home and abroad-bringing in catechumens, Sabbath-school children -watching over them that they stray not-in short, in all ways to have an eye on the wants of the church, furthering all its enterprises, watching over its purity and peace, "standing fast in one spirit, and with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel."

The apostles favorite representation of the church is that of a body with its many members, and each member having its own office. What a beautiful picture of the nature and importance of lay-help. One member of the body cannot, if it would, perform the office and duty of another; the eye cannot hear for the ear, nor the ear see for the eye. So the pastor cannot perform the duties of the laity, the elder of the deacon, or the deacon of the elder, or either of these the duty of the people.

Yea, lay-help can no more be set aside than the ministry. What is the body without members; what is a general without soldiers: That also is a pastor without a working laity.

It is one of the most marked characteristics of the Reformation, that it elevated the laity to their true position of prominence, importance, and influence. While it claimed for them higher privileges, it also devolved upon them higher duties. The old church said, All for the people, but nothing by the people. The Reformation said, All for the people, and much by the people. Instead of a monk-laity it called for a working laity.

The Reformation restored the doctrine of the "universal priesthood," so clearly taught in the New Testament. It is also beautifully embodied in the Heidelberg Catechism: Qustion 55-"What do you mean by the communion of saints? Answer-First, that all and every one who believes, being members of Christ, are in common partakers of him, and of all his riches and gifts. Secondly, that every one must know it to be his duty, readily and cheerfully to employ his gifts, for the advantage and salvation of other members."

This was, beyond dispute, the practice in the apostolic church, as we have seen from our examination of the apostolic greetings. The true power of the church will return with activity and efficiency, when earnestly pious men and women shall thus affectionately greet one another over their mutual work. Then will Zion arise as in the days of old; renew its youth, put on its beautiful garments, and go forward to the conquest of the world.

LIVE FOR DEATH.

So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent walls of death.

Thou go not, like the quarry slave-at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

BRYANT.

1857.]

The Voice of Autumn.

327

THE VOICE OF AUTUMN.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THERE Comes, from yonder height,
A soft, repining sound,
Where forest leaves are bright,
And fall like flakes of light
To the ground.

It is the autumn breeze,
That, lightly floating on,
Just skims the weedy leas,
Just stirs the glowing trees-
And is gone.

He moans by sedgy brook,
And visits with a sigh
The last pale flowers that look,
From out their sunny nook,
At the sky.

O'er shouting children flies
That light October wind,
And, kissing cheeks and eyes,
He leaves the merry cries
Far behind.

And wanders on to make
That soft, uneasy sound,
By distant wood and lake,
Where distant fountains break,
From the ground.

No bower where maidens dwell
Can win a moment's stay,

Nor fair untrodden dell,

He sweeps the upland swell,
And away.

Mourn'st thou thy homeless state?

Oh soft, repining wind!

That early seek'st and late
The rest it is thy fate
Not to find.

Not on the mountain's breast,

Not on the ocean's shore,

In all the East and West-
The wind that stops to rest
Is no more.

By valleys, woods, and springs,
No wonder thou should'st grieve
For all the glorious things

Thou touchest with thy wings

And must leave.

MY SPELLING BOOK.

BY THE EDITOR.

"Wo unto him that plucks the wizard beard of hoary error!
Spirits of the brave! how I shall be anathematized!”—WIRT.

WE promised in our last number to attempt "more inward and more earnest things in relation to the merits and meaning of our spelling book." Accordingly we have now again our old "American Noah Webster," before us. Around him we have also lying a number of modern-shall we say intruders? They make far more pretensions, having globes and telescopes on the cover, with all kind of fancies and flourishes around the borders. We will candidly tell the earnest reader what we think of as we look at these around old Webster-we think of a batch of young fops talking impertinently to an honest, intelligent old farmer. They think he is ignorant, but he knows that they are halfwitted, with more pride than power.

We look at these books on the outside-for is not the external generally a pretty faithful index to the internal? Old Webster has no external ornament. There is the plain grass-green cover. It is at once seen that it belongs to an age when outward show was not so much sought after as it is now. How different these modern books. The cover is full of pictures, all of which have an air of triumph and pretension. Above is the State-house stuck full of flying flags. Before it stands a most Henry Clay looking man, in orator attitude, with hands extended, as if to invite all the ends of the earth to himself. It may perhaps be the superintendent of Common Schools.

Below is a beautiful two-story building, which is evidently a school house grown into an Academy, just as little boys now-a-days have grown into young gentlemen. About it also waves the flag of our country. This flag we love to see-in its place. But what teaches us most, and pleases us least, is the inscription placed, in the way of sign and motto, upon its walls. "The people's college our country's hope."

Plausible as it may seem, this motto teaches a most dangerous educational heresy. It rests on a principle and idea of education which is false and fearful in the extreme It would teach that the hope of our land is in intellectual education, and thus holds up the basis which underlies, and the spirit which animates, our present State Schools, at least as these are embodied in the laws of our Pennsylvania School System.

To this motto and the system of education which cherishes it, we design to devote the present article. We are well aware that it is regarded by many as behind the age, if not even traitorous to all that is high and hopeful, to offer any strictures on this subject, or in any way to call in question what is regarded as the true glory of our age. We think, however, this question like all others is open to earnest discussion. Let the principle be examined, especially as it lies confessedly at the

1857.]

My Spelling Book.

329

foundation of more solemn and important interests, as pertaining to both church and state. Let it not be taken for granted that every one who calls in question the principle of state schools, which regard only the intellectual and not the religious wants of our children, is of course wrong, and averse to light and progress. "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?"

As we have on another occasion, and in another place,* discussed this point, we here give what we have there said, as being exactly what we now desire to say, asking the reader's earnest attention to it.

"The Common School System makes no provision whatever for the religious wants of children. Religious culture there is studiedly excluded and prohibited. The child may have any views, or no views, in religion. It is to be taught nothing in that direction. No book giving religious instruction "shall be used as a school book, nor admitted into school." The Bible is barely tolerated-it may be read, but, "without comment by the teacher." No religious qualifications are sought in the teacher. In short, mind, and mind only, is to come in play, and to be dealt with in the culture of common schools. The system aims only at educating part of man It aims only at preparing him for the State and for business, not for the Church. It takes in only time and earth, not eternity and heaven.

'In this system education is taken out of the hands of the family, and of the Church Those who have charge of the educational interests, are not the pastor, church officers, and pious school-masters, but "Directors" -a kind of committee for the time, who attend to the duty in the same spirit as they would to laying out a road. The school-house no more stands on the green beside the church-where all religious associations congregate where the spirit of religion lies, like sweet sun-light on every object around, and where the graves are!-but they are stuck, like milestones, wherever a cold mechanical system assigns them their place. It may happen just as well as not, that the associations of childhood may be bound to the top of a bleak hill; in the region of some miserable marsh with its ponds and mud; or near some gloomy old stillhouse with its styes and its stench! Parents, whose highest concern it is to have their children's minds expanded in a religious element, are compelled to send them to a place where no pious whisper is allowed, where religious instruction is contraband and unlawful, and where the teacher may be an infidel. Where the director may be any one at all— one whose highest ideas of education are reading, writing and cyphering -one who perhaps cannot read at all. What parent can comfortably submit his children to such a system of miserable orphanage!

"The system of Directorship, as established by law in these schools, however well it may look in theory and in law, does not answer the purpose in practice. All the directors generally do, is to procure a teacher and firewood, and one is generally procured in the same spirit as the other, with least trouble, and at the lowest price. After the school begins, directorship in effect ceases-the teacher and the school are then left to direct themselves. The consequence is disorder, which gets ever Already there are many parents who decline sending their chil

worse.

*See our article on Parochial Schools in the Mercersburg Quarterly Review, Vol. V., Zo. I., from which what follows is an extract.

dren to the common schools, on account of the profanity, vulgarity, and rudeness which are found to reign there.*

'It is but a comparatively short time (1835) since the common school system has been established in various parts of our State; yet there is already that in its history which condemns it. Almost every year the school law has been altered and amended. Defects were discovered in its workings, and the Legislature was called upon to remedy them. The history of the School Law in Pennsylvania, reminds one of an attempt to patch the rents of a rotten garment-the contraction required to mend one makes two worse ones. This altered, amended, renewed School Law is sent out with its tables, its charts and supplements, as a guide to Directors to whom it is as unintelligible as the statement of an algebraic equation to a child that just begins to spell. It was the confession of a lawyer, of twenty-five years' practice, to me, that he had positively given up the idea of ever understanding the Common School Law. The very fact of its constant changings and amendments, shows that it is a system without system-that it is a dabbling in experiments without sure principles to regulate or define. To such a ship of sails without rudder, floating at random, we are to entrust the educational interests of our country. Every successive and ever-changing Legislature is to be permitted to subject the system to its own caprices, and, if they choose, to launch out into new experiments. Think of it! to a system of education which ignores religion in its teachings, a system in the hands of a new Legislature every year-with yearly a new superintendent, new laws, new directors, and generally a new teacher-to such a system we are to entrust the nurture of our children. Who can comfortably build his house on such a foundation of rolling pebbles and floating sand!

"We can also show, from the confessions of its warmest friends, that the system is radically defective. The fact they see, but seem not to see the reason of the defect. In 1812 Philadelphia was authorized to establish public schools for the poor. It was soon seen that there was something defective in the business. A committee was appointed in 1816 to inquire into the weak points of the system. They report that many do not attend at all during the year, though $22,000 were spent to educate them. But this is not the worst; such was the character of these schools that, "Such as were absent suffered less by their inattention than many of those whose morals have been thus undesignedly injured at the county expense." Not the worst yet: "In every view, therefore, of the existing plan of public education, with which your committee are furnished, they are reluctantly and sorrowfully compelled to declare, that from its first establishment to the present time, it has, in their opinion, been not only injurious to the character of the rising generation, but a benevolent fraud upon the public bounty." The patrons of this system forgot that educated mind without religion is educated vice; and that mind can only be stimulated to seek its improvement by something higher, deeper, and more earnest than itself. Now they are reminded of it by the failure of the experiment.

Children learn from example before they can understand the grounds and reasons of moral obligation; hence the injury they receive from the bad examples which are constantly before them in common schools.