The Situation and the Remedy
By Editor
One of the resolutions presented to the meeting of clergymen and laymen recently held in this city, and mentioned in our last issue, reads as follows:— Resolved, That a careful study of the moral life of our people reveals symptoms of decay, which seriously threaten the soundness and stability of the body politic. When we consider the abnormal increase of crime in the last twenty-five years,—it has grown four times as fast as the population,—we can not but feel that we are face to face with a national peril of a most serious character. This resolution was prepared by one of the leading clergymen of this city, and although it was not passed by the meeting, but was referred in connection with others to a committee for further consideration, yet there is much significance in the fact that “the abnormal increase of crime,” which was declared to indicate “a national peril of a most serious character” was made the principal basis for the movement to secure in the public schools “instruction in the fundamental principles of morality and religion.” This resolution sets forth a truth which many thinking men are no longer able to deny. An editorial in the REVIEW of December 8 dealt quite fully with this matter, and quoted at some length from a magazine article in which the testimony of leading writers and thinkers and carefully compiled statistics covering a period of years, were given. The daily record of crimes of violence of all kinds, of robbery and embezzlement, and of offenses against the law on the part of prominent men in the financial, political, and social world, constitutes a terrible indictment against public morality, and is seriously disturbing the confidence of many in the idea that the world is growing better. We agree with the general tenor of the resolution. We furthermore agree with the claim that this “ominous and alarming increase of crime” is due in large degree to the “neglect of moral and religious instruction,” but we locate the neglect in the church and the home, and not in the public schools. And we place the first and the chief responsibility upon the religious teachers who, in order to avoid the claims of the fourth commandment,4have failed to press home upon the consciences of the people the law of God as the rule of conduct, and, on the contrary, by their acceptance of the conclusions of an infidel science, have weakened the confidence of the people in the authority of the Word of God, and have removed the barriers against the spirit of lawlessness. Here is the root of the difficulty. God’s law has been made void in the churches. The standard of righteousness has been lowered, and sin, the transgression of God’s law, has been permitted to pass unrebuked, while human tradition and philosophical speculation have been exalted in the place of divinely revealed truth. But now, when the inevitable fruit of all this departure from God begins to appear, it is declared that “one of the obvious and potent causes of this ominous and alarming increase of crime is to be found in the too frequent neglect of moral and religious instruction in our schools—public and private.” When put into a brief form, the argument runs thus: There is an alarming increase of crime; religion has not been taught in the public schools; therefore the increase of crime is due to this cause, and religious instruction must be given in these schools. Those who fail to be convinced by this reasoning, and who oppose the movement to introduce religious instruction in state schools, are charged with hindering the effort to stay the further increase of crime. If those who propose this remedy for a serious situation really knew what was involved in it, they would realize that their proposed action would end in making a bad matter worse. The only religion which Cæsar can teach is Cæsar’s religion, and “all the persecutions of the Romish Church, and, indeed, all the persecutions that have existed in the name of Christianity, have had their basis in state theology.” In another resolution it was affirmed that “the code of precepts known as the ten commandments forms incomparably the best basis for the teaching of morality,” and it was therefore urged that the Board of Education be petitioned to introduce the study of these ten commandments into the public schools. It is certain that the law of God is the best and only basis for genuine morality, and if the observance of this law had been urged upon the people under the convicting power of the Spirit of God, the condition of things in the world might have been vastly different from what it is at the present time, but the state was never ordained of God to teach his law. This confusion of ideas upon the whole subject indicates the need of presenting clearly to the people the principles of truth found in the third angel’s message. While granting the great increase of crime, and admitting that the ten commandments ought to be taught as the only sound basis for morality, we call upon the church to do its duty instead of petitioning the state to undertake a work wholly outside of the purpose for which it exists. Let the eternal and unchangeable law of God be taught in the church and in the home. Let the Word of God be restored to its place of undisputed authority. Let the family altars be erected again in the homes where prayer is neglected. Then there will be in the hearts of those willing to receive it a power which makes for righteousness, and an influence will be exerted to hold in check the spirit of lawlessness. This is the only proper remedy for the situation.