the conduct of prejudice. The question, whether it be one of antiquity or of the instant, may be alike worthy of consideration. How can, then, the objection to the extension of the national revenue for religious purposes be accounted novel? The two thousand ejected ministers who threw themselves upon the Dissenters of this country for fellowship and support, may not have abandoned the Established Church because they thought that, a priori, the establishment of any church was wrong. But they were not the founders of Nonconformity; they fled only to its sanctuary. Its records are of a higher epoch. Its fathers denounced every civil incorporation of Christianity. If the contrary doctrine has been ever breathed by those who claim to be their descendants, theirs is the embarrassment of the experimental, the problematic, the abrupt, the inventive. They are the Discoverers. Why should the sneer of a new and sudden illumination be indulged? The support of religion by the State is the objection of the Dissenter. Without recanting that objection, how could he accept aid in support of religious education? It does not render his consistency with this rudiment the less close and imperative, because he has not attentively meditated every application of it until now. When had he the opportunity? When was he called to refuse? He always knew and held the principle: the offer of patronage and assistance has not been his frequent temptation to forget it. You may try

to involve him in sudden deviation from his course. What is the pretext for this charge? He has been associated with the British System, whose normal schools public grants have sustained. But that is not a Dissenting Institute. He has enrolled himself in it as a patriot and a Christian. He owned a heart larger than his denomination. It may be that he has regretted such grant, employed his influence to dissuade its acceptance, and generously contributed in order to do away with the ground of necessity on which it was pleaded. It was not for him to control the convictions of others, the friends of liberty, the best men of the land.-It has been said that Dissenters already received Parliamentary endowment. This refers to the Regium Donum, a sum of less than £2000., voted annually for the relief of poor Dissenting Ministers. But a large majority desire that this may cease. Nor is the charge founded on a just analogy. When the princes of the Hanoverian dynasty acceded to the throne of these realms, they felt themselves so greatly indebted to the influence of the Protestant Nonconformists, that they determined to mark their sense of it by a royal bounty. The donative was bestowed from their own privy purse. The Civil List was an exchange and satisfaction for sacrifices which this Royal Line was prepared to make of certain fiefs and revenues. Specific payments were transferred from the Royal Family to the State. Gifts and dotations, aforetime free and

personal, were now undertaken by the legislature. This donative was among the rest. The Monarch no more gives it but the Parliament. But he is supposed to have vested in its Houses a full equivalent, and to have assigned for this purpose an adequate provision. It is still described as his bounty. The acceptance of it as his bounty could be no compromise of the strictest Dissent. He has paid over

this bounty in perpetuity. It is a rent-charge. It is the burden on a particular estate. The Dissenter might well wish to be rid of it. Nevertheless, it

is only righteous to say, that it stands on specific grounds. It cannot in fairness be confounded with any subsequent or future grant. It cannot contradict or perplex the consistency of any who repudiate all State aid for the administration of religion. Nonconformists, in this repudiation, follow no new light. The error has been to quote as their prototypes Howe, Baxter, and Owen, rather than Robinson and Ainsworth, Thacker and Penry, Barrowe and Greenwood, Rough and Simpson, those earlier confessors, exiles, and martyrs, those original standard-bearers against this principle. The antiquity of their opinion proves nothing for it: but it purges them of any innovation!

Convinced of the exaggerations which have gone forth, concerning the condition of education in this country, and especially in the manufacturing districts, -persuaded that when the matter shall be more

investigated, much of the present alarm will pass away, assured, that when new schools are erected, and larger schemes of instruction are applied, the principal difficulty will be to obtain pupils,—we are equally impressed with the necessity of informing and exciting the public mind upon the duty of seeing to the education of the people.

And it is the clear obligation of every man who loves his God, his neighbour, and his country, to advance the benefits of education. There is no method of benevolence more requisite, more useful, more enduring. It affects universal interests. "The wise child" is the future patriot and saint. The spirit is touched and moulded when it can be most easily shaped. "The golden bowl" is filled from "the fountain." You lay up an inheritance of principle and example for a boundless hereafter.

But while it is our social, as well as individual, duty to extend these advantages, Christians are found in other bonds. They are collected into churches and communities. A new power accrues from this rela

tion. Their influence is greatly multiplied. Every measure of well-doing commends itself to them in this capacity. To gather pecuniary income for secular charities is very appropriate and honourable to them: but religion is their first care. They are set for the defence and diffusion of the gospel, at home and abroad. And is not education, comprehensive as it is of all temporal and eternal good, a work which they

should encourage? Have not many of our churches and communities forgotten this purpose and betrayed this trust?

Among the resources which will be most effectual in the maintenance of education, is the true independent feeling of the poor. Parents, who know what is the happiness of education, who, in consequence of it, have acquired the principle and habit of virtue, will always prize the opportunity which may present itself of bestowing it upon their children. For this, however scanty may be their means, they will cheerfully contribute. "Out of deep poverty they will abound to the riches of liberality." It is a dubious policy to make any school entirely free. But be that as it may, the time is coming when the plea of an apparent necessity shall not be urged. The negligence and apathy which gratuitous offers are often designed to cheat, shall not be known. And then shall be created the true fund of education. It may be aided still,-but not as an alms. The free-will offerings, the cheerful payments, of the poor themselves, will form a store of wealth. It will be of the best kind. It will be followed by the most living influence. There is nothing visionary in the hope. Six years have passed since it was put on record, that 1,120,000 children attended the day schools of the country, besides the pupils of endowed schools. How many of these paid for their education? We find no less amount than this, that 730,000 were thus self