not be denied that there is a general public policy in that, as in all States, drawn from its history and its laws.  And it will not be denied that any scheme or school of education which directly opposes this is not to be favored by the courts.  Pennsylvania is a free and independent State.  She has a popular government, a system of trial by jury, of free suffrage, of vote by ballot, of alienability of property.  All these form part of the general public policy of Pennsylvania.  Any man who shall go into that State can speak and write as much as he pleases against a popular form of government, freedom of suffrage, trial by jury, and against any or all of the institutions just named; he may decry civil liberty, and assert the divine right of kings, and still he does nothing criminal; but if, to give success to such efforts, special power from a court of justice is required, it will not be granted to him.  There is not one of these features of the general public policy of Pennsylvania against which a school might not be established and preachers and teachers employed to teach.  That might in a certain sense be considered a school of education, but it would not be a charity.  And if Mr. Girard, in his lifetime, had founded schools and employed teachers to preach and teach in favor of infidelity, or against popular government, free suffrage, trial by jury, or the alienability of property, there was nothing to stop him or prevent him from so doing.  But where any one or all of these come to be provided for a school or system as a charity, and come before the courts for favor, then in neither one, nor all, nor any, can they be favored, because they are opposed to the general public policy and public law of the State.

These great principles have always been recognized; and they are no more part and parcel of the public law of Pennsylvania than is the Christian religion.  We have in the charter of Pennsylvania, as prepared by its great founder, William Penn,—­we have in his “great law,” as it was called, the declaration, that the preservation of Christianity is one of the great and leading ends of government.  This is declared in the charter of the State.  Then the laws of Pennsylvania, the statutes against blasphemy, the violation of the Lord’s day, and others to the same effect, proceed on this great, broad principle, that the preservation of Christianity is one of the main ends of government.  This is the general public policy of Pennsylvania.  On this head we have the case of Updegraph v.  The Commonwealth,[4] in which a decision in accordance with this whole doctrine was given by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.  The solemn opinion pronounced by that tribunal begins by a general declaration that Christianity is, and has always been, part of the common law of Pennsylvania.

I have said, your honors, that our system of oaths in all our courts, by which we hold liberty and property, and all our rights, is founded on or rests on Christianity and a religious belief.  In like manner the affirmation of Quakers rests on religious scruples drawn from the same source, the same feeling of religious responsibility.