THE BAPTISTS AND NATIONAL EDUCATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SFROTATOR.1
Sin,—It is too much to hope that your excellent article on "The Dissenters and the Government," in last week's edition, will con- vince the Leaguers who, red-hot for conflict, will not allow to the education question any of the latitude usually extended to the working out of a confessedly difficult problem.
I have a very sincere regard for the many good and able men who do honour to their distinctive principles as Baptists, and are ever in the van of progress and liberty, personal, national, and religious ; and no cue can read Mr. Jeukyn Brown's letter with- out responding to its candour and manliness, but is it not too warlike to be practical, and is not this fighting mood into which some Dissenters have worked themselves a far greater hindrance to the cause of education than the " difficulty " at which they run ful,1 tilt ?
To be a Nonconformist and a Baptist does not fortunately involve acquiescence in the resolutions of the Baptist Union, otherwise it might be matter of perplexity to those of us who on the subject of education feel bound to differ from them, and to give earnest and practical effect to our conviction that religious teaching and education should not be divorced against the clearly expressed wish of those directly concerned.
As a protest against State aid to denominational teaching, it is surely enough to abstain from receiving such aid, without our seeking to compel others to conform to our practice, and I venture to believe it to be a higher and truer form of protest to be willing under present circumstances thus to consult the con- sciences of others, than to render abortive practical effort towards an undoubted common good by an arbitrary assertion of our own opinions and rights.
We have confidence in the truth underlying Nonconformity, net as a negative, but as a positive principle ; but I do not think we shall strengthen it by intolerance, and although I devoutly wish, with Mr. Brown, that the word " Dissenter " was " blotted out," it will be done most effectually by our building up a better structure than the one we have retired from. To interfere with our neighbour and to make him conform to us is a modern type of Nonconformity alien to its noblest and truest spirit.—I am,
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