31
"While on the other hand my Lords regard with respect and solicitude the scruples which religious parents among the poor may feel to permit their children to learn the catechism of the Church of England, they have felt themselves precluded from insisting upon a condition which might at once exclude Church of England schools, or at least the majority of them, from the advantages to be derived under the Minutes of Council.
"Their Lordships hope that much may be expected from a careful review of the civil and political relations of the school, which has not at any previous period been so fully acknowledged to be a national institution. Regarded in this light, their Lordships cannot but hope that the clergy and laity of the Church of England will admit, that the view they take of the obligations resting upon them, as to the inculcation of religious truth, must be limited by their duty to recognise the state of the law as to the toleration of diversities in religious belief, and especially in those who, on the basis of the Apostles' Creed, approach so nearly as the Wesleyan communion do, in doctrine, to the Church of England.
"If their Lordships should find, upon the report of their inspectors, that in parishes with only one school aided by public grants, communicants of Wesleyan congregations, too poor to provide a school for the education of their children, had under the circumstances previously related, no opportunity of obtaining such instruction without conditions which they could not conscientiously fulfil, it would be open to their Lordships to consider whether, without a departure from the principles on which the Minutes are founded, they could provide for the education of such children.
"I have, &c.
(Signed) "J. P. Kay Shuttleworth.
|
"The Rev. Charles Prost |
Secretaries to the United Committees of Privileges and Education of the Wesleyan Conference. |
"Resolved,—
"That the explanations given in this letter be confirmed.
"That, in pursuance of these explanations, the Committee will no
