PART THIRD.

HOMAGE

OF

EMINENT PERSONS

ΤΟ

THE BOOK

AS A SCHOOL-BOOK.

"THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE Man.”

"From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."

PART III.

HOMAGE TO THE BOOK AS A SCHOOL-BOOK

"The Child is Father of the Man."

A

A REASON RENDERED.

S this little volume is designed espe

cially for those who must soon wield the destinies of the Republic, it has been deemed proper to unite the following testimonies, showing the value of the Bible as a school-book, with the foregoing compilations.

Our nation has just entered on a new era of its history. Its past prosperity is clearly traceable to the reverence of its founders, and of our fathers, for the Holy Scriptures. Had there been a growth of veneration for the principles which they teach, and for the sacredness of a civil oath, equal to that of our population, our soil would not of late have

been saturated with the blood of so many thousands of brave brothers and sons; and, if the future of the Republic is to be truly honorable and happy, the children and youth, while in a course of training, must become reverently familiar with the teachings of the Bible! What influence it shall have in our popular education our young men must decide. This is a matter challenging earnest and sober thought. The profound convictions.

and the mature decisions of men whose uprightness, sagacity, and experience eminently fitted them to judge, are here recorded. To evade this question is to be reckless of the public weal. To neglect the Bible is disloyalty to God, to the welfare of mankind and of our National Government, whose preservation has cost untold sufferings, and rivers of blood.

It is not claimed that theology shall be taught in our public schools. Theology is man-made, but the Bible is God-given. Though suns and stars shone for ages before there was a true astronomy, before men found out the laws and periods of their motions, who ever denied or doubted the beauty and benefits of their light? As the genial beams

of the sun quicken and cherish every form of vegetable and animal life, while they both beget and reveal beauty; so the Bible is the sun of the moral world, banishing the darkness of ignorance and sin from the mind and heart, and kindling a new, holy, and happy life in all who lovingly heed its teachings. Educate without the Bible! Keep from the minds of the young the great truths of immortality! Bound their vision by things perishable, deprive them of the best spurs to goodness, and let them be familiar only with the cold verities of natural science, with the forms and figures of speech, and with the grovelling range of worldly ideas! More wisely may we believe that the pale moonbeams alone can clothe our gardens with fragrant and beautiful blossoms, and our fields with a rich fruitage of ripened corn, than look for symmetry, loveliness, and force of character, to a process of training not cheered and energized by the light which shines from the Sacred Oracles.