THE EDUCATION CONTROVERSY AND THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT.
(To Tam EDITOR OF TUB "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The strictures indulged in by "Finem Respice" in last week's Spectator are severe as applied to Churchmen. But I venture to think that your correspondent has awakened rather late in the day to discover the lack of the Christian spirit in this controversy.
Though Mr. Birrell's Bill is responsible for much strong language on either side, I doubt if it has called forth un- charitable utterances that are more vehement than were used previous to its production. I am a country rector, and I am happy to say that I am enjoying the best relations with my Non- conformist parishioners. If we were left alone, no religious difficulty would exist either in or out of school so far as we are concerned; but the Liberal Member for this part of the county, an ardent and leading Nonconformist, found it necessary, when visiting the village months before the election, to inveigh against "parsons and priests," threatening to drive them out of the schools, and so forth. We Churchmen have had for a
very long time to bear patiently violent diatribes against us on hundreds of so-called Liberal platforms. The efforts and aims of the clergy have been grossly misrepresented, and the sacri- fices they have made in the cause of education have been only ridiculed.
It is, then, rather late in the day for "'Einem Respice" to put in his plea for a Christian spirit in controversy. Let those all " Pax " who woke the strife, and we Churchmen will not be found wanting. But Dr. Clifford and his party seem determined on war to the knife unless they get everything their own way.
" Finem Respice" will pardon me for saying that his own letter does not help as it would do if, as you yourself point out, be took a more impartial, and perhaps a less prejudiced, view of the whole matter.
[We have never concealed our opinion as to the violence and want of Christian charity shown by many of the militant Nonconformists in their attacks on the Church and on the Act of 1902. But two wrongs can never make a right, and therefore we cannot accept the ill-doing of the Nonconformist
extremists as an excuse for Churchmen wlio have forgotten their duty. What we deplore so keenly is that many Church- men, instead of setting a better example and refraining from heated and unjust language, have followed the bad example that has been set them. We want to see a competi- tion in kindliness, and not in hatred and bitterness, begun by the clergy of the national Church.—En. Spectator.]
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