And now I leave the subject in the hands of our readers, and beg to thank the affirmative writers for their able support, and those in the negative for the kindly spirit in which NEGATIVE REPLY. THE first part of our duty is the correc-velopment of the religious feelings and tion of two errors of the printer, which motions in the heart, a continual cultivation occur in our opening article, and which are of reverence, veneration, and obedience to just unfortunate enough to give inconsis- God, and love to our fellow-creatures" — (notency of expression, without being so palpa- thing less than the enforcement of the decably erroneous as to correct themselves. In logue, it will be observed); while to make us one of them we are made to say that we quite sure that his standard is thus the would not "underrate" the eradication of loftiest of its kind, we are cautioned against crime by certain methods which only tended the notion that religious instruction is to a diminution; and in the other we are "mere training in connexion with some of made to identify secular education with the numerous denominations of Christians, education exclusive of the "mental" facul- instruction in credal catechisms, or verbal ties. The substitution of undertake for repetitions of scripture texts." It is an “underrate," and of moral for "mental," education so holy in its purpose, and so unwill restore consistency to these passages. tiring in its work, that the very "causes of sin," in relation to one class of criminals, are to be done away with," and even those grown aged in sin are not to be abandoned." If there had lingered in our mind at the time we penned that article any misgivings as to the position we had chosen, such misgivings would be effectually dispelled at the point to which we are come. At any rate, having adopted the negation, we will not now disown it. Confirmed by the unanimous testimony of friend and foe, it commends itself to our support, not only as the truth of our adoption, but also as a truth altogether conceded to us. Do we reckon without our host? It were poor gains to our cause to do so, as well as contrary to our practice; and were we not certain of substantiating our calculation, we would not rest a triumph on so sorry an expedient. 66 Dromo" follows in the same wake He says, "The reason crime is so prevalent is, not because religion forms a part of our education, but because religion is not properly taught. For many years past we have had, not christian, but sectarian doctrines taught in our schools. When the day comes that a new order of things prevailssectarianism supported by pure religion— then the children, upon becoming men, will consider crime as not only an outrage upon man, but as an outrage upon God, and first hate, then shun it." Again: "Make a man Impartial reader, you who have followed not only know, but feel the performance of the controversy from beginning to end, we a certain action to be a crime, and he will put it to you whether our assertion as to abstain from it." Cosmopolite" is still the unanimous testimony to the inefficiency more unmistakable: "The subject of eduof education to eradicate crime be not a cation is man, in all the vastness and myswarrantable one. For you will observe, that tery of his nature, as the off-pring and although a specific has been found, and image of the Supreme; the object of dunamed by the name of education, and gua- cation is spiritual life; the period of educa ranteed (by two out of three advocates with- tion includes the whole duration of the preout doubt or drawback) to be the true sent state of being. Education or culture restorative to moral innocence, that specific being a design, running like a thread through has not been education in the received sense life, and entering the regions of the unseen of the term, that is to say, in the sense and eternal, is lost to mortal sight, and ends meant in the terms of the inquiry. We will we know not where." Again: "The specific quote from each of our friends opposed to us for moral evil is the influx of eternal love." in confirmation of this statement. Educa- Such, then, is education according to our cation," says G. P. W., "in its highest phase friends. It is far ahead of our question, inasis essentially a religious act. It is the de-nuch as the actual rarefication of the earthly into the heavenly was not demanded, but we have no reason to quarrel on that account. Nor is it our purpose to restrict the applicability of the term education. Our friends may apply it, if they choose, to that process whereby man is brought to an observance of divine law, and prepared for a higher state than the present. That there is such a process, all who believe in moral government will acknowledge; some think, with "Cosmopolite" and his friends, that it is a process chiefly communicable through direct human agency, by which the mind is taught, the heart touched, powers of goodness inherent in man's nature are educed, his love of virtue developed till it becomes perfect, and the subject of it assimilated to God himself. Others believe it to be a divine appliance whose agencies comprehend, besides human aid, all the connexions and circumstances of life; which disciplines for duty by experience; by life's sorrows educing ability of endurance; by its blessings, consecration, and love, comprehending, moreover, as its grand distinction, a more direct method for freeing the spirit from sin, and uniting it to God. Now, whether our friends may confine themselves to the first of these processes, or, after due consideration, see the propriety of incorporating with it the second (and we think they will be anxious to incorporate at least a portion of it; for although they may not care much about their credit as theologians, they will not endanger their reputation as philosophers so much as to deny the educative character of experience), we say that, whatever be their regenerating system, still it is not education in the sense meant in the terms of our inquiry. Not education in the sense in which the word is current amongst us-not education in the sense which the originators of this debate designed it to be understood. To suppose that it is, is to suppose, either that they are inattentive to propriety of terms in framing an inquiry, which of all errors they would be the least likely to commit, or to involve them in the more serious suspicion of advertising a debate as on a popular question, which debate was designed to be on a question possessing no peculiarity of popular interest. If they had meant to inquire if religion would eradicate crime they would have said religion, though they would know perfectly well, at the same time, that religion was a high species of education. Education, as practical amongst us, has not, in the whole range of her moral chemistry, a process whereby such a conversion may be effected in poor humanity-captivated by temptation, and too willing to transgress in spite of knowledge-as that henceforward these circumstances of its condition shall be subdued; and, according to G. P. W., "the religious feelings and motions developed in the heart;" or, according to "Dromo," "Crime hated, then shunned; man made to feel, so that abstinence from crime shall follow as a result." Education, in the sense meant, is not "a specific for moral evil," as averred by "Cosmopolite," nor does the "period of its operation include the whole of a man's being, extending into the regions of the unseen and eternal," but necessarily, from its very purpose, it is to fit for temporal duties, while from the difficulties which lie in the way of study in age, it is confined to the earlier part of life. We say," purpose to fit for temporal duties," in confidence that the terms of the debate justify us here in thus confining the province of education, for it would show a ridiculous exaggeration, or rather, a ridiculous unappreciation in our calculations of means and ends, to inquire if a process producing spiritual life would eradicate an evil belonging to an inferior state of existence. Study Education in her records, in the reports of her commissioners; or, if these be found wanting, in the sanguine theories in which she still remains untried, so that you do not trench upon a something else known as religion, and you will discover no purpose of "spiritual life." The process leading to it is beyond her pretensions. It would seem, however, that in the case of one of our friends, at least, there is not that complete faith which generally precedes a guarantee, and which his devotion must have deemed desirable. Even the system which he has unwittingly assisted to send forth with borrowed credentials does not seem to commend itself to his confidence to the extent it is trusted by his less scrupulous brethren; though how G. P. W., after having avowed such a hypothetical doctrine, as that, in the case of one class--the ignorant," Education would give them an immunity from crime if they be placed in circumstances which do not appeal too for cibly to their animal natures," could leap in such ignorance or partial instruction may the gap between it and the conclusion that be found the reason why these laws have "education taken in hand in an earnest and not operated to a greater extent to the universal spirit will eradicate crime," is a prevention of crime. This is a serious mystery, doubtless, clear to his own mind, point of difference between us, and one, but which he has certainly forgotten to therefore, which ought to be fairly considered make clear to others. "Dromo" and "Cos- and fairly dealt with by both parties. Grantmopolite" venture a full warranty, outspoken ing that rules have not been fully appreand absolute; the former in particular, with hended, and granting, further, that a fuller a valour which is quite refreshing in these knowledge of them would have been followed days of degeneracy, "dares any one to deny by a proportionate effect upon crime, we ask, that an education, intellectual, moral, reli- Is there a man amongst us who sins against gious, and practical, will make a man detest his neighbour, who would not, were the incrime as he would a serpent;" by the way, justice done to himself, reason upon his an infelicitous association of thought, seeing wrong with the utmost nicety of morality? that there prevails a previous association of If there be, we should say, he is an unprothe serpent with crime, the serpent being mising subject for education. Right and the allurer and conqueror of human nature, wrong have their life in a man's own conwhich, if but a figure, is yet a true repre-sciousness-rules are but their abstraction. sentation of the fascinating nature of crime. The secret power of the golden rule is in Now, with due respect for your sincerity, the very appeal which it makes to this in"Dromo," but with none for your defiance, we do deny your absolute doctrine, and, were it necessary, we should not hesitate to join issue with you and your friends upon it, granting you for a moment your explication of education, and to show that the hypothetical doubtful thesis admitted by your leader, G. P. W., is the more becoming; and that you have committed as great an error by over-estimating the merits of your system, as that which you fell into by borrowing them for the occasion. What data have you more than we possess to determine the matter? You may glorify the future, but you cannot draw inferences from it; these must come from the past, for which you have so little respect; and certainly the past will not befriend you. If you had made a discovery, if your system of education, "intellectual, moral, religious, and practical," differed essentially from that which our forefathers have handed down to us, your argument would lie in the discovery itself, out of the jurisdiction of opposers. But you do not maintain originality in this matter. We cannot understand, as we intimated at the outset of the debate, that you have purer ethics to teach, higher cardinal virtues to enforce, better rules of social duty to inculcate among mankind than those understood already. We really cannot admit that men have been so ignorant of these, or that they have been so partially inculcated by sectarianism, that herent sense. Is it right, then, to make ignorance a chief point of our preamble, even though it should be true that sometimes the knowledge within perceives but a dim reflection of itself in rules without? Or, if it be insisted upon as essential to an understanding of principles, that there shall be an application of them by outer influences so that what knowledge the mind already possesses in its own consciousness shall be thereby educed and matured, then we point to examples, unhappily too notorious to be called in question. It is well known that what is termed polished society shares in the common affliction occasioned by delinquent members. We might take the inebriate man, the sensual, or the gambler, or the union of the three. He is a gentleman, a scholar, perhaps a divine-quite a possible case. Here there is no ignorance of law, divine or human. Motives which among other men might be but feeble, are here strengthened by a variety of circumstances. Self-respect, consistency, recognition of duties arising out of superior attainments and station, and the maintenance of so exalted a position, might be expected to have the utmost influence which motives possess. Yet have they all failed. Though backed by the penalties of disobedience in their most costly, confiscating form, which might be presumed the most effective in the case of tenacious human nature-though the transgressor has been educated in the ordi P nary sense of the term, and then morally educated by even a higher process than it appears to us our friends speak of, inasmuch as it is a process in which, by the wise arrangements of Providence, crime itself, the very thing it is their object to eradicate, is a means, by being, as it were, the lightning of the moral atmosphere, selfdestructive, and subservient to ultimate good-though religion has urged her claims in tender accents, bespeaking the affections by her own peculiar graces of love and mercy, yet is obedience not secured, plainly confirming the testimony of all experience, that human passions may not be sanctified, though kept in check by education and other influences, and in some cases, by their assistance, approximated to the holy. We think there can be little more said upon the subject; and we are quite sure that, from a desire not to be wanting in due attention to our friends, we have pursued it far beyond what the occasion demanded. We have shown, first, that there has been a departure from the usual signification of the term education, and which signification was intended by the terms of the debate; and we have next shown, that, even allowing such a departure, there are no grounds for supposing the object attainable. If, after all, our friends will adhere to a system, some theory which, passing under the designation of "intellectual, moral, religious, and practical," is yet independent of what we know belonging to intellect, morals, religion, and practice, and therefore inaccessible to our reasoning, see what their theory involves : — an undefinable means of attaining to innocence; its teachers models of innocence, having such a remarkable power of insight as to completely ken the several diverse mental constitutions, characters, and dispositions of every subject of their instructions; able, besides, to make a child feel what is right (for "Dromo" will have him to feel as well as know it), and so accurately to apply the system to each and every individual, that, although the passions will still exist, and temptations allure as before, a complete and universal freedom from crime shall be ensured. It must be a freedom entire in individuals, and universal throughout the world; for eradication means nothing less than this. A partial freedom is not the object of the inquiry. Should our friends repudiate such a theory, and confine their professions to an improved adaptation of faculties and means already existing, an equally absurd set of conditions is involved. There must be this perfect acquaintance on the part of the teacher with the differing capabilities and characters of his pupils, and his system must give him entire control over their conduct and even over their feelings (according to "Dromo"), while under his care, and also supply an automaton power which shall act with unceasing regularity throughout life; else is crime not eradicated. With a being so singularly inapt to teach as man in general, having against him refractoriness just in its vigour, together with the newlyawakened passions, formed for gratification. but as yet unfortified against the abuse of it, the training of youth into the contemplated obedience must be impossible of attainment; and, at the risk of being deemed a heretic, we will venture to say, was never intended in this heterogeneous world of ours. What "Dromo" calls "a divinelyattested command," viz., "Train up a child,” &c., we should rather consider a statement of ordinary result, by no means unexceptionable; and one of the best proofs we can give of this is the history of him who gave utterance to these words. Considering that eradication has a partial meaning, we were the more surprised to see a "neutral article" on this question. Our friend "Sigma" has a wise mistrust of extremes, but in the present instance he has been unsuccessfully cautious. We imagine the opposition must have said, on reading his article, "He that is not with us is against us." To the query "Sigma" has addressed to ourselves, as to "whether education has done nothing to check crime?" we reply, Yes, a great deal; which he will find acknowledged in our former article. How "Sigma" could mistake us here, and how he discovers that we deem "education at variance with the Bible," we are unable to understand. We know that many who have great reverence for education, have little for the book which contains the sum of all morality: but that we supposed that education and the Bible were antagonistic is a misapprehension, not supported by any thing we have said. When a friend volunteers as daysman between belligerent parties, he is generally supposed to discern the pre cise points of difference; however, as "Sigma" has given us such good assistance in the main question, it would be ungrateful on our part to make reflections. So, holding out to him and to all our friends the frater nal hand, we bid them God-speed, assuring Politics. OUGHT THE GRANT TO MAYNOOTH TO BE WITHDRAWN? AFFIRMATIVE REPLY. governed—and, withal, priest-ridden to perfection. These are topics which it is our bounden duty, as men and brethren, to consider, and, as far as in us lies, to amend; but let us attend to these at a proper time, or egregious folly attaches to our conduct. The question now before us is, Ought the grant to Maynooth to be withdrawn? I say, to be consistent with truth, it ought to be withdrawn; because man is a voluntary agent, religion is a personal, individual matter, and religious exertions are necessarily of the same nature as the sources from which they spring, viz., voluntary; therefore their support and adoption cannot be compulsory. I FULLY agree with X. in the antiquity It is beating the bushes in the dark, while and universality of the religious tendencies the citadel is far distant in safety and peace. of mankind, in the general influence of re- I grant Ireland is misgoverned-sadly misligion upon the public and private duties of men, and in the duty of rulers to encourage the religious development of the people; but I cannot divine the process by which X., from these premises, arrives at the conclusion that is the duty of government to provide any one, or any number of religions, for the people. The question is not, does the constitution provide for an establishment; but does truth, equity, and law, permit the particular grant to Maynooth, or not. I have already shown in page 113, on the authority of Paley, that, even admitting the Protestant establishment to be allowed and allowable, consistency and truth require the withdrawal of the grant from Maynooth, The grant ought also to be withdrawn on because, "if the provision which the law the principles of equity. The grant is made assigns to the support of religion be extended from the Consolidated Fund, the general to various sects and denominations of Chris- revenue of the country-from the taxes paid tians, there exists no national religion or by every individual, whether he be Protestant, established church, according to the sense Catholic, or Dissenter. Each is compelled which these terms are usually made to convey;" to contribute his share, according to the and, on the other hand, were the Protestant use he makes of the taxed articles in the church in Ireland to be severed from the supply of his daily wants and necessities; state, and its resources withdrawn entirely, thus he cannot escape from the burden, howno justifiable reason would be given by this ever onerous it be to his conscience, as to action to endow Maynooth, or any other escape would necessitate a breach of the phase of religious development. The ques- civil law, by his refusal to pay taxes. Moretion really at issue would be literally un- over, his refusal to pay taxes involves his touched; therefore the high-sounding, stereo- refusal of the common necessaries of life; type declamations of our utilitarian friends hence, to escape the payment of his share of on the anomaly of the Irish church, and the the expenses of Maynooth, he must escape battle of the "two great churches" of the from the world, or at least from the nation. day-the injustice to Ireland, the "first Now, I affirm that this is "the greatest ingem of the ocean" and "land of the brave," justice of modern times," friend X., when are all far wide of the question at issue."the teeming Protestant and Dissenting |