“Again, if Roman Catholics desire that _their_ children take _their_ Bibles into the schools, and recite from them, by all means let them do so; and so of Jews, let them recite from the Old Testament, if they choose, to the exclusion of the New. We allow to others equal rights with ourselves; but we claim for ourselves, and shall insist upon having, equal rights with all. I am perfectly willing to give to the Roman Catholics all they can justly claim, but I am not willing to encroach on any one’s rights, or the rights of any Protestant denomination, for the sake of accommodating the Roman Catholics. Nor do I suppose that the Romanists have a claim to any special accommodation, for they have never yet manifested any particular disposition to accommodate others. Let them have the same privileges that our Protestant sects have--that is enough; and they have no right to demand, our legislators have no right to grant, any more; and we Protestants will be perfectly satisfied when Protestants can enjoy as great privileges in Italy as Roman Catholics now enjoy in the United States. In judicious practice, I am persuaded there will seldom be any great difficulty, especially if there be excited generally in the community anything like a whole-hearted honesty and enlightened sincerity in the cause of public instruction. “It is all right for people to suit their own taste and convictions in respect to sect; and by fair means and at proper times, to teach their children and those under their influence to prefer the denominations which they prefer; but farther than this no one has any right to go. It is all wrong to hazard the well-being of the soul, to jeopardize great public interests for the sake of advancing the interests of a sect. People must learn to practise some self-denial, on Christian principles, in respect to their denominational preferences, as well as in respect to other things, before pure religion can ever gain a complete victory over every form of human selfishness. “Happily, there are places where religious instruction that is purely denominational can be freely given, so that there is no need whatever of introducing it into our public schools. The family and the Sunday school are the appropriate places for such instruction; and there let each denomination train its own children in its own peculiar way, with none to molest or to find fault. It is their right, it is their duty.