in the _Guardian_ of November 9th, 1870.

The _Guardian_ is, as everybody knows, one of the best of the
"religious" newspapers; and, personally. I have every reason to speak
highly of the fairness, and indeed kindness, with which the editor
is good enough to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be so
objectionable to him as myself. I quote the following passages from a
leading article on a letter of mine, therefore, with all respect, and
with a genuine conviction that the course of conduct advocated by the
writer must appear to him in a very different light from that under
which I see it:--

"The first of these points is the interpretation which
Professor Huxley puts on the 'Cowper-Temple clause.' It is,
in fact, that which we foretold some time ago as likely to be
forced upon it by those who think with him. The clause itself
was one of those compromises which it is very difficult to
define or to maintain logically. On the one side was the
simple freedom to School Boards to establish what schools they
pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but against
which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they
conceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On
the other side there was the proposition to make the schools
secular--intelligible enough, but in the consideration of
public opinion simply impossible--and there was the vague
impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone thoroughly tore to
pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all schoolmasters
in the new schools should be strictly 'undenominational.' The
Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide
over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and