for the religious instruction of our children? Practically nothing."
It has been said time and again that religion should be taught by the Sunday school and in the family. Yet every thoughtful man must see that such instruction cannot be but insufficient. The Biblical World, in an editorial, October 1902, asks whether the religious and moral education is adequately achieved through the Sunday school and the home, and it gives this answer: "It has been so assumed, but each passing year shows more clearly that this is not the case... The home feels no longer the necessary responsibility, and the Sunday school has neither the time nor the instrumentalities for adequate instruction. And, in addition, the divorcement of religious from secular education destroys the vital relation between the two. Therefore, it seems certain that the ideal of education, as well as the only adequate method of education, is to establish religious and moral instruction in the common schools. And we shall then find ourselves once more in accord with the status of instruction in England and Germany."
A few years ago, Mr. Amasa Thornton spoke similarly in the North American Review. There he said: "The questions which we have to solve then are these: How can the present decline in religious teaching and influence be checked; and how can such teaching and influence be increased to such a point as will preserve the great cities of the next century from depravity, degradation, and destruction? What can be expected of the family?" Mr. Thornton rightly adds: "If the adults of the present age are not as religious as the needs of the hour and of the future require, will the
