I am speaking of a "_Christian State_," and the State in America is Christian. The very graves, if necessary, would open and give up their dead to bear testimony to its Christian origin. Its civilization is Christian, and is the product of the principles of the "_New Law_" as taught and promulgated by the Church. The distinguishing feature of this civilization is, that it has asserted the dignity of freedom of the _individual man_, while the ancient, or Gentile, civilization, _sunk_ the _individual man_ in the composite society called the State. In that case it was but reasonable that the _State_ should, _as owner_, take upon itself the burden of providing, not only for his government, but also for the education of his offspring. These, too, belonged to it, on the maxim of Roman or Pagan law, that _partus sequitur ventrem_, or the offspring follows the parent. This is the origin of the Pagan doctrine, "_the children of the State_"--a miserable relic of barbarism. It is important to keep this fact in mind, when we deny the _supremacy of the State_ in the matter of education. Our children, then, are not the _children of the State_. The State has no children, and never had, nor will. The State does not own them, nor their fathers nor mothers, nor anybody else in this country, thank God! We have not got that far yet on the road to civil slavery, and I hope we never shall. We are not Pagans, nor Mahometans, nor Russians. We have not sold out, and don't intend to! We are free, for with a great price our forefathers have bought this freedom; and better still, we are made, through the mercy of our Divine Author, Christians, and heirs to a heavenly kingdom. Our children, too, are free; they belong by the order of nature to their parents, and by the order of grace to our Lord Jesus Christ. They are children of God and heirs to His heavenly kingdom. It is not on the State, but on parents, that God imposed the duty to educate their children, a duty from which no State can dispense, nor can fathers and mothers relieve themselves of this duty by the vicarious assumption of the State. They have to give a severe account of their children on the Day of Judgment, and they cannot allow any power to disturb them in insisting upon their rights and making free use of them. The State has no more authority or control rightfully over our children, than over a man's wife. The right to educate our children is a right of conscience, and a right of the family. Now these rights do not belong to the temporal order at all; and outside of this the State has no claim, no right, no authority. When the State has children, it will be time enough to teach them. How long will it take our enlightened age to learn this simple but important truth? Nothing shows better the absurdity of the State in claiming the right of education, than its incompetency for the task. The State is forbidden any interference with religion.