ARE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OBSOLETE?
It is stated that when, in a large high school in one of the New England States, the teacher lately asked how many pupils could repeat the ten commandments, but four hands went up; of which quartet one was from an Episcopal, and the other three from Romanist families. The Congregationalist tries to find how this ignorance is to be accounted for, and concludes that it is due to the morbid false modesty of this generation, in part; second, to the fact that there has been a palpable drift away from the ancient conception of God as a ruler, which has caused the very idea of statutes and commandments from Him to become less natural and less welcome; third, the impression which largely obtains, that the gospel has so fulfilled the law as to have superseded it altogether, and that the New Testament is the only portion of the Bible which now has any special value; and, fourth, the style of the religious instruction of the young, which has for a considerable time prevailed, is such as hardly favors their committing to memory the ten commandments. The good time is coming, it thinks, when more than four per cent. of the children will be able to repeat the ten commandments.—Sel.