Promise and Performance.

On the other hand, the suggestion that the lessons selected have no specifically religious character, but merely embody the necessary basis of "all religious and all ethical teaching," is absolutely un-warranted, and can only be explained by entire ignorance either of the contents of the book itself, or of the doubts and difficulties and differences with which the minds of good citizens and good Christians have long been agitated. A book which was brought forward to allay the misgivings and, it may be, to disarm the prejudices of a generation habituated to a secular system, and for which so much has been said in anticipation on these very lines, might naturally have been expected to present the appearance of a compromise, to make some concessions to the critical spirit of the day, to sacrifice much that is infinitely precious to the devout in order that what was left might excite no antagonism and serve as common ground for all. Except for the narrow range to which the notes are confined we are unable to discover the slightest trace of any such disposition on the part of the compilers of the book, nor can we see that if they had been editing a manual for their Sunday-schools instead of one which every taxpayer is to page 4 Support, every teacher in the State schools to teach, and every child to learn, any different principle of selection would have been followed.