“The Principles of the Christian Religion.”
By R. F. COTTRELL
WHAT are they? The amendment to the Constitution proposed by Senator Blair calls for the teaching of the principles of the Christian religion in the public schools. It also provides that no public money shall be appropriated to any school in which “the doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organization, or society, being, or claiming to be, religious in its character,” are taught. Are not the principles of the Christian religion to be found, then, in all the controverted doctrines of the popular churches of the land? The reply is, “They are to be found only in the doctrines in which they are all agreed.” But on what are they all agreed? What principle or doctrine of Christianity is not denied by some of them? Is it all simmered down to the keeping of Sunday, “the wild, solar holiday of all pagan times”? If so, the Sunday-Rest bill is all that is needed as a guide.
R. F. COTTRELL.