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K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
May 1924
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A r t i c l e s
The Crime of Our Godless Schools Dr. Cortland Myers (Sermon preached in the Bible Institute Auditorium, Los Angeles, California)
“ And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.’’ (Deut. 6:7) l l are discussing one of the most important pro blems of this hour: Shall we have a Godless edu cation and then a Godless civilization, and then the inevitable wreckage and ruin— our own soil buried under the dust and ashes of past empires? Shall the Bible be brought back into every public school in the land? is a burning, blazing interrogation. Can there be any sane and justifiable answer except one? A half dozen States in the Union permit the reading of the Bible in their schools. The remaining vast majority either neglect or forbid this necessary factor in the making of future citizens and the saving of society. The arguments which prevent that holy business in our national life have little substance in them, and are met by the overwhelming reasons for this elevating and saving influence. This is ah alarming hour to thinking men and women and largely so because of the lack of moral and spiritual training in our youth. The Bible should be in our public schools,— first Because Democracy Demands It We are in grave danger of losing the patriotic spirit and the enthusiasm for our institutions. The war created a temporary excitement which was quickly dissipated, but since the war there has been less of real patriotism and deathless love for the Republic. Disappointment in perma nent and beneficial results helped in the cooling of the fires and the increase of the ashes. Many of the veterans of that murderous useless war have emphatically ex pressed themselves concerning any future relations to world wars and their hesitation in expressing any enthusiasm over our own democracy. We need some new fuel on the fire. We need some blaze on holidays and other occasions. Even our Fourth of July has degenerated into a mere pleasure seeking holiday and almost absolute forgetfulness of its meaning. More than lost memory on the part of the fore igners and others, it is an astounding ignorance. The old- fashioned Fourth of July was celebrated in altogether dif ferent fashion, and not without the worthiness of com mendation. Fire-crackers and torpedoes and guns and sky rockets and processions and all the rest of the program, and all-day and all-night enthusiasm, has its beneficial re sults. There may have been some danger and a few ac cidents, but there is now the greater peril of a cold and indifferent and unpatriotic spirit: This generation must be taught the value of democracy for America and the rest of the world. They must understand its first principles and live by it and live for it. We must believe it the best of all governments and then make it that by knowing and saving and living its ideals.
One of the great fundamentals in any democracy is the rule of the majority. Just now this foundation principle is ignored and endangered and trampled upon. The rule of the majority is not recognized and enforced. A small minority assume the right to dictate to the large majority. If the test was made, two-thirds of the American people would place the Bible in every public school under the flag. Now prejudice and the irreligiousness of religion and a small amount of atheism dominate and insist on keeping our public schools godless, and then in bold mockery turn and condemn them and the immorality which comes from them. In the name of everything sacred and safe in a democracy, why should a comparatively small branch of the nominal Christian church and a few Jews and foreign ers be permitted to commit this offense against the original Americans and the much larger class of citizens, against the best interests of the nation and against its prosperity and perpetuity. If this is not an unjustifiable tyranny, I cannot find it on the pages of history. Minority rule in a democracy is the basis of tyranny. Tyranny is thè rule by the one or a few. Away with it from this American soil! It will desecrate it and damn it— the majority must rule. Democracy demands it. Liberty demands it. Justice demands it. And by the grace of God, we will demand it. Making the world safe for democracy is not our first business, but our making democracy safe for the world. This can only be done by. making it a real democracy, a government in which the majority shall always rule. I have no enmity towards a certain branch, of the Christian church. I have no hatred for the Jews. I have only love for the foreigner, but there is not a square foot of ground in these United States for either a machine or a man who places dynamite under neath the foundations of the Republic. The three million Jews in this country have found here a shelter and an op portunity like which they have never found in any other part of the world geography. In view of this, they are the last class of people in the world to make any attack upon our Christian institutions which have become dis tinctly national. Three per cent of the population can find no justice in an attempt to control any part of the govern ment. Here in America for years with increasing energy and determination and finances, they have tried to prevent Christian exercises in the public schools and even to insist that Christmas carols shall no longer be sung by the school children. They have also made most vigorous attempts to destroy the American Sunday, and all this has been a very poor expression of appreciation for what they have so abun dantly and freely received in this land of liberty. It is an outrage on democracy that this shall continue and we shall be compelled to submit to this small minority. We must in sist, in the name of democracy, that the majority have their way and the Bible find its place again in all our schools.
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