SHIRKING MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.
By Editor
THE agitation by leading representatives of the churches in Washington, D. C., as portrayed in our Outlook department, reveals an admittedly sad social condition—the saddest part being the tacit admission that the churches and the families composing the churches have utterly failed in the matter of imparting moral and religious instruction to their children. Then to add absurdity to the situation, wise churchmen—some of whom are recognized statesmen—propose to compel the world to do for them what they have failed to do for themselves. The proposition is virtually this: As churches we have failed to inculcate morality and religion in the minds of the young; as parents we have failed to teach our children their duty to God and to their fellow-men; and because this is a Christian nation, such a condition ought not to exist. Therefore, for the purpose of having these children taught morality and religion, we will turn them over to the schools of the world, and have laws enacted compelling the world to teach these necessary principles. What a bold stroke of piety and wisdom! We will relieve ourselves, as churches and as parents, of the responsibility of teaching morality and religion to the rising generation, and also atone for past laxness in this regard, by compelling the world to assume our responsibility, through the instrumentality of the state. Now if compelling the state to teach religion is not church and state union, with the church in domination, where would we look to find such a condition? All that Rome ever did, in her darkest age, was through making a bondservant of the state.