LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
BIBLE CHRISTIANITY.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR...I SIE,-Mr. Haldane has lately insisted on the need of "clear thinking" on the part of our legislators and publicists. Nowhere is this need, as it seems to me, more imperative than
in the controversy on the burning question of education in our elementary schools. I am sure you will allow me, with the fairness and generosity whioh always distinguish the Spectator, to give my reasons for this opinion, although my view is in conflict with your own.
I have read your own articles on the subject and the correspon- dence in your columns, yet I am still in doubt as to what you and your correspondents mean by "Bible Christianity" and "the
fundamental truths of Christianity." Is the Godhead of Christ included? It was excluded from the syllabus of the old London School Board. Is there any security that it would not be ex- cluded from the syllabus of many local authorities under the category of Bible Christianity ? Unitarians profess to teach "Bible Christianity" and "the fundamental truths of Christi- anity." Thitlate Dr. Martineau was a clear thinker and a very honest one, Hut his " fundamental truths of Christianity " would differ fundamentally from the Spectator's on the vital questions of our Lord's divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet lir. Martineau was as honestly a Bible Christian as you or I.
It is plain, therefore, that our controversy is a mere beating of the air until we have a clear definition of "'Bible Christianity," and a clear explanation of what is meant by " the fundamental truths of Christianity." When we have that definition and that explanation, together with some guarantee that it shall be taught in all national schools, all who are Christians in the sense of the historic Creed of Christendom will be able to make up their minds on the subject.
But the difficulty does not end there. For let the definition of "Bible Christianity" be ever so orthodox, what security can there be that it shall be taught in the schools of which the teachers have been appointed without regard to their religious or irreligious belief? Shall I be told that we must trust to their honour? But the more honourable they are the more difficult it will be for some of them to teach doctrines which they believe to be false, and possibly mischievous. And may we not say of a teacher who thus acts against his conscience that "his honour rooted in dishonour stood, and faith unfaithful made him falsely true"? I believe that a Unitarian's or an agnostic's honour is as inviolable as a Christian's, and for that very reason I deprecate the policy of putting him in a position of temptation which might prove too much for him, as it might for a Christian in similar circumstances. Some unbelieving teachers, indeed, might teach Christian doctrines as they would teach the fables of heathen mythology. But the moral sense of children is sensitive, and they are quick to divine the mental attitude of the teacher towards the doctrines which he is expounding. Let me give an example for which I vouch. A teacher under the old School Board was one day expounding, and expounding very well, the doctrine of miracles. A boy in his class suddenly asked him : " Do you believe all that yourself, Sir ?" The teacher answered, with a scornful smile, that of course he did not believe anything so flagrantly opposed to science. Would it not have been infinitely better for that school, in the interest of Christianity, if Bible teaching had been entirely excluded from its curriculum? "In the interest of Christianity," did I say ? Nay, the interest of veracity and immutable morality ?
And remember that this class of teachers is certain to increase. The School Board schools were for the most part staffed with teachers trained in Christians Training Colleges. Hence the excellent religious teaching in a large number—perhaps the majority—of the School Board schools. For a sincere Christian can teach the religion of his denomination out of the Bible with- out Catechism or other formulary. But the Training 'Colleges are doomed if undenominationalism is to prevail, and we shall have a class of teachers trained without any definite religion.
"The Church," you say, "must not think of hentrights, of her property, of her schools, but only of the essential consideration,— what is the obligation laid upon her as a national Church ?" But why should she continue to be the national Church if she abandon her right to teach her children the Christian Creed ? Neither in reason nor in equity would her claim to be the national Church be tenable for an hour, and her disestablishment would follow speedily, and most righteously ; unless, indeed—an alternative by no means impossible in these days of democratic upheavals—we have undenominationalism established in our Cathedrals and churches as well as in our schools. This is the peril which Mr. Gladstone feared much more than Disestablish- ment, and he expected it to come through the establishment of an undogmatic State religion in our schools. Certainly he would have preferred secular education pure and simple to such an amorphous religion. What you fail to see, if I may presuree to say so, is that those who take this line are acting in the interest of what they believe to be "the fundamental truths of Christianity." Lotus latet in generatibus. The Arians claimed to teach "the fundamental truths of Christianity," and Gibbon sneered at the Christian Church for making Christianity depend on an iota. 'What Christian will now dispute that the instinct of the Church was right in recognising in that iota the difference between the Creator and the creature ?
You will not, I trust, stigmatise me as an "extremist" I have always lived on the kindliest terms with the Nonconformists. They were among my best friends in the parish of which I had charge for a good many years as rector, and I shall ever cherish with gratitude the invaluable help which they have always given me in my efforts on behalf of the oppressed Christiana of the East. I have often striven for justice to them, and friendly co-opera- tion with them wherever that is possible without sacrifice of principle. I have incurred no small obloquy in advocating their right to bury their dead in our churchyards with their own religions rites. And I even went beyond them in liberality when I defended the right of Mr. Bradlaugh to take his seat in the House of Commons. Let me add, in addition, that not a few Nonconformists—ministers and laymen—are with me in depre- cating the policy which I oppose. That veteran Nonconformist, Dr. Guinness Rogers, wrote to that effect a few weeks ago in the Times, and I have letters from several Nonconformist ministers thanking me for a letter which I wrote to the Times a while ago in the same sense as that which I am now addressing to you.
[We shall deal next week with the unhappy and embittered controversy which has arisen over the Education Bill, and with the various letters that have been sent to us in connection with it. We may point out here, however, in regard to Canon MacColl's courteous letter—a letter which, we are glad to note, shows a far less excited and violent tone than many of the public utterances on the question—that he writes as if the Cowper-Temple form of religious instruction were something new and terrible, and as if it were proposed to set up a wholly novel system. When we speak of Bible Christianity we mean the system which has been established in thousands of pro- vided schools with the goodwill and assent of Churchmen, and with the happiest results. The Hampshire syllabus is not a solitary example of what can be, and is, done. Canon MacCoil himself speaks of "the excellent religious teaching in a large number—perhaps the majority—of the School Board schools." It is such religious teaching which we desire to see preserved, and which we believe can be preserved, for the nation as a whole, if only the subject can be approached with goodwill and good feeling, and not in panic and anger. Let that be the foundation, and let it be supplemented by denominational teaching whenever the parents so desire in all schools. As to the atheist schoolmaster being a real danger, we cannot agree. Solitary cases may be produced, but they can easily be dealt with. Cases can be found of hypocritical and disbelieving clergymen of all creeds, but that does not prove that it is impossible to have a priesthood.—ED. Spectator.]
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