A mother's love is proverbial. Indeed, there is no love so pure and so thoroughly disinterested as the love of a good mother for her child. Her love knows no change; brothers and sisters have forgotten each other; fathers have proved unforgiving to their children; husbands have been false to their wives, and wives to their husbands, and children too often forget their parents; but you rarely hear of a mother forgetting even her ungrateful, disobedient children, whose actions have lacerated her heart, and caused dark shadows to glide before her eyes, and enter her very soul. Still there are moments when her faithful heart yearns towards them; there are moments when the reminiscences of the happy past obliterate the present sorrow, and the poor wounded spirit is cheered for a while, because there is still one of the fibres of the root of hope left in her forlorn breast, and a languid smile will flit over her wan and prematurely faded face. Yes, she forgives, though there is no River Lethe for her to drink from in this life; showing that her love is the most pure in this world, and the nearest approach to the love that God has so graciously bestowed upon her.

Some years ago a vessel sailed from the coast of Ireland. It was filled with passengers who were coming to this country to better their future. The vessel set sail with a favorable wind. The sky was clear, and the sun shone gayly upon the sparkling sea. But suddenly the heavens grew dark. A fierce storm arose. The winds howled madly around the vessel. The ship was hurried on—on, till it was dashed against the rocks. The wild, surging waves dashed over it. The vessel split in twain. Part remained hanging amid the rocks, and the rest sank, with those on board, beneath the waves, far down into the depth of the sea. The storm continued to rage for several days. At last, when the wind had died away, some hardy fishermen, who lived on the coast, took a skiff and rowed out to the wreck. They entered the part of the vessel that remained hanging amid the rocks. They broke open the cabin door. They heard distinctly the feeble wail of a child. They rushed in. They found a little babe lying upon the breast of its dead mother. The child was eagerly sucking the blood which oozed from a large wound in its mother's breast. The mother had died of cold and hunger; but, even amid her fearful sufferings, she did not forget her child. She took a sharp knife, and, with the wonderful love of a mother's heart, she made a deep gash in her breast, in order that her child might preserve its life by drinking her own heart's blood!

And when the darling child of the Christian mother is on the point of death, ah! how tender is not her prayer to the Author of Life that He spare the child.

"Oh, God of mercy," she prays, "spare my child! Heaven is already full of light and gladness. Do not then take to heaven the light and joy of my heart. Thou art ever happy, O my God! do not then deprive me of my only happiness. God of compassion, O leave me the sweet babe whom Thou hast given me! my love, and all my happiness, is centred in him. Since he has come to me, the earth, and sea, and sky, the whole world around has grown doubly beautiful. The air seems filled with light, and song, and sweetness. Ah, do not take my child away, for when his tender body lies beneath the sod, my heart and life shall lie there with it, and this whole world shall grow dark and dreary as one vast gloomy graveyard. O God! remember I am yet so young. I am not used to tears. Deal gently with my poor weak heart! I have never yet known what it is to lose a friend, a relative, or beloved one. O God! shall, then, the first that teaches me the dread meaning of grave and shroud be my own, my first-born child? O Jesus, I conjure Thee, by Thy wounded Heart—wounded for love of me—do not crush my tender heart, for Thou hast made it tender. Thou hast made me a mother; oh, spare my darling child!"

Ah! who can measure the depth of the wonderful love of a mother's heart! But this natural love of a mother for her offspring, in order to be persevering and untiring, must be cultivated—must be ennobled and supernaturalized by religious education; otherwise this love will decrease, and be lost in the end, and with the loss of this love the Christian woman has lost her divine calling. Now as no religious education is imparted to the girls in the Public Schools, can we wonder to see thousands and thousands of them who have lost their divine calling—can we wonder that we hear of a countless number of unnatural crimes, committed under the veil of marriage, that are becoming so common at the present day? Dr. Storer, of Massachusetts, declares that increase of children in Massachusetts is limited almost wholly to the foreign population. Mr. Warren Johnson, State Superintendent of Common Schools in Maine, reports to the Legislature a decrease of 16,683, between the ages of four and twenty-one years, from the census of 1858. Total decrease from maximum of 1860 is nearly 20,000. Mr. Johnson asks: "Are the modern fashionable criminalities of infanticide creeping into our State community?" Dr. H. R. Storer, of Massachusetts, in 1859, declared that forced abortions in America were of frequent occurrence, and that this frequency was increasing so, that from 1 in 1,633 of the population in 1805, it had risen to 1 in 340 in 1849; and Dr. Kyle, of Xenia, Ohio, asserted that abortions occurred most frequently among those who are known as the better class; among church members, and those generally who pretend to be the most polite, virtuous, moral and religious. And, without mincing matters at all, this eminent physician boldly declares that "a venal press, a demoralized clergy, and the prevalence of medical charlatanism, are the principal causes of the fearful increase of this abominable crime." The paucity of children in the families of wealthy and well-to-do Americans has been publicly noticed and commented upon time and again; but the true cause thereof, if known, was carefully concealed. And can we wonder that the crime has descended from the highest to the lowest, and now pervades all classes of society? Statistics have been frequently published to show that in certain States of the Union, and in certain districts of those States, the births did not, and do not, equal the deaths; and were it not for the foreign population among us many of those districts, and not a few of those States, would be depopulated in a few years. Massachusetts and New York lead the van in this criminal record. Dr. T. A. Reamy, of Zanesville, Ohio, in 1867, wrote, that after a careful survey of the field he was ready to say that "to-day no sin approaches with such stealth and dangerous power the altars of the Church as foeticide; and, unless it can be stayed, not only will it work its legitimate moral depravity and social ruin, but (he believed) God will visit dreadful judgment upon us no less severe, perhaps, than He did upon the Cities of the Plain."

In 1865, Dr. Morse Stewart, of Detroit, Michigan, declared that few of either sex entered the marital relation without full information as to the ways and means of destroying the legitimate results of matrimony. And among married persons so extensive has this practice become, that people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not even blush to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed, and the means of accomplishing it.

Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Mass., at a meeting of the Social Science Association, Boston, entitled "Wanted—More Mothers," remarked "that the increase of population for twenty-five years has been mainly in cities and towns, and it will be found to be largely made up of foreign element; and in the smaller villages, chiefly American, the stock has hardly increased at all.

"We find there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly American children; so that, aside from immigration, and births of children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is really decreasing.

"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, Disunion—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.