THE NONCONFORMIST CONFERENCE AND ITS POLICY.
[TO TIM EDIT011 OF THE SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—The most enthusiastic member of the Nonconformist Conference can hardly be dissatisfied with your criticisms on its proceedings. If that great assembly has adopted a policy which even the Spectator is constrained to acknowledge as "manly and intelligible," it has not met in vain. 1 would not venture to contend with the master of so many legions, but perhaps you will allow a quiet but not uninterested member of the Conference to place before your readers his views of its character and acts.
The most critical will hardly take exception to the numbers, the representative character, the deep earnestness, and the wide range of the proceedings of the Conference. Those who know Nonconformists best will most willingly admit that the heart and brain were fully represented in that assembly. Nearly two thousand delegates from every part of the kingdom did not as- semble in Manchester, at great expense of time and money, and in such a season as the present, without having sonic noble purpose in view. We have been censured freely enough for not having spoken out more clearly. It may be that we trusted to the know- ledge and sympathy of others, where we should have left no possibility of being misunderstood. If we have sinned in this direction in the past, that sin can no longer be laid to our charge. The Conference pronounced in the clearest manner for the separation of the secular and religious teaching, the functions of the State and the duties of Christian people ; condemned the proceedings of the Endowed Schools' Commissioners, and em- phatically demanded an adequate representation of Nonconformists on the Commission itself ; claimed the pure application of the principle of religious equality to all the offices, honours, and endowments of the National Universities ; reviewed the marriage and burial questions ; and "crowned the edifice" by an enthusi- astic support of Mr. Miall's motion for the disestablishment and disendowment of the so-called National Churches. I beg your readers to observe that there is perfect unity in all this diver- sity. We did not go to Manchester to parade "Dissenters' grievances," with which the Old Whigs were wont to amuse and delude us, but to assert a principle which will remove them all. I think the conclusions of the Conference may be expressed in a short sentence :—The school for the State, and the Church for God. The Spectator may differ from us, but you ought to cease to despise and begin to respect us.
I beg your readers to observe the broad national character of this policy. The Conference was a conference of Nonconformists, but the spirit that pervaded it was the spirit of Englishmen. There were many sects represented in that assembly, but they were all merged in the recognition of the common and inalienable rights of fellow-citizens. We asked nothing for ourselves which we were not prepared to give in its fullest extent to all others ; we sought to withhold nothing from others which we claimed for ourselves. We say to our countrymeu,—as citizens we have common rights, let us enjoy them together ; as re- ligionists, we have our separate convictions, let us all have fair play to propagate them. When we say to Irish- men and Scotchmen,—what the State does for you must be done on principles which are just to us all, what you do for your own faith must be done by your own energies and with your own resources, why should the Spectator say that we seek to "inflict" anything upon them ? What is there in this policy which the most fanatical Ultramontane or the most rigid Presbyterian can point to as unjust ? I venture to ask the Spectator, if national education, supported by national taxation and all the prestige of the State, be an "utterly local matter," what is an imperial matter? The Irish Church was essentially local compared with this question. The Irish people thirst for Home Rule, Repeal, Independence; the Irish priests clamour for denominational education underpriestly con- trol. If you were to grant the latter to-morrow, you would no more satisfy the Irish people than a painted loaf will satisfy a hungry man ! The attempt to rule Ireland through the priests will only deepen and embitter the resentment of the Irish people. It is not the Non- conformists who split up the nation into fragments. Theirs is a policy of righteousness and justice, which will tend to weld all the diversities of social and even religious life into one compact national life.
There are two points in your criticisms to which I should like to take exception. We do not plead guilty to that failure of our "historical consciousness" with which you charge us. From the very introduction of the Minutes of Council, they have undergone continual relaxation in the connection of religious and secular teaching. They were at first a little Act of Uniformity. The Government insisted on religious teaching, and inspected it, but at last they "asked no questions for conscience' sake." I venture to think that in spirit Mr. Forster has reversed this process. He has stimulated the sectarian spirit, he has given a bonus to induce the denominationalists to preoccupy the ground, and he has in- creased the grants to keep alive the dying and to resuscitate the dead. No doubt he has created rate-aided schools, and permitted the crea- tion of purely secular schools, and separated the religious from the secular teaching by a conscience.clause. This is only saying that he has legislated at all. The country was in advance of Mr. Forster on these points. But you cannot separate the school question from the broader one of religious endowments in general, and in this view Mr. Forster has reversed the policy of his chief. By the Irish Church Act Mr. Gladstone "inaugurated a new policy,"— whether he meant it or not, he has done it, and all the power of the world cannot undo it. The country and Parliament emphatically condemned any attempt at endowing all sects. Will it be con- tended that Mr. Forster's Act was conceived in the policy of Mr. Gladstone? Whatever refinement of language may be used, the fact remains that it is a huge endowment of two sects, and as such it has been hailed by Anglicans and Romanists alike.
I think we have good ground to complain of the injustice of the grievous charge which you bring against Nonconformists. It appears that there is an utter absence of all "conscious reference" in our minds to the "great object of all education, the good of the children to be educated." "This is the one point that no Nonconformist ever seems to think of,"—the efficient education of the children of the very poor. This is said of that assembly which met in Manchester last week ! Where was the "historical con- sciousness" of the Spectator when those words were written? In that assembly were men who had grown grey in that very work. They have brought to that work the priceless treasures of Christian love and sympathy. They have often been "men of one book," that book of which you speak so worthily. Their own minds have been so imbued with its spirit, that the very humblest have felt its power. It requires no great acquaintance with the Christian work of Nonconformists to know that they have penetrated to the lowest stratum of society, and this amid every possible form of obstruction where the dominant sect had power.
You say truly "the die is cast." It has not been cast hastily or in passion. As one of the speakers said, "Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." It is literally true that all efforts to induce the Government to reconsider its position have been in vain. The administration of the Act has been as offensive as its enactments. The die has not been cast on secondary matters, nor by an insignificant fraction. We have not left the Liberal party ; we have been deserted by that party. We stand on the old paths. The very words which we uttered in 1868 we utter still. We are not visionaries. We know there will be " week- kneed " and " feeble-minded " Nonconformists ; but there will also be strong-minded men, who will "understand the times," and will not shrink from their duty, however painful that duty may become. We go to the people of England in an earnest, trustful spirit, and we have never yet appealed to their justice in
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