So the work of the church is one of education; education, primarily, of the conscience and of the religious element in man. It must be conceded that, in the days which are fast passing away, through that ignorance which science, observation and experience have now dispelled, the various departments of organized Christianity have not turned their full power against the most formidable personification of evil and sin which has ever reared its audacious front against God and man. But now all is changed, and it is more and more perceived, as light destroys darkness, that a system of religion, which, in the fullness of its purity and love, not only prohibits all sin, but demands the affirmative activity of every power of the soul to promote individual and universal good, is against the traffic in alcohol from the law of its own being. And so the church concentrates its holiest and most comprehensive influences upon home for the education of the

child.

But the home is imperfect, is often broken, and frequently fails in the objects for which it is established; hence, from imperative necessity, society, in every free country, has established the school as an institution of the State. The common school is the nursery of personal liberty and of free institutions. As conscience follows faith and faith dependslargely upon intelligence, the public school, while designed especially to give the opportunity for intellectual training and the acquisition of the useful branches of common knowledge, is an efficient promoter of moral culture, by developing the intelligence and mental discipline required for accurate discrimination between right and wrong. When properly conducted, one of the great and direct objects of the institution is also to instill the great principles of virtue and religion. Not indeed the technology of sects, but the larger precepts which are common to all who, within the limits of Christian faith, believe in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. It is a mistake, in my belief, to depart from the general religious character of the common school as our fathers established it, so far as to omit from its forms the simple exercises which are a recognition of the Christian's God, and the teaching of the great outlines of Christian faith. No great people ever did, and probably no great people ever will exist, with

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out some affirmative and general religious faith. The altar began with the beginning and will survive until the foundations of the world crumble away.

Ours is the Christian religion, and that religion is founded upon the Bible. While I am no zealot, I yet believe that the common schools of America should teach the common principles of the Christian faith, and its morality, in such largeness of outline as would enable the child of the Protestant and of the Catholic to sit side by side studying and reciting from the same text-book of a common faith. The child of the Free-thinker, of the Jew, and of the Pagan should certainly receive instruction in the rudiments of the general belief of the country in which he lives. If that faith be erroneous, it is still better than none, and, in any view, knowledge of it is all-important, as one of the great facts with which, like a scientific theory or business custom, that child will constantly collide in the experiences of after life. That faith does now constitute, and I believe forever will constitute, the very spirit of the constitutions, laws and customs under which he must live. There is no danger that the doctrines of Christianity, as taught by the Master himself, freed from the secondary and unimportant dogmas of particular sects, will harm any child; and the general good demands that the great formative institution of the State - the common school- should at least teach the few essential doctrines of a positive morality enforced by the sanctions of a positive religion.

The homes of those children whose parents are averse to this can be depended upon to combat, so far as they should be controverted, doctrines which in the opinions of the parents are likely to exert a pernicious effect, while the very large proportion of children who otherwise will receive no affirmative instruction in moral precepts at all, seems to compel the adoption of some degree of unsectarian moral and religious training, in the perfect common school. I believe that the dangerous warfare between the public and the denominational, or parochial, system of schools now waging, and which is so portentous of coming calamities, could easily be averted if the wise and good men who lead the great divisions of Christian thought would bring to the solution of

this difficulty a mere fraction of the skill and ability which have been exercised in the creation of prejudice and estrangement in the past.

That this has not already been done indicates that our Christian Alexanders have worlds yet left to conquer; and I believe that all Christendom would hail with enthusiasm some demonstration that Christian leadership fully comprehends its great opportunity; and also this further certainty that the Spirit of the Age will destroy any power which seeks to restrain the blessings of universal knowledge, or to hedge in the aspirations of the humblest human soul. There are things to be done which have never been attempted. It is a long way yet to the promised land. Why will not the religious leaders of Christendom enter upon the great work of these latter days? Why should the bosom of the church be more exclusive than the bosom of God?

Assume the millennium as a fixed fact. These difficulties, then, must be solved. When? Why not now? The Spirit of the Age, which is the spirit of the Almighty, will accomplish its work, and those who do not choose to fight in harmony with the stars in their courses can take the other alternative, and perish with Sisera.

The common school is the one institution for which every intelligent American patriot will, if need be, die. There is no earthly power which can make successful war upon it, and there is no heavenly power which will not be put forth to uphold and defend it. Let religion imbue this institution with the very spirit of her most vital inspiration! Let her mould, fashion, elevate, beautify and perfect it. But the free school lives whatsoever else among our institutions dies. The free school is the republic. Esto perpetua!

TEMPERANCE IN THE SCHOOLS.

Until within a few years, about one generation, there has been no attempt to spread a knowledge of the human body through the agency of the public school. of the public school. This most useful of all information was locked up in the books of a learned profession, and was as sacredly guarded as the heathen mysteries. But the medical profession is now, I had almost said, the great benefactor of the race.

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