24
The terms of the Conscience Clause.II. I would pass at once to some of the larger questions of principle which are involved in the application of the clause, but that so much misconception and misrepresentation has taken place with reference to its actual terms and its practical effect, that I think it desirable, if the meeting will allow me, to deal with these in some detail. And it strikes me that the most convenient and effective method of doing so, in addressing a meeting mainly clerical, will be to meet the issues involved, at the points which have been already publicly raised, in the Church Congress at Norwich. The notable features, as you know, of the discussion there were a speech from Archdeacon Denison, containing seventeen reasons for resisting the clause, and the production of a correspondence between a country clergyman and the Council Office, which had the effect of converting a distinguished advocate of the clause into an opponent of it. And between them they raised all or nearly all the issues that can be raised, in so practical and so comprehensive a shape, that I need make no
appears to turn on the legal construction of their charter of which is a point for lawyers, and on which, I believe, good lawyers differ. Their " terms of union" are declared by themselves to be incompatible with refusing to do what the Conscience Clause requires. It is hard to see, therefore, how they can be incompatible with promising to do it. But if they are they can be altered easily, which the charter cannot. I would remark, however, that the only words in that document having a prohibitive sound about them—"by educating the children of the poor, without any exception, in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England" … "according to the Liturgy and Catechism provided for that purpose"—occur not in the body of the charter, but in the preamble, which purports to be a recital of a petition from the Archbishop and Bishops. The King's decree itself merely speaks of the society as formed "for promoting the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales," without entering into particulars. I do not know if the recitals of a preamble have the force of law, but the whole circumstances suggest the reflection, " Where there's a will there's a way."
