names
of some of the parties are well known and highly esteemed in this
country, yet that the names of many who might be expected to be
foremost in promoting such an object are wanting.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that some of these may have
been prevented from signing the document in question by some
considerations which have occurred to myself on the perusal of
it; and as a few lines of editorial comment indicate that the
project has your sanction, you will perhaps allow me briefly to
say why I think the people of Scotland should give to it the most
deliberate consideration before committing themselves to it.

Agreeing, as I do most fully, with a large proportion of the
contents of the resolutions, I regret that its authors have made
an attempt, which it is impossible can be successful, to unite in
the national schoolhouses, and in the school hours, a sound
religious with an unsectarian education.

What is a _sound religious education_? Will not the professors
of every variety of religious faith answer the question
differently?

I think it was Bishop Berkeley who said, Orthodoxy is my doxy;
heterodoxy is another man's doxy. So it is with a sound religious
education. What is sound to me is hollow and superficial, or
perhaps full of error, to another.

If it be said that the majority of heads of families must decide
as to what is sound and what is unsound, I must protest against
such an injustice. The minority will contribute to the support of
the public schools, and neither directly nor indirectly can they
with justice be deprived of the use of them.

It appears to me that the authors of the resolutions are flying
in the face of their own great authority, in proposing to
introduce religious instruction into the public schools. It is
true that Dr. Chalmers proposes that Government should 'leave
this matter entire to the parties who had to do with the erection
and management of the schools which they had been called upon to
assist;' but he was not then contemplating the erection of
national schools by the public money, but schools erected by
voluntary subscription, which the Government might be called on
to assist.

His opinion on the right action of Government in the present
state of things is clear. He says: 'Th