Religion and the Public Schools.
“If the State is to furnish education in religion, in what, I ask, shall it consist? Who shall judge and determine what is true and what false in all that claims to be religion, or even Christianity—who shall pronounce with authority of law what is to be taught as embraced within what have been styled the fundamental or elementary truths of religion—who shall declare the amount, and kind, and degree of the knowledge to be imparted? “These are important questions, seriously propounded and deserving of respectful answer. The gentlemen on the other side, say they limit the religious instruction demanded to what they call a ‘broad Christianity.’ I have already once or twice adverted to the term. I do not know that I understand it. If I do, it is a ‘broad’ humbug. The Christian religion is not a vain and unmeaning generality. It is a definite and positive thing. It means something or it means nothing. In my view it is a supernatural scheme of redemption—a revelation from God of his gracious purpose and plan of salvation, to a race, ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’ through the mediation and atonement of Jesus Christ, who, being God from eternity, became incarnate and by his death upon the cross became a sacrifice for sin, made expiation for it, and having risen from the grave ascended into heaven and there sitteth on the right hand of the Father to make intercession for his people. The whole character and value of it as a religion, consists altogether in being, as it claims to be, a supernatural plan of salvation from sin, otherwise irremediable. Strike out from the Bible the parts which disclose, reveal, and teach that scheme, and the rest is insignificant. And any instruction or education in religion which does not specifically teach the facts which constitute that scheme, and which cannot be stated even, except as conveying dogma, is no instruction in the Christian religion whatever—it is simply instruction in philosophy and ethics, or practical morals. “Now, I deny the authority and the ability of civil government to decide upon questions of religious truth. “Now, if your honors please, the truth of religion is a matter of spiritual discernment. As the apostle Paul has said: ‘But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ It is a matter of spiritual discernment, and I ask the question in all sobriety where, in the constitution and organization of any civil commonwealth on the earth, from the beginning to the present day, there has ever been found a body of civil legislators capable of deciding for anybody but itself what is the truth in religion. “There is an old lesson on this subject. I find that in the trial of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of John, that the chief priests accused him before Pilate of blasphemy, saying: ‘We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.’ When Pilate had arraigned him; he said to him, ‘Art thou the king of the Jews?’ Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.’ Then when the Jews found that Pilate would not take jurisdiction of the case on the charge of blasphemy, on the ground that he had made himself the Son of God, and so had violated the law of the Jewish theocracy, they charged him with treason, on the ground that he was claiming to set himself up against Cæsar as king, and when they found out that Pilate sought to release him, the Jews cried out: ‘If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.’ “In this colloquy between Pilate and our Lord on this point, as to his kingship, and the nature of his kingdom, Pilate said unto him: ‘Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate said unto him, What is truth? Then was the head of the civil State unable to comprehend, because unable, spiritually, to see the truth, as it is in Jesus—the truth of religion. “Let the civil authorities now as well as then, beware, when called upon by popular clamor, whether of Pharisees or priests, to pronounce upon religious truth, lest, in their necessary ignorance to discern it, they do not crucify the Lord of glory afresh! And let his disciples beware, lest, in tossing the Bible and its precious truths into the arena of political controversy, they violate that injunction and warning—‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.’ “It is said there are hundreds and thousands of children in this goodly, this Christian city, that have no chance or opportunity for being educated in what my friends on the other side call ‘the elementary truths of Christianity,’ not even a knowledge of that ‘broad Christianity,’ unless it can be given to them by a perusal every morning, by the teacher, of a few verses out of the Bible in the common school. I say, if it be so, it is a lamentable confession of great lack and neglect of duty, not on the part of the State, but on the part of the church, meaning by that the invisible body of true believers who are, as they believe, to create the kingdom of heaven upon earth. “It is said they are in the by-ways, lanes, and alleys. And can they not be reached there? Cannot the church send out its ministers, or are they too busy, day after day, in their studies, preparing to dole out dogmatic theology Sunday after Sunday, to the tired ears of their wearied congregations? Cannot they send out their Sunday-school teachers? Cannot they send out their missionaries? Why the command of the Saviour was to go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and into the highways and hedges, and bring all in, bring them in to the feast which he had prepared—this feast of fat things, of goodly things. Must we say that the church has grown idle and lazy, and can only hobble on its crutches, and therefore that our school directors must set themselves up as teachers of religious truth? No! Let the church cease to depend upon any adventitious or external aids. Let it rely solely upon the omnipotent strength of the Spirit of the Lord that is in it. Let it say to the State, ‘Hands off; it is our business, it is our duty, it is our privilege to educate the children in religion and the true knowledge of godliness. Don’t let them starve on the husks of a broad Christianity. Let us give them that which is definite, and distinct, and pointed—the everlasting and saving truths of God’s immortal gospel. “Don’t teach them, ‘Be virtuous and you shall be happy,’ but ‘believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ Now, I say, and I say it with all due humility, as one not called upon to instruct, but nevertheless, to say what is in me—let the church say: Here is our field; it is white to the harvest; here is our duty; here is our mission; here is our work, to evangelize, to save the lost and perishing crowd. “Let her rise up in the full measure and majesty of her innate spiritual strength—let her gird her loins for the mighty task—let her address herself with all earnestness and heroic zeal to the great but self-rewarding labors of Christian love—let her prove herself by her works of self-denying charity, to be the true church as Jesus proved himself to the disciples of John to be the true Messiah, when he told them ‘Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.’ Let her organize all her forces for a more determined and closer, hand-to-hand, struggle with sin and evil, of every form, and the misery and wretchedness, of which they are the cause. Let her ministers and missionaries not only proclaim from their pulpits ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ but descending among the hungry multitudes, distribute to them the precious bread of life. Let them declare to the rich, and the educated, their duties, their responsibilities, and their privileges, and lead them in person to the places where their work is to be done, and stimulate them by their example to do it. Let them inspire by their enthusiasm, and fire with their zeal, the indifferent and the slothful. Let them, by setting forth the beauty of holiness and the purity of ‘the truth as it is in Jesus,’ which is able to make us wise unto salvation, send the healthful and invigorating influences of292our holy religion through every social relation, and glorify the business and the pleasures of our daily and secular life, by consecrating them to the glory of our Father who is in heaven. Let them turn these streams of the pure water of life, welling up in the hearts of their followers, into the dark and pestilential receptacles, where ignorance, poverty, misery, and sin are gathered, and breed disorder and death. Then the great and the good, the noble and the wise, in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, in one grand array will meet and wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, and shall wrestle not in vain, for they shall be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; clad in the whole armor of God, their loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness, their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith they shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Then shall be hastened the promised time of the coming of our King, when there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness—the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, the tabernacle of God with men, where he will dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. “But let them remember that to advance this glorious consummation the church must throw away the sword of civil authority which some of her too eager and impetuous sons would put into her hands; that the kingdom of her Lord is not of this world; that she must render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s; that she must not permit any unholy dalliance with the solicitations of worldly power or advantage, but keep herself unspotted from the world; that her dominion is over the minds and hearts of men, and her victory achieved with spiritual weapons alone, by appeals to their reason, to their conscience, to the highest and best in their ruined nature, to be restored by the power, not of human laws, but of the Spirit of God, and that in proportion as she becomes conscious of her origin and destiny, of the divine life she bears in her bosom, hid with Christ in God, and grows into the recognition of her mission and place in the work and history of the world and of eternity, she will dissolve all ties that bind her to secular influences and the natural sphere of human interests and actions, and establish herself firmly upon the seat of her spiritual throne, whence shall silently but most potently issue streams of truth and goodness, wisdom and love, faith and charity, into all the channels of human thought and activity, to restore upon earth the paradise of God.”