aried
functionary should stand to his employers, the people, simply in the
relation of an adventure schoolmaster. The State says virtually to
its teacher in such circumstances: 'I, as the _general_ guardian of
your pupils, do not pay you for their religious education; but their
_particular_ and special guardians, the parents, are quite at liberty
to make with you on that head whatever bargain they please. Fully
aware of the vast importance of religious teaching, and yet wholly
unable, from the denominational differences of the time, at once to
provide for it in the national seminaries, and to render these equal
to the wants of the country, I throw the whole responsibility in this
matter on the divided people, whom I cannot unite in their religion,
but whose general education I am not on that account at liberty to
neglect.' On grounds such as these, we repeat, Voluntaryism and the
Establishment principle may meet and agree.

There can be little doubt, however, that there are men on both sides
sparingly gifted with common sense: for never yet was there a great
question widely and popularly agitated, that did not divide not only
the wise men, but also the fools of the community; and we have heard
it urged by some of the representatives of the weaker class, that a
Voluntary could not permit his children to be taught religion under a
roof provided by the State. Really, with all respect for the cap and
bells, this is driving the matter a little too far. We have been told
by a relative, now deceased, who served on shipboard during the first
revolutionary war, and saw some hard fighting, that at the close of a
hot engagement, in which victory remained with the British, the
captain of the vessel in which he sailed--a devout and brave
man--called his crew together upon the quarter-deck, and offered up
thanks to God in an impressive prayer. The noble ship in which he
sailed was the property of the State, and he himself a State-paid
official; but was there anything in either circumstance to justify a
protest from even the most rabid Voluntary against the part which he
acted on this interesting occasion, simply as a Christian hero? Nay,
had he sought to employ and pay out of his private purse in behalf of
his crew an evangelical missionary, as decidedly Voluntary in his
views as John Foster or Robert Hall, would the man have once thought
of objecting to the work because it was to be prosecuted under the
shelter of beams and planks,