It is not strange that under the present condition of the general mind the question as to the right of the State to teach religion at the public expense should be regarded with unusual interest. This question has been very ably discussed by the Rev. Dr. Spear, whose book upon the subject,[13] originally published as a series of essays in "The Independent," is notably thorough and notably calm and judicial in tone. Dr. Spear considers the subject in both its constitutional and its equitable aspect, and the conclusion to which he is led is that "the public school, like the State, under whose authority it exists, by whose taxing power it is supported, should be simply a civil institution, absolutely secular and not at all religious in its purposes, and all practical questions involving this principle should be settled in accordance therewith." He admits that this logical result of his argument excludes the Bible from the public school, just as it excludes the Westminster Catechism, the Koran, or any of the sacred books of heathenism. But, as he justly says, this conclusion pronounces no judgment against the Bible and none for it; it simply omits to use it and declines to inculcate the religion which it teaches. It is difficult to see how any other view of the case can be taken consistently with the spirit of our institutions, from the Constitution of the United States downward; and it is a cheering promise of the disappearance of bigotry, even in its milder forms, when we see this view set forth by a distinguished orthodox minister of the Gospel. There still, however, remains this question in connection with religious toleration and religious qualifications--Does a religion one element of which is absolute subservience to the will of a foreign potentate or prelate, the Roman or the Greek, for example, and which undertakes to deal with a civil relation, marriage for example, come properly within the provision for universal religious toleration, or does it not, for the reasons assigned, assume a relation to the State more or less political? * * * * *