THE 
 
 QUESTION OF THE HOUR: 
 
 THE BIBLE 
 
 THE SCHOOL FUND. 
 
 BY 
 
 RUFTJS W. CLARK, D. D. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 nSTJD SH 
 
 1870. 
 
LC7I 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 
 RUFUS W. CLARK, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern 
 District of New York. 
 
 
 STEREOTYPED AT THE 
 
 BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 
 
 19 Spring Lane. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 I. THE STATE AND RELIGION n 
 
 II. THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. ... 22 
 
 III. THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 31 
 
 IV. THE BIBLE IN STATE REFORM SCHOOLS, AND 
 
 OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 42 
 
 V. THE BIBLE THE VITAL FORCE OF THE AMER- 
 ICAN REPUBLIC 58 
 
 VI. ROME CONQUERING AMERICA BY A FALLACY. 88 
 VII. OUR RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 97 
 VIII. THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. . . . 105 
 IX. VICTOR HUGO'S ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDU- 
 CATION. CONCLUSION 119 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE question before us Is one of vital mo- 
 ment to every American citizen. It relates to 
 our individual interests and hopes. It touches 
 the heart of our national life. It enters into the 
 future of our republic, and bears upon every 
 interest, social and religious, that is embarked 
 in our perpetuity and success. We would ap- 
 proach it, therefore, under a sense of our solemn 
 obligation to God. We would discuss it as 
 patriots and Christians, bound to give to our 
 country and religion every service that can 
 strengthen the one, or perpetuate and extend 
 the other. 
 
 The attack upon our public schools has va- 
 rious phases, all of which, however, aim at 
 the same result the destruction of the system 
 provided by our fathers, and cherished by their 
 
 5 
 
O INTRODUCTION. 
 
 descendants. The effort that is being made to 
 exclude the Bible from our schools has under- 
 lying it a deeper purpose ; and that is, to obtain, 
 if possible, a portion of the school funds to 
 educate youth in principles that are in direct 
 antagonism to our civil and religious institu- 
 tions. 
 
 This matter is no secret. It is open to all 
 our citizens, to all the world. The Papacy, 
 that is growing weak in Europe, seeks renewed 
 strength on our soil. And it boasts of its future 
 triumphs here. Said a Romish priest, when 
 commenting 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 New 
 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 New York legislature, 
 said, "This is the little finger, and we must per- 
 severe till we get the whole hand." That hand, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 I believe, they never will get, unless it is palsied 
 by apathy. If this people are willing to yield, 
 step by step, to the encroachments of that system 
 whose word is death to all human freedom, 
 whose breath withers human happiness, and 
 whose anathemas fall upon all who do not yield 
 to its authority ; if Americans cannot appreciate 
 the institutions under which they live, or see at 
 what a cost of blood, and treasure, and heroic 
 daring they were purchased ; if legislatures will 
 continue to appropriate the money of the de- 
 scendants of our fathers to sustain schools where 
 children are taught everything but the love of 
 civil and religious liberty ; if Boards of Educa- 
 tion, like that at Cincinnati, are ready to vote 
 the precious Bible out of the public schools, and 
 forbid the use of religious books and the singing 
 of sacred songs in the schools ; if Protestant 
 ministers and others are ready, at the first note 
 of alarm, to give up the Bible, then the hand 
 that the foe is striving to get may be palsied. 
 It may lose its vitality, and become withered and 
 dead. Then the Papacy may grasp it, and the 
 American Republic become the grave of liberty. 
 Then the dead may come from Rome to bury the 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dead. But if that hand is nourished by divine 
 truth, sustained by blood that flows from the 
 heart of patriotism, if it retains a spark of the 
 energy and force possessed by those who gained 
 for us our great national inheritance, it will 
 not only uphold our institutions, but it will defeat 
 every attempt, from whatever quarter it may 
 come, to destroy the republic. 
 
 The positions taken by those who demand or 
 consent to have the Bible banished from our 
 schools, are, 
 
 First. That the state has nothing to do with 
 religious education ; that its only and proper 
 sphere is to give a secular education to qualify 
 its citizens for the ordinary duties of life. 
 
 Secondly. That the Bible, or at least the 
 Protestant version of it, is a sectarian book, and 
 that the reading of it in the public schools in- 
 fringes upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, 
 who contribute, through the taxes they pay, to 
 the support of these schools. 
 
 Thirdly. That our government is based upon 
 the principle of universal freedom, and that, by 
 insisting upon having the Bible read in our 
 schools, we violate the consciences of the Roman 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 Catholic population, who are, with all others, 
 entitled to the benefits of this freedom. 
 
 These are the main arguments presented and 
 relied upon by the opponents of the Bible in our 
 schools, and reasoned out, as they have been, 
 in our religious and secular papers, they carry 
 with them an a^earance of fairness and justice. 
 
 What we propose to show is, the absolute 
 fallacy of these positions, and of every inference 
 that has been drawn from them. We propose 
 to show that while we do not and cannot tolerate 
 the union of church and state, we, at the same 
 time, cannot divorce from the state the idea of 
 religion, of some religion, and that it is the 
 duty of the state to provide for the religious or 
 moral education of its youth. We shall show 
 that our system of public school instruction grew 
 out of the desire of the founders of our govern- 
 ment to religiously educate the people, and that 
 the universal freedom of which we have spoken 
 can only exist where the Bible is read and 
 obeyed. We shall show that the Bible is not a 
 sectarian book, and that to legislate it out of the 
 schools in favor of the consciences of the Roman 
 Catholics, would be to legislate against the con- 
 
IO INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sciences of millions of Protestants in the land ; 
 that the Bible is essential to our national per- 
 petuity and prosperity, and that its banishment 
 from the schools would be an insult to God, 
 its Author, and peril the existence of our free 
 republic. 
 
 We shall also show that to divide the school 
 fund with the Romanists would be equally fatal 
 to our national interests and hopes. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE STATE AND RELIGION. 
 
 THE idea that a state has nothing to do with 
 religion, is utterly, and in the nature of things, 
 fallacious. While we reject the organic union 
 of church and state, which involves the contri- 
 bution of the State funds for the support of any 
 one denomination or class of churches, still the 
 State must of necessity have some religious 
 character. The framers of State Constitutions, 
 Presidents, Governors, Senators or Representa- 
 tives must believe in a God or be Atheists. The 
 State must be founded upon religious ideas of 
 some sort. It must hold some relations to the 
 God of the universe or to false gods. 
 
 Our fathers built this nation upon the Bible. 
 This sacred volume they placed in the family, 
 
 ii 
 
12 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the church, and the school. They knew, what 
 every intelligent man knows, that the chief fact 
 about any nation and its ruling power, is its re- 
 ligion. This permeates all other interests, shapes 
 all other institutions; makes the political, social, 
 and domestic condition of the people. Paganism 
 makes India and China just what they are, in 
 the habits, character, principles, and hopes of 
 the people. Romanism makes Italy, Spain, and 
 Mexico just what they are. The ignorance, the 
 superstition, the temporal desolation, the spiritual 
 fetters, the crimes, the wretchedness in these 
 countries are the outgrowth of Romanism. Our 
 fathers desired to create on this soil a nation of 
 which God would be the soul and centre ; the 
 radiating point of influences that would shape 
 our government, character, schools, families, 
 literature, and mould the whole social and do- 
 mestic condition of the people. They had the 
 sagacity to see that their success in this work 
 depended upon having the children and youth 
 in the land, educated as God would have them 
 educated, in the principles and duties unfolded 
 in His Holy Word. If they were to have a 
 Christian nation, it must be by the force of 
 
THE STATE AND RELIGION. 13 
 
 Christian ideas instilled into the hearts of the 
 young. 
 
 Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Con- 
 stitution, says, "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 foster and cherish it among, all 
 the citizens and subjects." At the time of the 
 adoption of the Constitution of the United States, 
 he says, "The attempt to level all religions, 
 and to make it a matter of state policy to hold 
 all in utter indifference, would have created uni- 
 versal disapprobation, if not universal indigna- 
 tion." 
 
 Judge Duncan, of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
 sylvania, in a judicial decision says, "Christian- 
 ity is and always has been a part of the common 
 law " of that state. "It is impossible," he adds, 
 "to administer the laws without taking the reli- 
 gion which the defendant in error has scoffed at 
 that Scripture which he has reviled as then 
 basis." 
 
 Mr. Webster made the following declaration 
 on this subject : "There is nothing we look for 
 with more certainty than this principle that 
 
14 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Christianity is part of the law of the land. This 
 was the case among the Puritans of New Eng- 
 land, the Episcopalians of the Southern States, 
 the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the 
 mass of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley, 
 and the Presbyterians. All brought, and all 
 have adopted, this great truth, and all have sus- 
 tained it. And where there is any religious 
 sentiment among men at all, this sentiment in- 
 corporates itself with the law. Everything de- 
 clares 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 Christianity, Christianity inde- 
 pendent of sects and parties, that Christianity to 
 which the sword and fagot are unknown, general 
 tolerant Christianity, is the law of the land." * 
 
 The Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D., one of the 
 acutest and ablest of American writers, thus puts 
 this point : 
 
 "This country is a Christian and Protestant 
 country, granting universal toleration; i. ., al- 
 
 * Quoted by Mr. Stephen Colvvell in his Position of Chris- 
 tian itj r . 
 
THE STATE AND RELIGION. 15 
 
 lowing men of all religions to live within our 
 borders, to acquire property, to exercise the 
 rights of citizens, and to conduct their religious 
 services according to their own convictions 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 
 legislative, judicial, and executive action of the 
 government. Whenever men associate for any 
 purpose whatever, they do, and -must, associate 
 under the control of their religion, whatever that 
 religion may be. If a body of Christian men 
 organize themselves as an insurance company, 
 or as a railroad company, or as the trustees of a 
 college, they are bound to act as Christians in 
 their collective capacity. They can rightfully 
 do nothing as an organization which Christianity 
 forbids, and they are required to do everything 
 
l6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 which Christianity enjoins, in reference to the 
 work in which as a corporation they are engaged. 
 Thus, if a number of Christians and Protestants 
 organize themselves as a state or political com- 
 munity, they are obviously bound to regulate 
 their legislative, judicial, and executive action 
 by the principles of their religion. No law in 
 this country, which does violence to Christianity, 
 can be rightfully enacted by Congress, or by any 
 State legislature ; nor would such a law, if 
 enacted, bind the consciences of the people. 
 No judicial decision, inconsistent with the Bible, 
 can be, according to the supreme law of the 
 land, or morally, obligatory." 
 
 This being a Christian nation, the earliest laws 
 that were passed recognized the absolute neces- 
 sity of religious education to sustain it. They 
 also recognized its necessity to maintain civil 
 freedom. 
 
 The framers of these laws saw that national 
 liberty could only be intrusted to citizens who 
 were under the dominion of rigid moral princi- 
 ples, and that only such citizens would sustain 
 and perpetuate this liberty. Hence, in the state 
 of Massachusetts, all presidents, professors, and 
 
THE STATE AND RELIGION. 1 7 
 
 tutors in colleges, teachers in academies, and all 
 other instructors of youth, were required to use 
 "their best endeavors to impress upon the minds 
 of the children and youth committed to their 
 care the principles of piety, justice, a sacred 
 regard to truth, love to their country," &c. 
 "And it shall be the duty," the law further says, 
 " of such instructors to lead their pupils into a 
 clear understanding of the tendency of the above- 
 mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a re- 
 publican constitution, and secure the blessings 
 of liberty, as well as to promote their future 
 happiness." 
 
 The same principle, substantially, entered into 
 the laws which were passed in Connecticut, in 
 regard to education, as early as the year 1656. 
 It was enjoined upon all the officers of govern- 
 ment to see to it that every child and apprentice 
 " attain at least so much as to be able to read the 
 Scriptures and other good and profitable books 
 in the English tongue, and in some competent 
 measure to understand the main grounds and 
 principles of the Christian religion. In New 
 York, and in other states that adopted the free 
 school system, the earliest efforts were character- 
 2 
 
l8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ized by an earnest desire to promote morality and 
 religion as the only safeguards of a firm and pros- 
 perous republic. Governor Clinton, in recom- 
 mending the establishment of common schools, 
 said, "The advantage to morals, religion, good 
 government, arising from the general diffusion 
 of knowledge, being universally admitted, per- 
 mit me to recommend this subject to your delib- 
 erate attention." 
 
 It is clear from the history of the free school 
 system of America, that it had its origin in the 
 desire to maintain the truths of the Bible in the 
 hearts of all the people. The Bible is, in fact, 
 its source. Had this divine volume been pro- 
 scribed in New York, Connecticut, and Massa- 
 chusetts, as it has been in Mexico, Spain, and 
 Italy, this system of education would never have 
 had an existence. Its blessed results in promot- 
 ing public order, general intelligence, social hap- 
 piness, and in maintaining our free and religious 
 institutions, would never have been experienced. 
 To remove, therefore, the Bible and its sacred 
 principles from our system of education, would 
 be to take from that system its very soul, its life- 
 giving power. If it was essential to the highest 
 
THE STATE AND RELIGION. 19 
 
 good of the people and to the prosperity of the 
 nation, to form, at the outset, this close alliance 
 between religion and education, it is equally es- 
 sential now to maintain it. For we are acting in 
 this matter not for the present generation alone, 
 but for the millions of youth who are, in the fu- 
 ture, to inhabit this continent. We are acting upon 
 all the forces that this republic now possesses, 
 or may ever possess, to bless its own citizens, to 
 make it the refuge for the oppressed of all na- 
 tions, to defend the rights of humanity in other 
 countries, and to spread the influence of God's 
 word over the earth. Such a system of popular 
 education, having in it so much of divine truth 
 and power, and so much of promise for the 
 future, the world never saw. There is no other 
 such system on the globe, where the pupils are 
 so numerous, the expenditures so large, the 
 teachers so eminently qualified, intellectually 
 and morally, for their work. And for any of us 
 to stand by and see this great system hewn in 
 pieces by the foes of God and man and America, 
 and do nothing to save it, would show a most 
 criminal neglect of the very first duties of a 
 patriot or a Christian. 
 
2O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Besides, should the enemies of the Bible once 
 succeed in legislating it out of our schools, it 
 would be no easy task to restore it. For the 
 floods of infidelity and atheism would rush in 
 and widen the breach, and by mingling with the 
 Papal influence, swell the tide of opposition, and 
 give to it almost resistless power. Indeed, al- 
 ready have infidels and atheists joined hands 
 with the Romanists in this war against our sys- 
 tem of education. It was so recently at Cincin- 
 nati, and it has been so in every attack that has 
 been made. 
 
 The words of Washington in his Farewell Ad- 
 dress ought to be remembered by every true 
 American. He said, "Of all the dispositions 
 and habits which lead to political prosperity, re- 
 ligion and morality 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 of citizens. The 
 mere politician, 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 
 
THE STATE AND RELIGION. 21 
 
 conceded to the influence of refined education 
 upon minds of a peculiar structure, reason and 
 experience both forbid us to expect that national 
 morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
 principle." 
 
E QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Library. 
 
 ii. 
 
 THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 
 
 THE Romanist, in vindication of his cause, 
 takes the ground that the Bible is a sectarian 
 book, and as such ought not to be read or 
 studied in school, where the children of differ- 
 ent sects are gathered to receive secular instruc- 
 tion. Now, we contend that of all the books in 
 the world, the Bible is the most free from the 
 charge of sectarianism. What is this book but 
 the message of God to man the revelation of 
 the divine will concerning man's duty and des- 
 tiny? As such it is not one of several religions, 
 but it is the religion the only true religion in 
 existence. In the nature of things, there can 
 be but one religion, and that, we believe and 
 know, the Bible contains. This has been proved 
 over and over again ; proved by ten thousand 
 arguments, and tens of thousands of Christian 
 
THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 23 
 
 experiences. And what is this religion but a 
 system of pure and momentous truths, that 
 brings before us the character and perfection of 
 God ; that points out the paths of virtue, honor, 
 and happiness ; that throws open the gates of 
 the heavenly city, and reveals the joys and 
 glories of our immortal state? And does not 
 such a revelation concern one mind as well 
 as another one immortal being as well as 
 another? 
 
 The Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody most truthfully 
 says, " It is, in the nature of things, impossi- 
 ble that there should be more than one religion. 
 If any specific proposition, 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 Chris- 
 tianity be true, it is not a religion, as it is some- 
 times called, but religion. If Judaism also be 
 true, it is so, not as distinct from, but as coinci- 
 dent 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 
 portions of other religions, but portions of the 
 
24 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 one religion, which somehow became incorpo- 
 rated with fables and falsities." 
 
 How, then, can any one call the Bible, that 
 reveals to us "religion," a sectarian book? He 
 might as well call the sun, that shines upon us, a 
 sectarian sun, or the stars, sectarian stars, as to 
 call this gift of the universal Father a sectarian 
 book. It is just as much for all as the light, or 
 air, or water is for all. If it is opposed to 
 Romanism, it is not because it is a Protestant 
 book, but because it is God's book, the light of 
 which, if permitted to shine, would sweep all the 
 darkness, and errors, and iniquities of Roman- 
 ism from the earth. It is so dangerous to Popery, 
 that, in those countries where this has the as- 
 cendency, a person must obtain a license in or- 
 der to have the liberty of reading the Bible. In 
 the fourth rule of the Index of the Council of 
 Trent we find the following : " Forasmuch as 
 the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue 
 (that is, in the language understood by the peo- 
 ple) has been productive of more evil than 
 good, it is expedient that they be not translated 
 in the vulgate, or read, or possessed by any one, 
 without a written license from the inquisitor or 
 the bishop of the diocese." 
 
THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 25 
 
 The advocates of banishing the Bible from 
 our public schools, being driven from the posi- 
 tion that it is sectarian, resort to another. They 
 say that it is not the Bible, but the Protestant 
 version, that they object to. In answer to this, it 
 has been truly said, that tr there is no such thing 
 as a Protestant version ; there never has been ; 
 it is a mere figment used to cover the attack 
 against the word of God. There is a Romish 
 version, but there is no Protestant version. 
 There is an English version for all who read 
 English. The work was begun by Wickliffe 
 in the Romish church before the art of print- 
 ing. It was reviewed and continued by Tyn- 
 dale, Coverdale, Matthew, and others, in the 
 same Romish church, before the public protes- 
 tations against the errors of that church. It was 
 printed, published, and circulated by the author- 
 ity of a Romish king. . . . This very trans- 
 lation, which, in the main, was that of Tyndale, 
 was substantially taken as the basis of the trans- 
 lation issued under King James. It was in effect 
 adopted by the forty-seven translators employed 
 by him ; so that our present incomparable Eng- 
 lish translation of the Scripture cannot be called 
 
26 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 a Protestant translation, but simply the English 
 translation, and of such perfect freedom from 
 anything sectarian, as between Romanism and 
 other sects, that the learned Dr. Alexander 
 Geddes an ecclesiastic of the Romish church 
 himself called it, of all versions, the most 
 excellent for accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest 
 attention to the letter of the text. The learned 
 Selden called the English translation ' the best 
 version in the world.' " * 
 
 While this is true, the Romanists have a ver- 
 sion which, according to some of their most em- 
 inent writers, is full of errors. The Council of 
 Trent decreed that the Latin Vulgate should be 
 the only authority in the Romish church ; and 
 when this was prepared, it was shown by the 
 scholars of that period to be exceedingly incor- 
 rect. After various changes it was taken in 
 hand by Sixtus V., who issued a new edition, 
 which he commanded should be received as the 
 only authorized version, and read throughout 
 the Christian world. Subsequently Pope Clem- 
 ent VIII., as infallible as his predecessor, is- 
 sued a statement that the edition of Sixtus V., 
 
 * Dr. Cheever. 
 
THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 27 
 
 called the reformed edition, contained numerous 
 dangerous errors. Think of an infallible Pope 
 sending forth to the Christian world an infalli- 
 ble version of the Bible, in which another infal- 
 lible Pope discovers numerous dangerous errors ! 
 This edition, in turn, being subjected to a critical 
 examination by a man of learning, and an ar- 
 dent Roman Catholic, was found to contain sev- 
 eral hundred errors. This is now the author- 
 ized version, and, like the Douay Bible, is 
 adapted to the corrupt doctrines and usages in 
 the Papal church. It is quoted by their writers 
 as scriptural authority, while it cannot in justice 
 be called a Bible. It is, in a great measure, 
 the word of Popes and Cardinals rather than the 
 word of God. But even this is not in general 
 circulation in the Papal church. They discour- 
 age the reading of the Bible in every form. Not 
 content with the license system in this matter, 
 "Councils and Popes have positively forbidden 
 the reading of the Bible by the common people. 
 When the Waldenses published the first transla- 
 tion of the Bible into a vernacular tongue, Pope 
 Innocent III. ordered that all their books, most 
 of which were Bibles, should be burned. Leo 
 
28 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 X., Gregory XVI., Pius VI., VII., VIII. , as 
 
 well as the present Pope, prohibited the reading 
 of the Scriptures. Pius IX. has manifested the 
 greatest hostility to Bible Societies, and he views 
 with indignation and alarm the present circula- 
 tion of the Scriptures in Italy and Spain. 
 
 But supposing that this demand to exclude the 
 Bible from the public schools is yielded to, the 
 question comes up, What shall be done with 
 those books that contain extracts from the Bible, 
 or passages that speak in commendation of it? 
 Our best literature is so pervaded with Bible 
 truth, and quotations from the Scriptures, that it 
 \vould be very difficult to compile a reading 
 book, or to furnish pieces for declamation, that 
 would be unexceptionable to the Papists. If the 
 writings of Milton, Addison, Young, or those of 
 our poets, historians, or orators, are resorted to 
 for materials for reading books, it would be al- 
 most impossible not to violate the principle for 
 which the Romanist contends. The work of 
 expurgation would have to be carried so far, 
 that there would be comparatively little left wor- 
 thy of the pupil's attention. Besides, after the 
 Roman Catholic was satisfied, the Atheist might 
 
THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 29 
 
 present himself, and urge his objections to hav- 
 ing the doctrine of God's existence taught in the 
 schools. He might point out a paragraph on 
 natural or revealed theology in one of the school 
 books that offends his conscience ; and on the 
 plea that he regularly pays his tax, and thus 
 helps to support the school, he might say that it 
 was unjust to have his child taught what he re- 
 gards a fundamental error. He contends that 
 he sends his child to school to learn geography, 
 arithmetic, and history ; and for the teacher 
 to give to his mind a religious bias in favor of 
 the existence of a God, is a direct infringement 
 upon his religious liberty. The committee, 
 therefore, to be consistent, must expunge from 
 .the books every allusion to the divine existence. 
 There must be no prayer offered up in the school- 
 room, for this would be a most palpable acknowl- 
 edgment of the being of a God. There must 
 be nothing sung that has the remotest allusion 
 to the Deity. This latter measure has been 
 adopted in Cincinnati. There all religious 
 songs are suppressed, as well as all religious 
 books excluded. What is .this but the beginning 
 of national suicide? We may build up upon 
 
3O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 this soil a pagan nation, upon the basis of idol- 
 atry or blank atheism. We may build up a 
 papal despotism, upon the foundation of Popes 
 and Cardinals, the Inquisition being the chief 
 corner-stone; but we cannot build up and per- 
 petuate a free Christian republic unless we 
 make the Bible the foundation. 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 3! 
 
 III. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 WE take the ground that, as believers in the 
 Bible, we are under solemn obligations to com- 
 municate its truths to the rising generation. We 
 believe that " all Scripture is given by inspiration 
 of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 
 Being convinced by the authority of miracles, 
 prophecy, and the internal evidences of the truth 
 of the Scriptures, being fully persuaded by 
 the social, civil, and spiritual advantages that flow 
 from the study of the Bible, that this volume 
 is the word of God ; seeing that it enters into 
 the very structure of our government, into our 
 courts, legislation, and the development of that 
 public intelligence and virtue, without which the 
 American republic, as at present constituted, 
 cannot exist, I am bound, as a moral being, ac- 
 
3'2 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 countable to God for my influence, to do all in my 
 power to make known its truths to every human 
 being. I am even bound to send it to the most 
 distant nations, that it may educate the ignorant, 
 enlighten the superstitious, and fit man for the 
 duties of this life and the rewards of the life to 
 come. Much more am I bound to give it to the 
 children in my own country, where every valu- 
 able institution depends for existence upon its 
 circulation and influence. Between the Holy 
 Scriptures, as the supreme authority, and my 
 conscience, I can allow nothing to enter. To 
 me the Bible is the higher law in church and 
 state, in all the relations of life. It is the basis 
 of our state as well as the church. Civil free- 
 dom has its roots in its laws, in the virtues it 
 inculcates, and can draw its strength and power 
 from no other source. But the Romanist tells 
 me that he is as conscientiously opposed to the 
 Bible as I am in favor of it. His conscience 
 prompts him to exclude from the child's mind 
 the light of God's word, and introduce in its 
 stead the teachings and superstitions of Popery. 
 I ask him upon what his conscience is founded. 
 Has he exercised his own reason and judgment in 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 33 
 
 matters of religion, or has he avowedly yielded 
 them up to the law of obedience to his superior? 
 Does he not regard the traditions of men, de- 
 cisions of Councils, and the will of Popes, as 
 higher authority than the word of God? If, 
 then, such a conscience is to be admitted on an 
 equality with one, or with millions, as in our 
 land, enlightened by divine truth, then we must 
 extend the principle still farther, and recognize 
 the authority of the pagan conscience, and every 
 conscience, upon whatever it may be founded. 
 The premise granted, we cannot stop short of 
 this conclusion. 
 
 Suppose that in the flood of immigration pour- 
 ing in upon our shores there should come a 
 company of Hindoos, bringing with them their 
 habits and modes of worship. Suppose that, at 
 stated periods, they practise their religious rites, 
 that seem to us so irreligious and revolting. If 
 expostulated with, the Hindoos reply that they 
 are perfectly conscientious in their acts. Their 
 fathers for ages were in the habit oi performing 
 these religious rites, and from their childhood 
 they were taught that these are duties binding 
 upon all Hindoos. Besides, they argue, 
 3 
 
34 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 First. That this is a land of perfect religious 
 liberty, and hence all religions should be sus- 
 tained. 
 
 Secondly. They are perfectly conscientious, 
 and consider their rites as essential to their peace 
 here and their happiness hereafter. 
 
 Thirdly. They have been naturalized, and 
 pay their taxes, which, it is true, do not amount 
 to a large sum ; yet, on this ground, their claims 
 ought to be yielded to. 
 
 Fourthly. Their religion, in this age of tol- 
 eration, ought to be respected on account of its 
 antiquity, and the millions of minds that it has 
 influenced in the past. 
 
 Now, why not admit all this? Why not re- 
 spect a conscience that believes in the holy water 
 of the Ganges, as much as one that believes in 
 holy wells and the holy water placed in church 
 fonts? Why not respect consciences that ap- 
 prove of having men crushed under the car of 
 Juggernaut, as much as those that approve of 
 having men crushed under the tortures of a 
 Spanish Inquisition? 
 
 Is that a conscience w r orthy of our respect that 
 has prompted the persecutions which have raged 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 35 
 
 against the readers of the Bible in Europe since 
 the dawn of the Reformation? Did an enlight- 
 ened conscience carry on the wars waged for 
 three centuries for the extermination of the Wal- 
 denses? Was it the light of this monitor of 
 God in the soul that led to the awful per- 
 secutions in Holland, and to the battles under 
 Philip II. and the Duke of Alva, through 
 which the Dutch republic was forced to fight 
 itself into existence ? Was it at the holy dictates 
 of conscience that the Huguenots in France were 
 driven from their homes, cast into prisons, and 
 burned at the stake, for the only crime of read- 
 ing and following God's word? Yet, what do 
 we behold? We see these Bible-men in the 
 past wading, as it were, through rivers of blood, 
 holding the sacred volume in their hands, and 
 resolved to cling to it, whatever else might perish. 
 We see in the valleys of Piedmont men perilling 
 every interest, and enduring every suffering, to 
 keep the Bible in their churches and schools; 
 and yet, in the United States, where the bless- 
 ings of the Bible have been long peacefully 
 enjoyed, and w r here its power to develop all the 
 sources of national prosperity and individual 
 
36 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 happiness has been so signally and triumphant- 
 ly manifested, we are urged to have the Bible, 
 the word of God, removed from our schools, 
 because the consciences of the Romanists are 
 opposed to it ! 
 
 But, even allowing that these consciences are 
 deserving of respect ; what is to be done with the 
 consciences of the Protestant Christians in our 
 country? Look at the facts in the case. We 
 have in the United States some sixty-five thou- 
 sand common schools, containing seven millions 
 of pupils, sustained at an annual expense of 
 eight millions of dollars, nine tenths of which, at 
 least, is paid by Protestants. The President of 
 the United States, in his late Message, puts our 
 population at forty millions. The highest num- 
 ber that the Roman Catholics claim in our coun- 
 try for themselves is seven millions. This leaves 
 thirty-three millions of non-Catholics. Leaving 
 out of view the atheists and infidels, we have 
 twenty millions or more of Protestants whose 
 consciences demand that the Bible should be 
 kept in the schools. Now, the point is, which 
 class of consciences shall rule in this matter? 
 If the Bible is put out, obviously the consciences 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 37 
 
 of the twenty millions of Protestants are sacri- 
 ficed to the consciences of the Romanists. Be- 
 sides, they are no longer even on an equality ; 
 for by this act the consciences of the Romanists 
 are respected more than those of the Protestants. 
 Then it should be remembered that this clamor 
 for the exclusion of the Bible does not come from 
 the seven millions of Romanists in the land, but 
 it comes from the priests. The mass of common 
 people in the Roman Catholic communion, we 
 believe, do not desire to have the Bible removed. 
 Some, indeed, wish to have it retained. The 
 Bible has never injured them or their children. 
 It damages Popery ; it does not damage them. 
 It has created for them rights, privileges, and 
 home comforts, such as they cannot obtain in 
 any Papal nation on the globe. Why did they 
 come here from Europe, rather than go to Mex- 
 ico, or the Catholic republics of South America? 
 Simply and solely because they could enjoy 
 advantages for themselves and their children 
 here, that they could not obtain in any other 
 nation. We believe that there are tens of thou- 
 sands of Roman Catholics in these United States 
 whose consciences have never been troubled by 
 
38 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 this Bible question, and who never thought that 
 their temporal blessings, nor the final salvation 
 of their souls, were perilled by reading God's 
 Word. We know that the priests are troubled. 
 But we cannot, without more light, see either 
 the reason or expediency of sacrificing all the 
 other consciences in the land to the claims of 
 theirs. 
 
 We have still other classes to deal with in this 
 great question of education ; and let us see how 
 we stand related to them. In California there 
 are several thousands of Chinese, many of whom 
 own property and pay taxes. One of them, 
 we will suppose, sends his children to a public 
 school ; and there, in the reading lesson, they are 
 taught that Christ was superior to Confucius, 
 and that men ought to worship God rather than 
 idols. The children come home and do not 
 manifest the usual reverence for the idols that 
 are in the house. The parents become offended 
 and excited, and soon the whole Chinese popu- 
 lation are making war against these schools. 
 They declare, first, that the state has nothing to 
 do with religion ; that it is a perversion of the 
 public funds to give to the mind of a child a re- 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 39 
 
 ligious bias. They declare, secondly, that their 
 rights as citizens are trampled upon, and that in 
 this free country they are resolved no longer to 
 submit to such encroachments upon their re- 
 ligion. Thirdly, they say that their consciences 
 are violated, and they demand a division of the 
 school fund, that their children may be educated 
 according to their own views ; that is, in the 
 principles of idolatry. Now, what shall be done? 
 As we deal with the thousands now in Cali- 
 fornia, we must, in justice, deal with fifty mil- 
 lions of Chinese who might come and settle in 
 all our states and cities. 
 
 First. Shall we yield to them the doctrine 
 that the state has nothing to do with religion? 
 If we do, we shall be the first nation that 
 ever existed on the globe, from the time of Adam 
 to the present hour, that yielded to such a 
 doctrine. 
 
 Secondly. We must acknowledge that the 
 state is atheistical. For it must believe in a 
 God, or not believe in a God. It cannot, in the 
 nature of things, occupy a neutral position. The 
 Chinese government must believe in idolatry, or 
 not believe in it. The government of the Papal 
 
40 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 States must believe in the Pope, or not believe in 
 him ; and you cannot have a state without a re- 
 ligion of some kind. There never was one, and 
 there never will be one on this earth. The gov- 
 ernments of Europe are divided into Protestant 
 and Roman Catholic. If the government is not 
 Protestant, it is Catholic, and vice versa. 
 
 But w r e are told our government tolerates all 
 religions. True, it does. But toleration is one 
 thing, and the yielding up of the national life to 
 the demands of idolatry or Romanism is quite 
 another thing. The Papal States stand or fall 
 through their belief, or disbelief, in the Pope. 
 The Chinese government stands or falls through 
 its faith, or disbelief, in idolatry. The roots of 
 the American government run into the Bible, 
 and with the Bible our government stands or 
 falls. If the Chinese get the majority here, 
 they will overthrow the government, and estab- 
 lish one in accordance with their religious ideas ; 
 ideas that do, and in the nature of things must, 
 control the politics, education, and social habits 
 and customs of a people. If the Romanists gain 
 a majority, they will establish a Papal govern- 
 ment. And for one, I think we had better wait 
 
THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 4! 
 
 until they take it from us, rather than stand 
 trembling, and give it to them, while in popula- 
 tion we are thirty-three millions to their six or 
 seven millions. 
 
 The saddest and most astonishing thing in 
 this whole matter is, not that the Romanists are 
 seeking to suppress the Bible, for that we ex- 
 pect ; not that they are laboring to demolish our 
 school system, for that we expect ; not that they 
 would delight to see this continent the grave of 
 civil and religious liberty, for that we expect ; 
 but the saddest and most perilous thing is, that 
 Protestants, in the hour of their strength, and in 
 a position of vast responsibility in relation to 
 the scores of millions who are in the future to 
 crowd this nation, and with the Almighty God 
 of the Bible looking down upon them, should 
 be ready to take from under the school system 
 that, which alone can make it a power for good 
 in the republic. 
 
42 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 m. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN STATE REFORM SCHOOLS AND 
 OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 WE next consider the bearing of the question 
 under discussion upon those schools that are 
 established by the state for the children of pau- 
 pers and criminals, and upon the institutions 
 for the unfortunate classes in society. In the 
 schools connected with almshouses and other 
 public institutions, there are thousands of chil- 
 dren, who, but for those schools, would never 
 have known anything of the Bible, nor felt its 
 moral influence. Their parents being vicious, 
 or addicted to crime, have left them exposed to 
 every degrading and corrupting influence. In 
 visiting such schools, it appeared to me that their 
 great charm was the religious influence that 
 was thrown over the pupils. It was a thrilling 
 spectacle to see these poor outcasts thus provided 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 43 
 
 by the state with the bread of life, and trained 
 up for usefulness. As an aid to discipline in 
 these schools, the teachers find the Bible ab- 
 solutely indispensable. Many of the children 
 committed to their care, owing to past neglect 
 and to the wicked habits already contracted, 
 would be beyond their control were they not 
 allowed to make use of the teachings of the 
 Holy Scriptures. 
 
 In the school for juvenile offenders, which I 
 visited at South Boston, I found about sixty 
 boys, between ten and sixteen years of age, 
 every one of whom had been arrested for crime. 
 They were all bright, intelligent-looking lads, 
 well dressed, and appeared exceedingly well in 
 their deportment and recitations. After an ex- 
 amination in their studies, the teacher asked me 
 if I should like to hear them sing. Replying in 
 the affirmative, the scholars at once rose, and, 
 with clear, vigorous voices, and in perfect har- 
 mony, chanted those beautiful words, "I will 
 arise and go to my father, and say, Father, I 
 have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and 
 I am no more worthy to be called thy son." On 
 being invited immediately afterwards to address 
 
44 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 them, I remarked upon the appropriateness of 
 those precious words to their situation, and of 
 the willingness of that Father, from whom they 
 had wandered, to receive them back to his 
 house, to embrace them as children, to call for 
 the best robes to be put on them, to rejoice over 
 their repentance and return, and to say, in re- 
 lation to each of them, "This my son was 
 dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is 
 found." While speaking, I observed that every 
 eye was fixed upon me, and every heart seemed 
 to throb its response to the sentiment I was ut- 
 tering. Now, suppose that, just as I was clos- 
 ing, a Popish emissary, chairman of the school 
 committee, had entered, and, by the authority of 
 a law recently passed, should have positively 
 forbidden the singing of any more such chants, 
 as has recently been decreed in relation to the 
 schools in Cincinnati ; should have taken the 
 Bible that was lying on the teacher's desk, and 
 announced that it could no longer be tolerated 
 there ; should have examined the books, and 
 torn out the leaves that contained scriptural pas- 
 sages, or extracts from distinguished authors, 
 that contained allusions to Christianity, and thus 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 45 
 
 should have taken from these boys the only 
 means they enjoyed of obtaining a knowledge 
 of the principles of God's word, Could any 
 one do a worse thing for them than this ? What 
 hope of usefulness and happiness have these 
 youth, except that which may be derived from 
 the religious instructions gained at this institu- 
 tion. Yet this Papist would see them grow up 
 in ignorance, in the degraded portions of a 
 great city, to become, when they reach man- 
 hood, the victims of vice and crime, rather than 
 see them gathered in this reform school, reading 
 the Scriptures, chanting the words, "I will 
 arise and go to my Father," and preparing, as 
 many in the past have, to become upright and 
 honorable citizens. Some may, perhaps, think 
 that I am harsh in this judgment. But what is 
 the testimony of facts on this point? From the 
 most authentic sources that are open to investi- 
 gation, it appears that while in England there 
 are annually four murders to a million of inhab- 
 itants, in Papal France there are thirty-one, in 
 Lombardy forty-five, in Sicily ninety ; in the 
 Papal vStates, under the immediate watch and 
 control of the Pope, one hundred to a million, 
 
46 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 and in Naples, equally under him, two hun- 
 dred ; that is, just fifty times as many as there 
 are in England, the land of Bibles ! 
 
 While in this school, the superintendent in- 
 formed me that the Roman Catholic priests com- 
 plained bitterly that the paupers and criminals 
 of their faith, old and young, in our public in- 
 stitutions, had access to the Bible. Although 
 the instructions that they there receive, afford the 
 only hope that they will ever be lifted from their 
 state of degradation and pauperism, and saved 
 from the blackest crimes, yet these priests would 
 take from them even this faint hope. 
 
 Suppose, next, that the Bible is excluded from 
 the school for the blind, which is supported by 
 the state. Here are gathered, say, one hun- 
 dred blind children, who day by day read their 
 lessons by tracing the raised letters with their 
 lingers. They become acquainted with geog- 
 raphy, philosophy, portions of history, but from 
 the beginning to the end of the year their fin- 
 gers never light upon the word Bible. They 
 never trace out the words, "Believe on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved ; " never 
 read that sublime and stirring declaration, "Eye 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 47 
 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive the 
 things, which God hath prepared for them that 
 love him." Would it not be the greatest cruelty 
 to add to the darkness that surrounds this un- 
 fortunate class, the deeper moral darkness pro- 
 duced by the exclusion of God's blessed word? 
 Are the consciences of a class of our citizens 
 violated by allowing a stream of light from 
 God's mercy-seat to enter their souls, and cheer 
 them in their dark pilgrimage through this 
 world? 
 
 Take also the institutions for the deaf and 
 dumb. These have been established in almost 
 every state in our Union, at the public expense, 
 and come under the same general laws that gov- 
 ern our common schools. Who, with one spark 
 of humanity in his soul, with the smallest pos- 
 sible amount of interest in the welfare of others, 
 would advance the idea that this class of per- 
 sons should be deprived of religious instruction? 
 To those who visit these institutions, one of the 
 most interesting features is the progress that the 
 pupils make in a knowledge of the Scriptures, 
 and their promptness in replying to questions of 
 
48 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 a religious nature. "Who made the world ? '> 
 was the question proposed to a little deaf and 
 dumb boy in one of these institutions. Without 
 an instant's delay, he took the chalk, and rap- 
 idly wrote on the black-board, this answer : " In 
 the beginning God created the heavens and the 
 earth." 
 
 "Why did Jesus come into the world?" was 
 the next question. With a smile of gratitude, 
 the little fellow wrote in reply, " This is a faith- 
 ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
 ners." 
 
 The astonished visitor, desirous of testing the 
 religious attainments of the pupil to the utmost, 
 ventured, at length, to ask, "Why were you 
 born deaf and dumb, when I can both hear and 
 speak?" With the sweetest and most touching 
 expression of meek resignation on the face of 
 the boy, the chalk replied, "Even so, Father, 
 for so it seemeth good in thy sight." 
 
 Now, shall the Bible be removed from such a 
 school on the ground that it is a sectarian book? 
 Shall it be banished to meet the conscientious 
 scruples of a class of men, who, ever since the 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 49 
 
 invention of printing, have been the bitter and 
 uncompromising foes of the Bible? Or shall it 
 be excluded on the principle that the state has 
 no right to provide religious instruction? If this 
 principle is admitted, then the Bible must be 
 removed from every institution as well as every 
 school that is supported by the state. You must 
 remove it from all the institutions for the deaf 
 and dumb, and the blind, from almshouses, 
 jails, and reform schools for juvenile offenders, 
 throughout the whole country. Its banishment 
 must be absolute and universal, if you are to 
 to have a state without religion. 
 
 We are well aware of the efforts that have 
 been made, for several years past, to make our 
 prisons institutions of reform. The idea has 
 been, not simply to punish the criminal, but to 
 save him from the personal disastrous effects of 
 his own vices and crimes ; to make of him, if 
 possible, a good citizen and a Christian man. 
 The agency used in this work of reform, which 
 has been attended with great success in many 
 prisons throughout our land, has been the 
 Bible. 
 
 There is no name more respected than that of 
 4 
 
5O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 General Amos Pilsbury, the efficient and suc- 
 cessful superintendent of the Albany peniten- 
 tiary. Meeting him recently, I inquired if he 
 had the Bible in his penitentiary. He replied, 
 "We have a copy in every cell, and many of 
 the prisoners read it through several times. 
 They often express to me their deep interest in 
 its narratives and truths, and have said they 
 found something new in the Bible every time 
 they read it. Several have committed whole 
 chapters to memory, and," added the General, 
 " the men who do the most work in the shops of 
 the -prisons, are those ^vho learn most of the 
 Bible" In reply to other inquiries, he stated 
 that he had at present four hundred convicts, 
 and that he needed the influences of the Bible 
 as much for the discipline, as for the reformation 
 of the criminals. 
 
 The father of General Pilsbury Moses C. 
 Pilsbury, Esq. was a strenuous advocate of 
 the Bible in prisons. He was, indeed, the first 
 warden of a prison who introduced the daily 
 reading of the Scriptures to the prisoners as- 
 sembled together, and also the first in our coun- 
 try who caused them to earn more than their 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 51 
 
 own support. A distinguished writer on prison 
 discipline says, "Mr. Pilsbury was the founder 
 and head of improvements in our prisons, at 
 least in the New England States." Fifty years 
 ago he had charge of the prison at Concord, 
 New Hampshire, and there introduced the Bi- 
 ble. In 1827, he was appointed warden of the 
 prison in Wethersfield, Conn. ; and the first time 
 that he came before the prisoners, he appeared 
 with a large Bible under his arm, and said to 
 them, " I come to you with the sword of justice 
 in one hand, and the olive branch of peace in 
 the other. Every morning you will be assem- 
 bled to listen to the reading of a short portion 
 of God's word." 
 
 Mr. Pilsbury, being once asked whether he 
 could not manage a prison without the Bible, 
 replied, " I should as soon think of going to sea 
 in a ship without a compass, as to attempt to 
 conduct a prison without the Bible." Of his 
 course and success the Prison Report for 1828 
 thus speaks: "Moses C. Pilsbury, the warden 
 of the new prison at Wethersfield, in addition to 
 the provision which he makes on the Sabbath 
 for public worship, regularly reads the Scrip- 
 
52 THE QUESTION OP* THE HOUR. 
 
 tures to the assembled convicts every morning 
 and evening, and in their behalf offers prayer 
 to the Father of mercies. He is besides faith- 
 ful in counsel, and lovely in his Christian sym- 
 pathies towards those committed to his care, 
 without losing anything in his prompt and suc- 
 cessful attention to business and discipline. He 
 mingles authority and affection in his govern- 
 ment and instruction, so that the principles of 
 obedience and affection, flow almost spontane- 
 ously towards him, from the hearts of the con- 
 victs." 
 
 How completely the mantle of this Christian 
 father has fallen upon his son, we all know. 
 Nor has his great success been confined to the 
 Albany penitentiary. For fourteen years he 
 was warden of the state prison at Wethersfield, 
 Conn., where he succeeded his father; and in 
 1844, Governor Hill, of New Hampshire, thus 
 spoke of him in a published article: "The 
 younger Mr. Pilsbury has done in Connecticut 
 what has been done in no other penitentiary in 
 this country made it, year after year, and 
 every year, a source of profit and gain to the 
 state, and maintained a more humane, and more 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 53 
 
 effectual discipline in the labors and morals of 
 the convicts, than has ever been presented in any 
 other similar institution in this country." He 
 further adds, these " results, becoming a matter 
 of history, have elicited the surprise and admi- 
 ration of the world." 
 
 The details of General Pilsbury's success in 
 the Albany penitentiary, and the letters of grat- 
 itude and thanks that he has received from dis- 
 charged convicts for his kindness to them, for 
 the religious influence that he exerted over them, 
 and even for his firm discipline, would fill vol- 
 umes. They present the most conclusive and 
 beautiful commentary upon the power of the 
 Bible in our prisons. Like two other prisons 
 with which General Pilsbury has been con- 
 nected, this has been not only a self-supporting 
 institution, but the earnings have largely ex- 
 ceeded the expenditures. For the eighteen years 
 up to October 31, 1866, the earnings amounted 
 to four hundred and fifty-four thousand eight 
 hundred and two dollars and fifty-three cents, 
 while the expenditures were three hundred and 
 fifty-six thousand five hundred and forty-eight 
 dollars and fifty-nine cents, leaving a net bal- 
 
54 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ance in favor of the institution of ninety-eight 
 thousand two hundred and fifty-three dollars and 
 ninety-four cents. If the consciences of any are 
 troubled by the fact that the Bible is used in this 
 institution, they may certainly find happy relief 
 in the thought that none of their taxes go to pay 
 towards its support ! 
 
 Whether they are conscientiously opposed to 
 the state receiving a revenue from a prison in 
 which the Bible is read, is a point upon which 
 they have not enlightened us ! 
 
 The Rev. E. C. Wines, D. D., Correspond- 
 ing Secretary of the Prison Association of New 
 York, thus writes under date of January 9, 
 1870: 
 
 DEAR SIR : If I had time I could give many 
 interesting facts showing the great value of the 
 Bible in prisons. It was not until 1826 or 1827 
 that much attention was given in the United 
 States to the religious interests of convicts. But 
 a movement was started then, which, in the 
 course of eight or ten years, resulted in estab- 
 lishing Sunday schools in most of the state pris- 
 ons of the country, and in introducing a Bible 
 into almost every cell. It had become at that 
 time nearly as common to see this Book of 
 books lying on the little shelf of the solitary 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 55 
 
 cell, as to see the fastening of the door which 
 secured the convict's person. The uniform tes- 
 timony of the wardens of that day was, that 
 the Scriptures were constantly read by multi- 
 tudes of convicts, and that in cases not a few, 
 their pungent truths penetrated the conscience 
 as a nail in a sure place. In 1865 I visited the 
 prisons of eighteen states, and the testimony of 
 the wardens, with perhaps two or three excep- 
 tions, was, that a large proportion of the pris- 
 oners some said half, others more than half 
 read the Bible with interest, attention, and profit. 
 Convicts were reported as reading it through 
 once, twice, and even thrice a year. There 
 are prisoners who had never read the Bible be- 
 fore their conviction, yet who have become, 
 since their incarceration, diligent 'students of it, 
 and who put questions to their chaplains, which 
 evince an intelligent as well as interested peru- 
 sal of its pages. 
 
 I was once at Sing Sing, when good old 
 Father Luckey administered baptism to six con- 
 victs. At his request I conversed with each 
 separately in regard to his religious experience. 
 What interested me most in their statements 
 concerning themselves was, that three of them 
 ascribed their conversion to the simple reading 
 of the Bible in their cells. One of these was 
 an Israelite, who had never seen the New Testa- 
 ment till after his imprisonment. On comparing 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament with the 
 histories of the New, he became convinced that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of the proph- 
 
56 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ets, and embraced him as his personal Saviour. 
 He has stood firmly to that conviction since has 
 release. Very truly yours, 
 
 E. C. WINES. 
 
 If the Bible must come out of schools on the 
 ground that the state has nothing to do with re- 
 ligion, the same principle must drive it out of 
 our prisons, and out of every institution con- 
 nected with the state. This is the inevitable 
 logic of the premise that has been admitted." 
 Are there any Protestant ministers or laymen 
 prepared for this? Or do any lay the flatter- 
 ing unction to their souls, that when the Bible 
 is removed from all these schools and public 
 institutions, that this is forever to settle the con- 
 troversy with the Romanists? Or do they sup- 
 pose that by first giving up the Bible, and thus 
 taking the religious basis from under the schools, 
 they will obtain a better position from which to 
 contend with the foe? This is what some of 
 them say in the pulpit, in the newspapers, and 
 in private circles. 
 
 In the late rebellion in our country, would it 
 not have been wiser for the government, at first 
 to have recognized the right of the rebel states 
 
THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 57 
 
 to secede, and presented them with their choicest 
 ammunition, and then gone to battle with them? 
 I contend that such a course w r ould have been 
 just as wise as that proposed by these Protest- 
 ants in regard to the Bible. In the providence 
 of God, \ve are called to the defence of his holy 
 word, and we begin the defence by giving it up ! 
 How, let me ask, are we to defend the Bible, 
 unless we plant ourselves upon its principles? 
 If, as we profess to believe, this is God's word, 
 is there not a God to consult in this matter? Is 
 it for me to say, that the universal Father 
 must not speak to the millions of children and 
 the unfortunate in our land, through the medium 
 of these public schools and institutions, when 
 vast multitudes of them hear his voice through 
 no other medium? 
 
58 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE BIBLE THE VITAL, FORCE OF* THE AMERI- 
 CAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 WE now propose to prove the vital connection 
 that exists between the Bible and our national 
 life. 
 
 We propose to show that in surrendering the 
 Bible to any class of persons, we surrender the 
 republic with it, and that the two stand or fall 
 together. We propose to show that the idea of 
 saving our system of public instruction, by re- 
 linquishing the Bible, bears upon its face an 
 absurdity, and that what is left of this system, 
 divorced from moral or religious instruction, will 
 be worse than nothing to us ; will be an element 
 positively antagonistic to the government, and, 
 united with Romanism, eventually work the ruin 
 of the republic. 
 
 To understand the connection between the 
 Bible and our national life, wejieed to inquire, 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 59 
 
 First, what kind of a nation are we building 
 upon this continent? A nation must have some 
 Distinctive character. It must rest upon liberty, 
 a limited monarchy, or a despotism. It must 
 have some religious character. It must believe 
 in God, in a pope, or in idols. It is as impossi- 
 ble for a state to be destitute of a religious char- 
 acter, as to have no political character. Such a 
 state never existed on the earth, and never will 
 exist. It has been said that we are inconsistent 
 in pressing our national religious claims, and 
 keeping the Bible in our public schools, while 
 we object to the union of religion and the state 
 in Papal governments. Now, we do not object 
 to this union. What we object to is, such an 
 organic union of church and state as denies 
 toleration, or persecutes those who dissent from 
 the prevailing religion. We object also to the 
 system of Romanism, because we regard it as 
 full of errors and corruption ; but it would be 
 all idle for us to object to the Roman Catholics 
 having a Roman Catholic government. The 
 character of the government must reflex, or em- 
 body, the character of the people. This is an 
 inevitable law of human society. We may ob- 
 
60 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ject to idolatry in China; but while idolatry is 
 supreme in that land, it would be folly for us to 
 object to the union that exists between the religion 
 and the government of the people. If we can 
 overthrow the idolatry of the nation, then we 
 can overthrow the government ; for a change in 
 the principles of the people will, by an unalter- 
 able law, effect a change in the government. 
 
 Speaking of the time of the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States, Judge Story 
 said, as we have already quoted, "The attempt 
 to level all religions, and to make it a matter of 
 state policy to hold all in utter indifference, 
 would have created universal disapprobation, if 
 not universal indignation." We would go further, 
 and say that the first step in such a measure 
 would have revealed its absurdity, its sheer im- 
 possibility. For until you find a people without 
 any religious ideas whatever, you cannot frame 
 or sustain a government without some religious 
 character. 
 
 This being obvious, the question then is, What 
 kind of a nation are we building up in this land? 
 We call it an American nation, based upon politi- 
 cal liberty, the religion of the Bible, and the 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 6l 
 
 toleration of all forms of religion. Those are 
 its three distinctive and fundamental ideas. In 
 order, therefore, to be successful, we must 
 Americanize everything that enters into the life, 
 or working forces, of the nation. We must, as 
 far as possible, cultivate a love of civil liberty 
 among all American citizens, and reverence and 
 gratitude to God, who is the acknowledged 
 source of this liberty. The preamble of the 
 Constitution of New York is, "We, the people of 
 the State of New York, grateful to Almighty 
 God for our freedom, in order to secure its bless- 
 ings, do establish this Constitution." The Con- 
 stitution and the laws are established, to secure 
 and perpetuate the freedom that comes from Al- 
 mighty God. 
 
 If there is a foreign element here, or one an- 
 tagonistic to our institutions, it must be Ameri- 
 canized, or it will endanger the nation. Slavery 
 was an element that could not be harmonized 
 with our freedom. When it became strong 
 enough, therefore, it attempted to destroy the 
 nation ; and at one time it was feared that it 
 might succeed. But at a cost of half a million 
 of precious lives, and three thousand millions of 
 dollars, the republic was saved. 
 
62 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 There is among us a foreign religion that owes 
 allegiance to a foreign power, that in all its dis- 
 tinctive elements is hostile to our religious liber- 
 ties. It has no faith in the Bible, nor in civil 
 freedom, nor in toleration, except for itself. Its 
 head at Rome has recently spoken of the w de- 
 lirium of toleration ; " as though a man or state 
 must be delirious, bereft of reason, to favor 
 toleration. 
 
 This element must be Americanized, must 
 yield to the spirit of our institutions, or continue 
 to be a danger to them. Believing as we do 
 that the law of a pure Christianity is the law of 
 this land ; that the Bible is the word of God ; 
 that the name of Jesus Christ is the only name 
 whereby man can be saved ; that confession of 
 sin should be made to God, and not to a priest ; 
 and that toleration should be granted to every 
 form of religious faith, while we cling to and 
 foster our own national life ; believing thus, we 
 should be glad to have our views accepted by 
 all in the land. If they are not accepted by any 
 class, we must do what we can to infuse them 
 into the government and nation, that the Ameri- 
 can republic may live, and not die. 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 63 
 
 It has been a matter of congratulation in years 
 past, on the part of many Protestants, that so 
 many Roman Catholics were coming to this 
 country, that they might thereby be brought 
 under evangelical influences ; that we might, in 
 the spirit of kindness and good will, offer them 
 a pure gospel ; that seeing and experiencing the 
 temporal blessing of a land filled with Bibles, 
 they might be induced to "search the Scrip- 
 tures," and discover that the truths and laws 
 therein contained, were profitable both for this 
 life and the life to come. It seems a very strange 
 way to commence this good missionary work by 
 suppressing the Bible in the schools, or any- 
 where else, on the fallacy that the state has 
 nothing to do with religion. I always supposed 
 that our hope of converting them rested in God's 
 blessing upon his own word presented to their 
 consciences and hearts. That its power for good 
 has been felt we cannot doubt. Some time since 
 the Rev. Dr. Matison gave a lecture in Newark, 
 N. J., on the decline of Romanism in various 
 countries, in which he stated that, during the 
 twelve years between 1840 and 1852, the Catho- 
 lics themselves admit that one million nine him- 
 
64 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 dred and ninety thousand were lost to their 
 church in this country. Of the correctness of 
 this statement I have no means of determining ; 
 but this we do know, that multitudes have yield- 
 ed to the influence of our institutions, and that 
 the most effectual agency in this work has been 
 our admirable public school system. Hence the 
 alarm of the priests. They see that their mem- 
 bers are throwing off the yoke of a foreign bon- 
 dage, and becoming American citizens. And 
 the question is, How shall this be stopped? It 
 can only be stopped by banishing the Bible from 
 the schools, or dividing the school funds, or 
 both. But if the funds are given to them with 
 which to establish schools, do they propose to 
 train up American citizens in those schools? Or 
 do they propose to train up adherents to the 
 Pope? adherents to a foreign power? 
 
 What we declare to the whole country, and to 
 the whole world, is, that the American govern- 
 ment is solemnly bound to train up American 
 citizens. If this is not the plainest of political 
 axioms, then I know not what is plain. If this 
 interferes with any man's rights or conscience, 
 such a person can retire to Mexico, Spain, or 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 65 
 
 Italy, where his rights and conscience may 
 harmonize with the government, and with the 
 society. 
 
 We are, however, told that even if the Bible 
 is banished from our public schools, the children 
 can be religiously instructed in the family, the 
 Sabbath school, and the church. But every 
 one knows that there are multitudes of children, 
 in our most highly favored towns and cities, who 
 never receive any religious instruction at home, 
 and who are not reached by our churches or 
 Sabbath schools. At the lowest estimate, more 
 than one half of our population are growing up 
 without any religious restraints from the family, 
 or the services of the sanctuary. The only 
 knowledge that multitudes obtain of the existence 
 of a Bible is obtained in the public school. 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Flagg, the state superintendent of 
 the schools in New York, said, "The immense 
 importance of elevating the standard of education 
 in the common schools is strongly enforced by the 
 fact that to every ten persons receiving instruc- 
 tion in the higher schools, there are at least five 
 hundred dependent upon the common schools for 
 their education." In 1840, the superintendent, 
 5 
 
66 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 John C. Spencer, remarked, that "no plan of 
 education can now be considered complete which 
 does not embrace a full development of the in- 
 tellectual faculties, and a systematic and careful 
 discipline of the moral feelings , and a prepara- 
 tion of the pupil for the social and political 
 relations which he is destined to sustain to 
 mankind." 
 
 How, let me ask, is " the careful discipline of 
 the moral feelings " to be effected except by the 
 teaching of God's word? Has there ever been 
 any other way discovered since God created 
 man? 
 
 What would our system of education be worth 
 under the principles as set forth by the Western 
 Watchman, a Roman Catholic paper, published 
 in St. Louis. Speaking of the action in Cin- 
 cinnati, that paper says, "The much vexed 
 question of Bible reading in the public schools 
 of Cincinnati is at length settled. . . . The 
 resolution of the board is sweeping ; and not only 
 is the Bible excluded, but all hymns, prayers, 
 and whatever else savors of religion. Books, 
 too, in which Christianity is taught, must be re- 
 placed or expurgated, and no vestige of religious 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 67 
 
 truth can be allowed to disgrace the hallowed 
 precincts of the school-room. Protestants, for 
 the first time in the history of our state school 
 system, are taught that no religion, not even 
 that weak dilution of it which we call Puritan- 
 ism, is compatible with the well-being of their 
 much extolled institution. Our school instruc- 
 tion must be purely materialistic. If the name 
 of the Author of Christianity is mentioned at all, 
 He must be spoken of as one of the men who 
 figured prominently in history, as we would 
 speak.of Mohammed, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon. 
 Under no circumstances may we hint to the 
 child that the great preacher and teacher was 
 God. We may not even tell him that he has a 
 soul, or that there is any code of morality outside 
 the statutes of the city and the records of the 
 Police Courts. There must be nothing in the 
 character or surroundings of our schools which 
 might offend a Jew, a Mohammedan, a disciple 
 of Confucius, or a common infidel. Our state 
 has no religion, and our schools can have 
 none." 
 
 What a creed for the United States of Ameri- 
 ca ! Blank Atheism ! 
 
68 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 What possible result can we look for from 
 such a policy but the prevalence of atheism? 
 
 Mr. Webster, in his argument on the Girard 
 College case, said, speaking of the exclusion 
 of Christianity from that institution, r There is 
 nothing original in this plan. It has its origin 
 in a deistical source, but not from the highest 
 school of infidelity. It is all idle, it is a mock- 
 ery and an insult to common sense, to maintain 
 that a school for the instruction of youth, from 
 which Christian instruction by Christian teachers 
 is sedulously and vigorously shut out, is not 
 deistical and infidel in its purpose and its ten- 
 dency." Again, in speaking of the plan of 
 keeping the young entirely ignorant of religion 
 until they get their education and can judge for 
 themselves, he says, "It is in vain to talk about 
 the destructive tendency of such a system ; to 
 argue about it is to insult the understanding of 
 every man ; it is mere, sheer, low, vulgar deism 
 and infidelity. It opposes all that is in heaven, 
 and all that is on earth that is worth being on 
 earth. It destroys the connecting link between 
 the creature and the Creator ; it opposes that 
 great system of universal benevolence and good- 
 ness that binds man to his MakerT" 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 69 
 
 Not a few persons entertain the idea that 
 Romanism, in our country and in this age, has 
 changed its character, and lost many of its ob- 
 noxious features, and much, if not all, of its 
 persecuting spirit, and that, therefore, it can be 
 safely trusted as an element in our republic. 
 
 Upon these points we can best judge from the 
 Roman Catholic writers themselves, and from 
 their course where they have full power to 
 enforce their views. 
 
 Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, says, "Reli- 
 gious liberty is merely endured until the opposite 
 can be carried into effect without peril to the 
 Catholic world." 
 
 The Archbishop of St. Louis said, " If the 
 Catholics ever gain which they surely will 
 an immense numerical majority, religious free- 
 dom in this country will be at an end." 
 
 The Catholic Review, in January, 1852, said, 
 "Protestantism, of every form, has not, and never 
 can have, any right where Catholicity is trium- 
 phant ; and therefore we lose the breath we ex- 
 pend in declaiming against bigotry and intoler- 
 ance, and in favor of religious liberty, or the right 
 of any man to be of any religion as best pleases 
 him." 
 
7O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Father Hecker, during the past year, has been 
 lecturing on Romanism with rather more free- 
 dom of speech than the highest Jesuitical art 
 would justify. In New York, he said, "The 
 Catholic church numbers one third of the Amer- 
 ican population, and if its membership shall in- 
 crease for the next thirty years, as it has for the 
 thirty years past, in 1900 Rome will have a 
 majority, and be bound to take this country and 
 keep it." He also predicts that "there is, ere 
 long, to be a state religion in this country, and 
 that state religion is to be Roman Catholic." 
 He adds, however, "there will be no danger to 
 our liberties, as Roman Catholicism is founded 
 on the natural order which obtains in a re- 
 public." On this point he evidently does not 
 agree with his Papal brethren ; for they say that 
 with their triumph, freedom is at an end here. 
 And what is the language of history on this 
 point? 
 
 In regard to the persecuting spirit having died 
 out of Romanism, let us consult the Catechisms 
 of Father Perrone, prepared for the instruction 
 of the youth in Italy and other countries. This 
 father must be good authority, for he is, or a 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 7 1 
 
 few years ago was, Professor of Theology in the 
 Roman College, and is pronounced by a late 
 author the first living theologian in Rome. After 
 teaching, by questions and answers, that Prot- 
 estantism is " rebellion against Christ ; " that its 
 essence is " atheism ; " that its tendencies are 
 immoral, as shown in the state of England, &c., 
 he teaches that heresy, being a crime against the 
 state, ought to be proceeded against by the 
 civil power and the Inquisition." He adds, 
 however, that " in countries where heretics are 
 the majority, this method need not be taken ! " 
 On his authority, we may feel comfortable in 
 our minds, at least for the present ! ! 
 
 Were we, however, in Mexico, we might have 
 some fears. In Harper's Weekly, dated January 
 i, 1870, it is stated that the affairs of that coun- 
 try are in a very unsettled condition. "At 
 Puebla," says the writer, " a mob had attacked 
 a Protestant congregation during service. The 
 rioters are said to have been led by an ex-im- 
 perialist, and urged on by the priests. A number 
 of persons were fatally injured, and an endeavor 
 was made to burn the Protestants, using Bibles 
 for fuel." Notice that this does not occur in the 
 
72 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 dark ages, but in the month of December, 1869, 
 not in Europe, but in North America. It also 
 indicates progress rather than decline in the spirit 
 of persecution. I have never read of Bibles 
 being used as fuel, before, to burn Protestants. 
 
 The only modification that Romanism makes, 
 is to abide its time, in Protestant countries. The 
 virtue of patience it is forced, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, to exercise. But in its spirit, dog-- 
 mas, and discipline, it is unchangeable. 
 
 In a work entitled "Romanism incompatible 
 with Republican Institutions," by " Civis," we 
 find the following language on this point. " The 
 Papists declare that their church persecutes no 
 longer. The answer is, She has lost the power. 
 When has she ever made this declaration when 
 in possession of it? If she has, it can be shown. 
 In what age has the persecution of heretics ceased 
 to be a principle with her, not dependent upon 
 times or upon the caprice of her agents, but 
 enjoined always as a positive duty. Even 
 Scripture has been perverted to answer her un- 
 hallowed ends. She passes by all its divine 
 maxims of charity, and calls out such texts as 
 these "Compel them to come in." "I come 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 73 
 
 not to bring peace, but a sword.' And these 
 she uses to her purpose as confidently, as if they 
 were direct commands to slay for conscience' 
 sake. It is not strange that in an age of refine- 
 ment she should disown her barbarism, that in a 
 land where a rebuke is ready for oppression she 
 should endeavor to gloss her tyranny with a lie. 
 It is now her policy to climb up the steep ascent 
 from which she has descended, and the mode of 
 obtaining power, and of using it when gained, 
 are, as is well known, very different. The dawn 
 of God's day of Reformation in his church has 
 proved a blighting winter to the Papacy. The 
 adder lies half benumbed and torpid ; it can no 
 longer leap upon its victim ; but the poison re- 
 mains beneath its tongue, and its bite is deadly 
 still. It is not safe to trust her, to trifle with her. 
 If warmed into vigor in the lap of liberty, her 
 first blow will be aimed at Freedom herself. At 
 least let her submit to lose her fangs, if she can 
 do it and live. Let her renounce this right of 
 persecution, if she can exist without it. It will 
 not be enough for her priests to disavow it. The 
 people know them. Let a decree be issued from 
 the Vatican, stamped with the time-worn seal of 
 
74 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 infallibility, and even then let us remember that 
 we are but heretics, and it is notorious that the 
 church repudiates all obligations to keep faith 
 with heretics." 
 
 We may search through Romanism, and we 
 can find no materials that can be woven into 
 American citizenship. The two systems are 
 diametrically opposed to each other. Their an- 
 tagonisms appear in every feature and every 
 principle. 
 
 "The essential characteristic of the Papacy," 
 says "Civis," "is despotism. In Europe she is 
 all pomp and magnificence. She there wears a 
 regal air; here she affects equality. Like the 
 double Janus, she has one face for the old world 
 and another for the new. That which looks 
 toward the east is dark, gloomy, and severe ; 
 view her from the west, and her frowns are sof- 
 tened ; she has caught a trick of freedom, and 
 tries to ape republicanism. But her essence is 
 tyranny. It is in vain that she tries to hide it." 
 
 It being admitted that our purpose and work 
 are to build up here an American nation, the next 
 question is, How can this be done ? The obvious 
 answer is, Through the church, the family, and 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 75 
 
 the school. Every Protestant nation in Europe 
 since the dawn of the Reformation has employed 
 these three instrumentalities. We must have 
 Christian churches, Christian families, Christian 
 schools. In regard to the first two, there is no 
 division of sentiment among Protestants. Nei- 
 ther are they divided in regard to the necessity 
 of religious education for the j^oung. The sim- 
 ple point is, shall the Bible, as a source of reli- 
 gious influence and instruction, be kept in the 
 sixty-five thousand public schools in our land, 
 where seven millions of youth and children 
 assemble for instruction? Supposing that two 
 millions of this number are the children of Ro- 
 man Catholics, and five millions the children of 
 Protestants ; is it essential to the stability and 
 prosperity of our republic, that either or both 
 of these classes be under the influence of the 
 Bible in these schools ? We have already shown 
 that more than one half of these seven millions 
 receive no religious instruction elsewhere. Ob- 
 viously, then, if they do not obtain it here, they 
 will not obtain it anywhere. 
 
 In regard to the two millions of children of 
 Catholic parents, we cannot see how it is possi- 
 
76 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ble for them to be qualified to become American 
 citizens, believing in civil liberty and religious 
 toleration, without a knowledge of that book 
 whence our national life is derived. Besides, 
 they need its moral influence to train them to 
 integrity and virtue, that they may discharge 
 their duties as good citizens, and rightly use the 
 blessings of freedom. In Rome they can be 
 faithful citizens, and meet all their obligations to 
 the Pope, without the Bible; but how, without 
 the intelligence and morality that comes from 
 God's word, can they meet their obligations as 
 American citizens? We may be told that they 
 receive religious instruction from their priests, 
 and that this cultivates their morals. But is the 
 morality derived from this source the right sort 
 out of which to make good American citizen- 
 ship? In countries were Romanism is supreme, 
 what are the moral fruits produced by the re- 
 ligion? Take Italy for example, that is directly 
 under the watch and care of His Holiness 
 Pius IX. The Rev. Dr. Wylie, in his recent 
 able work on the religious condition of that 
 country, says that there is a complete divorce 
 there between religion and morality. " In Italy 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 77 
 
 it is religion," he says, "to kiss a priest's hand 
 or the hem of his robe, to adore a crucifix, to 
 abstain from certain sorts of food on certain 
 days, and to pay one's ecclesiastical dues. It is 
 a thing of bodily performance, entirely and ex- 
 clusively. It has no connection in the mind of 
 an Italian with purity, or truth, or love, or rever- 
 ence, or any moral or spiritual quality. We 
 speak, of course, of the nation in the gross, not 
 of the spiritual and Christian men who may be 
 found in Italy. We describe the popular notion 
 as evinced by the whole course of Italian life. 
 As a consequence, Italy presents the somewhat 
 contradictory spectacle of being at once emi- 
 nently religious and notoriously vicious. Piety 
 and profligacy there grow up together. It is the 
 greatest criminals who are the most religious 
 men. Nor is this anomaly difficult of solution. 
 The more the hand is defiled with crime, and 
 the more conscience is burdened with guilt, the 
 greater is the punctuality of the man in his re- 
 ligious performances. The brigand goes fresh 
 from his prayers to Mary, to rob and murder. 
 'Nowhere,' says an Italian author, r is the Virgin 
 more fervently adored than in the prisons of the 
 
78 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 malefactors. The first demand made by a new 
 comer, on entering the cell, is for a penny to 
 furnish oil for the Virgin's lamp ' ! " 
 
 Is it safe for us to rely upon a morality derived 
 from this system of religion, as a fit material 
 with which to build up a Christian republic? 
 
 In regard to the five millions of children of 
 Protestant parents in our public schools, is it 
 necessary that they should feel the influence of 
 the Bible in these schools? The question re- 
 solves itself into this : Is a secular education, 
 without the cultivation of moral principles, or 
 the affections of the heart, sufficient to qualify 
 men to appreciate and sustain our institutions? 
 Those who founded these schools decided that 
 it was not, and all history and experience teach 
 us the absolute necessity of moral instruction, 
 not only to make good citizens, but to fully de* 
 velop our nature, and qualify us for usefulness 
 and happiness. "The whole frame and consti- 
 tution of the human soul," says the Hon. Horace 
 Mann, "show that if man be not a religious 
 being, he is among the most deformed and mon- 
 strous of all possible existence. His propensi- 
 ties and passions need the fear of God, as a 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 79 
 
 restraint from evil ; and his sentiments and af- 
 fections need the love of God, as a condition and 
 preliminary to- everything worthy of the name 
 of happiness. Without a capability or suscepti- 
 bility, therefore, of knowing and reverencing 
 his Maker and Preserver, his whole nature is a 
 contradiction and a solecism ; it is a moral ab- 
 surdity ; as strictly so as a triangle with two 
 sides, or a circle without circumference, is a 
 mathematical absurdity. The man, indeed, of 
 whatever denomination, or kindred, or tongue 
 he may be, who believes that the human race, 
 or any nation, or any individual in it, can 
 attain to happiness, or avoid misery, without re- 
 ligious principles and religious affections, must 
 be ignorant of the capacities of the human soul, 
 ind of the highest attributes in the nature of 
 man." 
 
 Professor Stowe, in his Report on Elementary 
 Instruction in Europe, says, 
 
 " In regard to the necessity of moral instruc- 
 tion and the beneficial influence of the Bible in 
 schools, the testimony was no less explicit and 
 uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, 
 and men of every grade of religious faith, in- 
 
8O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 structors in common schools, high schools, and 
 schools of art, of professors in colleges, univer- 
 sities, and professional seminaries, in cities and 
 in the country, in places where there was a uni- 
 formity and in places where there was a diversity 
 of creeds, and I never found but one reply; and 
 that was, to leave the moral faculty uninstructed 
 was to leave the most important part of the hu- 
 man mind undeveloped, and to strip education 
 of almost everything that can make education 
 valuable ; and that the Bible, independently of 
 the interest attending it, as containing the most 
 ancient and influential writings ever recorded by 
 human hands, and composing the religious sys- 
 tem of almost the whole of the civilized world, 
 is, in itself, the best book that can be put into 
 the hands of children to interest, to exercise, and 
 to unfold their intellectual and moral powers. 
 Every teacher whom I consulted repelled with 
 indignation that moral instruction is not proper 
 for schools, and spurned with contempt the alle- 
 gation that the Bible cannot be introduced into 
 common schools without encouraging a sectarian 
 bias in the matter of teaching an indignation 
 and contempt which I believe will be fully 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 8l 
 
 participated in by every high-minded teacher 
 in Christendom." 
 
 Besides the necessity of moral culture in every 
 good system of education, it is vital to the end 
 that we have in view in our schools, which is, 
 the making of good American citizens. It is 
 not, as some contend, the primary object of these 
 schools to make simply successful shopkeepers, 
 or merchants, or mechanics. They were not 
 founded mainly to teach arithmetic, geography, 
 and penmanship, but to raise up moral, intellect- 
 ual, industrious citizens, who would, by their 
 influence, labor, and votes, sustain a republic 
 founded upon civil liberty, and a religious faith 
 derived from the Bible. As distinctly as a the- 
 ological seminary exists to train up learned and 
 pious ministers, or a medical school is designed 
 to raise up skilful physicians, or a law school to 
 qualify men for the legal profession, our common 
 schools exist to qualify men to be American citi- 
 zens. And if they fail in this, whatever else 
 they accomplish, they fail of the end for which 
 they were established. A Christian nation must, 
 in some way, provide for a Christian education, 
 or perish. If any one can prove that this is not 
 6 
 
82 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 a Christian nation, that our institutions do not 
 rest upon the Bible, then we give up the argu- 
 ment. But if, in the nature of things, a govern- 
 ment must have some religious character, and 
 if ours derived its religious character from the 
 Bible, then that which created this government 
 and nation, must sustain them. 
 
 Another position that we take is, that the ex- 
 istence of Roman Catholics, Jews, infidels, and 
 multitudes who are indifferent to all religion in 
 the land, is a most potent reason why the Bible 
 should be kept in the schools, rather than a rea- 
 son why it should be taken out. And the more 
 these classes multiply, the more the reasons for 
 keeping the Bible in, multiply. For the great 
 medium through which we reach these classes 
 with ideas and influences essential to qualify 
 them to become good American citizens, is the 
 public school system. We reach them in a 
 slight degree through other instrumentalities 
 through our churches, Sabbath schools, and mis- 
 sionary enterprises ; but our great hope in the 
 work of enlightening, Christianizing, and Amer- 
 icanizing these masses, is through the system of 
 public instruction founded by our fathers. If 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 83 
 
 the Bible is taken from these schools, and all 
 religious and moral instruction suppressed, and 
 the millions of voices that have been accustomed 
 to sing religious songs are hushed, we relinquish 
 the greatest power that Almighty God has placed 
 in our hands to mould aright the elements that en- 
 danger the republic. Instead of thereby saving 
 civil liberty, we take the first great step towards 
 its destruction. Instead of preserving religious 
 toleration, we pave the way for intoleration. In- 
 stead of strengthening the state, we demolish 
 one of its main pillars, and encourage the foes 
 of liberty and the Bible to go on until every 
 pillar is shattered, and the whole fabric, which 
 has been so long our boast and glory, is level 
 with the ground. 
 
 Or to divide the school fund would be just as 
 fatal. For this would be virtually saying to the 
 Roman Catholics, You can retain your allegiance 
 to a foreign power, and yet be good American 
 citizens. You can educate your children in a 
 system that is in antagonism to republicanism, 
 and derive the funds for this from a republican 
 government. The taxes that you pay to support 
 the American government that gives to you 
 
84 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 protection and toleration, you may receive back 
 again, to use for the purpose of undermining 
 that government. For why do they ask for a 
 division of the funds, except that they may teach 
 principles contrary to those now taught in our 
 schools? If our schools are in harmony with 
 the, government, theirs will not be. For they 
 already acknowledge that their consciences are 
 not in harmony with the principles of our gov- 
 ernment. And how can they be when they owe 
 allegiance to the government of Rome? They 
 cannot serve two masters, and I apprehend they 
 do not strive very hard to do it. 
 
 Then, if we divide the funds with the Roman 
 Catholics, we must, in order to be consistent, 
 divide, on a basis of taxation or population, with 
 all who differ from our fathers and from us. We 
 must ascertain precisely what taxes the Jews 
 pay, and what the infidels, and atheists, and the 
 Chinese in California pay, and divide with each, 
 that each class may have their separate schools. 
 Then, to preserve our national independence, 
 and our religious toleration, we must have 
 schools where the children are taught by the 
 state that Jesus Christ has not yet come into the 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 85 
 
 world. We must have others based upon infi- 
 delity and atheism, and others in which idols are 
 set up for worship. After all this is done, can 
 we pray to God to prosper the republic, to 
 preserve our blessed institutions, and to make 
 us faithful to posterity, as our fathers were faith- 
 ful to us? 
 
 Consider, next, the positively demoralizing 
 influence of having the Bible banished from the 
 schools upon the pupils now in attendance, and 
 upon the multitudes who are to fill this land in 
 years to come. 
 
 Seven millions of youth, who have been ac- 
 customed to hear a portion of the Bible read, or 
 a prayer offered, or to read or declaim pieces 
 containing favorable allusions to the Bible, or 
 who have been accustomed to sing spiritual 
 songs, are informed that the Bible and all its 
 accessories are driven from the schools. Even 
 the singing, which has been such an attraction in 
 the school-room, and which has thrown its hal- 
 lowed influence over the social life, and studies, 
 and has been a means of religious culture, is 
 from this hour forever suppressed. What will 
 be the reflections of these youth upon such an 
 
86 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 act? Will they reverence a book that has thus 
 been proscribed by the nation? Will they be 
 attracted by its truths, its solemn commands, its 
 divine system of morals, when they learn that it 
 is not tolerated in the schools they attend ? Will 
 it be natural for them to have the fear of God 
 before their eyes, when they learn that it is 
 against the laws of the land, to have a prayer 
 offered up for the divine blessing upon their 
 studies? What will be the effect upon their feel- 
 ings of gratitude and praise to God, to know 
 that they cannot unite in singing a single re- 
 ligious hymn in their schools? This negative 
 policy, as some may term it, cannot fail to have 
 the most positively disastrous effect upon the 
 pupils. It educates them to disregard what the 
 government disregards. It educates them in 
 the fatal fallacy that the state has nothing to do 
 with religion, and is in no way dependent for its 
 stability or prosperity upon religion. It leads 
 them to infer that if it is expedient and safe to 
 have a school without a God, it is equally ex- 
 pedient and safe to have the family and society 
 without a God. 
 
 The whole influence of the measure is to train 
 
THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 87 
 
 up infidels and atheists. Nor will it be long be- 
 fore the discovery is made, that those who have 
 yielded up the Bible to Romanism, have virtually 
 yielded it up to atheism. See the adroitness of 
 the foe ; see how he gains more than he bar- 
 gained for. He has shut off the light of God's 
 word from the two million Catholic children in 
 the schools, and at the same instant shut off the 
 same precious light from the Jive million Protes- 
 tant children. Yielding to his conscience, his 
 rights, his system, we sacrifice our own. 
 
88 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ROME CONQUERING AMERICA BY A FALLACY. 
 
 WITH what joy would the great council, now 
 in session at Rome, receive these glad tidings ! 
 And in the secret interviews of the cardinals 
 and bishops, what opinions would they be like- 
 ly to express of the intelligence, sagacity, or 
 manhood of the millions of Protestants in Amer- 
 ica, who have been caught in such a trap? 
 They might say that "it cost us armies, and 
 blood, and treasure, to save France from the 
 Huguenots. Three centuries of persecution 
 and war have not wrested the Bible from the lit- 
 tle band of Waldeoses. The Hollanders con- 
 quered us when we were mighty, and have kept 
 the Bible in their schools. But America, in the 
 hour of her strength and glory, we have taken 
 by a fallacy. We told them that they had a 
 state without a religion, and they believed it ! 
 
ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 89 
 
 Nay, more, Protestant ministers came forward 
 to help prove it ! We also told them that, as a 
 logical sequence, they must have a school sys- 
 tem without a religion, and they believed that 
 too." These gentlemen might quietly add, 
 " We have struck the American republic the' 
 heaviest blow that it has ever received. Slavery 
 fought their national liberty, and they conquered. 
 We assail their religion, and they yield without 
 a struggle. We have burned Bibles by the hun- 
 dreds in the past, America delivers them up to 
 us by the tens of thousands. Our emissaries 
 stand at the doors of sixty-five thousand schools, 
 and receive them from two hundred thousand 
 teachers." They then go to the reform schools, 
 almshouses, institutions for the blind, the deaf 
 and dumb, that are supported out of the public 
 treasury, and take the Bibles from all these. 
 They then go to the jails and prisons scattered 
 over the land, and remove the Bibles from the 
 chaplains' desks and from every cell, and de- 
 stroy, at a single blow, the great reformatory 
 system among prisoners that American philan- 
 thropists and prisoners' friends have toiled for 
 
pO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 fifty years to build up. They may then write 
 over every prison door, and upon every reform 
 school, and every institution for the blind, and 
 deaf, and dumb, and every public school in 
 every village, town, and city from Maine to 
 Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 
 ff A STATE WITHOUT RELIGION." 
 
 Henceforth, Romanism, infidelity, and athe- 
 ism walk together. They unite in hostility to 
 the Bible, and consequently in hostility to insti- 
 tutions founded upon the Bible. Can we with- 
 stand these combined forces acting against the 
 religion and the principles of honesty, integrity, 
 and virtue, which constitute the only possible 
 basis of free institutions? 
 
 With all the moral influence that we now have 
 in the country from the Bible, we are constantly 
 hearing of the perils that threaten our national 
 existence. At every great election we are told 
 of fraudulent votes cast by tens of thousands of 
 "citizens," who are destitute of the elements that 
 are essential to American citizenship. Every 
 winter we are informed of the fearful corruption 
 that prevails in our legislative bodies, and that, 
 
ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 9! 
 
 unless this evil is remedied, the most fatal con- 
 sequences will ensue. Our attention is repeatedly 
 called to the appalling absence of justice from 
 many of our courts of justice, and to numerous 
 instances of false swearing upon the Bible, by 
 men, upon whose souls the promises or warnings 
 of this volume make no impression. 
 
 If, then, the perils are, by universal acknowl- 
 edgment, so great with the moral power that the 
 Bible now gives us, what must inevitably be our 
 condition with this power removed from our sys- 
 tem of public instruction ? 
 
 Then consider with what forces Rome is to- 
 day prepared to enter the breach made in our 
 walls by the fallacy she has imposed upon us. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago the Romanists in this 
 country were as one to twenty-five of our popu- 
 lation ; they are now said to be as one to six 
 and a half. In 1830 there were four hundred 
 and fifty thousand ; in 1840, nine hundred and 
 sixty thousand ; in 1860, four millions ; now 
 about seven millions. According to govern- 
 mental returns, Roman Catholics double here 
 once in ten years. 
 
 Seventy-five years ago there was not a Ro- 
 
p2 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 man Catholic bishop in this country. Now 
 there are seven archbishops, forty-one bishops, 
 seventy-two seminaries, fourteen hundred schools, 
 three thousand churches, with property estimated 
 at forty million dollars. 
 
 In New York city, Romanists hold almost 
 every civil office. The sheriff, register, comp- 
 troller, city chamberlain, corporation counsel, 
 commissioner, president of the Croton board, 
 president of the board of aldermen, president of 
 the board of councilmen, clerk of the common 
 council, clerk of the board of supervisors, five 
 justices of the courts of record, all of the civil 
 justices, all but two of the police justices, all of 
 the police court clerks, three out of four of the 
 coroners, two members of Congress, three out 
 of five of state senators, eighteen out of twenty 
 of members of Assembly, fourteen out of nine- 
 teen of the common council, and eighteen of the 
 supervisors, are said to be Roman Catholics. 
 
 Priest Hecker said, in a public lecture, "We 
 number seven millions in this country, and in 
 fifteen years we will take this country, and build 
 our institutions over the grave of Protestantism." 
 
 The city of New York gave one hundred and 
 
ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 93 
 
 fifteen thousand dollars to Romanists, and prop- 
 erty, valued at two million dollars, on Fifth Av- 
 enue, for a cathedral. The common council, I 
 am informed, recently remitted eight thousand 
 dollars tax on a Catholic church, and refused to 
 remit eight hundred dollars on a Protestant 
 church. 
 
 A cathedral is now being built in Brooklyn at 
 a cost of two million dollars. 
 
 At the last session of the New York legisla- 
 ture (1869), a bill was suddenly introduced, just 
 at the close of the session, making an appropri- 
 ation for children of schools in New York city, 
 "for whom the public schools do not provide." 
 The appropriation of two hundred and fourteen 
 thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight dollars 
 has recently been distributed among fifty -three 
 schools, most of which were sectarian. Of these 
 twenty, Protestant, English and German, and 
 Jewish schools received forty-three thousand 
 two hundred and ninety-eight dollars. The 
 remaining thirty-three were Roman Catholic 
 schools, which received one hundred and seven- 
 ty-one thousand six hundred and thirty dollars, 
 or eighty per cent, of the whole. 
 
94 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 With all the strength presented in these facts, 
 and others of a similar character that might be 
 added to them, we have little to fear, provided 
 the Protestants are united. For, to set against 
 these statistics, we have in the United States a 
 non-Roman Catholic population of thirty-three 
 millions. We have fifty-four thousand Protes- 
 tant churches, and fifty-two thousand Protestant 
 ministers, with nearly four millions of youth and 
 children in our Sabbath schools. Our churches, 
 for the year closing last May (1869), contributed 
 about twelve million dollars for charitable and 
 benevolent purposes.* 
 
 * The following are the receipts of our prominent benev- 
 olent societies for the year, ending April, 1869 : 
 
 American Bible Society, $77i?734 93 
 
 Mission Society of Meth. Epis. Church, . . 600,886 65 
 
 American Board of Com. for For. Miss., . 535,838 95 
 
 American Tract Society, 488,023 02 
 
 American Sunday School Union, . . . 404,151 44 
 
 Pres. Board of Foreign Miss. (O. S.), 338,498 oo 
 
 American Missionary Association, . . . 357?9 T S 81 
 
 American Baptist Pub. Society, . . . 272,16063 
 
 American Home Missionary Society, . . 244,390 96 
 
 Pres. Board of Dom. Missions (O. S.), . . 177,666 22 
 
 Pres. Com. Home Miss. (N. S.), . . . 162,420 82 
 
 Pres. Board of Publication (O. S.), . . 146,877 78 
 
 American Baptist Home Miss. Society, . . 144,032 05 
 
ROME CONQyERING AMERICA. 95 
 
 With this numerical strength, with God's 
 blessing upon our Christian efforts, our country 
 can be saved. But the day that virtue and in- 
 telligence in the rising generation are weakened 
 by the removal of the Bible from our schools, 
 or the day that the public school fund is divided, 
 and the state commences the work of training up 
 enemies of civil freedom and religious toleration, 
 that day the power of Romanism in the United 
 States will be trebled or quadrupled. 
 
 At the beginning of our late war, the great- 
 est fear we had was a divided north. With a 
 united north we were sure to conquer. In the 
 conflict that is now opening, our greatest source 
 of fear is a divided Protestant community. 
 Moving together with the Bible in our hands, 
 Christian love in our hearts, and faith in God in 
 our souls, we are sure to win. But whatever may 
 
 Prot. Episcopal Board of Dom. Miss., . . 138,367 56 
 
 American Tract Society, Boston, . . . I3i>947 68 
 
 American Church Missionary Society, . . 113,448 39 
 
 American and Foreign Christian Union, . 112,057 31 
 
 Board of For. Mis. of Reformed Church, . 91,990 87 
 
 Prot. Epis. Board of Foreign Missions, . . 64,379 69 
 
 Pres. Com. of Publication (N. S.), . . 66,214 68 
 
 Pres. Com. Church Erec. (N. S.), . . . 54,996 oo 
 
 American Congregational Union, . . . 52*895 73 
 
96 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 happen, let us not be beguiled, befooled, stulti- 
 iied by the sophistries of the enemy ! Let not 
 history record the humiliating fact, that in the 
 year 1870 ROME CONQUERED THE UNITED 
 STATES OF AMERICA BY A FALLACY. 
 
RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 97 
 
 VII. 
 OUR RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 
 
 IF we consent, for any reasons whatever, to 
 have the Bible removed from the schools and 
 institutions supported by the state, how do we 
 stand related, in this action, to the Supreme Be- 
 ing, whom we believe to be the Author of this 
 book? I ask this question as an American citi- 
 zen. I ask it, believing that a nation is just as 
 dependent for its stability and prosperity upon 
 God as the Christian Church is. I ask it with 
 the inspired words of God's book sounding in 
 my ears, " For the nation and kingdom that will 
 not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations 
 shall be utterly wasted." Will it be serving God 
 to remove from seven or eight millions of our 
 youth the moral light and instructions of his holy 
 word? This measure he must approve, or dis- 
 approve, or be indifferent to it. To suppose 
 7 
 
98 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 that the Being who notices the fall of a sparrow, 
 and numbers the hairs of our head, is indiffer- 
 ent to it, is an idea that no enlightened mind 
 can entertain for a moment. If he approves of 
 the measure, it can only be on the ground that 
 it is necessary to the safety of the school system 
 or the republic. But how can he regard the 
 safety or efficiency of a system of instruction, 
 founded to sustain a Christian republic, increased 
 by the withdrawal of his own divine instruc- 
 tions, which are addressed to every member of 
 the human family, and which constitute the 
 vital forces of that republic? He has said, 
 through his Son, "Blessed are they that hear 
 the word of God, and keep it." Does this apply 
 to all except the millions of youth under con- 
 sideration? Nothing, certainly, can be clearer, 
 than that this measure, if adopted, will meet the 
 most signal disapprobation of the divine Author 
 of the Bible. Viewing these youth as individ- 
 ual members of society, or as destined to become 
 citizens of the state, or regarding them in any 
 of the relations of life, they need the teaching 
 of God's word, paramount to all other teaching. 
 To deny this is to treat the divine command 
 
RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 99 
 
 with contempt, and to bid defiance to the Al- 
 mighty. 
 
 God founded our nation as truly as he founded 
 the kingdom of Israel ; and the language that 
 he addressed to his ancient people through his 
 servant Moses he addresses to us : ff Behold, I 
 have taught you statutes and judgments. . . . 
 Keep, therefore, and do them ; for this is your 
 wisdom and your understanding in the sight of 
 the nations which shall hear all these statutes, and 
 say, Surely this great nation is a wise and under- 
 standing people. . . . Only take heed to thy- 
 self, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou for- 
 get the things which thine eyes have seen, and 
 lest they depart from thy heart, all the days of 
 thy life ; but teach them to thy sons and thy sons' 
 sons. . . . These words which I command 
 thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou 
 shalt teach them diligently to thy children." 
 (Deut. iv.-vi.) Can any one prove that these 
 commands have a local application, or have 
 been abrogated? 
 
 The Bible is the book for all nations for the 
 world. Its principles constitute the basis of 
 every free, just, and prosperous government. 
 
IOO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Its light illumines the conscience. It creates 
 and sustains the doctrine of human rights. It 
 is as intimately connected with the growth and 
 destiny of nations as with the development of 
 individual character and happiness. 
 
 "For more than a thousand years," says Cole- 
 ridge, "the Bible, collectively taken, has gone 
 hand in hand w r ith civilization, science, law in 
 short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation 
 of the species, always supporting, and often lead- 
 ing the way. Its very presence, as a believed 
 book, has rendered the nation emphatically a 
 chosen race ; and this, too, in exact propor- 
 tion as it is more or less generally known and 
 studied. Of those nations which in the highest 
 degree enjoy its influences, it is not too much 
 to affirm that the differences, public and private, 
 physical, moral, and intellectual, are only less 
 than what might be expected from a diversity of 
 species. God and holy men, and the best and 
 wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of history, 
 enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations, have 
 borne witness to its influences, have declared it 
 to be beyond compare the most perfect instru- 
 ment, the only adequate organ, of humanity." 
 
RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. IOI 
 
 This being true, shall there be a spot in this 
 Christian land from which the word of God, the 
 source of civilization, and of all our valued in- 
 stitutions, is excluded by law ? While we are filled 
 with rejoicing that God, in his merciful provi- 
 dence, is opening the gates of Italy, Spain, Aus- 
 tria, as well as other nations, to receive the Bible, 
 and evangelists and colporteurs are traversing 
 those countries, and meeting with great encour- 
 agement in the distribution of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, shall we, by the authority of the govern- 
 ment in these United States, close the doors of 
 sixty-five thousand schools against it? 
 
 While prisons in Papal countries are being 
 emptied of the faithful disciples of Jesus, who 
 have been confined there for reading God's 
 word, shall we make it a criminal offence for a 
 teacher of a public school to read in the morning 
 a chapter or a verse from the Bible? Shall the 
 boards of education and the school committees 
 require of the three hundred thousand teachers, 
 more or less, of our public schools, the solemn 
 pledge that they will never read the Bible in the 
 schools, nor exert any moral influence over the 
 pupils, except such a moral influence as is en- 
 
IO2 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 tirely disconnected with religion 1 Shall these 
 teachers be put to the task of dealing out, to 
 preserve the discipline of the school, occasion- 
 ally small quantities of morality, after having 
 carefully examined said small quantities of mo- 
 rality, to see that there is no religion in them, 
 and nothing that may produce a religious bias in 
 the mind of the pupil ? Ought not the wisest 
 philosophers who can be found, be first put to 
 the task of constructing a system of morality in 
 which there shall be no traces of religion? Let 
 them succeed in creating a sun without any 
 light in it, and then they may succeed in this. 
 There is in Papal countries a morality without 
 religion. Would this answer? 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a more humiliating 
 spectacle than that of Protestant Christians in 
 America who profess to believe in a God, and who 
 have vowed before angels and men to serve him, 
 and especially to be true to him when the honor 
 of his name or the interests of his kingdom are 
 assailed, bowing down in the dust before Ro- 
 manism, and surrendering up the Bible to it, in 
 an hour when God has conferred upon them 
 greater power and facilities for extending its 
 
RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. IO3 
 
 elevating and saving influence over the world, 
 than he ever bestowed upon any other nation ! 
 This spectacle is not only most humiliating, but 
 it is fraught with the most alarming dangers to 
 the republic. It places the author of the Bible 
 against us. In attempting to reconcile the Pope 
 of Rome, we lose the God of heaven. And 
 when we gain the Pope, we lose our country. 
 For why does he ask, through his bishops and 
 priests, that we take the Bible from the schools? 
 Why his deeply-laid plots against our institu- 
 tions? He desires America that he may tread 
 under his heel its civil freedom ; that he may 
 cure its " delirium of toleration : " that he may 
 take possession of its vast resources and treas- 
 ures ; that he may extinguish its light that is 
 breaking into the darkness of his dominions ; 
 that he may be in a position to give us in ex- 
 change for our blessed and glorious institutions 
 the Inquisition ! 
 
 On a question so vital and momentous as 
 that now before the American people, t? it is 
 better to trust in the Lord than to put confi- 
 dence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord 
 
104 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 than to put confidence in princes." (Ps. cxviii. 
 8, 9.) For we have the divine promise, "They 
 that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, 
 which cannot be removed, but abideth forever." 
 (Ps. cxxv. i.) 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 105 
 
 VIII. 
 THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 
 
 IN considering this claim, which comes from 
 the Romish bishops and priests, and their allies, 
 it is of the first importance that we understand 
 the civil relations of these ecclesiastics to our 
 government. 
 
 In a controversy with Bishop Hughes, of 
 New York, held some years since, the bishop 
 said, "We come here denied of our rights." He 
 claimed that the Protestants, by refusing to divide 
 with them the public school fund, deprived them 
 of their civil rights. The question is, What are 
 their rights? Do they owe allegiance to the 
 Pope of Rome, or to the government of the United 
 States? Can they point us to a single bishop 
 of their church, in America, who ever took the 
 oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the 
 United States? 
 
IOO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 After diligent inquiries made of gentlemen of 
 the legal profession, and of others, I have not 
 been able to learn of a single instance of this 
 character. Indeed, their civil as well as eccle- 
 siastical relations to their head of Rome, posi- 
 tively forbid this. At their consecration, they 
 swear allegiance to his Holiness the Pope of 
 Rome, from whom they receive their official 
 position, and which they retain on condition of 
 absolute obedience to him. They also swear 
 that they will do all in their power to destroy 
 heretics. The language in the "Form of Oath" 
 (p. 63) is as follows : 
 
 " Heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the 
 same our lord (the Pope) and his successors, 
 I will persecute and fight against, to the utmost 
 of my power." 
 
 A Jesuit, in his oath of allegiance to the Pope, 
 says, "I do renounce and disown any allegiance 
 as due to any heretical king, prince, or state 
 named Protestant, or obedience to any of their 
 inferior magistrates or officers. I do further de^ 
 clare that the doctrine of the church of England, 
 of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and of other Prot- 
 estants, is damnable, &c. ... I do further 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. IO*J 
 
 declare, that I will help, assist, and advise 
 all or any of his Holiness's agents, in any place 
 wherever I shall be, in England, Scotland, Ire- 
 land, or in any other territory or kingdom I 
 shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate 
 the heretical Protestant's doctrine, and to destroy 
 all their pretended powers, regal or otherwise. 
 . . . All of which I, A B, do swear by the 
 blessed Trinity and blessed Sacrament, which I 
 am now to receive, to perform, and on my part 
 to keep inviolably." Jesuit's oath, as quoted 
 by Usher. 
 
 The bishops, priests, and Jesuits of the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church are, in this country, as 
 they themselves declare, on a mission. They 
 have no organic connection with our govern- 
 ment. They receive from it protection, but have 
 no right to interfere with its laws, or in its 
 legislative enactments. Their civil relations to 
 a foreign power forbid this. If this is not so, 
 let them furnish us with proof to the contrary. 
 Let us see the bishops coming forward, and 
 swearing allegiance to the Constitution of the 
 United States ! In the position they now occupy, 
 they cannot become American citizens, and ob- 
 
IO8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 viously they have no rights based upon American 
 citizenship. They constitute themselves a politi- 
 cal organization (we speak of the bishops, 
 priests, and Jesuits, and not of the common 
 people in the Romish communion), that plants 
 itself in direct antagonism to our government, 
 and avowedly is seeking its overthrow. The 
 Bishop of St. Louis says, "Catholicity will one 
 day rule America, and religious freedom will be 
 at an end." Father Hecker said, in his lecture 
 in New York, "In 1900 Rome will have a ma- 
 jority here, and be bound to take this country 
 and keep it." These gentlemen state their po- 
 sition openly. We do not unjustly charge it 
 upon them. They avow it themselves. Indeed, 
 they go further, and declare that we have no 
 rights. In Brownson's Quarterly, January, 1852, 
 we read, " Heresy (that is, the Protestant faith) 
 and infidelity have not, and never had, and 
 never can have, any right, being, as they un- 
 deniably are, contrary to the law of God." In 
 taking their position of hostility towards our 
 government, they plant themselves upon the 
 doctrine that we, with our civil freedom, Bibles, 
 and faith founded upon God's word, have no 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 
 
 right to exist, and, had they the power, as they 
 have repeatedly declared, they would sweep us 
 from existence. 
 
 We yield to them the right of existence, and 
 of protection under our government. We main- 
 tain civil freedom and religious toleration for all 
 our citizens. 
 
 But what is the position of these leaders of 
 the Romish church in relation to us? 
 
 First. They owe allegiance to a foreign pow- 
 er, and have no more organic connection with 
 the United States government than though they 
 resided in Italy. 
 
 Secondly. They avow that they are here on 
 a mission, and that mission is to overthrow our 
 government, and destroy our civil freedom and 
 religious toleration. 
 
 Thirdly. They declare that we have no right 
 to exist, and that it is their duty to take away 
 our existence as rapidly as possible. 
 
 With these their declared intentions, they step 
 forward and demand that we divide with them 
 the school funds, on the ground that they have a 
 right to their share of it. Upon what do they 
 base this right? All other foundation being 
 
IIO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 swept away, they base it upon the simple fact 
 that they pay taxes. 
 
 The Tablet for November 13, 1869, a Roman 
 Catholic paper, says, 
 
 "The Protestant may have state schools or 
 godless schools, if he wants them ; but as we 
 cannot in conscience send our children to them, 
 to be equally free with Protestants, the state 
 must either not tax us at all, or give us our pro- 
 portion 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 Catholics of their religious freedom, and 
 to suppress, by aid 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 hypocriti- 
 cal must be all their professions of religious 
 liberty ! She represents God on earth ; they 
 represent Satan and the world, and how can 
 they be otherwise than at enmity with her? 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. Ill 
 
 "We are in this country the assertors 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 
 demand 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 funds, 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 education 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 November 13, 
 says, " Education is not the work of the state 
 at all. It belongs to families, and should be 
 left to families, and to voluntary associations. 
 The school tax is in itself an unjust impo- 
 sition." 
 
 As to their taxes, it can, we think, be shown, 
 
112 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 that not more than one third of the Roman Cath- 
 olic population pay any taxes at all ; and what 
 is paid is more than returned to them through 
 our public institutions, and appropriations made 
 to theirs. Besides, if the principle be admitted 
 that taxes are to be refunded, because the con- 
 science of the tax-payer is violated in their 
 appropriation, then the taxes paid by Quakers 
 for the support of the army and navy should be 
 given back to them, because they are conscien- 
 tiously opposed to war. But the government 
 says to the Quakers, We need the army and 
 navy to sustain the government that affords you 
 protection, and therefore we use your taxes to 
 aid in their support. Or, here is a wealthy citi- 
 zen who has no children, and he is taxed to 
 support the schools; while in the next street 
 there is a man with six children, who pays no 
 taxes, and yet whose children derive every ad- 
 vantage from the schools. Suppose that he 
 appears before the public authorities, and de- 
 clares that his rights are invaded, that his money 
 is forcibly taken from him, and that he is com- 
 pelled to sustain schools while he has no children 
 to educate. Would not the authorities say to 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 113 
 
 him, "Sir, the government that affords you pro- 
 tection rests upon the virtue and intelligence of 
 the people, and you are taxed to aid in the 
 diffusion of this virtue and intelligence. If the 
 schools are not sustained, the poor man's chil- 
 dren may grow up with characters that will 
 endanger your life and property ; and the num- 
 ber of this class increasing, they will endanger 
 the government." So we say to the Roman 
 Catholics, they are taxed to support schools that 
 support the government, which government af- 
 fords to them toleration and protection. An 
 essential element in the instruction given in these 
 schools is moral or religious culture, without 
 which, free institutions cannot be preserved. 
 Should they obtain a portion of the school fund, 
 do they propose to establish schools without the 
 religious element in them? Hear the Tablet 
 for November 20, on this point. 
 
 "Exclude every sectarian exercise, and wholly 
 secularize the schools ; let them teach nothing of 
 religion, but be confined solely to secular educa- 
 tion ; what is the result? The system is even 
 more objectionable than before. 
 
 "The schools of a nation, next to the domestic 
 8 
 
114 THE (QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 fireside, are the foundations of its character and 
 greatness. With the poor, in fact, the scholars 
 are required to supplant, to a certain degree, the 
 influences of the domestic hearth. Hence, it 
 has always been a cardinal doctrine, in the econ- 
 omy of the Catholic church, to incorporate re- 
 ligious instruction with the daily secular teach- 
 ings in its schools." 
 
 Indeed ! and shall we yield up this " cardinal 
 doctrine " because they are opposed to our appli- 
 cation of it? 
 
 What they think of our schools they freely 
 tell us. The Tablet for November 29, says, 
 
 " The system of common schools, as now adopt- 
 ed in this country, is in the main an imitation of 
 the system decreed by the Convention which sen- 
 tenced Louis XVI. to- the guillotine, 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 be- 
 yond this life, and any world that transcends the 
 senses. If we adopt and carry out the same 
 system, our American youth must grow up thor- 
 
THE DIViaiON OF THK SCHOOL FUND. 
 
 oughly unbelieving and godless, as the order of 
 the Cincinnati Board of Education directly fore- 
 shadows. 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 fasten on France." 
 
 The Freeman's Journal, December n, 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 Chris- 
 tianity is." 
 
 It is clear that if we yield to what the Roman- 
 ists claim as their "right" in this matter, we 
 inflict the greatest possible "wrong" upon our 
 nation. Suppose a company of aliens in our 
 country, who, in common with citizens, are taxed 
 by law on their property, should commence 
 building forts and planting batteries, and claim 
 as their right a portion of the state funds, to aid 
 them in their work, on the ground that they pay 
 taxes, and are conscientiously opposed to our 
 form of government. Suppose, while they pre- 
 sent their claims, that they distinctly declare that 
 
Il6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 just as soon as they become strong enough, they 
 purpose to open their forts and batteries upon 
 our American institutions, and if possible destroy 
 them. How would the people or the govern- 
 ment receive such an application? Would it not 
 be spurned with indignation by all, except trai- 
 tors to their country ? It is certainly bad enough 
 for us to be exposed, as we now are, to the bane- 
 ful inference of Romanism in the republic, 
 without Americans lending their aid to help on 
 the work of ruin. 
 
 In this connection let me give an extract from 
 "Civis," in his "Romanism incompatible with 
 Republican Institutions," pages 56-58. After 
 speaking of the oppression of Romanism in 
 other countries, he says, 
 
 " But let us see how the case stands with her 
 in a free country. Let us inquire if she can so 
 far change her nature as in a republic to be- 
 come the friend and support of liberty. That 
 she can seem to do this, that she can wear such 
 a mask as suits herjpurposes, is without question. 
 The chamelion can borrow a hue from the sur- 
 face upon which it creeps, and so is it with 
 Romanism ; but like that insect, her true color is 
 cold, stern, gray with iron hue' of despotism. 
 
THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 1 17 
 
 The very outward form of the Romish church 
 is at variance with all rational liberty; there is 
 not a feature in it which has any sympathy 
 with free institutions. A religious community of 
 Papists is a despotic government in miniature. 
 There are here but two grades the priest and 
 his flock ; one to rule, the other to obey ; on this 
 side authority, on that unresisting submission. 
 He has no account to give them of his charge. 
 It is theirs to receive his dictates in silence, his 
 to exercise his power as he sees fit. He is ac- 
 countable to no one but God, and his superiors. 
 Neither have the people a voice in the selection 
 of their spiritual guides. These are appointed by 
 the higher clergy, and these in turn receive their 
 commission from a foreign power, to which they 
 have sworn an oath of allegiance. The sub- 
 stance of this oath binds them to advance the 
 interests of that power, to hold its enemies as 
 their enemies, and to vex and destroy heretics 
 to the utmost of their ability. And if there is 
 any meaning in words, what is the import of 
 such an oath, but to undermine and betray every 
 government that does not own the authority of 
 the Romish see?" 
 
Il8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Whatever legislature in our country surrenders 
 a portion of the school funds to the Romanists, 
 thus aids in undermining our government and 
 digging the grave of our liberties and religion. 
 Father Hecker says, " In fifteen years we will 
 take this country and build our institutions over 
 the grave of Protestantism." Are there any 
 bearing the name of Protestants, who, for per- 
 sonal preferment, or political ends, or for any 
 purpose whatsoever, are willing to help Father 
 Hecker and his allies in this work? 
 
 To every request, or petition, from whatever 
 quarter it may come, for a division of the school 
 fund, every man treading the soil or breathing 
 the air of the American republic, who has a 
 spark of patriotism in his soul, will answer, No ! 
 
HUGO'S ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCATION. 
 
 IX. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO'S ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCA- 
 TION. CONCLUSION. 
 
 EVERY American should ponder the truthful, 
 earnest words of the foremost intellect of France, 
 the gifted and eloquent Victor Hugo. The fol- 
 lowing is an extract from his speech, in relation 
 to the effort made, a few years since, by the 
 Romish priests, to procure an act of the General 
 Assembly of France, restoring to the clergy the 
 entire instruction and control of the national 
 schools. To understand his position, we should 
 state, that before the time of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, every school, even the primaries, was in- 
 structed by a priest, and very little was taught 
 in them except the Creed and the elements of the 
 Papal faith. The emperor changed the system 
 entirely, and removed every priest from the 
 schools. The Bourbons, at their restoration, 
 
I2O THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 restored the priests ; but the last revolution 
 set the schools free again. In relation to a 
 renewed effort to bring the schools under subjec- 
 tion to the church, Victor Hugo said to the 
 priests, 
 
 "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 marvellous sup- 
 porters, ignorance and error ! This it is, which 
 forbids to science and genius the going beyond 
 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 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 
 infinite, 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 Galileo. 
 In the name of St. Paul, it imprisoned Christo- 
 
HUGOS ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCATION. 121 
 
 pher Columbus. To discover a law of the 
 heavens was an impiety. To find a world was 
 a heresy. This it is which anathematized Pas 
 cal 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 
 education. And there is not a poet, not an au- 
 thor, not a philosopher, not a thinker, that you 
 accept. All that has been written, found, 
 dreamed, deduced, inspired, imagined, invented 
 by genius, the treasure of civilization, the ven- 
 erable 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, what the Vedas are for 
 India a book which contains all human wis- 
 dom, illuminated by all divine wisdom a 
 book which the veneration of the people call 
 
122 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The Book the Bible! Well, your censure 
 has reached even that. Unheard-of thing! 
 Popes have proscribed the Bible ! How aston- 
 ishing to wise spirits, how overpowering to sim- 
 ple hearts, to see the finger of Rome 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 teach- 
 ing. You wish us to give you the people to 
 instruct. Very well. Let us see your pupils ! 
 Let us see those you have produced. What 
 have you done for Italy? What have you done 
 for Spain? For centuries you have kept in 
 your hands, at your 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 inexpressible filial emo- 
 tion ; 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 all the states 
 
HUGO S ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCATION. 123 
 
 of Europe, that where the smallest number of 
 natives know how to read. 
 
 "Spain, magnificently endowed; Spain, 
 which received from the Romans her first civ- 
 ilization, 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, w r hich is a yoke of degradation and 
 decay, Spain has lost this secret power, which 
 it had from the Romans ; 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 try to-day 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, infa- 
 mous and incapable of any public honors, ex- 
 cepting only those who shall have denounced 
 their fathers ; the Inquisition, which, while I 
 speak, still holds in the Papal library the manu- 
 scripts of Galileo, sealed under the Papal signet ! 
 
I2.J. THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 These are your masterpieces. This fire, which 
 we call Italy, you have extinguished. This 
 colossus, that we call Spain, you have under- 
 mined. The one in ashes, the other in ruins. 
 This is \vhat you have done for two great na- 
 tions. What do you wish to do for France? 
 
 " Stop ; you have just come from Rome ! I 
 congratulate }'ou. You have had fine success 
 there. You come from gagging the Roman peo- 
 ple ; 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 influences, see so clearly the withering 
 power of Romish education, and any person in 
 this land of gospel light be blind to it? 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Looking into the future, there rise before me, 
 visions, of two possible destinies for my coun- 
 try. With the moral influence of the Bible 
 withdrawn from education, and millions of 
 youths growing up with infidel or atheistic 
 
CONCLUSION. 125 
 
 views, with a portion of the school funds 
 devoted to a system of education antagonistic 
 to republicanism, I see the nation, in the future, 
 staggering in its career, losing its native vigor, 
 becoming faint, irresolute, with the conviction 
 growing among the people that our government 
 is indeed an experiment, a problem not yet 
 solved. I see the smiles of Heaven withdrawn, 
 and the nation struggling to console itself and 
 to prosper on its material resources. I see fac- 
 tion rising up in cities and states, dividing legis- 
 lative bodies, and bringing out the worst passions 
 of the human soul. I see Romanism growing 
 weak in Europe, and unable longer to thrive in 
 nations, that for ages have been rotting under her 
 influence, transporting her ammunition, and bat- 
 teries, and Jesuitical armies to our soil, and united 
 with those who cannot appreciate civil freedom, 
 and who despise religion, assailing, year after 
 year, the citadels of national liberty and pure 
 Christianity. I see those citadels defended by 
 millions who have given up the Bible to the foe, 
 and have severed the ties that in years past 
 bound them to God, and brought to them di- 
 vine strength. I see the result of this mighty 
 
126 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 contest hanging in doubt, because it is a struggle 
 between the enemies of the Bible, and those who 
 have betrayed the sacred trust committed to 
 them. I see millions in other lands, friends of 
 liberty and God, who have looked in the past 
 with so much hope upon our nation, as the asy- 
 lum for the oppressed, and the stronghold of 
 human rights and a pure Christianity, now sad- 
 dened by the dark clouds that throw their shad- 
 ows upon our prosperity, and foretell the gradual 
 fading away of the light of the Book that has 
 been "a lamp to our feet and a light to our 
 path." 
 
 Another vision rises before me. With the 
 principles of the Bible in our system of educa- 
 tion, and in the hearts of its professed friends ; 
 with a new zeal, awakened by the present con- 
 trovers}^, to infuse, through every medium, 
 more of intelligence and virtue into the commu- 
 nity ; with the friends of the Bible and the God 
 of the Bible, presenting a united front on the 
 question before us, I see the American republic 
 travelling on in the greatness of its strength ; I 
 see the hundreds of millions, who must inevitably 
 crowd this continent, happy and prosperous, 
 
CONCLUSION. 127 
 
 under the best institutions that God ever gave to 
 a nation. I see churches and benevolent socie- 
 ties multiplying, to diffuse through all classes in 
 society the blessings that we have found so pre- 
 cious to our souls. I see vessels leaving our 
 ports laden with the treasures of the gospel, 
 and bearing to all lands, the benefits of the high- 
 est civilization and purest religion. I see the 
 light streaming from this republic, and resting 
 on every island and continent on the globe. I 
 see, indeed, in the future, as now, hostile forces 
 and great dangers ; but I see the ship of state 
 sailing on, dashing aside Romanism and Athe- 
 ism, as it has dashed aside Slavery, smiting every 
 wave of opposition, outriding every storm, bear- 
 ing on safely its precious freight of interests 
 and hopes, and presenting a spectacle of beauty, 
 power, and success, that excites the admiration 
 of the world. 
 
YA 00736 
 
/ 
 
 
 [Wm 
 
 
 mi*