features of his creed even once alluded to. Silence is not a crime; nor is it here a token of disrespect, for all denominations are treated alike in this particular. It is not the object of these books to discuss sectarian questions, they contain among a thousand other subjects, the great principles of moral responsibility; but they do not discuss the peculiar forms which a man's faith may assume. To exile these books, therefore, from our public schools, would be a culpable disregard of the moral welfare of the young; an outrage for which there is not even an apology in the character of the books themselves.

It would seem that the Bishop can be satisfied only with a general sweep of all religious books, and religion itself, indeed, from our public schools. First the Bible is to be thrown overboard, then the hymn book, then all works touching the great principles of religion, and then prayer itself is to be suppressed. What more could infidelity itself ask? Robert Dale Owen laboured for years to establish in this country such schools as these. We did not listen to him, nor shall we now to Bishop Kenrick. Though we doubt not the motives of the two are widely different; still the moral results must be substantially the same. Banish religion from our public schools and it matters but little whether you do it in the name of conscience or the most depraved principle in our nature. The authority under which you act will not tie up the consequences. You abandon your children to a system of education in which the laws of God are forgotten, and the claims of infinite love are trampled under foot.

It is not a little singular that this cry about the rights of conscience should originate where it does. It sounds indeed strange in connection with the bulls of the Pope and the tortures of the inquisition. The last great missal of the Papal See, referring to Christian liberality, declares, "From that polluted fountain of indifference flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving in favour and defence of liberty of conscience, for which most pestilential error the way is opened by that entire and wild liberty of

opinion, which is every where attempting the overthrow of civil and religious institutions, and which the unblushing impudence of some has held forth as even those of religion." Such is "liberty of conscience," as understood by the Papal hierarch, and as expressed in his recent encyclical letter, intended especially for the enlightenment and guidance of his bishops and clergy in this country. Liberty of conscience is here denounced as a pestilential error, destructive of civil and religious institutions. Whether Bishop Kenrick coincides in this opinion we know not; but he is under an official oath ever to submit his own opinions to those entertained by the infallible head of his church. He cannot without violating the terms of his commission, and the sanctity of his official oath, actively dissent from the decisions of the Papal See. Entertaining then the sentiments which prevail at the high source of his authority, how utterly absurd and inconsistent are his objections to the present regulations of our public schools. All these wholesome rules and regulations are to be upset to disembarrass a conscience whose liberty is considered by the Roman See as pestilential! Bibles, hymn books, prayers, devotional exercises of every kind are to go by the board out of regard to that freedom of conscience thus pronounced dangerous to civil and religious liberty! All this is to be done to satisfy the claims of one, who acts under the very authority, which, with unparalleled inconsistency, thus denounces in advance, as pestilential the boon asked. The Bishop informs us in his credentials and letter of instructions from the Pope, that liberty of conscience is a moral pest, and then calls upon us to throw all our Bibles and religious books out of our public schools, to give this liberty the largest possible scope! He is about as reasonable as a man would be, who, having discovered the existence of the plague in a city, should ask the board of health to abolish its sanitary restrictions, and give it the largest freedom. It will not avail the Bishop to plead any alleged misconception on this subject. His instructions from the supreme head of his church, unfortunately for him, have been pub

lished to the world. The drapery of a dead language has been withdrawn, and there they stand plain and intelligible as living letters can make them. They denounce liberty of conscience as a pestilential error." No gloss, no critical cunning, or jesuitical ingenuity can place any other interpretation upon them, or pervert their plain and obvious sense. They have a precision and boldness which will make every interested attempt to relieve their fearful force a ridiculous failure. These instructions the Bishop is bound to obey. His oath of office imposes upon him unqualified obedience. He binds himself to it in these strong emphatic terms: "I swear I will be faithful and obedient in all things to our Lord the Pope and his successors canonically appointed. So help me God, and these his Holy Gospels." Such is the solemnity under which this unqualified obedience is pledged. He cannot therefore disregard or discredit his instructions. These instructions pronounce liberty of conscience a pestilential error, and make it his duty to contend against it to the uttermost. His complaints, therefore, to the directors of our public schools of infringements on the rights of conscience, are mere declamations, which have nothing to arrest attention but their inconsistency. We are forced to this conclusion, unless we are to consider the rights of conscience in Protestants as one thing, and in Roman Catholics as another. If the Bishop makes any such distinction, let him avow it; we shall then know where to find the Pope's pest, and what to do with it.

That we have not mistaken the character of Bishop Kenrick's interference with our public schools, or exaggerated the unreasonableness of the complaints made by him, is evident from his own declarations. With all the means of information which his official position gives him, he adduces, out of a population of some two hundred thousand souls, only a solitary instance of alleged grievance for conscience sake. This is the case of the female, who was employed as a teacher in one of our schools, and who chose to relinquish her situation sooner than read the Protestant version of the

Scriptures to her pupils, or allow them to read it in their classes. This is the grievance that has given birth to all the complaints and remonstrances of the Bishop! All our other Roman Catholic fellow citizens, it seems, have been satisfied. Indeed they ought to be satisfied, for this Bible has been placed in our schools for no sectarian purposes whatever. It is there as the way of life, not as a guide to this sect, that, or the other. And it is a foul slander on the motives of the men who placed it there, to impute to them any such sectarian purpose. There is not one of them, whatever be his persuasion, who would not resist the imputation. Is the solitary case of alleged grievance adduced by the Bishop of sufficient magnitude to justify us in throwing the Bible out of our public schools? The Roman Catholics, as a body, make no such demand, intimate no such a desire; the requirement comes from abroad; it is presented by a prelate of the Papal See. It is urged by one acting under the authority of a foreign potentate, to whom he owes allegiance, an allegiance too utterly incompatible with the duties and obligations of an American citizen. To such claims, and from such a source, shall this Bible be surrendered; shall it be banished from our public schools, shall its precepts cease to guide and influence the education of the young? Let the directors of our schools, and this community answer this question, and answer it as they will wish they had, when the grave shall give up its dead.

Let no one be misled as to the ultimate object of Bishop Kenrick's objection to the Bible now in use, by his suggestion in reference to the introduction of a different version. The substitution of the Roman version is not the end sought, and the best evidence of this is found in the fact, that neither this version nor any other is furnished to the pupils of any purely Roman Catholic school in christendom. Such a use of the sacred Scriptures is not in accordance with the laws and discipline of that church. This therefore is not the object aimed at; it is a disuse of the Bible altogether. This can be secured as effectually by the introduction of a rival version as the direct

expulsion of the one now in use. The use of two translations, differing in phraseology, is impracticable in the exercises of the same school-room, and must result, as the Bishop well knows, in the disuse of both. This, and this alone, is the end aimed at; the proposed innovation admits of no other construction. Why seek the introduction and use of the Roman version here, when from all schools under the exclusive jurisdiction and control of the Papal See, it is excluded. He who disallows a domestic regulation in his own family, can with but poor grace claim for it an introduction to the hearth of his neighbour. Nor can he consistently plead the rights of conscience in its defence. It will be in season for us to introduce the Roman version of the Scriptures into our schools when the Roman pontiff has introduced it into his own schools. Our haste, therefore, to comply with the demands of his representative, on this subject, is gratuitous. It is not called for either by the grievances alleged, or the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church. It is doing for the Pope what his highness has never done for himself. If the Papal See needs such auxiliary zeal from those whom it proscribes while living from its communion, and denies when dead the sanctity of a common grave, let it say so. Charity, in church matters, seldom comes too late, which comes when asked. When the head of the Roman Catholic Church shall have instructed his clergy to supply their own schools with copies of their authorized version of the Scriptures, we may consider our duty on this subject; but till then we are not called upon by any supposed grievances, or obligations of Christian comity to disturb the wholesome regulations which have, till recently, prevailed. We owe it to ourselves and to the community, to look seriously to the consequences of the proposed innovation; they are nothing less than a total disuse of the Scriptures in our public schools. This is the aim and object of the demand which has been made upon our liberality, and which we have partially met through a mistaken charity. It is not yet too late for us to retrace our steps; but it will be, when the moral mischief proposed shall

have been fully experienced. He is the wisest, who, in his conduct, penetrates the future the deepest.

That the rights of conscience, as interpreted by the Pope, are entertained by his prelates in this country, we have some further evidence in the recent pastoral letter of Bishop Hughes. This letter expressly declares that no marriages can take place between Protestants and Roman Catholics, "unless the Protestant party will give a solemn pledge that the offspring of such marriage shall be baptized and educated in the Catholic faith. And this is called liberty of conscience! The avenue to the happiness of the marriage state is made to run through the baptismal font of Bishop Hughes. If the poor Protestant cannot subscribe to this, if scruples of conscience keep him back, why, then he may go without a wife. What right has a man to such a help meet, who will not consent to make his children Papists, and that too before they are born! And yet Bishop Hughes thinks it a monstrous hard case, and a flagrant violation of conscience for Roman Catholic children to be required to listen while the teacher of a public school reads a chapter from the Protestant version of the Scriptures. The bishop has evidently one conscience for those in his communion, and another for those out of it; though the outer one has "so little scope and verge, it might about as well have none."

Nor is Bishop Kenrick's liberality much in advance of that of his ecclesiastical neighbour. He informs the board of control in his letter to them, that he offers up prayers to God for all men, but confines the mark of Christian brotherhood to those of his own communion. In other words, he prays for Protestants, but he never regards them as Christians. Rather a cold greeting, but a little comfort in it nevertheless. It is something to be considered worthy of being prayed for. It shows that that last stage of depravity, where mercy takes leave and hope of reformation dies, has not yet been reached. All this is gravely introduced as the reason why the children of Roman Catholics may not be present at morning and evening prayers in our public schools.

Lest there should be any possible mistake on the subject, the bishop adds: “It is not consistent with the laws and discipline of the Catholic church for its members to unite in religious exercises with those who are not of her communion." This is the reason too why domestics of that communion, who are employed in Protestant families, cannot be present at their devotions. No matter what the peculiarities of the case may be, or what may be the distance to other forms of worship or the impracticability of reaching them-all these will not cancel the offence of being present when Protestants engage in family worship. This is a specimen of that liberty of conscience which the bishop allows to those of his own communion. Verily, if Protestants have their disabilities, our Catholic fellow-citizens have theirs also. The sword of the Pope cuts both ways.

We have in these declarations of Bishop Kenrick, a key to all the difficulties which have grown up in connection with our public schools. Protestants are not held by the Papal See as Christians, and, consequently, all their forms of worship, all their religious books, and even their translation of the Scriptures are proscribed, denounced, and put under the ban. This supercilious and intolerant proscription comes from our Roman Catholic fellowcitizens; they have but little sympathy with it; it takes its rise at Rome; it is stamped with the signet of the great Hierarch; under his authority it makes its appearance here, and under his sanctions is enforced. It consults neither Protestants, nor their Roman Catholic fellowcitizens, in the arrogant claims which it sets up, and deigns to neither an apology for the wrongs and outrages which it inflicts.

The issue in reference to our public schools, therefore, is not between Protestants and their Roman Catholic fellow citizens; it is between Protestant institutions in this country and the genius of Papacy as it prevails at Rome. Catholics here, as a body, have made no complaints, urged no charges, uttered no reproaches, have been well satisfied with the liberality which their Protestant brethren have exhibited. The complaint

comes from abroad; the malediction rolls from the Papal See. No such wave of tempest and thunder is known to our waters. Were our privileges to be surrendered to those born on our own soil, there would be some consolation in their loss, but to resign them to a foreign potentate is the last degree of calamity and shame. Nor should we be the only sufferers; our Catholic fellow-citizens would soon find the iron entering their souls. They are now largely indebted to Protestants for the little liberty of conscience which they enjoy. Break down this defence and they are slaves; slaves, not in their outward persons, but in the rights of their moral nature; in that conscience where God himself made them free. They ought therefore to unite with us against these aggressions of the great Papal hierarch. They should say to Bishop Kenrick, and to Bishop Hughes, and to every other foreign prelate, we are American citizens; we hold our liberties sacred, and we will not surrender them come the mandate from what quarter it may. Slavery is not religion, and he who attempts to enforce it as such shall meet with our united, uncompromising resistance. This is the ground that has recently been taken by the Roman Catholics of New Orleans, and, we trust in God, they will have the moral courage and firmness to maintain it.

Let our Catholic fellow-citizens take this ground everywhere, and there will be no dissensions between them and Protestants, no difficulties about the public schools, or different versions of the Scriptures. They want, what we do, a system of schools, in which the elements of a substantial and useful education shall be taught, where God shall be duly recognized, and the lessons of moral responsibility inculcated. They are to suffer, as well as we, if the resources and efficiency of these schools shall be impaired by the interference of foreign despots or domestic bigots. They were not established by sectarianism, and they shall not, with our consent, be overthrown by sectarianism. The undoubted good of the many must not be sacrificed to gratify the prejudice or ambition of the few. Every Protestant, and every Ro

man Catholic, who has an interest in our common soil, in the stability of our institutions, and the intelligence and virtue of the great mass should stand by these schools and protect them as he would his heart's blood. The interference of foreign

prelates, and of a foreign ecclesiastical power, should perish at their threshold. Let a grave be sunk then, over which even the great Papal hierarch himself cannot step.

THE present aspects of Romanism are but dimly seen by us Americans. Roselly de Lorgues, in "Le Christ devant le Siècle," teaches us that the apostles were all things to all men, and that so should be the priests of this century. Thus think the priests themselves, and those who come to America have frequently not only a different manner and language, but a different doctrine from those in Europe. To show the condition, and aims of the church, at home, we copy a few passages from "Letters to a friend, on Romanism on the Continent," recently published in Dublin.

You have often told me, says the author, that I was unjust, not alone to myself, but to interests which I hold still dearer, in not endeavouring to impress my convictions strongly upon those persons of station and of public character to whom circumstances had given me access. To some extent, I am afraid, you were right; although, at the same time, I cannot charge myself with a culpable neglect. I have never omitted to make my views known, where I had opportunity to explain them, and where I thought they might be communicated with advantage; but I have, perhaps, too readily acquiesced in the postponement of them, wherever I found an indisposition to give them entertainment. The truth is this:-I had always given public men, of high reputation, credit for knowing much of which I was ignorant; and whenever I found my conclusions set aside, or my opinions received with disfavour, I was ready to believe that I had omitted from my reasonings some important element, which was well known to those whom I would presumptuously instruct, and, by the absence of which, my whole argument was invalidated.

I am now thoroughly, and, although flattering, not agreeably, undeceived. The ignorance, the omission, was not at my side: the philosophical statesmen of the present day are not acquainted with the condition, and the capabilities, and the purposes of Romanism. They have not made its polity a subject of study: they do not know that it has a consistent polity: they hear of it on the reports of educated and liberal men, in external communion with a church which they desire to see reformed; or in the representations of Protestants, who make such reforming Romanists their associates and informants: on communications of this description, they pronounce that the Church of Rome is in process of change; that man, in the nineteenth century, has become too enlightened to abide in the shade of superstition and intolerance; and that, accordingly, without any direct opposition to the efforts of the few who would still maintain exploded errors or barbarous maxims, the cause of true religion and liberty must, in its own strength and merits, ensure success. This is, substantially, however, the expression of it may be varied, the conviction impressed upon the minds of many of our reflecting politicians. It is precisely the conviction which Romanism would most desire to have produced; and it is not more pernicious to the best interests of society, than it is contrary to the gist of the argument on which it is professedly founded.

The varieties of countenance in which Romanism now tricks herself forth are well calculated to bewilder and deceive those who can judge only from appearances. According to the society in which you may happen to be, you will hear the religion of the Church of Rome repre