the children's sake, but for its own, and hence that morality should be inculcated which, while it accords with the revealed will of heaven, will make them good citizens, good republicans, and will best promote the interests of the institutions under which they live and for which they are to be responsible hereafter. We have heretofore legislated in some measure to please at least one sect. We have permitted what any other nation in the world that recognizes the Christian religion would never have allowed. We have suffered the Bible to be banished from many of our State schools, have shut out from the children of those schools the very book which all denominations of Christians make the foundation of their faith, and, strange as it may seem, out of tenderness towards the consciences of a Christian sect.

Of all the people of this country, one denomination alone objects to the reading of the Bible in the schools, and to please that sect we have excluded it; they then denounce our schools as Godless. What course shall we pursue? Shall we deliver the schools into their hands, allow them to direct the education of the State, contrary to the wishes and the consciences of all the others? Shall bigotry triumph? No! What course then shall we pursue? There is but one true course, and that should never have been deviated from. Let the education of the children of this Christian State be carried forward without regard to the clamors of bigoted sectarianism or infidelity. Return the Bible to every school, and let our children from it alone, without note or comment, become acquainted with their relations and obligations to the

"THE KNOW NOTHINGS."

BY DR. THOMAS E. BOND.

Ir will be readily admitted that all secret associations are liable to be abused to bad purposes, and especially political organizations, whose proceedings are secret, because they are not restrained by the wholesome check of public opinion; and hence the individual members are not so essentially controlled, by regard to their reputation, as they would be if what they proposed to do was subjected to public animadversion. "Know Nothingism" may, therefore, be an evil, or it may become one of great magnitude by the abuse of power; but, on the other hand, it may, if directed by right motives, effect great good, and counteract evils of the grea est magnitude; and evils, too, for which we know no other remedy.

If we are rightly informed, the association has been got up to counteract the political influence of Romanism, by resisting the political elevation of foreigners. It does not propose to exclude from office or authority, legislative or executive, Romanists as such, but only foreigners. Yet, as the great body of Romanists in this country are emigrants from Europe, it cannot be denied that the exclusion of foreigners will necessarily affect the Roman Catholic Church more

than other churches; and this, so far from being a political evil, may be shown to be necessary to the conservation and perpetuation of civil and religious liberty. And hence, it may be asserted, with great propriety, that an organization such as the "Know Nothings" constitute, is essential to the welfare of our country, as the only adequate means of counteracting Romanism-the most secret and the most formidable association that human ingenuity ever devised, and which, from its very nature, is, and cannot cease to be, hostile to the principles of civil and religious liberty.

That the Roman Catholic Church is a secret society, directed by its hierarchy-absolutely controlled by its priesthood to a degree which has never been exercised by the leaders of any political party in this or any other country— is evident by its religious creed, and its practice everywhere. The confessional is a secret tribunal, before which every member of the Church is required to make known, not only every immoral action, but every thought and purpose of the heart, upon pain of incurring the anathema of the Church, which is equivalent to a sentence of eternal damnation. The secresy of this tribunal is not only admitted by the Church, but gloried in. Even the priest dare not reveal what is extracted from the penitent under the seal of confession, unless he be authorized to divulge it by Church authority.

This will not be denied, we presume; but this is not all. The priest is thus put in possession of secrets which enable him to hold his penitent under secret obligation which he dares not violate. The priest, as we have said, is bound to secresy,

but may be released by his superiors from the obligation, and always will be, as he always has been so released, when the good of the Church requires it. The penitent must have been a very correct man in all his relations, if his confession does not place him absolutely in the power of his priest, even in regard to his worldly interests; but in regard to his spiritual interests, his absolute dependence on his confessor is unques tionable. He has been taught to believe that priestly absolution is essential to his salvation, and what is still worse, that the validity and efficacy of this absolution depend upon the secret intention of the priest who administers, or pronounces it so that if it be pronounced with all formality, and according to the established formula of the church, it is wholly unavailing, unless the priest has a "right intention" in the exercise of his function.

The penitent is, therefore, wholly in the power of the priest; for, although his confessor may go through all the outward form of receiving his confession and giving absolution, yet he must be lost for ever lost—if his priest has not been so conciliated as to exercise a right intention in his own mind. This is the doctrine of the Church, as laid down by the so called holy, infallible Council of Trent, the last œcumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, we put it to any man of reason and common sense :

if

believe all this; if you believe the priest had all your you eternal interests in his power-could send you to heaven or hell, even while he administered the rites of the Church outwardly, by exercising or withholding a secret "right inten

tion" in the administration of the sacraments, or the power of absolution-if you believe in these doctrines of the Church of Rome, would you incur the displeasure of the priest for any earthly consideration? But if not, is not every Roman Catholic under the absolute control of a secret society, by considerations not only of a temporal, but of an eternal weight?

But it may be thought that no sensible man can believe all this! Yet if a man does not believe it he is not a Roman Catholic at all; and why any but such can go to confession, in a country where no legal authority or political advantages are made to depend upon going to confession, we cannot divine. In Roman Catholic countries, where all social and political advantages are made to depend upon being in the Church, and the being in the Church is made to depend upon going to confession, at least once a year, we can easily conceive how an Atheist my be induced to conform to the requirement, as he believes in no future judgment or accountability. But why even an Atheist should profess to be a Catholic, and conform to the requirements of the confessional in this country, we cannot imagine, unless it be from a desire to secure Catholic votes and influence, to aid his political aspirations.

Having, then, among us a very large secret society, governed by a priesthood, who are believed by the members of the association to exercise by divine right the power to fix and determine their eternal destiny, and this priesthood itself being the subjects of a foreign pontiff, prince, and potentate, by what means can such influence be controlled but by a com