too near to be independent of each other, or to be indifferent to each other's interests. Not a child can come to years of maturity, uneducated, without harm to us to you to the whole republic. The interest of each is the interest of all; and hence we argue the obvious and indispensable duty of every good man in the land to look narrowly into our institutions of public education, from the lowest to the highest, and do his full share of the labor of raising them to a proper elevation, and sustaining them there upon the pledge of fortune, honor, and even life itself."*

SECTION XV.

The responsibility of devising and carrying out the Policy of Religious Education in American Schools lies upon Christians.

THE policy of the people of the United States being, then, public education - universal educationChristian education-upon whom devolves the responsibility of carrying it into execution? We say it devolves upon the Christians of the United States. To whom else do multitudes, especially of the poor, look for the religious instruction of their children? Let the myriads of children in our Sunday schools answer. How many, who neglect all religious services themselves, gladly send their children to receive instruction which is exclusively religious? Would these people object to having their children instructed

* Frederick A. Packard.

in Christianity in the public schools? Would they not readily believe that the same religious zeal which sustained Sunday schools would be directed to the object of Christian instruction in the public schools, and would they not as readily approve it in one as the other? We believe the people of the United States are quite willing to entrust the religious instruction of their children to the Christians of the United States. We believe, further, that the duty of guiding, controlling, and enforcing this Christian instruction in our public schools, is one of the most important religious duties incumbent on the Christians of this country. It is a religious duty pressing upon Christians, not as Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, or Presbyterians, but upon them as Christian citizens of the United States.

The character of the nation as a Christian country, is not derived from any one denomination of Christians, but from all; not from any feature which is peculiar to one, but from those great characteristics which distinguish them as a mass. It is this Christianity which is common to the prevailing denominations, which is to be communicated to and impressed upon the children of the United States in the public schools. The distinctive features of each denomination will grow soon enough and fast enough upon that soil which is common to all, under the special instructions of the family, the Sunday school, and the Church; and where these are wanting, as to a very large extent they are, it must be a consoling reflection to all true Christians, that no portion of the children of the country leave the public schools, without being made familiar with the Bible and its saving truths.

If Christians here do not choose to incur the responsibility of having Christ denied to the children in the public schools, they must overcome all denominational reluctance and engage heartily in this, the grandest duty of their position as republican Christians. Can any opportunity of preaching the gospel-of making known the way of life, be compared with that which is afforded by the public schools of the United States? And when we take into account the power which soon devolves upon the children, can any teaching be more influential than that which is aptly bestowed upon the advancing millions of our children? If, then, there is no legal, no constitutional obstacle in the way as we trust we have shown there is not · of maintaining our character as a Christian people, by teaching Christianity in our national schools, can that denominational feeling which keeps Christians from this work have any affinity with Christianity? Can it be right for the men of any Church to say, if we cannot clothe the children with our uniform, we care not for their being clothed at all? Is it Christianlike to feed no lambs but those of our own fold, when all alike are His, who said, "Feed my lambs ?" Nor is it any more excusable in a Church to withdraw wholly her countenance and co-operation from this work, in a vain effort to give a strictly denominational training to her own children. The narrowness of this view stands so strongly in contrast with the expansive scope of Christian love, that it needs only to be looked at to ensure condemnation. It can have its counterpart only, in the determination of the missionary to educate his own children and leave uncared for those

of the heathen around him. The unchristian aspect of this policy is not its only unhappy feature. No large denomination of Christians can, by any organization in their power, accomplish the education of the whole number of children which would fall to their share. They could not probably reach more than a fifth of their own children, or at most a third.*

The remainder of the denominational lambs, and those especially who were children of the poor, must be left to run into the common fold: one portion of the children of a Church being educated upon one system and the residue upon another system. Now, if all received in the public schools the same course of religious instruction, each Church could readily make arrangements to furnish to its own children, upon some regular system, that special instruction deemed by it to be essential to complete the course of the public schools.

But if every separate denomination could reach the children of all its congregations and furnish them a good religious education, a vast multitude, exceeding probably two millions of children, would remain untaught, or taught in public schools over which, if they did not dwindle into utter inefficiency, little Christian sympathy would watch and no Christian wisdom would preside. Whilst, therefore, we would detract nothing from what can be done in the family,

*The Presbyterian Church has made efforts for several years to get up a general system of denominational education, with only about success enough to show the utter hopelessness of the attempt. The great mass of their own people cannot be reached by any denomination, however vigorous the attempt. -(Appendix B.)

in the Sunday school, in the Church, and in the numerous voluntary schools which special circumstances and feelings must ever create, we again aver that the great work of educating the millions remains to be accomplished by public means and public authority. And if a knowledge of Christianity is to be imparted to these millions, it can only be adequately done by the united, strenuous, intelligent and christian-like efforts of the chief religious denominations of the whole country. To stand aloof as a Church from this duty, involves a serious responsibility; to stand aloof from it as an individual, may involve not only a serious but a fatal responsibility. No thoughtful Christian can turn his back upon the religious welfare of the millions of children in the schools of this country, without hardening his heart and denying to his Christian affections and graces their proper scope and exercise.

We believe that the outward manifestations of Christianity do not keep up with the circumstances of the age in which we live, nor with its intelligence; and above all, they do not correspond to the opportunities and privileges of the land in which we live. In every age since the Christian era, and in every country, there have been circumstances, external or internal, in the condition of the people, which have prevented the free expansion and proper growth of Christianity. Sometimes it has been a defective ecclesiastical system, sometimes the repressive character of the temporal governments and the superstition or improper education of the people, but now at this day and in this country, the Christian — whether statesman, man of

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