Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/595

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RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
575

ment and pious emotions, but in the recognition of certain truths and the subjection of the will to these truths. Hence no religion is possible without the knowledge of these truths, or let us plainly call them what they are: dogmas, although this word is so hateful to the ear of the rationalist and agnostic educator of the day. Dogmas must be taught and believed as the foundation of all true religion, as the Great Teacher of mankind has said: "This is life everlasting that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."[1] It is, indeed, the highest wisdom "to know Christ and him crucified," "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."[2] Christ, therefore, must be the centre of all true education.

The knowledge of religious truths is necessary in education for another reason, because it is the only sure foundation of morality, and without it no true moral education is possible. This is the firm conviction of Christian thinkers. I know the champions of the "unsectarian" schools cry out against such an assertion, and they ask indignantly: "Can we not teach ethics without dogmas, moral principles without religion?" Reason, history, daily experience, and our innermost conscience give a stern and emphatic answer to this question: "You cannot teach it effectively and with any satisfactory result." All motives of self-respect, honor, sense of duty, welfare of the community, etc., may deter a man from certain more revolting crimes, but they will not hold in times of fierce temptation, when neither disgrace nor civil

  1. John 17, 3.
  2. 1 Cor. 2, 2; and Col. 2, 3.