^
i-^
■ V
PRCXBLEMS^ OF YhE CITY.
nv^
No. Ill
Xhe Bii^le in Schools.
W. W. EVERTS, D.D
CHICAGO :
KENXEY & SUMNER, PUBLISHERS
Xo. no Dearborn Street.
1870.
ORJCAL SURVEY
PROBLEMS OF THE CITY.
No. Ill
The Bible in Schools,
W. W. EVERTS, D.D.
CHICAGO :
KENNEY & SUMNER, PUBLISHERS,
No. no Dearborn Strebt.
1870.
PROBLEMS OF THE CITY.
The first three numbers of the series are now published.
The appearance of "Bible in Schools" may not appear inap-
propriate to this series if it is considered that cities will be the
scene of the School controversy.
The chief problems of human welfare and destiny are reached,
and pressed for solution, in cities,
I. Theater ; or. Popular Amusements.
II. Temptations of City Life.
III. The Bible In Schools.
IV. Social Position and Influence of Aggregated Populations.
V. Principles and Frauds of Commerce.
VI. Responsibilities of Service ; or, Employers and Employed.
VII. Power and Responsibility of the Press, especially
Journalism.
VIII. Sphere and Influence of Fine Arts.
IX. Charity; its Claims and True Methods.
X. The Sabbath ; Its Restoration and Promise.
XI. Christian Profession ; its Purity and Perils.
This series of publications will be pursued as suitable contri-
butions are offered, and encouragement warrants.
KENNEY & SUMNER,
no Dearborn Street, Chicago.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
W. W. EVERTS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District
of Northern Illinois,
£vS5t
THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
THE WORD OF GOD.
DivmE thought or will expressed is the word of
God. Repeated and multiplied expressions of Divine
will grew, necessarily, into a body of sacred traditions,
or holy writings. The prophets accepted the histories
and laws of Moses as the word of God. Christ came
not to destroy, but to fulfill the law and the prophets.
By frequent allusions, he recognizes the Divine
authority and universal obKgation of this collection
of sacred writings.
The supremacy of Christ attests the supreme author-
ity of the Christian Scriptures, completed in the record
of his life and doctrines. In them is closed up the
canon of Divine revelation. Miracles performed,
prophecies fulfilled, their beneficent influence, self-
evidencing power and wonderful preservation, together
with testimony of the wise and good, proclaim these
sacred writings the book of God, and the god of books.
Already the sacred book of the master-races, it is des-
tined to become the sacred book of all the world.
4 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
But, should this book continue to hold the place
assigned to it by our fathers in public education ?
COVENANTS OF THE PAST.
As source of distinguishing and formative elements
and traditions of the Republic, the Bible should be
recognized and honored in public education. All
society is established on some system of fundamental
opinions, giving scope to thought and feeling, con-
science and duty, usage and law. These antecedent
judgments, traditions, and customs, in the origin of
states are incorporated into law and order. They are
the inspiration of patriotism, and heroic spirit, cher-
ished by the eloquence and minstrelsy of bards, till
moulded into institutional forms. They are a law of
national development and obligation. The great
English orator and statesman, Burke, declares that
"this great law does not arise from conventions* and
compacts. On the contrary, it gives to conventions
and compacts all the force they have. It does not
arise from our own institutions, but from the will of
God, revealed in the order of Providence, out of
which they were formed — their source and superior
in authority."
This law, interpreted and sanctioned by religion,
has shaped the civilization and enforced the political
institutions of all ages. In Buddhism, it gave force to
the political institutions of China and Japan, and
assured the veneration and loyalty of countless mil-
lions of subjects. In the Yeda and Koran, it has
moulded states and empires, given permanence to
their civilization and sanction to their laws.
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 6
In the Bible, it has imparted new forms of law and
order to the nations of Europe. In freer and more
distinctive operation, it has determined the civilization
and political institutions of our Kepublic.
All that is different from the civilization of Asia
and Europe is traceable to the character of om* Pilgrim
Fathers, their open Bible, and purer Christianitj.
" "What sought they thus afar ?
Bright jewels of the mines ?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ?
They sought a faith's pure shrine !
Freedom to worship God."
What brought they thus afar ? Highest Christian
manhood, enthusiasm for civil and religious liberty —
a holy book — a holy day — a holy faith — a holy
brotherhood — equality before God — belief in the
spiritual nature and destiny of man — and the divine
sanction of virtue. These new, all-pervading elements
of our civilization are the only philosophical explana-
tion of its superiority and promise — the mould in
which the state was cast — the die that has given
expression to national character, and designated us, in
the language of history and the speech of the world,
a Christian nation. A late historian of morals declares
" Christianity is the most powerful lever ever applied
to the affairs of men." " ^o other religion has ever
combined so many distinct elements and attractions."
Unlike Judaism, stoical philosophy, and the religions
of Egypt, " it united with its distinctive teachings a
pure and noble system of ethics, and proved itself
capable of realizing it in action."
Edward Everett, in an address before the Bible
6 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
Society, with equal explicitness, declares that all the
distinctive features and superiority of our civilization
and republican institutions are derived from the teach-
ings of Christianity; that our purer law and order
are the exponents of our holier religion, as the low
condition of the population of India is of the inferior
faith of the Koran and Yeda. Entrusted with this
mission of freedom, shall we go back to the Egypt of
political bondage, or follow guiding pillars of Provi-
dence to the Canaan of the world's political aspiration
and destiny. There must be limits to the right of
the present to reverse the order of the past. There
is a popular fallacy, derivable from an ignorant or
narrow interpretation of our famous proclamation,
that government is derived from the sense of the gov-
erned. It is a great truth, asserted of the accumu-
lated experience and enlightened sense of the age,
interpreting the obligations of former traditions, exist-
ing laws, and providential directions ; but a dangerous
sophism affirmed of the superficial judgment of a
generation deriding old landmarks, swayed by the
passion of the hour, eager, aspiring, self-sufficient.
The voice of the people should be heard above the
utterance of ruler, cabinet, or court ; but, while they
may be authoritative interpreters, there is a law immu-
table, an obligation imperative, and this is the voice
of God in the history of the world.
The idea that current opinion, or capricious popular
judgment, and not the wisdom of ages, is the sole
arbiter of law, would make law and order impossible.
Law cannot delay its sanction and penalties till men
in each generation deliberate and accept its jurisdic-
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 7
tion. The Divine appointment of the Sabbath law
was not delayed until the race experienced its necessity
and voluntarily chose its authority. It did not grow
out of their spiritual culture and choice, but to pro-
mote and assure that culture. So, the Decalogue was
not adjusted to existing moral judgments and volun-
tary requirements of the Hebrews, but to correct those
judgments and elevate moral character and aims.
And so the majesty of law does not submit its authority
to the voluntary approval of each generation before
enforcing its claims. It is not at the option of each
generation rising to intelligence to accept or not the
order of Providence, constitution and government.
Or then would order be impossible, anarchy universal,
the race no wiser than a generation or individual.
While Paganism, Mohammedanism, Papacy, work
out the problem of their civilization, shall Christianity
be denied the methods and instruments for accom-
plishing her mission ? Paganism has made India and
China what they are in the characters, habits, and
hopes of the people. Papacy has made Italy, Spain
and Mexico just what they are in ignorance, supersti-
tion, and bad government. Christianity, with its open
Bible, has made the sentiments, principles, usages,
law and order of the Republic, what they are.
Shall our holiest traditions be ignored in educa-
tion ? Shall the life-blood of the state be obstructed
in its circulation ? Shall the tree of political insti-
tution be girdled, or removed from native and con-
genial soil to accursed ground of atheism or false
religion, to wither and die ? Shall the temple of lib-
erty be unsettled from its providential foundations, to
8 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
fall into ruins at the first shock of revolutionary vio-
lence, or the first storm of political agitation ?
RELIGION ALWAYS A PART OF EDUCATION.
The incorporation of religion in the education of
all lands and ages requires the continuance of the Bible
in our schools.
The call of Abraham; the exodus from Egypt;
the law given from Sinai ; providential deliverances
through the wilderness ; covenants of promise and
prophecies of the coming Messiah, were taught in all
the education of the Hebrews, in every period and
opportunity of instruction. In Egypt, Greece, and
Kome, supernatural histories, religious sanctions, and
ideas of the gods, were blended in all forms of public
instruction. Bedagata and Yeda are treasures of
thought and sentiment, and source and standard of
public education of China, Japan, and Hindostan.
Throughout the wide domain of Islam the Koran
is the chief text-book in all schools.
Papacy questions the utility of any education without
religion. In Protestant, as well as Catholic countries,
religious instruction is connected with every school
system. In Prussia, instruction is given in "the
Bible, and the Catechism, in the positive truths of
Christianity." In Austria, it is "based on religion
and governed and moulded by the state." Switzerland,
France, Holland, provide for and require religious
training.
Lord Brougham, in judicial decision upon the school
system of England, declared " courts of equity in this
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 9
country will not sanction any system of education in
wliicli reliction is not included." In foundins: Harvard,
Yale, and other American colleges, the propagation
of Christianity as a leading purpose of higher, as well
as of popular education, was avowed by their founders,
and by all provisions and grants of government.
Thus, in all nations and ages, and all forms of faith
and civilizations, religion is recognized as a necessary
part of public education. An order so universally
observed must be an order of nature — a law of God.
As judgment of the race against lying, stealing,
adultery, attests the judgment of God, so universal
recognition of vital relations of religion to education
attests natural and binding law.
The fanaticism branding what is universal as false ;
what mankind cling to as arrant imposture ; and hold-
ing only that true which is blasphemous ; the highest
wisdom the widest dissent from the judgment of
mankind ; and the most manly independence contempt
for truth and duty — would, of course, scorn the
authority of this universal precedent. Following its
instincts, we might cast away our hats, so commonly
worn ; refuse to sleep, eat, or walk — such vulgar
exercises ! protest against the order of the seasons
and the law of gravitation, ignorant masses so obse-
quiously conform to !
As mankind have believed ideas of the supernatural
the atmosphere of great thought, lofty sentiment and
ennobling aspiration in popular education, we should
at once and forever discard such ancient and common-
place notions !
As religion has been enforced as a necessary part of
1^
10 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
education, in all lands and ages, it ouglit, according
to this philosophy, to be wholly divorced from the
schools of this enlightened age !
Let not the Republic be misled by this mania for
reform, and venture upon the odious singularity, the
exceptional impiety, the profane experiment, of divor-
cing religion from popular education. Especially let
it not be betrayed into this experiment in defiance of
organic law and constitutional provisions, venerable
precedent, and the enlightened public opinion of the
country, by adventurous politicians, instigated by a
revolutionary infidelity and a despotic hierarchy, owing
no allegiance to the country, while plotting for the
overthrow of our free education and our free institu-
tions.
COMMON LAW RECOGNIZED IN EDUCATION.
As a part of tlie common law, Christianity should
constitute a part of the common education.
As there can be no religion without some form or
symbol of worship, appeal to religious sanctions, in
the Declaration of Independence, in the Articles of
Confederation of the States, in the charter of the
E'orthwestern Territory, in provisions for education,
endowments of charitable and reform institutions, and
in the constitution of legislative assemblies and courts,
is manifestly an appeal to the Christian Scriptures, as
the accepted form and law of religion, brought to the
new world by the framers of the Republic, cherished
in the homes of the Colonists, and revered throughout
the land as the word of God. This interpretation is
made certain by the history of the Government. Ap-
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 11
pealing to religion, in oaths of office, the Chief Magis-
trate, members of Cabinet, members of Congress, and
of the Judiciary, governors, legislators, and other
officials of the States, are sworn upon the Bible, the
source of these religious sanctions. Witnesses before
courts deliver their testimony upon the authority of
the same holy book. In providing for religious instruc-
tion in the army and navy, in reform schools and
prisons, copies of the Scriptures are placed in the
hands of the teachers of religion. The Bible was the
symbol of religion recognized by our fathers, and
incorporated into the forms of education, and the
sanctions of law and order. They did not recognize
Koran, Veda, Bedagata, Age of Reason, book of Pos-
itive Philosophy, as equal to the Bible. Such an
attempt would have awakened universal dissatisfaction,
if not universal indignation throughout the colonies.
Always and everywhere declaring that "religion,
morality, and kno^vdedge are essentially necessary to
good government," they referred to the teachings and
authority of the Christian Scriptures as the religion,
and consequently part of the common law of the land.
As Yeda and. Koran enter into the common law of
the nations of the East ; particular forms of Christian-
ity into the political constitutions of Europe, Christian-
ity itself, the purest law, the highest standard of
religion, the formative element of national character,
the holiest tradition of our ancestors, must be accepted
as a part of the common law of the Republic. What
more effective rules of common law obtain than the
family order, the Decalogue, and the Sermon on the
Mount? All legislation is held amenable to these
12 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
institutes of Christianity. No statute contrary to them
would be constitutional. Blackstone declares " Chris-
tianity is part of the common law of England."
For the same reasons of tradition, popular faith,
recognized sanction, assimilating power, enforced use,
it must be a part of the common law of the Republic.
Thus Judge Story, in commenting upon the Constitu-
tion, declares, " It is impossible for those who believe
in the truth of Christianity as a Divine revelation, to
doubt that it is the special duty of government to fos-
ter and cherish it among all the citizens and subjects."
At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, he
adds, " The attempt to level all religions, and to make
it a matter of State policy to hold all in utter indiffer-
ence, would have created universal disapprobation, if
not universal indignation."
Webster says, " There is nothing we look upon with
more certainty than this principle — that Christianity is
the law of the land. This was the case among the
Puritans of 'New England, the Episcopalians of the
Southern States, the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Bap-
tists, the mass of the followers of Whiteiield and
Wesley, and the Presbyterians. All brought, and all
have adopted, this great truth, and all have sustained
it. And where there is any religious sentiment among
men at all, this sentiment incorporates itself with the
law. Everything declares it.
" The generations which have gone before speak to
it, and pronounce it from the tomb. We feel it. All,
all, proclaim that Christianity, general tolerant Chris-
tianity, Christianity independent of sects and parties,
that Christianity to which the ^word and fagot are
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 13
unknown, general tolerant Christianity, is the law of
the land."
Judge Duncan, of Pennsylvania, says : " Chris-
tianity is and always has been part of the common
law."
In the constitutional convention of Xew York, such
men as Chancellor Kent, Chief Justice Spencer, Rufus
King, and Martin Yan Buren, agreed that " the Chris-
tian religion was engrafted upon the law, and entitled
to protection as the basis of our morals and the strength
of our government." Dr. Hodge says :
" This country is a Christian and Protestant country,
granting universal toleration ; i. e.^ allowing men of
all religions to live within our borders, to acquire pro-
perty, to exercise the rights of citizens, and to conduct
their religious services according to their own convic-
tions of duty. Turkey is a Mohammedan state, grant,
ing a very large measure of toleration to men of other
religions. Most of the governments in Europe are
Roman Catholic states, granting little or no toleration
to Protestants. Sweden is a Protestant state, allowing
freedom of action only to the Lutheran Church. What
is meant by all this ? It means that in Turkey the
religion of Mohammed is the common law of the land ;
that the Koran regulates and determines the legisla-
tive, judicial and executive action of the government.
1^0 law in the country, which does violence to Chris-
tianity, can be rightfully enacted by Congress, or by
any State legislature. jSTo judicial decision, inconsis-
tent with the Bible, can be, according to the supreme
law of the land, or morally, obligatory."
The manner in which the Bible has incorporated
14 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
itself into the national character, and hence into the
common law of this Protestant country, is forcibly de-
scribed by a Roman Catholic writer. Dr. ^^ewman :
" Who will not say that the uncommon beauty and
marvelous English of the Protestant Bible is not one
of the great strongholds of heresy in this country ? It
lives on the ear like music that can never be forgotten ;
like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly
knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to
be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of
the national mind, and the anchor of national serious-
ness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The
potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its
verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man
are hidden beneath its words. It is the representative
of his best moments, and all that has been about him
of soft, and gentle, and pure and penitent and good,
speaks to him out of his English Bible. It is his
sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed and
controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth
of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of
religiousness about him, whose spiritual biography is
not in the Saxon Bible."
Can the Bepublic, in the process of education, vitiate
its life-blood and retain political health ? Will she cast
away the strong rod and beautiful staif on which she
has leaned coming up out of political bondage ? Will
she discard the pillar of cloud and of lire which has
guided her march through the wilderness of political
experiment, and grope after the precedents of extinct
nations, or the promise of visionary reformers ?
To escape the obligation of Christianity as part of
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 15
the common law, and the consequent duty of teaching
it in education, we must ignore our traditions, revise
our constitution and laws, unmake our history, defy the
precedents of all lands and ages, and repeat the French
experiment of political atheism. Majorities have no
right to subvert foundations of government and hurry
nations to destruction !
Laws may be derived from the sense of the governed
in interpreting and applying existing obligations, not in
setting them aside. The sense of the governed is
always of higher authority in interpreting law and
order than the capricious or selfish judgment of rulers.
But the sense of rulers or ruled, capriciously or hastily
formed, can no more set aside the order of civil gov-
ernment than the law of gravitation, order of the
seasons, or motions of the heavenly bodies ! These are
above people and rulers, interpreted and operative
through the course of events and existing institutions.
Could the "sense of the governed" deny rights of
property, displace family order, blot out the Decalogue,
or set aside the Divine sanction of government ? Only
the irreligious fanaticism that rejected Christ can plot
against the ascendency of Christianity over public
opinion, education, and the law and order of the
Eepublic. Ignored in education, Christianity is
dethroned before the people.
RELIGION FORMATIVE PROCESS IN EDUCATION.
The necessity of religious ideas and sanctions to
the normal process of education requu-es the presence
of the Bible in school.
The period of education is the period of the plasticity
16 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
of elements of character. Education is the process of
moulding these elements. Conducting that process in the
absence of religious ideas and obligations, so essential to
the symmetry and expression of true ijianhood, is like
casting metal into a defective mould. In hardening, the
casting must retain that defective type. 'No supplement-
ary process can remedy it. Education is the coinage of
national character. Any form, feature, or expression
of beauty attained, must be represented on the die
when the plastic character is subjected to it. Shall the
die remain blank ? Shall it bear the cold, distrustful
exjDression of scepticism and atheism, or the divine
image of faith and virtue ?
Education is making and stereotyping national his-
tory. After the edition is published, errata pages, with
whatever pains and expense introduced, imperfectly
amend the reading. Every thought and sentiment
necessary to complete history, must be incorporated in
setting up type and making up pages in education.
The influence of religion in education does not
depend so much upon the amount of instruction, as on
its vital relation and formative power. Oxygen is but
a fifth of the volume of atmosphere, but it is the vital-
izing element, nourishing the life and vigor of the
breathing world. Eemove the oxygen, and man and
beast would perish in the unvitalized air.
Take relio^ious thouo:ht, sentiment and sanction from
the atmosphere of education, and conscience and char-
acter would become enervated, and the race demoral-
ized — animalized !
In the photographic process of education, light
must fall upon the object from above, and not from
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 17
beneath. As well expect good pictures from tlie flick-
ering radiance of a smoking lamp, as resplendent
character from the uncertain illumination of mere
secular education.
All social and political virtues must effloresce from
religious faith.
In his farewell address, Washington, contemplating
the 'very spii'it and class of opinions now disturbing
the country in the school question, warned his country-
men against the delusion that moral virtues can be
trusted to any basis except that of profound religious
convictions. " Of all the dispositions and habits
which lead to political prosperity, rehgion and moral-
ity are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor
to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, the
purest props of the duties of men and citizens. The
mere poHtician, equally with the pious man, ought to
respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace
all their connections with private and public felicity.
Whatever may be conceded to the influ-
ence of refined education upon minds of a peculiar
structure, reason and experience both forbid us to ex-
pect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle."
And Webster says : " Our ancestors established this
system of government on morality and religious senti-
ment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be
trusted to any other foundation than religious prin-
ciples, nor any government be secure which is not
supported by moral habits."
Horace Mann, never suspected of sectarianism, says :
18 THK BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
"All intelligent thinkers npon the subject now utterly
discard and repudiate the idea that reading and writ-
ing, with a knowledge of accounts, constitute educa- ^
tion. The lowest claim which any intelligent man
now profess in its behalf is, that its domain extends
over the three-fold nature of man — over his body,
training it by the systematic, and intelligent observ-
ance of those benign laws which secure health, impart
strength and prolong life ; over his intellect, invigorat-
ing the mind, replenishing it with knowledge, and
cultivating all those tastes which are allied to virtue ;
and over his mind and religious susceptibilities also,
dethroning selfishness, enthroning conscience, leading
the affections outwardly in good will towards man,
and upward in gratitude and reverence to God.
The whole form and constitution of the soul show
that, if man be not a religious being, he is among the
most depraved and monstrous of all possible existences.
His propensities and passions need the fear of God, as
a restraint for evil ; and his sentiments and affections
need the love of God as a condition, and preliminary
to everything worthy of the name of happiness. With-
out a capability, therefore, of knowing and venerating
his Maker and Preserver, his whole nature is a contra-
diction and solecism ; it is a moral absurdity, as strictly
go as a triangle with two sides, or a circle without a
circumference, is a mathematical absurdity."
Lowering the aims of education from developing a
true manhood, and shaping character and habits to
familiarity with textr-books of science, artH, and history,
is as degrading as to sink them from intellecttuil cul-
ture and acquisition of knowledge to gymnastic train-
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 19
ing. It is no justification of the dissociation of religion
from education by the state, that the family and the
church can supply spiritual culture.
As we have shown, the religious spirit and appeal
should pervade the whole period and process of educa-
tion. Whenever and wherever it is left out, the culture
must be incomplete, and the type of character formed
defective. Besides, when the dissociation is ordered
by the state, there is judgment against religion. It is
declared to be unnecessary, superfluous. And, if
there can be a school without God, there may be a
state without God !
But to repudiate the Bible now, to remove it from
its time-honoored place in our educational system, is
an act of deeper significance than could have been its
omission in the beginning of our existence. Infidelity
must see in this a national judgment against Chris-
tianity. To the world, by such an act, we say, " Reli-
gion is no longer important to the state ; it is passing
away with the darkness of ages. The Republic has
outgrown her faith !"
While the state furnishes all deemed important to
citizenship — wealth, honor, oflice — why should more
be sought ?
If the state, with her vast prestige, endowments,
and superior opportunities, educates irreligiously, the
church can accomplish the moral and spiritual educa-
cation of a people only by perpe'ual miracle. Under
pretence of avoiding sectarianism, the state would prac-
tice atheism.
Declaring its education, and law and order complete
without religion, its authority and example promote
irreligion.
20 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
Mere tolerance is contempt. Indifference is re-
proach.
CONTROVEESIES.
As the progress of religion against the atheism, im-
piety, and depravity of the race, awakens differences,
discussions, and antagonisms among men, it is sagely
proposed to end and avoid these conflicts forever by
outlawing religion. Because the sun, m the glare of
day, sometimes pains weak eyes, bakes bad-conditioned
soil, and disturbs bats and owls, the glorious orb must
be removed from its sphere, and the radiance that
lights up the universe extinguished in universal and
eternal night.
BIBLE SECTARIAN.
It is assumed that the Bible is sectarian, to justify its
removal from schools ! Is the great sun sectarian that
shines only for the worlds in its own system ? Is the
atmosphere sectarian because it nourishes only those
forms of life tenanting its sphere ? Is truth sectarian
because it displaces all propositions of error ? Then is
the Bible sectarian ! It may be sectarian as is the con-
stitution of the Republic — framed for the defence of lib-
erty and the rights of men — and proscribing all political
injustice. Its precepts and promises are for all. It admits
of no caste or classes of privilege. " It is, in the nature
of things, impossible that there should be more than
one religion. If any specific propositions, or set of
propositions, with reference to our unseen relations, be
true, any other proposition, or set of propositions cov-
ering the same ground, must be false. If Christianity
be true, it is not a religion, as it is sometimes called
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 21
but religion. If Judaism also be true it is so, not as
distinct from, but as coincident with, Christianity —
the one religion, to which it can bear only the relation
borne by the part to the whole. If there be portions
of truth in other religious systems, they are not por-
tions of other religions, but portions of the one religion,
which somehow became incorporated with fables and
falsities." If sectarian, what sect does the Bible pat-
ronize ? what exclude ? Some would do away with
religion to avoid sectarianism. Like preventing the
evils and perils of life by terminating life itself, or
doing away with the evils of mankind by the extermi-
nation of the race.
CHUECH A]SrD STATE.
" Church and state " has been the war-cry of party,
and served to discredit the use of the Bible in schools.
The objection to the union of church and state is not
undue importance awarded to religion by it, but the
curtailed freedom of other faiths unnecessarily con-
nected with it. While, as a pervading element in
common and organic law, Christianity is a part of the
state — constituting in a general sense union of church
and state. The tolerance of all other religions takes
away that diBtinctive order of " church and state " so
justly odious to freemen over the world.
Repeated against the religious order of our schools,
this cryjiiay mislead the prejudiced and unthinking,
as the cry "Democracy" has betrayed the masses
into the surrender of their dearest rights and the over-
throw of free institutions. To avoid church and state,
these reformers would drive religion out of the state.
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
Shying like the blind horse from one side of the bridge,
they would plunge off the other into the abyss of
atheism !
BILLS or RIGHTS.
Provisions of bills of rights, declared by general
and state governments, are fallaciously applied as for-
bidding religious teaching. The exception is made to
set aside the rule. The law is made nugatory under
pretence of defining its terms. Constitutions and
courts are stultified by reversing all their provisions.
The words or purport of all specifications in these bills
" not inconsistent with the rights of conscience," were
designed to guard against sectarian, not religious
teaching ; to prevent tyranny of sects, not the ascend-
ancy of Christianity ; to prevent education of parti-
sans at public expense, not Christians. It is a lying
interpretation, that makes the laws of the land indif-
ferent to religion — go back upon the general sense
of mankind, the religious character of the education of
all lands and ages, and symbolize with atheism and
infidelity.
They all assume, as in the law of Ohio, " religion,
morality and knowledge being essentially necessary
to good government, and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of instruction shall be encour-
aged by legislative provision," — religion and morality
to be as clearly contemplated and provided for as
knowledge, in founding schools.
ENFORCED TAX.
Again: it is an alleged grievance that some are
xed to sa23port a school system whose order of
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 23
instruction they do not approve. Admitting this plea,
how shall we answer those who would object to the
expensive buildings and appointments of our city
schools ? or others who might condemn all outlay for
musical culture? or still other cavilers, who should
censure the prominence given the languages ? Allow
these strictures, and you open the gates to a torrent of
ignorant and prejudiced criticism, which, at flood-tide,
would dismantle the stately structure which is now
our national boast, destroy the only institution, which,
the outgrowth of our republic, stands singly the expo-
nent of our sacred theories.
OPPRESSION OF CONSCIENCE.
It is also alleged that the use of the Bible in public
schools is an oppression of conscience. Right of con-
science is a legal, reasonable right, not the caprice of
individuals, or the pretense of the designing and sel-
fish !
Is the moral sense of a people to rule the policy of
government, or the misguided, fanatical notions of a
few ? Was the Repubhc sacrificed to the deluded
conscience of the rebellion ? Shall the sacred law of
marriage yield to the debauched conscience of Utah ?
Shall license be yielded to the conscience of the liquor
traffic ? Shall law and order be universally surren-
dered to the low moral sense of the lawless ? Is not
the conscience of the many, demanding catholic reli-
gious instruction, to be respected, as well as the cavils
of the few ? On pretense of conscience, no one can
oppose the public welfare, or the proper education of
our children. That they are not compelled individu-
24 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
ally to read or hear Scripture lessons, or be present at
forms of worship, is all that can be awarded to weak
consciences led by a designing priesthood.
A prescribed order of moral and catholic religious
instruction, can no more interfere with individual
rights, than the prescribed order of science and litera-
ture, school service and order of instruction and les-
sons. Subjection itself is not oppression, else all gov-
arnment is oppression. Subjection to the family order
ennobles ; subjection to the law and order of the state
dignifies ; subjection to the cardinal principles of
moraUty and reHgion, as embodied in the Scriptures,
elevates ; at once the highest freedom, virtue, and wel-
fare of the race. Is it oppression to require those
becoming citizens to abjure aU other pohtical alle-
giance, and come under the national, state, and muni-
cipal laws of the country % Bishops, priests and Jesu-
its, owing allegiance to a foreign power, claiming it
as their mission to overthrow our institutions, and
denying our right to exist, continue to assail our
schools.
The Tablet for l^ovember 13, 1869, a Eoman Cath-
ohc paper, says: "The Protestant may have state
schools or godless schools, if he wants them ; but as
we cannot in conscience send om* children to them, to
be equally free with Protestants, the state must either
not tax us at all, or give us our proportion of the money
raised, to be expended in schools under the control of
the church. Protestantism is born of hatred of God, a
revolt against Christ and his church, and would have
to abdicate its own nature not to seek to deprive Cath-
olics of their religious freedom, and to suppress, by aid
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 25
of the state, the church of God. The very breath of
their life, the very reason of their being, is hostile to
her, because she is faithful to Christ, and cherishes his
meek and lowly spirit. How hollow, then, and hypo-
critical must be all their professions of religious lib-
erty! She represents God on earth; they represent
Satan and the world, and how can they be otherwise
than at enmity with her ? We are in this country the
asserters and defenders of the rights of God, and we
shall assert and defend them by all lawful means to
the full extent of our power, without their leave or
license."
The same paper, of December 25, says : " We de-
mand of the state, as our right, either such schools as
our church will accept, or exemption from the school
tax. If it will support schools by a general tax, we
demand that it provide or give us our portion of the
public fimds, and leave us to provide schools in which
we can educate our children in our own religion, under
the supervision of our own church. We hold educa-
tion to be a function of the church, not of the state ;
and, in our case, we do not, and will not, accept the
state as educator."
The Freeman's Journal of ITovember 13, says:
" Education is not the work of the state at all. It be-
longs to families, and should be left to families, and to
voluntary associations. The school tax is in itself an
unjust imposition."
The Tablet for November 29, says : " The system
of common schools, as now adopted in this country, is
in the main an imitation of the system decreed by the
Convention which sentenced Louis XYI. to the guil-
2
26 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
lotine, abolished Christianity, and declared death an
eternal sleep. The object of the Convention was, by
a system of godless schools, to root out religion from
the French mind, and to train up the French youth in
absolute ignorance or unbelief in any life beyond this
life, and any world that transcends the senses. If we
adopt and carry out the same system, our American
youth must grow up thoroughly unbelieving and god-
less, as the order of the Cincinnati Board of Education
directly foreshadows. Catholics will do well to be on
their guard against forming alliances to help them get
rid of one evil by fastening on the country another
and infinitely greater evil — ^the very evil the forever
infamous Convention sought, with devilish ingenuity,
to fastem on France."
The Freeman'' s Journal^ December 11, says : " Let
the public school system go to where it came from —
the devil. "We want Christian schools, and the state
cannot tell us what Christianity is."
DISASTROUS ISSUE.
Urged on behalf of catholic religion, this movement,
if it succeeded, could eventuate only in godless anar-
chy or papal tyranny.
In denial of Bible and religious observance, what is
now charged would more surely be believed, that it
is a " godless school." The present objection of the
principal class of opposers, would be indefinitely
broadened and intensified. The majority of Protest-
ants would then fall in with the objection, and our
school system, failing of the public confidence, would
at length be given up — the very end desired by the
principal party in this movement.
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 27
Then the pubKc money must be given to support
sectarian schools, or we must fall back upon the un-
aided parish, or papal schools of the old world. And
the Roman schools, cheapened by free labor of priests
and nuns, already drawing from Protestant families so
large and respectable patronage, would become the
schools of the country, and the education of Italy,
Austria, Spain, and Mexico, be inaugurated in the
Republic ; and papacy, through ignorance, indiffer-
ence, and political intrigue, become the dominant
faith.
The Catholic Review says : " Protestantism of
every form has not, and never can have, any right,
where Catholicity is triumphant."
The Bishop of Pittsburgh says : " Religious liberty
is merely endured until the opposite can be carried
into effect without peril to the Catholic world."
The Archbishop of St. Louis says : " If the Catho-
lics ever gain — which they surely wiU — an immense
numerical majority, religious freedom in this country
will be at an end." Said a Romish priest, when com-
menting upon the losses of the church in Italy, " We
can afford to let the rags of Italy go into the hands of
Garibaldi, when we are taking possession of the United
States." An Italian paper says, " The Roman Court
expects to be able to control the American Republic,"
At a meeting of Roman Catholics, held in iJ^Tew York
last year, and representing all parts of the country,
one of the speakers, exulting over what had ,been
gained by them through special appropriations from
the ^ew York legislature, said, " This is the little fin-
ger, and we must persevere till we get the whole hand."
28 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
The noted papal cliampion, Father Hecker, predicts
that in 1900, " Kome will have a majority, and be
bound to take this country and keep it." Also,
" there is, ere long, to be a State religion in this coun-
try ; that State religion is to be the Roman Catholic."
Again, he predicts that papacy is soon to rise " over
the grave of buried Protestantism."
"Within a quarter of a century, Romanists have in-
creased in this country from four per cent, of the pop-
ulation to twenty per cent. Forty years ago they
numbered four hundred and fifty thousand; thirty
years ago, nine hundred thousand. They now claim
eight millions. They have seven archbishops, forty-
one bishops, seventy-two seminaries, fourteen hundred
schools, three thousand churches, with property esti-
mated at forty millions. In Kew York city they hold
most all the civil offices, municipal, state and national.
They Lave obtained hundreds of thousands in subsi-
dies for their schools, and millions for church and
charitable foundations from the city government. Of
an appropriation of two hundred and fifteen thousand
dollars made to schools, most of which were sectarian,
eighty per cent, was given to Roman schools. The
acceptance of any part of such subsidy, by Protestants,
is made a cover for the Grand Conspiracy, that is to
make the schools of Kew York first, and then in other
cities, Roman schools.
If the stream rises as high as the fountain — the
measure to the purpose — our school system, and with
it our Republic, will be overthrown !
The prelates instigating this movement are not citi-
zens, and will not swear allegiance to our constitution
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 29
and laws ! The success already attained . in jiTew
York, in acquiring hundreds of thousands annually
for their schools, and millions for permanent church
endowments, may well encourage them to expect that
an ascendancy Holland wrested from the Pope through
thirty years of bloody war, and retained in France only
after bloody revolutions, and now withstood in Austria
and Spain, may be easily awarded, and with countless
millions of subsidies, through wary use of balance of
political power.
Irreligion, indifference, ignorance, are sure precur-
sors of Romish triumphs. And she divides popula-
tions into skeptics and bigots ! First irreligion, then
superstition, is the order of history. Allow religion
deposed from the public school, and superstition will
be installed as pedagogue, and become minister of
pubKc instruction.
BEGINNING OF STRIFE.
But this movement, proposed as an end of contro-
versy, will prove to be the beginning of strife. Hav-
ing already interdicted Bible, Lord's Prayer, and
devotional song, with the same reason it may revise
school readers, compends of history, text books of
morals ; and at leno^th make relio:ious convictions a
disqualification of public teacher. Atheists may
demand erasure from books all allusion to the being
and attributes of a God, whose existence is denied.
Mohammedans chancing to become citizens may
require the removal of all allusions to the imposture of
Islam. Pagans, all disparagement of idolatry.
'No better illustration can be given of the shoals
2''
30 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
towards which we are tending, than reference to the
very happy wood-cut found in Harper's Weekly edi-
tion of a few weeks since. There we have, first, a
ring of happy children — " no sect," " no caste ;" Chi-
naman, African, Irishman — representative of each
nationality — the merry ring join happy hands, and
" union forms their strength." jN^ext we find Justice,
pictured as a blinded daughter of Erin, distributing
the school money from public funds. At her right
the rotund priest laughs over his showering bags of
gold, in which he stands knee deep ; while at her left
the sorrowful representative of our public schools as
they have been, draws only blanks and empty bags.
Lastly, we have the wild, chaotic jumble of what our
public schools may be in the future. The African has
the little Chinaman by the queue, the " Paddy "
reviles the scornful Jew. The High Churchman
engages the Methodist in close combat. Every child
is fighting, and the street is lined with signs of sec-
tarian schools — a school for every nationality and
every creed. In opposing re-establishment of priestly
control of schools, Victor Hugo says : " Ah, we know
you ! We know the clerical party. It is an old party.
This it is, which has found for the truth those two
marvelous supporters, ignorance and error ! This it
is, which forbids to science and genius the going be-
yond the Missal, and which wishes to cloister thought
in dogmas. Every step which the intelligence of
Europe has taken, has been in spite of it. Its history
is written in the history of human progress, but it is
written on the back of the leaf, It is opposed to it all.
This it is, which caused Prinelli to be scourged for
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 31
having said that the stars would not fall. This it is,
which put Campanella seven times to the torture, for
having affirmed that the number of worlds was infin-
ite, and for having caught a glimpse at the secret of
creation. This it is, which persecuted Harvey for
having proved the circulation of the blood. In the
name of Jesus, it shut up Gahleo. In the name of St.
Paul, it imprisoned Christopher Columbus. To dis-
cover a law of the heavens was an impiety. To find a
world was a heresy. This it is which anathematized
Pascal in the name of religion, Montaigne in the name
of morality, Moliere in the name of both morality and
religion. . . . For a long time already the human
conscience has revolted against you, and now demands
of you, ' What is it that you wish of me ? ' For a long
time already you have tried to put a gag upon the
human intellect. You wish to be the masters of edu-
cation. And there is not a poet, not an author, not a
philosopher, not a thinker, that you accept. All that
has been wi*itten, found, dreamed, deduced, inspired,
imagined, invented by genius, the treasure of civiliza-
tion, the venerable inheritance of generations, the
common patrimony of knowledge, you reject.
" There is a book — a book which is, from one end
to the other, an emanation from above — a book which
is for the whole world what the Koran is for Islamism,
w^hat the Yedas are for India — a book which contains
all human wisdom, illuminated by all divine wisdom
■ — a book which the veneration of the people call The
Booh — the Bible ! Well, your censure has reached
even that. Unheard-of thing ! Popes have proscribed
the Bible ! How astonishing to wise spirits, how
32 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
overpowering to simple hearts, to see the finger of
Kome placed upon the Book of God !
" And you claim the liberty of teaching. Stop ; be
sincere; let us understand the liberty which you
claim. It is the liberty of not teaching. You wish
us to give you the people to instruct. Yery well. Let
us see your pupils ! Let .us see those you have pro-
duced. What have you done for Italy ? What have
you done for Spain? For centuries you have kept in
your hands, at yotr discretion, at your school, these
two great nations, illustrious among the illustrious.
What have you done for them ? I am going to tell
you. Thanks to you, Italy, whose name no man, who
thinks, can any longer pronounce without an inexpres-
sible filial emotion ; Italy, mother of genius and of
nations, which has spread over the universe all the
most brilliant marvels of poetry and the arts ; Italy,
which has taught mankind to read, now knows not
how to read ! Yes, Italy is, of aU the states of Europe,
that where the smallest number of natives know how
to read.
" Spain, magnificently endowed ; Spain, which re-
ceived from the Romans her first civilization, from the
Arabs her second civilization, from Providence, and in
spite of you, a world, America ; Spain, thanks to you,
to your yoke of stupor, which is a yoke of degrada-
tion and decay, Spain has lost this secret power, which
it had from the Komans ;' this genius of art, which it
had from the Arabs ; this world, which it had from
God ; and in exchange for all that you have made it
lose, it has received from you — the Inquisition.
" The Inquisition, which certain men of the party
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 33
try to-daj to re-establish, which has burned on the
funeral pile millions of men ; the Inquisition, which
disinterred the dead to burn them as heretics ; which
declared the children of heretics, even to the second
generation, infamous and incapable of any public
honors, excepting only those who shall have denounced
their fathers ; the Inquisition, which, while I speak,
still holds in the Papal library the manuscripts of
Galileo, sealed under the Papal signet ! These are
your masterpieces. This fire, which we caU Italy, you
have extinguished. This colossus, that we caU Spain,
you have undermined. The one in ashes, the other in
ruins. This is what you have done for two great na-
tions. What do you wish to do for France ?
" Stop ; you have just come from Rome ! I con-
gratulate you. You have had fine success there. You
come from gagging the Roman people ; now you wish
to gag the French people, I understand. This attempt
is still more fine ; but take care ; it is dangerous.
France is a lion, and is alive !"
Shall a Frenchman thus speak in France, and we
be silent? Shall one, brought up amid Papal influ-
ences, see so clearly the withering power of Romish
education, and any person in this land of gospel light
be blind to it ?
SURRENDER OF PRINCIPLE.
Does any one imagine the use of the Bible in schools
an indifferent service, from the brevity of its lessons ;
and therefore its entire removal from the programme
of the school would be an inappreciable loss ? As
well declare use of the constitution and flag of the
34 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
country is ceremonial, and therefore of little impor-
tance. The constitution is never read before all
assembled citizens. It is never read at length before
courts. It is not found in all, even public libraries.
It is not in the house of one citizen in ten thousand.
Yet the constitution, with silent, mighty, perpetual
force of gravitation, controls general and state gov-
ernments, presides over courts, shapes all political
usage, and rules all classes. The recognized Bible,
though not obtruded before the people on all occa-
sions, or occupying large portions of the time of fam-
ily, school, or State, may be a greater power over
conscience, moral sense, individual and national char-
acter, social and political destiny.
The stars and stripes do not wave all the time, over
all towns, villages, and private dwellings ; but is it
any less the symbol of authority — pledging the
power of the government, and the devotion and loy-
alty of the people ? As that flag, whether waving
over State-house, borne before armies, or streaming
from ships in a foreign port, stirs the heart and
assures the devotion of every American citizen, so the
Bible, in family, church, or school, is the symbol of a
holier faith, pledges a more heroic devotion. The
soul's glance heavenward, in spiritual homage, prom-
ises nobler education and manhood, than elaborate text
books, when divorced from religious sentiment and
sanction ! If this be surrendered. Religion is surren-
dered. Concession will be vain ! The pursuing
Cerberus, with appetite whetted by each sop thrown
to him, will never be satisfied till he has devoured our
free schools and our free institutions !
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 35
The beleaguering forces, Atheism, Kationalism and
Komanism, now assailing the Republic at its vital
centre, in its education, are a more formidable foe than
the Yandal hordes that overthrew ancient Rome. As
Herod and Pilate harmonized in counsel against
Christ, so these life-long foes unite to overthrow the
institutions of the Republic. They agree in false de-
finitions of liberty and religion, that they may subvert
them. They assert an ultimate right of individual
conscience, that makes social or civil law or order
impossible ! They make sense of duty, devotion of
loyalty impossible, by subverting their standard, and
repressing their enthusiasm !
If, then, the objections to our school system are so
fallacious and unfounded, and the recognition of the
Bible in public education be required from the great
moral traditions of the Republic, from the association
of religious ideas and sanctions with all the school
systems of the world, from the fact that Christianity,
as part of the common law, should constitute a part of
the common education, and also from the necessary,
vital, and formative relation of religion to all complete
education, let the American people unite in defending
and perpetuating our public schools. Surpassing all
others in munificence of provision, completeness of
appointments, competency of teachers ; a mighty
power in developing true manhood ; the most potent
agent in assimilating diverse nationalities into one
homogeneous citizenship — shall it be destroyed ?
That is a touching song that bids the unthinking,
unsentimental woodman spare the roof-tree of the old
homestead, planted and watered by the hand of fore-
36 THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
fathers sleeping hard by in tlie ancestral graveyard.
In holier and more earnest expostulation, we entreat
the political innovator, inspired by neither faith nor
sentiment, to spare onr American school system,
planted by our fathers, and watered by their blood,
sheltering all human rights, fostering the best civiliza-
tion, guarding the most beneficent institutions, and
moulding diverse nationalities into the most intelli-
gent and virtuous citizenship in the world !
CttuRCti, GdobMAN & boNNfeLLltY, Printers.
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