DEFENCE 
 
 Oy THE USE Off 
 
 C|e §il)le in \\i f ublic %i\u\$. 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 HENRY F. DURANT, ESQ., 
 
 ELIOT SCHOOL CASE. 
 
 /^:? 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOB AND FIELDS 
 
 M. DCCC. LIX. 
 
DEFENCE 
 
 OF THE USE OF 
 
 C|e §iljle in i^t f ublic ^c^aals. 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 HENRY F. DURANT, ESQ., 
 
 ELIOT SCHOOL CASE, 
 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 M. DCCC. LIX. 
 

 ^^^lEil^TwiiiirPri^te^r^^^g i"'^''- 
 
 
Henry F. Durant, Esq. : — 
 
 Dear Sir, — The undersigned are desirous that your Argument in the Eliot 
 School ease should be more widely circulated, and therefore request that you 
 would furnish a corrected copy of the same for publication. 
 
 And oblige, yours, &c., 
 
 ARTHUR B. FULLER, 
 
 Pastor New North Church. 
 
 JOHN W. DADMUN, 
 
 Pastor of the Fitst Methodist Church. 
 
 N. M. GAYLORD, 
 
 First Universalist Church. 
 
 G. W. BLAGDEN, 
 
 Senior Pastor of the Old South Church. 
 
 Boston, March 31, 1859. 
 
\ 
 
THE ELIOT SCHOOL CASE 
 
 On Monday, the fourteenth day of March last, the pubHc were much 
 excited by tlie announcement that there had been an open rebellion in the 
 Eliot School, one of the largest grammar schools in Boston, and that all the 
 Catholic children had refused to obey the established regulations of the 
 School Committee in regard to the reading of the Holy Scriptures and the 
 recital of the Ten Commandments. Over three hundred pupils peremp- 
 torily refused to obey these regulations, and were therefore dismissed 
 from the school. 
 
 On the following Wednesday, a complaint was made in the police 
 court by William Wall, the father of one of the pupils, against McLau- 
 rin F. Cooke, the second or sub-master of the school, charging him with 
 an assault and battery upon his boy, Thomas J. Wall. The trial was 
 protracted for a number of days, and necessarily postponed on account 
 of the public business, until the twenty-fifth of March, when this argu- 
 ment was addressed to the court on behalf of the defendant. The fol- 
 lowing facts, which appeared at the trial, are referred to in the debate. 
 
 On Sunday, the 6th of March, there was a meeting in a basement 
 room of St. Mary's Chui'ch, a church of the Jesuits, on Endicott Street, 
 at which a few of the Eliot School children, and some of the parents, 
 were present. What took place did not fully appear, although it was 
 admitted that some directions were given to the children by Father 
 Wiget, the priest, in regard to repeating the Ten Commandments in 
 school. On the Monday morning following the boy, Thomas J. Wall, 
 refused to join with the other scholars in repeating the Ten Command- 
 ments, saying that he did not know them. He was reminded by the 
 teacher that he had always been m the habit of repeating them before, 
 but still persisted in his denial. He was then taken to Mr. Mason, the 
 Principal of the school, who told him that he must not attend school 
 until his father came with him, and the matter was inquired into. On 
 Wednesday the father brought back his boy, and gave directions that he 
 should repeat the commandments, as the others did, or that he should be 
 punished severely. On Thm-sday he came again and asked if his son 
 
had obeyed the regulations, and was told that he would not be required 
 to do so until the next Monday. He then repeated the order to punish 
 the boy severely, if he refused, and gave very particular directions not 
 to dismiss him from school, if he disobeyed, but to keep him and punish 
 him severely. On the Sunday following the children, about nine hun- 
 dred in number, who attended St. Mary's Church, were all collected and 
 instructed by Father Wiget, that they must not repeat the Ten Command- 
 ments, or join in the Lord's Prayer, and he threatened them with 
 exposure from the altar, if they disobeyed him. On Monday there was 
 a general disturbance and disorder in the different school-rooms during 
 the usual reading of the Bible. The boys scraped with their feet, and 
 made much disturbance by whistling and muttering ; they afterwards all 
 refused to say the Loi'd's Prayer, or recite the Ten Commandments. It 
 was testified that the boy Wall was the most active, and appeared to be 
 the one to whom the others looked as foremost. He was called to the 
 teacher's desk and examined, and then was Avhipped for his misconduct. 
 It was claimed that the boy was severely whipped, but the evidence of a 
 physician who was called by him, showed that the whipping was not 
 severe, and that all marks or effects of it disappeared the next day. 
 
 The boy and his father were called as witnesses, and among other 
 things, the boy said that a brass medal silver washed was given to him 
 by Father Wiget the night before he was called as a witness. This 
 took place at the Jesuit's house, but the boy said he did not know why 
 the medal was given him, and could not recollect any thing said to him 
 at the interview, except " to go home to his supper." The defence was 
 placed upon the ground, that the regulations of the school were proper, 
 and that there was a planned and concerted rebellion to overthrow the 
 discipline of the school, and set the master's authority at defiance, and i 
 
 that such misconduct not only justified, but required a much more 
 severe punishment than was given. The counsel for the prosecution 
 took the gi'ound that the school regulations were illegal and unconstitu- 
 tional, and thus the great question in the cause was raised. 
 
ARGUMENT, 
 
 May it please your Honor : — 
 
 The spectacle which is presented to-day in this court, is indeed 
 novel and strange. A worthy teacher of one of our principal 
 public schools, who is bound by our wise and benevolent laws 
 to impart the great gifts of free instruction in piety and morality 
 and learning to his pupils, is arraigned as a criminal — arraigned 
 by one of his own pupils at the bar of this court as a criminal 
 because he has attempted to do his duty — because he has obeyed 
 that ancient, wise and beneficent law, which in words of simple 
 and familiar beauty enjoined upon him to " impress upon the 
 minds of the children committed to his care, those principles of 
 piety, justice, love of country, humanity and universal benevo- 
 lence, which are the basis of a Republican government, and 
 tend to secure the blessings of liberty." 
 
 He stands indeed before the bar of this court arraigned as a 
 criminal, but he stands there in proud humility, proud of his 
 position, conscious that in the execution of the delicate and 
 important trusts committed to him, he has done his duty boldly 
 and manfully — confident that the laws will pi-otect him — confi- 
 dent that the hearts and the minds of his fellow-citizens will 
 sustain him gratefully, because in the hour of peril and of duty 
 he was true to the laws. 
 
 But this is not the whole picture. In the dark back ground 
 are seen his accusers ; the real criminals, who have usurped 
 the place and the name of accusers. And who are they ? 
 Some are seen and some are unseen, some are known and 
 some are unknown, some are seen in full view, while some are 
 only seen as doubtful and mysterious shadows ; but the brief, 
 strange record of this case tells its own significant story. 
 
For years we have enjoyed the highest blessing which even 
 a free government can bestow upon its citizens — the blessing of 
 education, unbought, unsold — free to all, common to all, with- 
 out distinction of birth, or sect or race. Under the wise and 
 parental system of our public schools, our cliildren were taught 
 together as one free, and happy, and united family. The chil- 
 dren of the emigrant and the alien sat side by side with the' son 
 of the free-born American — they learned from the same book — 
 they shared the same instruction, profited by the same culture 
 — and they left the school together to enter upon the broad 
 highway of life with the same lights of learning behind them, 
 the same stars of hope and promise before them, free and equal 
 under the laws. 
 
 This was the story of yesterday ; but to-day we find a sad and 
 mournful and ominous change. Suddenly — at the absolute will 
 of one man — by the exercise of a dark and dangerous, a fearfully 
 dangerous power, hundreds of children of tender years, children 
 who were living in the full enjoyment of liberty and of learning, 
 are not only arrayed in open rebellion against our established 
 regulations, and in open violation of bur laws, but are deliber- 
 ately taught that they are to sacrifice all the benefits and bles- 
 sings of free education, and are led out by their priest from the 
 protecting roof of the school-house to the temptations, the 
 dissipations and crimes of the streets. This course is even now 
 justified and persevered in ; the same influences are still at work 
 in our schools, and we are told to-day by the advocate of those 
 deluded children, that this dangerous and unscrupulous priest 
 was in the right, that the laws under which my client justifies 
 himself, were rightly denouuced from the altar, were properly 
 set at defiance by the pupils, and are destructive of the liberty 
 of conscience, intolerant, illegal, unconstitutional and void. 
 
 Who is this priest who comes here from a foreign land to 
 instruct us in our laws ? For whom, and on whose behalf, is 
 this charge of intolerance — this charge that we are violating 
 the sacred liberty of conscience — brought against the people 
 and the laws of Massachusetts ? Can it be that one of the 
 Society of Jesuits is the accuser ? I wish to discuss this case 
 as calmly as I may. I wish to say nothing to arouse feelings 
 which cannot easily be allayed ; but there are memories which 
 we can never banish from heart or brain ; there are records on 
 
earth and in heaven which can never be blotted out ; there are 
 pages of history written in letters of fire, and of blood; and the 
 man who leads forth his flock of children, and boldly arrays 
 them in open defiance of our established laws, who audaciously 
 and ungratefully assails our established regulations as intoler- 
 ant and uncliristian, and as violating the sacred liberty of 
 conscience, would do well to look behind him, as well as before 
 — would do well to pause and reflect if he is in a position 
 which authorizes such grave accusations, or justifies such 
 violence. 
 
 But I must discuss this case with more of method and order, 
 and I will not answer this attack upon ouf laws and our institu- 
 tions until I have shown how material it is to the decision of 
 this cause — how vital and deadly a blow is aimed at our institu- 
 tions, our liberties, and our laws. 
 
 My client is charged with an unlawful assault upon one of 
 his pupils. There was a pretence originally made, that he had 
 been guilty of needless and unreasonable severity in enforcing 
 the established regulation of the school, but that pretence has 
 faded — and faded away into utter insignificance. 
 
 The evidence of the boy himself, and of the physician who 
 saw him, showed that the punishment was neither unusual nor 
 severe. 
 
 The evidence of the, boy himself showed that it was necessary 
 he should be punished, unless all hopes of obedience and control 
 in that school were to be abandoned forever. But what can 
 be said now, after we have proved by witness upon witness 
 — that gross violation of the discipline of the school — the 
 indecent and riotous conduct of the children — their wilful 
 and openly concerted rebellion against the masters — that 
 planned and arranged conspiracy among the scholars, that 
 they would unite together and overthrow the authority of 
 the teachers, and the regulations of the school ? 
 
 What justification can be offered for all this, unless indeed 
 the novel rule is to be established in Massachusetts that a Jesuit 
 can dictate from Endicott Street as to the management of our 
 public schools. Unless his authority is to be superior to our 
 laws ; — unless he can set up his will as supreme ; — unless his 
 nod can justify any disobedience, any disrespect, any violence, 
 on the part of the scholars ; — then it was the plain duty of the 
 
8 
 
 teacher to maintain the discipline of his school ; and to enforce 
 those rules which he was as much bound to observe and execute 
 as the scholars were bound to obey. 
 
 Need I say, in a court of law, that no punishment could be 
 severe in a case like this ? Need I allude to the authorities 
 which give to the master in the school-room the power and the 
 duty of a father — the power to enforce obedience, and punish 
 resistance, especially such organized and open resistance as this? 
 Need I remind the Court of the other facts in this case, the 
 authority whicli the father himself gave to the master to punish 
 his stubborn boy — the authority never withdrawn, and never 
 revoked ? No ! may it please your Honor, I pass by all these 
 points, for I wish for time to discuss the only question which 
 requires, or deserves discussion — the real question in the case. 
 And that is, whether the regulations which have been referred 
 to are illegal and unconstitutional ? 
 
 The laws with regard to our public schools are so dear to 
 every citizen, so important in our free government, that they 
 are familiar to every one. Free schools are established and 
 maintained at the public charge. The children of all citizens 
 without any distinction whatever, are allowed to attend them, 
 and all receive the same course of instruction and are governed 
 by the same rules. The general nature of the studies is regu- 
 lated by positive statutes, but the details of discipline, the 
 selection of teachers, the choice of books and the general man- 
 agement of the schools is given to school committees ; which 
 have large legislative, and almost judicial powers delegated to 
 them by the laws. The general law which regulates the course 
 and class of studies in our schools, is found in the Revised 
 Statutes, chapter 23, section 7. 
 
 It provides that "/)i>^?/, justice, a sacred regard to truth, love 
 to their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, 
 industry, frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance," 
 should be taught. All these are to be taught, but first of all, 
 piety. 
 
 In the execution of the duty which is imposed upon our 
 school committee, of prescribing the mode and the means by 
 which piety shall be taught ; in the execution of the statute of 
 1855, which requires that a portion of the Holy Bible should be 
 read daily in every school ; and in the execution, also, of their 
 
general duty, to direct the discipline and management of our 
 schools, they have passed the following regulations, which apply 
 to all the public schools in Boston : — 
 
 The morning exercises of all the schools shall commence with reading 
 a portion of Scripture, in each room, by the teacher, and the Board 
 recommend that the reading be followed with the Lord's Prayer, 
 repeated by the teacher alone, or chanted by the teacher and children in 
 concert, and that the afternoon session close with appropriate singing ; 
 and also that the pupils learn the Ten Commandments and repeat them 
 once a week. 
 
 Substantially similar regulations, embracing a part or the 
 whole of these recommendations, have always existed in our 
 New England schools. These precise regulations have existed 
 in our Boston schools for years. They were published widely, 
 they were read in the schools, they were universally known, 
 and universally acquiesced in. They were established, not for 
 Catholics alone nor for Protestants alone — they were estab- 
 lished to favor no particular creed ; no one yet has dared to 
 charge that they were established with any sectarian views — 
 they were established for all, acquiesced in by all — and no one 
 can doubt that they were useful and beneficial to all. 
 
 Had there been any feeling that these regulations were arbi- 
 trary or unjust — had there been any conscience so sensitive that 
 they became a burden — had any parent, or any child, of any 
 sect of Christians objected to them, there was the fullest oppor- 
 tunity for remonstrance and redress. But it was not so. No 
 teacher was requested to suspend the rules, there was no remon- 
 strance to the school committee — no request to modify or 
 abolish these apparently wise and useful regulations — there was 
 no appeal to the courts, which enforce the laws, nor to the 
 legislature which enacts them. The children obeyed without a 
 murmur, and the parents acquiesced either from indifference, 
 or from satisfaction. 
 
 It was in opposition to these regulations so long obeyed, so 
 long acquiesced in, under which year after year our Catholic 
 citizens with pride and satisfaction saw their children receiving 
 and sharing with all others the benefits of a free and liberal 
 education, that it has been found necessary to resort to open 
 violence, to a deliberately planned and arranged rebellion 
 
10 
 
 against the discipline and authority of our schools, — a rebellion 
 which might gratify the ambition or aid the far reaching designs 
 of the priest, but could only end in the ruin of those misguided 
 children, who were at once their tools and their victims. These 
 are the regulations, and this is their history. 
 
 And now, since it so plainly appears that my client was 
 justified in punishing this deliberate and wilful rebellion against 
 these rules so long established, so long acquiesced in, so long a 
 part of our invaluable public school system, the counsel for the 
 prosecution are forced to take the ground that these laws and 
 regulations themselves are illegal and unconstitutional. 
 
 The Court cannot liave forgotten the very able and learned 
 opening argument of the counsel for ,tlie prosecution. The 
 issue is plainly made by him, that the regulations which I have 
 read are illegal and unconstitutional, and therefore I cannot 
 avoid it or refuse to meet it, if I would. His general argument, 
 if I understand it correctly, is this : — 
 
 Our Constitution declares that every citizen shall have full 
 liberty to worship God according to his own conscience. 
 
 The statutes of 1852 require that children should, for at least 
 three months in the year, attend some public school. 
 
 All citizens are taxed for the support of public schools, and 
 therefore, have equal riglits in them. 
 
 To require the scholars to repeat the Ten Commandments 
 infringes upon their liberty of conscience, and the rule is, 
 therefore, unconstitutional. 
 
 Any attempt to enforce an unconstitutional law is illegal, 
 and any punishment whatever, for a refusal to obey such a law, 
 is illegal. 
 
 If these arguments are sound and unanswerable, then the 
 Bible must indeed be banished from our schools forever. 
 
 If a Catholic child not only has a right, but is bound by law 
 to attend school ; if, because all citizens are taxed, he has the 
 rights which are now claimed, and if what he cliooses to call 
 his scruples of conscience, are to be obeyed — then he is not 
 obliged to recite nor to hear the Ten Commandments ; he is 
 not obliged to repeat nor to hear the Lord's Prayer ; he is not 
 obliged to read the Protestant Bible nor to hear it read ; — 
 either would offend his Catholic scruples — all are violations of 
 his liberty of conscience. 
 
11 
 
 This is indeed a great question — the greatest and gravest 
 question, in my judgment, which this Court will ever be called 
 upon to determine ; and as it is now for the first time presented 
 here, it is fit that it should be seriously and solemnly discussed, 
 and that it should be met and decided upon those broad prin- 
 ciples of justice and law which will satisfy all good citizens of 
 every sect and race, all who love and are willing to obey our 
 laws. No one who knows and cherishes the history of our 
 country, — no one who watches now, with fear and hope, the 
 dark and threatening signs of the times, — no one who reflects 
 upon those essential qualities, those cardinal virtues in the 
 citizen, upon which alone a republican government can be 
 founded, and by which alone it can be sustained, — but must 
 feel and know that this is a question, the importance of which 
 cannot be overrated or exaggerated ; — a question which must 
 be met boldly, fearlessly, and with entire frankness ; — a ques- 
 tion which requires very plain dealing, and justifies very plain 
 speaking also. 
 
 My own wish is to avoid all extreme grounds, and to avoid 
 all questions which will widen the threatened breach between 
 our citizens. I chiefly desire to speak to the complainant, who 
 has been instigated to bring this case before the court, and to 
 his brethren and friends. I speak to the alien, the emigrant, 
 and the exile, who have found refuge here from the wrongs and 
 oppressions of the Old World. I appeal to them at once, and 
 forever, to abandon as most dangerous and most injurious to 
 the true welfare of their children, the counsels of those who 
 would array them in opposition to the laws, who would teach 
 them to separate their children from those free schools where 
 all meet beneath the same roof, speak the same tongue, learn 
 from the same books and enter together the great republic of 
 letters. 
 
 I appeal to them, to disabuse their minds of the prejudice 
 that their liberty of conscience is to be invaded or violated. 
 No intelligent Catholic parent really believes it or fears it for a 
 moment. I appeal to their own cherished hopes and wishes for 
 the welfare of their children whom they love. I appeal to their 
 experience of past years, and to the bitter lessons of these past 
 few days. I ask every parent to look back upon his own life, 
 upon his own daily sorrows and regrets that a free school was 
 
12 
 
 neyer open to himself, and then to decide whether he will 
 sacrifice his children also — whether he will dare, at the bidding 
 of priest or politician, to leave his offspring in the shadow of 
 that same darkness ; and sadden and darken their lives by the 
 same cloud of ignorance which has overshadowed all his own 
 weary, hopeless days. 
 
 Unless I can support and sustain these rules as consistent 
 with freedom of conscience — as consistent with the purest spirit 
 of religious toleration ; unless I can show to our adopted citizens, 
 our adopted brethren, that side by side our children can con- 
 sistently and properly receive the education which the laws give 
 freely and equally to all — unless they can join their little hands, 
 and lift their young hearts in common prayer to the Father of 
 the fatherless, then these regulations will no longer be defended 
 or justified by me. 
 
 Need I deny the unjust charge that the laws of our free 
 Commonwealth are hostile or severe, to our adopted citizens ? 
 Need I say that ours are no inhospitable or unfriendly shores ? 
 
 Every western breeze that finds it unseen path over the wide 
 Atlantic, bears an invitation across the ocean, welcoming the 
 exile and the alien, the poor and oppressed of every clime, to 
 the land of the free. Our freedom is our birthright and "our 
 inheritance ; broad as our land, free and unfettered as the wind, 
 which sweeps from one ocean to the other. And this our birth- 
 right and inheritance which our fathers purchased with their 
 blood, we offer to all and willingly share with all. In the Old 
 World the inheritance of the people is the heavy burden of that 
 feudal system, under which the lands and the titles, the wealth 
 and the power are held by the nobles, and transmitted to their 
 children generation after generation. The sons of the soil are 
 bowed down by labor, and the sweat of their toil drops upon 
 fields they can never hope to win or claim as their own. 
 
 Learning there is the inheritance of the rich only, and is not 
 for the poor ; they must bend their backs and bow down towards 
 the earth, nor dare to look upwards to the broad sunlight of 
 God's eternal sky ; they must bow down their hearts and minds 
 to endless, hopeless toil, nor seek to share in the eternal light 
 of learning and knowledge, which God has given for all his 
 children. The holy stars may shine forever in that far-off sky, 
 but dark clouds are floating there between. They must not 
 
13 
 
 look up to that serene sky, must not look up to those far-off 
 stars ; their life must be submission and despondency, not 
 aspiration. 
 
 What wonder then that every white-winged vessel which 
 leaves the Old World bears its band of emigrants and exiles, 
 looking forward toward the promises of the West ; toward the 
 hopes and promises of that beautiful clime which they dream of 
 far away beneath the. vanishing glory of the sunset — looking 
 forward to a new home — to a freer land — to a brighter sky. 
 And when the long voyage ends at eventide, — when at sun- 
 set, the stately ship furls its white sails in our fair harbor, they 
 see before them in the western sky the golden gates of their 
 new world, the golden gates of the new El Dorado — not the 
 fabulous clime of rivers flowing over golden sands which 
 tempted avarice in earlier days, but the true El Dorado of i7ien 
 — a land where the soil is free — where the laws are equal — 
 where the sunshine of liberty and of learning glows for all, 
 blesses all. The emigrants of to-day, do not come as conquer- 
 ors like the adventurers of an earlier time. They do not come 
 the soldiers of a foreign prince, to extend his dominion, or plant 
 his standard on our free shores. They come as friends, as 
 guests ; they come as freemen. The emigrants of to-day do not 
 bear the banners of Castile and Aragon. The Oriflamme of 
 France does not float above their heads, nor does the meteor 
 flag of England lead them onward now, but in the western sky 
 float the banners of the Almighty, blazoned there in the purple 
 and gold of sunset, and inscribed thereon, in letters of living 
 light, is the sacred word of libertij. 
 
 But there is a voice of warning as well as a voice of welcome 
 for the emigrant and the exile who leaves the Old World, with 
 its wrongs and its memories behind him. As he is borne along 
 over the wild wide ocean he can bury there all memories of the 
 tyranny and oppression which made life a burden. He has left 
 behind the heavy yoke of poverty, the despair of ignorance, 
 the degrading distinctions of birth, the unequal laws which 
 with every rising and every setting sun made him feel the bitter 
 truth of the curse, " in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days 
 of thy life." 
 
 A new life opens before him on our wave-worn shores. Here 
 is a new homo where the laws are equal for the poor and for the 
 
14 
 
 rich. Here he can win wealth and honor. Here he can be 
 one of the citizens, one of the rulers ; here education and honor 
 and power and wealth are open to all ; and in the free air, the 
 new life, the loftier aims, the higher aspirations of the New 
 World, all the Avrongs and sorrows of the past can be forgotten. 
 But as he buries beneath the dark waves the sad memories of 
 the Old World, let him find a little room there for his chains 
 also. 
 
 There is ample room beneath our wide free sky for all races, 
 for all sects, for all churches. The stately towers of the 
 Roman cathedral, and tlie plain white spires of our New Eng- 
 land meeting-houses, pointing from the quiet graves of our 
 fathers heavenward, need never encroach one upon the other. 
 There is room for all beneath our wide blue sky. 
 
 We give the widest toleration to all nations, to all creeds, all 
 opinions ; but there is one power, one tyranny which cannot 
 cross the ocean, and that is the tyranny of one man, whether 
 his head is encircled with the monarch's crown, or the bishop's 
 mitre. Bury those heavy chains, then, beneath the dark waves, 
 and as the waters close over them, forget the bondage as well 
 as the sorrows of the past. 
 
 Ours is a government of the people — a government of men, 
 but o^ free men — and that dark and dangerous power, which, 
 under the guise of religion, would grasp the sceptre of the 
 State, can never, never be tolerated here. That plant is not 
 native to our clime — it can never flourish in our free soil — its 
 breath is poisonous to our laws, and death to our liberties — the 
 dream must never for one moment be indulged, that one man, 
 whether he speaks from the Vatican or from the altar, is to rule 
 the destinies of our free people, or to dictate their laws. 
 
 We received that warning long ago, in the farewell address 
 of him, whom we love to name as the father of our country. 
 It was Washington who said to us : " Against the insidious 
 wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow 
 citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly 
 awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence 
 is one of the most baneful foes of republican government." 
 Our liberties are our inheritance, and neither foreign power or 
 foreign influence can lay sacrilegious hands upon them — sacred 
 alike from the warrior's sword and from the priest's infiueuce. 
 
15 
 
 Aliens and exiles are welcome to our shores ; we will share our 
 birthright with them, and inscribe their names on the great roll 
 of free citizens ; but they must come as men, and as free men, 
 not at priesfs men, and it is no empty form, no meaningless 
 oath which compels them, before they can become citizens, to 
 renounce all allegiance to any foreign power whatever, to all 
 power but the laws. There is a voice of warning, too, which 
 the priests must submit to hear, a voice which is already rising 
 in low mutterings, far and wide over the land — a warning 
 which, unless they hold back their audacious hands, will gather 
 and swell until it breaks in thunder above their heads. It is 
 now only the little cloud seen afar off over the sea no bigger 
 than a man's hand, but it will widen and roll on until it 
 becomes a storm and a whirlwind, which no power can control 
 or withstand. 
 
 I speak, then, to the emigrant and the foreigner, whom we 
 welcome to our shores. I desire to show to them and to all 
 who hear me that the nse of the Bible in our schools — the 
 teaching of the Commandments — tlie recital of the Lord's 
 Prayer from it, are consistent with the true principles of 
 religious liberty and toleration. I do not speak of casuistry, 
 or of scruples more intolerant than intolerance itself, or of 
 subtle and specious doubts. I speak of religious liberty in a 
 land of law, and liberty of conscience in a government of 
 freemen. 
 
 Let us go back for a moment to first principles ; let us 
 endeavor to get clear ideas, and examine briefly what is the 
 meaning of these noble words — a government of freemen — 
 freedom of conscience — liberty under the laws. The truth is 
 that our people are so wholly free that we hardly realize or 
 appreciate what is meant by government and law. Our con- 
 sciences are so untrammelled that we are unaccustomed to 
 reason or reflect upon what freedom of conscience is, and in 
 what it consists. We forget that the very essence and founda- 
 tion of all government is religion, and yet the truth exists as 
 old as the primal stars, that a government without religion 
 is as impossible as a universe without a God. We must remem- 
 ber that we are not dealing now with questions of fleeting 
 opinion, nor with transitory laws, which change and vary as 
 society changes, suiting themselves to the necessities and wants 
 
16 
 
 of social progress and social change. We are reasoning upon 
 those elder and fundamental truths which lie at the very basis 
 of all society, all governments. We are studying the deep 
 bases of the everlasting hills. We are questioning those 
 primeval rocks, more enduring than the mountains which soar 
 above them ; which time, nor seasons, nor changes, nor decays, 
 can alter or wear away. 
 
 The first great truth, then, which we must reflect upon and 
 appreciate, is this : that religion is the essential foundation of 
 all government, the source and sanction of all power. This is 
 the united voice of all true philosophy, of all true statesman- 
 ship — it is the lesson and warning of history, and the universal 
 experience of the civilized world. Need I remind you, sir, of 
 the latest, the darkest lesson of the eternal truth — that a gov- 
 ernment without religion is a hopeless impossibility ? Need I 
 remind you of that government without religion, founded only 
 upon pure reason, based upon the laws of man — that govern- 
 ment inaugurated with more than bridal pomp and festivity, 
 with songs, and feasts, and dances, when the Goddess of Reason 
 was the symbol and the representative of a new era, and in 
 triumph led on the choral dance, which ended in the red dance 
 of death — in the fearful night and darkness of the " Reign of 
 Terror." 
 
 May it please your Honor, our government is based upon 
 religion, npon the Christian religion, and it is a vital and 
 essential part of the law of the land. 
 
 Not the Christianity of any particular sect or creed, but the 
 broad, pure, living Christianity of the Bible ; — we cannot open 
 our statutes without meeting with the proof of it. The Bill 
 of Rights, to which the prosecution appeal, commences with a 
 solemn appeal to the Christian's God — the observance of the 
 Christian Sabbath is enjoined, and profanation of it is forbidden 
 by numerous statutes. Blasphemy against God and our Saviour 
 are crimes punished by law. The oaths which are the protec- 
 tion of property, recognize it, and all our laws flow from it, and 
 are consistent with it. I might quote from our law books ; I 
 might read Blackstone and Story. I might show that all great 
 jurists recognize this grand truth ; I might show that all 
 writers upon municipal law acknowledge it ; but 1 have a higher 
 authority to which I wish to refer. Let me ask you, Sir, to 
 
17 
 
 hear a voice from the dead, the fittest Oracle of this great 
 living truth. I desire to read the profound and eloquent words 
 of that great statesman, who sleeps well after his long labors, 
 with the solemn voice of the ocean he loved, as his requiem — 
 on the lonely shores of Marshfield : — 
 
 There is nothing that we look for with more certainty than this gen- 
 eral principle, that Christianity is part of the law of the land. This 
 was the case among the Puritans of New England, the Episcopalians of 
 the Southern States, the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the mass 
 of the followers of Whitfield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians ; all 
 brought and all adopted this great truth, and all have sustained it. And 
 where there there is any religious sentiment amongst men at all, this 
 sentiment incorporates itself with the law. Every thing declares it. The 
 massive Cathedi'al of the Catholic ; the Episcopalian Church, with its 
 lofty spire pointing heavenward ; the plain Temple of the Quaker ; the 
 log Church of the hardy pioneer of the wilderness ; the mementos and 
 memorials around and about us ; the consecrated graveyards, their tomb- 
 stones and epitaphs, their silent vaults, their mouldering contents — all 
 attest it. The dead prove it as well as the living. 
 
 The generations that are gone before speak to it, and pronounce it 
 from the tomb. We feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity, general, 
 tolerant Christianity, Christianity independent of sects and parties, that 
 Christianity to which the sword and the fagot are unknown, general., 
 tolerant Cloristianity, is the law of the land. 
 
 And now, with this lamp to guide our feet, let us inquire 
 what is the meaning of liberty of conscience under the law ? 
 Our Constitution declares that " It is the right as well as the 
 duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to 
 worship the Supreme Being-, the great creator and preserver of 
 the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or 
 restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God 
 in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his 
 own conscience, or for his religious profession or sentiments, 
 provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct 
 others in their religious worship." 
 
 What is the meaning of those noble words, in a land of 
 
 liberty, in a country where Christianity is a part of the law of 
 
 the land ? Does it mean that nothing shall be tolerated bj 
 
 law, nothing shall be sanctioned by the law, nothing shall be 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 paid for by taxation, nothing shall be submitted to, and obeyed 
 by the citizen, excepting wliat satisfies the scruples of his own 
 conscience ? The Jew reviles Christianity and the New Testa- 
 ment, and teaches his children that our Saviour was but an 
 impostor. And yet he is taxed for the support and execution 
 of the laws which will punish him witli a felon's cell if he 
 dares to reproach the name of Christ, or blaspheme tlie Holy 
 Scriptures. Nay more, although the Christian Sabbath is a 
 stumbling block, and an offence to him, although every Cliristian 
 Church is hateful to his sight — he is obliged, with certain 
 exceptions, to respect the laws for the observance of the Sab- 
 bath, and is obliged to pay taxes for the support and mainte- 
 nance of that government, of which Christianity is a vital and 
 essential part. 
 
 Need I multiply instances ? the Hindoo and the Mahomedau, 
 the Pagan and the Atheist, all can be citizens, all are entitled 
 to freedom of conscience ; and yet in every transaction of life, in 
 every function of government, in every act of obedience to the 
 laws, they are obliged to submit to and obey the rules of that 
 Christianity which is an offence to their conscience. Is there 
 any inconsistency in this ? Is this inconsistent with true reli- 
 gious toleration ? By no means. The answer to the question 
 lies plainly before us. Every man may ivorship God according 
 to his own conscience ; for his religious belief or disbelief he is 
 not accountable to any human tribunal. The laws impose no 
 form of faith upon his conscience, he is to subscribe to no arti- 
 cles of belief, he is to surrender his faith to no creed, he is to 
 join no sect. Atheist or Pagan, Catholic or Protestant, he is 
 free to believe or disbelieve according to his conscience ; and 
 for his faith or his infidelity there is equal toleration. But 
 apart from this, and beyond this, he must submit to the general 
 laws of the land, and just in the same manner that while we 
 declare that every citizen, although free, must submit to numer- 
 ous laws which do interfere with and infringe upon his liberty ; 
 so does every citizen find in the operation of general rules, in 
 the compromises of life, in the necessary concessions of a society 
 regulated by general laws, much that is offensive to the scruples 
 of his conscience, much that he must submit to and obey, 
 although no laws compel him to believe. 
 
19 
 
 Many good and virtuous citizens look upon war as a crime 
 against God, and religion, and yet they are taxed by their 
 country to supply the very sinews of that war, which they 
 believe to be unholy. Atheists believe that the observance of 
 the " Lord's Day " is an idolatrous superstition, injurious and 
 offensive to morality ; yet the disciples of Paine and Yolney, 
 however it offends their consciences, must cease from labor, 
 and, in all but worship, must observe and keep it. 
 
 I repeat, that it is idle and in vain to say that liberty of con- 
 science in one citizen means the submission to his scruples on 
 the part of all others. It is in vain to say that in a country of 
 free but divided opinions, nothing shall exist which is not offen- 
 sive to the consciences of many. 
 
 And here let me pause to say, that the danger to our country 
 to-day does not lie in intolerance, nor in disregard of the liberty 
 of conscience. It lies in animreflecting and timid fear of intol- 
 erance. We forget our watchword, that " eternal vigilance is 
 the price of liberty." We do not study nor reflect upon those 
 essential principles upon which our free government is founded. 
 We are so much in fear of intolerance to Catholicism, that we 
 become intolerant of that pure and true religion which is the 
 sole safeguard of our liberties, without which our loved and 
 cherished republic will vanish away — a beautiful but fleeting 
 dream. 
 
 But I must not dwell too long upon the examination of these 
 general principles, which demand more ample illustration than 
 the present discussion will allow. I wish to come more closely 
 to the particular question which is to be -decided by the light of 
 these general principles. 
 
 My first proposition has been that the Christian religion is a 
 part of the law of our ancient Commonwealth. 
 
 My second proposition was that true liberty of conscience and 
 true toleration of all forms of belief can exist consistently -with 
 that law. 
 
 My third proposition is, that piety and morality are to be taught 
 as a part of education, and that this is not inconsistent with 
 religious toleration, or entire liberty of conscience. 
 
 This is a question which involves a wide range of discussion, 
 much wider than can be entered upon here, where it must be 
 
20 
 
 decided as a question of authority, of law and of government, 
 rather than as a question of etliics, or philosophy, or religion. 
 ■ I am not speaking of private schools, established by any sect, 
 Bupported for any special object or purpose. I am speaking of 
 those public schools which are established and supported by 
 the government, as great public institutions and charities — 
 institutions for which it is lawful to levy taxes upon the citizen 
 — charities in the true legal meaning of the word, which are 
 recognized as a part of the institutions of the country, and 
 protected and supported by its laws. 
 
 If my first proposition is true, that our Government is based 
 upon religion, that Christianity is an acknowledged and recog- 
 nized part of our law, does it not follow, as of inevitable 
 necessity, that in every school founded by government, estab- 
 lished and supported by government, religion should be recog- 
 nized, and piety should be taught ? I need not repeat, Sir, that 
 I speak not of any sect, or church, or creed, not of any form of 
 faith. I speak of those principles of true piety and religion 
 which have existed from the hour when the morning stars 
 sang together — from the hour when God said " let there be 
 light" — piety eternal as the stars, religion pure and holy as the 
 light of Heaven. 
 
 One of our most eloquent orators has told me that many 
 years ago he met Mr. Webster in London, and conversed with 
 him upon the future destinies of our country. Mr. Webster 
 spoke despondingly of our future. Have you no hope, sir, in 
 our education? He shook his head sadly, without a reply. 
 Have you no hopes then in the religious education of the people ? 
 His whole noble face lighted up, as he acknowledged that this 
 was the one bright star, yet shining for his country ; and he 
 then expressed his intention of one day laying before his coun- 
 trymen his long treasured thoughts upon that great subject. 
 How well that promise was kept his countrymen well know. 
 Mr. Webster's great oration upon the " Religious Instruction 
 of tlie Young " remains to-day the noblest monument to his 
 fame, the truest mirror of his character. Tliose who remember 
 him only in the heat and dust of political strife, or in his great 
 contests at the bar, know nothing of him at all. 
 
 I remember it as one of the fortunate occurrences of my life, 
 that I heard Mr. Webster address the Supreme Court shortly 
 
 1 
 
21 
 
 after the death of the Hon. Jeremiah Mason. He spoke with 
 earnest feehng of his early friend, of his deep rehgious behef, 
 of his awful reverence for the living God ; and as he dwelt 
 upon that great theme — as he by way of contrast spoke also of 
 a man without religion, a man whom the Scriptures describe in 
 such terse but terrific language as living " without God in the 
 world" — as he declared the great truth that " religion is a 
 necessary and indispensable element in any great human char- 
 acter," it seemed as if the true great soul of the speaker himself 
 was revealed ; as if inspired by his theme, he had for once laid 
 open and displayed the profound mysteries of his own conscious- 
 ness, of his inner self, and of his own lofty and usually inscruta- 
 ble being. It seemed as if the clouds which enfolded the lofty 
 summits of the mountain had for a moment rolled away, and the 
 lofty peaks were visible, radiant in their serene and sublime 
 majesty, aspiring forever, soaring forever upward towards the 
 everlasting heavens. I believe that in that one moment I 
 obtained more insight into that great nature than years of familiar 
 intercourse would have given. And I believe, too, that his 
 serious and solemn convictions, his highest hopes, his noblest 
 thoughts, are more fully recorded in the great oration of which 
 I have spoken, than in all the rest of his published works. 
 
 Will your Honor allow me to detach two or three thoughts 
 from that powerful argument, which are particularly appro- 
 priate to the subject of our discussion ? He says with great 
 emphasis : — 
 
 I do say, and do insist, that there is no such thing in the history of 
 religion, no such thing in the history of human hxw, as a charity, a 
 school of instruction for children, from which the Christian religion and 
 Christian teachers are excluded as unsafe and unworthy intruders. 
 
 Again he says : — 
 
 This scheme of education is derogatory to Christianity, because it 
 proceeds upon the presumption that the Christian rehgion is not the 
 only true foundation, or any necessary foundation of morals. The 
 ground taken is, that religion is not necessary to morality ; that benevo- 
 lence may be insured by habit, and that all the virtues may flourish and 
 be safely left to the chance of flourishing, without touching the waters 
 of the living spirit of religious responsibility. With him who thinks 
 
22 
 
 • 
 
 thus, what can be the value of the Christian revelation? So the 
 Christian world has not thought ; for by the Christian world throughout its 
 broadest extent, it has been and is held as a fundamental truth, that 
 religion is the only solid basis of morals — and that moral instruction, 
 not resting on this basis, is only a building upon sand. 
 
 I might multiply authorities of wise and learned men upon 
 this question ; but it is not necessary. Can it be argued for a 
 moment, that in educating a child, to whom God has given an 
 immortal soul, as well as intellectual faculties, it is the duty of 
 the State to cultivate the one and leave the other in darkness ? 
 Above all things, in a republic which exists only, which can be 
 maintained only, by the virtue of its citizens — can it be argued 
 that it is the duty of the State to teach every thing but these 
 very virtues upon which its existence and well being depend ? 
 Will it be said that it is the duty of the State to educate its 
 citizens, but that those very virtues which alone are useful to 
 the State itself — " those virtues which tend to secure the 
 blessings of liberty," shall be a sealed book — shall be forbidden 
 forever, banished forever from the schools ? If self-preservation 
 is indeed a law of nature, shall not the State be allowed to 
 preserve itself, not by war, not by proscription, not by force, 
 but by instructing its children in piety and morality and pure 
 religion ? But I must remember that I cannot discuss this 
 question here, as a question of morality, of philosophy or of 
 religion. I am here only to defend and justify an ancient law 
 of the Commonwealth, which prescribes, in so many words, 
 " that piety, justice, humanity and universal benevolence shall 
 be taught in our public schools." 
 
 The principles for which I contend would justify laws far 
 more general and comprehensive than this ; and I look for the 
 hour when they will be enacted, but this is the law of to-day ; 
 and I believe that no one will be bold enough to deny its 
 obligation or its justice. 
 
 Tiiis law to which I have referred the Courtis but a re-enact- 
 ment of a more ancient statute ; it was sanctioned anew in the 
 revision of our laws, and is now found in chap. 23, sect. 7, of 
 our Revised Statutes. 
 
 May it please your Honor, we have advanced thus far in the 
 argument, and we find that it is a positive law, which neither 
 
23 
 
 teacher nor scholar can evade, that piety shall be taught in our 
 public schools, and I turn now to mj adversaries, to ask the 
 question that terminates this controversy forever — from what 
 book is piety to be taught in a Republic where Christianity is a 
 part of the law of the land ? Is it to be taught from Confucius, 
 or from the Vedas and Puranas of the Hindoos ? Shall Plato 
 be our instructor in piety, or shall we go back to Zoroaster ? 
 No, Sir, there is but one answer that can be given. No skill of 
 the opposing counsel can evade it. And I feel that he will not, 
 and dare not attempt to answer it. What course he may take in 
 his argument I cannot anticipate, but this I know, that he will 
 pass this question by in prudent silence. And yet the whole 
 case turns upon this one question, and it must and will be 
 answered. No craft of the Jesuit can avoid it. No form of 
 words can conceal it. The answer comes from every lip, 
 Catholic as well as Protestant — it comes from the altar, from 
 the pulpit, an.d from the statesman's closet — from the street 
 and from the fireside — from the heart of every mother, from 
 the lips of every child. There is but one book from which 
 we dare teach piety, and that book is God's Holy Bible. 
 
 It would seem that by slow steps we are somewhat advanced 
 in this our investigation. We have found that all government 
 is based upon religion. That the government of our free 
 republic is based upon the Christian religion, and that it is a 
 part of the law of the land — that in all public education given 
 by the State to its citizens, it is essential that morality, religion 
 and piety should be taught — we have found this principle to be 
 recognized by our laws and enacted as a positive statute ; and 
 the only question remaining is from what book are we to seek 
 this instruction — if that indeed can be called a question which 
 admits of but one answer — which answers itself. And here I 
 might well pause, if this great point is established — for when 
 this is settled all the conclusions follow, of necessity — but there 
 are many points raised, many arguments advanced, which I 
 must attempt to answer. 
 
 It will be said, perhaps, we do not object to your use of the 
 Bible — we object only to the common English version of it. 
 I feel constrained to say that I cannot believe this is the true 
 question. Unless I misunderstand wholly a late letter from 
 the Bishop of Boston, if our regulations required the pupils to 
 
24 
 
 read the Douay Bible together, to recite the Ten Command- 
 ments together, to repeat the Lord's Prayer, or chant the 
 Psalms of David together, even although they were to use the 
 text of the Douay Bible, it would be a " brotherhood in a simu- 
 lated union of prayer and adoration, which his church expressly 
 forbids "* — but this may not be the ground taken by the counsel 
 here, and I will therefore attempt to answer the suggestion that 
 our common version should give place to the Douay Bible. 
 And the first answer is, that as some version is to be taken ; as 
 the Bible in some translation is to be used, as there is a differ- 
 ence of opinion, as to which is the best, the question must be 
 decided by that tribunal to which the laws have intrusted the 
 decision. The school committee are by law required to select 
 and decide upon the question of the books to be used, and they 
 have determined this question. The common version is by an 
 express statute to be read daily, and the committee have used 
 and adopted the same version for all other purposes. 
 
 I uphold and justify that decision upon many grounds ; and 
 I say first to these gentlemen who are so earnest for toleration, 
 who are so fearful of sectarianism, that I object to their Douay 
 Bible because it is avowedly a sectarian hook, written and pub- 
 lished with that acknowledged object. Our Saxon Bible never 
 has been, never can be sectarian. It is quite worthy of remark 
 that at this hour it has no express sanction of any sect or of 
 any churcli. No creed can claim it as peculiarly its own ; it is 
 the common property, the common heritage of all. Nay more 
 — it is well known there are more real and essential differences 
 of opinion between the various Protestant sects, as to the cor- 
 rect translation of various important texts, tlian between the 
 Catholics and the Protestants. But for all that, this version is 
 — with one exception only — accepted by all sects of Christians 
 who speak the English tongue, as a translation sufficiently cor- 
 rect — not for sectarian arguments — not for disputes upon points 
 of doctrine — not for creeds or schisms — but for the common and 
 daily use of Christians, for instruction in piety, in morality, 
 and in that pure religion which is high above sects and doctrines, 
 as the stars are above the earth ; and for this very reason — be- 
 cause the Christian sects who differ upon so many points, are with 
 
 * Letter from the Bishop of Boston to the School Committee. 
 
25 
 
 one exception willing to unite upon this version — is it fitting 
 and proper that this should be adopted. It was the English 
 Bible centuries ago. The descendants of Englishmen still 
 cherish it. It has been the American Bible for centuries also. 
 The Catholics who have emigrated found it here when they 
 came, found it here as the people's Bible, found it here in the 
 schools which they came to share with us. These reasons alone 
 should be sufficient, but there are other reasons for the use of 
 our Bible which will, I am sure, appeal to the heart and the 
 brain of every foreigner who sends his children to our public 
 schools. 
 
 I appeal to their gratitude now, to their sense of honor now, 
 as I would appeal to their generosity, if it were necessary, and 
 ask them if they would wish to come here to share our free- 
 dom, to ask our hospitality, to enjoy the liberties, — the free 
 education — the institutions which our fathers purchased at 
 such a price, and then take our Bible away ? It was to read 
 that Bible in safety that our fathers came to this cold and bar- 
 ren shore — that Bible lay in the narrow cabin of the " May 
 Flower " — it was the only star that shone for the Puritan in that 
 long night of toil and strife and famine, which well nigh ended 
 in despair. It was with hands clasped above that Bible that 
 Washington prayed in his tent, through those seven long years 
 of doubt and distrust, when the " God of Battles" alone sus- 
 tained him. It has been the household god of the school-room 
 from the infancy of the country. The schools which made us 
 free, which will make worthy and true citizens of your children, 
 have grown up under its influences. And will you take it from 
 us now ? 
 
 It is difficult to discuss this question calmly. I imagine that 
 feelings which it is best not to express, are aroused in the heart 
 of every American who is told that we must justify or defend 
 the use of our old Saxon Bible. I will not trust myself to 
 express them. I will ask for any reason for rejecting our com- 
 mon familiar version and for substituting another in its place. 
 If this were a fitting time or place, I should be very willing to 
 discuss the comparative merits of the two versions, either as 
 literary productions, or as faithful translations. The Douay 
 Bible has its history too, of which I should be very willing to 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 • 
 speak if it were proper to do so, but this is not a suitable 
 
 occasion. 
 
 May it please your Honor, I ask now for a single candid 
 objection to the use of King James's Bible — not the Prstestant 
 Bible, but the Christian Bible — the Saxon Bible, which we 
 love. Are the particular portions of it which are used in the 
 schools objectionable ? Our children are to learn piety from 
 it, not sectarianism, or creeds ; but pure religion, undefiled 
 before God. They are to learn from it piety, a sacred regard 
 to truth, justice, chastity and humanity. Was it from secta- 
 rian views that the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments 
 were selected as fit lessons of these cardinal virtues ? What 
 sect. Catholic or Protestant, has received the monopoly of these 
 portions of God's Word ? What priest or preacher can call 
 tliem his own ? Are they indeed offensive to the tender con- 
 sciences of children ? Is it indeed dangerous that they should 
 hear or repeat them ? I am inclined to believe that no one 
 who has heard the evidence of the father or his boy, would be 
 willing to say that it is either unnecessary or very dangerous to 
 repeat to either of them the divine injunction, " Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness." Does bishop or priest dare to say that it 
 would be dangerous to repeat to the children those sacred 
 portions of the Bible ? 
 
 Can it be that even bigotry and fanaticism would take excep- 
 tion to the prayer which Christ taught us — to the tables of the 
 law which Jehovah himself gave to his children on Mount Sinai ? 
 Is it one of that order of priesthood which has assumed to itself 
 the name of the " Society of Jesus," who has found it a neces- 
 sity of Christian duty to forbid liis followers from repeating the 
 Lord's Prayer ? Has he forgotten that it was Jesus who said 
 " suffer Utile c/iildren to come anlo me and forbid them not.'' 
 Jesus who bade his disciples go forth into every land and teach 
 the Gospel to every creature — that he dictated to his disciples 
 the lofty worship, the simple and patiietic beauty of that miracu- 
 lous prayer, in which all the nations of the earth might together 
 lift up their hearts to God without remembering any distinction 
 of sect or race or creed ? Subtle and artful as men have been 
 in raising doubts, untiring as they have been in creating differ- 
 ences of opinion — no sect, no dogma, has yet been founded 
 upon that marvelous, that inspired prayer, which in its divin-o 
 
27 
 
 sweetness and purity embraces in itself the "whole Christian 
 religion, and the universal worship of God — that simple but 
 sublime prayer in whose thanksgivings still linger the tender 
 tones of a gentle mother's voice teaching it at eventide ; the 
 sweet, natural music of home. Was that priest unwilling that 
 his flock should unite with the children of heretics, and join- 
 ing their hands and their hearts, say with them, " Our Father 
 which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name ? " Was he 
 unwilling that the children of the Huguenots and the Puritans 
 — the children of those Protestants who remembered the moun- 
 tains of Piedmont and the Waldenses — who remembered the 
 night of St. Bartholomew and the fires of Smithfield — should 
 join with his flock, and say " forgive us our trespasses as we 
 forgive those that trespass against us ? " 
 
 But it is said there is a difference between the Catholic and 
 Protestant version of this prayer. I have not forgotten it ; it 
 will be very long I think before I shall forget it, or forget that 
 in the book which was produced here in court ; the hands of 
 some little fanatic, who had been taught hatred and bigotry 
 under the name of Christianity — or of some priest who feared 
 for the tender consciences of his flock, had carefully and indus- 
 triously obliterated the closing words of the prayer, " For thine 
 is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen." 
 
 Are those reverential ascriptions of proise dangerous and 
 heretical ? Is the worship which acknowledges our Heavenly 
 Father as the source of all power, as the Ruler of the Universe 
 — is that worship to be denounced and proscribed by one who 
 calls himself the priest of the living God ? Was it for this 
 that he gathered the children of his flock together, and by 
 threats of a shameful exposure from God's altar, persuaded them 
 to violate the laws of their country — persuaded them to rebel 
 against their teachers — persuaded them to sacrifice the great 
 gifts of education ? 
 
 How vain and how shallow are such pretences. How trifling 
 and immaterial are the verbal differences which are now insisted 
 upon. Does any one fail to see that this movement is only a 
 settled, and determined, and preconcerted opposition to our 
 Holy Bible ? Does any one fail to see that it is because the 
 prayer is read with Protestants, that the Catholic children are 
 forbidden to join in it — that the Catholic priests are resolved to 
 
28 
 
 • 
 
 banish it from our schools ? This is the ground which the 
 Bishop of Boston has openly taken in his letter to the school 
 committee, and although we can see that the counsel for the 
 prosecution will not be bold enough to take it here, we can all 
 very plainly see that it is the great and the real objection. 
 
 Can there be any more sincere ground of complaint because 
 the children were called upon to repeat the Ten Commandments ? 
 Are the lessons of piety and morality which they teach offen- 
 sive to the conscience or sinful to hear ? Have these divine 
 commands lost any thing of their obligations in the progress of 
 civilization ? Has their sublime morality lost its virtue ? Is 
 there one commandment which to-day any Christian of any sect 
 dare disavow ? 
 
 Over three thousand years ago these tables of the law were 
 delivered from Mount Sinai by our Heavenly Father — when the 
 " mountain burned with fire into the midst of Heaven, with 
 darkness, clouds, and thick darkness " — when Jehovah said unto 
 Moses, " Gather me the people together and I will make them 
 hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that 
 they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their 
 children.'''' 
 
 Has that divine injunction lost its force ? Is it useful at this 
 hour to teach those divine precepts ? Would it wound the 
 tender consciences of children to be taught those ancient and 
 holy commands ? Is any intelligent Catholic parent really 
 unwilling that his child should repeat them ? Who that has 
 watched the signs of the times — who that has watched the 
 winds, and the waves, and the dark clouds which drift along 
 our stormy sky, fails to see the object and end of all this move- 
 ment ? No, no, there is no fear for the consciences of the 
 children ; the real objection is to the Bible itself, for, while that 
 is read daily in our schools, America can never, never be 
 Catholic. I am told that the most zealous of English Catholics 
 acknowledge that England can never be Catholic so long as 
 they keep their Saxon Bible. Of its power over the hearts of 
 the people, an Englishman has most truly and eloquently said : 
 " King James's version lives in the ear of a Briton, ' like music 
 that can never be forgot, like the sound of church bells, which 
 the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities 
 seem to be almost things, rather than mere words. It is a part 
 
29 
 
 of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. 
 The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions 
 of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the 
 griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the 
 representative of his best moments, and all there has been about 
 him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks 
 to him forever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, 
 which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never spoiled. 
 In the length and breadth of the land there is not an English 
 Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose 
 spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.' " Yes, all that 
 is true ! True for Englishmen to-day, but how much more 
 deeply and dearly true for us ? 
 
 Of all the wealth of happy England, of all their birthright 
 and inheritance this sacred book was all that our ancestors 
 brought with them to these, then barren and unkindly shores. 
 They left behind them their lands, their wealth, their titles, 
 their kin, their country, and the sweet memories of home. It 
 was to read this Bible aright ; to learn from it the mysteries of 
 the living God, that they gave up all which man holds sweet 
 and cherished ; and does any one dare now to hope that this 
 Book will be driven from our schools ? Never ! never I The 
 sun may turn back in its course, the stars may fall as the leaf 
 falleth from the vine, and the heavens may be rolled together 
 as a scroll, but until we have sold our birthright of freedom, 
 never, never will the descendants of Englishmen consent that 
 the Saxon Bible shall be banished from their free American 
 schools. 
 
 But I may be told that our fears are groundless, that they 
 do not object to our Bible, but to the particular use made 
 of it in this particular case. We are not to be deluded by such 
 specious arguments. We well know the foe with whom we 
 deal ; they will be content with any step in advance, if it be but 
 the thousandth part of an inch, and bide their time for the next 
 step. 
 
 This is no time for timid concessions, no time for politic 
 compromises ; the enemy are to be met at the gates. We see 
 through their plans and strip off their plausible disguises. I 
 repeat that their objection is to our Bible, our whole Saxon 
 Bible, and they cannot consistently stand upon any other 
 
30 
 
 • 
 ground. "Why do you object to the Lord's Prayer, and to the 
 Decalogue, and the reading of the Scriptures ? Because you 
 say " it offends our consciences." " We believe it is not the true 
 version of the Word of God ;" that version is " used as a means 
 of attack upon our tenets." " The form and words are offen- 
 sive to the conscience and belief of the Catholics." Be con- 
 sistent now, gentlemen, if you object to reading that Bible or 
 reciting from it. Is it because it is offensive in form and words 
 to your Catholic consciences ? Will you be any better satisfied 
 then if it is daily read to your children by their teachers ? Will 
 any bishop, any priest, tell me that he is iv ill lug' to have that 
 untrue version of God's word, so offensive to Catholic conscience 
 and belief, read daily to his flock by their heretic teachers ? 
 No, if it is intolerant to ask the children to read or recite that 
 Bible, it is intolerant to read it to them ; if it is intolerant to 
 ask them to recite the Ten Commandments, it is also intolerant 
 to teach them. If to ask the Catholic chiklren to join in 
 repeating the pure religion, the simple and pathetic supplications 
 of the Lord's Prayer, offends their consciences, then any 
 instruction in piety from a Protestant is offensive, and the Bible 
 must be banished forever from our schools. 
 
 Concede the first point, that you are bound to excuse Catho- 
 lic children from reciting from the Bible, and you are bound to 
 concede that they shall not read it. Concede that they shall 
 not read it, and you are bound to concede that it shall not be 
 read to them. No other course is possible if the first false 
 step is taken, and no one sees this so clearly as the priest who 
 has so rashly commenced this attack upon our institutions. I 
 appeal from bishop and priest, to the unfettered intelligence of 
 our adopted citizens ; I appeal to the countrymen of Burke, 
 and Sheridan, and Grattan, and Curran. Do you, who wish to 
 become American citizens, you who wish to draw closer the 
 bonds of a common country and a common freedom, fear that 
 your children will suffer because they, with united hands and 
 hearts, lift up their tender voices in common prayer to that God 
 who is the Father of all, whose rain falls alike upon the just and 
 the unjust, who is the God of all nations, of all races, all 
 climes ? 
 
 I repeat once and forever, that there is not any sectarianism 
 intended or taught by the use of tlie Bible. We do not ask 
 
31 
 
 your children to adopt our translation as tlje true one. If any 
 point of doctrine arises upon any text of our Bible or theirs, 
 they are free in tlicir faith as we are in ours. They are 
 instructed to interpret the second commandment in one way, 
 and we in another. No one wishes or seeks to disturb their 
 faith ; we do not ask them to say or to believe that ours is the 
 true word of God, or the best translation of the tables of the 
 law which God delivered to Moses. Our teachers, in their 
 great duty, teach lessons of piety from the onlij source from 
 which it can be taught, and the children are free to believe or 
 disbelieve them, free to worship God according to the faith of 
 their fathers, free in their faith, free in their consciences. 
 
 I repel altogether the specious pretence that our Bible is not 
 tJie Bible, because the translation differs in some particulars 
 from the Douay Bible. Every translation from the original 
 Hebrew and Greek must of necessity vary — must of necessity 
 be more or less perfect, according to the accuracy and perfec- 
 tion of the language into which it is translated, and the learning 
 and skill of the translator. The Holy Scriptures have been 
 translated into over two hundred different languages ; but they 
 are always the Bible. Not the Bible of the Catholic or the 
 Calvinist — not the Bible of the Methodist or the Episcopalian — 
 but the Cliristian Bible. 
 
 As well may we be told that God's eternal sky is not the same. 
 It clothes itself with vanishing, ever-changing beauty fi'om season 
 to season, from hour to hour. It robes itself in the tender violet 
 hues of spring, the deep, cloudless transparency of midsummer, 
 and the dark, steel-blue of a northern winter. It arrays itself 
 equally in the delicate rose and opal hues of dawn — the impe- 
 rial purple and gold of sunset — and at midnight it wears its 
 royal robes of state, all flecked with countless stars ; but in all 
 changes — in all climes — it is always God's eternal sky, the 
 same sublime image of that wondrous eternity which lies behind 
 us, and before us — the same holy symbol of the all-embracing 
 love of our Heavenly Father. 
 
 And now may it please the Court, I have but to sum up this 
 this part of my argument in a few wgrds. 
 
 They say that the regulations of the school committee violate 
 the Constitution, whicli protects all citizens in tlieir liberty of 
 conscience. 1 answer that their conscience is left free — they 
 
32 
 
 are not called upon to believe or disbelieve any thing. Their 
 faith is their own — we do not ask them to yield one iota of it. 
 They may find offence in our laws, and in our customs. That 
 is always the consequence of general laws. They found us 
 with these institutions — they have accepted the benefits of them 
 
 they must bear with the inconveniences also. And, I say it 
 
 in all kindness, but it is proper it should be said, there are 
 many causes for offence which Protestant parents also find in 
 the laws which compel their cliildren to mingle with the chil- 
 dren of the Catholics. Let us hope for mutual forbearance and 
 mutual submission to the laws. 
 
 And now, may it please your Honor, that I have briefly dis- 
 cussed this great question in the cause, there is another issue 
 which it is my duty to meet. This case has been planned and 
 arranged with a great deal of artifice, the snare was very skil- 
 fully laid, but I think I shall be able to give Father Wiget 
 good reason to regret that he selected this as the time, or the 
 place, or the manner of taking his first step in the great move- 
 ment of expelling the Bible from our schools. It is my duty to 
 expose this artifice, and it is an easy task ; in doing it, I shall 
 also prove, beyond all possibility of question, that this is not a 
 case of conscience or of scruples of conscience. The truth is, 
 that a very cunning plan was laid, the object of which was to 
 have a boy whipped for his religion, in order to raise the cry 
 of religious persecution, as I will presently prove. 
 
 I cannot admit that the pretended objections raised by the 
 Catholic pupils are " not mere fetches and pretences devised 
 for the purpose of creating a difficulty." * This case fortu- 
 nately, very fortunately, is full of conclusive evidence to the 
 contrary, and I beg the attention of the Court to it. No one 
 can fail to remember the manner in which this cause was 
 originally brought before the Court. It was pretended that an 
 intelligent and interesting little boy, religiously educated, was 
 bidden with threats to violate his tender conscience ; that in 
 vain he pleaded the commands of his parents, the solemn les- 
 sons of his religious instructor. His prayers and appeals were 
 all in vain ; he was ruthlessly beaten until his wicked perse- 
 cutors, frightened and shocked at their own cruelty, ceased 
 
 * Letter from the Bishop of Boston to the School Committee. 
 
33 
 
 their stripes, and endeavored to hide the bleeding evidence of 
 their pitiless tortures. Has your Honor forgotten that picture 
 of religious fanaticism and persecution, that touching picture 
 of the infant saint and martyr ? I am half inclined to believe 
 that my learned friend, who opened and tried the case so ably 
 and so well, had worked himself up to the faith that this small 
 citizen had the already sprouting wings of a cherub under his 
 waistcoat. He was a saint in embryo, — a small sized martyr 
 in jacket and trowsers. I confess that I could not but sympa- 
 thize with my friends, when all the poetry, all the picturesque 
 charm and color of this picture was banished so rudely, on the 
 last day of the trial. Wliat a shocking blow was given to our 
 sensibilities ; what a ludicrous " behind the scenes " appeared 
 when we heard that this small saint, who was willing to be 
 " kilt " for his conscience, — who vowed with infinite pathos 
 that he would never be a coward to his religion ; — when we 
 heard that this very small and somewhat dirty little martyr 
 was out in the streets where the boys were playing marbles 
 declaring with tlie true fervor of a pious Catholic, " Faith and 
 I warn't agoin to repate thim damned Yankee prayers." What 
 a very abominable and altogether absurd little cherub to be 
 sure. I would have given money for one peep into the breasts 
 of my friends on the other side, at that precise moment. I 
 wonder if, as they lieard the poetry of their case, the glory and 
 the beauty of their dream, vanish forever in the irrepressible titter 
 which no one in the court house could resist, when that evi- 
 dence was given, — I wonder if they did not say to each other, 
 that Father Wiget's bread and butter saint ought to have been 
 whipped once more, and more thoroughly. This, may it please 
 your Honor, is the delicate, the tender, the more than feminine 
 purity of conscience, which cannot submit to say " hallowed," 
 instead of " sanctified," which does not revolt from the words 
 of our " Ten Commandments," which accepts them all, 
 acknowledges them all ; but flies as from impurity, which shuns 
 as sacrilege the repeating those very words, unless they are 
 divided* according to the holy dictation of Father Wiget. 
 
 * Wall testified that his objections to the commandments was because thejr 
 were not divided as the Catholics divide them. 
 6 
 
34 
 
 • 
 What volumes of the benignant teaching of the Jesuit, what 
 touching pathos, what sweet infantine love of God, what tender 
 delicacy of conscience, spoke in those words, " Faith and I 
 warn't agoin to repate thim damned Yankee prayers." Was 
 it for that pious ejaculation that Father Wiget gave the boy 
 his symbolic medal of brass, whitewashed with silver, in that 
 very memorable interview at the Jesuit's house, of which the 
 boy, although it took place but the night before he was called 
 as a witness, was really unable to remember a single word 
 excepting the important, the saintly, the pious instruction to 
 " go home to his supper ? " 
 
 I have a few words to say as to this boy and his father. 
 There is a very material question of veracity to be settled 
 between them and the teachers of the school who have been 
 called as witnesses. If I am able to prove them wilfully false, 
 your Honor will be compelled to admit there was o, great motive 
 for the falsehood ; if they are proved to be wilfully false, no 
 one can dare to say that this is a case of suffering for con- 
 science sake ; if they are proved to be false, and the teachers 
 are relied upon, then, not only is this case at an end, but a plot 
 is exposed which must excite the indignation of every hearer. 
 
 I remember. Sir, that 1 was assailed somewhat rudely by the 
 able and eloquent senoir counsel, who told us that after my 
 terrible cross-examination of his rather blasphemous and very 
 profane little saint he nearly or perhaps quite fainted away. Per- 
 haps it was the attempt to find out and confess what that very 
 suggestive and significant and quite symbolic whitewashed 
 medal was given to him for, which weakened little Saint Tom's 
 tender frame. I remember that it was a question very general — 
 very pertinent — very often asked — never answered — a question 
 which has been asked a great many times since by persons who 
 take an interest in this trial — What the priest did give that medal 
 for, the night before the boy was to be a witness ? Tliis was on 
 the first day of the trial. May I ask my eloquent friend, if that 
 very interesting and quite painfully honest little martyr fainted 
 away after that other very striking scene in court, on the last 
 day of the trial, of which he has not yet spoken ? I desire to 
 recall that scene, with somewhat of form and precision, to the 
 mind of the Court, for a flood of light is thrown from it all 
 
36 
 
 over the case — over the manner in which a religious persecu- 
 tion question — a question of suffering for conscience sake — has 
 been gotten up (in a very bungling, and very stupid manner, 
 I must be allowed to suggest) by the pious Jesuit of St. Mary's. 
 It cannot be forgotten that we had proved by the testimony of 
 the respected principal of the Eliot School — Mr. Mason ; by the 
 young lady assistant in his room — Miss Marsh, whose intelli- 
 gence and candor spoke in every line of her fair face — that the 
 father of the boy, when he had been dismissed, the Monday 
 previous to the day of the rebellion, had brought him back, 
 and heard from Mr. Mason a full explanation of the rules of 
 the school, and of the precise differences between the Catholic 
 version of the Ten Commandments and that which was printed 
 in the boy's books. It was proved that he ordered his boy to 
 say them, and directed his teacher to punish him severely if he 
 did not obey ; that he took pains to say that the boy ivas not to 
 be sent home, that he was not be expelled from school, but was 
 to be made to say the Commandments, and to be punished 
 severely if he did not, I am quite sure that no one who heard 
 these witnesses, no one who heard the very long and elaborate, 
 and very skilful cross-examination to which they were subject- 
 ed, could doubt for one moment their entire truth. It was 
 with a good deal of suprise, I think, that your Honor heard 
 the boy and his father called to contradict this clear and posi- 
 tive evidence. And yet they had the folly to come upon the 
 stand and wilfully and audaciously to deny it altogether. 1 
 believe that no one who heard them, no one who witnessed 
 that scene when, more plainly than I ever before saw it in a 
 court of justice, deliberate perjury was proved out of their 
 own mouths ; when the boy, conscious of his falsehood, stood 
 mute, but confessing his crime by his silence, with the fraud 
 and the crime so obvious, so awful, that in those moments of 
 suspense you could hear the very silence in the crowded court 
 room — no one who heard the boy that day, would say that it is 
 unnecessary or would be useless to repeat weekly or daily to 
 that son of that father the awful command, "Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness." 
 
 I have read some pathetic histories of persecution for con- 
 science sake ; I have read of martyrs whose meek and saintly 
 
36 
 
 • 
 
 demeanor drew from their enemies tears of rapturous admira- 
 tion — martyrs who died in sublime self-oblivion, died in fiery 
 coronation robes, when the rolling smoke, crimson-tinged, 
 floated far up the sky, vanishing in heaven as the pang and the 
 horror vanished also in the victory that swallows up all strife. 
 
 I fear that I am so much of a heretic that I cannot persuade 
 myself that this boy is a martyr, and I do not think he looked 
 like a martyr or a saint when he was so plainly exposed in his 
 falsehood. 
 
 I am afraid that I do not appreciate with a sufficiently keen 
 sensibility the religious side of this present persecution for 
 conscience sake. I am afraid that I am liable to a conviction 
 for holding the very heretical and abominable doctrine, that this 
 very interesting Wall and his very interesting boy, are terribly 
 given to " drawing the long bow," and that their pretended 
 tenderness of conscience is mere moonshine on the water. 
 
 This question whether Wall and his son are false or not, is 
 very vital to this cause, as I will presently show ; and I there- 
 fore ask the Court to remember the father's evidence now as 
 well as the boy's. The Court will remember that it was proved 
 that this boy, and the other Catholic boys, had been in the 
 habit for years of repeating the Ten Commandments without 
 objection — a very material fact bearing upon the same vital 
 question, to which I am presently to ask your Honor's atten- 
 tion. I have not only proved that this boy had done so, but 
 that in particular, since September last up to the week of the 
 rebellion, he had done it constantly ; and yet in the face of this 
 proof, the boy dared to stand up here and swear boldly under 
 " medal," or other influences, that he had never once repeated 
 them. His father dared to swear to the same thing, and he 
 swore that for the last six years, ever since his boy was four 
 years old, he had forbidden him to say the Protestant Com- 
 mandments. I was satisfied that Wall was telling a deliberate 
 falsehood and I desired to make it apparent. I therefore in the 
 cross-examination put the questions which I think your Honor 
 will very well remember. 
 
 " Had he really been obliged to tell his son so ? " 
 
 " Sure he had, and he and the priest both had forbidden his 
 boy to say them, a thousand times." 
 
8T 
 
 " What, a thousand times ? " 
 
 " Yes, faith, and more than that, five thousand times over, 
 he forbid him and me both." 
 
 " Let me remind you that you are on oath, Mr. Wall, before 
 you repeat that." 
 
 " Faith and it was o(ier five thousand times." 
 
 " What, you yourself have been forbidden five thousand times 
 by your priest, to say the Ten Commandments ? " 
 
 " Yes, and indeed I have, and more too." 
 
 '* Well now, Mr. Wall, please to remember that you are upon 
 oath, and tell the Court of even one time when any body asked 
 you to say the Ten Commandments, and when it was necessary 
 even once for the priest to forbid you ? " 
 
 Wall was in difficulty. " Oh ! that's no matter," said he. 
 
 " Pray tell me, Mr. Wall ; name one time out of the five 
 thousand." 
 
 " Oh ! I didn't mind when it was," said he. 
 
 " Can't you tell once out of all the five thousand ? " 
 
 A light of inspiration suddenly flashed upon him, and then 
 with a cool impudence, and a ready lie — which he enjoyed as 
 much as any one — which no one could hear without a smile : 
 
 " Faith, it was in the ould counthry they did it," said he. 
 He evidently thought he could get out of the way of cross- 
 examination, if he could but take refuge in his native bogs. 
 But it was all in vain. 
 
 " So it was in old Ireland that you were told five thousand 
 times by your priest that you must not say the Ten Command- 
 ments, was it ? " 
 
 " To be sure it was, your Honor ; who ever supposed it was 
 any where else ? " 
 
 " But who asked you to say the Protestant Commandments 
 there ? " 
 
 " No body asked me to say them ; we weren't bothered with 
 thim things there," 
 
 " But the priest told you five thousand times to be sure and 
 never repeat the Protestant Commandments ? " 
 
 " To be sure he did ; ain't I telling you so ? " 
 
 " But why should he tell you not to, if nobody asked you to 
 say them ? " 
 
38 
 
 • 
 
 He was evidently stuck in his own native bog. But it was only 
 for a moment. With the same gusto, with the same enjoyment 
 of the lie that helped him, as he thought, out of his difficulty, 
 he said : " Wasn't it thim botherin' tractmin, to be sure ? " 
 
 " Oh ! the tractmen wislied you to say the Protestant Com- 
 mandments, did they ? " 
 
 " To be sure they did." 
 
 " What, nothing else but the Commandments ? " 
 
 " To be sure not." 
 
 " And did they really ask you five thousand times to repeat 
 them ? " 
 
 " And more, too, fur the matther of that." 
 
 " And the priest forbid you all of five thousand times to 
 repeat them ? " 
 
 " That he did, to be sure." 
 
 Poor Wall, no wonder he emigrated, with five thousand Pro- 
 testant tractmen at one ear shouting the " Ten Command- 
 ments," and five thousand priests, shaven and shorn, at the 
 other, shouting to him : " Be kilt for your religion, man." No 
 wonder he was obliged to emigrate. That is a specimen of his 
 evidence, and I am forced to say that may be Catholic honesty, 
 but it is what we should call very like downright Protestant 
 lying. 
 
 But it was a darker, sadder scene than tliat, when in narrating 
 what was told him by liis boy, he stated what we all knew to be 
 false, deliberately, wickedly false. The boy was called to the 
 stand immediately — and there they stood, father and son, con- 
 victed of falsehood, convicted of crime — without escape — with- 
 out excuse — without any possibility of evasion, even through 
 the readiness of Irish wit. I am sure that no one who witnessed 
 that scene will ever forget it. It was a dark and fearful com- 
 mentary on this fetch and pretence of a tender conscience whicli 
 would be violated by the Lord's Prayer, wliich would be sullied 
 and stained by God's holy Commandments. 
 
 I turn from that dark scene to ask several questions which, 
 as I said, will throw a flood of light upon the darkness of the 
 case. Why was it that on the Sunday before tlie boy first 
 refused to say the Commandments, a few parents and only a 
 few boys were gathered in a basement room in that Jesuit 
 
39 
 
 Church in Endicott Street ? Why was it that this boy alone on 
 the next day refused to repeat the Commandments which he for 
 months and years had repeated without a murmur ? Was it in 
 order that he might be vjhipped ? Was it in order that the 
 Jesuits might raise the ciy of religious persecution ? — might 
 under that cry arouse public feeling, and drive the Bible from 
 the schools ? 
 
 If so, they were disappointed. The boy was not whipped ; he 
 was simply told that he must obey the general regulation, or he 
 must bring his father there and have the matter explained. He 
 was sent home. That was on Monday. He did not return, as 
 his father swears, until Wednesday. Why was that delay? 
 Was there any consultation with the priest going on ? What 
 followed is very strange. The boy is brought back. The 
 teacher is told with great care — and the injunction is repeated — 
 that the boy must say those very Commandments. He is told 
 that the father wants the boy kept at school^ and not dismissed 
 if he refuses to respect the commands ; but that he must be 
 punished, and punished severely, if he refuses. How did the 
 father know beforehand that the boy would refuse ? Why did 
 he wish him punished severely if he did ? No one can fail to 
 see through all this. We see that this was no accidental whim 
 of one parent or one child — it was a deliberate, a concerted 
 plan, in which all were to join, and this strange conduct of the 
 boy and the priest and his father show that their object was 
 to catch the teachers in their snare and compel him to whip 
 the boy. 
 
 Do not forget upon this very point the significant evidence 
 that the boys said they intended to refuse to repeat the Com- 
 mandments, and that they expected to be whipped and expelled 
 from the school. The rest of the story is soon told. On the 
 following Sabbath, the same priest instigated nine hundred 
 pupils to break into open rebellion. The boys go to school, 
 they stamp on the floor and make a disturbance by whistling, 
 loud mutterings, and scraping their feet while the Lord's 
 Prayer is repeated. This Wall boy makes himself the most 
 forward^ he is the ringleader to whom all the other boys turn. 
 He cannot be sent away, for his father earnestly requested that 
 he should be kept in school and punished severely. 
 
40 
 
 • 
 
 I think we begin to see the clouds breaking away a little. 
 I think we understand something about the reason of those 
 mysterious visits after dark to the Jesuit's house, the night 
 before the boy was to be a witness. I think we begin to know 
 now how it came to pass that the father should knoiv before- 
 hand that the boy would refuse ; why the father was so anxious, 
 and why he called the second time to repeat that he wanted 
 the boy kept in school and punished severely. 
 
 I think we understand now the meaning of that significant 
 confession which I extorted from the boy, that he was angry 
 because his hands were bathed in cold water, after he was 
 whipped, because he ivanted to have them all swollen and look- 
 ing as bad as he could. I think now it is no longer our unan- 
 swered question, why was that medal given by the Jesuit 
 Wiget, to this boy alone, among all the nine hundred boys ? 
 
 Can any one doubt now that it was the deliberate intention 
 of this Father Wiget and his accomplices, to break up the regu- 
 lations of the school ? That it was their wish and expectation 
 that one or more of the boys should be whipped ? Can any 
 one fail now to see the reason of the evasions, the quibbling, 
 the falsehoods, and the pretended forgetfulness of the boy and 
 his father ? 
 
 This plot was beautifully arranged. This play of the " Haint's 
 Tragedy," was put upon the stage with a great deal of scenic 
 effect ; but now that we are fairly got behind the scenes and 
 see the wire-pulling and the scene-shifting, it looks a little 
 absurd — does it not ? 
 
 I very respectfully beg to leave this part of the case, with 
 the parting advice to Father Wiget, that the next time he gets 
 up a sacred drama for public exhibition in our courts, he would 
 remember there is an American institution called cross-exami- 
 nation, which sometimes operates as a " free pass " behind the 
 scenes. I would also affectionately cau.tion him to waste no 
 more medals on doubtful saints, or on those precocious but pro- 
 fane little martyrs, who are ready to die for their religion in 
 the school-house, but in the streets, " Aint agoin torepate thim 
 damned Yankee prayers," If any one now believes in the 
 purity of conscience of this boy and his father — if any one 
 really believes that they are any thing but the willing tools and 
 
41 
 
 accomplices of more artful men, I liavo nothing further to 
 say. I have exhibited now the background of the picture, and 
 I think no one will fail now to see or understand who are the 
 real criminals who have usurped the place of accusers. 
 
 There arc many points that I wished to touch upon which 
 my brief argument does not allow me the opportunity to dis- 
 cuss, but there are two or three which I must not wholly pass 
 by, although I cannot argue them fully. 
 
 It is said that all are taxed for the schools, and all should 
 have equal rights in the schools. All are not taxed equally to 
 be sure, but all do have equal rights here. The same regula- 
 tions apply to Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic — the 
 same bejiefits are given to all, the same burdens are borne by 
 all. 
 
 It is idle to say that the Catholics do not have equal rights 
 because we do not give them svpreme rights ; that they do not 
 have equal rights because they cannot, at the will of their 
 priests, compel us to forbid the use of the Bible in our public 
 schools. 
 
 This question, however, has been so fully determined by the' 
 authority of the case of Donahoe vs. Richards, in the 38th 
 volume of the Reports of the State of Maine, that it is no 
 longer necessary to argue it. 
 
 Your Honor is familiar with that case ; it is an authoritative 
 determination of our courts of law that the Bible can be used 
 in schools without infringing upon the liberty of conscience. 
 I cannot but say, however, that I regret that the decision was 
 not placed upon rather higher grounds. It seems to me that 
 we are to meet this question, not upon the ordinary level of the 
 plain and simple rules for ordinary school discipline and the 
 selection of common school books. It is to be met upon the 
 sunny and serene heights of the law, where the grand principles 
 of the science of jurisprudence soar far above the customs and 
 the usages of a busy mercantile world — where the great prime- 
 val truths, which are the foundation of government, of society, 
 of morality, alone are taught — where law and religion walk 
 hand in hand. 
 
 It is said that the children are compelled by the statute passed 
 in 1852 to attend school. If I have maintained my proposition, 
 
42 
 
 that nothing illegal is exacted of the pupils, if their freedom of 
 worshipping God, in their own manner, is not taken away, then 
 the objection is immaterial. It should be noticed, however, that 
 the law is by no means so strict as has been supposed. It was 
 intended to prevent vagrancy and crime. No child has been 
 obliged to attend school who has already learned the studies 
 commonly taught there ; no child need attend school who is 
 taught at home ; no child need attend school who is too poor ; 
 and above all, any child can attend any school of any kind that 
 his parents may select. 
 
 And now in closing, there are few words more to be spoken. 
 It may be said, it has been said, that this question is met with 
 too much of earnestness and zeal. I trust that it will never be 
 met otherwise. It is too great and too vital a question to be 
 passed by lightly. I would wish indeed to avoid all that can 
 give offence, all that can cause heart burnings or alienation to 
 the emigrants whom we admit as free citizens ; but they must 
 remember that they come to learn as well as to enjoy our 
 institutions. They must submit to hear very plain speaking on 
 questions so sacred, so vital to our whole country as this. 
 
 They know not what they do, or they would never dare to 
 attempt, as they have done, to violate our household gods. 
 This i^ no question of politics or for politicians — the people will 
 never intrust it to them. It is a question for every fireside, 
 for every heart. I know that there is not a mother through- 
 out our land, from one ocean to the other, who did not 
 feel a sudden thrill of indignation and horror when she first 
 heard that the Catholics were attempting to drive our Saxon 
 Bible from our free schools. Little do they know the spirit of 
 American liberty who think that this can ever be accomplished. 
 Timid men may be found to consent to submission, — politicians 
 may be found who wish to conciliate foreign voters — thought- 
 less men who do not reflect upon the great interests of their 
 country, — but there is a united will and power of the people 
 which if this movement is persevered in they cannot fail to 
 know, — and I dare to say to all, to bishop and priest and emi- 
 grant, that until liberty ceases to be any thing but a shadow and 
 a name, that Saxon Bible will be the companion of the American 
 freeman — his pillar of cloud by day, his pillar of fire by night. 
 
43 
 
 Tho Saxon Bible at the cradle of the new-born infant, bj the 
 death-bed of the gray-liaired father ; the Saxon Bible on the 
 mother's knee as she teaches her child to join his little hands 
 in prayer, and lift his heart away from earth, away from its 
 hopes and fears, its joys and sorrows, to his Heavenly Father ; 
 the Saxon Bible in the statemaii's closet, and at the poor man's 
 hearth ; the Saxon Bible in the child's free school, and the child's 
 free heart. Never, never can man or priest pnt asnnder those 
 whom God has joined together. Banish the vain dehision for- 
 ever that onr Saxon Bible can be taken away ; neither foreign 
 tyrants or foreign priests will ever have that power. Until 
 America ceases to be a repnblic,— nntil the warnings of 
 Washington and the wisdom of Webster are forgotten,— until 
 the sacred traditions of the past have perished,— until the 
 memories 6f the dead have passed away like a dream,— until 
 religion and freedom are banished from the land, it will remain 
 as tiie rule and guide of our faith, tho Great Charter of our 
 liberties. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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