100 PERILS. — RELIGION AND THE I'URLIC SCHOOLS. 



SO far as it is confined to the church instruction or fam- 

 ily instruction, is unobjectionable and right. The idea 

 of Christ, however, is not confined to such teaching. 

 It is, with all its religious dependencies, made a part of 

 our public-school instruction. It is to be denounced as 

 in violation of the fundamental theory of our govern- 

 ment. I demand in the name of justice that the princi- 

 ple of law designed to protect all in their religious free- 

 dom be recognized." 



The platform of the Liberal League of the United 

 States contains the following: "We demand that all 

 religious services now sustained by the government 

 shall be abolished, and especiallj^ that the use of the 

 Bible in the public schools, w^hether ostensibly as a text- 

 book or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall 

 be prohibited." 



This theory of the secularists is built on a wrong applica- 

 tion of a right principle, viz., the complete separation of 

 Church and State. Of all the great experiments which 

 are being tried in this New World, none is more distinc- 

 tively Amejncan than the entire separation of Church 

 and State, and none of our principles has more abun- 

 dantly justified itself. We must be willing to follow^ it 

 wherever logic shall require, but our secularist friends, 

 being compelled to go with it one mile, go with it twain. 

 They fail to distinguish, it seems to me, between church 

 and religion. Eabbi Isaacs, in the Forum, i referring to 

 the readings of a proposed manual for use in the public 

 schools, says, "They are distinctly religious, and the 

 State cannot sanction religious teachings in its schools 

 any more than in its governmental offices. Such action 

 is entirely beyond its province. Church and State must 

 be forever separate." As if the use of religious readings 

 in the public schools compromised that principle. 



As a matter of fact our government is, and has always 

 been, religious. Says Chief Justice Shea, ' ' Our own 

 government, and the laws by Avhich it is administered, 



1 October, 1888. 



