p. 128, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · April 21, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 16

UPON this matter of “unsectarian religious instruction,” the Catholic Review of the 10th inst., says:—

Indian Commissioner Morgan has purchased Protestant hymn-books and copies of the Protestant version of the Bible for the “non-sectarian” public schools which he has established for the Indians. Rev. Father Van Gorp, S. J., of Spokane, was in Washington, D. C., a few days ago, and he is reported to have said: “The Indians in the Northwest are better cared for, so far as rations are concerned, since the late uprising which cost the Government so much money. The cause of Indian education is not so bright as could be wished for, owing to the many difficulties the missionaries are compelled to encounter. Even the Indian Bureau, in spite of its advocacy of non-sectarian schools, seems to realize the necessity of some kind of religious education as among the articles purchased for what are called “non-sectarian” Indian schools are Bibles and hymn-books. The purchase of the latter justifies the conclusion that religious services form a part of the curriculum of the Government schools, especially as the superintendents are generally ex-Protestant preachers.” Morgan’s “non-sectarianism” is of the sort that would satisfy John Jay, Elliott F. Shepard and the other bigots of the proposed Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

The fact is, there is and can be no such thing as unsectarian religious instruction. When Commissioner Morgan puts Protestant Bibles and Protestant hymn-books into the hands of the Indians, and instructs them in accordance therewith, he is, from a Roman Catholic standpoint, giving them sectarian instruction. The proper course for the Government to pursue would be for it to give the Indians a purely secular education, and leave the rest to be done by missionary enterprise, and by anybody who would do it, putting no obstacles in the way and offering no inducements to the work, simply affording equal protection to all from violence. The only real service that civil government can render the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is to let it alone, merely affording those who profess and teach it the same protection that it affords to other citizens. When civil government does less than this it comes short of the purpose of its institution, namely, the protection of the natural rights of the individual; when it attempts to do more, it invades the sacred domain of conscience and corrupts the religion which it fosters. To be pure the religion of Christ must be absolutely separate from, and independent of, civil government.