The following is taken from an exchange:— “A Roman Catholic paper says, that had the Church retained all her children, there should now be in the country from 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 members of that Church, whereas there are now less than 7,000,000. It attributes the great losses, to the influence of the public schools.” There are, no doubt, bad influences which meet the scholar in the public schools; and so there are everywhere. Wherever many children are thrown together there will be found an increase, first, of fun, and then, of mischief. But crime is not long prevented by ignorance; and our public schools have done and are doing very much good in placing a fair education within the reach of all the youth in the land. In the days of the greatest prosperity of the Catholic church, education was extended to a few only, while the mass of the people were kept in entire ignorance. This was not by accident, but by design. It was a saying that “ignorance is the mother of devotion.” We would amend it by saying, ignorance is the mother of superstition. It is yet a fact that among the common people great ignorance prevails in those countries which are the most under Catholic control. Professing opposition only to public schools, that church really fosters ignorance; and her schools are very largely nothing but schools of superstition. The Catholic church counts as “her children” all born of Catholic parents. On this basis the above estimate is made. It would be interesting to know what would be the result of such an estimate on statistics of the Protestant population. Probably the result would be similar to that noticed above. Catholics teach that they who are in the communion of their church are in the way of salvation, even though their lives would not bear close examination by a moral standard. If this were true, they would have just cause to deplore general education, as it is sure to open the eyes of “her children,” and lead them away from her fold. But as that which is called Christianity in Catholic countries has little even of the form of godliness, we rejoice in the light of that education which opens the mind for the reception of greater knowledge and more intelligent views of God’s word and its requirements. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that the world is growing better because it is more enlightened. Responsibility is greatly increased by an increase of education and of religious privileges. It is as true to-day as it was in the time of our Saviour, that, “This is the condemnation, that light, is come into the world; and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.”