ATJ
LET us have less state religion, and more home religion. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.1
WHATEVER invades the rights of one man, denies the rights of all. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.2
TO be patriotic does not mean that an individual shall make the state his god. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.3
TRUE reverence cannot exist in the mind that has not learned respect for individual rights. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.4
THE secular system of education is the only system that is incompatible with free public schools. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.5
IT is useless to try to remedy an evil in society by any measure which invades individual rights. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.6
IT is a sad feature of our modern civilization that it tends more and more to circumscribe the sphere of parent’s influence upon the child. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.7
ANY man who essays to force people in a matter of religious belief and practice, sets himself in the place of the Holy Spirit, to which alone men can safely look for guidance in the religious life. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.8
ANY public measure that tends to stifle the free sway of the individual conscience, tends to degrade the individual to the level of a machine, and to make him fit only to serve the purposes of despotism. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.9
NO person can be a traitor to his country who has not first been a traitor to his conscience. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.10
“To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou cans’t not then be false to any man.’ AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.11
WHAT is the patriotism of the Christian? Is it love of country? If so, then of what country? Is it of that country which Abraham and the faithful worthies of old sought, as mentioned in Hebrews 11? That, and that alone, is the Christian’s country. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.12
ATJ
IT is certain that the great majority of people in this world, evening enlightened and civilized lands, are not moving in the pathway of righteousness. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.1
Jesus Christ said that the pathway to life would be followed by but few, but that the way to destruction would be filled with many. If his words are true, it is certain that the many to-day are traveling in the broad way, which leads downward and away from goodness and from God. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.2
And that these words of the Saviour of men are true, is a fact abundantly confirmed by observation. The only ones who can think differently are those who mistake the polish and veneer of civilization for genuine goodness of heart. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.3
It needs only an average election to demonstrate the fact that the majority of the people do not really want good government. If they did, they would eliminate the saloon, which is universally recognized as a curse to society, and with which good government is wholly incompatible. But the people who vote for government without the saloon are usually a small minority. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.4
It is certain that the minority cannot eliminate the majority from the government. They must, on the contrary, acquiesce with the majority’s decisions. AMS November 25, 1897, page 721.5
It is certain that the minority cannot convert the majority by their votes. There is no power in the ballot to reform the heart. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.1
It is a fact nevertheless that the minority,—the good people (assuming all the church people to be of this character)—have undertaken to reform the government, to put righteous government in the place of unrighteous government, by the ballot. And this minority is strong enough to be able to secure a compromise form the worldly majority. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.2
It is certain that such a compromise will be the result of the reform efforts of the minority who represent the church in politics to-day. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.3
This compromise will set up the forms of righteousness without the spirit; for the world has never objected to the mere forms of righteousness. These in fact are useful to world lovers as a means of respectability. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.4
It is certain that a government in which the forms of righteousness are administered by a majority who have not the spirit of righteousness, will not be a righteous government. It is certain that it will be altogether unrighteous. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.5
And it is certain that nothing else than this can be the ultimate outcome of the church in politics, as concerns the government of the United States. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.6
ATJ
IN Carnegie Hall, New York City, on the morning of Sunday, the 14th inst., an assembled congregation listened to a seriously uttered plea by the president of the Society of Ethical Culture, Felix Adler, to put the state in the place of God. The subject of Mr. Adler’s discourse was, “What has religion done for civilization?” and in concluding his remarks he said:— AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.1
“Religion has aided civilization, then, by raising the standard of morality, and it has done this by personifying its ideas. But now the personification is going. Men are gradually passing from the belief in a personal God. What shall take its place? In the passing of the belief in this personification, men’s lives have become flexile and dry, because they have no longer a personal God. Their ideals are gone. What course remains open to them? They may go back to the fountain head of these ideals. They may remember for what those ideals stood. They may try to lead the good life. They ma have the reality back of the ideality. They may have the knowledge of the reality first hand, instead of a secondhand knowledge of the personification. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.2
“This course presupposes a perfect race. Ah, friends, we’ve got to advance or sink to the level of the beasts. In most things we have advanced. In morality the most of us remain dunces.” AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.3
At this point the speaker made an impressive pause of several minutes’ length, and then continued:— AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.4
“I could well stop here, my friends, as my main argument is closed, but I have something else to say, and it may as well be said now as at any time. Religion has done another service for civilization in influencing politics. The first civic state was a religious state. In the old city states the words ‘fellow citizens’ had a different meaning from what they have now. ‘Fellow citizens’ then meant those who worshiped the same God, for each city had a god. Later, we remember that the idea of the king was that he was sacred; that he ruled by divine right. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.5
“To-day we care nothing for kings. I fear we are losing our care for the state. In the old days the state was for the common weal. Each sacrificed something for the other. In the moral night that fell upon the city after the late election, we may think that men care nothing for the state. The morning after election I met persons who said they were going to move away from New York. They were the hasty, peevish ones. What we should do is to stay here and learn a holier feeling for the state. Let politics take the place of religion. If we care nothing for kings, let us devote ourselves to the state. In the state let us find the personal deity which is passing out of men’s lives. Let the state be the object of our worship. Let us make it sacred, and when we have done so, the state will have taken the place of the personification. Let the state be that personification.” AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.6
This proposal to deify the state is of course nothing less than pure paganism, out and out. In itself, as the outspoken plea of a teacher of modern ethical culture, it is significant enough. But it is vastly more so in view of the circumstances and conditions in which it finds support. “Men are gradually passing from the belief in a personal God.” Candid observation confirms the truth of this statement; and for those of whom it is true that deification of the state cannot be an altogether strange and illogical measure. For it is human nature to deify something; and the state, more readily perhaps than anything else in the present age, furnishes the ideals which human nature is prone to worship. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.7
“Let politics,” said the speaker, “take the place of religion.” Here again, the proposal to deify the state finds support in the tendency of the times. For it is a well observed fact that politics is taking the place of religion, not only in the home, but in the pulpit. It is being taught that “Christianity is essentially political”—as was said by Rev. C. P. Mills at a recent Christian Endeavor convention in Massachusetts—and that it is the proper business of the church to “make politics go.” Religious legislation, another marked tendency of the times, constitutes another force working directly to put the state in the place of God. With all these evident facts and tendencies, the idea of deifying the state is in perfect accord. They could have no other logical result. AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.8
Do the American people want this kind of a deity? The state as a deity becomes no merciful, loving, and forgiving Father, but an exacting despot. Do the American people prize their liberties enough to repudiate this pagan corruption, with the despotism that is inseparable from it? AMS November 25, 1897, page 722.9
ATJ
WE wish it to be understood that we are in entire sympathy with the desire which many excellent people feel, in this country, for the inculcating of a greater degree of reference in the minds of the young. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.1
If there is one feature more conspicuous than another in the lives of the youth in this land, it is their fast-growing irreverence for any power and authority higher than themselves. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.2
It is perfectly proper that the situation should be viewed by good people with genuine alarm. The spirit of irreverence is essentially the spirit of lawlessness. It is certain that it bodes no good, but great evil, to the future welfare of society and the prosperity of the nation. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.3
Something ought to be done, and that as speedily as possible, to check the growth of this baneful feature of our modern civilization; which is, indeed, becoming so widespread a feature of that civilization as to constitute a sign of the times. Everything should be done to this end that can be done by all lovers of good government. And unquestionably there is much that might be done by judicious planning and effort. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.4
Our only want of sympathy in all that relates to this matter is with the misconceived—though doubtless well-meant—efforts that are being made to remedy the situation by people whose views are not broad enough to take in the full scope of what it demands. Such efforts do not get down to the root of the difficulty, and by their superficial work only aggravate the evil which they are meant to cure. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.5
Such, for instance, is the effort which finds expression in the “patriotic salute” innovation in some of the public schools, which is noticed at length on another page. For it is not difficult to believe that a desire to inculcate reverence in the minds of the youthful pupils of the public schools is the real motive from which this innovation has sprung. We are heartily in sympathy with the motive; but as we have pointed out elsewhere, we are most heartily opposed to the means through which it is sought to be carried into effect. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.6
The trouble is not one which lies with the public school system of education. It is not one which any change in that system can eradicate. It is an evil which lies primarily at the doors of parents. Parents have not taught their children to be reverent toward the things which can of right command their reverence. They have not conducted themselves in a manner to command the reverence of their children; and the latter have grown up to acquire and use such expressions as “the governor” and “the old man,” in the place of “father.” There can be no real and permanent remedy for the evil until parents take up this long-neglected duty. The influence of the parent upon the child is one which cannot be ignored, and which will produce its effect for good or ill upon the character in spite of any system of public education that can be devised. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.7
The spirit of reverence is essentially the spirit of religion. As this spirit has become lost out of the hearts of the people, in the great spiritual declension of these times, the natural result has been the loss of the reverential spirit by those who should be teachers of reverence to the rising generation. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.8
We are in the great spiritual declension of “the last days,“—of the time when, because of abounding iniquity, the love of many should wax cold. See Matthew 24:12, 13; 2 Timothy 3:1-4. Without religion, there cannot be reverence; and without Christianity, there cannot be reverence for that to which reverence rightfully belongs. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.9
Christianity, and that alone, will reach the root of the difficulty. The wider diffusion of Christianity is the pressing need of the hour. And there is but one way for this diffusion to be accomplished, and that is by faith in the Word of God. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.10
We are also heartily in sympathy with the desire to foster the sentiment of true patriotism in the minds and hearts of the people. But what is patriotism? Is it something which makes people belligerent,—which fills them with the idea that their country can whip any other country on the earth, and with a desire to demonstrate their ability in this line at the earliest opportunity? Is it an altogether selfish sentiment, which ignores right and justice in the endeavor to gain some advantage for the object on which it is bestowed? If it is, then we have no wish to see it fostered; for there is selfishness enough, and much more than enough, in the world at the present time. AMS November 25, 1897, page 725.11
But this is not patriotism in its true sense. There is a sentiment which leads men to seek the welfare of their fellows, regardless of condition, belief, or color, and even of nationality. The Declaration of Independence sounded forth the words of freedom for all the world. And under the system of government for which it stood, the oppressed of all nations found a haven of refuge. Under the operation of the principles of liberty which it enunciates, there arose in a single country one of the greatest nations upon the globe. Cannot the nation continue to prosper under the inculcation of these same principles? Is it not in them that the truest patriotism is to be found? AMS November 25, 1897, page 726.1
Let us have a patriotism which reaches out beyond the boundaries of the American continent, even to the afflicted people of other lands; not to seek to kill as many of them as our armaments will enable us to do, nor to cripple the interests of other countries that those of our own may be enhanced; but one which seeks to further the welfare of a sorrow-laden humanity in all lands: and which stands in defense of the God-given rights and liberties of the people, whether at home or abroad. AMS November 25, 1897, page 726.2