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FOR THE TREE OF THE FIELD IS MAN 'S LIFE - Deuteronomy 20.19
America Pressed For Time by State Senator Nelson S. Dilworth, Reti red
people had come to the colonies to be free from the restraints and religious establishments of Europe. Often, the Holy Bible was under the arms of the early Americans as they walked by day, open on their knees by their fireside at evening time with their children gathered around them, and by their pillows at night. There «are more completely new concepts of government in the vital fifty words of the Declaration. The writers asserted that governments were instituted among men to secure these rights, deriving their just pow ers from the consent of the governed. Here is a clear and challenging dec laration of the right of mankind to freedom to control their government for the first time uttered by officials in government, in a formal state paper. Shall the people of America lightly surrender our independence to a world group of appointed men, not one elected among them?
What was so new about the Amer ican Declaration of Independence? Had not people always aspired to be free? What was so remarkable about this Declaration of the representatives of the English colonies? It was the first state paper prepared by men in government, affirming that the right of mankind to freedom is from God and that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien able rights. For untold centuries, men had endured the philosophy of the “ divine right of kings” to rule them. These colonists had a new conception of God as the source of the rights for a free people, rather than the source of power for corrupt kings. The dif ference is as wide as the universe. There was involved here a larger, better and purer understanding of God brought about in America by the free and popular study of the Bible by the common people of a developing young nation. The fathers of these
ySpileason. Just mi fifillfnian’s life when • § S P **■*BIMe “ ' jmguide, he grows strong and steadfast. Cambridge University' Press has made Bibles since 1591. When yon own a Cambridge Bible, you own a book made with craftsmanship inherited through twelve generations.
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