The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-04-30


paper called the Lader is published in
Toledo, Ohio, devoted to the cause of Free
Religion, in which "a certain space in
each number is offered to the use of Rev.
| o. B. rockingham and Rev. w. J. Potter,
President and Secretary of the American
Free Religious Associations and which,
after stating that ''the corner stene of Free
Religion is faith in human nature" an
nounces creed of fifty articles without
any expression of ga belief in God either
personal or impersonal, Or any use whatever
of the name of God" Where such infu-
ences are at work to make the light that is
in men to be darkness, Watt. 623) surely
we should hesitate to make the true stand
ard of right and wrong any less conspcu-
Gus.
The Bible should be retained for the sake
Of the Publsc School system itself. Those
most eager for the exclusion of the Bible
have expressly declared that they are OPP
posed to the whole system of Public
Schools. Says the Freeman's Journal:
Let the Pubic School system 60 where it
came from-the Devil, What we must do
is to get ont of these pits of destruction
under the name of Public or District
Schools" They demand their share of the
public money to educate their own children
in their own way. If under the smoke of
all this agitation about sectarianism and
conscience and usurpatian Of Church duty
hyyt ba 4J,oy csad 70
allow them their proportion of the School
Funds; then, as the smoke passes away,
we shall see their schools established by
the State on a UNCONVENTIONAL basis, while
we by this precedent, will eventually be
required to give to Jews and Pagans and
Tnfidels and Ratonalists and Mormons
each their respective shares to educate
their children in their views and thus the
whole system will be effectually broken up.
Such a course would destroy the very prin-
cple upon which the Public School system
is founded viz: That all shall be taxed by
the State for the support OF schools con-
trolled by the State; and in return, all
shall have the common right of educating
their children therein gratuitously to the
extent of the amount raised. 1t becomes
us, then, to resist to the very last every
effort to suppress the Bible because it tends
to the destruction Of our Public School
system, by which many poor boy has
been enabled to gain position of wealth
and influence among his fellow citizens
Let us guard the outpost if we would pre-
serve the citadel itself.
We should keep the Bible in our Schools
fortAe sake Of our Cowntry. When, in 1877,
Congress passed this ordinance, :! Resolced,
That religion, morality and knowledge
being necessary to good government and
the happiness of mankind, schools and the
means of education shall forever be encour-
aged" there is no room for doubt as to the
kind of religion they wished should
forever be preserved by ''schools and the
means Of education" 1t was not Judaism,
not Confucianism, not Buddhism, not
Mohammedism, not Fetishism. nor was it
Greek or Roman Catholicism, it could not
have been the modern and much Wanted
Free Religion; it was, beyond a peradven-
tllre, PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. This
"religion is so Incorporated into our ma
tional existence that it is made the basis of
argument in our civil courts as part of
the Law of the Land. The plan of educa
ton at the public expense is the outgrowth
of Protestant Chri stianity. There are no
Public Schools in Papal countries, and no
Bibles in the hands of the masses. Eng
land-whose noble Queen sent a Bible to
heather prince with the message ''This is
the secret of England's greatness. Eng
land to-day repels the inSinuation that the
Bible should be left out of the Public
Schools on the ground that it encourages
Sectariansm, or for any other reason. 1t
contains the secret Of her greatness, and
she would as soon surrender the Constitu
ton or the Grown as yield to the demands
of those who ask that the Bible should be
to any extent fettered. Truly it would he
suicidal for a Christian State to sanction
the education of several millions of its
children in an rmscriptural religious sys-
tenn, or to withhold from ether millions the
very best means Of making them intelligent
and virtuous citizens.
49,