In still another case, one of the most honored Congregational pastors of New England openly declared to friends of the writer that it was in vain to try to preach this Augustinian system any longer; that the people would not hear it, and that he should have to preach to bare walls if he attempted it any more.
Many other similar incidents that have come to the knowledge of the writer in different quarters of the country, might be added, but the above will suffice as illustrative indications of the present position of pastors.
Chapter XLVIII. The Position of Popular Education.
It is a significant fact in regard to the religious training of the young in this country, that the most influential leaders of popular education, especially in its earlier stages of improvement, have been laymen, and laymen who reject the Augustinian dogma, and all organizations founded on it. And yet they are men who believe in, and have exhibited by their example, the great duty of love to God and love to man, in a life of obedience to the physical, social and moral laws of God.
Meantime, the laws of the land which forbid any exclusive favor to any religious sect, do, in fact, forbid any religious training in common schools that conflicts with the common-sense system. It has been shown (chapter 39) that the larger Christian sects are all founded, in their distinctive features, on the Augustinian dogma. This being so, the law that excludes distinctive sectarian teaching excludes the Augustinian system.
In regard to smaller sects, not Augustinian, the distinctive doctrine of the Unitarian creed is such a unity in regard to the Creator as forbids the idea of more than one divine person who has all the attributes of God. This, it has been shown in chapter 18, is contrary to the common-sense system.
The distinctive doctrine of the Universalist creed forbids the idea of the perpetuated existence of sinful and miserable beings; this, also, is contrary to the common-sense system, as shown in chapter 28. Thus [pg 330] the chief sects that are not counted as Augustinian or Evangelical, are also excluded from introducing their distinctive tenets into the common schools of the people.
Moreover, while the people, in the schools under their control, thus forbid by law any religious training which conflicts with the common-sense system, they permit prayers to God and the use of the Bible, provided the privilege is not used, in opposition to the spirit of the above law, to introduce distinctive sectarian tenets.
It is also very noticable that in Great Britain the most influential patrons of popular education, and writers on the training of the young, have, though members of the established church, vigorously opposed the Augustinian system. Archbishop Whateley has written a most powerful argument, and one which none have attempted to answer, in favor of the common-sense view of church organization. He also has given all his influence to the establishment of schools for the people, in which every parent and child shall, as far as possible, be free in regard to religious matters.