Later the agitation passed through another phase. After flagrant misrepresentation came nauseous cant and fantastic casuistry. I believe that the English Nonconformists profess a great horror of Jesuits. But nothing attributed to the latter in the fiercest of Pascal’s satires can equal the extraordinary casuistical _tour de force_ whereby the former tried to find a distinction between the payment of rates and the payment of taxes. With one voice the Nonconformists declared that it would sear their consciences as with a hot iron if they had to pay a penny towards the support of schools where “Romanising” teaching was given. Whereto sensible men replied by pointing out that for years the Nonconformists had been paying for the cost of such schools out of the taxes. Then it was that the new ethical principle was discovered. It appears to be as follows:--_It is not wrong to pay money to a national body to meet the cost of supporting Denominational Schools but it is wrong to pay money to a local body for the same purpose._ I will not attempt to follow the various lines of argument by which this remarkable conclusion is reached. I merely set down the conclusion itself for the amusement of my readers. It should be remembered moreover that all the time that they were ranting about “Rome on the Rates” and the wickedness of compelling Dissenters to pay for teaching in which they did not believe the Nonconformists were themselves forcing on the provided schools and endeavouring to force on all schools a form of religious instruction notoriously abhorrent to Anglicans (at any rate of the Catholic type), Romanists, Agnostics and Jews. Could sanctified hypocrisy go further? Yes, it could and did! No sooner was the Education Bill law than the leaders of Nonconformity with Dr. Clifford at their head entered upon the _Opera Bouffe_ rebellion (mischievous enough despite its silliness) known as “Passive Resistance.” That is to say that, fortified by the magnificent ethical principle italicised above, they considered themselves justified in repudiating their plain duties as citizens in the hope that by so doing they might injure the educational machinery of the country. The form which their very prudent insurrection took was that of refusing to pay their rates and compelling the community to distrain on their goods.