however, they had to pay their full share. Look, then, at the exertions of those by whom the existing schools in England have been provided, not in the fair and liberal light in which they were regarded by Mr. Gladstone in his late speech-as a great service rendered to the nation-but in a much lower point of view, as merely a race between the different religious bodies; and see the unfair terms under which Catholics, and Catholics alone, have had to run that race. All other religious communions have had some twenty years' start of us. It would, therefore, have been anything but wonderful if, in proportion to our numbers, our wealth, and the poor persons for whom we have had to provide education, we had now been found to have done far less than any other religious body in England. In fact, however, it will be found that in proportion to them, Catholics have already done, in this matter, very greatly more than any other religious body.

Under these circumstances we do not forget (we are not likely to forget it) the difficulty which an average Englishman has in bringing himself to deal with Catholics as he would deal with any other body of men under the same circumstances. Still less do we undervalue what must be felt by a statesman who, however strongly he may himself feel that we have established our claim to exceptional assistance, cannot forget that he has to defend and explain his conduct towards us, not before statesmen like himself, but in an assembly in which such men as Newdegate, Whalley, and their following, have seats and votes. But our confidence is up, that our appeal is made to a statesman who, in 1851, dared to stand, almost alone (against the madness which, for awhile, carried away both the great political parties) in opposition to Lord Russell's new penal law.

We ask Mr. Gladstone to judge whether we have not made out for Catholics a special and exceptional claim of justice, not for any assistance from the State towards teaching our religion to the children of that million of poor Irish who have been poured into the poorest quarters of our great towns, by the injustice and misgovernment which it is the special glory of his administration to have prevented for the future, but towards providing for them a secular education, of which they can avail themselves without violating their consciences, and without consenting to have the faith of their children "undermined."

What that special assistance should be, his statesmanlike genius will enable him to suggest much better than we; although the extremity of need and the sense of past injustice compel us to express in burning words the wrong which he has to redress. Is it too much to ask that, when he is cutting off for the future building grants for the provision of new schools, on his own declared ground ("The building of schools is the easiest of all the efforts made by their proTheir great difficulty is in the maintenance of schools;

moters.

and when we give liberal assistance to the maintenance, I think we may fairly leave to the locality the cost of the building "), he should make an exception in favour of Catholic schools, on the ground that in their case it is, not difficult but simply impossible, that the locality (however zealous in the cause of Catholic education the Catholics in it may be) could provide the necessary buildings? Would it be too much to ask that to Catholic schools in our great towns the building grant should be exceptionally continued, at least until it has been made available to Catholics for as many years as it has been made available to every other religious body in England?

And there is another ground upon which this special assistance is justly due to us. If voluntary schools are not provided in time, it is proposed that the School Boards should have the power of compelling the attendance of all children at the schools to be erected by rate. The teaching in these schools, whatever else it is, is to be distinctively Protestant. We do not forget that it is guarded by a conscience-clause. But this, although a real security to parents of the Established Church, the Wesleyans, &c., is to Catholic parents no security at all. It is but "a fraud, a delusion, and a snare." If it had been anything else the mixed system in Ireland would not have "undermined" (as Dr. Whately witnesses that it did) the faith of any Catholic child. Mr. Winterbotham's explanation of this fact is most true and sound. The chief Protestant bodies among us, although they have shades of difference in their organization and discipline, teach one and the same religion. A conscience-clause will protect the child of an Independent from being taught that three orders in the ministry were appointed by our Blessed Lord and His Apostles; and in all that is personal and practical to a child, the religious system of a school is the same, whether it is taught by a religious Episcopalian or by a religious Independent. But, as Mr. Winterbotham most truly says, no Catholic who deserves the name would believe that his child, even if withdrawn from the direct teaching of religious subjects, could breathe the atmosphere of a school Protestant in its master and in its pupils, without the risk of tarnishing, at least, its religious faith. We do not deny that some Catholic parents may be tempted, some compelled, to send their children to such schools. Such things have been done already, and may therefore be done again. But there is one fact for which we can answer, and which we beg all religious Protestants, and all sincere lovers of religious liberty, seriously to consider. There is, most assuredly, no one of these Catholic parents who does not, in his heart, believe that he is committing a sin, and doing a wrong and injury to his children, by sending them to such a school. Now is it, upon the lowest calculation, the interest of the State, that the moral character of

the parent (too often low enough already from the circumstances in which these poor people live) should be debased yet lower, even if there should be, to set against that degradation, some chance that the children may grow up, we will not say Protestants (there is no danger of that) but unsettled and indifferent to all religious belief. And this is the only effect which such schools are practically found to produce.

And if it should be by compulsion, not by milder inducements, that children are gathered into schools of a class which the parents in their hearts believe it to be a sin to allow them to attend, can anything more justly merit the name of religious persecution than this. How can this vast oppression be defended by men who complain of it as a grave injustice that any ratepayers should be called upon to contribute a few pence towards the secular teaching of a school, the religious teaching of which somewhat differs from their own opinions?

Think of it what men may, nothing on this earth is more certain than that it is a most real and serious violation of conscience, that any Catholic parent should be tempted, much more compelled, to send his children either to a secular school or to a Protestant school, even with a conscience clause. It is to prevent the enforcement of this violation of conscience that we demand such a degree of assistance as shall make it, we do not say easy, but conceivable, possible, that we may, by exertions beyond our means, provide Catholic schools for our poor Catholic children. If this is refused us, we may be forced to submit, because we are too weak to resist, but it will be with a burning sense of injustice and oppression, such as, in the language of Scripture, "drives wise men mad;" and it will be with a silent appeal to Him, before whose judgment seat we and these poor children and their oppressors must so soon meet to receive the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad."

Of the conscience clause, as a security to Catholic children, compelled or tempted to attend Protestant schools, we have said enough. With regard to the enforcement of the "Time-table Conscience Clause" for Catholic schools as a condition of Government aid, we feel bound to say that we do not know and cannot undertake to foretell whether or not the managers of those schools will feel at liberty to avail themselves of it. Let it be remembered that the Protestant schoolmasters, of all denominations in London have unanimously protested against it, as limiting their power of religious teaching, and that it is admitted, even by Protestants, that it would interfere far more with our schools than with any others. This, however, it is not our part to decide. One thing at least is obvious. The mass of our schools are situated, not in remote situations, where no other school is within reach,

so that Protestant children residing immediately in the neighbourhood have no alternative, except to attend them or to go without schooling. They are in Liverpool, Manchester, and other great centres of population where Protestant schools are everywhere to be found. If the Time-table Clause is enforced as a condition of Government aid in Catholic schools thus situated, it will be evident that the object of its enforcement is not to secure the religion of Protestant children from being interfered with, but to interfere as far as possible with the religious teaching of the Catholic children. It is, therefore, a simple matter of justice, that if this clause is enforced at all, it should be only where it is necessary for the protection of Protestant children. Power should therefore, at the very least, be vested in the Educational Department to enforce this regulation in Catholic schools only where it seems to them to be necessary. should not be in all cases a condition of Government aid.*

It

While we are on this subject, we feel bound to add, that in several Catholic schools known to us in which there are many Protestant children, the principle of the "conscience clause" has always been most fully, freely, and conscientiously carried out. We know none in which it has not been observed. We are acquainted with such schools, some in rural districts (where there are no Protestant schools in the immediate neighbourhood), and with some where there are Protestant schools, but where the Catholic schools are, for different reasons, preferred by some Protestant parents-and in every case known to us the parents have been asked whether they wished their children to receive the religious as well as the secular instruction-and no objection has been made to their attendance, even when the parents have requested that they should receive only the secular teaching of the school.

In conclusion, we will only add our strong conviction, that Catholics will be found ready cordially to co-operate in any plan of national education, upon the sole condition that it shall not be calculated directly or indirectly, openly or "unostentatiously," to interfere with or undermine the religion of the children; and that

*Our readers will remember that we have already quoted from the Spectator a passage exposing the injustice of compelling Catholics to accept this clause. The writer adds that it will be done needlessly,' because we believe that in practice Roman Catholic Schools will hardly ever have a Protestant scholar in them to be protected; so that this provision will, in fact, simply operate to cut them off from help in prosecuting a most praiseworthy public object-the education of the poor Roman Catholic children, without protecting any Protestant child's interests. Surely, if Roman Catholic schools in the Roman Catholic quarters of our great towns are well and ably taught to the satisfaction of the inspectors, and other Protestant schools are within reach for Protestant children, the former would deserve as much aid from the rates as the latter, in spite of their not separating the religious tone so completely."

if any plan should, unhappily, be sanctioned by Parliament which is calculated to do so, there is no kind or degree of opposition which a Christian can consistently offer to any law of man, which such an educational system will not have to encounter, not merely in Parliament, where we have, unhappily, no voice, but in every parish and town in which any attempt is made to carry it into execution. For, dear to us and sacred as are the laws of our country, the law of God and the souls of our children are far dearer and more sacred.

It is a clear duty to do what we can towards obtaining the incorporation into the Government Bill, of provisions, as fair as possible, to the Catholic poor. But it is most certain that, when we have done our utmost, those terms will be practically unfair towards them as compared with the members of every other religious community. Against this there is but one thing to set, but that one is everything. On our side is Almighty God, whose revealed will and whose wonders of love and grace form the peculiar teaching of Catholic schools. And it must be added, that, few as are the wealthy members of the Catholic Church, they have means which make it just possible, however difficult, that they should provide what is required in order, by the blessing of God, to turn the Government Bill from an extreme danger to a benefit. If they begin by doing what they can, we may confidently trust that what remains will be supplied by the boundless liberality of our Catholic poor.

What is wanted at the present moment is that all Catholics above the poorest should come forward with a liberality fully up to or even exceeding their means. A noble example has been given, when the first public declaration (which appeared in the Times of July 5), combined two things, a strong protest against the injustice of the present Bill towards Catholics, and a list of contributions towards meeting the evil headed by the names of the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Howard of Glossop for £10,000 and £5,000 respectively. All that is practically required is that all among us should do as much in proportion to their means. No doubt if Catholics are to be the first in expenses of dress and entertainments, and all that constitutes worldly display, they must, whether they will or not, sacrifice the pleasure of responding worthily to calls like this. But that this will be their deliberate choice we cannot for a moment suppose.