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N e w Series, - Vol. VI, No. 49. iohnAWeir
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THE BIBLE IN OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.
it, is the general conviction of the people of
these United States, that the seowrityand happi
ness which we enjoy as a nation, sod the grand
success of our experiment in free government
thus far, result from the wide diffieion of the
Protestant Bible, and the general aceeptance of
its teachings. It is not believed that colonies
emanating from heathen; or infidel, or Romish
communities could ever have founded, or 'built up
this great Republic. What .Romanists could do
in that line is shown in South America, Mexico,
and Canada. Only Puritans could have made a
New England ; only Dutch and Scotch Presby
terians and pious Friends' could have founded
the Empire and the Keystone States; only their
descendants could have' given us the teeming
West, and developed the marvellous wealth of
the placers, the Sierras,.and the Rocky Moun
tains. The four million Roman Catholics, men,
women, and children, who have mostly fled from
starvation in Popish countries to this Protestant
land, may pretend to disbelieve this; the few
hundred thousand infidels, who are sitting under
this thrifty and comforting growth of deep re
ligious convictions,• may attempt to deny its
origin, but full thirty millions of Americans to
day are ready cordially to recognize the Bible
and Protestantism as the sources of their great
ness, and the breath of -their national life. The
United States is the victorious embodiment of
the true Protestant idea - of. freedom 'within the
wholesome limits of the divine law. .We learfied
our lessons of liberty, to quote Bancroft, from
Luther and Calvin.
The Protestantism of the Bade is, therefore,
hound up in the very fibres of our country's be
ing. We are _a free people, because our ,fore
fathers and ourselves believe God alone to be
Lord of the conscience; we are a law=abiding
people, because we acknowledge the authority of
the revealed will of God. Infidelity and Roman
ism strike equally at the foundations of our hap
piness. No one intelligently attached to our
national institutions, can consent to allow the policy
of our country to be directed by either. And yet
that policy is not intolerattt,4lcApekaMtikk
seal up the Bible, or those that wouikabolish
it altogether. It constrains no one to be either
Protestant or Christian. And why? Because
it is both Protestant and Christian itself: Let it
cease to be either, and it will cease to be tolerant
of those who are neither. Let it become Papal;
where would be its liberties ? Let it become
unbelieving ; who that has read of the French
Revolution doubts what would be the result?
It bears with the opinions of Papists and un
belevers, simply because it does not yield to them.
And now we have come to the point where we
ve certainly e tpecled to yield to them. The
contest to shut the Bible out of our Public Schools
is upon us. No better, no more suital le place
for the Bible in America can be found, than the
common schools. We speak not now of the in
trinsic merits or supreme authority of the vol
ume; or of the vast mischief involved in the
very idea of education without religion. Butes
a matter of national self-respect, the first lesson
that we should impress upon our children, is the
source from which our institutions and our na
tional spirit are derived, and from which our his
tory springs. As a nation, we should undertake
to acquaint our ohildren with the Bible and 'to
give the book currency and popularity. Wise
statesmanship, looking to the perpetuity of our
institutions, should fearlessly and unreservedly
commit the nation to the Bible; and how better
can this be done than by giving it an established
place in the exercises of our public schools ?
That will bring the entire mass of our youth un
der the influence of its incomparable morality.
Appointed by public authority, if not of the na
tion, then of the State, it will form, in the mind
of the pupil, an indissoluble association between
Bible and country. Unless this is done, there
will be a vacancy in the training of the young
citizen, which no amount of domestic, or Sabbath
school, or denominational instruction in the
Bible can supply. Even should our mission
schools reach every youth in the land with the
Bible, it would be the Church and not the State
that was doing it, and the full impression which
every 3oung American should have about the
Bible would never be made. For it is not the Bi
ble as a religious book we plead for, but as the
true manual of the citizen and the State.
It is not forcing our religion upon Romanists
awl infidels to make Bible-reading a part of the
eserelscs of the schools which their children are
likely to attend; Republicanism itself might jest
as well be charged with forcing it upon them.
R
epublicaals in itself is a-constant, ever-present,
overwhelming testimony to the blessed results of
a free Bible, in forming the national character.
Shall we be asked to apologize for, or in fact, to
abolish our Republica n
institutions because - they
undo, in so many thousands of instances, the
teachings of Rome? Will 'our popish fellow
citizens protest' against the very breath they
draw ? Against the very oxygen which makes it
life giving, and.which puts health in their cheeks
and hope into toe , it hearts? Rather let.them ac
cept the Biblein our public schools, as simply
one of the many. facts, adverse to their own
creed, under which they consent to place them
selves, and their, children, in exchanging their
own for a Protestant country.
Thereare Protestant Christians who are ner
vously anxious to be consistent and thorough
going in their toleration. Mr. Beecher, the
Independent, the Tribune, &e., believe that con
sistency requires us to withdraw the Bible rather
than offend our Romish citizens. But we sub
mit that our inconsistency touches the form and
not the reality of our tolerantprinciple; it saves
the reality, while it trenches on the form only.
Common sense demands a limit to toleration. It
may not go so far as to undermine itself. For
the sake of the very parties who dem'and of us,
as a nation, the surrender of the Bible, we must
refuse. Besides, there are others who stand
ready with further demands upon our Christian
and Protestant principles, when the ltomanists
have got theirs. Behind the robed and mitred
priests, we, see the Mormons thronging, with
their spurious revelations and their chartered
libertinism, ready to agitate for the abrogation
of the laws on which our domestic institutions
are founded; wasee the Jews clamoring for the
removal of our inconvenient public observance of
the first day of the week * as a day of rest; and
still behind these, we descryart endless procession
of Mongolian tribes, with their joss sticks and
pagodas, and their whole sphere of thought,
world-wide from our.ideas of the higher sanctions
of law, and the meaning of an oath. Where, in
conformity with the demands which such as these
might make upon us, in the wide interpretation
of the principle of toleration, would be the very
essentials of our fabric of civilization? Down
what Niagara and into what gulf of chaos shall
we plunge, if once we consent to the proposition
that we are not a Protestant and Christian .na-
Volfr--**-
AN EVENT AND ITS LESSONS.
There was a melancholy murder in. New York
city last week, and a sad, development connected
with it. A name of distinguished eminence and
honor in the world of journalism has been blur
red; the lamp of a life once bright, brave, and
enterprising in a remarkable degree, has gone out
amid the clouds of a sickening domestic tragedy.
The man who passed unharmed through war's
perils, and survived the barbarities of a rebel im
prisonment, who crossed and recrossed the conti
nent in safety, always with a charming tale to
tell of his adventures, now falls the victim of a
well-grounded jealousy, and leaves his memory
to the gossip of the' prurient crowd. Astound
ing mistake ! , Grievous infatuation of a gifted
man I Can it be traced to its source, and can so
sad and bitter a fatality enter in any way into
the valuable experience, of men, particularly
young men ?
One thing we know; the whole series of events,
whose crisis is just reached, began in the theatre.
Four years and a half ago a precious life was lost
to the nation in a theatre. Two years after that
warning, we read that Mr. Richardson frequently
escorted Mrs. M'Farlandfrom the theatre where
she was an actress. No one need be reminded in
this age of the theatre, that its representations
familiarize the spectator with every sort of crime
and villainy. It is a high school of lust and
murder. .Does any one wonder that a modern
theatre should be the scene of a terrible assassina
tion, and -that an actor should be the chief per
former in the real tragedy ? Need any one be
greatly surprised that out of an intimacy with an
actress, proposals utterly at war with purity and
domestic peace, should arise ? Are not such re
sults too disgustingly common to be deemed
worthy of remark, or to be dignified by the
cracking of pistols and the shedding of blood ?
We beg to be corrected if we overstate the mat
tar. .4rWben that which is performed before the
public gazdis so scandalous as to become indicta
ble, we, at least, expect nothing better behind
the scenes. Those who pass their whole lives
within the circle of these poisonous influences,
and those who become intimate with them, will
find it morally impossible to escape personal con
tamination, or, at the very least, to cherish those
exalted views of the domestic , tie which are at
the foundation of all social peace and welfare.
Of the party who is gone we would speak gently.
The act which sent him to his account was mur
der. But, unpardonable as the act was, as a
violent and bloody protest against the theatre,
its warning should be most thoughtfully heeded.
We read that the first stone theatre, built in
ljan7o
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1869.
Rome, B. C. 155, was pulled down, as injurious
to the public morals. The institution hes not
improved in 2,000 years.
There is a disposition to make of the murder
ed man a hero, or a martyr. We are getting ac
customed to perverse freaks of public sentiment,
and even to seeing ministers in good standing sail
with and. justify the current. But, taking the
murdered man's own declaration, written and
printed two years ago, when a similar attempt
had just been made on his life, by the, same per
son, we ure compelled to say, that whilelybe;.may
not have been guilty of technical crimingdify, he
so conducted himself that all the mock, heroism
and besmirched honor which society ascribes and
bestows on such occasions, would more properly
go to the murderer than to this victim. An in
tercepted love-letter (" such a letter as one would
naturally write to the woman he expeood to
marry,") from one man to the wife of another;
an engagement of marriage . with a woman legal
ly the wife of another, and the mother of his
children, years before she could be divorced, and
whose divorce could be procured only in a remote
Western State, are palpable and gross invasions
of the sanctity of the holiest of human relations,
wrongs which no amount of. wrong on the part
of the husband to the wife, while she remained
his could make right. And ministers who try to
palliate or justify such conduct will suffer' more
from the recoil of their own pleas, than the, pub
lie whose Christian common sense and strong do
mestic instincts, promptly and indignantly revolt
against them.
THE NEWSPAPER REVIVAL-OUR OWN
COURSE.
One gratifying result of the Re-uniotiis seen
at once in the efforts made to put the.neWspaper
press of the denomination upon a higher-Poting.
It has by no means compared well, with' that' of
other denominations, particularly Congregation
alists and Baptists, in time past. We know of
no Presbyterian journal that can rank With the
Boston Watckinan and Reflector (Baptist), or
The Congregationalist and Recorder. We might
• Send the.list farther and tare no bettet; , Even
the Methodist press of the country, as a whole,
is superior to the Presbyterian. It now looks as
if Presbyterians were about to take the eminent
position in this important branch of service,
which their standing in other respects hag long
demanded. The Herald and The Presbyter of
Cincinnati, have consolidated in a most honor
able and satisfactory manner, and as we have
already noted, and as we every week observe, the
united paper is a most decided advance on either
of the two alone. The march of improvement
has now reached New York city, where The
Evangelist has long shone with a mild and some
what dry light. The wick is to be trimmed, and
more oil, in the form of money expenditure is to
be poured in. A new editor, Rev. C. K. Im
brie, D.D., of Jersey City, formerly of the other
branch, makes his salutatory in the last paper.
Dr. F. F. Ellinwood will keep the readers posted
up, and stirred up, too, on the causes of the
Church, and Dr. John Hall is promised as a
regular contributor. The paper will also be en
larged at the commencement of the year. At
Chicago, it is announced that we shall have a
• , -
paper representing 'tbe best elements of the
united Church, at the beginning of the year.
A happy exchange for The N. W. Presbyterian,
and an auspicious omen for the whole Church.
But nothing more clearly proves the power of
this advance movement than the fact that it has
stirred oar cotemporary, the old Presbyterian
of this city. That paper announces that it has
endeavored" to secure the services of Rev. Dr.
Cuyler, of Brooklyn, as an editor (without suc
cess, however), and that it will endeavor to com
ply with the demands of the Presbyterian
Church, as now constituted, upon the newspaper
press. The large constituency of this paper, the
influence it has hitherto wielded and probably
will continue to wield, make its action among
the most important that will be taken by the
newspapers of the body. We trust it may be
guided by -Divine wisdom in its future move
ments.
As for ourselves, our readers know well that
we have always represented the progressive,
wide-awake and soundly liberal spirit that is ex
pected, and that is actually beginning, to char
acterize the new era of Presbyterianism. We give
our hearts to the Re-union, because we see in it,
as it has finally developed, the overthrow of
ultra-conservatism, high-churchism, and hyper
orthodoxy, and the ushering in of an era
of youthful vigor, hopefulness, elasticity and
sound liberality. Our services, such as they
are, we wish to render to the promotion of such
a result. A truly evangelical paper is needed,
which shall cherish the best traditions of our
great national conflict; which shall utter no un-
certain sound on the great public questions of
the day, which involve high moral considera
tions ; which shall not be afraid of free discus
sion on matters in which brethren differ; which
shall be prejudiced against nothing new because
it is new, or in favor of nothing old because it
is old; which shall give a wholesome moral im
pulse to every circle where it is known.
We ask our friends everywhere to aid us, by
ef f orts common at this season of the year espe
ciaily, in holding up the new standard of Pres
byterianism—not an iron pillar, but a banner for
the truth. Let us pledge one another to do a
great deal more for the interests represented by
this paper, in the Re-union than out of it, and let
us see such lists of new subscribers as harp not
yet rallied to our columns. Let your prayers
come with your names, that the power of God,
the Spirit of truth and the treasures of the
Gospel may shine in every issue of the paper, in
the coming year.
GROWTH SINCE THE DIVISION.
In 1837 the Presbyterian Church in the
United States comprised twenty-three Synods, one
hundred and thirty-five Presbyteries, 2,140 min
isters, 2,865 churches, and 220,557 communicants.
The statistics of the reunited Church show fifty
one Synods, two hundred and fifty-six Presby
teries, 4,371 churches, 4,229 ministers, and
431,563 members. Add to the figures the sta
tistics of the Southern Church, and we have a
total of 33 Synods, 304 Presbyteries, over 5,000
ministers, 5,700 churches, and 520,000 mem
bers. There has, therefore, been a growth of
one hundred and twenty-five per cent. in mem
bership in thirty-two years, the growth in other
respects being proportionate. The population of
the country at the time of the division was some
what less than sixteen millions: Last spring,
when these statistics of the Churches were •fresh,
the population was :probably forty millions. This
— cannot, however, be even approximately ascer
tained until the census for 1870 appears. It
points, however, to a rate of growth in the popu
lation exceeding by twenty-fivp- per cent. the
grow& of Presbyterianism in thesabranches, In
other words, its 4 iinited strength, North and
South, should be forty thonsand greater than it
now is ; to have kept pace with the growth of the
country in the past thirty-two years. A fact
worth serious pondering in these days of jubilee.
OXFORD CHURCH.
"THE FEAST OF DEDICATION."
This church will be dedicated to the service
of Almighty God, on Sunday next, the 12th
inst. The sermon in the morning at 10 , 3-
o'clock, will be preached by Rev. Albert Barnes.
In the afternoon at 3, there will be addresses
by Rev. Drs. Humphrey, Adams, Mears, Stryker,
and Wiswell ; in the evening at 71, a sermon by
the ,pastor, Rev. Frank L. Robbins.
SERVICES during the week : Monday night
at 7i-, sermon by Bishop Simpson ; Tuesday
night, sermon by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D., of
Brooklyn; Wednesday night, a grand Sacred
Concert; Thursday night at 7i, Sermon by Dr.
John Hall, of New York; Friday night, social
reunion of the congregation and their friends ;
tickets $l. Saturday, at 4, P. M., a Union Prayer
meeting, of all denominations in the North
western part of the city. Subject: Prayer for
a blessing on our common work in entering upon
our *inter campaign. Sunday evening at 71,
the 19th, Rev. Dr. Richard Newton will preach
a sermon to the child ren.
OUR ROCHESTER CORRESPONDENT.
HAMILTON COLLEGE
The Catalogue of Hamilton College has come
to hand, a neatly printed pamphlet of forty-two
pages. It contains the names of eleven instruc
tors, able and experienced men, and 166 students,
lin Law, 41 Seniors, 36 Juniors, 46 Sopho
mors, and 39 Freshmen. There are still two
vacancies in the list of its Professors, two good
and wise men wanted, one for Intellectual and
Moral Science, and one for Natural Philosophy.
There are now sixteen permanent scholarships,
of $l,OOO each, the benefit of which may be
realized by deserving students. There is also
another fund of $lOO,OOO, the interest of which
will be annually distributed to needy students of
Christian character and good scholarship.
The Catalogue contains the list of degrees
conferred and prizes awarded at the last Com
mencement, also the •necrology of the year, to
gether with themes and prizes proposed for 1870.
The Catalogue indicates that work is intended.
Hamilton College is a poor place for a lazy man.
We have before spoken of the fact, that this
College has furnished more ministers than any
other we know of, in proportion to the whole
number of its graduates. We - have • recently
Genesee Evangelist, No. 1229.
learned that of these no less than sixteen have
been Foreign Missionaries, among whom the
names of H. G. 0. Dwight, D. D., Sheldon
Dibble, H. B. Morgan, A. W. Loomis and Jus
tus Doolittle are conspicuous.
They maintain a live one in Buffalo. It em
biaces the Presbyterians, Baptists; Free Will
Baptists, and Methodists. They meet at 4
o'clock on Monday afternoon, and 'adjourn at
seven, after taking tea together. At the gather
ing which we attended last week, brief reports
Of Sabbath services were first rendered; then a
sermon read for criticism; and the remainder of
the time was devoted to the discussion of a prac
tical question in which all were deeply interested.
It was a delightful meeting, and must be one'of
great profit to those who participate in its week
ly exercises. Sixteen ministers, representing
the different denominations named, were present,
and the'best feeling of love and harmony seemed
to prevail.
We remember with much interest the visit of
Mr. Moody and Judge. Smith, some two years
ago, to our city. Much that was said on that
occasion was calculated to stir up Christianity to
greater activity in the religious life. The words
of Mr. Moody especially moved all hearts. Many,
we do not doubt, were more encouraged and
strengthened by his addresses than they would
have been by the same things from the lips of a
clergyman, simply because, he was a brother lay
man.
We think such conventions do good; and we
know several laymen in our own State quite com
petent, in our estimation, to conduct them.
Such meetings might be particularly helpful
to young. Christians. The voice of strangers
might arrest their attention. Suggestions, from
those of ripe experience in Christian usefulness,
might help them to avoid mistakes, and go to
work successfully for the Master. We know
that pastors would sometimes welcome such
help. If any, in some of our larger villages, de
sire to make arrangements for such meetinga, we
can put them in communication with sonle" able
and ,admirable brethren, who would - take pleaiure
in aiding them.
Rev. Dr. Niles, of Corning; preached an ear
nest, practical .sermon upon the above subject,
on the 28th ult., in the First Presbyterian
church of Elmira, which is' published entire in
the Elmira Advertiser. Dr. Campbell preached
upon the same subject in his own pulpit, in our
city, at the same time. Both take the ground
that the removal of the Bible from the schools,
while it would be a great injury in many ways,
would not at all satisfy Catholics. What they
want is not so much the removal of the Bible as
the destruction of the schools. Surely we can
not allow our common schools to be broken down.
We have seen too much of their benefits to give
them up, and go back where Spain and Italy
have so long been with church schools alone.
Bevy Charles H. Taylor is called to the Pres
byterian church of Le Roy. Re accepts, and is
to enter at once upon his charge.
Rev. R. E. Willson, late of Clyde, is invited
to take charge of the Presbyterian church at
Havanna. We think he will accept the invita
tion. Dr. Lord, of Buffalo, has been preaching
a series of Sunday evening services to his people
on the coming of Christ. Dr. Clarke has been
reviewing Lecky on Rationalism. Dr. Chester
is supplying the Presbyterian church of Batavia.
Rev. E. P. Hammond and wife were in our
city last week, on their way to Cincinnati. They
stopped to hold a meeting one evening in Lock
port, coming around this way for that express
purpose, by grateful desire of the people of that
city, where his labors last spring were so exceed-
ingly blest.
Rochester, Dec, 4th, 1869
—The allusion to the efforts of Rome for the
proselytizing of the freedmen, in Dr. Dickey's
communication on the next page, reminds us -of
a discovery made by Mr. Mitchell, Agent of the
Home Missionary Committee, and reported to us
in Pittsburgh. He was looking about the streets
of that city, on a recent Sabbath evening, when
his attention was drawn to a building around
which a number of, colored persons were gather
ed. On inquiry, lie learned that they were assem
bling for Roman Catholic worship, and on enter
ing the building, he found from one hundred and
fifty to two htindred colored persons engaged,
with apparent devotion, in the usual services of
the Rotnish Church. Further inquiry may have
modified the effect of the first impression, which
was certainly startling, and well calculated to
disturb the indifference with which we have
hitherto regarded the designs of Rome upon the
colored people.
Home & Foreign Kiss. $2OO.
I Address :-1334 ChePtrint Street.
MINISTERS' MEETING
CHRISTIAN CONVENTIONS
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS
CALLS,
GENESEE