THE BISHOP OF ELY ON SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 296, 21 December 1878, Page 6

THE BISHOP OF ELY ON SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

At Bedford,; the Bishop: of Ely presided over a; conference of managers, teachers and ' others interested in the Church Sunday schools of tbe county. In tbe course of bis opening address his lordship said be couid not but believe that we were on tbe eve of a far more complete eystem of national secular education than at the present time existed. It might not come for some yearsj he hoped it would not; but be ccnld not disguise from bimself that tbe current of popular opinion was setting: in favour of a national aecuUr education. There was, hs must say, a logical incompleteness in two systems, the voluntary and tbe national, working side by side, which incompleteness carried with it an omen of its being only calculated to be of temporary duration, and that being so, he thought they should look at *he present time as an interval graciously given to the Church of England, in tbe providence of God, for preparing to take up religiouß education upon Sundays, and possibly Saturdays. It might not come in our time,: but the next generation might possibly be secularly educated by tbe nation, and tberefore during the present period it would be wisdom on the part of the Church to look at the danger ahead of a general secular education, and to prepare to meet it by getting (be Sunday schools into thorough efficiency. His lordship strongly advised teach era not to cram a child with Old Testament stories, but to imbue a child's mind, from its earliest pariod of receptivity, with distinctive Church doctrines, Sunday school teaching to be made more efficient rauat be more dogmatical and doctrinal, and the children were to be taught what is found in tbe Prayer-book without stint and without measure.