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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 16, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 41

The Bible in Our Public Schools.

THE following synopsis of a sermon preached at Freehold, N. J., by Rev. W. J. Gill, of Englishtown, is from the Freehold Transcript:—

“Let everybody read the Bible,” said the speaker—“thoughtfully, prayerfully, earnestly—but not carelessly, presumptuously—perhaps even brazenly—in the school room or elsewhere. Do not secularize the sacred volume. Do not lay unworthy hands upon it, nor force it on the unwilling. Righteousness is not imparted by rule, arbitrarily. But ‘the righteous shall inherit the earth.’ Do not fear that our public schools will become godless. The Bible will be read and reverently taught in other ways and all appropriate places. It is the business of the religious world to see that it is,—of the Christian denomination to carry it into every consenting household, and popularize it in every wise and proper manner. The work is theirs and they will do it. They cannot delegate it to the secular, or the sinners, the godless or the alien. Nor should they seek to. Interpretation of the inspired word should be committed only to competent, I had almost said, to consecrated instructors. Cherishing it, and holding it in reverence themselves—interpenetrated and enthused by it, they will teach it in the love of it, and commend it to others because of the beneficent influence it has visibly exerted upon their own lives.”

Mr. Gill premised by saying that he had something to say on what might be termed “State Religion in our Public Schools.”

“Bible reading,” he said, “and prayers in our public schools are a relic of the old State religions. The Puritans of New England, have in the main, the honor of originating our common schools, and with them they established a State religion in these schools as well as in the church; and by extreme severity they enforced conformity so long as they could. The public finally refused to tolerate the Congregational Church as the State religion supported by enforced taxation. The public school is a State institution and therefore its religion is a State religion, a State church. Its minister is the school teacher who is paid by the State for conducting certain specified religious exercises and devotions.

Now, it is a generally admitted principle in America that religion should be voluntary, and not imposed by the State, and the support of it enforced by penal legislation. That principle demands the extinction of State churches in our public schools. Religious exercises should not be enjoined on the teacher; for if enjoined they are to be paid for by taxation. Therefore let all laws requiring prayers and Bible reading as a religious exercise be repealed.

If we are to have a State religion in our public schools we shall always have the poorest religion in the largest quantity, for the religious body which has the lowest grade of spiritual life, and the most developed spirit and organization for political action and influence, will have its creatures and adherents most largely in these places, and receive the largest proportion of public money. Thus in proportion to their numbers the Catholics are now receiving from five to twenty times as much as the Protestants, all over this country; and they are annually increasing that proportion, and anticipate a coming time, not far off, when they shall have all; and nothing else is their aim and demand.

In practical meaning and force the Bible is a sectarian book. It is Protestant and anti-Papal. This the Papists have confessed by their hatred and fear of it, and by their steady and cruel persecutions of its readers, for more than a thousand years. Therefore it is not right to force them to hear it read in the public schools and to pay for the reading.

Besides, a growing number of these public school teachers of religion are Catholics, and to require them to read the Bible is a species of persecution; and they will read it in such a way and select such passages, as will make a burlesque of the whole affair.

The same may be said of all who have not a true spirit of devotion, and a loving reverence for the sacred book; and very many are lacking here, who are otherwise excellent teachers. They are not educated to be religious, but secular, teachers; and only as secular are they hired, or should be. It is their secular knowledge and ability which determine their grade and standing. And for a bad or irreligious man to be the leader of public worship, is not only absurd and offensive, but deleterious to religious life and feeling.

Next, consider also who it is that usually appoints these teachers—‘ward politicians,’ a phrase which has become a synonym for what is beneath even the average moral and spiritual worth. These

men are the directors of our State religion. They are, or they appoint, the trustees of our public schools, and so they appoint the ministers of our State church. How much will they be concerned for the religious qualifications of these ministers, and how well qualified are they to judge of fitness for such an office? Clearly the whole affair is absurd, as a method of fostering religion, and utterly contrary to the spirit of our free institutions. It is an anachronism which ought to be corrected.”