{17} The Church as such ought to employ the schoolmaster, it has been argued, in virtue of the divine injunction, 'Search the Scriptures:' what God _commands_ men to do, it is her duty to _enable_ men to do. The argument is excellent, we say, so far as it goes; but of perilous application in the case in hand. It is the Church's duty to teach those to read the Scriptures, who, _without her assistance, would not be taught to read them_. But if by teaching Latin, arithmetic, algebra, and the mathematics to _ten_, she is incapacitating herself from teaching _twenty_ to read the Bible; or if, by teaching twenty to read the Bible who would have learned to read it whether she taught them or no, she is incapacitating herself from teaching twenty others to read it, who, unless she teach them, will never learn to read it at all; then, instead of doing her recognised duty in the matter, she is doing exactly the reverse of her duty--doing what prevents her from doing her duty. Let the Free Church but take her stand on this argument, and straightway her rectors, her masters in academies, and her schoolmasters planted in towns and populous localities, to teach the higher branches, become so many bars raised by herself virtually to impede and arrest her, through the expense incurred in their maintenance, in her proper work of enabling the previously untaught and ignorant to read the word of God, in obedience to the divine injunction. {18} This statement has been quoted by an antagonist as utterly inconsistent with our general line of argument; but we think we may safely leave the reader to determine whether it be really so. Did we ever argue that any scheme of national education, however perfect, could possibly supersede the proper _missionary_ labours of the Churches, whether educational or otherwise? Assuredly not. What we really assert is, that if the Churches waste their energies on work not missionary, the work which, if they do it not, cannot be done must of necessity be neglected; seeing that, according to Bacon, 'charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.' LORD BROUGHAM.