THE Christian Guide, a neat eight-page paper, published in Boston, by Rev. J. B. Daly, a converted priest, comes to us asking an exchange. We like the tone of the paper and welcome it to our table. In an article on “Church and State” the Guide says that “Bishop Doane, in an article on the school question, remarks that ‘separate schools for Protestants and Romanists are allowed in England and Holland.’ Well, that is a very good reason why we do not want separate schools in the United States. Separate schools would necessarily be religious; and the United States could not support such schools, for the most prominent feature of our Government is the separation of Church and State. Once let this Government support such schools, and we would then unite Church and State. That we cannot do and never shall do, to please the Church of Rome, or any other church.”
The Guide well says, “or any other church,” for the danger is quite as great from misguided Protestants as from Romanists. The demand for unsectarian religious instruction in the public schools is nothing more nor less than a demand for Protestant instruction; and the State has no more right to teach Protestantism than it has Romanism.
LET none suppose for a moment that our opposition to what its friends are pleased to call “religion and the State,” springs from opposition to Christianity. We have a most profound regard for the Christian religion, and are doing all in our power for its promotion. And it is our regard for Christianity that leads us to oppose anything which either directly or indirectly tends to unite Church and State; because such unions instead of promoting pure religion have always and everywhere corrupted it; and instead of attracting people to the Church from a desire to lead blameless lives, and to attain to eternal life at last, have either driven them further from the Church, or else have attracted them to it for temporal advantage rather than for spiritual upbuilding and moral sanctification.
NEW YORK, JULY 24, 1890.
NOTE.— Any one receiving the AMERICAN SENTINEL without having ordered it may know that it is sent to him by some friend, unless plainly marked “Sample copy.” It is our invariable rule to send out no papers without pay in advance, except by special arrangement, therefore, those who have not ordered the SENTINEL need have no fears that they will be asked to pay for it simply because they take it from the post-office.
THE Orleans (N. Y.) Herald remarks that those “who want religion in the public schools seem to be more anxious to introduce their own theology than to introduce good morals.”
IF governments derive their powers not from the people but from God, as the National Reformers assert, how comes it that the people can and do reform governments? How is it that they can and do take from governments powers which they formerly had?
REV. G. L. MORRILL, of Calvary Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota, preached a sermon not long since, criticising the decision of the Wisconsin Court on the Bible in the schools, in which he said:—
Has a Scripture-loving and living conscience no right to be respected, especially when it is in the majority? Shall the right of way be given a few atheistic and ignorant brigands, and denied the many who regard the Bible as the basis of civil freedom, virtue, and intelligence? Is this the fifteenth, or nineteenth century? Do we live in America, or Russia?
Admitting the argument in the first two questions, then the accent of surprise in the last two is very appropriate.
WRITING of the South, the editor of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Call, says:
Church attendance is good and hotel-bars and saloons have few or no back doors, so it is said. South of and including Richmond, you can obtain a Sunday paper, Sunday morning, but a Monday paper is not printed at all. The Whig and Dispatch are both morning papers, and print on Sunday morning. Calling there one day to look over the Springfield Republican, we asked the editor of the Dispatch in reference to not issuing a Monday paper. He at once replied that they rested on the Sabbath, and had conscientious scruples all through the South against Monday papers, because it compelled Sunday labor; while Sunday papers were made on Saturday.
In the North, Sunday papers are objected to principally because they are supposed to keep people away from church, though the more cautious keep this reason as much in the background as possible and are eloquent in their pleas for a rest day for the newsboys. They have nothing, however, to say against the Monday paper which is prepared almost wholly on Sunday.
THE Reformed Presbyterian Synod has transmitted to Congress a memorial protesting against Sunday work on the Worlds Fair, and asking that the gates be closed on Sundays. The Synod seems to be very much at sea. The fair is not to be at Washington. Is it to be on the high seas? Or is it a traveling show subject to inter-state commerce regulations? It has been supposed, for some time, that the site had been fixed at Chicago, but evidently the Presbyterian Synod had not heard of it, for they are too intelligent men to ask Congress to interfere with the municipal government of the city of Chicago, and dictate the local management of any fair, whether it be County, State, or Worlds fair, held within its jurisdiction. Of course the Government can close its own exhibit on Sunday but there its jurisdiction ends.
GOD having made every individual directly responsible to him for his attitude toward his Creator, and for his spiritual condition and character, and as there is no possible way in which the State can assume this responsibility, it follows that every individual must be left absolutely free in all things pertaining to man's duty toward God. This freedom is destroyed, or at least abridged, by even slight State interference in religious matters; therefore we oppose State recognition of any religion further than is absolutely necessary to protect all alike in the observance of religious services, and in the practice of religion.
ARCHBISHOP IRELAND, in his address before the National Educational Association at St. Paul, declared that, though he is a Catholic prelate, he would rather have Protestantism taught in the public schools than to have no religion taught there.
The utterance indicates a very liberal mind, but it is founded, as too much of the discussion of this subject is, upon a total misapprehension of the question. It is not a question of Protestantism or Catholicism. It is not in this country even a question whether or not the children would be the better for religious instruction. It is simply a question of the functions of the State and the rights of men.
Ours is a purely secular State, in which men of all religions and men of no religion are upon an exactly equal footing before the law. It has nothing whatever to do with creeds or with religion, except to protect all citizens alike in their perfect religious liberty. The public schools are maintained by the secular State for the secular education of the children; their religious education is a matter with which the State has no right to concern itself. That is a matter for parents and pastors.
The State has no more right to teach a religion which is held by the great majority of the people, than to teach one held by only one of all its citizens. It has no right to interfere with religion at all.—The World.
