Imatges de pàgina
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mind is. It is when we come to the Church of England that the difficulty arises. In her, taking her as a whole, both these advantages are absent. There are some of us, however, who on this point are quite at one with the Roman Catholics. We are utter disbelievers in simple Bible teaching-not only in its value when given, but in the possibility of giving it. I say this, I should like to add, of simple Bible teaching, not of Bible teaching without the qualifying adjective. All denominational teaching that is worth anything must be Bible teaching. A teacher in an Anglican or a Roman Catholic school who knows his business has no need to trouble himself about catechisms. From the Bible, properly understood and explained, he can draw everything that he wants. But simple Bible teaching is commonly Bible teaching with most of what makes it valuable left out. I know that in law it need not be so. I know that the authors of the Act of 1870 meant to exclude only formularies, and not the doctrines embodied in them. But I know also that this theory has never been tested in a court of law; and I have a strong suspicion that a teacher in a Council school who was found explaining such texts as 'This is My Body or Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted to them,' in the sense in which the words are understood by Roman Catholics or High Churchmen, would either be sent about his business or be transferred to some more congenial' atmosphere.' It would not be regarded as 'simple' Bible teaching. Nor do I for a moment say that it would deserve the name. The Bible is not a simple book, and the teacher who so regards it will very soon come to grief in his exposition of it.

Further than this, there is the question of authority. Even the present Government has found the need of some method of determining what simple Bible teaching is. Possibly, had the Progressives retained their majority, Mr. McKenna would have entrusted the drafting of a simple Bible creed to the London County Council. As it is, he has preferred to draw from some convenient pigeon-hole a forgotten syllabus put out by the discarded London School Board. Now, I have a great respect for the late Mr. W. H. Smith, who was, I believe, the chief author of this immortal document; but I know of no Divine commission in virtue of which I can accept his account of what is essential (as distinct from what is merely additional and ornamental) 1 in Bible teaching. To High Churchmen the source as well as the matter of teaching is important, and to take it from a wrong source is in effect to ignore the right source. This doctrine may be narrow, obscurantist, reactionary-insulting to God and degrading to man. But, for all that, it is a doctrine actually held by a minority-small, indeed, but still appreciable of the English people. They can be put down, of course, if the majority choose to take the trouble; but the trouble

I have heard that the late Professor Huxley was also engaged in the preparation of the syllabus which the First Lord of the Admiralty has introduced into his Bill, but I have not at hand the means of verifying this statement.

would be considerable, and I see no reason to suppose that any Government that this country is likely to see in power would go the length necessary for the purpose. If they are not put down, they will continue to make themselves heard whenever an occasion offers itself—and it will offer itself pretty often. If the education controversy is settled in a way that they think unjust, they will be a standing element in parliamentary or municipal elections, and come to be everywhere recognised as a force cutting across the ordinary party lines and confusing every political calculation. That Parliament can disregard their demand for equality and pass a Bill which they will think radically unjust I do not dispute. If Liberals think proper to set up a new form of religious preference, if Nonconformists think proper to set up a new form of ecclesiastical establishment, it is in their power to do it. What is not in their power is to insure that this one-sided compromise will work. What seemed more reasonable on paper than the Act of 1902? What was more open to ridicule than the scruples of men who drew nice distinctions between payments out of taxes and payments out of rates? What could be better founded than the statement that not one parent in a hundred thousand had ever raised any objection to the religious teaching given in Church schools? Yet what has been the history of that Act, regarded as an educational settlement? The Liberal Government, a majority of the Bishops, and, very possibly, a majority even of the clergy and laity of the Church of England seem disposed to repeat the experiment with the parts reversed. Have they any reason to suppose that the second experiment will do more for peace than the first? The believers in equality as the only possible foundation for a just and lasting settlement of this long controversy will not be strong enough to prevent its adoption that I concede at once. Will they be strong enough to wreck it when adopted? Upon that point I cannot speak; but this I think I can say: If they fail to wreck it, it will not be for want of trying.

D. C. LATHBURY.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake

to return unaccepted MSS.

ΑΡ

INDEX TO VOL. LXIII

The titles of articles are printed in italics

ABB

BBOTT (G. F.), Echoes of the
Eleusinian Mysteries in Modern
Greek Folklore, 651-660

Actors, playgoers, and 'dead-heads,'
305-310

Affonso Henriquez, King of Portugal,
and his successors, 63-76
African natives, How to tempt them
to work, 133-137, 386-397
Ali (Ameer), Anomalies of Civilisa
tion: a Peril to India, 568-581
Allen (E. K.), The Public Trustee,
297-304

Amundsen (Captain) and the North-
West Passage, 245-253

Anderson (Sir Robert), Criminals and
Crime-a Rejoinder, 199-208
Angling in Hampshire, 787-793
Arnaouts, The, Muslim-Christians of
Cyprus, 751-762

Atheism of Shelley, The, 794-810

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Coopers Hill College and Indian
forestry, 637-650

Corrance (Henry C.), A Vindication of
Modernism, 311-326
Crackanthorpe (Montague), Eugenics
as a Social Force, 962-972
Crawfurd (Oswald), Portugal, 62-79
Creighton (Mrs.), Women's Settle-
ments, 607-618

Criminals and Crime: a Reply by an
Ex-Prisoner, 80-89; a Rejoinder,
199-208

Cromer (Lord) and Orientals, 743-750
Cromer (Lord) on Gordon and the
Gladstone Cabinet, 674-682
Cross (J. W.), James Knowles, 688-
690

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Curzon of Kedleston (Lord), The True GAY, the poet, and the Duchess of

Queensberry, 773-786
Cyprus, A Muslim-Christian Sect in, German child's reminiscences, A, 232–
751-762

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244

German naval aspirations as affecting
Denmark, Holland, and Great
Britain, 26-37

German Social Democracy and the
Kaiser, 38-47

Germany, The Naval Policy of, 835-
851

Gill (Rev. H. V.), Some Recent Earth-
quake Theories, 144-150
Gods of Greece, The, 341
Goffin (M.) and native labour on the
Congo, 133-137, 386–397

Gordon and the Gladstone Cabinet,
Lord Cromer and, 674-682
Gordon (General) : a Personal
Reminiscence, 926-935

Gordon (General) and Zobeir Pasha,
936-948

Government under the party system,

18-25

Greece, The Gods of, 341

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History and Character, 254-271
Hoare (H. W.), The Impotence of
Socialism, 186-198; reply to, 842-
353; A Rejoinder, 661-673
Hodgson (W. Earl), Fly-Fishing, 787-
793

Huguenot enamel-workers, 98-110
Hume (Major), his book Through
Portugal reviewed, 62–79
Hurd (Archibald S.), A British Two-
Power Fleet, 485-500

Hutchinson (James G.), Can the Work-
ing Classes Save?-A Workman's
View, 285-296

Hyde (Lady Catherine), Duchess of
Queensberry, 771-786

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Labour party, The, and Socialist
ideals, 186-198

Ladies' Settlements and parish clergy-
men, 365-380, 607-613

Lagden (Sir Godfrey), How to make
the Negro Work, 386-397
Lathbury (D. C.), Equality and
Elementary Schools, 1081-1038
Lerberghe (Charles van), A Belgian
Poet of Yesterday, 411-427
Lethbridge (Sir Roper), Lord Ran-
dolph Churchill as a Tariff Re-
former, 354-364; The Evolution
of Tariff Reform in the Tory
Party, 869-887

Liberal Government, The, and its
critics, 1-17

Licensing Bill, The, and habitual
drunkards, 582-594

Licensing Bill, The, Will it Promote
Sobriety? 707-721

Lords, The House of, and the Cabinet,
831-834

and Suffragists, 825-834

Louis XV. and Count Saint-Germain
111-126

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