"The men and women of our day who are educated in our public schools will, I am sure, be much better themselves and will also be able to transmit to their children an inheritance of true virtue and deep morality if at school they are brought to the knowledge of Biblical facts and teachings."

After the examination of this book, Archbishop Ireland, of St. Paul, said: "I sympathize with this movement in every respect."

Want of space prevents our quoting from others whose names occupy places of honor in the church, who rejoice to endorse this movement.

Fourth. Business Men.

Those giants in mercantile and industrial pursuits, whose heads and hands grapple the practical questions of profit and loss with magical success, also see the key to larger beneficial results in our schools by the cordial use of this volume of readings from the Bible. Among these grand men one may recognize the names of Marshall Field, J. V. Farwell, Jr., C. H. Case, William A. Amberg, W. P. Rend, C. M. Henderson, Z. S. Holbrook, and others, no less distinguished.

Fifth. The Daily Press.

Of the extremely valuable assistance of our Metropolitan Press, what can be said? The papers speak for themselves. In addition to their many recent utterances in behalf of this movement, notice the following quotations from their dignified editorial columns corcerning the merorial which is found on pages 1 and 2.

"There is nothing in that prayer (the Lord's Prayer) that cannot be made the aspiration of every soul that believes in God-and all children believe in God; they cannot but believe in him. Atheism is a warping of the soul that is not a disease of childhood. And there is no aspiration of that prayer

that does not tend to the betterment of mind and body."-"The Inter Ocean."

"The petition declares, what few will deny, that 'religion in the sense of doctrines and creeds belongs to the church, but religion in the sense of high character and good citizenship also belongs to a proper system of education.' The position is so well taken that it disarms all except the most captious criticism. There seems to be no good or valid reason why the schools may not teach morals and religion without trenching upon the domain of the churches or of sectarianism."-"The Record."

"Such a memorial should carry great weight with it when presented to the Board of Education for adoption, as it will be. Unquestionably in pursuance of the laudable purpose to free the schools from dogma and to avoid trenching upon creeds and offending religious denominations the school authorities have swung clear to the other extreme and have stripped the process of education of everything that tends to inculcate honesty, honor, morality, and the qualities of good citizenship, which certainly are essentials of the highest purposes of education. The Board of Education should give this memorial immediate and favorable consideration when it is presented, 'thereby fixing in the minds of children the vital, spiritual principles on which good citizenship and the future welfare of our country so largely depend.' There is no higher responsibility resting upon Boards of Education and teachers than that of making good citizens out of the rising generation. So far as lies in their power, a praiseworthy work is being done in the schools, looking to a higher standard of patriotic citizenship. Now let us have something done for morality and high personal character. This once accomplished, patriotism will follow of necessity.""The Tribune."

"The Tribune" has recently (February 16, 1896) sent out, editorially, ardent words in commendation of this book. It states: "Anything in the domain of religion which originated with Prof. Swing, and has received the approval of men so widely differing in their creeds as the Rev. Dr. Barrows, Rabbi Felsenthal, Cardinal Gibbons, and Mr. Mangasarian, must attract favorable attention, not only in Chicago, but throughout the Christian world."

The book is precisely what might have been expected from a corps of editors of such learning, wisdom and experience. They have without doubt. produced a collection of Bible Readings rich in morality and virtue and in the elements of all religion. It breathes everywhere the love of God and the love of man. Its literary merit also is so conspicuous it cannot fail to excite universal admiration. "The Tribune."

"While there will doubtless be opposition to the introduction of the textbook of Biblical excerpts into the public schools, common candor impels the statement that it is difficult to discern upon what argument such antagonism could be based. Surely a compilation of Scriptural verses that embody the highest moral precepts, free from any suggestion of dogma or creed, collected by such men as Dr. J. H. Barros, W. J. Onahan and C. C. Bonney, and published in a neat little text-book for

short daily readings in the public schools, either individually or in unison, could not be objectionable to Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists or agnostics."-"Times-Herald," February 16, 1896.

"We cannot make men good by State laws or city ordinances. All intelligent people recognize the need of moral training to fix the idea of right and wrong in the youthful mind."

"The Bible furnishes the best

groundwork for a perfect scheme of ethics. Its teachings are the basis of law and order. The laws that have been passed for the government of men and for the protection of individual rights are imperfect and inhuman unless they conform to the general spirit of the teachings of Christ."

"There is no tenable objection to the Biblical text-book on morals. Any teacher who would misuse its precepts or take advantage of the book to instill any denominational dogmas into the minds of the pupils is not worthy. to teach in the public schools.""Times-Herald," February 16, 1896.

What more need be said? Yet testimonies come flooding in upon us from many parts of the United States and from beyond the sea; from the records of the past and from the electric flashes. of the present.

Pope Pius the VI, in 1778, wrote commending the Archbishop of Florence who had just issued a new translation of the Scriptures: "You judge exceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, for these are the most abundant sources which ought to be open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrines, to eradicate errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times."

Dr. E. D. Morris writes: "The public school, if it is to prove a blessing, must instruct its pupils in sound morals and in religious truth, as well as give shape and vigor to their intellec

tual life. No teacher, no human system or culture can for a moment compare with the Bible itself, without note or comment, as a source and fount of religious knowledge and of moral quickening. On a fair trial of public opinion only a very small minority of the patrons of our school system would be found to be seriously or conscientiously averse to the right reading of this book in our schools. The peace

and comfort of our homes, the integrity and good order of society, the maintenance of civil government, even the preservation of our type of civilization, depend very largely on the training of the young at school as well as at home, in that one volume from which the best elements in our modern life have so obviously flowed."

Dr. Lyman Beecher: "Our Republic in its constitution and laws is of heavenly origin. It is not borrowed from Greece or Rome. Where we borrowed a ray from Greece or Rome, stars and suns were borrowed from another source, the Bible."

Judge McLean: "My hope for the

perpetuity of our institutions has rested upon Bible morality. It is an element on which free government may be maintained through all time."

Bishop Spaulding: "The religion of the Bible is not a theory or system of thought. It is a view of life."

Emerson: "All great ages have been ages of belief."

DeTocqueville: "What can be done with a people who are their own masters, if they are not submissive to Deity? Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."

Abbott: "Force without is despotism. Force within is religion."

Having presented the paper documents of various American plans for increasing the Bible knowledge of Bible knowledge of school pupils and college students, the editor feels that he ought to give those who will attempt to get these excellent plans adopted some conception of the human factors the foes and friends that they will encounter. It would be difficult to do this thoroughly without disturbing the conciliatory propaganda which this book represents as a collection of harmonious and successful plans of promoting Bible study in public schools. We may, perhaps, present some general facts that will be helpful. For one thing, it should be anticipated at the start that good men will not all support any of these plans. It is one of the perennial puzzles of some good men that every other good man does not vote the same ticket and attend the same place of worship. It should be expected that a few good men in every group will oppose any plan for Bible reading in schools. The folly of it is that in many a conference the majority that favors doing something to mitigate the general ignorance of the Bible among young people postpones action because they encounter one or two determined opposers. It is

this habit of waiting for unanimous consent that defeats almost any progressive plan of religious education in any official religious board. Whenever the editor has met a rabbi personally or has conferred. by letter, there has been a spirit of cooperation, but if the matter should be presented in a conference of rabbis we should expect a tide of denominationalism to defeat any concession. In Protestant and Catholic churches also there are many individuals who are more willing to co-operate in Bible in schools plans than the church courts above them. In all ages the van of social progress has been composed of religious people, but not of religious boards. The moral is that those who seek to restore and improve Bible reading in the schools. shall not look to church courts to lead, but organize new committees, local and State, of those who believe in the movement, to co-operate with the voluntary national organizations that are leading this movement.

As an alternate of above historical course of readings for a school year, we suggest another course of topical readings shall be made, beginning with God and ending with the future life, somewhat after the fashion of "Readings from Scripture for Every Day of the Year," edited by Rabbi Maurice H. Harris, 10 E. 129th Street, New York City.

Years ago de Tocqueville, the great French statesman, was sent to America to study our institutions. On his return to France he made his report to the French Senate and in that report said: "Sirs, I went at your bidding; I ascended their mountains; I went down into their valleys; I visited their commercial markets and their emporiums of trade; I entered their legislative halls and their judicial courts. I searched everywhere in vain until I entered the church. It was there, sirs, as I listened to the soul-elevating and soul-equalizing gospel of Christ, as it fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the waiting multitudes, that I learned why America is great and free, and France is a slave." Webster said: "When the public mind becomes vitiated and corrupt, laws are a nullity and constitutions so much waste paper." Washington very wisely said: "Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Our fathers realized the need of religion in our national life and made provision for it. As early as 1642 the Colonial Court of Massachusetts passed a law requiring that all children should. be taught to "read and understand the principles of religion." For a century and a half the New England Primer was the principal text-book in the schools for the teaching of reading and spelling. It was made up of creeds, catechisms and commandments. Ninetenths of its contents were religious, and it was from this book that the youth of New England were taught for one hundred and fifty years.

. It is not an accident that for nearly

two centuries New England gave more scholars, more teachers, more ministers and more statesmen to the nation than any other section of the land. It is not a mere freak of fate that for two hundred years New England exercised a power in our national life out of proportion to its size or numbers.

When this Northwest Territory was organized one of its first ordinances decreed that schools should be encouraged and provided for the teaching of "religion, morals, and education, as necessary to good government."

Up to the middle of the last century religion had a vital and valid place in the instruction of the school-room. But two generations ago the pendulum started in the other direction, and a movement was begun to drive the Bible from the schools, and to eliminate religion from State instruction.

We face this striking situation: a government spending more than a million dollars a day on an educational system from which it has eliminated the only force that can safeguard the integrity of its citizenship. Nineteen millions of pupils are being trained for citizenship without any direct reference to the one force that can make their citizenship of the largest value to the nation. If Burke was right when he said that "religious education is the chief defense of nations," then the United States has been guilty of the greatest national folly of two centuries.

What is the outcome of the secularization of the public schools? In a word, we have taught our people how to master the forces of nature, but not how to control themselves. As a nation, we have lost our respect for religion, our reverence for the Sabbath, our regard for law, and our enthusiasm for the higher moralities of life.