PEALED.

in Common Council convened, who shall have the power to prescribe the limitations and restrictions under which said monies shall be received by the said institutions and schools or any of them." By the ninth section of this act, p. 339 of said laws of 1824, the law of 1813 was forever RE"From and after the 15th of May, 1825, an act supplementary to an act,' entitled 'An Act for the establishment of Common Schools,' passed March 12, 1813, and all, each and every act, or section, or section of acts, heretofore passed, relating to Common Schools; to monies arising from the School Fund of the State, or to the distribution or apportionment thereof, so far as relates to, or in any wise concerns the City and County of New-York, and societies supporting charity schools therein, and no farther, is and are hereby repealed." So that no religious incorporate society can claim any "share" of the school fund, which is set apart and hitherto has been sacredly preserved for institutions and schools, disconnected with churches, sects or denominations. This is the wise law of our State.

The Constitution of the State also says, that "The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall be forever allowed in this State, to all mankind." But in and by their "claim," the Catholics ask for "discrimination and preference" in soliciting a portion of the people's money to sustain their own exclusive denominational schools, in which no Protestant teacher is allowed to enter, and that for a reason which must appear utterly inadequate. There is "a gulf between the Catholic faith and all Protestant creeds." The Mormons, and the Chinese on our western coast, might make the same plea, and for the same reason, and this reason is Paganism. The Essayist says that he has shown that Catholics "cannot avail themselves of the public school system as now organized." Whose fault is it? Surely, their own. They object to the Bible, because it is not read with their own notes and comments, or rather, for the better reason, that even the Douay version of it is the condemnation of Romanism.They object to our faithful histories, because they must reveal the persecutions and iniquity with which Romanism has interwoven the whole history of the world. They fear to have their children come in contact with Protestant youth, because they fear the influence of Scriptural

truth with which the latter are imbued.

But this Romish pleader avers, and that in italics: "They do not desire to interfere with that system, as it seems at present to meet the wants, or at least the views of their Protestant fellow citizens, and they are therefore not opposed to the Common Schools,' in the sense in which they have been represented to be. They simply ask that they may be allowed to participate in the only way open to them, that is, by the apportionment to them of a ratable part of the fund, in aid of their existing schools, and of such others, as their numbers in any given locality may

properly enable them to establish, subject to the LIMITED supervision of the State." How limited, he does not explain. But who does not see that such an apportionment would break up, necessarily, the whole system? Who does not see, that this "claim" is a demand that discrimination and preference be given to the Catholic church, contrary to the express wording of our State constitution? Who does not see, that it is asking for a union between that Church and the State in so far, that the Romish hierarchy may have the State in bonds to their ecclesiastical organization for the annual sum of some eighty thousand dollars or more, and that, not for the purposes of a secular education, but for strengthening the sinews of Romanism for a more vigorous effort against Protestant truth and American liberty!

The Roman Catholic Schools for which this claim is made, are rigidly sectarian and exclusive. During the conflict of twenty years ago, a committee of gentlemen having visited them made this public declaration-"The citizens at large are not only shut out from the management of these schools by their organization, but the books used, and the doctrines taught in them, are so utterly exclusive and intolerant as to forbid the attendance, not only of the children of parents of other religious denominations, but of those of no sect."-Mem. and Remon. of the Pub. Sc. Soc., p. 10.

Such are the schools we are asked to sustain by our Protestant School Fund; Schools from which Protestant teachers are rigidly excluded, and the very existence of which, for the very reason given in this Essay, is an insult and an injury to the State, not only by reason of an inadequate, but of a seditious training of youth, taught to regard all Protestants with implacable hatred, between whom and Catholics "there is a great gulf fixed!"

Protestantism-a Success.

BY REV. H. D. NORTHROP.

THE broad assertion is made in more than one quarter, that Protestantism is a failure, and the boldness and assumption with which this new discovery is laid down are, in a measure, calculated to make unthinking men believe it. If such teaching is true, it is high time that Protestants knew it. If not true, it is high time that counteracting forces were at work, and the error exposed.

Is Protestantism then a failure? Let us examine the question, not as those who are prejudiced, but as those who acknowledge no authority except that of the truth, and are bound to be led by it wherever found.

* Pastor of the Twenty-third Street Presbyterian Church, New York.

I. My first statement is of a historical character. And let me say that my authority is Dr. Hase, Professor of Theology in the University of Jena, a most learned and able historian, whose truthfulness is unquestioned by either friend or foe.

The term Protestant has been in use since 1529, growing out of the celebrated "protestation" of the friends of the Reformation against a certain edict of the Emperor Charles V., and the Diet of Speyer. The term Protestantism, however, is applied to that whole movement of the 16th century or rather it is a comprehensive word, defining that religion which claims to rest upon the evident letter of the Scriptures, and upon the voluntary convictions and individual consciences of

men.

I need not refer in detail to the times-the troublous times-wherein this latest child of God was born. It were easy enough to kindle enthusiasm by the picture of heroic men, struggling and suffering for principle--easy enough to put such a man as Luther in the front of the argument, and say, "Doubt Protestantism now if you can!"-easy enough to show how inevitable was the Reformation, if men would maintain any respect for their manhood, any liberty of conscience, or any proper regard for the simple truth of the Gospel. It would be a story long and complicated, though of thrilling interest.

A few words will give you the gist of the whole matter. The visible Protestant Church, that is a body of believers who held the truth in its early simplicity, who held that the corruptions which had been multiplying for centuries were destructive of all vital godliness, and were a disgrace to the pure Christianity of the early times, who longed for a return to the apostolic faith and worship-this Church was in the grasp of the Roman Church; it was not created, but only emancipated and unlocked from that grasp at the Reformation. Dr. Cumming happily illustrates the event by an incident recorded in the travels of Lord Lindsay. "That nobleman states that on visiting the Pyramids of Egypt, he found in one of those ancient repositories of the dead, a mummy which indicated, according to the most reliable mode of interpreting hieroglyphics, that it was fully two thousand years old. On opening the case, and unrolling the mummy, he found in its right hand a bulbous, or rather tuberous root. Lord Lindsay wondered whether vegetable life would outlast an imprisonment of two thousand years, and in order to put the problem to the test, he opened the hand of the mummy, took out the vegetable root, planted it in a fertile and favorable soil, and exposed it to the sunshine and the dews of heaven, and, to his amazement and delight, that lately dry root shot up and presented a stem, unfolding a most beautiful dahlia."

Now, the Protestant Church, before the Reformation, was in a position similar to that of the dahlia root; it was compressed in the iron

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grasp of the most deadly despotism. And all that Calvin and Luther and Knox did was to unlock the hand that held it-to take out the concealed epitome of heaven's high principles-to plant it in the fatherland of Germany, of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, and to place it beneath the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and the raindrops of the Spirit of God, till it took root and grew up, and presented, as it does now, wide-spreading boughs, crowned with ten thousand blossoms, destined to wave with immortal fragrancy, and to constitute the accumulating glory of the world.

Just this was the meaning of the Reformation wherein that much reviled thing called Protestantism was born. No new church was manufactured at that time. Old truths were re-asserted, and followed to their legitimate conclusions. Old principles, drawn clearly from the Word of God, received a new and better embodiment. Yet these Ritualists would have us believe that Protestantism is a falsehood, a schism, a thing without Catholicity, because it is a departure from a certain something in the Roman Church, a something in the Greek Church, and a something in the Anglican Church. The question is not whether Protestantism is a departure from the Roman Church or any other church. The question is, whether it is a departure from the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And any man who asks me to believe in something called a church after it becomes the embodiment of a falsehood, with a bucket of error to every drop of truth, only insults my intelligence and my conscience. We maintain, then, that Protestantism was not a schism-it was an emancipation. It was the re-assertion of old truths and principles, in opposition to the errors and abuses which had been gathering around them for ages. It was men saying that they would not hug a carcase after the life had left it.

II. What has been the effect of the historical fact of which we have been speaking?-Was that mighty movement only the excitement of a passing moment-a something which to-day can be called a farce, a mistake, and a failure?

We shall meet the main drift of the argument presented by these bold arraigners of the Protestant system by answering these two questions : Is Protestantism a right thing, or a wrong thing? Has it fulfilled its purpose or not? As respects the former, how are we to determine what is right or wrong? What test shall we apply? How can we know whether a thing is to be set down as for God, or against him? Plainly by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Our appeal must be to the law and the testimony.

But here the opponents of the Protestant system meet us. They deny us the right of interpretation. The Church, they tell us, must do this. The astounding assertion is made that it is not reasonable to suppose that God would bestow a Catholic faith upon the world, and then leave

it in the hands of fallible men. Therefore an infallible church has been appointed to look after it, and see that it does not get spoiled.

We reply that it is far more reasonable that God should give us a truth which every wayfaring man could read and understand, than that he should put his truth in a mystery, and appoint others to interpret it for us who are as likely to err as we. We make our appeal to the simple letter of the Scriptures-they make theirs to a Bible confused by traditions. But suppose we admit that in some things the church ought to be allowed to speak for us. Then we claim that the apostolic church ought to be our authority, and not the church of the fifth, the tenth, the nineteenth, or any other century, except so far as that church is in harmony with the church of the primitive times. We have the right of interpretation-we are able to understand the creed of the apostles-we do know what the Bible teaches. God has never told us to submit our faith and our conscience to the judgment or authority of another. On the contrary, He has expressly commanded us to avoid the commandments and traditions of men. The Gospel never can accomplish the salvation of the world if it is not something which men can read and understand for themselves. If you follow these men who deny you the right of private judgment, who teach that you must believe what they say, you sign away your manhood, and go contrary to the Scriptures themselves.

To the men who tell us, "Your Protestantism is heretical-it is worthless-it is a failure, and altogether wrong"-we answer that we will open the Bible and see if it be so. They reply, "The Bible! why, you have no right to interpret the Bible,-you must leave that to the Church."They condemn us, and then when we attempt a defence, they turn round and say, "You have no right to be heard." Where do they get the authority to shut our mouths, and do all the talking and interpreting themselves? We tell them that so far from the Bible conforming itself to the notions of the Roman, the Greek, the Anglican, or any other church, that no one of these systems is a church except so far as it rests upon the plain truths of Revelation. If you say then that you can dictate to us because you are the Christian Church, we reply, "You must first prove that you are the Christian Church." This is fair treatment. It is opening the Bible, and testing every thing according to that alone. And here is the position which we take upon this matter: there is not one characteristic feature of Protestantism, but that is authorized, called for, aye, demanded by the Holy Scriptures, the word of Eternal truth, and there is not one characteristic distinctive feature of the opposite system which is not condemned by the same divine authority. The latter system teaches that the written word of God is not the only rule of faith, but that tradition or the teaching of the Church in all ages must be added to it to render it a safe guide. The other system,