§ The Bishop of Kilmore presented a Petition from the clergy of his diocese, against the National Education System in Ireland.
Lord Kingwas convinced, that after the present week, they would hear no more of these anti-national education petitions, as they were part of a conspiracy, based in political fraud and delusion, against Earl 981 Grey's Administration; the main plot of which, he was happy to say, had wholly failed. The Pharisaic originators of those petitions had not stopped at what he supposed he must call pious frauds, in order to array the best feelings of the religious portion of the community against the present Government. They told the people, that the main object of Ministers in introducing the national education system into Ireland was, to "deprive the Protestant children of their right to peruse the Sacred Volume," though they well knew that, so far from that being the fact, not less than two days each week were wholly devoted to scriptural instruction and unrestricted scriptural reading.
The Earl of Rodendenied that the opposition of the clergy, and other well-meaning individuals, to the Irish national education system had any political origin. There was nothing like a plot against the Government, and the petitions would, he believed, be yet more numerous than at present, consequent upon a conviction, sanctioned by God's word, that that system was Anti-Christian in principle, inasmuch as it went to mutilate the Holy Volume. The opposition solely arose from a feeling on the part of the people of England against what they considered an unscriptural and unchristian system of education.
Lord Kingbelieved, that there was something political in the opposition, and that it did not arise altogether from such worthy motives as the noble Earl set up, on behalf of all the petitioners who came before the House. But, some how or other, it was a curious phenomenon in the proceedings of the "saints," that though their spiritual visions were, it must be presumed, ever fixed upon the "kingdom come," they seemed also to have an eye upon this "sublunary world below." In opposing, for instance, what the noble Earl designated the Anti-Christian education system of the Whigs, they contrived to make the opposition auxiliary—impotently so, he was happy to find—to the restoration of the Tories.
The Earl of Winchilseaagreed with his noble friend (the Earl of Roden), when he stated that these petitions had not originated in political feeling. He denied, too, that the House would hear no more of these petitions after this week. A feeling upon this question, of a nature far more powerful than that which prevailed upon the Catholic Question, would be excited throughout the country. It was the duty of a Christian Legislature, in a Christian 982 country, to connect that religion which they believed to be the pure religion with the education of the people. In the attempt, therefore, to bring that Legislature to a sense of their sacred duty, there was nothing of political hostility—nothing of a worldly character; and, for one, he never would cease from bringing the question in its true light before the people of England, and before that House. As for the unbecoming sneer of the noble Baron, respecting the views and feelings of those he was pleased to style "saints," he would only observe, that that noble Baron never possessed, and was incapable of appreciating the feelings of such persons. That noble Baron never spoke upon any sacred subject, except in such a tone as must excite the scorn and indignation of every Christian man. The noble Earl, with great energy, said he would repeat the words—the scorn and indignation of every Christian man.
Lord Kingsaid, the noble Earl had no right to assume, that because he had over and over denounced the abuses of the Church Establishment and the tithe system, that he was, therefore, unmindful or indifferent to the uses of religion. But this was ever the way with the monopolists of religion: venture to question the immaculate perfection of the tithe system, or the holding of Church pluralities, or the advantages of overpaying a Bishop for doing little, while the working clergy hardly obtained the means of subsistence, and, as a matter of course, you are denounced as the enemy of every thing sacred and orthodox. He defied the noble Earl to cite a single expression of his whole life at all reflecting upon religion, apart from its abuses.
§ Petition laid on the Table.