9 



My previous letter has brought me from unknown friends, whom I 

 hereby heartily thank, two "religious" newspapers, one of them the organ 

 of a militant section of Churchmen, the other the organ of a Nonconformist 

 body. They are both inspired by a spirit of narrow intolerance, and have an 

 outlook "cribbed, cabined and confined." Each is a most unlovely pre- 

 sentment of soi-disant "religion." If this is to be the kind of pabulum 

 offered to a would-be religious public, little wonder if wide-awake thinkers, 

 such as "Interested," are driven to find a religion outside the bounds of 

 Christianity. ; 



Meanwhile, we are penalised by an Education Act if we teach a definite 

 Christian faith. We have to pay rates and taxes for the rromulgation of a 

 nerveless invertebrate creed, and to help to keep up the buildings and 

 remunerate the secretary of the schools in which that creed is taught, and 

 in addition we have to find the buildings in which the creed in which we 

 believe — the old creed of the land, under the teaching of which it became 

 great — may be taught, and we have to keep up those buildings, while the 

 secretary has to give his work voluntarily. I saw a small bird to-day rest 

 upon a twig seemingly enlarged to twice its size by adhering ice and snow. 

 Down it came immediately. That twig reminded me of Board School 

 religion. It has a seeming plausibility as a modus vivendi amid religious 

 strife ; but it is unsubstantial as a dream, and when the Christianity of the 

 nation trusts to its sole support down it will come like the bird. Yet it is 

 this form of religion which the unholy alliance of Nonconformists and non- 

 Christians is striving so intensly to make universal. 



In a second letter — 



Sik, — I would crave permission to occupy a few lines of your valuable 

 space in order to say a word or two by way of comment upon the letters of 

 Mr. Goodyear and "Interested," which appear in your issue of this morning. 

 Mr. Goodyear thinks it would be better for ourselves and for the Church if 

 we clergy would recognise that there are very many Board school teachers 

 doing their utmost to raise the religious and moral tone of the children 

 committed to their charge. We do recognise this with keen gratitude, but 

 we recognise also with keenest pain that there is no guarantee that a Board 

 school teacher will be a Christian, and that there are many such teachers 

 who occupy the position of '"Interested" outside the bounds of Christianity, 

 while still others hold no religious beliefs whatsoever. 



In my boyhood I once had as a master an agnostic — an excellent teacher 

 of the Bible, but who gave us plainly to understand that he did not believe 

 in a great deal of it I could fill much space in dealing with the disastrous 

 influence of his teaching upon others. In my own case his teaching, and 

 especially the private talks I had with him, led me to make full and earnest 

 inquiry into the foundations on which my faith rested, with the result of 

 establishing that faith on an infinitely firmer basis. 



More than 20 years ago I took honours in science at Oxford, and since 

 then my knowledge of science has progressed side by side with my knowledge 

 of Christianity and Church doctrine, and as my outlook has extended I have 

 found these two departments of knowledge more and more in accord. 

 ••Interested" asserts that " modern thought and science have destroyed the 

 dogmas of the Christian Church." Not so. We may have a clearer and 

 therefore somewhat differently appearing view of the nature of Biblical 

 inspiration and many other things, but the evolution of the scheme of 

 Salvation which is by Christ is as much in accord with all that science 

 teaches as is that of the evolution of a planet, or the life upon it. The 



