p. 7 | Note and Comment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1902

Note and Comment

NONCONFORMISTS in England are protesting strongly against a new education bill proposed by the government, which will subsidize the schools that are under the patronage of the state church. This means that nonconformists will be taxed to support the sectarian schools of another religious body. The measure now proposed by the government only takes a part of an additional step in the way of taxation, which is justified by the same principle that justifies the existence of the state church, in whose charge these schools are placed. There is no difference in principle between supporting a state church and supporting what belongs to that church. The evil against which the nonconformists should protest is the establishment itself—the principle of church-and-state union which a state church represents. The thing which embodies this evil principle may be large or small, but the essential thing is principle itself. But a small matter which embodies this principle has a tendency to grow continually larger. It is growing larger in England to-day.