The answer to this (without entering into the high principles involved) is brief and practical. The circumstances, whatever they be, which avowedly prohibit the introduction of the whole Bible, will ever be found such as will effectually, though not avowedly, operate to the practical exclusion of whatever part may seem to be admtted. We have painful experience of this. With the best intentions, the most benevolent designs and sanguine hopes, the experiment has been made, and on this ground defended-defended with an honesty which none could for a moment doubt, and an ability which none could fail to feel. And now, by stubborn facts, we are compelled to perceive, that the system so tried and so defended, has been deprived by those to whom the concession was made of this its only ground of defence. (Cheers.) The instruction is valuable, and serves to commend to our judgments, and endear to our hearts, the high, uncompromising tone of the authorised formularies of our church. Their first allegiance is to the revealed truth of God in its unbroken fulness; and it is only when the interests of that truth are secured, and so long remain secure, that our church condescends to the second, though highly important subject, of the feelings and prejudices of men. (Cheers.) 3. Another reason of our warm attachment to the authorised formularies of our church, as the basis of religious education, is that they refer for religious truth to nothing but the Bible-" So that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." And for our encouragement in reading, and causing little children to read the Bible, our church tells us “that man's human and wordly wisdom or science is not needful to the understanding of scripture, but the revelation of the Holy Ghost who inspireth the true meaning unto them that with humility and diligence do search therefore." "Although many things in the scriptures be spoken in obscure mysteries, yet there is nothing spoken under dark mysteries in one place, but the self same thing in other places is spoken more familiarly and plainly to the capacity both of learned and unlearned. And those things in the scriptures that be plain to understand, and necessary for salvation, every man's duty is to learn them-to print them in memory, and effectually to exercise them. And as for the dark mysteries, to be content to be ignorant in them, until such time as it shall please God to open those things unto him. In the mean season, if he lack either aptness or opportunity, God will not impute it to his folly; but yet it behoveth not that such as be apt should set aside reading, because some other be unapt to read nevertheless, for the hardness of such places, the reading of the whole ought not to be set aside. And briefly to conclude, as St. Augustine saith, by the scripture all men be amended, weak men be strengthened, and strong men be comforted. So that surely none be enemies to the reading of God's word, but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholesome a thing it is; or else be so sick, that they hate the most comfortable medicine that should heal them, or so ungodly, that they wish the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God." (Hom." On Reading the Holy Scriptures. Part 2.)

Upon the vital subject of the true and wise and Christian interpretation of holy scripture, permit me to trespass on your Lordship's patience, and the kind indulgence of the meeting, with a quotation from one of HURD'S Warburton Lectures:

"When the Reformers had thrown off all respect for the papal chair, and were for regulating the faith of Christians by the sacred scriptures, it still remained a question "on what grounds those scriptures should be interpreted?" The voice of the church, speaking by her schoolmen and modern doctors, was universally, and without much ceremony, rejected. But the fathers of the primitive church were still in great repule among protestants themselves, who dreaded nothing so so much as the imputations of novelty which they saw would be fastened on their opinions, and who, besides, thought it too presuming to trust entirely to the dictates of what was called the private spirit. The church of Rome availed herself, with dexterity, of this prejudice and of the distress to which the protestant party was reduced by it. The authority of those ancient and venerable interpreters was sounded high by the Roman catholic writers, and the clamour was so great and so popular, that the protestants knew not how, consistently with their own principles, or even in mere decency, to decline the appeal which was thus confidently made to that tribunal.

"The reformers, too, piqued themselves on their superior skill in ancient literature, and were ashamed to have it thought that their adversaries could have any advantage against them in a dispute which was to be carried on in that quarter. Öther considerations had perhaps their weight with particular churches. But, for these reasons, chiefly, all of them forwardly closed in with the proposal of trying their cause at the bar of the ancient church; and, thus, shifting their ground, maintained henceforth not that the scriptures were the sole rule of faith, but the scriptures as interpreted by the primitive fathers.

"When the state of the question was thus changed, it was easy to see what would be the issue of so much indiscretion. The dispute was not only carried on in a dark and remote scene into which the people could not follow their learned champions, but was rendered infinitely tedious, and, indeed, interminable. For those early writings, now to be considered as of the highest authority, were voluminous in themselves, and, what was worse, were composed in so loose, so declamatory, and often in so hyperbolical a strain, that no certain sense could be affixed to their doctrines, and anything or every thing might, with some plausibility, be proved from them. (Cheering.)

"The inconvenience was sensibly felt by the protestant world, and, after a prodigious waste of industry and erudition, a learned foreigner, (M. Daille) at length shewed the inutility and the folly of pursuing the the contest any further. In a well-considered discourse, on the use of the fathers, he clearly evinced that their authority was much less than was generally supposed in all points of religious controversy; and that their judgment was especially incompetent in these points, which were agitated by the two parties. He evinced this conclusion by a variety of

unanswerable arguments, and chiefly, by showing that the matters in debate were, for the most part, such as had never entered into the heads of those old writers, being indeed, of much later growth, and having first sprung up in the barbarous ages. They could not therefore decide on questions which they had no occasion to consider, and had in fact never considered, however their careless or figurative expression might be made to look that way, by the dexterous management of the controversalists. (Applause.)

"This discovery had great effects. It opened the eyes of the more candid and intelligent inquirers. And, our incomparable Chillingworth, with some others (Lord Falkland, Lord Digby, and Dr. Jeremy Taylor,) took the advantage of it to set the controversy with the church of Rome, once more on its proper foot, and to establish for ever, the old principle, that the Bible and that only (interpreted by our best reason) is the religion of protestants. (Great applause.)

"Thus one of the two pillars on which the protestant cause had been established was happily restored."-HURD's Warburton Lectures— Sermon xii.

Agreeing cordially in these sentiments of the learned preacher, it is with unfeigned satisfaction I observe that the indiscretion referred to, although admitted by our reformers into their more discursive works of controversy, found no place among the authorized formularies of the church, wherein, as we have just seen, all are encouraged to apply at once to the inspired fountain-head of religious knowledge, and every stream which is not found to emanate directly from that fountain is rejected.

"These then, my lord, are the leading characteristics of our church formularies, on the strength of which we adopt and recommend them as a scriptural basis of religious education-their authoritative announcement of truth; their impartial reference to the whole Bible, and their faithful exclusion of every other standard of authority in the matter of religious knowledge. (Cheers.)

I will venture to express my earnest hope that on a basis, at once so simple and so dignified, so scriptural and so catholic, a union in the cause of education may now be cemented, and a consequent strength of talent and influence, and property and industry, called into exercise, such as will not only satisfy the intense desire of thinking men after an efficient system of moral, intellectual, and physical cultivation, but, also go far towards superseding in practice the difficulties which seem to environ the introduction of religious instruction into a national system, and which are magnified in theory by those who wish to render them insurmountable. Such persons, whether in speaking or writing, account a national system of education indispensible. They exhibit its necessity, they dilaté upon its importance, they are eloquent upon its anticipated results, and having advanced so far, that in deference to the still impregnable fortress of protestant feeling in the country they must introduce the subject of religion, they do introduce it in such general terms of respect as are well calculated to ensnare the unwary, and then, and not before, comes the BUT, the staggering, confusing, impracticable but, as to the mode of dealing with it. (Cheers and laughter.)

An illustrative instance of what I mean will be found in a paper in the second publication of certain gentlemen, already alluded to by Mr. Powys, who have dignified their own voluntary association with the name of the Central Society of Education. The paper is from the pen of the hon. secretary and editor, and contains a digest of the education bill proposed by Lord Brougham. At page 157 he says-"Whatever be the plan of national education which may be adopted, religious instruction must form an important and permanent feature in it. But the mode of dealing with this part of the question will perhaps be the most difficult which the framers of such a measure will have to consider. In populous districts it will be possible to have seperate schools for some of the different sects, but where this course is possible, is it desirable? In thinly inhabited districts, if all do not go to the same school, there will not be sufficient funds to give adequate education to any, or, at any rate, more than those who belong to that class of Christians which is the most numerous. If all sects go to one school, the mode of giving religious instruction will arise as a question of considerable difficulty. Are selections from the Bible to be used, as is the case in Ireland-or is the whole Bible to be used? And are the children of those parents who object to their being present, to absent themselves. Lord Brougham has preferred the latter course, and it may be a better one, but whether it is so or not, or whether a better than either may not be devised, is hard to say, for there are difficulties of a very serious nature peculiar to each."

And thus the matter is dismissed. It is not dismissed imprimis as a question of paramount importance, without the adjustment of which nothing can be done? It is introduced briefly, and apparently with reluctance at the last, as a quarrelsome embarrassment. No proposal with reference to it is made, nor even a positive opinion hazarded; while in even this brief notice all sects are spoken of as equally entitled to consideration, without any reference to truth or falsehood. (Cheers.) If this be conceded, it will be clearly impossible to adhere to any line, because, draw it where you will, some fresh ramification of falsehood may spring up and demand fresh deviation. But do these writers indeed believe that there is no such thing as revealed truth, or that there is no possibility of ascertaining what it is? If so, where is their honesty in withholding the avowal? They talk of honesty, let them boldly avow their rejection of revelation, and the people of England will not endure them an hour. If, on the contrary, they admit that God hath spoken unto men, where is their sense of moral obligation, where their exercise of common reason in treating what he has said, and what he has not said, with equal deference and consideration? (Great applause.)

My lord, the embarrassment on this great subject is not national. It exists more, much more, in the loud complaints of a few, than in the serious, conscientious scruples of the many. England, as a nation, still loves the Bible in the authorized version, and the church in her authorized formularies. England, as a nation, is still prepared to return, not perhaps a loud and clamorous, but a deep, and cordial,

and powerful response of gratitude to any government which will boldly establish and munificently endow, an efficient system of education in connection with the national church. Yes, I believe firmly, and am bold in the calm consciousness of truth to declare, that the fault lies not in the unsoundness of the nation, but in the mingled timidity and false charity, Jesuistry and infidelity, of the legislature. I would take the liberty of calling upon our friends in the legislature, for we have noble, right hon. and hon. friends there, to come forward boldly on christian principle, and I would venture to assure them that a strength of support awaits them in the country, far beyond what they may be disposed to anticipate.

I am sure, my lord, there would be such a response as would astonish those who are kept back by alarm. I might say concerning the large body of the people, who have hitherto exhibited too much apathy on this great subject, I might adopt the language of a celebrated statesman who has lately been addressing large communities upon the national relations in the East; he said at a public dinner respecting the apprehensions of people in the country with regard to Russian aggressions in the East, Russia may be able to drive you from your apathy, she will not be able to drive you from your territory." (hear.) I would say this with respect to the Church. I would say of this Central Society, all wise as it is in its president, (a laugh,) it will have the effect of driving you from your apathy; then there is no fear it shall drive you from your territory. (Loud applause.) And I would venture to say to our friends in the country, speak out, and loudly and unequivocally declare, that no government can have the confidence of this nation who do not avow their attachment to our national church.

Now, my Lord, I beg to retire, and say only with regard to the extraordinary position in which I have found myself placed this day, that I cannot conceive any motive which could have induced the application which was made to me to appear and take part in this meeting, except the part which it was my happy lot to be unable to take in that movement already alluded to once or twice in this room, a movement in the town of Liverpool. It so happened there, my Lord, that a sermon on the subject of education, which I felt it my duty to preach, was indiscreetly as I think, and rashly as I believe they afterwards themselves felt, brought into dispute in the town council in that town; and this led to such a feeling upon the subject of education, and so connected my name with the movement which immediately arose amongst my Rev. brethren, that the subject of education has had in this neighbourhood at least, a connection with my name ever since, which I unfeignedly and truly say, before this meeting, I feel totally undeserved. I would say with many of my Rev. brethren I see around me engaged in that movement, I have come here for my country and my God. (The Rev. Gentleman sat down amidst prolonged and enthusiastic applause.)

The Right Rev. CHAIRMAN then put the resolution which was unanimously adopted.