L ETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
ITO TRH EDITOR OP TUN "SPR0TATOR.1
Sin,—I must apologise for again intruding upon your space ; but I feel that it is due to those who, like myself, protest against the establishment of what is absurdly called " Cowper. Temple teaching" in all the schools of the country, to enter a protest against being on that account opposed to "simple Bible teaching," Such teaching is the very thing which has been given in all the Church schools, and will continue to be given, unless it is tyrannically forbidden. It is really difficult to understand bow any reasonable men can talk about the Church of England being "opposed to the open Bible," when her Cervices open the Bible in a manner much more free than those of any other Christian body. The Psalms, the Lessons, the Canticles, the Epistles and Gospels,—what are they all but pages from the "open Bible," read "daily throughout the year" as the Prayer-book directs, and read every Sunday in the presence of all her congregations P What we object to in the Cowper-Temple system is that it only says what we shall not teach, and gives no security whatever that any religious teaching shall be given, or that, if it is, it shall be based upon the " simple " foundations of the Christian faith. Who can imagine the Apostles converting the world fettered and confined by a "Cowper-Temple Clause," forbidding them to use any instrument for expounding the faith, because some- body else happened to dislike it ? No, Sir ; the true liberty of teaching is the only way in which the Christian faith can be taught, and we can never consent to surrender that liberty in the very schools which were founded to teach it.—I am, Sir,
&C., Falconhurst, Eden Bridge, Kent.
JOHN G. TALBOT.
[The best definition of a word has been said to he a report on the facts. A. report on the facts shows that how- ever cumbrous, or even wrong-beaded, may have been the phrases setting up " Cowper-Templeism," the thing as it exists in the great majority of schools is a perfectly sound and religions system of simple Bible teaching. The negations of its origin have not stultified it, and, as the Archbishop of Canterbm7 has admitted, it has in the course of the last thirty- five years supplied Christian teaching to millions of children. Yet Lord Hugh Cecil uses language in regard to this teaching which plain men are certain to take as meaning that the English Church is opposed to simple Bible teaching. If Mr. Talbot will look again at what we wrote, he will find that we did not assert that the Church was opposed to simple Bible teaching. On the contrary, we denied that this was so, and declared the national Church to be " the Church of the open Bible." At the same time, we pointed out the grave danger of taking up a position which would be sure to be mis- interpreted as opposition to the open Bible. We are delighted to see Mr. Talbot's repudiation of the extreme view as regards simple Bible teaching, but we still retain our opinion as to the immense injury which is being done to the interests of the Church. We have received two other letters in the same sense as the above, but regret that owing to the pressure on our space this week we cannot find room for them.—En.
Spectator.]
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