no religious doctrine, or moral precept, can be taught which will meet no objections. We hold that the State has a right to make the Bible a school book, without leave of either Catholics or Protestants. The design of public schools is not to make theologians, or churchmen of any kind, but to make good citizens. This object cannot be obtained without inculcating the doctrine of future retribution; and no book but the Bible does this by divine authority. No system of religion or ethics, not founded upon the Bible, can affect to teach of authority, or to enforce either doctrines or precepts with suitable sanctions. The Bible, then, is the only school-book which can be relied upon by the State to carry out the great purpose of common school education; and hence the State has a right to require the reading of it in the schools it maintains, without consulting the wishes of any sect or denomination.

HAIL, COLUMBIA.

BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

HAIL, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!

Who fought and bled in Freedom's canse, Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoy'd the peace your valour won.

Let independence be our boast,

Ever mindful what it cost ;

Ever grateful for the prize,

Let its altar reach the skies.
Firm-united-let us be,
Rallying round our Liberty;
As a band of brothers join'd,
Peace and safety we shall find.

Immortal patriots! rise once more,
Defend your rights, defend your shore?
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood the well-earn'd prize.

While offering peace sincere and just,
In Heaven we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,

And every scheme of bondage fail.
Firm-united, &c.

Sound, sound the trump of Fame!
Let WASHINGTON's great name

Ring through the world with loud applause,
Ring through the world with loud applause :
Let every clime to Freedom dear

Listen with a joyful ear.

With equal skill, and godlike power,

He governs in the fearful hour

Of horrid war; or guides with ease,
The happier times of honest peace.
Firm-united, &c.

Behold the Chief who now commands,
Once more to serve his country, stands—
The rock on which the storm will beat,
The rock on which the storm will beat:
But, arm'd in virtue firm and true,
His hopes are fix'd on Heaven and you.
When hope was sinking in dismay,
And glooms obscured Columbia's day,
His steady mind, from changes free,
Resolved on death or liberty.

Firm-united, &c.

ROMANISM AND LIBERTY.

BY H. FULLER.

WE entirely agree with those who hold that religion, in so far as the individual enjoyment thereof is concerned, should not enter among the tests by which the citizen is politically tried at the ballot box. Religion, simply as a matter of individual opinion and faith, is a concern which it is more safe to leave between man and his Maker, than to intrust it to any third party, whomsoever. So, at least, has its universal history proved. Mankind could scarcely have been more irreligious had creeds and priests never existed. But we do not agree with those who would shut from the ballot-box and the political forum all judgment upon religion, whether of individuals or classes, where it is beyond question that this religion has more in it of political craft than of soul-saving godliness.

To come directly to the point, we do not agree that a religion, like Roman Catholicism, judged by its record, past or present-if infallible, its record should be always the same— is entitled to that exemption from political discussion and judg ment which may be, and we think is, due to the unvaunting, unambiguous, and sublime religion of Jesus. No; if there were no world-wide history, written too often in letters of blood and rapine, by which to judge it, we have seen enough in our

midst in this, its most tolerable and tolerant age, to satisfy us that, in countermining or meeting it face to face, we have, in Catholicism, to do with a vast and mighty political machinery a machinery worked by cunning minds and skilful hands-that has, in darker ages, clasped all who disputed its claims, whether divine or temporal, to a breast, not of "tender mercy," but of implacable, life-crushing spikes and thorns.

A religion which compels its chiefs to swear, in the hour of sacred investiture," to yield nothing to "principalities or powers," that can conflict with the will and interests of their one and only sovereign, the temporality-grasping "Successor of St. Peter," is a political element and authority to be watched, and met, and baffled wherever the people would rule the State, or govern their own temporal affairs. A religion which exacts such fealty from its chiefs, must impose a no less dangerous obligation on its rank and file; and thus it is that, wherever the Roman Catholic is a citizen, he is bound, if Papal ambition or need demand, to abjure all other allegiance. And the fealty of the chiefs goes farther than this;—as we saw only lately, when a mutilated oath of a just consecrated Catholic Bishop was sought to be palmed off as the real, whole thing-it binds him to a ceaseless persecution, if that will avail, of any or all who are without the Catholic fold. There is no denying this, had there never been quenched a brand in a martyr's blood-had never a soul passed to heaven from the torture of the rack. It is in the nature of the religion which, of itself, is a perpetual instigaton to violence against all who are not of "the faith."