much less revolting, because it seems to originate in more liberal and just ideas. It is too specious not to be very frequently brought forward by the learned and reverend gentlemen whose sermons are now before us. Let the Dissenters, say they, have schools of their own, constructed on Lancaster's plan, and in which the catechism of the Church is not taught. Let those seminaries be open to all whose principles hinder them from conforming to the Establishment. But let churchmen, and those who adhere to the Establishment, support other schools. Let them refrain from mixing with Dissenters; and, reserving their benefactions for the encouragement of seminaries where the peculiar tenets of the Church may be taught,-let them thus provide for that portion of the poor which belong to the same persuasion with themselves;-let, in short, the Dissenters have schools on Lancaster's plan, and the Churchmen on Dr Bell's. Both may flourish without mutual interruption, and all classes be satisfied. So plausible a view of the question, merits a little further consideration. But we must premise, that were it fully admitted, and resolved to be carried into effect, no argument whatever would arise against the universal adoption of Lancaster's method, and the encouragement of the new Institution; for, as we have already remarked, the Catechism may be introduced into it as easily as into the other. Churchmen may send youths to the Borough school, to be initiated in the plan of teaching; or youths may thence be sent to different seminaries, wholly directed by members of the Church; and those youths will be as fully qualified to teach reading and writing, and the national creed along with those branches, as if they had been taught by Dr Bell, at the Bishop of Durham's school. So far the two systems are precisely similar; and the balance is turned wholly in Lancaster's favour, by its greater efficacy, and, above all, its ecenomy-explicitly ad

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mitted.

mitted, by the friends of Dr Bell themselves, to be far superior to any thing of which their method can boast. * But we shall take the question on a wider basis, and suppose it to be, whether it is expedient for Dissenters and Church of England men to encourage, severally, schools upon the new plan; so that the former shall establish those only where no Catechism is preferred; and the latter, those only where the Church Catechism is taught?

In the first place, we view this proposal with very considerable suspicion. Why was it never made till now? Why did the friends of the Establishment,-who hold it to be quite clear, that teaching the alphabet without the Catechism is dangerous to the Church,-never think of teaching either Catechism or alphabet? Self-evident as they deem it, that unless the poor be taught religion at school, they will grow up indifferent about the Church, nay hostile to it; how happen they not to have thought of sending them to school at all? Even after the new system had been brought forward, and was spreading in the country, how long were the affected alarmists of bestirring themselves, in order to instruct, by means of it, the poor upon their own principles? Have we any reason to think, that the zeal which all of a sudden seems to have broke out amongst them, will last longer than the jealousy which manifestly excited it? Can we suppose that they would have preached up the education of the poor, on what they call Church of England principles, if they had not seen a great and combined effort making, upon principles which admit of no narrow exclusions, to effect the same object? And yet no man will deny, that the dangers to the Establishment were at the least as great, upon their own principles, when the poor were uneducated, as they can be when they are educated without regard to a particular Catechism. These things irresistibly lead us to apprehend that if, unhappily, the present clamour should put an end to Mr Lancaster's progress, or should confine to Dissenters the patronage now so liberally extended to him from all quarters, the alarmists would relapse into their former indifference ;-the Church, as a body, would return to the inaction but too natural to wealthy and firmly established institutions ;-and we should hear no more of the schools for educating the poor upon the principles of the national creed.

But admitting, for the sake of argument, that this proposi

tion

* See, particularly, Sir T. Bernard's work, formerly noticed, (No. XXXI.). The clerical defenders of Dr Bell's plan, and some others equally ignorant of the subject, pass over this point of economy; forgetting that it is in reality the chief point in the question,