I have read the two provisions of Mr. Girard's will in relation to this feature of his school. The first excludes the Christian religion and all its ministers from its walls. The second explains the whole principles upon which he purposes to conduct his school. It was to try an experiment in education, never before known to the Christian world. It had been recommended often enough among those who did not belong to the Christian world. But it was never known to exist, never adopted by anybody even professing a connection with Christianity. And I cannot do better, in order to show the tendency and object of this institution, than to read from a paper by Bishop White, which has been referred to by the other side.

In order to a right understanding of what was Mr. Girard's real intention and original design, we have only to read carefully the words of the clause I have referred to. He enjoins that no ministers of religion, of any sects, shall be allowed to enter his college, on any pretence whatever. Now, it is obvious, that by sects he means Christian sects. Any of the followers of Voltaire or D'Alembert may have admission into this school whenever they please, because they are not usually spoken of as "sects." The doors are to be opened to the opposers and revilers of Christianity, in every form and shape, and shut to its supporters. While the voice of the upholders of Christianity is never to be heard within the walls, the voices of those who impugn Christianity may be raised high and loud, till they shake the marble roof of the building. It is no less derogatory thus to exclude the one, and admit the other, than it would be to make a positive provision and all the necessary arrangements for lectures and lessons and teachers, for all the details of the doctrines of infidelity. It is equally derogatory, it is the same in principle, thus to shut the door to one party, and open the door to the other.

We must reason as to the probable results of such a system according to natural consequences. They say, on the other side, that infidel teachers will not be admitted in this school. How do they know that? What is the inevitable tendency of such an education as is here prescribed? What is likely to occur? The court cannot suppose that the trustees will act in opposition to the directions of the will. If they accept the trust, they must fulfil it, and carry out the details of Mr. Girard's plan.

Now, what is likely to be the effect of this system on the minds of these children, thus left solely to its pernicious influence, with no one to care for their spiritual welfare in this world or the next? They are to be left entirely to the tender mercies of those who will try upon them this experiment of moral philosophy or philosophical morality. Morality without sentiment; benevolence towards man, without a sense of responsibility towards God; the duties of this life performed, without any reference to the life which is to come; this is Mr. Girard's theory of useful education.

Half of these poor children may die before the term of their education expires. Still, those who survive must be brought up imbued fully with the inevitable tendencies of the system.

It has been said that there may be lay preachers among them. Lay preachers! This is ridiculous enough in a country of Christianity and religion. [Here some one handed Mr. Webster a note.] A friend informs me that four of the principal religious sects in this country, the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, allow no lay preachers; and these four constitute a large majority of the religious and Christian portion of the people of the United States. And, besides, lay preaching would be just as adverse to Mr. Girard's original object and whole plan as professional preaching, provided it should be Christianity which should be preached.

It is plain, as plain as language can be made, that he did not intend to allow the minds of these children to be troubled about religion of any kind, whilst they were within the college. And why? He himself assigns the reason. Because of the difficulty and trouble, he says, that might arise from the multitude of sects, and creeds, and teachers, and the various clashing doctrines and tenets advanced by the different preachers of Christianity. Therefore his desire as to these orphans is, that their minds should be kept free from all bias of any kind in favor of any description of Christian creed, till they arrived at manhood, and should have left the walls of his school.

Now, are not laymen equally sectarian in their views with clergymen? And would it not be just as easy to prevent sectarian doctrines from being preached by a clergyman, as from being taught by a layman? It is idle, therefore, to speak of lay preaching.

MR. SERGEANT here rose, and said that they on their side had not uttered one word about lay preaching. It was lay teaching they spoke of.

Well, I would just as soon take it that way as the other, teaching as preaching. Is not the teaching of laymen as sectarian as the preaching of clergymen? What is the difference between unlettered laymen and lettered clergymen in this respect? Every one knows that laymen are as violent controversialists as clergymen, and the less informed the more violent. So this, while it is a little more ridiculous, is equally obnoxious. According to my experience, a layman is just as likely to launch out into sectarian views, and to advance clashing doctrines and violent, bigoted prejudices, as a professional preacher, and even more so. Every objection to professional religious instruction applies with still greater force to lay teaching. As in other cases, so in this, the greatest degree of candor is usually found accompanying the greatest degree of knowledge. Nothing is more apt to be positive and dogmatical than ignorance.

But there is no provision in any part of Mr. Girard's will for the introduction of any lay teaching on religious matters whatever. The children are to get their religion when they leave his school, and they are to have nothing to do with religion before they do leave it. They are then to choose their religious opinions, and not before.

MR. BINNEY. "Choose their tenets" is the expression.

Tenets are opinions, I believe. The mass of one's religious tenets makes up one's religion.

Now, it is evident that Mr. Girard meant to found a school of morals, without any reference to, or connection with, religion. But, after all, there is nothing original in this plan of his. It has its origin in a deistical source, but not from the highest school of infidelity. Not from Bolingbroke, or Shaftesbury, or Gibbon; not even from Voltaire or D'Alembert. It is from two persons who were probably known to Mr. Girard in the early part of his life; it is from Mr. Thomas Paine and Mr. Volney. Mr. Thomas Paine, in his "Age of Reason," says: "Let us devise means to establish schools of instruction, that we may banish the ignorance that the ancient regime of kings and priests has spread among the people. Let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition."

MR. BINNEY. What do you get that from?

The same place that Mr. Girard got this provision of his will from, Paine's "Age of Reason." The same phraseology in effect is here. Paine disguised his real meaning, it is true. He said: "Let us devise means to establish schools to propagate morality, unfettered by superstition." Mr. Girard, who had no disguise about him, uses plain language to express the same meaning. In Mr. Girard's view, religion is just that thing which Mr. Paine calls superstition. "Let us establish schools of morality," said he, "unfettered by religious tenets. Let us give these children a system of pure morals before they adopt any religion." The ancient regime of which Paine spoke as obnoxious was that of kings and priests. That was the popular way he had of making any thing obnoxious that he wished to destroy. Now, if he had merely wished to get rid of the dogmas which he says were established by kings and priests, if he had no desire to abolish the Christian religion itself, he could have thus expressed himself: "Let us rid ourselves of the errors of kings and priests, and plant morality on the plain text of the Christian religion, with the simplest forms of religious worship."

I do not intend to leave this part of the cause, however, without a still more distinct statement of the objections to this scheme of instruction. This is due, I think, to the subject and to the occasion; and I trust I shall not be considered presumptuous, or as trenching upon the duties which properly belong to another profession. But I deem it due to the cause of Christianity to take up the notions of this scheme of Mr. Girard, and show how mistaken is the idea of calling it a charity. In the first place, then, I say, this scheme is derogatory to Christianity, because it rejects Christianity from the education of youth, by rejecting its teachers, by rejecting the ordinary agencies of instilling the Christian religion into the minds of the young. I do not say that, in order to make this a charity, there should be a positive provision for the teaching of Christianity, although, as I have already observed, I take that to be the rule in an English court of equity. But I need not, in this case, claim the whole benefit of that rule. I say it is derogatory, because there is a positive rejection of Christianity; because it rejects the ordinary means and agencies of Christianity. He who rejects the ordinary means of accomplishing an end, means to defeat that end itself, or else he has no meaning. And this is true, although the means originally be means of human appointment, and not attaching to or resting on any higher authority.

For example, if the New Testament had contained a set of principles of morality and religion, without reference to the means by which those principles were to be established, and if in the course of time a system of means had sprung up, become identified with the history of the world, become general, sanctioned by continued use and custom, then he who should reject those means would design to reject, and would reject, that morality and religion themselves.

This would be true in a case where the end rested on divine authority, and human agency devised and used the means. But if the means themselves be of divine authority also, then the rejection of them is a direct rejection of that authority.

Now, I suppose there is nothing in the New Testament more clearly established by the Author of Christianity, than the appointment of a Christian ministry. The world was to be evangelized, was to be brought out of darkness into light, by the influences of the Christian religion, spread and propagated by the instrumentality of man. A Christian ministry was therefore appointed by the Author of the Christian religion himself, and it stands on the same authority as any other part of his religion. When the lost sheep of the house of Israel were to be brought to the knowledge of Christianity, the disciples were commanded to go forth into all the cities, and to preach "that the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It was added, that whosoever would not receive them, nor hear their words, it should be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha than for them. And after his resurrection, in the appointment of the great mission to the whole human race, the Author of Christianity commanded his disciples that they should "go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." This was one of his last commands; and one of his last promises was the assurance, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world!" I say, therefore, there is nothing set forth more authentically in the New Testament than the appointment of a Christian ministry; and he who does not believe this does not and cannot believe the rest.

It is true that Christian ministers, in this age of the world, are selected in different ways and different modes by different sects and denominations. But there are, still, ministers of all sects and denominations. Why should we shut our eyes to the whole history of Christianity? Is it not the preaching of ministers of the Gospel that has evangelized the more civilized part of the world? Why do we at this day enjoy the lights and benefits of Christianity ourselves? Do we not owe it to the instrumentality of the Christian ministry? The ministers of Christianity, departing from Asia Minor, traversing Asia, Africa, and Europe, to Iceland, Greenland, and the poles of the earth, suffering all things, enduring all things, hoping all things, raising men everywhere from the ignorance of idol worship to the knowledge of the true God, and everywhere bringing life and immortality to light through the Gospel, have only been acting in obedience to the Divine instruction; they were commanded to go forth, and they have gone forth, and they still go forth. They have sought, and they still seek, to be able to preach the Gospel to every creature under the whole heaven. And where was Christianity ever received, where were its truths ever poured into the human heart, where did its waters, springing up into everlasting life, ever burst forth, except in the track of a Christian ministry? Did we ever hear of an instance, does history record an instance, of any part of the globe Christianized by lay preachers, or "lay teachers"? And, descending from kingdoms and empires to cities and countries, to parishes and villages, do we not all know, that wherever Christianity has been carried, and wherever it has been taught, by human agency, that agency was the agency of ministers of the Gospel? It is all idle, and a mockery, to pretend that any man has respect for the Christian religion who yet derides, reproaches, and stigmatizes all its ministers and teachers. It is all idle, it is a mockery, and an insult to common sense, to maintain that a school for the instruction of youth, from which Christian instruction by Christian teachers is sedulously and rigorously shut out, is not deistical and infidel both in its purpose and in its tendency. I insist, therefore, that this plan of education is, in this respect, derogatory to Christianity, in opposition to it, and calculated either to subvert or to supersede it.

In the next place, this scheme of education is derogatory to Christianity, because it proceeds upon the presumption that the Christian religion is not the only true foundation, or any necessary foundation, of morals. The ground taken is, that religion is not necessary to morality, that benevolence may be insured by habit, and that all the virtues may nourish, and be safely left to the chance of flourishing, without touching the waters of the living spring of religious responsibility. With him who thinks thus, what can be the value of the Christian revelation? So the Christian world has not thought; for by that Christian world, throughout its broadest extent, it has been, and is, held as a fundamental truth, that religion is the only solid basis of morals, and that moral instruction not resting on this basis is only a building upon sand. And at what age of the Christian era have those who professed to teach the Christian religion, or to believe in its authority and importance, not insisted on the absolute necessity of inculcating its principles and its precepts upon the minds of the young? In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom, has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere; never. Everywhere, and at all times, it has been, and is, regarded as essential. It is of the essence, the vitality, of useful instruction. From all this Mr. Girard dissents. His plan denies the necessity and the propriety of religious instruction as a part of the education of youth. He dissents, not only from all the sentiments of Christian mankind, from all common conviction, and from the results of all experience, but he dissents also from still higher authority, the word of God itself. My learned friend has referred, with propriety, to one of the commands of the Decalogue; but there is another, a first commandment, and that is a precept of religion, and it is in subordination to this that the moral precepts of the Decalogue are proclaimed. This first great commandment teaches man that there is one, and only one, great First Cause, one, and only one, proper object of human worship. This is the great, the ever fresh, the overflowing fountain of all revealed truth. Without it, human life is a desert, of no known termination on any side, but shut in on all sides by a dark and impenetrable horizon. Without the light of this truth, man knows nothing of his origin, and nothing of his end. And when the Decalogue was delivered to the Jews, with this great announcement and command at its head, what said the inspired lawgiver? that it should be kept from children? that it should be reserved as a communication fit only for mature age? Far, far otherwise. "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."

There is an authority still more imposing and awful. When little children were brought into the presence of the Son of God, his disciples proposed to send them away; but he said, "Suffer little children to come unto me." Unto me; he did not send them first for lessons in morals to the schools of the Pharisees, or to the unbelieving Sadducees, nor to read the precepts and lessons phylacteried on the garments of the Jewish priesthood; he said nothing of different creeds or clashing doctrines; but he opened at once to the youthful mind the everlasting fountain of living waters, the only source of eternal truths: "Suffer little children to come unto me." And that injunction is of perpetual obligation. It addresses itself to-day with the same earnestness and the same authority which attended its first utterance to the Christian world. It is of force everywhere, and at all times. It extends to the ends of the earth, it will reach to the end of time, always and everywhere sounding in the ears of men, with an emphasis which no repetition can weaken, and with an authority which nothing can supersede: "Suffer little children to come unto me."

And not only my heart and my judgment, my belief and my conscience, instruct me that this great precept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred, the solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, it is so utterly at variance with this system of philosophical morality which we have heard advocated, that I stand and speak here in fear of being influenced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of my professional duty. Go thy way at this time, is the language of philosophical morality, and I will send for thee at a more convenient season. This is the language of Mr. Girard in his will. In this there is neither religion nor reason.

The earliest and the most urgent intellectual want of human nature is the knowledge of its origin, its duty, and its destiny. "Whence am I, what am I, and what is before me?" This is the cry of the human soul, so soon as it raises its contemplation above visible, material things.

When an intellectual being finds himself on this earth, as soon as the faculties of reason operate, one of the first inquiries of his mind is, "Shall I be here always?" "Shall I live here for ever?" And reasoning from what he sees daily occurring to others, he learns to a certainty that his state of being must one day be changed. I do not mean to deny, that it may be true that he is created with this consciousness; but whether it be consciousness, or the result of his reasoning faculties, man soon learns that he must die. And of all sentient beings, he alone, so far as we can judge, attains to this knowledge. His Maker has made him capable of learning this. Before he knows his origin and destiny, he knows that he is to die. Then comes that most urgent and solemn demand for light that ever proceeded, or can proceed, from the profound and anxious broodings of the human soul. It is stated, with wonderful force and beauty, in that incomparable composition, the book of Job: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease; that, through the scent of water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But if a man die, shall he live again?" And that question nothing but God, and the religion of God, can solve. Religion does solve it, and teaches every man that he is to live again, and that the duties of this life have reference to the life which is to come. And hence, since the introduction of Christianity, it has been the duty, as it has been the effort, of the great and the good, to sanctify human knowledge, to bring it to the fount, and to baptize learning into Christianity; to gather up all its productions, its earliest and its latest, its blossoms and its fruits, and lay them all upon the altar of religion and virtue.

Another important point involved in this question is, What becomes of the Christian Sabbath, in a school thus established? I do not mean to say that this stands exactly on the same authority as the Christian religion, but I mean to say that the observance of the Sabbath is a part of Christianity in all its forms. All Christians admit the observance of the Sabbath. All admit that there is a Lord's day, although there may be a difference in the belief as to which is the right day to be observed. Now, I say that in this institution, under Mr. Girard's scheme, the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not take place, because the ordinary means of observing it are excluded. I know that I shall be told here, also, that lay teachers would come in again; and I say again, in reply, that, where the ordinary means of attaining an end are excluded, the intention is to exclude the end itself. There can be no Sabbath in this college, there can be no religious observance of the Lord's day; for there are no means for attaining that end. It will be said, that the children would be permitted to go out. There is nothing seen of this permission in Mr. Girard's will. And I say again, that it would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard's whole scheme to allow these children to go out and attend places of public worship on the Sabbath day, as it would be to have ministers of religion to preach to them within the walls; because, if they go out to hear preaching, they will hear just as much about religious controversies, and clashing doctrines, and more, than if appointed preachers officiated in the college. His object, as he states, was to keep their minds free from all religious doctrines and sects, and he would just as much defeat his ends by sending them out as by having religious instruction within. Where, then, are these little children to go? Where can they go to learn the truth, to reverence the Sabbath? They are far from their friends, they have no one to accompany them to any place of worship, no one to show them the right from the wrong course; their minds must be kept clear from all bias on the subject, and they are just as far from the ordinary observance of the Sabbath as if there were no Sabbath day at all. And where there is no observance of the Christian Sabbath there will of course be no public worship of God.

In connection with this subject I will observe, that there has been recently held a large convention of clergymen and laymen in Columbus, Ohio, to lead the minds of the Christian public to the importance of a more particular observance of the Christian Sabbath; and I will read, as part of my argument, an extract from their address, which bears with peculiar force upon this case.

"It is alike obvious that the Sabbath exerts its salutary power by making the population acquainted with the being, perfections, and laws of God; with our relations to him as his creatures, and our obligations to him as rational, accountable subjects, and with our character as sinners, for whom his mercy has provided a Saviour; under whose government we live to be restrained from sin and reconciled to God, and fitted by his word and spirit for the inheritance above."

"It is by the reiterated instruction and impression which the Sabbath imparts to the population of a nation, by the moral principle which it forms, by the conscience which it maintains, by the habits of method, cleanliness, and industry it creates, by the rest and renovated vigor it bestows on exhausted human nature, by the lengthened life and higher health it affords, by the holiness it inspires, and cheering hopes of heaven, and the protection and favor of God, which its observance insures, that the Sabbath is rendered the moral conservator of nations.

"The omnipresent influence the Sabbath exerts, however, by no secret charm or compendious action, upon masses of unthinking minds; but by arresting the stream of worldly thoughts, interests, and affections, stopping the din of business, unlading the mind of its cares and responsibilities, and the body of its burdens, while God speaks to men, and they attend, and hear, and fear, and learn to do his will.

"You might as well put out the sun, and think to enlighten the world with tapers, destroy the attraction of gravity, and think to wield the universe by human powers, as to extinguish the moral illumination of the Sabbath, and break this glorious main-spring of the moral government of God."

And I would ask, Would any Christian man consider it desirable for his orphan children, after his death, to find refuge within this asylum, under all the circumstances and influences which will necessarily surround its inmates? Are there, or will there be, any Christian parents who would desire that their children should be placed in this school, to be for twelve years exposed to the pernicious influences which must be brought to bear on their minds? I very much doubt if there is any Christian father who hears me this day, and I am quite sure that there is no Christian mother, who, if called upon to lie down on the bed of death, although sure to leave her children as poor as children can be left, who would not rather trust them, nevertheless, to the Christian charity of the world, however uncertain it has been said to be, than place them where their physical wants and comforts would be abundantly attended to, but away from the solaces and consolations, the hopes and the grace, of the Christian religion. She would rather trust them to the mercy and kindness of that spirit, which, when it has nothing else left, gives a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple; to that spirit which has its origin in the fountain of all good, and of which we have on record an example the most beautiful, the most touching, the most intensely affecting, that the world's history contains, I mean the offering of the poor widow, who threw her two mites into the treasury. "And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury; and he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all; for all these have, of their abundance, cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." What more tender, more solemnly affecting, more profoundly pathetic, than this charity, this offering to God, of a farthing! We know nothing of her name, her family, or her tribe. We only know that she was a poor woman, and a widow, of whom there is nothing left upon record but this sublimely simple story, that, when the rich came to cast their proud offerings into the treasury, this poor woman came also, and cast in her two mites, which made a farthing! And that example, thus made the subject of divine commendation, has been read, and told, and gone abroad everywhere, and sunk deep into a hundred millions of hearts, since the commencement of the Christian era, and has done more good than could be accomplished by a thousand marble palaces, because it was charity mingled with true benevolence, given in the fear, the love, the service, and honor of God; because it was charity, that had its origin in religious feeling; because it was a gift to the honor of God!

Cases have come before the courts, of bequests, in last wills, made or given to God, without any more specific direction; and these bequests have been regarded as creating charitable uses. But can that be truly called a charity which flies in the face of all the laws of God and all the usages of Christian man? I arraign no man for mixing up a love of distinction and notoriety with his charities. I blame not Mr. Girard because he desired to raise a splendid marble palace in the neighborhood of a beautiful city, that should endure for ages, and transmit his name and fame to posterity. But his school of learning is not to be valued, because it has not the chastening influences of true religion; because it has no fragrance of the spirit of Christianity. It is not a charity, for it has not that which gives to a charity for education its chief value. It will, therefore, soothe the heart of no Christian parent, dying in poverty and distress, that those who owe to him their being may be led, and fed, and clothed by Mr. Girard's bounty, at the expense of being excluded from all the means of religious instruction afforded to other children, and shut up through the most interesting period of their lives in a seminary without religion, and with moral sentiments as cold as its own marble walls.

I now come to the consideration of the second part of this clause in the will, that is to say, the reasons assigned by Mr. Girard for making these restrictions with regard to the ministers of religion; and I say that these are much more derogatory to Christianity than the main provision itself, excluding them. He says that there are such a multitude of sects and such diversity of opinion, that he will exclude all religion and all its ministers, in order to keep the minds of the children free from clashing controversies. Now, does not this tend to subvert all belief in the utility of teaching the Christian religion to youth at all? Certainly, it is a broad and bold denial of such utility. To say that the evil resulting to youth from the differences of sects and creeds overbalances all the benefits which the best education can give them, what is this but to say that the branches of the tree of religious knowledge are so twisted, and twined, and commingled, and all run so much into and over each other, that there is therefore no remedy but to lay the axe at the root of the tree itself? It means that, and nothing less! Now, if there be any thing more derogatory to the Christian religion than this, I should like to know what it is. In all this we see the attack upon religion itself, made on its ministers, its institutions, and its diversities. And that is the objection urged by all the lower and more vulgar schools of infidelity throughout the world. In all these schools, called schools of Rationalism in Germany, Socialism in England, and by various other names in various countries which they infest, this is the universal cant. The first step of all these philosophical moralists and regenerators of the human race is to attack the agency through which religion and Christianity are administered to man. But in this there is nothing new or original. We find the same mode of attack and remark in Paine's "Age of Reason." At page 336 he says: "The Bramin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the Mahometan, the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, the Protestant Church, split into several hundred contradictory sectaries, preaching, in some instances, damnation against each other, all cry out, 'Our holy religion!'"

We find the same view in Volney's "Ruins of Empires." Mr. Volney arrays in a sort of semicircle the different and conflicting religions of the world. "And first," says he, "surrounded by a group in various fantastic dresses, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black, and speckled garments, with heads shaved, with tonsures, or with short hairs, with red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is the standard of the Roman Pontiff. On his right you see the Greek Pontiff, and on the left are the standards of two recent chiefs (Luther and Calvin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyrannical, had raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested half of Europe from the Pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects, subdivided from the principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Wickliffites, Osiandrians, Manicheans, Pietists, Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weepers, and a hundred others, all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong, tolerant when weak, hating each other in the name of the God of peace, forming such an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity, damning each other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing in this world the imaginary hell of the other."

Can it be doubted for an instant that sentiments like these are derogatory to the Christian religion? And yet on grounds and reasons exactly these, not like these, but EXACTLY these, Mr. Girard founds his excuse for excluding Christianity and its ministers from his school. He is a tame copyist, and has only raised marble walls to perpetuate and disseminate the principles of Paine and of Volney. It has been said that Mr. Girard was in a difficulty; that he was the judge and disposer of his own property. We have nothing to do with his difficulties. It has been said that he must have done as he did do, because there could be no agreement otherwise. Agreement? among whom? about what? He was at liberty to do what he pleased with his own. He had to consult no one as to what he should do in the matter. And if he had wished to establish such a charity as might obtain the especial favor of the courts of law, he had only to frame it on principles not hostile to the religion of the country.

But the learned gentleman went even further than this, and to an extent that I regretted; he said that there was as much dispute about the Bible as about any thing else in the world. No, thank God, that is not the case!

MR. BINNEY. The disputes about the meaning of words and passages; you will admit that?

Well, there is a dispute about the translation of certain words; but if this be true, there is just as much dispute about it out of Mr. Girard's institution as there would be in it. And if this plan is to be advocated and sustained, why does not every man keep his children from attending all places of public worship until they are over eighteen years of age? He says that a prudent parent keeps his child from the influence of sectarian doctrines, by which I suppose him to mean those tenets that are opposed to his own. Well, I do not know but what that plan is as likely to make bigots as it is to make any thing else. I grant that the mind of youth should be kept pliant, and free from all undue and erroneous influences; that it should have as much play as is consistent with prudence; but put it where it can obtain the elementary principles of religious truth; at any rate, those broad and general precepts and principles which are admitted by all Christians. But here in this scheme of Mr. Girard, all sects and all creeds are denounced. And would not a prudent father rather send his child where he could get instruction under any form of the Christian religion, than where he could get none at all? There are many instances of institutions, professing one leading creed, educating youths of different sects. The Baptist college in Rhode Island receives and educates youths of all religious sects and all beliefs. The colleges all over New England differ in certain minor points of belief, and yet that is held to be no ground for excluding youth with other forms of belief, and other religious views and sentiments.

But this objection to the multitude and differences of sects is but the old story, the old infidel argument. It is notorious that there are certain great religious truths which are admitted and believed by all Christians. All believe in the existence of a God. All believe in the immortality of the soul. All believe in the responsibility, in another world, for our conduct in this. All believe in the divine authority of the New Testament. Dr. Paley says that a single word from the New Testament shuts up the mouth of human questioning, and excludes all human reasoning. And cannot all these great truths be taught to children without their minds being perplexed with clashing doctrines and sectarian controversies? Most certainly they can.

And, to compare secular with religious matters, what would become of the organization of society, what would become of man as a social being, in connection with the social system, if we applied this mode of reasoning to him in his social relations? We have a constitutional government, about the powers, and limitations, and uses of which there is a vast amount of differences of belief. Your honors have a body of laws, now before you, in relation to which differences of opinion, almost innumerable, are daily spread before the courts; in all these we see clashing doctrines and opinions advanced daily, to as great an extent as in the religious world.

Apply the reasoning advanced by Mr. Girard to human institutions, and you will tear them all up by the root; as you would inevitably tear all divine institutions up by the root, if such reasoning is to prevail. At the meeting of the first Congress there was a doubt in the minds of many of the propriety of opening the session with prayer; and the reason assigned was, as here, the great diversity of opinion and religious belief. At length Mr. Samuel Adams, with his gray hairs hanging about his shoulders, and with an impressive venerableness now seldom to be met with, (I suppose owing to the difference of habits,) rose in that assembly, and, with the air of a perfect Puritan, said that it did not become men, professing to be Christian men, who had come together for solemn deliberation in the hour of their extremity, to say that there was so wide a difference in their religious belief, that they could not, as one man, bow the knee in prayer to the Almighty, whose advice and assistance they hoped to obtain. Independent as he was, and an enemy to all prelacy as he was known to be, he moved that the Rev. Mr. Duche, of the Episcopal Church, should address the Throne of Grace in prayer. And John Adams, in a letter to his wife, says that he never saw a more moving spectacle. Mr. Duche read the Episcopal service of the Church of England, and then, as if moved by the occasion, he broke out into extemporaneous prayer. And those men, who were then about to resort to force to obtain their rights, were moved to tears; and floods of tears, Mr. Adams says, ran down the cheeks of the pacific Quakers who formed part of that most interesting assembly. Depend upon it, where there is a spirit of Christianity, there is a spirit which rises above forms, above ceremonies, independent of sect or creed, and the controversies of clashing doctrines.

The consolations of religion can never be administered to any of these sick and dying children in this college. It is said, indeed, that a poor, dying child can be carried out beyond the walls of the school. He can be carried out to a hostelry, or hovel, and there receive those rites of the Christian religion which cannot be performed within those walls, even in his dying hour! Is not all this shocking? What a stricture is it upon this whole scheme! What an utter condemnation! A dying youth cannot receive religious solace within this seminary of learning!

But, it is asked, what could Mr. Girard have done? He could have done, as has been done in Lombardy by the Emperor of Austria, as my learned friend has informed us, where, on a large scale, the principle is established of teaching the elementary principles of the Christian religion, of enforcing human duties by divine obligations, and carefully abstaining in all cases from interfering with sects or the inculcation of sectarian doctrines. How have they done in the schools of New England? There, as far as I am acquainted with them, the great elements of Christian truth are taught in every school. The Scriptures are read, their authority taught and enforced, their evidences explained, and prayers usually offered.

The truth is, that those who really value Christianity, and believe in its importance, not only to the spiritual welfare of man, but to the safety and prosperity of human society, rejoice that in its revelations and its teachings there is so much which mounts above controversy, and stands on universal acknowledgment. While many things about it are disputed or are dark, they still plainly see its foundation, and its main pillars; and they behold in it a sacred structure, rising up to the heavens. They wish its general principles, and all its great truths, to be spread over the whole earth. But those who do not value Christianity, nor believe in its importance to society or individuals, cavil about sects and schisms, and ring monotonous changes upon the shallow and so often refuted objections founded on alleged variety of discordant creeds and clashing doctrines. I shall close this part of my argument by reading extracts from an English writer, one of the most profound thinkers of the age, a friend of reformation in the government and laws, John Foster, the friend and associate of Robert Hall. Looking forward to the abolition of the present dynasties of the Old World, and desirous to see how the order and welfare of society is to be preserved in the absence of present conservative principles, he says:—

"Undoubtedly the zealous friends of popular education account knowledge valuable absolutely, as being the apprehension of things as they are; a prevention of delusions; and so far a fitness for right volitions. But they consider religion (besides being itself the primary and infinitely the most important part of knowledge) as a principle indispensable for securing the full benefit of all the rest. It is desired, and endeavored, that the understandings of these opening minds may be taken possession of by just and solemn ideas of their relation to the Eternal Almighty Being; that they may be taught to apprehend it as an awful reality, that they are perpetually under his inspection; and, as a certainty, that they must at length appear before him in judgment, and find in another life the consequences of what they are in spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed on them, that his will is the supreme law, that his declarations are the most momentous truth known on earth, and his favor and condemnation the greatest good and evil. Under an ascendency of this divine wisdom it is, that their discipline in any other knowledge is designed to be conducted; so that nothing in the mode of their instruction may have a tendency contrary to it, and every thing be taught in a manner recognizing the relation with it, as far as shall consist with a natural, unforced way of keeping the relation in view. Thus it is sought to be secured, that, as the pupil's mind grows stronger, and multiplies its resources, and he therefore has necessarily more power and means for what is wrong, there may be luminously presented to him, as if celestial eyes visibly beamed upon him, the most solemn ideas that can enforce what is right."

"Such is the discipline meditated for preparing the subordinate classes to pursue their individual welfare, and act their part as members of the community...."

"All this is to be taught, in many instances directly, in others by reference for confirmation, from the Holy Scriptures, from which authority will also be impressed, all the while, the principles of religion. And religion, while its grand concern is with the state of the soul towards God and eternal interests, yet takes every principle and rule of morals under its peremptory sanction; making the primary obligation and responsibility be towards God, of every thing that is a duty with respect to men. So that, with the subjects of this education, the sense of propriety shall be conscience; the consideration of how they ought to be regulated in their conduct as a part of the community shall be the recollection that their Master in heaven dictates the laws of that conduct, and will judicially hold them amenable for every part of it."

"And is not a discipline thus addressed to the purpose of fixing religious principles in ascendency, as far as that difficult object is within the power of discipline, and of infusing a salutary tincture of them into whatever else is taught, the right way to bring up citizens faithful to all that deserves fidelity in the social compact?...

"Lay hold on the myriads of juvenile spirits before they have time to grow up through ignorance, into a reckless hostility to social order; train them to sense and good morals; inculcate the principles of religion, simply and solemnly, as religion, as a thing directly of divine dictation, and not as if its authority were chiefly in virtue of human institutions; let the higher orders, generally, make it evident to the multitude that they are desirous to raise them in value, and promote their happiness; and then, whatever the demands of the people as a body, thus improving in understanding and sense of justice, shall come to be, and whatever modification their preponderance may ultimately enforce on the great social arrangements, it will be infallibly certain that there never can be a love of disorder, an insolent anarchy, a prevailing spirit of revenge and devastation. Such a conduct of the ascendent ranks would, in this nation at least, secure that, as long as the world lasts, there never would be any formidable commotion, or violent sudden changes. All those modifications of the national economy to which an improving people would aspire, and would deserve to obtain, would be gradually accomplished, in a manner by which no party would be wronged, and all would be the happier."[1]

I not only read this for the excellence of its sentiments and their application to the subject, but because they are the results of the profound meditations of a man who is dealing with popular ignorance. Desirous of, and expecting, a great change in the social system of the Old World, he is anxious to discover that conservative principle by which society can be kept together when crowns and mitres shall have no more influence. And he says that the only conservative principle must be, and is, RELIGION! the authority of God! his revealed will! and the influence of the teaching of the ministers of Christianity!

Mr. Webster here stated that he would, on Monday, bring forward certain references and legal points bearing on this view of the case.

The court then adjourned.

SECOND DAY.

The seven judges all took their seats at eleven o'clock, and the court was opened.

Mr. Binney observed to the court, that he had omitted to notice, in his argument, that, in regard to the statutes of Uniformity and Toleration in England, whilst the Jewish Talmuds for the propagation of Judaism alone were not sustained by those statutes, yet the Jewish Talmuds for the maintenance of the poor were sustained thereby. And the decisions show that, where a gift had for its object the maintenance and education of poor Jewish children, the statutes sustained the devise. In proof of this he quoted 1 Ambler, by Blunt, p. 228, case of De Costa, &c. Also, the case of Jacobs v. Gomperte, in the notes. Also, in the notes, 2 Swanston, p. 487, same case of De Costa, &c. Also, 7 Vesey, p. 423, case of Mo Catto v. Lucardo. Also, Sheppard, p. 107, and Boyle, p. 43.

Another case was that of a bequest given to an object abroad, and in the decision the Master of the Rolls considered that religious instruction was not a necessary part of education. See, also, the case of The Attorney-General v. The Dean and Canons of Christ Church, Jacobs, p. 485.

Mr. Binney then quoted from Noah Webster the definition of the word "tenets," to show that Mr. Webster did not give the right definition when he said that "tenets" meant "religion."

Mr. Webster then rose and said:—#/

The arguments of my learned friend, may it please your honors, in relation to the Jewish laws as tolerated by the statutes, go to maintain my very proposition; that is, that no school for the instruction of youth in any system which is in any way derogatory to the Christian religion, or for the teaching of doctrines that are in any way contrary to the Christian religion, is, or ever was, regarded as a charity by the courts. It is true that the statutes of Toleration regarded a devise for the maintenance of poor Jewish children, to give them food and raiment and lodging, as a charity. But a devise for the teaching of the Jewish religion to poor children, that should come into the Court of Chancery, would not be regarded as a charity, or entitled to any peculiar privileges from the court.

When I stated to your honors, in the course of my argument on Saturday, that all denominations of Christians had some mode or provision for the appointment of teachers of Christianity amongst them, I meant to have said something about the Quakers. Although we know that the teachers among them come into their office in a somewhat peculiar manner, yet there are preachers and teachers of Christianity provided in that peculiar body, notwithstanding its objection to the mode of appointing teachers and preachers by other Christian sects. The place or character of a Quaker preacher is an office and appointment as well known as that of a preacher among any other denomination of Christians.

I have heretofore argued to show that the Christian religion, its general principles, must ever be regarded among us as the foundation of civil society; and I have thus far confined my remarks to the tendency and effect of the scheme of Mr. Girard (if carried out) upon the Christian religion. But I will go farther, and say that this school, this scheme or system, in its tendencies and effects, is opposed to all religions, of every kind. I will not now enter into a controversy with my learned friend about the word "tenets," whether it signify opinions or dogmas, or whatever you please. Religious tenets, I take it, and I suppose it will be generally conceded, mean religious opinions; and if a youth has arrived at the age of eighteen, and has no religious tenets, it is very plain that he has no religion. I do not care whether you call them dogmas, tenets, or opinions. If the youth does not entertain dogmas, tenets, or opinions, or opinions, tenets, or dogmas, on religious subjects, then he has no religion at all. And this strikes at a broader principle than when you merely look at this school in its effect upon Christianity alone. We will suppose the case of a youth of eighteen, who has just left this school, and has gone through an education of philosophical morality, precisely in accordance with the views and expressed wishes of the donor. He comes then into the world to choose his religious tenets. The very next day, perhaps, after leaving school, he comes into a court of law to give testimony as a witness. Sir, I protest that by such a system he would be disfranchised. He is asked, "What is your religion?" His reply is, "O, I have not yet chosen any; I am going to look round, and see which suits me best." He is asked, "Are you a Christian?" He replies, "That involves religious tenets, and as yet I have not been allowed to entertain any." Again, "Do you believe in a future state of rewards and punishments?" And he answers, "That involves sectarian controversies, which have carefully been kept from me." "Do you believe in the existence of a God?" He answers, that there are clashing doctrines involved in these things, which he has been taught to have nothing to do with; that the belief in the existence of a God, being one of the first questions in religion, he is shortly about to think of that proposition. Why, Sir, it is vain to talk about the destructive tendency of such a system; to argue upon it is to insult the understanding of every man; it is mere, sheer, low, ribald, vulgar deism and infidelity![2] It opposes all that is in heaven, and all on earth that is worth being on earth. It destroys the connecting link between the creature and the Creator; it opposes that great system of universal benevolence and goodness that binds man to his Maker. No religion till he is eighteen! What would be the condition of all our families, of all our children, if religious fathers and religious mothers were to teach their sons and daughters no religious tenets till they were eighteen? What would become of their morals, their character, their purity of heart and life, their hope for time and eternity? What would become of all those thousand ties of sweetness, benevolence, love, and Christian feeling, that now render our young men and young maidens like comely plants growing up by a streamlet's side,—the graces and the grace of opening manhood, of blossoming womanhood? What would become of all that now renders the social circle lovely and beloved? What would become of society itself? How could it exist? And is that to be considered a charity which strikes at the root of all this; which subverts all the excellence and the charms of social life; which tends to destroy the very foundation and frame-work of society, both in its practices and in its opinions; which subverts the whole decency, the whole morality, as well as the whole Christianity and government, of society? No, Sir! no, Sir!

And here let me turn to the consideration of the question, What is an oath? I do not mean in the variety of definitions that may be given to it as it existed and was practised in the time of the Romans, but an oath as it exists at present in our courts of law; as it is founded on a degree of consciousness that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. We all know that the doctrine of the English law is, that in the case of every person who enters court as a witness, be he Christian or Hindoo, there must be a firm conviction on his mind that falsehood or perjury will be punished, either in this world or the next, or he cannot be admitted as a witness. If he has not this belief, he is disfranchised. In proof of this, I refer your honors to the great case of Ormichund against Barker, in Lord Chief Justice Willes's report. There this doctrine is clearly laid down. But in no case is a man allowed to be a witness that has no belief in future rewards and punishments for virtues or vices, nor ought he to be. We hold life, liberty, and property in this country upon a system of oaths; oaths founded on a religious belief of some sort. And that system which would strike away the great substratum, destroy the safe possession of life, liberty, and property, destroy all the institutions of civil society, cannot and will not be considered as entitled to the protection of a court of equity. It has been said, on the other side, that there was no teaching against religion or Christianity in this system. I deny it. The whole testament is one bold proclamation against Christianity and religion of every creed. The children are to be brought up in the principles declared in that testament. They are to learn to be suspicious of Christianity and religion; to keep clear of it, that their youthful heart may not become susceptible of the influences of Christianity or religion in the slightest degree. They are to be told and taught that religion is not a matter for the heart or conscience, but for the decision of the cool judgment of mature years; that at that period when the whole Christian world deem it most desirable to instil the chastening influences of Christianity into the tender and comparatively pure mind and heart of the child, ere the cares and corruptions of the world have reached and seared it,—at that period the child in this college is to be carefully excluded therefrom, and to be told that its influence is pernicious and dangerous in the extreme. Why, the whole system is a constant preaching against Christianity and against religion, and I insist that there is no charity, and can be no charity, in that system of instruction from which Christianity is excluded. I perfectly agree with what my learned friend says in regard to the monasteries of the Old World, as seats of learning to which we are all indebted at the present day. Much of our learning, almost all of our early histories, and a vast amount of literary treasure, were preserved therein and emanated therefrom. But we all know, that although these were emphatically receptacles for literature of the highest order, yet they were always connected with Christianity, and were always regarded and conducted as religious establishments.

Going back as far as the statutes of Henry the Fourth, as early as 1402,[3] in the act respecting charities, we find that one hundred years before the Reformation, in Catholic times, in the establishment of every charitable institution, there was to be proper provision for religious instruction. Again, after the time of the Reformation, when those monastic institutions were abolished, in the 1st Edw. VI. ch. 14, we find certain chantries abolished, and their funds appropriated to the instruction of youth in the grammar schools founded in that reign, which Lord Eldon says extended all over the kingdom. In all these we find provision for religious instruction, the dispensation of the same being by a teacher or preacher. In 2 Swanston, p. 529, the case of the Bedford Charity, Lord Eldon gives a long opinion, in the course of which he says, that in these schools care is taken to educate youth in the Christian religion, and in all of them the New Testament is taught, both in Latin and Greek. Here, then, we find that the great and leading provision, both before and after the Reformation, was to connect the knowledge of Christianity with human letters. And it will be always found that a school for instruction of youth, to possess the privileges of a charity, must be provided with religious instruction.

For the decision, that the essentials of Christianity are part of the common law of the land, I refer your honors to 1 Vernon, p. 293, where Lord Hale, who cannot be suspected of any bigotry on this subject, says, that to decry religion, and call it a cheat, tends to destroy all religion; and he also declares Christianity to be part of the common law of the land. Mr. N. Dane, in his Abridgment, ch. 219, recognizes the same principle. In 2 Strange, p. 834, case of The King v. Wilson, the judges would not suffer it to be debated that writing against religion generally is an offence at common law. They laid stress upon the word "generally," because there might arise differences of opinion between religious writers on points of doctrine, and so forth. So in Taylor's case, 3 Merivale, p. 405, by the High Court of Chancery, these doctrines were recognized and maintained. The same doctrine is laid down in 2 Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, p. 95, Evans v. The Chamberlain of London; and in 2 Russell, p. 501, The Attorney-General v. The Earl of Mansfield.

There is a case of recent date, which, if the English law is to prevail, would seem conclusive as to the character of this devise. It is the case of The Attorney-General v. Cullum, 1 Younge and Collyer's Reports, p. 411. The case was heard and decided in 1842, by Sir Knight Bruce, Vice-Chancellor. The reporter's abstract, or summary, of the decision is this: "COURTS OF EQUITY, IN THIS COUNTRY, WILL NOT SANCTION ANY SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN WHICH RELIGION IS NOT INCLUDED."

The charity in question in that case was established in the reign of Edward the Fourth, for the benefit of the community and poor inhabitants of the town of Bury St. Edmunds. The objects of the charity were various: for relief of prisoners, educating and instructing poor people, for food and raiment for the aged and impotent, and others of the same kind. There were uses, also, now deemed superstitious, such as praying for the souls of the dead. In this, and in other respects, the charity required revision, to suit it to the habits and requirements of modern times; and a scheme was accordingly set forth for such revision by the master, under the direction of the court. By this scheme there were to be schools, and these schools were to be closed on Sundays, although the Scriptures were to be read daily on other days. This was objected to, and it was insisted, on the other hand, that the masters and mistresses of the schools should be members of the Church of England; that they should, on every Lord's day, give instruction in the doctrines of the Church to those children whose parents might so desire; but that all the scholars should be required to attend public worship every Lord's day in the parish church, or other place of worship, according to their respective creeds.

The Vice-Chancellor said, that the term "education" was properly understood, by all the parties, to comprehend religious instruction; that the objection to the scheme proposed by the master was not that it did not provide for religious instruction according to the doctrines of the Church of England, but that it did not provide for religious instruction at all. In the course of the hearing, the Vice-Chancellor said, that any scheme of education, without religion, would be worse than a mockery. The parties afterwards agreed, that the masters and mistresses should be members of the Church of England; that every school day the master should give religious instruction, during one hour, to all the scholars, such religious instruction to be confined to the reading and explanation of the Scriptures; that on every Lord's day he should give instruction in the liturgy, catechism, and articles of the Church of England, and that the scholars should attend church every Lord's day, unless they were children of persons not in communion with the Church of England. In giving the sanction of the court to this arrangement, the Vice-Chancellor said, that he wished to have it distinctly understood that the ground on which he had proceeded was not a preference of one form of religion to another, but the necessity, if the matter was left to him judicially, to adopt the course of requiring the teachers to be members of the Church of England.

This case clearly shows, that, at the present day, a school, founded by a charity, for the instruction of children, cannot be sanctioned by the courts as a charity, unless the scheme of education includes religious instruction. It shows, too, that this general requisition of the law is independent of a church establishment, and that it is not religion in any particular form, but religion, religious and Christian instruction in some form, which is held to be indispensable. It cannot be doubted how a charity for the instruction of children would fare in an English court, the scheme of which should carefully and sedulously exclude all religious or Christian instruction, and profess to establish morals on principles no higher than those of enlightened Paganism.

Enough, then, your honors, has been said on this point; and I am willing that inquiry should be prosecuted to any extent of research to controvert this position, that a school of education for the young, which rejects the Christian religion, cannot be sustained as a charity, so as to entitle it to come before the courts of equity for the privileges which they have power to confer on charitable bequests.

Mr. Webster then replied to the remarks of Mr. Binney, in relation to the Liverpool Blue Coat School, and read from the report of Mr. Bache on education in Europe, Mr. Bache having been sent abroad by the city of Philadelphia to investigate this whole matter of education.

If Mr. Girard had established such a school as that, it would have been free from all those objections that have been raised against it. This Liverpool Blue Coat School, though too much of a religious party character, is strictly a church establishment. It is a school established on a peculiar foundation, that of the Madras system of Dr. Bell. It is a monitorial school; those who are advanced in learning are to teach the others in religion, as well as secular knowledge. It is strictly a religious school, and the only objection is, that in its instruction it is too much confined to a particular sect.

Mr. Binney observed that there was no provision made for clergymen.

That is true, because the scheme of the school is monitorial, in which the more advanced scholars instruct the others. But religious instruction is amply and particularly provided for.

Mr. Webster then referred to Shelford, p. 105, and onward, under the head "Jews," in the fourth paragraph, where, he stated, the whole matter, and all the cases, as regarded the condition and position of the Jews respecting various charities, were given in full.

He then referred to the Smithsonian legacy, which had been mentioned, and which he said was no charity at all, nor any thing like a charity. It was a gift to Congress, to be disposed of as Congress saw fit, for scientific purposes.

He then replied, in a few words, to the arguments of Mr. Binney in relation to the University of Virginia; and said that, although there was no provision for religious instruction in that University, yet he supposed it would not be contended for a moment that the University of Virginia was a charity, or that it came before the courts claiming of the law of that State protection as such. It stood on its charter.

I repeat again, before closing this part of my argument, the proposition, important as I believe it to be, for your honors' consideration, that the proposed school, in its true character, objects, and tendencies, is derogatory to Christianity and religion. If it be so, then I maintain that it cannot be considered a charity, and as such entitled to the just protection and support of a court of equity. I consider this the great question for the consideration of this court. I may be excused for pressing it on the attention of your honors. It is one which, in its decision, is to influence the happiness, the temporal and the eternal welfare, of one hundred millions of human beings, alive and to be born, in this land. Its decision will give a hue to the apparent character of our institutions; it will be a comment on their spirit to the whole Christian world. I again press the question to your honors: Is a clear, plain, positive system for the instruction of children, founded on clear and plain objects of infidelity, a charity in the eye of the law, and as such entitled to the privileges awarded to charities in a court of equity? And with this, I leave this part of the case.

THIRD DAY.

I shall now, may it please your honors, proceed to inquire whether there is, in the State of Pennsylvania, any settled public policy to which this school, as planned by Mr. Girard in his will, is in opposition; for it follows, that, if there be any settled public policy in the laws of Pennsylvania on this subject, then any school, or scheme, or system, which tends to subvert this public policy, cannot be entitled to the protection of a court of equity. It will not be denied that there is a general public policy in that, as in all States, drawn from its history and its laws. And it will not be denied that any scheme or school of education which directly opposes this is not to be favored by the courts. Pennsylvania is a free and independent State. She has a popular government, a system of trial by jury, of free suffrage, of vote by ballot, of alienability of property. All these form part of the general public policy of Pennsylvania. Any man who shall go into that State can speak and write as much as he pleases against a popular form of government, freedom of suffrage, trial by jury, and against any or all of the institutions just named; he may decry civil liberty, and assert the divine right of kings, and still he does nothing criminal; but if, to give success to such efforts, special power from a court of justice is required, it will not be granted to him. There is not one of these features of the general public policy of Pennsylvania against which a school might not be established and preachers and teachers employed to teach. That might in a certain sense be considered a school of education, but it would not be a charity. And if Mr. Girard, in his lifetime, had founded schools and employed teachers to preach and teach in favor of infidelity, or against popular government, free suffrage, trial by jury, or the alienability of property, there was nothing to stop him or prevent him from so doing. But where any one or all of these come to be provided for a school or system as a charity, and come before the courts for favor, then in neither one, nor all, nor any, can they be favored, because they are opposed to the general public policy and public law of the State.

These great principles have always been recognized; and they are no more part and parcel of the public law of Pennsylvania than is the Christian religion. We have in the charter of Pennsylvania, as prepared by its great founder, William Penn,—we have in his "great law," as it was called, the declaration, that the preservation of Christianity is one of the great and leading ends of government. This is declared in the charter of the State. Then the laws of Pennsylvania, the statutes against blasphemy, the violation of the Lord's day, and others to the same effect, proceed on this great, broad principle, that the preservation of Christianity is one of the main ends of government. This is the general public policy of Pennsylvania. On this head we have the case of Updegraph v. The Commonwealth,[4] in which a decision in accordance with this whole doctrine was given by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The solemn opinion pronounced by that tribunal begins by a general declaration that Christianity is, and has always been, part of the common law of Pennsylvania.

I have said, your honors, that our system of oaths in all our courts, by which we hold liberty and property, and all our rights, is founded on or rests on Christianity and a religious belief. In like manner the affirmation of Quakers rests on religious scruples drawn from the same source, the same feeling of religious responsibility.

The courts of Pennsylvania have themselves decided that a charitable bequest, which counteracts the public policy of the State, cannot be sustained. This was so ruled in the often cited case of the Methodist Church v. Remington. There, the devise was to the Methodist Church generally, extending through the States and into Canada, and the trust was declared void on this account alone; namely, that it was inconsistent with the public policy of the State, inconsistent with the general spirit of the laws of Pennsylvania. But is there any comparison to be made between that ground on which a devise to a church is declared void, namely, as inconsistent with the public policy of the State, and the case of a devise which undermines and opposes the whole Christian religion, and derides all its ministers; the one tending to destroy all religion, and the other being merely against the spirit of the legislation and laws of the State, and the general public policy of government, in a very subordinate matter? Can it be shown that this devise of a piece of ground to the Methodist Church can be properly set aside, and declared void on general grounds, and not be shown that such a devise as that of Mr. Girard, which tends to overturn as well as oppose the public policy and laws of Pennsylvania, can also be set aside?

Sir, there are many other American cases which I could cite to the court in support of this point of the case. I will now only refer to 8 Johnson, page 291.

It is the same in Pennsylvania as elsewhere, the general principles and public policy are sometimes established by constitutional provisions, sometimes by legislative enactments, sometimes by judicial decisions, and sometimes by general consent. But however they may be established, there is nothing that we look for with more certainty than this general principle, that Christianity is part of the law of the land. This was the case among the Puritans of New England, the Episcopalians of the Southern States, the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the mass of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians; all brought and all adopted this great truth, and all have sustained it. And where there is any religious sentiment amongst men at all, this sentiment incorporates itself with the law. Every thing declares it. The massive cathedral of the Catholic; the Episcopalian church, with its lofty spire pointing heavenward; the plain temple of the Quaker; the log church of the hardy pioneer of the wilderness; the mementos and memorials around and about us; the consecrated graveyards, their tombstones and epitaphs, their silent vaults, their mouldering contents; all attest it. The dead prove it as well as the living. The generations that are gone before speak to it, and pronounce it from the tomb. We feel it. All, all, proclaim that Christianity, general, tolerant Christianity, Christianity independent of sects and parties, that Christianity to which the sword and the fagot are unknown, general, tolerant Christianity, is the law of the land.

Mr. Webster, having gone over the other points in the case, which were of a more technical character, in conclusion, said:—#/

I now take leave of this cause. I look for no good whatever from the establishment of this school, this college, this scheme, this experiment of an education in "practical morality," unblessed by the influences of religion. It sometimes happens to man to attain by accident that which he could not achieve by long-continued exercise of industry and ability. And it is said even of the man of genius, that by chance he will sometimes "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." And I believe that men sometimes do mischief, not only beyond their intent, but beyond the ordinary scope of their talents and ability. In my opinion, if Mr. Girard had given years to the study of a mode by which he could dispose of his vast fortune so that no good could arise to the general cause of charity, no good to the general cause of learning, no good to human society, and which should be most productive of protracted struggles, troubles, and difficulties in the popular counsels of a great city, he could not so effectually have attained that result as he has by this devise now before the court. It is not the result of good fortunes, but of bad fortunes, which have overriden and cast down whatever of good might have been accomplished by a different disposition. I believe that this plan, this scheme, was unblessed in all its purposes, and in all its original plans. Unwise in all its frame and theory, while it lives it will lead an annoyed and troubled life, and leave an unblessed memory when it dies. If I could persuade myself that this court would come to such a decision as, in my opinion, the public good and the law require, and if I could believe that any humble efforts of my own had contributed in the least to lead to such a result, I should deem it the crowning mercy of my professional life.

[Footnote 1: Foster's Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance, Section IV.]

[Footnote 2: The effect of this remark was almost electric, and some one in the court-room broke out in applause.]

[Footnote 3: 2 Pickering, p. 433.]

[Footnote 4: 11 Sergeant & Rawle, p. 394.]



MR. JUSTICE STORY.[1]

[At a meeting of the Suffolk Bar, held in the Circuit Court Room, Boston, on the morning of the 12th of September, the day of the funeral of Mr. Justice Story, Chief Justice Shaw having taken the chair and announced the object of the meeting, Mr. Webster rose and spoke substantially as follows.]

Your solemn announcement, Mr. Chief Justice, has confirmed the sad intelligence which had already reached us, through the public channels of information, and deeply afflicted us all.

JOSEPH STORY, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and for many years the presiding judge of this Circuit, died on Wednesday evening last, at his house in Cambridge, wanting only a few days for the completion of the sixty-sixth year of his age.

This most mournful and lamentable event has called together the whole Bar of Suffolk, and all connected with the courts of law or the profession. It has brought you, Mr. Chief Justice, and your associates of the Bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, into the midst of us; and you have done us the honor, out of respect to the occasion, to consent to preside over us, while we deliberate on what is due, as well to our own afflicted and smitten feelings, as to the exalted character and eminent distinction of the deceased judge. The occasion has drawn from his retirement, also, that venerable man, whom we all so much respect and honor, (Judge Davis,) who was, for thirty years, the associate of the deceased upon the same Bench. It has called hither another judicial personage, now in retirement, (Judge Putnam,) but long an ornament of that Bench of which you are now the head, and whose marked good fortune it is to have been the professional teacher of Mr. Justice Story, and the director of his early studies. He also is present to whom this blow comes near; I mean, the learned judge (Judge Sprague) from whose side it has struck away a friend and a highly venerated official associate. The members of the Law School at Cambridge, to which the deceased was so much attached, and who returned that attachment with all the ingenuousness and enthusiasm of educated and ardent youthful minds, are here also, to manifest their sense of their own severe deprivation, as well as their admiration of the bright and shining professional example which they have so loved to contemplate,—an example, let me say to them, and let me say to all, as a solace in the midst of their sorrows, which death hath not touched and which time cannot obscure.

Mr. Chief Justice, one sentiment pervades us all. It is that of the most profound and penetrating grief, mixed, nevertheless, with an assured conviction, that the great man whom we deplore is yet with us and in the midst of us. He hath not wholly died. He lives in the affections of friends and kindred, and in the high regard of the community. He lives in our remembrance of his social virtues, his warm and steady friendships, and the vivacity and richness of his conversation. He lives, and will live still more permanently, by his words of written wisdom, by the results of his vast researches and attainments, by his imperishable legal judgments, and by those juridical disquisitions which have stamped his name, all over the civilized world, with the character of a commanding authority. "Vivit, enim, vivetque semper; atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit."

Mr. Chief Justice, there are consolations which arise to mitigate our loss, and shed the influence of resignation over unfeigned and heart-felt sorrow. We are all penetrated with gratitude to God that the deceased lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends, the country, and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is, not extinguished or ceasing to be, but only withdrawn; as the clear sun goes down at its setting, not darkened, but only no longer seen.

This calamity, Mr. Chief Justice, is not confined to the bar or the courts of this Commonwealth. It will be felt by every bar throughout the land, by every court, and indeed by every intelligent and well-informed man in or out of the profession. It will be felt still more widely, for his reputation had a still wider range. In the High Court of Parliament, in every tribunal in Westminster Hall, in the judicatories of Paris and Berlin, of Stockholm and St. Petersburg, in the learned universities of Germany, Italy, and Spain, by every eminent jurist in the civilized world, it will be acknowledged that a great luminary has fallen from the firmament of public jurisprudence.

Sir, there is no purer pride of country than that in which we may indulge when we see America paying back the great debt of civilization, learning, and science to Europe. In this high return of light for light and mind for mind, in this august reckoning and accounting between the intellects of nations, Joseph Story was destined by Providence to act, and did act, an important part. Acknowledging, as we all acknowledge, our obligations to the original sources of English law, as well as of civil liberty, we have seen in our generation copious and salutary streams turning and running backward, replenishing their original fountains, and giving a fresher and a brighter green to the fields of English jurisprudence. By a sort of reversed hereditary transmission, the mother, without envy or humiliation, acknowledges that she has received a valuable and cherished inheritance from the daughter. The profession in England admits with frankness and candor, and with no feeling but that of respect and admiration, that he whose voice we have so recently heard within these walls, but shall now hear no more, was, of all men who have yet appeared, most fitted by the comprehensiveness of his mind, and the vast extent and accuracy of his attainments, to compare the codes of nations, to trace their differences to difference of origin, climate, or religious or political institutions, and to exhibit, nevertheless, their concurrence in those great principles upon which the system of human civilization rests.