"Another fact developed by report is, that whereas, in 1765, nearly

one-half of the population of Massachusetts was under fifteen years of

age, it is believed that, at the _present_ time, _not_ more than

_one-fifth_ of the purely American population is under that age. In an

equal number of American and foreign families, the births will be nearly

three times as many in the latter as in the former. In some of the old

towns, the records of a hundred years do not show a single instance of

a married couple without children. The New York census of 1865 shows

that, out of nine hundred and ninety-three thousand two hundred and

thirty-six married women, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand seven

hundred and forty-five had no children, and three hundred and

thirty-three thousand only had one or two.

"In the small town of Billerica, there are ninety families with ten or

more children; five of these had fourteen, and one twenty-one: the total

in the ninety families is ten hundred and ninety-three. The birth-rates

show that American families _do not_ increase at _all_, and the

inspection of the registration in other States shows that the same

remark applies to all."

Many parts of Vermont are undergoing a gradual depopulation. Sandgate

had a population of 1,187 in 1810, and 805 in 1860.

The town of Rupert had a population of 1,848 in 1800, which had

diminished to 1,103 in 1860.

The town of Arlington was settled in the year 1762. In the year 1800 all

the arable and pasturage land was occupied, and the inhabitants

numbered 1,569. In 1830 the number had decreased to 1,207, and in 1860

to 1,146.

Mrs. A. B. Boone says, in her book "The Increase of Crime," "I have

frequently heard women say 'I don't mind having one or two children, but

no more for me.' When I first heard these expressions I thought it

merely a joke, but eventually I found out they _meant_ what they said,

and I was amazed. And when these women do condescend to have one or two

children, what sort of a lifelong inheritance are they giving their

offspring? ill-health even unto death. Frequently I come in contact with

women of thirty, and even twenty-five, so debilitated that they are far

more fit for hospitals than to fill the sacred office of either wife or

mother.

"I am sorry to add that the crime of _child-murder_ is carried on to the

greatest extent among the wealthy. In Cambridgeport, a medical lady

informed me that she was continually applied to for this purpose, and

always refused in the most decided manner; but, to her knowledge, one

woman performed, on an average, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty

cases in a week. And yet churches abound in this place.

"The Rev. Dr. Todd has written two most truthful lectures, one entitled

'Fashionable Murders,' and the other 'A Cloud with a Dark Lining.' His

revelations with regard to the determination that the Americans evince

not to have children, is fearfully true, more especially among the

women.

"Speaking of having children, reminds me of a circumstance that happened

some fifteen years ago. I had a letter of introduction to a lady who

wished to engage my children to read at a party she was about to give.

She received me with an air of melancholy politeness, at the same time

informing me that the gathering was postponed, as dear little Fanny was

'real sick.' I saw a wine-glass and teaspoon on the table by the side of

the sofa, which had a small blanket on it bound with sky-blue ribbon,

covering up something that I supposed to be a sick child. I approached,

and gently drew aside the blanket. I jumped back--it was a poodle-dog,

whose black eyes winked at me as if about to cry: a sort of appeal for

sympathy shone in its glowing orbs. I was almost convulsed with

laughter, it was so unexpected. When able to speak, I said, 'Pardon me,

madam, for laughing; but I thought it was a baby.' She replied

indignantly, 'Oh, dear, no! I never had a baby; nor I don't want one

either!' And it would be a blessing, I say, if such women as these

_never_ became mothers. When I was a young girl, and heard people say

they hated children, and saw them fondling dogs, and feeding kittens

with a spoon because the _old cat_ was too weak to attend to so many,

and knew, at the same time, that poor _human mothers_ were compelled

(just as _slaves once_ were) to separate from their husbands and

children when _poverty_ demanded that they should go into the '_Union_,'

or, rather, _Dis_union--I say, when I pondered on these things, thoughts

would flit through my mind, whether, when death severed the body from

the _souls_ of these people, that their spirits were not instantly

infused into cats and dogs, and that they came back in those shapes as a

penance for their _brutality_ to mankind, and their _loving-kindness_ to

_brutes_. However, we never went to the party. The woman remarked to a

friend that she thought me devoid of all feeling, to laugh at a little,

sick, _innocent_ dog!

"Three doors from the rooms I lived in is the stylish house of Dr. and

Mrs. Grindle, where there are hundreds of 'fashionable murders'

committed yearly. And twice the papers have teemed with accounts of the

unhappy mothers dying, and on the last occasion the child was not to be

found, although born alive--and nothing done to either the doctor or his

lady!"

A gentleman of one of the smaller towns of Connecticut writes to the

_Independent_ as follows: "I have just read, with great interest, your

editorial on the 'Murder of Helplessness.' The paper will go into

hundreds of families where the crime is practised, to bear witness

against it; for, thank God, it is fashionable to take the _Independent_.

For more than a year it has been on my mind to write to you upon this

question. You will have the thanks of every well-wisher of the human

race. But you make a great mistake when you speak of the crime of

foeticide as being confined to the large cities. It prevails all over

the country. I dare not tell you what I know--and the information has

been given me unsolicited--in reference to this horrid practice in the

land. I do not believe there is a village in the New England States but

this crime is practised more or less. There are men who make it their

business, with medicine and instruments, to carry on this slaughter. And

even M.D.'s (physicians) in good and regular standing in the church have

practised it. Men are making here, in this highly moral State, $3,000

and $4,000 a year in the small towns alone, at this business. Their

patients are from the highly religious and fashionable to the low and

vicious. Their scale of charges is according to the cupidity and size of

purse of the victims. Delicate females go, in the dead of night, dressed

in masculine attire, to avoid detection, to obtain the means to hide

their shame. The cause of the evil lies in 'lust, which is as near to

the murder as fire to smoke.' The demoralization of the people at large,

in the practice of licentiousness, furnishes a topic of the greatest

anxiety to the philanthropist. When American women lose their shame, the

race is lost--church-membership is no bar. The continence of man and the

chastity of woman is the only hope."

Trustworthy physicians assure us there are not less than sixty ghouls

(gules) in New York City, who grow rich by killing infants. We have

seen the number stated at six times sixty. Those who have passed

through Fifth Avenue, New York, must have noticed a magnificent

dwelling, or rather palace, in the neighborhood of the Central Park. It

was built by a certain doctress who has acquired her wealth by the

murder of helpless innocents.

The unhappy victims of these ghouls are not generally of the low and

debased sort. Most of these illegitimate mothers are of the educated

classes, many of them, shocking to say, under the age of fifteen; many

of them delicate, sensitive females, who make use of these unhallowed

means to hide their shame from the eyes of their friends and relatives.

The number of marriages (outside the Catholic Church) has largely

decreased within the past few years. The crime of infanticide is largely

increasing. A certain species of it is practised in the first families,

and the drugs and implements for committing such murders are publicly

sold everywhere. Physicians advertise publicly, offering their services

to enable people, as they say, "to enjoy the pleasures of marriage

without the burden." At least 25,000 foeticides are annually

committed. How to preserve their looks, and how to avoid having

children, seem to be the chief aim of many women nowadays. In the upper

classes of society, in some of our large cities, a lady who is the

mother of more than two children is looked upon as unfashionable.

The author of the book "Satan in Society" writes, on page 130-131, as

follows: "A medical writer of some note published, in 1861, a pamphlet,

in which he declared himself the hero of three hundred abortions." He

admits, in a work of his, that he only found abortion necessary to save

the life of the mother in four instances, thus publicly confessing that

in an immense number of cases he has performed the operation on other

grounds; and yet, in the face of all this self-accusation, several

attempts at his expulsion from his county medical society have been

defeated, and he is accounted "a brother in good standing" of several

learned bodies, and holds an enviable position in a fashionable church

and fashionable society. This rascal walks unhung; for this the "Medical

Code" is primarily responsible, and after that the "ministers of the

Gospel," the "worshippers" in the churches, the dwellers in "south

fronts."

I have said above that the love of children has always been deemed a

sign of superior intelligence--of noble manhood. Affection for its

offspring is a quality possessed alike by all animals, with scarcely an

exception; and few indeed of the millions of the animal creation seek to

destroy their own offspring after birth, or to so neglect them as to

leave them liable to destruction by other bodies or forces. It was left

for human intelligences to encompass the death of their children, both

before birth and after, and it was left to the anti-Christian

civilization of this nineteenth century also to discover and adopt the

most revolting and barbarous means to accomplish this end. The crime of

foeticide, or infanticide, is not of recent growth. Like every other

crime, it has had a venerable existence, but its beastly development

among us has been mainly the work of a few years. Thirteen years ago its

prevalence attracted the attention of medical jurists in all parts of

our country, and essays, tracts, and bound volumes were issued against

it. But the crime grew apace, and its deadly and dastardly fruits appear

before us to-day, sickening to the moral conscience and religious

sentiments of the nation.

And in view of the alarming increase of this crime of child-murder, the

prediction of Dr. M. B. Wright to the Medical Society of Ohio, in 1860,

will soon be fulfilled, namely: "The time is not far distant when

children will be sacrificed among us with as little hesitation as among

the Hindoos, unless we stop it here and now."

The frightful increase of immorality, of unnatural crimes, in these

latter years, and especially in those very States where the common

school system of education is fully carried out, as in New England,

proves, beyond doubt, that there is something essentially wrong in this

system. Some years ago the public were startled by the shocking

developments of depravity in one of the female Public Schools of Boston;

so shocking, indeed, as almost to stagger belief. The Boston _Times_

published the whole occurrence at the time, but after creating great

excitement for a few weeks, the matter was quietly hushed up, for fear

of injuring the character of the common schools.

Only a few years ago other startling transactions came to light in New

York, involving the character of some of the leading school

commissioners, and some of the principal female teachers in the common

schools. These scandals became so notorious, that they could be no

longer blinked at or smothered, and several of the leading papers came

out openly, to lash vice in high places. The Chicago papers assert

openly that the Public Schools there are _assignation houses_, for boys

and girls above a certain age.

"It is but six or seven years ago that Mr. Wilbur H. Storey, who owns

the _Chicago Times_--the paper, at that time, of largest circulation in

Chicago--published in his paper, and sustained the assertion, that the

Public School system in Chicago had become so corrupt, that any

school-boy attending, who had reached fourteen years of age, was

whistled at by his companions as a _spooney_, if he had not a _liaison_

with some one or more of the Public School-girls!

"The Daily _Sentinel_, of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles,

and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis

also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending

Public Schools in Indianapolis."

And there are but too many cities to which the same order of remark

applies. Far be it from me to say that _all_ the children of the Public

Schools of any of these cities are corrupted. It is marvellous how some

are protected from even the _knowledge_ of vice, in these hot-beds of

pollution. But the _system_ of schools without the control of positive

religious teaching and discipline, tends only to one vile end. We are

assured, as to the City of New York, that smart girls, even of most

immature years, show their discontent at their neglected fate, from

hearing girls only a few years older tell what "_nice_" acquaintances

they have made on the streets, or in the cars, going or coming, and what

delicious lunches they have taken with these "gentlemen" at restaurants

of most unquestionably bad repute. These things I have learned from a

friend who heard them from members of the City Police, and from others

that could not avoid the unhappy knowledge of the facts indicated.

The moral character of the Public Schools in many of our cities has sunk

so low, that even courtesans have disguised themselves as school-girls,

in order the more surely to ply their foul avocation.

Does any one wonder, then, that we hear and read of "Trunk Horrors"?

Does any one wonder that we have divorces, despair, infanticides,

foeticides, suicides, bagnios, etc., and that other class, I fear not

less numerous, but certainly more dangerous, "_the assignation houses_"?

These you cannot "police," or "localize." They, like a subtle poison,

circulate through all the veins and arteries of that society called in

fashionable phrase "genteel," penetrating the vital tissues of the

social body, and corrupting, too often, the very fountains of life.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER?

Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be

the mothers of to-morrow. Mothers are destined, by God, to bring up

children for heaven. This is their grand mission. What a happiness, what

an honor for a mother to give angels to heaven! Would to God she only

knew the real dignity and importance of her mission, and comprehended

the qualifications in the moral and religious order that best prepare

her for the duties of her sublime calling! What mission can be more

sublime, more sacred, what mission can be more meritorious before God

than that of giving to the young child the primary lessons of religion?

There is indeed nothing more honorable, nothing more meritorious,

nothing which conducts to higher perfection, than to instruct children

in their religious duties. This instruction of children is a royal,

apostolic, angelic, and divine function. _Royal_, because the office of

a king is to protect his people from danger. _Apostolic_, because our

Lord commissioned apostles to instruct the nations, and, as St. Jerome

says, thus made them the saviours of men. _Angelic_, because the

angelical spirits in heaven enlighten, purify, and perfect each other

according to their spheres, and their earthly mission is to labor

without ceasing for the salvation of man. St. Peter Chrysologus calls

those who instruct others in the way of salvation, "the substitutes of

angels." Indeed this mission of mothers is divine; they are called to

carry on the very work of God Himself. Everything that Almighty God has

done from the creation of the world, and which He will continue to do to

the end, has been, and will be, for the salvation of mankind. For this

He sent His Son from heaven, who enlightened the world by His doctrine,

and who still continues to instruct His people by His chosen disciples.

Those mothers, then, who direct their children in the paths to heaven,

who allure them from vice, who form them to virtue, may fitly be termed

apostles, angels, and saviours. Oh! what glory awaits those mothers who

perform the office of angels, and even of God Himself, in laboring for

the salvation of the souls of their children. If this employment is

honorable for mothers, it is also not less meritorious for them. What is

the religious instruction of children, but conferring on a class of our

race, the weakest and most helpless, with inconceivable labor and

fatigue, the greatest of all blessings? For while the physical

development of the child advances with age, it is not so with the

mental; for religious instruction only can develop the noble faculties

of the soul. The soul of a child, so to speak, would continue to live

enshrouded in Pagan darkness, if the mother did not impart and infuse

the light of truth. All the gold in the world is but dross in comparison

with true religious knowledge.

Our Saviour says: "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little

ones, even a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward."--(Matt. x.

42.) May we not infer that those mothers who bestow upon children the

treasures of divine knowledge will receive an exceedingly great reward?

If God denounces so severely those who scandalize little children: "But

he that shall scandalize one of these little ones, it were better for

him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in

the depth of the sea" (Matt. xviii. 6), what recompense will mothers not

receive who instruct and sanctify them?

Mothers who give their efforts and means to this object, choose the

surest way to appease the anger of God, and to insure their own

salvation. They choose the best means of attaining a high degree of

perfection. Almighty God gives to each one the graces proper to his

vocation. Mothers, therefore, who are devoted to the religious

instruction of their children, must rest assured that God will give them

extraordinary graces to arrive at perfection. "Whoever," says our Lord,

"shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me."--(Matt.

xviii. 5.) Whosoever, then, believes that our Saviour will not allow

Himself to be surpassed in liberality, must also believe that He will

bestow His choicest blessings on those mothers who instruct their

children in the knowledge of God and the love of virtue.

What obligations have not the "angels" of children "who always see the

face of the Father who is in heaven" (Matt. xviii. 10), to pray for

these mothers--their dear colleagues and charitable substitutes, who

perform their office and hold their place on earth. The children will

pray for their mothers, and God can refuse nothing to the prayers of

children, and their supplications will ascend with the prayers of the

angels.

Do you desire, O Christian mother, to be saved? Do you wish to acquire

great treasures in heaven, and to attain great perfection in this

life?--Employ yourself diligently in the religious instruction of your

children. Do you wish to gain the love of our Lord, and to deserve His

protection?--Teach your children to fear and love God; you cannot do

anything more pleasing to His Divine Heart.

It is related in the Gospel that mothers brought to Him little children,

that He might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them that brought

them. And when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said to them:

"Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such

is the kingdom of God; and embracing them, and laying His hands on them,

He blessed them." If Jesus was displeased with those who prevented

little children from coming to Him, what love and tenderness will He not

have for those mothers by whose means they come to Him?

Oh! how consoled will they not be in their last hour, when they shall

see the souls of those whom they prepared for heaven, accompanied by

their good angels, surrounding their bed of death, forming, as it were,

a guard to protect them from the snares and assaults of the enemy!

This is a happiness which those mothers may confidently expect who labor

assiduously to give their children a good religious education. Ah! would

to God, I say once more, that mothers would understand their sublime

mission on earth!

But it is just here that the difficulty lies: how can a mother give the

child these early lessons of piety and devotion, if she has never

learned them herself? How can she train it to raise its young heart to

that Heavenly Father, and ask Him for His continued mercy and blessings,

of whose name or law she has never been informed or instructed in the

Public Schools? How can she impart to her child that knowledge which

she herself has never learned in the Public Schools, and which she has

always been taught to look upon as unnecessary? Can she teach the child

to love God and keep His commandments, to hate sin, and avoid it for the

love of God?--To love, honor, and obey its parents, not from natural

motives alone, but because, in so doing, it would love, honor, and obey

God in the person of its father and mother, and have thus not only a

great reward, and length of days here below, but also the joys of heaven

above? This lesson the poor mother was never taught in the Public

Schools. How can she teach her sweet child that it has an immortal soul,

that God sees even the inmost thoughts of the soul, that it is this soul

that sins by consenting to the evil inclinations of the heart; that when

the child is tempted to pride, gluttony, anger, disobedience, theft,

lies, or any manner of uncleanness, even in thought as well as deed,

that it must call on God and its good guardian angel to come to its

assistance, and keep its soul from consenting, and its body from doing,

any of those things that might offend its good God? All this the poor

mother has not been taught in the Public Schools. The State claims the

right to educate her, and it did not regard this kind of knowledge

necessary, else it would have provided it.

Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be

the women of to-morrow.

The most majestic kingdom for woman to reign in is home. A woman nowhere

looks more lovely, more truly great, more fascinating, and more really

beautiful and useful, than when in her own house, surrounded by her

children, giving them what instruction she is capable of, or devising

some plan of intellectual entertainment. Depend on it that this is the

grandest position in this world for a woman, and this home-audience is

nearer and sweeter to the affectionate heart of a mother whose brain is

properly developed, than all the applause and flatteries that the outer

world can bestow. It is not in the court-room, the pulpit, and rostrum,

but it is among the household congregation that woman's influence can

achieve so much, and reign paramount. This, however, is not easily

understood and practised by women who have been educated without

religion. And it is for this reason that such women cannot make

faithful wives and tender mothers.

Young ladies whose education has been devoid of moral and religious

instruction, whose imagination, always over-ardent and vivacious, has

been still more stimulated by a class of exercises, public examinations,

and studies better calculated to give them an unreal than a sober view

of life, are not prepared to fulfil their divine mission on earth. An

illustration of this truth is the fact that quite recently over six

hundred personal applications--mostly made by girls of from fifteen to

twenty--were made in one day at the Grand Opera House in New York to

fill places in the ballet and Oriental marches of the spectacle of Lalla

Rookh. Assuredly this fact is evidence that the women in New York, like

so many women in all quarters of the land, are unwilling to do the work

which properly belongs to them to do, and prefer any shift, even the

degrading one mentioned above, to honest household labor. There are

thousands of ladies to whom the following description, written by a lady

herself, may well be applied:

"How is it that there is not more nature in the present age, and less

sophistication in society, and that mothers do not teach their daughters

to fit themselves for wives and mothers? For they all seem to be setting

traps to get husbands. Why, the young ladies of the present day are

quite ashamed should they be ignorant of the name of the last new opera

and its composer, but would feel quite indignant if they were asked

whether they knew how to make good soup, or broil a beefsteak, or mend

stockings.

"Above all, you can notice in the young ladies of the present day a

madness beyond description for dress, for balls, theatres,

watering-places, and all kinds of worldly amusements; you can see in

them the greatest desire to appear ladies. They go and spend the whole

day at the perfumer's, where they purchase their complexion; at the

goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days

ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine

hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. The chief mental

agony of the masses of the young women of the present day seems to be,

who shall have the largest possible waterfall, the smallest bonnet, and

make themselves the greatest fright. They do nothing from morning till

night but read novels, and look at their white hands, or the passers-by

in the street. They all seem to be senseless creatures, for their

capacious brain soars no higher than dress, fashion, pleasure, comfort

of life. Were it not for their vain daughters, hundreds of parents at

this moment would have a happier countenance, and not that careworn,

wretched look that we so frequently see when honest people get in debt,

incurred by living beyond their _means_. Were it not for the

extravagancy of young women, young men would not be afraid to marry,

consequently would not be led into the temptations that they are in the

single state, for marriage is one sure step towards morality, and

consequently tends to the decrease of crime.

"Very many young ladies act as catch-traps, with their painted faces and

affected sweetness, to lure young men into the swamps of iniquity.

"I frequently read comments about servants not knowing and performing

their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office

they apply for: _and it is true_.

"In Boston, a short time ago, one hundred and eighty unfortunate girls

were arrested in _one night_; and I doubt not that the greater portion

of them could have _once_ been respectable servants, but considered the

office and _name too low_! Men think it no disgrace to become carpenters

and masons, and it is certainly as respectable to clean a house, and

keep it in order, as it is to build it. And what kind of a name have

these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to?

Generally the world's cold, nipping scorn, combined with ill-health and

destitution. A girl would much rather work in a factory, or a 'saloon,'

because she can be called 'Miss,' dress finer, and imagine she will be

thought a _lady_! Poor girl! It is this delusion, this false pride, that

crowds the streets nightly with pretty young girls, some of whom count

only twelve short summers. With Hamlet, I exclaim, 'Oh, horrible! most

horrible!' I lived in a house in which there was a girl, Annie C., not

seventeen, and she attended in a restaurant. I once said to her, 'Why do

you not take the situation of a seamstress, or a nurse in a gentleman's

family?' She turned upon me in the most insolent way, saying, 'Me be a

servant! That will do very well for Irish, or Dutch, or English girls,

but I am an _American_, and feel myself as _good as anybody_.'

"However, this girl afterwards went as a ballet-girl at one of the

lowest places in Boston; and the last account I heard of her was, she

was travelling with an Ethiopian troop _alone_. Poor young creature!

what will be her end? The truth is, that after a girl is fifteen years

old, in this country, she considers herself a person of _sound

judgment_, and the parents look up to these sprites with a sort of

deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about

the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And

who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian

noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the

plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased in rubies

and diamonds, will only be rendered the more obvious and conspicuous to

those who at a glance can discover the difference--to those who cannot

be deceived, even by the radiant sparkling of these richest of gems."

This sort of women wish to have the "women's rights." They would like,

if they knew how, to turn the world upside down, and inside out. This

great desire among a certain class of women, to have the world think

that they possess masculine power, generally proceeds from persons who

wish to create a sensation, and fail to do so in the station they belong

to. When a woman wishes to go out of her natural element, she shows that

her intellect is shallow, and she is desirous of being thought greater

than her sex generally; while, in reality, she discovers to us her own

littleness. These people seem to wish to be what it is impossible for

them ever to become--"men."

"When God created man in his own image, He said, 'It is not good that

man should live alone: I will make him a helpmeet.' Now, had God meant

to create merely a companion capable of following the same pursuits, and

capable of the same herculean labors that evidently is meant to be man's

destiny, why, He would have made _another man_. But no! When God caused

a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, he took out one of his ribs, and made a

_woman_--a being in EVERY WAY THE COMPLEMENT OF MAN. And, after they ate

of the tree of knowledge, God said to the woman, 'Thy desire shall be to

thy husband, and he shall RULE _over thee_.' And unto Adam he said,

'Because thou hast _hearkened_ unto the voice of thy wife, and hast

eaten of the tree which I commanded thee, saying, _Thou shalt_ not eat

of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it

all the days of thy life;' thus plainly demonstrating to us, that MAN

was meant to _rule_. Bear in mind that God was _angry_ because Adam

HEARKENED unto the voice of his WIFE; and Adam called his wife Eve

because she was the mother of all living. So it is clear to be seen,

that woman was meant to attend to the duties of a mother in caring for

her offspring, and man was intended to labor as the provider for her

whom he chose as a helpmeet, as well as for the entire household. Woman

has natural nourishment sent to her for the babe long before she is able

to leave her couch. Does not all this prove to every thinking person

that woman's sphere and calling are _widely different_?"

The good and perfection of women consist in remaining contentedly in the

place which God has assigned them, and in performing well the duties of

their divine calling. If the hand wishes to be in the place of the eye,

and the eye wishes to be where the hand is, they become burdensome, and

disturb the good order and harmony of the body. Now it is the same with

the members of the social body. If women are in the place, or engaged in

the occupation which God has chosen for them, they enjoy a profound

peace; they rest under His protection; they are nourished by His grace;

they are enriched by His blessings, and work out their eternal happiness

with but little pain.

This truth, however, is considered by many women as one of trifling

importance; they seem not to care as to whether they live up to their

divine calling or not. The Holy Ghost, however, admonishes every one

thus: "Let every man abide in the vocation to which he was called" (1

Cor. vii. 20); for, "Blessed is the man that shall continue in

wisdom--and that considereth her ways in his heart."--(Eccles. xiv. 22,

23.) Blessed that woman who well considers her divine calling,

penetrates into, and admires its greatness, and endeavors, with all her

strength and heart, to comply with all its duties. One of the most usual

temptations which the arch-enemy of mankind makes use of to shake

women's happiness, in the present day, is to excite in them disgust and

dissatisfaction for their divine calling. Hence it is that we so often

hear them complain of their state of life; they fancy that, by changing

their condition of life, they shall fare better: yes, provided they

changed themselves. Would to God they were sworn enemies of these

useless, dangerous, and bad desires! God wills to speak to them amidst

the thorns, and out of the midst of the bush (Exod. iii. 2), and they

will Him to speak to them in "_the whistling of a gentle air_."--(III

Kings, xix. 12.) They ought, then, to remain on board the ship in which

they are, in order to cross from this life to the other; and they ought

to remain there willingly, and with affection. Let them not think of

anything else; let them not wish for that which they are not, but let

them earnestly desire to be the very best of what they are. Let them

endeavor to do their best to perfect themselves where they are, and bear

courageously all the crosses, light or heavy, that they may encounter.

Let them _believe that this is the leading principle, and yet the one

least understood in the Christian life_. Every one follows his own

taste; very few place their happiness in fulfilling their duty according

to the pleasure of our Lord. What is the use of building castles in

Spain, when we are obliged to live in America? "As a bird that wandereth

from her nest, so is a man that leaveth his place" (Prov. xxvii. 8), his

occupation, or station of life. Let every woman remain firm in her

calling, if she wishes to insure her tranquillity of mind, her peace of

heart, her temporal and eternal happiness.

To become unfaithful to their vocation is for women to suffer as many

pangs as a limb which, through some accident, has been wrenched out of

place. They are continually tormented by evil spirits, who have power

over a soul that is out of its proper sphere. They are no longer under

the protection of God, since they have withdrawn from His guidance, and

voluntarily abandoned His watchful Providence. They fall often into

grievous sins, because they are not sustained by the grace which belongs

to the state in which God desires them to be. A woman, therefore, can

never show her superior intellectual powers better than by cheerfully

accepting the calling for which the Creator evidently intended her; that

is, for _woman, wife, and mother_.

CHAPTER VIII.

EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM CONTINUED.

Few questions affect so directly the welfare and interests of the people

as the question of education; and assuredly, in this country, there is

none of more moment as regards the well-being and permanence of our

national institutions. These, our institutions, our prosperity and

civilization, depend for their permanence and perpetuity, not so much on

the culture of the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the

general diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.

History tells us in its every page, that the decline and downfall of

nations have ever been caused by irreligion and immorality.

Indeed, it is not the State that has made men free, nor can it, on its

own professed origin, keep _itself_ or _them_ free. It has no mission

to reform men or manners; its boasted material civilization is no

civilization at all. For steam, railroads, telegraphs, printing, and in

fact all the arts and natural sciences, have never civilized or

converted one man, not even a naked savage, and never will. They are the

results of civilization, and even then the least part. Nor are they

adequate to maintain or preserve the State. What is called _material

civilization_ is nothing else than _polished barbarism_,--a kind of

monster, with the intelligence of a man, and the cruelty and instincts

of a beast. It may flatter the vanity of modern nations to think they

are superior to the ancients in scientific and industrial developments,

but if they rely on this alone, they are greatly mistaken. I admit the

superiority of the moderns, but not on this account. In the first place,

many arts and products of head and hands have been lost, but even those

that remain are the envy and despair of modern competitors. Besides,

every age must be judged by comparison with its contemporaries. Yet they

have fallen; and antiquarian travellers search in vain for the ruins of

the proudest and greatest cities of the past. The nation and

people--the most gallant and accomplished of all antiquity--who engraved

their names on the imperishable fields of Plataea and Marathon, who

conquered at Salamis, or died at Thermopylae--that carried eloquence,

heroism, and art to a pitch never since attained--the age which boasted

of Pericles and Praxitelles, of Plato and Aristides--perished from

excess of its material civilization, deprived, as it was, of the vital

element of true religion. Without this no nation can live, nor exhibit

in its actions true grandeur, or nobility of character. There is among

such a cruelty, a perfidy, and a beastly lust, which sooner or later

bring on their decay and ruin.

Look at ancient Rome, the once proud mistress of the world. In her

palmiest days, amidst her thousands of marble palaces and triumphal

arches, amidst her innumerable temples and altars, there was _not one to

Mercy_. Nor was there, amidst all this barbaric display, a single

_hospital_ for the poor of any age or condition. The Roman eagle was

carried at the head of victorious legions to the "_Hither Inde_," and

far beyond the depths of "_Hercynian forests_." Conquered kings marched

at the head of subjugated nations to swell her triumphs; the wealth and

strength of the then known world lay at her feet.

Here was exhibited on a scale--the grandest the world ever saw or will

see--the triumphs of "_material civilization_." Yet all this crumbled

and fell before the rude hatchets of the long-haired "_barbarian

hordes_," coming they knew not from whence, and going they knew not

whither, only able to give the single answer, that they were "_the

scourge of God_." Where, then, was the power to save? It was not in

their material civilization, nor in their impotent and terrified

legions. What all these could not do was accomplished by an unarmed

man--Pope Leo the Great, speaking in the name of that mighty God,

unknown alike to Attila and to Roman wisdom. That God still reigns, and

Him it is the State would exclude from the Public Schools! thereby

denying alike the lessons of history and its Christian duty. These

United States, or no existing nation (relatively to the age), has never

attained the point of artistic, aesthetic, social or material perfection

of the Greco-Roman States; yet they fell, as I have just said, to

slavery and ruin, not so much from the blows of the barbarians, as from

the dissolving influence of a _material civilization_, resulting

inevitably in public and private impotence and demoralization.

Only keep up the present godless system of State education, and depend

on it, as sure as effect follows cause, every species of villany and

defilement will flood the land. It is certain that all education which

is not based on religion is heathenish, and must prove destructive in

the end. It will destroy the very people whom it was expected to save.

It will consume them as a fire.

Nor can it be otherwise; for what brought on the "Cities of the Plain"

the material fires of heaven? Or what were the sins and crimes of the

Gentile nations that called forth the terrible chastisements predicted

by the prophets? Why, the self-same pride, worldly-mindedness, ambition,

sensuality, and _disregard of God and His laws_ which is at this hour

taught in the Public Schools. This, I am aware, is a grave charge, but

it is made with all deliberation and sense of responsibility. Indeed,

the ancients were in many respects more excusable than we are. They had

but the Old Law, always incomplete and obscure, whilst we live under the

fulfilment of the new law, with all its aids and graces. Now, if God did

not spare the "Cities of the Plain," if He destroyed the ancient nations

in punishment for their wicked lives and disregard of Himself and His

law, what reason have our modern heathens and infidels to escape God's

vengeance--they who in every respect are more guilty in His sight? Let

the measure of the evil consequences of the Public School system become

full, and rest assured the wrath of God will not fail to come down upon

the American people. The late American war was a great punishment for

the whole country. Thousands of men were launched into eternity

unprepared to appear before their Eternal Judge. Yet this punishment is

only a forerunner of a far more terrible one. The Lord is patient, and

slow in punishing a whole nation, which He may spare for many years for

the sake of His just. Yet for all that He will not fail to punish

private families, fathers, and mothers, and children, if they have no

regard for Him and His law--if they are practical infidels, and give

themselves up to their beastly passions. Let me give you some

instances, taken from the little book "Fate of Infidelity," by a

Converted Infidel.

"You all have, undoubtedly, heard of Blind Palmer, a professed infidel.

After he had tried to lecture against Christ he lost his sight, and died

suddenly in Philadelphia, in the forty-second year of his age. You will

also have heard of the so-called Orange County Infidel Society. They

held, among other tenets, that it was right to indulge in

lasciviousness, and that it was right to regulate their conduct as their

propensities and appetites should dictate; and as these principles were

carried into practical operation by some families belonging to the

association, in one instance a son held criminal intercourse with his

mother, and publicly justified his conduct. The step-father, and husband

to the mother who thus debased herself, boldly avowed that, in his

opinion, it was morally right to hold such intercourse. The members of

this impious society were visited by God in a remarkable manner. They

all died, within five years, in some strange or unnatural manner. One of

these was seized with a sudden and violent illness, and in his agony

exclaimed: 'My bowels are on fire--die I must,' and his spirit passed

away.

"Dr. H., another of the party, was found dead in his bed the next

morning.

"D. D., a printer, fell in a fit and died immediately, and three others

were drowned within a few days.

"B. A., a lawyer, came to his death by starvation, and C. C., also

educated for the bar, and a man of superior intellectual endowments,

died of want, hunger, and filth.

"Another one, who had studied to be a preacher, suddenly disappeared,

but at length his remains were found fast in the ice, where he evidently

had been for a long time, as the fowls of the air, and the inhabitants

of the deep, had consumed the most of his flesh.

"Joshua Miller, notorious as a teacher of infidelity, was found upon a

stolen horse, and was shot by Col. J. Woodhull; N. Miller, his brother,

who was discovered one Sunday morning seated upon a log playing cards,

was also shot.

"Benjamin Kelly was shot off his horse by a boy, the son of one Clark,

who had been murdered by Kelly; his body remained upon the ground until

his flesh had been consumed by birds.

"I. Smith committed suicide by stabbing himself, while he was in prison

for crime.

"W. Smith was shot by B. Thorpe and others, for robbery.

"S. T. betrayed his own confidential friend for a few dollars; his

friend was hung, and he was afterwards shot by D. Lancaster.

"I. V. was shot by a company of militia. I. D., in a drunken fit, was

frozen to death.

"I. B., and I. Smith, and J. Vervellen, B. R., and one other individual,

were hung for heinous crimes they had committed. N. B., W. T., and W.

H., were drowned. C. C. hung himself. A. S. was struck with an axe, and

bled to death.

"F. S. fell from his horse and was killed. W. Clark drank himself to

death; he was eaten by the hogs before his bones were found, which were

recognized by his clothing. J. A., sen., died in the woods, his rum-jug

by his side; he was not found until a dog brought home one of his legs,

which was identified by his stocking; his bones had been picked by

animals.

"S. C. hung himself, and another destroyed himself by taking laudanum.

D. D. was hired for ten dollars to shoot a man, for which offence he

died upon the gallows.

"The most of those who survived were either sent to the State Prison, or

were publicly whipped for crimes committed against the peace and dignity

of the State."

This is a brief history of the Orange County "Liberals," as they called

themselves. To the infidel and evil-doer, it presents matter worthy of

serious reflection, while the believer will recognize in each event the

special judgment of God, which is too clearly indicated to be doubted by

any honest mind. I ask, will the Lord fail to visit with similar

judgments all those who are guilty of the same crimes? Will the Lord

fail to visit with similar judgments all those who, by keeping up and

defending a godless system of education, prepare the young for

infidelity, and all kinds of crimes and iniquities? If the Lord punished

so severely the King Antiochus for carrying away the sacred vessels from

the temple of Jerusalem; if He sent so many plagues upon the Egyptians,

and drowned, at last, the King Pharaoh and his whole army in the Red

Sea, for refusing to let the people of God offer sacrifices where and

in the manner the Lord desired it, what will be the punishments for

those who, by a godless system of education, abolish religion? If God

slew twenty-four thousand men of the Israelites for having fallen into

fornication (Numb. xxv.), with what punishments will He visit those who

add, to the sin of fornication and adultery, even the crime of

child-murder! Numberless child-murders are committed daily in the land.

Assuredly the voice of these innocent victims will cry to heaven for

vengeance, and the Lord will not deafen His ear to their voice. If the

American people will not soon put an end to the godless system of

education, if they permit any longer the rising generation to be raised

to infidelity, the wrath of the Lord, enkindled against them ever since

the introduction of the godless system of education, will fall upon

them. In former times, when the Lord threatened the people with His

chastisements, they entered into themselves, and did penance, because

they had faith, and the Lord was appeased. But our modern heathens laugh

at the very idea of doing penance. So the wrath of the Lord will surely

overtake them when they least expect it.

CHAPTER IX.

THE STATE.--ITS USURPATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.--ITS INCOMPETENCY

TO EDUCATE.

It is certain and undeniable that two orders of things actually exist in

this world, the natural order and the supernatural--nature and grace.

These two orders have the same ultimate end, though, in themselves, they

are distinct. Nature is, and must be, always subordinate to grace; the

natural must be always subservient to the supernatural. This is God's

immutable decree. Hence religion must always hold the first place in

everything. A system of education that places the natural and the

supernatural on the same level is absurd, and must be condemned; but a

system of education that ignores the supernatural altogether, is, if

possible, even more wicked and detestable. Yet this wicked, detestable,

irreligious system, diabolical in its origin, and subversive of all

political, social, and religious order, is imposed by the State upon all

Christian denominations, whether they approve of it or not. Now the

State has no right whatever to force such a godless system upon its

subjects.

For the right understanding of this most important point, I attach great

importance to a clear understanding of what is commonly called the

State.

_What is the State?_

People in general have a vague and confused conception of this matter.

You will hear the people talk of the "sovereignty of the State," "the

life of the State," "the power of the State," "the absolute authority of

the State," "the paramount allegiance due to the State," etc., etc. Not

only the Public at large, but even those who assume to lead and direct

public opinion, are constantly blundering on this subject.

There is nothing so _fertile_ as an idea; it will, like every other germ

or seed, bring forth in time according to its kind. If it be a good one,

it will bring forth good fruit; if it be a false or bad one, it will

spread its evil fruits over society. Be it one or the other, it is never

barren; sooner or later, the idea or maxim takes form and substance in

an _Institution_; then it operates, in a material manner, for good or

evil.

To illustrate: a false conception of the nature and authority, of the

legitimate functions, rights and duties of what is called the "State,"

has led, and will, if not corrected, ever lead to the most deplorable

political, social, and religious disorder and oppression. As diverging

lines in mathematics can never approximate, but must continue to widen

as they are extended, so a false departure from a political "standpoint"

can never be rectified unless by a return to correct first principles.

This is what is meant by the democratic maxim, "that a frequent return

to first principles is necessary to secure the ends of public liberty."

Indeed, this error, this diverging point in constitutional

interpretation, has been the real cause--the "causa causarum"--of the

late war; and not the "negro," or "cotton," or the "spirit of

domination," or "difference of race," or what not, might serve as the

"_proximate cause_," but the real cause lay far back of them. I am

willing to admit that political events do not always proceed on a

strictly logical order, but nevertheless there is a sequence, indeed an

inevitable chain of cause and effect in the progress of public affairs,

such as we see in individual conduct, but only on a broader scale.

Now what is the _civil power_, or _State_; what its origin, its

authority, its legitimate functions, its rights and duties? Here I must,

of necessity, be very brief. The State originated from the natural

desire which men experience to obtain certain goods, such as peace,

security of life and property, of personal rights and privileges, etc.,

etc. These are goods which neither individuals, nor families, nor

private corporations can procure for themselves satisfactorily. People

therefore unite to establish a State, in order to attain, through the

State, what they cannot do by their own private exertions. The State,

then, is made by the people and for the people. In our form of

government it is a mere corporate agency. Its duty is to see that

justice is administered, and personal rights and property protected. It

holds the sword of justice not for _itself_, but for _others_; it is the

_servant_, and not the _master_. The people were not made for the State,

or given to the State, but the State is posterior to the people; it was,

as I said before, established by the people and for the people. In

them, under God, resides the sovereignty and ultimate permanent

authority. The right of the State is to discharge the duties assigned it

within the sphere of its delegated authority--that is all.

That sphere of action of the State in this country is clearly defined in

the written Constitution. The State, then, must scrupulously abstain

from violating any of the rights it was organized to protect.

There never has been, and never will be, but two forms of

government--one seeking to restrain, the other to enlarge, the liberties

of the people. To the former belong the centralized and despotic

governments of the past and present; to the latter, the limited and

representative ones.

Russia, without doubt, is the highest type of that despotism so common

among Pagan nations. The Czar is the successor of the Gentile Caesar; he

unites in himself the civil and spiritual power; the inevitable result

is social oppression, denial of the rights of conscience, of the family,

and of the political society. Our government has already made gigantic

steps in the same direction. Many of the political minds of this country

have been drawn within the circle of _monarchial_ ideas. They are

unconsciously, as it were, adopting their forms of thought, and applying

their forms of expression to our government, and claiming for it the

prerogatives and supremacy appertaining to the feudal institutions of

Asia and Europe. Our simple democratic form of government seems to be

getting ashamed of its plebeian origin, and ambitious to ape the

language and pretensions of its former masters. This decadence was made

apparent not long ago, in the discussions "for the removal of the United

States Capitol." In a two-hours' discussion, the word "Republic," or

"Federal Government," or "United States," was not once mentioned!! It

was "_Nation_," "Empire," etc., etc., _usque ad nauseam_, from beginning

to end. To a reflecting mind, this language has an ominous significance.

It smacks strongly of monarchy.

But some one will perhaps say, "Sir, what has all this dissertation to

do with your subject? You commence by disclaiming against the _Public

School System_, and here you are giving a grave lecture on the nation

relapsing into imperialism or monarchy."

It has a great deal to do; it is an attempt to trace effects to their

causes. This government of ours, both in its Federal and State capacity,

is growing ambitious to play the _King_. It is setting itself up as

master. It is using the language of all tyrants: "_Sic volo, sic

jubeo_," etc., etc. It claims, after the example of Prussia or Russia,

or some other despotism, _to direct the education of the children_ of

the people. It even claims them as belonging to itself. It is the great

feudal master. It takes upon itself the old duty of providing

instruction for the sons and daughters of its dependents. It takes upon

itself the discharge of duties imposed on parents by Divine Law, just as

if fathers and mothers had lost their natural instincts as well as sense

of duty; just as if the State had all the intelligence, virtue, and

forethought of the public in her keeping. It dispenses parents from a

duty from which God will never dispense them. It has usurped the office

of teacher; it will, if not checked, set itself up as preacher. It makes

Sunday laws, temperance laws; it places marriage on the footing of

simple contracts, facilitates divorce; it is constantly, in all these

things and many others, repeating the "mot" ascribed to a King of

France: "_L'etat c'est moi_." In fine, it makes, as it has been aptly,

but not very reverently, said, God a little man, and itself and the

State a little god, not in love and charity, indeed, but in power and

authority.

Here is where the danger comes from, and it is against this that the

people must provide. The people must see to it that the State, or those

who are charged with its authority, keep within their proper place. The

people can never be too vigilant or jealous of their constituted

authority, never permit themselves to be the victims of misplaced

confidence. The State is not seldom the usurper--the rebel that should

be watched. The allegiance is not to it, but from it to the people--its

master. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

The people have been greatly deceived and wronged by the State on the

establishment of the Public School system. The better to understand

this, let us see again, in a few words, what are the _principles_ on

which the establishment of public schools is based. How did men arrive

at the idea that the State should be a school-master? If we consult

history, we shall find that this idea rests upon most objectionable

grounds. In Europe--in Protestant countries--the education of youth was

held to belong to the church. But as the Protestant prince was also the

chief bishop of his church, he had the care of schools, as well as the

administration of other religious matters. According to this principle

of the _State-church_, all the schools were _State-schools_. At the

present day, Protestant princes and princesses are not looked upon as

chief bishops, but the consequence of this objectionable system does

still remain, and has gained a foothold even in this free country.

The French Revolution, among other things, diffused communistic and

socialistic theories. Nay, communism and socialism seemed to have, for a

moment, the fullest sway in those revolutionary proceedings. It is from

such socialistic revolutionists that came the idea, or rather principle,

which was made a law, that the State should educate the children of its

subjects. Accordingly the school-system was arranged, which Napoleon I.

highly welcomed and retained, as he saw in it a welcome instrument of

his despotism. In fact, nothing pleases State-absolutism or despotism so

much as the complete control of education through the system of

State-schools. As the result of impartial history, then, we see that the

foundation of the State-school system is nothing else than the

objectionable Protestant State-church, and especially revolutionary

socialism.

But most absurd did the State-school system appear after it had been

transplanted into free America. Here this "State system of education"

was at first applied to the poor, and other unprovided-for "waifs of

society." But not long after, the State claimed to have a paramount

interest in the children of all classes; it made no distinction, it knew

not the rich from the poor, but opened its scholastic treasures alike,

and it was thought to be all right.

What an absurdity! The State, as I have remarked, must scrupulously

abstain from violating any of those rights which it was organized to

protect. It must not paralyze or take away the industry of the

individual, family, or private institutions by substituting for it its

own industry. The State should rather protect and promote the industry

of its subjects, as well as other rights and liberties. Let me speak

more plainly: the State, for instance, should protect trade, but it

should not be itself a tradesman; the State should encourage

agriculture, but it should not be itself a farmer; the State should

sustain honest handicraft, but it should not work at shoe-making or

tailoring, and bread-baking. So, in the same manner, the State should

promote and protect education, but it should not be itself a

school-master, and give instruction.

What a cry would be raised if the State erected State workshops, and

thereby ruined all other similar trades! Now the State does the same

thing, as far as possible, in regard to education. What an absurdity! In

our free country, State education has no more foundation in good sense

than the old sumptuary laws, that regulated the length of a boot or the

dimensions of a skirt.

If the State claims the right to educate our children, why does it not

just as well claim the right to nurse, feed, clothe, doctor, and lodge

them? Indeed these necessities are more indispensable, and must be

supplied to a considerable extent before education can be given at all.

Why should the State throw all these burdens on the parents, and assume

that of instruction? It cannot claim to know more of grammar than of

the art of nursing and cooking. It is even said that the tailor and

barber have more to do in fashioning the man than the school-master.

Again, how absurd is it not for the State to undertake to teach all

alike, without regard to their circumstances or prospects in life, the

same business. This scholastic equality soon ends, if it ever had a

reality. They cannot all expect to be Newtons, Humboldts, or La Places.

They cannot be all, nay, not one in ten thousand, "professors," or

"editors," or what not. We cannot, if we would, escape the sentence

imposed on our forefather in the garden: "Thou shalt eat thy bread in

the sweat of thy face." As well might the State claim that all the

children from seven to seventeen years of age should sit at the same

table, provided at public expense, and be served with the same food and

the same number of dishes. If the State (in order to prepare the rising

generation to make citizens, which must be its reason, if any) thinks it

necessary to prescribe a State education, it is equally important that

their food, and even their clothing, should be of the approved State

quality and pattern!!! All know that this was the old Lacaedemonian plan,

and how it ended history tells;--in ferocity, avarice, dishonesty and

disruption. All admit the folly and wickedness of forcing a people into

uniformity in matter of religion. Now it is just as unreasonable, just

as absurd, just as wicked to force the people into uniformity in the

matter of education. One species of tyranny as well as the other

disregards the just claims of conscience, tramples on the most vital

rights of individuals, and usurps the most sacred right of the family.

The State may, indeed, require that the children should be educated, in

order that they may one day become worthy members of society, and fit

subjects for the State; but claim, and give, and control their

education, the State cannot. There is in all this matter a feature not

always clearly represented. It is this: any provision made by the

"State" for education, must refer _to the poor and otherwise

unprovided_, and be justified on the grounds of the State standing to

these classes _in loco parentis_; beyond this, though the State, as to

"charitable uses," may be defined _parens patria_, yet, as to the people

at large, _it has nothing to do with their education whatever_. If this

simple though undeniable fact were properly understood, it would save a

world of trouble and confusion.

I am speaking of a "_Christian State_," and the State in America is

Christian. The very graves, if necessary, would open and give up their

dead to bear testimony to its Christian origin. Its civilization is

Christian, and is the product of the principles of the "_New Law_" as

taught and promulgated by the Church. The distinguishing feature of this

civilization is, that it has asserted the dignity of freedom of the

_individual man_, while the ancient, or Gentile, civilization, _sunk_

the _individual man_ in the composite society called the State. In that

case it was but reasonable that the _State_ should, _as owner_, take

upon itself the burden of providing, not only for his government, but

also for the education of his offspring. These, too, belonged to it, on

the maxim of Roman or Pagan law, that _partus sequitur ventrem_, or the

offspring follows the parent. This is the origin of the Pagan doctrine,

"_the children of the State_"--a miserable relic of barbarism. It is

important to keep this fact in mind, when we deny the _supremacy of the

State_ in the matter of education.

Our children, then, are not the _children of the State_. The State has

no children, and never had, nor will. The State does not own them, nor

their fathers nor mothers, nor anybody else in this country, thank God!

We have not got that far yet on the road to civil slavery, and I hope we

never shall. We are not Pagans, nor Mahometans, nor Russians. We have

not sold out, and don't intend to! We are free, for with a great price

our forefathers have bought this freedom; and better still, we are made,

through the mercy of our Divine Author, Christians, and heirs to a

heavenly kingdom. Our children, too, are free; they belong by the order

of nature to their parents, and by the order of grace to our Lord Jesus

Christ. They are children of God and heirs to His heavenly kingdom. It

is not on the State, but on parents, that God imposed the duty to

educate their children, a duty from which no State can dispense, nor can

fathers and mothers relieve themselves of this duty by the vicarious

assumption of the State. They have to give a severe account of their

children on the Day of Judgment, and they cannot allow any power to

disturb them in insisting upon their rights and making free use of them.

The State has no more authority or control rightfully over our

children, than over a man's wife. The right to educate our children is a

right of conscience, and a right of the family. Now these rights do not

belong to the temporal order at all; and outside of this the State has

no claim, no right, no authority. When the State has children, it will

be time enough to teach them. How long will it take our enlightened age

to learn this simple but important truth?

Nothing shows better the absurdity of the State in claiming the right of

education, than its incompetency for the task. The State is forbidden

any interference with religion.

I have shown that the whole system is infidel in principle. The State

says we want no religion taught in the Public Schools, because, as we

cannot teach you religion without inculcating some form or other

professed by some sect or other, and as we do not wish to give offence,

we will teach you none. Let the child believe anything or nothing, so as

it is not some form of "sectarianism." I worship in the "Pantheon;" all

are alike to me, of course. In all this the State is perfectly

consistent, and cannot do otherwise. It has undertaken a part _it is not

competent to perform_. The State, as State, professes no form of

belief. Its gods, its worships, its altars, its victims, its rewards,

its punishments, its heaven, its hell--are here. It teaches no religion,

because it don't profess any. It was not born, it will not die, it has

no soul, it was not created, it will not be judged in the world to come,

like men.

But let me not be misunderstood as concluding that states, nations, or

kingdoms are not moral persons, and are not responsible for their acts

and conduct to Almighty God. They have no right to do wrong more than an

individual. "States" have their lives, their mission, their destiny;

they have their sphere here below. They represent the temporal, or the

things which belong to Caesar.

The State, then, is a moral person, and _a fortiori_, a religious

person, _for there can be no morality without religion_. But though

religion, in a general sense, be recognized by the State, it has no

authority to control or direct it. It must respect the conscience of an

individual. This is his birthright, and cannot be voted away, whether to

support Public Schools or Public Churches.

If there be amongst us any number, great or small, who deny the common

faith, it is the duty of the State to tolerate them. A greater

power--God--does this. But the State itself cannot profess or _play

infidel_, or, under pretence of avoiding sectarian partiality, strike at

the root of all Christianity. I admit the State is of the "temporal

order," and cannot discriminate between the various modes of belief; but

not for that can it place itself _outside_ of them. It is

_distinguishable_, but not _separable_, from the spiritual order. It is

simply a means to a greater end. It is a mischievous error to say that

the State has nothing to do with religion, and may act outside of its

obligations. If by this it is meant that the State cannot establish or

maintain any special form of religion, or interfere with its profession,

or even denial by others, I admit the proposition; but if, on the other

hand, it is meant that it regards Christianity and infidelity, God or no

God, truth and error, either as equal or unimportant, then I utterly

deny and condemn it. To bear with and tolerate error is its duty; to

foster or provide for its support or propagation, or place it on the

same footing with revealed truth, is another and very different thing.

The constitutions of the State guarantee to every citizen the right to

worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; but this is

not guaranteeing to every one the liberty of not worshipping God at all,

to deny His existence, His revelation, or to worship a false god. The

freedom guaranteed is the freedom of religion, not the freedom of

infidelity. The American Constitution grants to the infidel the right of

protection in his civil and political equality, but it grants him no

right to protection and support in his infidelity; for infidelity is not

a religion, but the denial of all religion. The American State is

Christian, and under the Christian law, and is based upon Christian

principles. It is bound to protect and enforce Christian morals and its

laws, whether assailed by Mormonism, Spiritism, Freelovism, Pantheism,

or Atheism. But the State does the contrary. For, I ask, is not the

State indirectly prohibiting the profession of Christianity by

establishing a system of education which prohibits all religious

instruction? The State forbids the teacher to speak a word on the

subject of religion.

The State says that "it is an admitted axiom that our form of

government, more than all others, depends on the _virtue and

intelligence of the people_. The State proposes to furnish this _virtue_

and _intelligence_ through the _Public Schools_." That is, the safety of

the State depends on the virtue and intelligence of the people, and the

latter is derived from the virtue and intelligence of the "State." But

where does the virtue and intelligence of the State come from? The only

answer on this theory is, from the people. So the "State" enlightens and

purifies the people, and the people enlighten and purify the "State."

The people support the State, the State supports the Public Schools, and

they support the State. If this is not what logicians call a "vicious

circle," it looks very much like it. It puts me in mind of the Brahmin's

theory of the support of the earth. The Hindoo says, "The world rests on

the back of an elephant--the elephant rests on the back of a turtle."

But what does the turtle rest on? So it is with our "_Public School

Brahmins_." They will tell you, with all the coolness of Hindoo

hypocrisy and pretension, that the "State depends on the schools--the

schools on the State or people," but they do not say what the turtle

stands on. This is the dilemma that all who rest society on the State,

or on an atheistical basis, get into. They would cut the world loose

from its assigned order of dependence on Divine Law, and "set it a-going

on its own hook." But the trouble is, they have no support for this

turtle; they have an earth without axis. The Public School savans would

have a self-supporting, a self-adjusting, and a self-created State,

balanced on nothing, resting on nothing, responsible to nothing, and

believing in nothing but in its own perfection and immortality. They

pretend, "through godless schools," to give virtue without morality,

morality without religion, and religion without God; thereby sinking

below the level of the poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in the

clouds, and hears Him in the wind.

The nameless abominations of the Communists, Fourrierists, and other

such vile and degraded fraternities; the cold-blooded murders and

frightful suicides that fill so many domestic hearths with grief and

shame; the scarcely-concealed corruption of public and professional men;

the adroit peculation and wilful embezzlement of the public money; those

monopolizing speculations and voluntary insolvencies so ruinous to the

community at large; and, above all, those shocking atrocities so common

in our country of unbelief--the legal dissolution of the matrimonial

tie, and the wanton tampering with life in its very bud; all these are

humiliating facts sufficient to convince any impartial mind that there

can be no social virtue, no morality, no true and lasting greatness,

without religion.

"Religion," says Lord Derby, "is not a thing apart from education, but

is interwoven with its whole system; it is a principle which controls

and regulates the whole mind and happiness of the people." And, "Popular

education," says Guizot, "to be truly good and socially useful, must be

fundamentally religious."

The essential element of education--its pith and marrow, so to speak--is

the religious element. By excluding it from the school-room the State

has committed a crying injustice to the rising generation, and one of

the worst--if not the very worst--of crimes against society. It is not

one portion of the "triple man," but the whole--the physical,

intellectual, and moral being--the body, the mind, the head, as stated

in a previous chapter--that must be cultivated and "brought up."

Neglect any one part of man's nature, and you at once disturb the

equilibrium of the whole, and produce disorder; educate the body at the

expense of the mind and soul, and you will have only animated clay;

educate the intelligence at the expense of the moral and religious

feelings, and you but fearfully increase a man's power to effect evil.

You store the arsenal of his mind with weapons to sap alike the altar

and the throne, to carry on a war of extermination against every holy

principle, against the welfare and the very existence of society.

Science, without religion, is more destructive than the sword in the

hands of unprincipled men; it will prove more of a demon than a god. It

is these upholders of the present Public School system that arrest the

progress of true happiness in our country, and prepare terrible

catastrophes, which may deluge the land with blood.

Who were the leaders in the work of destruction and wholesale butchery

in the Reign of Terror? The nurslings of lyceums in which the chaotic

principles of the "philosophers" were proclaimed as _oracles of truth_.

Who are those turbulent revolutionists who now long to erect the

guillotine by the Tuilleries? And who are those secret conspirators and

their myrmidon partisans who have sworn to unify Italy or lay it in

ruins? Men who were taught to scout the idea of a God and rail at

religion, to consider Christianity as a thing of the past; men who revel

in wild chimeras by night, and seek to realize their mad dreams by day.

Let us, then, dear American fellow-citizens, rest assured that

intellectual discipline, without the cooeperation of any religious

element, will not, and cannot, produce the greatness of a nation, nor

can it maintain its life and splendor and prevent its decay; let us, on

the contrary, be persuaded that the only safety for a commonwealth, the

only source of greatness and prosperity for a nation, as well as of

tranquillity and happiness for the individual, is the true religion of

Jesus Christ; it is this religion alone that is the safeguard of

morality, and morality is the best security of law, as well as the

surest pledge of freedom.

CHAPTER X.

THE STATE A ROBBER.--VIOLATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND COMMON LAW.

We have seen, so far, that the irreligious, godless system of the Public

Schools tends directly to turn the youth of both sexes into the worst

kind of infidels; to make them disregard good principles, and hold

iniquity in veneration; to do away, not only with all revealed religion,

but even with the law of nature; to make them practise fraud, theft, and

robbery almost as a common trade; to make them regardless of their

parents and of all divinely constituted authority; we have seen that

this godless system of education is the most powerful means to create

confusion, not only in religion, but also in government and in the

family circle; to increase the number of apostates, and make of these

apostates members of such secret societies as aim at the overthrow of

governments and all good order, and Christian religion itself.

Truly, this godless system of education, if carried out to its logical

consequences, will disrupt society, destroy the right of the Christian

family entirely, bring back on the world the barbarism, tyranny and

brutality of Pagan antiquity, and make slaves and victims of its

children and their posterity forever!

Who does not feel most indignant at the State for having introduced such

a godless system of education? And for the support of this system of

education--of this _prolific mother of children of anti-Christ_--we are

enormously tithed and taxed! Horrible!

I have shown that the State in America is Christian; that it cannot

profess or play infidel. What right, then, has a Christian State to

compel Christians to support infidel schools? Is not this compulsory

support most violative of constitutional and religious rights? According

to the Constitution of the State, "no human authority can control or

interfere with the rights of conscience." Now, the direction and control

of the education of our children is clearly not only a duty, but a

"right of conscience." This right, of course, belongs to all

denominations, whether few or many. By what authority, then, does the

State impose _an established system_ of education at our expense against

this constitutionally guaranteed right of conscience? I would like to

know wherein this differs from an established church, such as has been

lately removed, after having been imposed for centuries by State

supremacy on the Irish people, without their consent.

_It is, in fact, much worse_; for though the Episcopal Church was not in

accordance with the religious belief of a majority, yet it was,

nevertheless, a Christian Church of a sect of high orthodox pretensions.

But these "_Public Schools_," for whose support we and all other

Christian denominations are taxed, are, by their own confession, utterly

_irreligious_. The early Christians refused to burn even a little

gum-rosin (incense) before the Pagan idols, and preferred rather to go

to the lions; but we Christians, in this late day, and in what is

boastingly called "Free America," are forced to pay taxes to support

what is worse than heathen idols--schools from which the name of God is

excluded, and, to our shame, we submit.

Referring to the wrong done to Catholics who cannot, in conscience, send

their children to these schools, Judge Taft, of Ohio, said not long ago:

"This is too large a circumstance to be covered by the Latin phrase, 'De

minimis non curat lex.' These Catholics (paying their proportion of the

taxes) are constrained, every year, on conscientious grounds, to yield

to others their right to one-third of the school-money, a sum averaging,

at the present time, about $200,000 every year. That is to say, these

people are _punished_ every year, for believing as they do, to the

extent of $200,000; and to that extent those of us who send our children

to these excellent common schools _become beneficiaries of the Catholic

money_. What a shame for Protestants to have their children educated for

money robbed from Catholics! Mercantile life is supposed to cultivate,

in some, a relish for hard bargains. But if it were a business matter,

and not a matter of religious concern, could business men be found

willing to exact such a pecuniary advantage as this? I think it would

shock the secular conscience!"

The State, in creating _free schools_, is like the Turkish Bashaw's mode

of making pork cheap. He first compelled the Jews to buy it at a rate

fixed by himself; but the Jews had no use for it, so it was left for

every one to pick up at will. Indeed, what is a school worth when a man

will pay a premium to be exempt from sending his children to it? The

State, boasting of its splendid Public Schools, is also like that poor

fellow who wore a gold watch and boasted of it. "Where did you get it?"

he was asked. "I got it as a present," he answered. Then he related how

one day he met with a rich man: "I knocked him down," he said, "put my

foot on his throat, and said: 'Give me your watch, or I kill you.' So he

gave it to me." "Pay your taxes for the erection and support of our

Public Schools," says the lord State to the poor and to the rich, "or I

sell your property." What a shame! The Catholics ask no favor, but they

insist on their rights. In this country, whose discoverer was a

Catholic--in this country, where the principle of religious toleration

was first established by a Catholic nobleman, the famous and chivalric

Calvert, Earl of Baltimore--in this country, whose people are largely

indebted for their freedom to the armed cooeperation and generous aid of

Catholic France--in this country, whose constitutional freedom has been

struck down by the malevolent Puritanism _which in one breath declares

that Catholics are opposed to education, and in the next insists that

they shall be deprived of the means necessary for its maintenance_--in

this country, I say, we Catholics are entitled to equal rights, and to a

fair share, to a just apportionment of the annual amount raised by

taxation for the support of our charitable and educational institutions.

We ask only what is fair, what is just, what is right; and we base our

demand upon principle, and not upon the ground of favors granted or

received.

If the State taxes us, as a religious and Christian people, for the

education of our children, it must give us a Christian education. If it

cannot, or will not do that, it must cease to tax us, and leave the

education of our children to ourselves. If the Christian gives to Caesar

what belongs to Caesar, he has a right to demand of Caesar that he allow

him to give to God what belongs to God.

Again, the Constitution says, "That no person shall be compelled to

erect, support, or attend any place of public worship, nor support any

minister of the gospel, or teacher of religion," etc.; and it says,

"That no private property ought to be taken or applied to public use

without just compensation." Now let us apply these constitutional

principles to State-schools, and see if our compulsory support of them

is not violative of our constitution as well as common law. Why is it

"that no person shall be compelled to erect, support, or attend any

place of public worship, nor support any minister of religion"? Simply

because he "don't want to"; and he don't want to, "because it is against

his conscience"; and "no human authority," says the Constitution, "can

control or interfere with the rights of conscience"; that is all the

reason, and no other. The State believes that all places of worship, and

ministers of the gospel, are good; but, knowing that there is a

difference of opinion among the people on that subject, wisely leaves

such matters to their choice, and will not take private property for

public use without compensation. Why, then, is private property taken

for Public Schools without compensation? We cannot use them in

conscience, and we have seen there is no lawful power or authority to

"control or interfere with conscience." I ask, then, if I am not right

in stating that our compulsory support of an odious and infidel system

of Public Schools, against our conscience and against our consent, is

not far worse than the support of any form of church establishment?

Moreover, according to the Constitution, "No preference can ever be

given by law to any church, sect, or mode of worship." This section is

often quoted as the authority and reason for excluding religious

teachings from the Public Schools; but, strange enough, it is flagrantly

violated by the present system, giving a _preference by law_ to the

_unbelievers_, and thereby discriminating against the believers of all

sects and denominations. For, after all, there can be but two churches,

or, if you please, sects, in the eye of the State--the believers and

unbelievers. To the former belong the various Christian denominations,

and to the latter those who deny and _protest_ against all religious

faith and belief. Those certainly are the last, and for that reason, if

for no other, are the _best or worst_ (as people may choose to view

them) sect. It is, then, this last product, this "_caput mortuum_" of

all sects and believers of every shade and kind, that is favored by the

no-belief system of education.

"Though the State may not give any preference to any church or sect," it

is not, on that account, authorized to ignore and reject all; but, on

the contrary, is obliged in justice to assist all or none, as, by this

course alone, it avoids giving preference to any. This is what the law

contemplates, and the only course that comports with reason and justice.

If it suits the _last sect_--the _unbelievers or no-believers_--to

exclude morals or religion from schools, all right; let them keep on as

at present. But if it suits the various other churches or sects to

modify the system to suit their conscientious views and beliefs, to

apply their own proportion of the school tax for that purpose, it is

their undeniable and lawful right.

There is one view in which the public will agree in regard to the Public

Schools: it is that they cost too much money. For the management of the

godless Public Schools there is a costly array of "Commissioners," and

"Inspectors," and "Trustees," and "Superintendents," and "Secretaries of

Boards," and "Central Officers," all in league with "Contractors," to

make "a good thing"--so-called--out of the plan. We have, now,

contractors for buildings and repairs, contractors for furniture,

contractors for books, contractors for furnaces, contractors for fuel,

contractors even for pianos, and all making money out of it. The

"Boards" that give the contracts do not make any money by way of

commissions, do they? Ah! you know full well that hundreds of thousands

of dollars are annually spent or squandered in running these Public

Schools, and which are recommended, in a particular manner, for their

_economy_!

But aside, for a moment, from these _Public Schools_, so numerous, so

costly, so grand and imposing in their exterior, managed by a little

army of high-paid professors, teachers, superintendents and assistants,

costing the people of every city and State hundreds of thousands of

dollars annually, there is another army, yea, a volunteer army, not

commissioned or paid by the State, but by a greater power--God--who, for

His love, and that uncomparable reward which only God bestows, devote

themselves to teaching, instructing, training and educating the poor,

the needy, the orphan, the houseless, the homeless, the forlorn, the

despised, as well as the more favored of the earth. These make no

grandiloquent printed reports in costly binding; they have no official

stenographers or reporters to noise their proceedings in "morning

papers"; they have no "Polytechnic Halls," fitted up with pretentious

libraries, and all the surroundings of upholstery, and heating and

cooling apparatus; but winter and summer, early and late, they keep the

even tenor of their way with an "_eye single_" to their humble and

laborious duties.

In nearly all the cities of America, in those busy and worldly centres

of traffic and trade, of luxury and wealth, with their average of good

and evil, virtue and crime, this "_volunteer army_" distributes itself

noiselessly, quietly, and as it were obscurely, not heralded nor

preceded by the emblems of pomp or worldly power, but nevertheless

making its conquests and asserting its quiet influence in lanes and

alleys, gathering up the little children, taking them to its camps, and

instructing and educating them in the service of God and society.

You may have seen, in some of those cities, that long line of little

boys or girls, two by two, extending to the length of a block or more;

you may have observed how regularly they are assorted, the tallest in

first, and ranging down to the little ones, whose busy feet are trying

to keep up with the column. You may also have noted the order and

silence (so unusual among children), and your attention was arrested,

and perhaps you know not how all this order in this beautiful panorama

was brought about. Well, with these boys you may have observed two men,

one at the head, the other at the foot of this long line. If you saw

this for the first time you may have wondered, and I suppose been even

amused, at the figure and costume of those men;--the broad-brimmed hat,

the long, strange-fashioned robe, the white collar, the collected air

and mien, all bespeak the _Christian Brother_. These men, nevertheless,

are "profoundly learned in all the sciences of the schools." They have

abandoned home, family, friends, and have devoted themselves, merely for

a scant support, to the education of the young.

If, on the other hand, the long line are girls, you may have observed

two ladies; one at the head, the other at the foot. You will at a glance

conclude they are not of the world. Their costume is of the homeliest

cut and quality, but scrupulously clean; there is a something about

their very presence that impresses you with reverence and respect, and

you must be a very hardened sinner indeed if you did not feel the better

of having even their shadow fall upon you. These silent, collected, but

impressive women are "_Nuns_" of one order or another. They, too, have

left all to serve God in the persons of these little children. They have

made sacrifices greater than the world can appreciate or understand, and

which only the Divine Master can reward. Their whole life is a silent

but an eloquent sermon, their whole conduct the gospel in action. You

will remember they are women like others of their sex, and mayhap have

been flattered and petted, and once filled with the natural vanity and

expectations of their sex; but all these they have put _behind_ them,

and henceforth and forever their walk, and life, and conversation is

with God, and in the service of His little ones. Now it will be easily

seen that the personal influence of such men and women over the life and

manners of children, must be immensely beneficial. It is granted that

the influence of father and mother is potential for good or evil. So it

is with teachers. Children are shrewd observers, and are apt to take

some one as a prototype and exemplar. This one they copy as near as may

be. These "Christian Brothers," and "Nuns, or Sisters," are good models;

they teach the children to pray in the best of all ways--by praying

themselves first; they try to impress on these tender souls sentiments

of love, obedience, and respect to their fathers and mothers, and, above

all, their duties to our dear Lord. They accompany them to His altar on

Sundays and holy days, beginning and ending all their daily lessons with

a little prayer or devotion. For the rest, they give them, in their

schools, a plain, practical education.

Every day (we are told) there are instances of men slipping from the

high rounds to the lowest one in the ladder of wealth. Business men find

themselves engulphed in the sea of financial embarrassment, from which

they emerge with nothing but their personal resources to depend upon for

a living. Clerks, salesmen, and others find themselves thrown out of

employment, with no prospect of speedily obtaining places which they are

competent to fill, and with no other means of gaining a livelihood. How

many men are there in every city to-day, some of whom have families

dependent on them for support, who bewail the mistake they made in not

learning useful trades in their younger days? There are hundreds of

them. There are men in every city who have seen better days, men of

education and business ability, who envy the mechanic, who has a sure

support for himself and family in his handicraft. Parents make a great

mistake when they impose upon the brain of their boy the task of

supporting him, without preparing his hands for emergencies.

No matter how favorable a boy's circumstances may be, he should enter

the battle of life as every prudent general enters the battle of armies:

with a reliable reserve to fall back upon in case of disaster. Every man

is liable to be reduced to the lowest pecuniary point at some stage of

his life, and it is hardly necessary to refer to the large proportion of

men who reach that point. No man is poor who is the master of a trade.

It is a kind of capital that defies the storm of financial reverse, and

that clings to a man when all else has been swept away. It consoles him,

in the hour of adversity, with the assurance that, let whatever may

befall him, he need have no fear for the support of himself and his

family.

Unfortunately a silly notion--the offspring of a sham aristocracy--has,

of late years, led many parents to regard a trade as something

disreputable, with which their children should not be tainted. Labor

disreputable! What would the world be without it? It is the very power

that moves the world. A Power higher than the throne of the aristocracy

has ennobled labor, and he who would disparage it must set himself above

the Divine principle, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!" A

trade is a "friend in need"; it is independence and wealth--a rich

legacy which the poorest father may give to his son, and which the

richest should regard as more valuable than gold.

Now what kind of education is necessary for a tradesman to carry on

business successfully? Only a plain, practical education; that is to

say, that kind and amount of knowledge of daily ordinary use and

appreciation. It is reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and

geography, and possibly a knowledge of the German language, sufficient

to speak it.

If we look around we will see that all the important and every-day

duties of life are carried on by the use of industry, common sense,

reading, writing, and arithmetic.

And it might almost be said that the failures are to be ascribed, in

part, if not to over-education, at least to the common misdirection of

acquirements, accompanied with the vague ambition and desires which they

invariably excite, but rarely serve to satisfy. Why, I could find, for

instance, in the history, management, and success of every newspaper

editor, a living proof of my proposition. Not that I leave it to be

inferred that there is not, in these newspapers, the evidences of every

kind of acquirements and ability; but that the founders within my

knowledge, and those who have made it the _power_ and _success_ that it

is, have worked with these ordinary instruments. But why give one

instance when there are so many on every side--so much so that the

success of what is called the learned class is so rare, that it must be

put among the exceptions.

As to those who are able, and desire further information, they can have

it to any extent at the colleges, convents, academies and higher

schools.

Many of our "dissenting brethren," of the various denominations, are

equally diligent, according to the measure of grace and light given

them, to bring their children up in Christian morals and education. They

have their own schools, and support them, or they send their children to

Catholic institutions, and will not have them tempted or corrupted by

the evil influences, moral, social, and intellectual, that emanate and

surround those "_whited sepulchres_"--the godless schools--as the miasm

emanates and surrounds the pestilent marsh. In all these schools the

children are carefully trained in Christian practices, prayers, and

religious duties, as well as taught a good, plain, practical course of

studies. In fact, they are truly _educated_; while in the Public Schools

they are simply instructed, as you might irrational animals, according

to their instinct. The Jews also teach and bring up their children in

the religion of their fathers, at their own expense; so that more than

one-half are, fortunately for themselves, and fortunately for society,

the good order and well-being of the State, educated outside of immoral

and dangerous pest-houses. It is on this element of our population that

the future of the State depends; for if we are to have a sound public

conscience and a controlling conservative influence in public or private

affairs, we must, under God and His Church, obtain it from a true

Christian education.

At these parish schools, supported by voluntary aid, the expenses of

pupils per year is under seven dollars; at the Public Schools, it is, I

am informed, about thirty-two dollars; so that it costs about four times

as much to give the poor, miserable, shallow, infidel instruction in the

Public Schools, as it does to give a good Christian education in the

denominational ones; or, in plainer language, to educate 20,000 children

in denominational schools saves to tax-payers not less than the _small

sum_! of $500,000.

"If thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from thee;

for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish,

rather than thy whole body be cast into hell."--(Matt. v. 30.) By the

present Public School system, the State scandalizes the family, because

it usurps the rights and duties that belong alone to parents; it

scandalizes the tax-payer, because it takes money from him which it has

no right to take; it scandalizes society, because, instead of teaching

virtue, it teaches vice; it scandalizes the young men and the young

women, because, instead of inspiring them with love for Christianity and

their religious duties, it inspires them rather with contempt for

religion, and turns them into actual unbelievers, and thus destroys the

very life of society and the basis of every government; it scandalizes

all nations, because there is not, and there has never been, any nation

inculcating education without religion.

By its present system of education, the State has weakened, and will

finally break up and destroy, the Christian family. The social unit is

the family, not the individual; and the greatest danger to American

society is, that we are rapidly becoming a nation of isolated

individuals, without family ties or affections. The family has already

been much weakened, and is fast disappearing. We have broken away from

the old homestead, have lost the restraining and purifying associations

that gathered round it, and live away from home in hotels and

boarding-houses. A large and influential class of women not only

neglect, but disdain, the retired and simple domestic virtues, and scorn

to be tied down to the modest but essential duties--the drudgery, they

call it--of wives and mothers. We are daily losing the faith, the

virtues, the habits, and the manners, without which the family cannot be

sustained. This, coupled with the separate pecuniary interests of

husband and wife secured, make the family, to a fearful extent, the mere

shadow of what it was and of what it should be. What remains of the

family is only held together by the graces and virtue of women. But even

this last hope is fast breaking down, by the great facility of obtaining

a divorce _a vinculo matrimonii_--a facility by which the laws of most

of the States of the Union grant to lust the widest margin of license,

and legalize concubinage and adultery. Now when the family goes, the

nation goes too, or ceases to be worth preserving. God made the family

the type and basis of society; "male and female made he them."

By its present system of education, the State makes war on God and His

Christ, and says, with Lucifer, "Non servio"; and this is the daring

rebel against God and His law, that would claim the innocent children

of the Christian family as its own; teach them its false maxims,

promising them, as Satan, its master, did the Saviour, riches, and

honors, and power, if they will but fall down and worship it. How

incomprehensibly strange it is, that good men and women who profess

Christianity, and acknowledge the obligations of its commandments,

should give ear to this tempter, instead of saying, "Get behind me,

Satan," and, "Thou art a liar and a cheat from the beginning." The

State, in this subject of education, represents the world; and religion,

as well as experience, teaches us its folly, its wickedness, its

treachery and its ambition. "The State promises bread and gives a

stone." It promises wealth, and honor, and gives taxes, slavery, and

degradation. It is blind, and it attempts to lead; it is ignorant, and

it offers to teach and direct the young. It will not receive the law,

and it claims the right to give it. It arrogates the "_higher law_," and

"_would be as God_." There is the danger; and it is against this the

fight must be made, if we would not surrender our civil and religious

freedom, our temporal and eternal happiness.

Surely it is time for all good Christians of America to cry out to our

rulers, "And now, O ye rulers, understand; receive instruction, you that

judge the earth."--(Ps. ii. x.) Do not force any longer upon a Christian

nation an educational system which produces such results; do not train

any longer our children without religion--to infidelity, and

consequently to revolution. Do not teach the youth of America any longer

to reject God and His religion; they will not be long faithful to you if

you make them unfaithful to the faith of their fathers. You, and all the

classes in society who delight in seeing the influence of religion

weakened or destroyed, never seem to realize, until it is too late, that

you are sure to be the especial victims of your own success. The man who

scorns to love God and His law, how shall he continue to love his

neighbor? The man who has said "there is no God," is he not on the point

of also saying "lust is lawful," "property is robbery"? If you raise

instruments to deny God and to do away with all religious principles,

God will use these very instruments to do away with you also.

Your Pagan system of education will ultimately overturn all order in

the land. Among ancient Pagan nations, where the poor were comparatively

ignorant--where they did not know their rights--it was easy to hold them

in bondage; but now things have changed. Discontent in the lower order

of society can no longer be smothered. Education has become general;

and, unfortunately, the very element, without which education is often a

curse, is omitted. Religious education has been separated from secular

instruction. Without religion, the poor are unable to control their

passions, or to bear their hard lot. They see wealth around them, and,

unless taught by religion, they see no reason why that wealth should not

be divided amongst them. Why should they starve, while their neighbors

roll in splendor and luxury? If the poor were ignorant, they would not,

perhaps, notice all the sad privations of their state; they would not,

perhaps, feel them so keenly. But they are partially educated, and "a

little learning is a dangerous thing."

They know their power, and, not having the soothing influence of

religion to restrain them, they use their power. They have done so in

France and elsewhere, and if they do not always succeed in producing

revolution, and anarchy, it is only the bayonet that prevents them. Such

is the abyss that yawns beneath the feet of our country, and into which

the advocates of _education without religion_--perhaps some of them

unconsciously--seek to precipitate us, by continuing to force upon this

Christian nation an anti-Christian, an anti-American system of

education.

Surely the grievance is not simply an affair of taxes, or so much money

unjustly levied and collected. This we might bear, as we have to do in

other cases of injustice, for righteousness' sake. But we have a duty to

God, ourselves, and our children. We recognize the office and

obligations of the State as _temporal ruler_, but we do not acknowledge

in it an absolute and _unconditional_ authority. We do not admit the

doctrine of _passive obedience_. We will not and cannot surrender the

education of our children to its dictation and control, for that is a

trust placed in our hands by a higher power, and for which we will have

to answer, at the last day, on our salvation. I ask--am I right in all

that I have said upon the State and its godless system of education? If

I am, then I think I have a right to ask for a verdict of "Guilty." If

there are still some who cannot see that I am right, then let them,

without delay, be operated upon for _amaurosis_. But then, in God's

name, is it not high time to inquire what should be done to correct the

system, and stop the torrent of its evil influences? This is a great

question; it demands a speedy and satisfactory solution. The interests

it involves are commensurate with time and eternity.

CHAPTER XI.

REMEDY FOR THE DIABOLICAL SPIRIT AND THE CRIMES IN OUR COUNTRY.

Men look around, and ask, Where is the remedy for the so wide-spread

corruption of all classes of society? This is a most important question.

It is not difficult for a Christian to answer it. A skilful physician,

who wishes to cure his patient, endeavors first to remove the cause of

the disease. So, in like manner, if we wish to stem the torrent of the

evils that flood the land, we must stop the source from which they flow.