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Show RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. . It is a mistake to suppose, as many j do, that Catholics arc alone in their contention that education, correct education, edu-cation, is only possible when accompanied accom-panied by religious training. There are many thoughtful minds outside the Catholic church that realize real-ize keenly the necessity ef having religion re-ligion and education go hand in hand. This is perhaps more noticeable at the present time than in years gone by, although there have never been wanting want-ing outside the Catholic church men who have felt the truth of the Catholic contention. As long ago as 1879 Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal bishop of Long Island, uttered the following sentiments which are indeed characteristic of the true Christian philosopher: What we do today, he said, will certify cer-tify and publish our belief in the indissoluble indis-soluble union of religion and learning, of faith and reason, of the Church of Christ and the completed culture of humanity, of ancient Christian tradi- tions and rational progress, of supernatural superna-tural authority and healthy social and material development things which God has bound together in one communion commu-nion and fellowship, and which history declares to be inseparable, but which this generation, influenced by what we would fain regard as a temporary caprice ca-price of an abnormal blindness, is inclined in-clined to put asunder. Education free, secular, popular, universal, we have as never before. And yet suspicion, distrust, falsehood, dishonesty, dis-honesty, corruption have become so familiar a presence that we have quite I ceased to be sensitive to the . widespread wide-spread moral bankruptcy and political degradation of the hour. We have in theory all the good government, all the beneficent institutions, all the just laws that can be desired; but these, because they are so good and just, are becoming a disappointment and an aggravation. Something is wanting without which their promised benefits are a delusion; and that something is the character necessary for their wise and faihtful administration. Something is. gone from us without which the least worthy elements ele-ments of society uniformly triumph, and that something is character. And all the blight and the failure to reap where cur fathers sowed the choicest choic-est of the wheat, amid the sorrow and distrust and broken faith of the hour, the cry of the nation is changing its key. It is no longer for more liberty, for all agree that we have had enough of that; no longer for mere knowledge, mere brain fnnfl fv,- nf that have had an abundance, but for men and women who to liberty and knowledge, knowl-edge, will add the moral virtue, the righteousness of life which neither nor both can give for character that .will think more of duties than of rights, of devotion to God and to country than of private profit and promotin. We have had an overplus of bright, sharp, i ambitious, unscrupulous money getters and office seekers, men of the false I balance and short weight in trade, so- J tial parasites and political demagogues, and perhaps worse than all, women given up body and soul to vanity and pleasure and lawless extravagance. Today To-day the whole land is travailing in doubt and anguish of soul to find in the very sickness of the commonheart some evidence of saving repentance , and among the masses enough of the true, the honest, the good, the wise, to pilot both our civil government and social order, and with these the life of the nation through the present storm and darkness. Of late years the Episcopalians aro I following in the wake of Catholics in ; establishing parochial schools. They wisely recognize the necessity of religion re-ligion in education, but why do they not unite with Catholics in beating back the infidel invasion of our public schools? If all religious denominations were to "pool their issues", and unite in a movement to establish Christian, denominational schools, they would have the satisfaction of having their school taxes expended in imparting to their children that religious knowledge w-hich they deem necessary for their I welfare in this world and the next, j while at the same time those children would receive the secular education proper to fit them for the social and political duties of life. The results of education without religion are graphically graphic-ally set forth by Bishop Littlejohn. |