Under these teachers, the doctrines of Christianity, according to the Romish church, and the duties of Christianity, wherein all churches are agreed, were the first things inculcated, as being the first things needful. Errors of doctrine, though of tremendous importance when men are actuated by blind zeal, are, among the quiet and humble-minded part of mankind, latent principles which produce no evil, unless some unhappy circumstance calls them into action: but the moral influence of religion is felt in the whole tenour of public and of private life. There were endowed schools and colleges, before the revolution, in every part of France, chiefly under the direction of persons who acted from motives of duty and conscience, rather than of worldly interest. The French court, in the midst of its own licentiousness, understood the importance of training up the people in a faith which tended to make them good subjects, and therefore it had provided[5] for this great object from a sense of policy, if from no better impulse. ♦THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION DESTROYED BY THE REVOLUTION.♦ The reformers, in the natural course of political insanity, plundered the church before the revolutionists overthrew the throne. The Constituent Assembly followed up this act of iniquity by requiring from the clergy an oath, which they knew the greater part must conscientiously refuse to take. The whole system of education throughout France was thus subverted, before the work of proscription and massacre began; and, to complete the wreck, the National Convention, by one sweeping decree, suppressed all colleges and faculties of theology, medicine, arts, and jurisprudence, throughout the republic. ♦PUBLIC INSTRUCTION PROMISED BY THE REVOLUTIONISTS.♦