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From the admitted acquiescence of Dissenters in the religious training of the Church, even when they had the power of objection, Mr. Bruce draws one conclusion, I another. Mr. Bruce cites it to prove the absence of any danger to the clergy in accepting the clause. I cite it to prove the absence of any pretext for proposing it.
The practical mischief arising from the Conscience Clause, is to be found not in the schools which have accepted it, but in the absence of the schools which, but for the Conscience Clause, would have been built, but now are not.
To demonstrate (3550) the necessity of the Conscience Clause, Mr. Lingen informs us that "within the last three or four years twenty or thirty cases might be found, if they were looked up, of children excluded from Church schools for not attending the Sunday School, for instance." One million and a half of children are annually educated at Church schools, and seven cases annually might be found of children excluded for reasons unspecified, but depending wholly on the personal decision of the school manager, and not upon union with the National Society, which distinctly disclaims binding their discretion.- But assuming for the argument that the exclusion of these children was uncharitable and arbitrary, and was not occasioned by the parents' ignorance and prejudice, how is the grievance remedied or abated by the Conscience Clause? The offending school managers are untouched by a proceeding which can only discourage projected schools, and which to revenge the exclusion of thirty children in four years, has in the four years ending with 1865, decreased its building grants, as compared with 1861, by £270,000, equal to the average contribution of the State to a school provision for more than 200,000 children.
Mr. Lingen, (3523, 4,) thinks that it is an advantage to the Church to conduct one school with a Conscience Clause, rather than share the field with the British and Foreign School Society who would take the Dissenters and leave her the Church children. That, I venture to believe, is not the opinion of this meeting. The Church cannot gain by sitting in chains even on the teacher's chair, and we repudiate any gain which involves injustice to Dissenters.
I sum up the substance of the evidence I have reviewed.
1. The Conscience Clause presented to the acceptance of
