“In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere, never. Everywhere and at all times it has been and is regarded as essential. It is the essence, the vitality of useful instruction. From all this Mr. Girard dissents. He dissents not only from all sentiments of Christian mankind, from common conviction and the experience of all, but from still higher authority, the Word of God itself. When little children were brought into the presence of the Son of God, he said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ Unto _me_. He did not send them first for lessons in morals to the schools of the Pharisees or Sadducees, or to the lessons and precepts phylactered on the garments of the Jewish priesthood, but opened at once the everlasting fountain of living waters. That injunction is of perpetual obligation. It is of force everywhere and at all times. Not only my heart, my judgment, my belief, and my conscience instruct me that this great precept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred,—the solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, it is so utterly at variance with the system of philosophical morality advocated here, that I stand and speak in fear of being influenced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of my professional duties. “Another important point involved in this question is, what becomes of the Christian Sabbath in a school thus established? I say that in this institution, under Mr. Girard’s scheme, the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not take place, because the means of observing it are excluded. There can be no Sabbath in this college. It would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard’s whole scheme to allow these children to go out and attend public places of worship as it would be to have ministers of religion preach to them within the walls; because, if they go out to hear preaching, they will hear just as much about clashing doctrines, and more, than if appointed teachers officiated in the college.