The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-23
arxnrr OF xzn RRuss.
w2,tor,nI Opinions Of the LEADING Journals
TTpon Current TcpIcs-COmpiled kverV
nav for the Evening Telegraph.
..THE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOLS.

seT'HE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOLS"
Fno,n the NJ Y. Nation.
Judging from what has happened in Gin
pinnati, and what is happening in New York,
and what we see signs of in various other
rIaces, the common school system, which may
fairly be called the cornerstone Of American
polity is in some danger, if not of destruc-
ton, of the loss of much of its value, owing
TO the angry passions which have been reused
by the question known as ''the Bible in the
schoolsn 1t would naturally seem to an en-
Iightened pagan, to ''the two Hindoos, for
instance, who are now said to be travelling in
this country, that the propriety of reading
few passages from the sacred book of the
Christians every morning in the schools of
community of which the vast majority of the
people are Christians, and that book reper-
tory of the sublmest moral maxims, and of
tales which, whether true or false, are mex
pressibly beautiful and touching, could hardly
throw the parents of the children, and their
friends and neighbors, into the widest ex-
citement, and threaten to break up the whole
State machinery of education.
But then, if we took the pagan apart, and
explained to him that not only had the Chris
fians never come to any general agreement as
to the source from which children should re-
ceive their religious instruction, whether
from their family or the State, bat that the
sacred book had through series of events,
called the IrOteBUanU heIOrmhJlOu, Deeu COu-
verted from storehouse of doctrine, reproof,
xnd instruction, into kind of party ensign
ol standard round which the thickest of the
sectarian battle had ragged for two centuries,
il would all become quite plain to him. The
cause of the trouble we are now witnessing
about 'the Bible in the schools, really lies in
the fact not that the Catholics think that any
harm would result to their children from
hearing passages of Scripture read to them
of chi 70 tha
citation of the same words or ideas from any
other source-but that the reading of the
Bible by laymen, without note or comment,
has become, in their eyes, sign or test of
Professionalism spiritual biting of the
thumb at their Church by its enemies. Since
the great split in the Church in the sixteenth
century, the distinctive mark of Protestant
ism, as everybody knows, has been, not
an acknowledgment of the right
of each man to put his own
construction on the language of the
Bible-this no Protestant sect has ever &C
knowledged-but of the right andduty of each
man to read it as much as he pleased, and a
belief that from such reading much spiritual
benefit is sure to accrue. The Catholic con-
viction has been, on the other hand, that
from such unauthorized reading by unlearned
persons there must result much injury both
to morals and doctrine, and at all events the
loss of that unity which may be said to be of
the essence of Catholicism. In the battle
which has ragged since the Reformation, the
mass of the combatants have ceased, as is not
uncommon in such cases, to think
much about the origin of the quar-
rel, and great deal about the ensign
under which the fighting has gone on. Hence
the Catholics have got into way of talking
and indeed of thinking, about the Bible as if
1t were prolific fountain of wickedness and
the Protestants, on the other hand, as if there
were mystic virtue in the mere paper and
binding of the book. A layman reading a
Bible seems to devout Catholic to have the
devil behind him directing him and interpre-
ting to him; the Protestant, on the other
hand, tells stories of men whose lives were
Daved in battle by having New Testament
h their breast-pocket, to receive and stop
i }he hostile ball or sabre-thrust and lodge
Of Irish Orangemen never open one of their
meetings, and begin cursing their fellow
sitizens, and uttering threats and denuncia-
lions against them, without reading chapter
of the Scriptures, with, considering the cir
cumstances, an amusing solemnity
Now, what is the duty of the State with re-
gard to education, if it have any duty at all ?
Is it not to take facts as it finds them, and
get the children of the community educated
If not in the way the majority think best,
In the only way possible? Catholics, with
their feelings bout the Bible and about State
schools, are acts, and have to be dealt with
as facts. If it be true that Catholic boy who
is taught to read and write is less likely to
commit crimes, and more likely to prove O
good citizen, than if he did not know how to
read or write, and he refuses to be taught if
we insist on reading the Scriptures to him
every morning, is it not our duty to teach
him to read and write at any rate, and to give
up reading the Scriptures to him The Bible
read to persons who think you are reading il
to them as an act of hostility, cannot possibly dc
them any good for they will not listen to it,
and it cannot afford any pleasure to the
Almighty to have His word read as an act o.
DiS major, and for the torment or annoyance
or to the moral or mental detriment, of
large body of His creatures. Nor can am
good result from the mere reading of tn,
Bible without reference to its effect on tn,
audience. No Protestant feels about chap
ter of it as Catholic feels about the mass
y that you get all the benefit of it by merel,
being within hearing of it, whether you un
derstand it or not. This would literally b.
bibliolatry with which Protestants are Otter
charged, but to which they have never to ou
4 knowledge pleaded guilty
Then comes the other question, and per
haps the more important one--suppose w
succeed in reading the Bible in the schools
are we sufficiently sure of the good effects o
= our reading even on Protestant children t.
warrant us in keeping the Catholics in a con
stant state of irritation, and furnishing ther
with a constant incentive to intrigue an
sgitate for the overthrow of our whole educa
tional system, and for the appropriation O
large sums of the public money for the sol
and separate use of their own sectaria
schools--a consummation they have nearl
raachad in this Stata Ia IL wall ascartaina