anything in it that can rightly be charged as sectarian, or excluded on that ground? Rather, is not an education of the conscience, in all knowledge, under the fear of God, and with a constant reference to Him, the most certain way to prevent sectarianism, and to bring together all the members of such a school, under such a discipline, as children of one common Parent, united in Him?

"Such is the discipline meditated," continues Foster, "for preparing the children to pursue their individual welfare, and act their part as members of the community. They are to be trained in early life to diligent employment of their faculties, tending to strengthen them, regulate them, and give their possessors the power of effectually using them. They are to be exercised to form clear, correct notions, instead of crude, vague, delusive ones. During this progress, and in connection with many of its exercises, their duty is to be inculcated on them in the various forms in which they will have to make a choice between right and wrong in their conduct towards society. There will be reiteration

of lessons on justice, prudence, inoffensiveness, love of peace, estrangement from the counsels and leagues of vain and bad men; hatred of disorder and violence, a sense of the necessity of authoritative public institutions to prevent these evils, and respect for them, while honestly administered to this end. All this is to be taught, in many instances directly, in others by reference to confirmation, from the Holy Scriptures, from which authority, will also be impressed, all the while, the principles of religion. And religion, while its grand concern is with the state of the soul towards God and eternal interests, yet takes every principle and rule of morals under its peremptory sanction; making the primary obligation and responsibility be towards God, of everything that is a duty with respect to men. So that, with the subjects of this education, the sense of propriety shall be conscience; the consideration of how they ought to be regulated in their conduct, as a part of the community, shall be the recollection that their Master in heaven dictates the laws of that conduct,

and will judicially hold them amenable for every part of it."

"And is not a discipline thus addressed to the purpose of fixing religious principles in ascendency, as far as that difficult object is within the power of discipline, and of infusing a salutary tincture of them into whatever else is taught, the right way to bring up citizens faithful to all that deserves fidelity in the social compact?"*

* Foster on Popular Ignorance, c. 3.

Argument from the Nature of Moral Science.

THE simplest elements of Moral Science cannot be taught without a religious bias. It is impossible to ignore or exclude Christianity, or place it on the same level with false religions, treating all alike, and at the same time instruct the pupil in the truths of moral philosophy. If you would make the subject of morals a subject of study at all in the common schools, you are absolutely compelled to make choice of some system; and unless you take the remnants of Pagan philosophy for a textbook, you must go upon the ground of Christianity; and you cannot advance a step without breaking that law of impartiality, by which it is asserted, that the State can have nothing to do with religious instruction, but is bound to reject the Bible, and all distinctive

ly religious truth. Morality itself, cannot possibly be taught without distinctively religious truth, so that this alleged rule of impartiality would exclude morality as well as religion from the common schools.

As an illustration of this, we will merely take, from the Course of Instruction in the Central High School, in Philadelphia, one single section among many, of questions at a semi-annual examination, the matter of the section being moral science. The pupil is required to state what is Conscience, and to prove its supremacy with the effect of habit on moral actions, and the respects in which the moral constitution of man is observed to be imperfect, and how those defects are to be remedied.

DIVISION A; Prof. Kirkpatrick.—1. What is meant by ethics, and how is the science divided?-2. What is meant by the terms relations and obligations, as used in your textbook?-3. What are the principal relations existing between God and man?-4. Explain the rights and obligations arising from those relations.-5 Prove the existence of a con