so ordered, that by no scholar, in and by any of the words put into his mouth, shall any thing be said, as to what he himself believes, but only as to what,-under the name of the Church or the Government, or whatever other name may be regarded as more apposite,-those, by whose authority the instruction is administered to him, believe.

Not less necessary is this expedient to the exclusion of insincerity out of the mouths and bosoms of the children of Church-of-Englandists themselves, than to the avoiding to exclude from the benefit of the instruction the children of heretics and unbelievers.

Nor, by the care thus taken to avoid inculcating immorality, will religion be divested of any part of her salutary influence. Be the discourse in question what it may, if upon understanding that you yourselves believe it, the scholar believes it likewise, you have what you wish: but, if not, will you, by forcing him to say he believes it, cause him really to believe it? No:-of the words employed in that endeavour the only effect will be-the inculcating in him the habit of lying, and adding to the number of his duties the daily practice of that vice :-of that vice, which is the pander to all other vices and to all crimes.

In your classical schools you cause him to read what Cæsar has related of his victories over the Gauls.-Nothing of all this do you ever force the child to say he believes: yet is it not, as of course,—and without any such certificate from Church or State in favour of it,-received by him as true?

Even where the narration has for its subject this or that act or discourse ascribed to Jesus himself, bad would still be the example, if—believing it or not believing it— (and to whom else could it be known that he did believe it?)-the child were forced to say he believed it. But,

how much worse the example, where the act or discourse to which the declaration of belief is forced to be attached, is not any discourse or act ascribed to Jesus, but this or that inference deduced from it-deduced from it by a set of presumptuous and tyrannical men,-while, by other men, in much greater numbers, inferences have been deduced to an effect directly opposite?

Cease to employ religion to eradicate morality—put but this bridle upon your passions—and all difficulties are at an end.

What is it that on this subject (naming it) the Church of England teaches?—Every thing that follows, being introduced by a question to some such effect as this,-thus while religion is planted, falsehood may, out of this part of the instruction at least, be eradicated.

What? shall we then suffer ourselves thus to be led by an enemy?-By no means: but thus led you could be-and blindly so, and by any enemy of yours at his pleasure, and that in every thing-in so far as any such determination were known to have been taken by you, as that of acting in contrariety to his declared wishes. Thus to lead you blindfold would cost him but a word: to the description of whatever course he would wish you to pursue, all he would have to do would be to attach a negative. No:-for a warrant for turning away from the wickedness of the exclusionary system, of no such being as this apostate need ye know the existence. Look but to the Bishop of Norwich-look but to Sir Thomas Bernard. For a warrant for turning away from the wickedness of teaching children to tell lies, look into any one of your Bibles,-if, while distributing them to others, you can bear to look into them yourselves.

That in situations so far superior to all effectual responsibility, salutary impression should be made,-on hearts so

effectually preserved by their numbers from all sense of shame, is almost beyond hope. By a clergyman of unblemished character-a Member of their own Church -the Rev. Vicesimus Knox-in seventeen successive edi

tions-now for some forty years, or thereabouts-the rulers of the University of Oxford have they not stood charged with keeping the whole body of their subjectsincluding all such Archbishops and Bishops as have passed through that school of corruption-constantly plunged— not in the indictable crime indeed, but not the less incontestably in the sin, of perjury? In all this time, any one of them, has he had the front to deny it? any one of them, has he ever manifested any desire of being cleansed from it? any one of them, for any thing that has ever appeared, has he ever had the heart to suffer any uneasiness at the thoughts of it? The sin is not an indictable one: and, with whatsoever justice stones from offended heaven might be showered down upon each guilty head, the hand by which upon earth the first stone will be cast is never to be

found.

When, under the conscious guilt of perjury, and subornation of perjury, symptoms of contrition shall appear,— then, if ever, may be the time, when, in the shape here pourtrayed, Tyranny, with Hypocrisy and Imposture for its supports, may be expected to relax its gripe.

Meantime one remedy there is—which, happily for the cause of religion and morality, is, and can never cease to be, in the hands of the very persons, who, though so far from being the only sufferers, are, in the most immediate and certain way, the sufferers, from this tyranny.

Hard indeed would be the condition of mankind, if, while Vice had all power at command, Virtue should be without resource. Hard indeed-if, by interested tyranny, instead of being a means of salvation, conscience were, at

pleasure; and without power of resistance, convertible into an instrument of mischief. No. By any such means as that of a promise to perform it, can an act, which is in itself pernicious, be converted into a duty?—A promise extorted by force from an agent altogether incapable of resistance? If, with a pistol to my throat, I have promised to murder my father or my mother, does conscience require at my hands the performance of any such promise? No: if, in the vigour of full age, a promise to act wickedly is essentially void, how much more clearly so at an age, at which whatsoever words the ear has been filled with, are made to come out at the mouth without any power of resistance.

Thus much as to promises. So in regard to assertions. By those fears of immediate and unendurable suffering, by which the child has been made to say, I believe this or I believe that he at the same time not believing any such thing, can it be made matter of duty-of moral or religious duty-to believe any such thing, or so much as to endeavour to believe it? If, by the fear of man, he has been made to persevere for years in the utterance of this untruth, after his escape from this fear, would the fear of God be worthily employed, in continuing him in the ut

terance of this same untruth?

Thus much as to the child itself. Now as to its parents. A benefit of unspeakable value,—a benefit to which every member of the community has, for the sake of every other member, as well as his own sake, an equal claim,-is seized into the hands of interested tyranny, and participation of it is refused to all children, whose parents will not purchase it for them, at the price, which,-for the purpose of continuing all understandings and all wills in a state of prostration under this same tyranny,-is set upon it. This price consists in the utterance of a set of words expressive

of the above-mentioned void promises, or of words expressive of the above-mentioned untrue assertions. By the utterance of no such void promises-by the utterance of no such untrue assertions do the mouths and the breasts from which they are thus forcibly and tyrannically extracted, contract-if when free they do but purge themselves of it, (for thus much has just been proved)—any such taint as that of sin or moral blame. By refusing to suffer it to give utterance to those empty sounds, shall the parent deprive his child—and by so doing deprive the whole community-of so unspeakable a benefit? By such refusal not only will he do this mischief, but by contributing to give effect to this same tyranny, he will have rendered himself an accomplice to it:-he will have been an instrument in its hands.

In the breast either of child or parent,-at that time, or at any succeeding point of time,-any such affection as gratitude, ought it to be excited by any such benefit, administered or proffered by such hands, and on such terms?

Indignation, on the contrary, should it not rather be the emotion of the moment? and this emotion, followed throughout life by the determination, by every practicable and moral means, to contribute to the rescue of the public mind from the gripe of this corruptive tyranny.

Happily the means are as simple and sure as they are obvious. Deny not to your children the proffered instruction: deny it not to them, even though these are the terms on which it is proffered. Poisonous, it is true, is the drug which has been purposely mixt up with it: but, to extract the poison, and leave the instruction pure, depends upon yourselves.

Day by day, as the course of instruction proceeds, as the enemies of morality and religion proceed in administering