Mr. Peek's gift to the London School Board of 1500,
to be spent within the year in defraying the cost of inspection and examination of the classes instructed under the authority of the Board in the Bible and the general principles of religion and morality,—classes which the State now refuses to inspect,—has been gratefully accepted by the Board, which has referred it to the School Management Committee, to consider and report WI the best means of carrying out Mr. Peek's design, in harmony with the principles already adopted by the Board. This decision was ultimately carried by a large majority, but not till after a pro- longed discussion on what was called "the new religious difficulty,' or the new "religious endowment question." The superstition about the name religious endowment' is. making as wild work with its special votaries as the superstition about the "substance Alcohol" with the Teetotallers. We shall have somebody. dis- covering soon that the meddling of the State in religious teaching is the unpardonable sin which can never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come.
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