This agitation is one of great interest. It leads thoughtful and devout
men to ask, whether, when the State, assuming to be the instructor of
its subjects, establishes schools, and puts Protestant Bibles, or any
other, or none into them _by law_, they have not thenceforth
Protestantism, Popery, or Infidelity so far _by law established_; and
whether it is not better that the State should restrict itself to its
proper function as the minister of justice, leaving secular
instruction, like religious, to the spontaneous resources of the
people.

To this, I think, it will come at last. The Common School economy is a
remnant of the old Church-and-State system, which has not been entirely
swept away. But for this impression I should feel some uneasiness, lest
it should prove the germ of a new order of things leading back to
State-Churchism. It appeared to me quite natural to say, "Here is a
State provision for schools,--why not have a similar provision for
churches? It works well for the one,--why not for the other? Is it not
as important that our churches should rely, not alone on the capricious
and scanty efforts of the voluntary principle, but also on the more
respectable and permanent support of the State, as it is that our
Common Schools should adopt this course?" To me it seemed that the
arguments which recommended the one supported the other; but when I
have mentioned to intelligent men the possibility, not to say
probability, of the one step leading to the other, they have invariably
been surprised at my apprehensions, and have assured me that nothing
was more unlikely to take place.

But, to show the jealousy with which on _other_ grounds the system
begins to be viewed, I will close by a short quotation from a writer in