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ty. The state, indeed, is a fiction, a lie, and no state, save as it stands in him. And then as Christianity is only the complete revelation of God, otherwise only partially revealed, it follows that the state can not be less than a Christian state, can not any more disown or throw off its obligations to be Christian, than an individual can. Nor in fact has our government ever attempted to shake off Christianity, but has always, from the first day till now, taken the attitude and character of a Christian commonwealth-accepting the Christian Sabbath, appointing fasts and thanksgivings, employing military and legislative chaplains, and acknowledging God by manifold other tokens. Accordingly our schools are, to the same extent, and are to be Christian schools. This is the American principle, and as we have never disowned God and Christ, as a point of liberty in the state, or to accommodate unbelievers, so we are required by no principle of American right or law to make our schools unchristian, to accommodate Turks and Pagans, or rejectors and infidels.

Common schools, then, are to be Christian schools-how Christian? In the same sense, I answer, that Catholics and Protestants are Christians, in the same sense that our government is Christian, in the same that Christendom is Christian, that is, in the recognition of God and Christ and providence and the Bible. I fully agree with our Catholic friends regarding what they say in deprecation of a godless system of education. Dr. Chalmers, engaged in a society to establish Catholic schools in Glasgow, went so far as to say that if he had not been able to obtain "favorable terms from the priest, that is, the liberty of making the Bible a school-book," he would still have persevered, "on the principle that a Catholic population, with the capacity of reading, are a more hopeful subject than without it." Perhaps he was right, but the statistics reported in France, a few years ago, showing that public crimes, in the different departments, were very nearly in the ratio of education, increasing too in the ratio of the increase of education, are sufficient to throw a heavy shade of doubt on the value of all attempts to educate, that increase the

power of men, and add no regulative force of principle and character. It is, to say the least, a most perilous kind of beneficence. The chances are far too great that knowledge, without principle, will turn out to be only the equipment of knaves and felons.

The greater reason is there that our Catholic fellow-citizens should not do what they can to separate all the schools of the nation from Christian truth and influence, by requiring a surrender of every thing Christian in the schools, to accommodate their sectarian position. Or, if they reply that they would wholly supplant the common schools, leaving only parochial and sectarian schools in their place, on the ground that our government can not, without some infringement on religion, be made to coalesce with any thing Christian, then is it seen they are endeavoring to make the state "godless" in order to make the school Christian. Exactly this, indeed, one of their most distinguished and capable teachers in Pennsylvania is just now engaged to effect; insisting that the civil state has no right to educate children at all; not only controverting a constituent element of our civil order, but claiming it as a Christian right that the state shall exercise no Chris tian function. Which then is better, a godless government or a godless school? And if his own church will not suffer a godless school, what has it more earnestly insisted on than the horrible impiety of a state separated from God and religion, and the consequent duty of all kings and magistrates to be servants and defenders of the church? The Catholic doctrine is plainly in a dilemma here, and can no way be accommodated. If the state is godless, then it should as certainly withdraw from that as from the school, which, if it persists in doing, it as certainly does what it can, under the pretext of religion, to empty both the state and the schools of all religion.

The true ideal state manifestly is, one school and one Christianity. But it does not follow that we are to have as many schools as we have distinct views of Christianity, because we have not so many distinct Christianities. Nor is any thing more cruel and abominable than to take the little

children apart, whom Christ embraced so freely, and make them parties to all our grown up discords whom Christ made one with himself and each other, in their lovelier and, God forgive us if perchance it also be, their wiser age. Let us draw near rather to the common Christ we profess, doing it through them and for their sake, and see if we can not find how to set them together under Christ, as his common flock.

In most of our American communities, especially those which are older and more homogeneous, we have no difficulty in retaining the Bible in the schools and doing every thing necessary to a sound Christian training. Nor, in the larger cities, and the more recent settlements, where the population is partly Catholic, is there any, the least difficulty in arranging a plan so as to yield the accommodation they need, if only there were a real disposition on both sides to have the arrangement. And precisely here, I suspect, is the main difficulty. There may have been a want of consideration sometimes manifested on the Protestant side, or a willingness to thrust our own forms of religious teaching on the children of Catholics. Wherever we have insisted on retaining the Protestant Bible as a school book, and making the use of it by the children of Catholic families, compulsory, there has been good reason for complaining of our intolerance. But there is a much greater difficulty, I fear, and more invincible, on the other side. In New York the Catholics complained of the reading of the Protestant Scriptures in the schools, and of the text-books employed, some of which contained hard expressions against the Catholic church. The Bible was accordingly withdrawn from the schools and all religious instruction discontinued. The text-books of the schools were sent directly to Archbishop Hughes, in person, to receive exactly such expurgations as he and his clergy would direct. They declined the offer, by a very slender evasion, and it was afterward found that some of the books complained of were in actual use, in their own church schools, though already removed from the schools of the city. Meantime the immense and very questionable sacrifice thus made, to accommodate the complaints of the Catholics, resulted in no discontinu

ance of their schools, neither in any important accession to the common schools of the city, from the children of Catholic families. On the contrary, the priests now change their note and begin to complain that the schools are "godless" or "atheistical"-just as they have required them to be. In facts like these, fortified by the fact that some of the priests are even denying, in public lectures, the right of the state to educate children at all, we seem to discover an absolute determination that the children shall be withdrawn, at whatever cost, and that no terms of accommodation shall be satisfactory. It is not that satisfaction is impossible, but that there is really no desire for it. Were there any desire, the ways in which it may be accomplished are many and various.

1. Make the use of the Bible in the Protestant or Douay version, optional.

2. Compile a book of Scripture reading lessons, by agreement from both versions.

3. Provide for religious instruction, at given hours, or on a given day, by the clergy, or by qualified teachers such as the parents may choose.

4. Prepare a book of Christian morality, distinct from a doctrine of religion or a faith, which shall be taught indiscriminately to all the scholars.*

*I am not aware of any attempt that has hitherto been made to adjust an agreement on the basis of this distinction. The following beautiful card, prepared by Archbishop Whately, to be conspicuously printed and hung in the Irish schools, was accepted by the whole Board, including the Catholic Archbishop; in which we have, at once, an example of what I mean by the distinction stated, and also a proof that, so far at least, the distinction is available as a basis of agreement.

"Christians should endeavor, as the Apostle Paul commands them, to 'live peaceably with all men,' (Rom. ch. xii. v. 10,) even with those of a different religious persuasion."

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"Our Saviour Christ commanded his disciples to love one another.' He taught them to love even their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that persecuted them. He himself prayed for his murderers." Many men hold erroneous doctrines; but we ought not to hate or persecute them. We ought to seek for the truth, and to hold fast what we are convinced is the truth; but not to treat harshly those who are in error. Jesus Christ did not intend his religion to be forced on men by violent means. He would not

allow his disciples to fight for him."

Out of these and other elements like these, it is not difficult to construct, by agreement, such a plan as will be Christian, and will not infringe, in the least, upon the tenets of either party, the Protestant or the Catholic. It has been done in Holland and, where it was much more difficult, in Ireland. The British government, undertaking at last, in good faith, to construct a plan of national education for Ireland, appointed Archbishop Whately and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, with five others, one a Presbyterian and one

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If any persons treat us unkindly, we must not do the same to them, for Christ and his apostles have taught us not to return evil for evil.. If we would obey Christ, we must do to others, not as they do to us, but as we would wish them to do to us."

"Quarreling with our neighbors, and abusing them, is not the way to convince them that we are in the right and they in the wrong. It is more likely to convince them that we have not a Christian spirit."

"We ought to show ourselves followers of Christ, who when he was reviled, reviled not again,' (1 Pet. ch. ii. v. 23,) by behaving gently and kindly to every one."

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If I rightly understand, it is over Christianity as a faith, a divine mystery, that the Catholic Church claims a more especial jurisdiction, and not over the preceptive rules of conduct on the common footing of intercourse and society. Otherwise it must also assume a jurisdiction over many things in the province even of the common law, such as theft, perjury, slander, and all moral definitions that turn upon the question of "malice aforethought." And if it can not submit to any common teaching on these points. how can it submit to the jurisdiction of the state itself without an equal infringement of its prerogative? Is it then impossible to prepare a volume, in the manner of the above card, which, without entering into any matter that pertains to Christianity as a faith, or a grace of salvation, will yet comprise every thing that pertains to the relative conditions of life, and even to God's authority concerning them-the Christian rules of forgiveness, gentleness, forbearance, docility, modesty, charity, truth, justice, temperance, industry, reverence toward God, drawn out in chapters, and formally developed-large extracts from the preceptive parts of the Bible, and its moral teachings; from the Proverbs of Solomon, from the histories of Joseph and Haman, from the history of Jesus, in his trial and crucifixion, taken as an example of conduct, from the moral teachings also of his sermon on the mount, the parable of the good Samaritan, the rule of the lowest seat, and other like expositions-enlivened also by those picturesque representations of Scripture that display the manner of human nature in matters of moral conduct, such as the parable of Jotham, the story of the ewe lamb, and the judgment of Solomon. In this way Christianity would have a clear and wellascertained place in the schools. A Christian conscience would be formed, and a habit of religious reverence. And though we could wish for something more, we might safely leave the higher mysteries of faith and salvation to be taught elsewhere.

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