the missal some portions of it to which in itself there would be no objection; insist that the school shall bow at the name of Jesus; shall always speak of the Virgin Mary as the Blessed Virgin, or the Holy Mother of God, and see if all of us would be willing to send our children there day by day. See if the pulpits and the ecclesiastical conventions throughout the land would not re-echo the word of alarm; and why should we compel the Jews, who are numerous in our cities, to listen to the New Testament; to repeat the .. Lord's Prayer, or the Apostles' Creed, or be taught the mysteries of redemption, or leave the schools?"

Mr. Benedict speaks of "overthrowing the great question of Common Schools by a mere form or ceremony." What is meant by overthrowing a question, it would be difficult to say; what is meant by the declaration, "That the reading of the Bible is not for improvement, but is a mere ceremony, and a profane aid to the ark of God," may be more clear; and the assertion, "That there is not only no necessary relation between religious and secu

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lar instruction, but that the mingling of them is sacrilegious folly," seems an extreme of combined shallowness and hardihood, upon which no man in his senses could have stumbled. Yet here, in this production, it is deliberately presented to a Christian community! Let this address be placed alongside the Report of the State Commissioners above quoted, and the various provisions, recommendations, and laws in the School System, for fifty years; and also let it be compared with the sentiments and recommendations of Washington, Story, Webster, Clinton, Tompkins, Lewis, Chancellor Kent, and other eminent civil as well as religious writers on this subject still living. Especially let us now set it in comparison and contrast with a portion of Mr. Webster's celebrated argument, of such incomparable beauty and power, in regard to the inevitable infidel tendency of any scheme of education that excludes religion, and the necessity of constantly mingling, with all other knowledge, instruction in religious truth.

Argument of Daniel Webster

AGAINST THE PLAN OF EDUCATION WITHOUT THE BIBLE. *

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"THE children," said Mr. Webster, are taken before they know the alphabet. They are kept till the period of early manhood, and then sent out into the world to enter upon its business and affairs. By this time the character will have been stamped. For if there is any truth in the Bible, if there is any truth in those oracles which soar above all human authority, or if anything be established as a general fact by the experience of mankind, in this first third of human life the character is formed. And what sort of a character is likely to be made by this process, this experimental system of instruction? What is likely to be the effect of this system on the minds of these children, thus left solely to its pernicious influence, with no one to care for their *Before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Girard.

spiritual welfare in this world or the next? They are to be left entirely to the tender mercies of those who will try upon them this experiment of moral philosophy or philosophical morality. Morality without sentiment; benev olence towards man, without a sense of responsibility towards God; the duties of this life performed without any reference to the life which is to come; such is this theory of useful education.

"The scheme is derogatory to Christianity, because it rejects Christianity from the education of youth, by rejecting its teachers, by rejecting the ordinary agencies of instilling the Christian religion into the minds of the young. It is derogatory, because there is a positive rejection of Christianity; because it rejects the ordinary means and agencies of Christianity.

"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 mockery, 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 vigor

ously shut out, is not deistical and infidel both in its purpose and in its tendency. I insist, therefore, that this plan of education is, in this respect, derogatory to Christianity, in opposition to it, and calculated either to subvert or to supersede it.

"In the next place, this scheme of education is derogatory to Christianity, because it pro ceeds upon the presumption that the Christian religion is not the only true foundation, or any necessary foundation of morals. The ground taken is, that religion is not necessary to morality; that benevolence may be insured by habit, and that all the virtues may flourish, and be safely left to the chance of flourishing, without touching the waters of the living spring of religious responsibility. With him who thinks thus, what can be the value of the Christian revelation? So the Christian world has not thought; for by that Christian world, throughout its broadest extent, it has been and is, held as a fundamental truth, that religion is the only solid basis of morals, and that moral instruction, not resting on this basis, is only a building upon sand. And at what age of the