John Lonsdale

“ The Society, then, is still carrying on, and we trust will continue to carry on, with undiminished vigour and success, under the Divine blessing, its holy warfare against ignorance, and vice, against error, and ungodliness. ”

“ The two prophets, speaking in the name of that Almighty One whose commission they bear, and with whom to purpose is to accomplish, and the future is as the present, and having clearly before their eyes the vision of their country's impending desolation, here, as elsewhere, represent that which was yet only approaching as having already come: "My people are destroyed—my people are gone into captivity." ”

“ But we should do scanty justice to the merits of the Society, if we were to measure them by its own immediate agency, and not to take into the account the effects of its example, its encouragement, and its assistance, in other quarters: for it has called into action, and helped, and directed aright, an amount of individual zeal and liberality which cannot be estimated. It has been instrumental in establishing boards of education (most of them having training institutions of their own) in almost every diocese. ”

“ But there is yet another reason why the liberality of the Church should be freely extended to the Society, in this crisis of its affairs. Public opinion, both in and out of Parliament, has strongly pronounced against any scheme of general education that would supersede the parochial care, and check the individual zeal and beneficence, under which our Church-schools have hitherto sprung up, and grown, and brought forth fruit. ”

“ Again, the character of the knowledge which is the opposite of this ignorance, is not less manifestly laid open to us, both as to what it is not, and as to what it is. It is not merely human knowledge; for according to the estimation of the Scriptures, to know all things human, and to have no acquaintance with things divine, is but "vanity and vexation of spirit;" it is not the merely formal knowledge of things divine ”

“ I trust then that you, friends and brethren, will show yourselves to-day, by evidence that cannot be mistaken, to be among those who fully understand, and freely acknowledge, the strength of the Society's claims; who know that the well-being, both temporal and spiritual, both individual and national, of the great body of our people (whether belonging to the dense masses of our towns, or to the scattered inhabitants of our villages) , depends mainly, so far as we can influence it, upon the teaching, and the training, that they may receive in childhood ”

“ But the knowledge upon which the written oracles of God set a value, and which can be obtained only from a right use of their teaching, is the knowledge of God's perfections, in order to the reverential imitation of them; it is the knowledge of God's providence, for the purpose of a faithful reliance upon its wisdom, and its goodness; it is the knowledge of God's commandments, to the end that they may be kept, and that "in the keeping of them there" may be "great reward;" it is the knowledge of God's terrors, that they may cause "men" to "depart from evil;" ”

“ In the third place, the Society has done, and is doing, very much for the improvement of the means, and machinery, through which the work of our National Schools is carried on. This it has done chiefly through the agency of a valuable class of officers attached to it, known under the name of Organising Masters; intelligent and experienced men, whose business it is to put into order, and remodel, and thus to render more effective, the schools where their services are needed, and desired. Many such schools there must always be. ”

“ The institution of the National Society cannot but be regarded as an event of no common interest to Churchmen; for it was the first movement on the part of the Church for the general education of the poor. ”

“ Christian men, and Christian women, and to show themselves worthy of the Church, by their faithful and peaceable discharge of their duties to God, and man. But such teachers and trainers we cannot hope to have, unless they have been themselves taught, and trained ”

“ By a mysterious indeed, but most certain dispensation, God has been pleased to make mankind dependent upon one another for the supply of their spiritual, as well as of their temporal wants: and in both cases, when we "see our brother have need," we are bound not to "shut wp our compassion from him." ”

“ The opening passage of the chapter from which my text has been taken will supply an answer to the inquiry, and clearly illustrate the character of that ignorance: "The Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out ... ”

“ It has given countenance and aid to the plans, now so generally adopted, for the purely Church-inspection of Church-schools by inspectors acting under the sanction of the bishops of the several dioceses. Nay more, is it too much to say, that the Society, by bearing continual witness to the importance of national education, has brought into the field an agency more powerful than its own, because supplied with much larger means from the national purse, the agency of the Committee of Council on Education? ”

“ Something certainly may be done by "every man" among us in his individual capacity for the discharge of this unquestionable, and,in its consequences, most momentous duty: but much, very much more, when we associate ourselves for this high and holy purpose with our fellow-Christians. ”