WE are glad to see that Saint Andrew, the weekly organ of the Church of Scotland, has a clear and sympathetic account of the Nonconformist objections to the Education Bill. Our contemporary says:—
“In great numbers of the voluntary schools the religious teaching of the present day is not that of the standard of the Protestant Church of England. It is the teaching, either imparted by the parson himself, or under his immediate eye, by the schoolmaster, who must do his bidding, or trudge. There is no real meaning in calling the party in the English Church which is at present the most indefatigable the “High Church” party. The party is Romanist, pure and simple; and it is devoting itself to the uprooting of the Protestantism of the young people of England. . . . Can we wonder at the intelligent Nonconformist revolting against his children being brought under the fatally sinister influence here referred to, and, knowing the close connection between Church and school; resolving that he will resist with all his might the perpetuation of a system in which general control of the public schools shall be in the hands of men who openly inculcate the doctrine of the corporeal presence, baptismal regeneration, prayers for the dead, the duty of confession, adoration of saints, etc., and who beguile the children of their schools to believe in the idolatry of the mass, with the incense and candles and all the other paraphernalia under which they have disguised the Lord’s Supper.