and has gone through an
education of philosophical morality, precisely in accordance with the
views and expressed wishes of the donor. He comes then into the world to
choose his religious tenets. The very next day, perhaps, after leaving
school, he comes into a court of law to give testimony as a witness.
Sir, I protest that by such a system he would be disfranchised. He is
asked, "What is your religion?" His reply is, "O, I have not yet chosen
any; I am going to look round, and see which suits me best." He is
asked, "Are you a Christian?" He replies, "That involves religious
tenets, and as yet I have not been allowed to entertain any." Again, "Do
you believe in a future state of rewards and punishments?" And he
answers, "That involves sectarian controversies, which have carefully
been kept from me." "Do you believe in the existence of a God?" He
answers, that there are clashing doctrines involved in these things,
which he has been taught to have nothing to do with; that the belief in
the existence of a God, being one of the first questions in religion, he
is shortly about to think of that proposition. Why, Sir, it is vain to
talk about the destructive tendency of such a system; to argue upon it
is to insult the understanding of every man; _it is mere, sheer, low,
ribald, vulgar deism and infidelity_![2] It opposes all that is in
heaven, and all on earth that is worth being on earth. It destroys the
connecting link between the creature and the Creator; it opposes that
great system of universal benevolence and goodness that binds man to his
Maker. _No religion till he is eighteen!_ What would be the condition of
all our families, of all our children, if religious fathers and
religious mothers were to teach their sons and daughters no religious
tenets till they were eighteen? What would become of their morals, their
character, their purity of heart and life, their hope for time and
eternity? What would become of all those thousand ties of sweetness,
benevolence, love, and Christian feeling, that now render our young men
and young maidens like comely plants growing up by a streamlet's
side,--the graces and the grace of opening manhood, of blossoming
womanhood? What would become of all that now renders the social circle
lovely and beloved? What would become of society itself? How could it
exist? And is that to be considered a charity which strikes at the root
of all this; which subverts all the excellence and the charms of s