You may say that is three “For,” and one “Against.” But arguments are weighed, not counted; and the weight of that quarterly interest is the weight of the Old Man of the Sea. How many lives have I seen wrecked in that sea of debt--in spite of the Anchor of Faith! Yet debt, in moderation, is “most wholesome and full of comfort,” as one of the Articles says of something else--I forget what; and I have preached to Anglican divines, and with some acceptance, the blessings of debt. Call it “distributing capital expenditure over a term of years,” and even a rural dean succumbs. “Out of debt, out of danger,” but “out of debt, out of progress.” The third great branch of their work is one that I can discuss with more knowledge--the educational side. This is the most remarkable instance of their zeal, and also of their success. The mere building of the schools, merely in the two Palatine counties, represents a very large expenditure; though, no doubt, a good deal of this was added to the debt, there remained the overwhelming difficulty of the annual upkeep. It was in their favour that the salaries of R.C. school teachers were low, and that the excuse of poverty was often accepted for a scanty supply of school apparatus. Against this must be set the arduous task of getting school-pence from a poverty-stricken flock--(“school-pence, indeed, an’ me wid nothin’ to eat in the house, and the childer wid niver a boot to the sole of their feet: Howly Mother!”)--and subscriptions from exhausted subscribers. There is, I believe, in some domain of chemistry an “exhausted receiver”: it has no counterpart in the charitable world. The Free Education Act of 1891[33] was a positive boon to them: it gave them a certain 10_s._ per child per year, instead of a problematic 5_s._ or 7_s._ 6_d._ But the Act of 1902 seems to have brought them the sort of riches which Horace called “operosiores.” I think the matter has been mentioned in the newspapers.