To England was offered the opportunity of showing to the world the perfect fruits of the Reformation in its Protestant religion and a republican government. But alas! the story is repeated. English youth fell into the hands of Jesuits. An English college was founded at Rome, and teachers, ministers, and canvassers returned to their native land with the avowed purpose of their educators, the Jesuits, to overthrow the Reformation. And England fell! Those familiar words from the pen of Luther, which appear in his letter appealing for aid in the establishment of Protestant schools, echo through England also: “The Word of God and His grace are like a shower that falls, and passes away. It was among the Jews; but it passed away, and now they have it no longer. Paul carried it to Greece; but in that country also it has passed away, and the Turk reigns there now. It came to Rome and the Latin empire; but there also it has passed away, and Rome now has the pope. O, Germans, do not expect to have this Word forever!” Could this man of God have come forth from his grave a century later, and have looked over his loved Germany, and over England, he would have added these names to those of the countries where God’s Word and His grace had been, but had passed away. Must the name of America be added to the above list? May Protestants be aroused before it is too late! [Sidenote: The Puritan exodus] Finding that England closed her doors against progress, the Puritans sought greater freedom in the Netherlands. They were disappointed, for they could not there educate their children as Protestantism taught them that they should be educated. As Pilgrims they sought new homes in America, finding a retreat on the bleak shores of New England. [Sidenote: Protestantism reaches America] It is now our duty to trace the growth and decline of Protestantism in our own land. _Its prosperity in every other country has been in proportion to its adherence to the correct principles of education; its decline has without exception been the result of a wrong system of education._ How is it in the United States? No student of history, and especially of prophetic history, doubts for a moment that the way was divinely prepared for Protestantism to cross the Atlantic, and it is equally as evident that that same Hand was upholding those principles after they reached these shores. God’s Word spoke often to the hearts of men, leading them to devise plans, pass laws, establish institutions, and in various ways to so work that His truths might here grow to a perfection which they never reached in the old country. On the other hand, those teachings which have frustrated the principles of Protestantism in Europe are seen to be at work in America from the first planting of a colony until the present day. That strength-producing element was _Christian education;_ that counteracting influence was _false_ or _papal education_. These two form the subject of this chapter.