PASSIVE RESISTANCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your article of a fortnight ago betrays such benevolence to the Nonconformists, and you so manifestly regard them with regret, as for "another good man gone wrong," that I greatly desire to show you how deep is the conscientious conviction which is moving us to resist the levy of the rate. We value your sympathy. We are as troubled when you do not understand us as we should be if the Church Times did. Let me therefore take a particular instance. In Salisbury all the elementary schools belong to the Anglican and the Roman Churches. The masters and managers of these schools must, if they do their duty, strive to create an atmosphere in which Nonconformity can- not live. The Head-Masters will all be convinced Churchmen and Roman Catholics, and though they will not use illegitimate influences, the legitimate influences they will use must make every Nonconformist afraid to subject his child to them. Furthermore, the Nonconformist ratepayer knows that if his child wishes to become a teacher, the way is barred unless the change of conviction which he dreads is effected by the school which he supports. I ask, Sir, does it pass your wit to conceive that a man in these circumstances should feel that conscience requires him to resist? For my own part, I can only imagine him submitting on the supposition that he has not a conscience. For, permit me to remind you, the " Catholic " doctrine which is being instilled through these rate-supported schools is not, to us, a variation of Christianity, it is Anti-Christianity, it is the cause of the overthrow of nations. To offer prayers and adoration to the Virgin is, in our conviction, idolatry, precisely identical with the worship of the Queen of Heaven which Ezekiel and the prophets denounce as the ground of national punishment. I myself, for instance, am firmly persuaded that if Mariolatry is restored in England, England will become as Spain, and London as that forlorn Siena which inscribed her trust in the omni- potent Virgin over her gate, as the lasting witness to the decay that follows on that terrible delusion. We Noncon- formists have not acquired that easy latitudinarianism which is familiar in some quarters, the " nothing-true-and-it-doesn't- much-matter " attitude which Churches of compromise cultivate. To us God and Christ are tremendous realities, and to take the honour of the Father and the Son and to offer it to a woman is not only error, but poison, the ruin, not only of Churches, but of States. Our ratepayer in
Salisbury therefore is bound, in God's name, to protest, to take joyfully the spoiling of his goods, or even to go to prison or the stake, rather than compromise. You do not see it, as Tacitus did not see the significance of those early followers of Chrestos ; you do not feel any obligation of martyrdom, neither did Erasmus ; you contemplate the passionate convictions of the Nonconformist as Bolingbroke did in the time of Queen Anne. But at least I should plead with Tacitus, Luther, and Bolingbroke to recognise that convictions are there, solid and decisive ; and I think I could convince them that the Education Act rides rough- shod over thousands of consciences in England. Now I shall resist in Hampstead, not because the local circumstances are the same as in Salisbury, but because I have no other way of showing my practical sympathy with my brothers who must suffer in the villages of Derbyshire or in clerical cities like Salisbury. We were very few in the sixteenth century when we resisted Queen Elizabeth and Whitgift, nor were we numerous when we resisted Charles and Laud. Though we were ten times fewer than we are to-day, we should still have confidence, for God is on the side of justice ; nor can religion be promoted by injustice and the ruthless and wilful trampling on tender consciences ; no, not even when polite writers are ready to assure the conscience that it is not a conscience at all, but a freak of political passion.—I am, Sir, Scc., [If all that Dr. Horton says were true—that he thinks it true we do not doubt for a moment—what have he and his supporters been doing in paying taxes during the last thirty years ? Unless he is prepared to say that it is a sin to pay rates which go in part to Church schools and Roman Catholic schools, but no sin to pay taxes which go in part to Church schools and Roman Catholic schools, he is accusing him- self and all the Nonconformists of England of a grave dereliction of duty. Unless, indeed, he can maintain this astonishing difference between local and Imperial taxation, the former offence is much worse than that now committed by those who do not resist rates, for the rights of the Non- conformists have been extended, not narrowed, by the new Act. As to Dr. Horton's view of the actual situation created at Salisbury and elsewhere by the Act we cannot argue now, but we must enter a protest against his statement being regarded as in any way representing the true facts. It is coloured by prejudice at every point. Again, as to Dr. Horton's offensive remarks as to Bolingbroke and as to Churches of com- promise,'we venture to think that be would be, not a worse, but a better Christian if he could show some of the spirit of Sir Thomas Browne, or of Jeremy Taylor, or, indeed, of Cromwell. It is clear that he has no conception of the spirit which he spurns as latitudinarian.—En. Spectator.]
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