-hand fighting over this baby's body. No one of us is
entitled to take charge of him. Else why did we all unite to rescue him
from the nunnery? He will be torn to pieces among contending divines!
I think a purely secular education is all that as a committee we should
aim at. We have, but just withdrawn the child from the shadow of a
single ecclesiastical influence--would you transfer it to another? Every
Protestant denomination is contributing to his support, how can you
devote their gifts to rearing him for one? You would have no peace;
better at once treat him as the man of Benjamin treated his wife, cut
him up into enough pieces to send to all the tribes of Israel, summoning
them to the fight. I say we have nothing to do with this just now; let
him be educated in a secular academy, and let each sect be free to send
its agents to instruct him out of school hours as they please."

The Rev. Theodoret Verity, M.A., rose in anger.

"Surely, sir, you cannot seriously propound such a scheme! Would you
leave this precious waif to be buffeted between the contending waves
of truth and error, in the vague hope that by some lucky wind he might
finally be cast upon a rock of safety? I protest against all these
educational heresies--they are redolent of brimstone. Truth is truth,
or there is none at all. If there be any, it is our duty to impart it to
this immortal at the outset of his existence. Secular education! What do
you mean by it? Who shall sever one question from another, and call one
secular and the other religious? Is not every relation and every truth
in some way or other connected with religion?" &c. &c. Mr. Verity has
been saying the same thing any time these forty years.

"Forgive me," replied Mr. Ogle, "if I say that this is very vague
talking. I have not proposed to sever one question from another. I only
propose to do in a different way that which is being done now by the
most rigid of Mr. Verity's friends. It is impossible to comprehend what
is meant by such a statement as that every truth is somehow connected
with religion. It may be that the notion--if it really is not, as I
suspect it to be, mere verbiage and clap-trap, used by certain fools
to mislead others--means that there is some such coherency between all
truths as there is, for instance, between the elements of the body. I
would admit that, but is not blood a different and perfectly severable
thing from bone? Each has its place, office, relation. But