298

SECULAR SONG-SINGING.

altered. For instance, some crotchety persons inserted a clause in the Bill that a shilling apiece should be deducted from the grant for every child who had not been taught to sing some foolish secular ballads. This, though a small matter, is a sore grievance, for either the master or manager is mulcted in a considerable sum, or else valuable time is lost in teaching secular songs, which might have been devoted to storing up in the memory of the children some wholesome spiritual hymns, which would have been a comfort and a help to them all their lives. At any rate, surely the managers of voluntary schools ought to have the option as to what sort of songs they would teach. It does seem ridiculously unreasonable, that when a clergyman and his friends have been at great expense to found and support a school for the poor of the parish he should be debarred from teaching them Christian hymns.

We are not fond of compromises, but, under present circumstances, the following might be a fair arrangement. In all Board Schools let the children be taught the Creed, the LORD's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue. These are not the formularies of any sect. religious Dissenter could object to this arrangement; only the Infidel could do so. If this plan were adopted, then the mass of the people would to a certain extent be brought up as Christians.

No

THE ENDOWED SCHOOLS ACT.

299

The rest of the Catechism, including the Sacraments, would have to be taught by the clergy in the Sunday Schools to the children of their own. flocks.

The same revision is absolutely required in the Endowed Schools' Act. We do not for a moment mean that it would be right to revert to the abuses which from long course of years have crept into our old endowed schools. But in remedying abuses the infidel and ultra-liberal party managed so to arrange matters, as we have seen in the Hayman Case, that if a Conservative and a Churchman were appointed to the head mastership, it would be in the power of the managers to dismiss him with as little ceremony as a gentleman might dismiss his coachman. It is, perhaps, fortunate that public indignation should have been excited in the recent Rugby Case, because not even Liberals will have the face to deny that an enormous grievance has been created by their legislation, which ought at once to be remedied. There are three ways in which this matter might be arranged. (1) The governing bodies might be constituted as at present, so that they might be able to remove at pleasure any Churchman or Conservative from the head mastership; or (2) they might be reconstructed by the present Government, so as to be able to pack off any Liberal, or sceptic, or unsound Church

300

HOPE FOR BETTER THINGS.

man; or (3) there might be an appeal given, say to the Privy Council, against the removal of any master; so that there would be a sufficient guarantee against injustice and party spirit. The last course is, of course, what just and reasonable persons would prefer though the conduct of the Liberals would almost justify the Conservatives, now they have the power, in adopting the second.

We sincerely hope that prompt measures will be taken to remedy these crying evils. For it is obvious that if the present taint of infidelity is suffered to corrupt the foundation of education, the country will continue to deteriorate; whereas, if a sound religious education is re-established, we may hope to tide over the evil influences which surround us, and perpetuate the good principles which seem, in some quarters, to be reviving amongst us.

CHAPTER XXX.

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.

THOUGH the foregoing papers are of a miscellaneous character, yet they have all one object, or more correctly speaking, two cognate objects: one is to set forth the dangerous and aggressive character of Infidelity; the other to urge upon all right-minded persons to resist it with all their power. Infidelity is rapidly becoming of a very malignant type. It is no longer a question of the unhistorical character of some few passages of Holy Scripture, or of the non-existence of prophecy, or of the impossibility of miracles. We have got far beyond Colenso, or Jowett, or Williams, and the Essayists; these men led the way, but those who followed them have far exceeded them in virulence. It is not even a question of the truth of revealed religion, but of the very existence of a GOD. Scientific men, to whom the public are so unwise as to listen, tell us that all things we behold were evolved out of atoms, or molecules, without the intervention of a Deity;

302

SHOCKING SCEPTICAL NOTIONS.

that men are mere automata, or machines, without power to direct their course. Two specially shocking notions have been put forth which, if generally adopted, must crush out all religion from the present generation. One is the inutility of prayer. This, of course, implies the extinction of all practical religion from the hearts of men. To live without prayer is to live without GOD in the world. The other is the impossibility of the forgiveness of sin. The repulsive and heartless character of this notion must, one might hope, go far to defeat the object of those who have been so wicked as to propound it; for the need of forgiveness is almost, we might say, an innate feeling of the human heart; and yet these and other execrable notions gain a footing amongst us, and are not repudiated, as they should be, by the indignant reprobation of all good men.

Now the question is, how to meet these most dangerous and anti-social opinions, which, if established, will assuredly not only destroy the souls of individuals, but break up the very foundation of society.

The first and most obvious means of meeting the threatened evil is that good men must come forward and speak out. One of the most pregnant causes of the unchecked progress of infidelity is the extraordinary conduct of many of our most influential writers, particularly the