THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
"THE whole civilized world," says Henry Yates Satterlee, Protestant Episcopal Bishop, of Washington, D. C. (Washington Times, March 17, 1905), "has a moral foundation on the Ten Commandments," and he thus continues: In the Ten Commandments is set forth the divine and social law of God; in them is set forth the sanctity of the family, the sanctity of the married relationship, the sanctity of human life, the sanctity of property, and of character. They are the ruling ideas of modern civilization, and, if they disappear, civilization will disappear. The Ten Commandments ought to be taught in the public schools. . . . Furthermore, if the Ten Commandments are not taught in the schools, every child will grow up with the inevitable impression that on this account they must be less important than reading, writing, and arithmetic. The majority have rights, as well as the minority, and I, for one, feel sure that the majority would unhesitatingly express their belief that the Ten Commandments . . . should be taught in the public schools. Now, all that Bishop Satterlee says concerning the breadth and importance of the Ten Commandments, is true. They form all the moral basis there is in the civilization of the world, and, if they should disappear, civilization would disappear. But the Ten Commandments are the law of God. That "law is spiritual." It can not be taught mechanically, nor can its moral power be received intellectually. It must be received by faith in Christ Jesus. Further, would the Bishop agree to have the Commandments taught in the schools as God gave them? The Decalogue declares that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." No true rule of exposition, no just teaching, can ever make the commandment say otherwise. Would the Bishop agree with the law and the teacher? Now if the child considers the Ten Commandments of less importance than arithmetic, because his teacher does not make them a part of school work, what would he think of the science of mathematics, as applied to God's law, if the teacher would tell him that the seventh day meant the first day? Would not the pupil, in the exercise of his common sense, lose faith in the Decalogue, or the teacher, or his mathematics? And, then, if some of the teachers should teach, as do some of their pastors, that the first day of the week was the Sabbath; others, that there was no Sabbath, the law being abolished; others, that a seventh part of time is all that is necessary; others, that you could not keep a definite day on the round world; and some others, that God's law means just what it says, and just what Jesus practised, confusion worse confounded would inevitably result, and Babylonian towers would be erected in our schools. What then?—The state would have to step in and decide between the conflicting opinions; and then the religion taught would be no longer Biblical, but the religion of the state. The state would have to decide between the rival sects, as did Constantine, and define which, in the mind of the state, was truly Christian. Are Protestants willing to take this step? Centuries ago this sort of thing gave us the Dark Ages; the same thing is repeating to-day. Would God, that Protestants might see it!