March 6th, 1908.
“IF ONLY these two measures (the Education and the Licensing Bills) are passed, I shall regard 1908 as one of the years of the hand of the Most High.” So spoke Dr Clifford at the Southport meeting of “Free Church” delegates. We must, we suppose, give him credit for a sincere belief that he and his friends are doing God service in promoting the former measure, for he said that, in his judgment, it is “lavish in its generosity to Romanists and Anglicans”, though he prudently added that the delegates “were there to say they must go no further”. Clearly lavishness is a relative thing. What seems lavish to Dr Clifford seems to us not only the height of meanness, but an act of robbery. There, however, it is: the Doctor sincerely and piously believes he is doing the generous [thing], if not verging on the over-generous. . . Canon Barnett, we see, is exhorting Churchmen “meekly to accept the principles of the Government Bill”, to withdraw from the struggle “in the spirit of meekness and sweet reasonableness”. We venture to think that the principle of justice is worth defending; that it is our duty, as citizens, to defend it. Besides, this is for us a religious question. We have to secure Christian teaching for Christian children, not only in the semi-boycotted schools which the Bill will allow us to continue largely at our own expense, but in the public schools. Canon Barnett may be satisfied with the sham Christianity of the undenominational type. We are not, and we trust that his counsel will be addressed to deaf ears. |
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