“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature, and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”
These gentlemen speak of religious instruction, only inasmuch as it is connected with the education of youth, and yet their logical minds showed them the absurdity of unsectarianism. What, then, could they have said of visionary men attempting direct teaching of religion without sectarianism?
The following extract is too pertinent to our subject and too clever to be omitted, as an illustration of the impossibility of teaching religion upon the unsectarian system:
“UNSECTARIANISM.”
SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEACHER IN A MIXED SCHOOL.
(From the New Orleans Morning Star.)
We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, the Pacific Churchman, taken originally from the London Church Review, an organ of the Church of England. The editor of the Churchman remarks that “with some changes it will equally apply to some of our un-sectarian schools.” As far as the Churchman goes against un-sectarian schools in this country, we are with it. This seems to be one scene taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us, our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach. We quote:
The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated, unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.
Teacher. You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).
Ragged Arab (not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir, who’s that?