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2. What measures are needed in order to preserve our schools in their proper condition?

Only the religious belief underlying and interweaving all the thoughts and habits of our people, co-operating with intellectual elevation and habits politically discreet, have held us together hitherto. The elements of disunion are to-day fermenting more deeply and dangerously than ever. Questions of policy, and of sectional prejudice, have agitated the nation quite enough for its health. If these questions are to be determined without any other judges than cunning intellect and unbridled passion, the death of our Union is at hand. If they are to be determined by men believing and seeking to practice right and justice, the Union may yet endure. But if they are to be so determined, it can be in no other way than by the graduates of our common schools, brought up under an education based upon Christianity, and teaching freedom of body, heart, and mind, democracy, and, above all, Christianity, without sectarianism.

There is no doubt what is necessary for the security of our education and of our country. It is high time that the distinctive Christianity of our State polity, and the Christian and political character of our public-school education, were re-established and restored to their former footing, there to be maintained. Trial by jury is an excellent custom. Taxation according to representation is a very true principle. Popular election and the ballot-box are the best possible mode of choosing rulers. But neither custom, principle, nor machinery will help a rotten nation. Unless we are able to handle our instruments, we shall turn out but a bungling piece of work. These good things are only good by virtue of skill in the hands of the user. Unless we know how to use our blessings well, we shall turn them into curses. Our common schools are the only medium of the requisite education. These must be kept American in spirit, American in practice, American thoroughly, everywhere and always. The fanatics or the fools who would destroy our liberties by ousting from our schools the sources and preservatives of those liberties, with a wisdom like that of a man who should burn his own home over his head to

warm his fingers, must be rebuked and silenced. Our schools must remain public, free, democratic, unsectarian, and Christian. There is. room for no hesitation about the matter; the case is urgent. As surely as we trifle with this blind giant, Ignorance, he will repay us with such a destruction as Sampson brought upon the Philistines. He is even now feeling about to grip the pillars of our State. Having them once in his grasp, he will overthrow our national edifice, and crush us among the falling fragments.

Perhaps the most significant, comprehensive, and useful measure which could be taken in order to the accomplishment of the purposes set forth in this chapter, would be an educational qualification for voting, the requirement that every voter should read intelligibly, in English, our State and National Constitutions. This single requirement, of reading, is probably the best, although, of course, very imperfect, as all such tests must be. Any such test must be capable of quick and easy application, and must also determine the possession of an essential requisite. Reading is a ready mode of estimating a man's literary acquirements. A more elaborate inquiry would be so tedious in the application, as to be practically inconvenient. Ability to read can be proved in a moment. And one who can read, is able to use the most extensive and important source of information in the world, namely, printed matter.

The enforcement of such a rule would be attended with many advantages. It would shut out from the polls the most degraded and dangerous class of voters, native or foreign. The men who are most easily bought or fooled would not then be worth buying. Immigrants would be under a strong temptation to learn English, and to learn to read; of which two attainments the first would be of great value in assimilating them to our own people, and the second as a main step forward in their progress towards intelligent freedom. A most important benefit, also, to be derived from the operation of this educational test, would be its effect upon our schools. The children of foreigners, now the most ignorant and inaccessible of our youthful population, would at least learn to read. Their fathers would also

learn, in order to vote; and as much as they learned themselves, so much it is safe to conclude that their children would be greatly benefited. Education, moreover, would thus once more be definitely recognized and significantly honored by the State; and the possession and exercise of political power would once more be publicly declared conditional upon the possession of the ability to use 'such power. The declaration would not be very perfect; the test proposed is not. But probably it is the best that circumstances will admit of. Its adoption would, at least, make a renewed and important public assertion of our hereditary State policy, namely, the restriction of the governing power to those fit to use it.

The principle of demanding that religion, though free from sectarianism, should be carefully excluded from our common-schools, is not of American origin. "Education, without religion," says a great authority, "merely transforms an ignorant brute into a clever fiend." True religious feeling is the basis of all useful education. It is the wholesome check upon that power which man acquires through the acquisition of knowledge. "Knowledge is power, but it is neither wisdom nor virtue ;"* and these two qualities, so necessary to the very existence of society, can only be implanted by religious faith. The prevalence of the Epicurean philosophy did much to destroy the Roman Empire; and, in later years, the teachings of Voltaire and Rousseau removed the only check which restrained the French nation from those frightful excesses which form so dark a picture in the history of mankind. The "Goddess of Reason" has ever been insufficient to direct either individuals or multitudes; and the first step towards the restoration of order in France, was the recognition of the Divine power in the government of the world.

As the cherished sentiments of thousands of our naturalized and alien citizens become known to the American people, it is discovered that we not only have the Romish priest, industriously at work to suppress the Scriptures, but that we have organized societies of avowed infidels and atheists, who openly proclaim that there is no

* Alison.

liberty where even moral, much less religious, restraints prevail, and that the perfection of society is accomplished, when the unregenerated passions of the heart alone control human action.*

The experience of other nations presents warnings to the American, of the necessity of constantly insisting upon the moral training of our youth. We want no dogmas, no "isms," but we want the Scriptures free. That they might be so, our forefathers made a home in the wilderness, and left the heritage to the present generation. Shall we, in the prosecution of our school-system, allow it to be emasculated of its chief strength, because of the demands of the priests of a corrupted religion, or because we are required to do so by foreigners who openly declare war upon religion itself? It is for the Americans who truly love their country to decide.

*See published statements of the principles of various German Societies throughout the Union.

THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE POPE.

"The Romish Church has always ranged herself on the side of Despotism."-Guizor

Ir has lately become the fashion for party men and journalists to assert that the influence of the Papal See on political affairs no longer exists; that history proves her power to have been on the wane during many past years; that the march of intellect and spread of education have forced her to relinquish coercive power; and that the resumption of her former influence is impossible. We are constantly told by prelates, priests, and politicians, that the supremacy of the Pope in temporal affairs "is not an established doctrine of the Roman Church; it is simply a sententia in ecclesia-an unadjudicated question, without positive authority, and incumbent upon no one's faith; that a Romanist may believe what he pleases on the subject, and be a good Churchman still." Those, on the contrary, who, relying on the authority of the Fathers of that Church, receiving the declarations of the priesthood themselves, and accepting the explanation of the Roman press, maintain a different opinion, are accused of bigotry and intolerance, or stigmatized as enemies to liberty. It becomes us, therefore, to examine these pretensions, and, having seen their import in other ages, to inquire if they have been relinquished, or, as is strenuously urged, become obsolete.

In order to a full appreciation of this momentous question, a glance at the origin and progress of Papal assumption is necessary, so that a full idea of the arrogance of Rome may be realized.

Systems which are longest in their growth, are most lasting in their effects. This is peculiarly the case with that politico-religious organization-Romanism: commencing in the first centuries of the

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