In the European countries referred to, (it may be said here generally,) each religious denomination when sufficiently numerous in a district to justify it, is permitted to establish a denominational school; receiving its share of the public fund, and being subject to governmental inspection as to the proper application of the money, and the faithful discharge of the engagement to impart secular knowledge according to the fixed educational standard. The selection of the school-books and the religious training of the children are in such cases placed in the charge of the clergy, or made subject to their revision. Where the religious denomination has not sufficient numerical strength to enable it to establish a separate school, its children attend the other public school or schools, but are carefully guarded against all attempts at proselytizing, and their religious instruction is confided to their own ministers. In no instance is the proper proportion of the school fund ever refused to any denomination which has the number requisite under the law for the establishment of a separate school. By these means, perfect freedom of conscience is preserved, and public harmony and good-will promoted; whilst at the same time, the children of all churches are brought up in the wisdom of the world without losing the fear of God. In this way, too, religious freedom becomes a practical thing, and not a constitutional platitude or an empty national boast. In this serious matter, this great national concern, those European monarchies have expelled sham altogether. Have we? Do we in the United States, vaunting our hatred of "church and state," our devotion to entire freedom of conscience, our preeminent love of "fair play," our respect for the inviolable rights of minorities, do we imitate the liberal example of monarchical Europe, Catholic and Protestant, when we tax our six millions of Catholics for public schools, and then refuse them a participation in the fund? What just man will say that such a rule is right? What wise man will say that it is politic? At least, let it not be said that in our great cities, where there are tens of thousands of poor Catholic children, and in those rural districts where the numbers are notoriously sufficient to justify the establishment of one or more schools, they shall be driven to seek an education under a system which their parents cannot conscientiously sanction, or be left to the chances of procuring the rudiments of learning from the over-taxed and doubly-taxed resources of their co-religionists. Help the schools now actually existing, and which are filled to overflowing with eager scholars; and assist those who are willing to build up others; the cost is no greater; the educational policy of the state is equally satisfied, whilst the morals of the rising generation, purified by religious faith and strengthened by religious practices, will give the republic assurance of a glorious future.
We are satisfied that such a system would give us an enlightened Christian people, and not merely a nation of intelligent men of the world, as cold as they are polished, and as indifferent to divine things as they are eager for the pleasures of sense and the pride of life.
This would be a truly solid basis upon which to build and perpetuate the empire of a self-governing nation. Without this, our constitution is a rope of sand, our republicanism a delusion, and our freedom a miserable snare to the down-trodden nationalities all over the earth.
All Souls' Day—1867.
Dying? along the trembling mountain flies
The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot;
Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes
Melt as their white lips stammer, "Not, oh! not
Him of all others? Nay,
Not him who from our hearths so oft drove death away?"
Well may those pale groups gather at each door.
Well may those tears that dread the worst be shed.
The hand that healed their ills will bless no more,
The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled;
And while they pray and weep,
Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep.
Ah! this is sudden! why, this very morn
He rode amongst us: sick men woke to hear
The step of his black pacer: the new-born
Smiled at him from their cradles; many a tear
On faces wan and dim.
He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet for him.
For there he lies, together gently laid
The hands we were so proud of, his white hair
Making the silver halo that it made
In life around his brow; as if in prayer
The gentle face composed.
With nameless peace o'ershadowing the eyelids closed.
And as beside him through the night we hold
Our solitary watch, I had not started
To hear my name break from him, as of old,
Or see the tranquil lips a moment parted.
To speak the word unsaid,
The last supreme adieu that instant death forbade.
I dread the day-dawn, for his silent rest
Befits the night: I half believe him mine,
While in the tapers' shadowy light, his breast
Seems heaving, and, amid the pale moonshine
That wanders o'er the lawn.
Crouch the still hounds unknowing that their master's gone.
But when the morning at his window stands
In glory beckoning, and he answers not;
Not for the wringing of the widowed hands,
Or orphans wrestling with their bitter lot,
I feel, old friend, too well,
That naught can wake thee but the final miracle.
Was it but yesterday, that at my gate,
Beneath the over-arching oaks we met;
Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate,
A horseman every inch: I see him yet,
His morning mission done.
His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, one by one.
Mute are the mountains now! No more that cry
Of the full chase by all the breezes borne
Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply
Speeds the loud chorus! Nevermore the horn
Of our lost chief will shake
Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled brake!
Those summits were his refuge when the touch
Of gloom was on him, and the gathered care
Of long life, that braved and suffered much,
Drove him from beaten walks, to breathe the air
That, haunts gray Carrick's crest,
And spur from dawn to dusk till effort purchased rest.
But yet, in all these thirty years, how few
The days we saw not the familiar form
Amid the valleys passing, till it grew
Part of the landscape: through the sun or storm
With equal front he rode,
Punctual as planets moving in the paths of God.
I've seen him, when the frozen tempest beat,
Breast it as gayly as the birds that played
Upon the drifts: and through the deadly heat
That drove the fainting reapers to the shade.
Smiling he passed along.
Erect the good gray head, and on his lips a song.
I've known him too, by anguish chained abed,
Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan,
And meekly ride wherever pity led,
To heal a sorrow slighter than his own;
Or rich or poor the same—
It mattered not: let any sorrow call, he came.
Thy life was sacrifice, my own old friend,
Yet sacrifice that earned a sacred joy,
For in thy breast kept beating to the end,
The trust and honest gladness of a boy;
The seventy years that span
Thy course, leave thee as pure as when their date began.
Who could have dreamed the sharp, sad overthrow
Of such a life, so tender, strong, and brave?
My pulse seems answering thy finger now—
'Twas one step from the stirrup to the grave!
Oh! lift your load with care,
And gently to its rest the precious burden bear.
All Souls' Day! as they place him in the aisle.
The bells his youth obeyed for Mass are ringing;
And, as beneath the churchyard gate we file,
To latest rite his honored relics bringing.
You'd think the dead had all
Arrayed their little homes for some high festival.
As if for him the flowering chaplets, strewn
Throughout God's acre, breathe a second spring;
To him the ivy on the sculptured stone
A welcome from the tomb seems whispering:
The buried wear their best.
As, in their midst, their old companion takes his rest.
Yes, he is yours, not ours: set down the bier:
To you we leave him with a ready trust:
Beneath this sod there's scarce a spirit here
That was not once his friend: Oh! guard his dust!
And if your ashes may
Thrill to old love, your graves are gladder than our hearths to-day.