CLERICAL VIEWS ON EDUCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3256, 28 July 1873, Page 2

CLERICAL VIEWS ON EDUCATION.

Yesterday morning, at All Saints’ Church, the i'ev. B. L. Stanford took occasion to express his opinions on secular education, in a sermon asking assistance for the Sunday School connected with the Church. He took for his text John 21, 15, “ Feed my lambs.” We were not prepared to take a full note of the reverend gentleman’s discourse, nor is it needful to depart from the usual custom, excepting in reference to those portions which bear immediately upon education viewed as a social problem. On this point the substance of what he said was:—“ You are being taken in when you are induced to provide secular education under any conceivable circumstances. You are being deluded bv political juggleries and harlequin movements of political parlies, who ask y< u to agree to a plan which is absolutely irrecoocileable with morality and religion. It might be said that such and such things would happen by teaching the Bible in common schools, but the Church dare not admit expediency in such matters. It might be said that parents were the proper persons to bring up children in the true faith, but it would not do to leave it to parents ; for experience showed that many in that case would be neglected; inot by the profligate and openly vicious only, but by the careless and ignorant. Many conscientiously believed that the Church ought to undertake it. But the Church consisted not only of the clergy, but the laity; and could it be imagined that persons could be found to leave their business, in order to devote themselves to teaching religion in the schools ? You are giving religion a deathblow when you consent to exclude reading the Word of God from day schools. The children will grow up as ignorant of religion as Chinamen, if you consent to such a disgracefully heathen process, and you must find some practical substitute for teaching religion in schools before you give it up. Such a scheme has never been propounded, and I do not believe it ever can. Our Protestantism is grounded on the Word of God alone .

and if you exclude the Bible from your schools, are you not handing the children over to the Church of Rome ? I ask you who think as the Reformers thought, that you are still soldiers of Christ, whether you are not throwing away your weapons of defence in favor of the enemy ? With the Bible you can defy all the world : without it wc shall die like Samson, betrayed, deprived of strength, captive and overthrown.” The reverend gentleman touched slightly upon tUe Sunday-school system and the difficulty of obtaining efficient teachers. He maintained it was not a sufficient substitute for Bible reading in day schools, as the time devoted to religious instruction was too short to create a permanent impression.