tion before my eyes, and I could not avoid mentioning it. I know very well that the honourable gentlemen, (and I do not undervalue their place and their importance; I wish they always felt its responsibility, and acted under it,)-I know they will go and traduce me in their newspapers to-morrow, and they are quite welcome to do so; I am too well accustomed to newspaper abuse, in Manchester and elsewhere, not to know its true value; and I only trust in God, that I may always regard what is written about me in heaven, and care little about what is written concerning me on earth. I would not have adverted to the point, however, but as another illustration of the sad apathy in which such strong and truthful sentiments are regarded, by a lukewarm and indifferent public, and especially by our strong partisans, who give their complexion to most of our newspapers, -so that they are seldom to be regarded as independent organs. But to return from this digression, I do assure you, my Christian friends, while I do not undervalue the exposure of the individual errors of the Church of Rome -while I do not undervalue an attempt to attack her on the grounds of political wisdom and expediency—while I do not undervalue attempts to set forward the simple truth, in order that we may bring the Romanist to the light of it, (for this is our bounden duty,) I think we should greatly narrow the ground of controversy, and greatly strengthen it too, by insisting on the point that Popery is, (as her own creeds and canons show, as our martyred Reformers declared her to be, and our own Constitution once recognised her as being,) the great Antichristian apostasy, which, to be friends with, is to be enemies with Christ, and which to unite with, is to unite against him. I trust that our senators will not be ashamed to avow this, in their places in Parliament. There was a man who once did so, (may God give him health again to go and testify it,) and Captain Gordon was not ashamed to declare it, in the midst of the House of Commons. And therefore, my Christian friends, I call upon all those who love the truth, whether they be Dissenters or Churchmen, to unite at the present crisis, to return Members to Parliament, who will oppose to the uttermost all concessions to Rome, and endeavour to bring back our national Christianity, in its original purity and strength.

But there is another question impending over us, as well as the endow ment of the Popish priesthood in Ireland, which I cannot but regard with the deepest apprehension, and with the most solemn dread; and that is, a revived attempt (we have every reason to believe,) to give us a national education, divorced from our national religion,—an education simply and purely secular, divorcing the schoolmaster and religion altogether. Alas! let us divorce the schoolmaster and religion, and we shall divorce the prosperity, and the peace, and the righteousness of England, even what remains to us. I hold in my hand an extract from a book, recently published in France by the Abbé Guam, a leading Romanist, in that now Romanizing nation, for it is turning much to Romanism again; it is called his Catechism, and consists of eight volumes, containing an immense mass of singular information. He gives an account of the proportions of crime in France, (where the plan has been carried out, of divorcing the Bible and the schoolmaster,) in the different ranks of society, which he distributes under three

heads the uneducated, the partially educated, and the highly educated; and on the strength of a Government Report, he gives this as a result: there are among the uneducated but as five criminals to seven in the partially educated, and to fifteen in the highly educated. I have no doubt that this is a genuine document, because it is based upon a Government return; at least, we are accustomed to deem such documents to be the best authority. And what lesson meets us? A lesson, which should thrill through every Englishman's heart, who regards the welfare of his country:-to educate without Christianity, is to educate to deeper criminality: is to elevate man from the brute, but to approximate him proportionately to the fiend; it is to add subtlety to his malevolence, and power to his evil designs; it is to make him the more plausible, the more sly, the more clever, the more dazzling, the more accomplished villain. The most intellectual place in the universe, next to heaven, is hell.

My Christian friends, I speak boldly and plainly; I do protest against the idolatry of intellectualism, which is substituted for the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ; and whether we set up in Christ's temple the image of secular education, or the image of the Virgin Mary, we are equally idolaters, before a jealous God. Does intellectual intelligence, and subtlety, and cleverness, make hell happy, or true, or just, or pure, or full of love to God? Will not intellectual culture, without religion, make man, who is "shapen in sin, and conceived in iniquity," cultivate the seeds of iniquity, which are within him? It has been tried what philosophical culture and illumination can do, without religion; "the goddess of reason was set up. It has been tried; but instead of producing a paradise of purity, a millennium of harmony, a temple of love-heaven on earth, it produced a wilderness of corruption, a reign of terror, a theatre of animosity-hell on earth.

Divorce Christianity from our education! and who are the advocates of so monstrous an absurdity? On the one hand, we have the latitudinarian, and the sceptic, and the heedless statesman, who only want to keep peace, and sacrifice principle; but it is a hollow peace; it is like the peace of a volcano, while its elements are gathering strength to come forth with increased vigour. And who are the other advocates? Some of our semi-Romanists, within our own Church. I pray you, mark the instructive fellowship; mark-mark the combination of opposite extremes. The Latitudinarian says-" Away with your Bible and religion from the school, while the schoolmaster presides, because your religion is the bone of contention, and the apple of discord. All would be sweet harmony, if you put out the Bible, which is the great source of discord. There is no need for education to be blended with the dogmas of your creed, or the peculiarities of your sect." The High extreme Churchmen, (nay, the Anglo-Romanists-that is the best name for them,) the AngloRomanists reply-" We quite agree with you; the schoolmaster has nothing to do with the Bible; it is too sacred and hallowed a thing for the unhallowed hands of laymen to touch; no, leave it to the clergy, leave it to the priesthood, and they will take care to teach it their own way." Rome comes in, and says—" I quite agree with you

both; get the Bible out of the school; put out the candle, for I love darkness, and I shall prosper best in the dark." Romanists, Latitudinarians, and bigots concur in their advice. But there is a fourth party, my Christian friends; these are the sound-hearted, Protestant parents of England; and they say-"We forbid the separation."

My Christian friends, let us have a plan of education for all, but let us have no coercion into a hollow, heartless union. No; let the Government do the next best thing to doing what it ought, and supporting the National Church, as a National Church; let her help all to educate their children separately, and not endeavour to force upon them tenets, which they know to be wrong; let her prevent children being employed in factories, till they know how to read; but never let any Administration try to force the honest-hearted Protestants of England to let their children sit down with the children of the Infidel and the godless, bibleless and hopeless, with a master, who dare not pray with them,-with a master, who, if he come up to the approved model of the Vicar of Leeds, I do not hesitate to say, would be a godless man, in his official capacity, for he is not to know anything of God, or Christ, or eternity, in the teaching of his children. And what would you give for the Christianity of that schoolmaster? What would you give for his honesty and morality, that would consent for a pitiful bit of bread, to leave his Bible, his prayer, and his Saviour, and everything which distinguishes him, as a follower of Jesus, outside of the schoolhouse door, as a suit of clothes, to be put off, when he enters, and to be put on, when he goes back again to his home? The man might, in name, be a High Churchman, if you will, but in spirit and in conduct, he would be virtually an Infidel. Oh my friends, this is in reality, the monstrous proposition, when stripped of its garniture and its plausibility: that the schoolmaster should never pray with his children, never mention Jesus to them, never "suffer the little children to come unto Christ," never point them to heaven above, or to hell beneath, never guard them from lying, or warn them from stealing, or teach them brotherly love on true principle. And where would be morality without motives? Where would be the conduct without the doctrines? Where would be the trees without the roots? Where would be the light, without the sun? Oh! the foolishness of the men, who, in their worldly wisdom, would be wiser than God, and divide what God has joined together.

But the clergy and the ministers are to give instruction, at after hours, and at other times. Is this "training up a child in the way he should go?" Is this inculcation by "line upon line, and precept upon precept?" I have had as much experience in schoolwatching, and school-managing, as many who have written upon the subject, though I make no boast of it; and this I give, as my deliberate conclusion, in the face of whatever others may have said; I have invariably found, that whatever may be the excellency of the clergyman, and however great his carefulness and industry, the schoolmaster makes, or mars the school. I hesitate not to say this, in the face of my Reverend brethren around me; and I am sure they will subscribe to it. The minister ought to attend; his attendance is needful, and his training and teaching important; he should hold the

check-rein, he should guard the helm ; but the schoolmaster is always with the children, forming their characters, and shaping their minds for good or for evil. The schoolmaster is the adopted parent; and is that parent to know nothing of God or of Christ, in the midst of his family?

But more than this: it would be a vain, as it would be an unprincipled attempt to force upon us a mixed scheme of education. Whatever a few extreme Churchmen, whatever some Dissenters, (I am sure but a fraction of them,) or whatever some Romanists may be prepared to do, that they may hail such a godless scheme, and send their children to the schools so prepared; I know the body of the nation will be against the measure; I know that our schools shall never come under the power of such a system. I know that if any Government were to endeavour to foist it upon me, my schoolhouse, which was built independently of any national interference, by the private contributions of the flock, among whom I minister, should be razed to the dust, before it should be brought under the influence of such an iniquitous system. And I am not alone in these sentiments. My Reverend brethren around me, would you not say the same? Poll the clergy of England; and you will find, with a few fractional exceptions, that the great mass of them testify their abhorrence of any system, which goes to separate the Bible and the schoolmaster.

It is a misnomer, my Christian friends, to call such piebald systems national. Surely the National Church is not to be the only thing in the nation, not to be cared for in its measures; and surely the national education of England is not to outrage the principles, to trample under foot the feelings, and, I may almost say, to play false to the title-deeds of the schools of the great mass of the clergy of our Church. Justice to the clergy forbids such an attempt to nationalize education, by denationalizing Christianity.

I

My Christian friends, I have said enough to show, that it is your bounden duty to be up and doing, at the present juncture. If such a national education is not to be brought about, if such a Popish measure is not to pass the Legislature, you must get a party in the House, strong enough, intelligent enough, and united enough, to put a drag upon the downward course of our Protestant Constitution. invite the Protestant Association to gird itself to the work. Let the rich Protestant merchants and nobles come forward with their fifty pounds each, till they have raised a thousand or twelve hundred pounds, just for one year, to give the effort a fair trial. Let them send round agents, to give information, and excite interest, in different localities,-in every borough, and every county, that returns Members to Parliament; and let them call upon the soundhearted Protestant layman and clergyman, to rally around them, not for any party, or political, or secular purpose, but for the purpose of guarding our Protestantism, as far as it yet remains to us. Let them do this advisedly, discreetly, energetically, and perseveringly, and I have no doubt that the spirit of Protestantism will be roused. It is the minority carrying it against the majority; it is the agitating few, against the supine many which ruins us. And if we could get our Protestant pastors to rouse themselves, there is a strength in the clergy

of England, and in their ten thousand flocks, which, if once roused, no Administration would be able to withstand, and no British Parliament to insult, outrage, and destroy.

66

And why is this feeling to be roused? To put Whig out of office, or Conservative into office; to put any mercantile restrictions aside, or into force? God forbid. We have nothing to do comparatively with these minor matters; but it is for the glorious purpose of maintaining the truth, defending "the ark of God," keeping out Antichrist, and preserving Christ and His Gospel in the midst of us. If this is to be political, were Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley political? If this is to be political, were the seven bishops who went down your Thames to the Tower, fearless for the truth, political? Were they opposing "the powers that be?" They were opposing them, but not with sword, or brand, or weapons of carnal warfare, but with the might of meekness, and with the intrepidity of a martyr's suffering, and a martyr's faith. And were they political in opposing "the powers that be," even passively? They only opposed them when these opposed Him who made those powers to be-God who makes all powers to be. Judge ye," they said, "whether we ought to obey God or man." Thus did they, and thus did they hold fast their Protestantism, and William of Orange came over, in answer to the noble demonstration of feeling which was manifested. Oh! for the same spirit in our hierarchy and clergy now ! We have it in some. I heard the noble and honest-hearted Robert Daly preach a short time ago, and he spoke with the same spirit that ought to animate us. And be assured of this, my Christian friends, that in so arousing themselves, the pious clergy and the pious laity of this land, would not be arousing themselves as mere politicians, but as humble upholders of "the truth as it is in Jesus," whose "hearts tremble for the ark of God," and whose hands are uplifted to protect it, not by weapons of carnal warfare, but by that electoral power, which the Head of the ark has put into their hands, and of which they must give account at the great day, when they must give account of all their talents, public as well as private, national as well as individual.

But besides this: do not let us attempt aggression merely on Popery, but aggression on bewildered Romanists, to bring them to the light. There are young persons and Protestant operatives here, that have no vote. Do you say, "What can we do?" Go in a spirit of love and tenderness to your Romish neighbours; take to them well-digested tracts; talk to them in meekness and kindness. Do not begin by talking to them about their errors; talk to them of Jesus, whose blood cleanseth from all sin; talk to them of the blessed Spirit who renovates the heart; show them the straight road to heaven, with no dark purgatory between; tell them of the all-sufficient merits of the Saviour, without any of the dust of man's miserable merit and righteousness blended with it; tell them of the one only Mediator, seated on the throne of heaven, without any tortuous winding way, through manifold mediators; tell them of the one Sun, which absorbs all the stars in His own bright rays, and not of the stars, amidst the milky galaxy of so-called saints, which have almost obscured the light they pretend to augment. Tell them, my Christian friends, that the song of angels is not the song of "Glory to the Pope, and perdition to the