The Southern Watchmen, vol. 14
November 21, 1905
“Religion in the Public Schools” The Watchman 14, 47 , p. 758.
(An Address Given in the Phythian Temple, Washington, D. C., Sunday night, March 26, 1905.) SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.1
SECOND ARTICLE OF SECOND ADDRESS
THE Reformation arose to deliver the world from the awful flood of immorality, vice, wickedness, crime, persecution and religious despotism that whelmed the world in the Dark Ages. But Protestants, instead of maintaining in sincerity the principles of the Reformation, have ever been prone to lapse to the baleful principles that bring only the results from which the Reformation principles only can deliver. Geneva, Scotland, England, and New England bear only too abundant witness to the truth of this. But in view of those ages of dreadful experience, when this latest nation of the United States was established, it was, by its great seal, committed to “a new order of things.” One essential of this new order of things was, and forever is, that “religion is wholly exempt from the cognizance of civil society.” This, too, “upon the principle on which the gospel was first propagated and the Reformation from papacy carried on.” SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.2
The issue made, and the program that is urged, by this committee of the Washington clergy, clearly raises the question as to whether this nation shall still stand committed to the new order of things, or whether it shall positively be swung back to the old order of things. For in the meeting in which the program and resolutions were adopted in open speech in advocacy of that cause, it was said and repeated, with emphasis and applause, that in this matter and program of governmental recognition and teaching of religion, “the majority have rights that the minority are bound to respect.” SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.3
That is precisely the motto of the old order of things, of the compulsory religionists, from the time of Nimrod, the “overbearing tyrant in Jehovah’s sight,” to this late day. But in this issue the minority has always been right, and God has invariably witnessed to it. It was so when Nimrod began it, when Ilgi carried it on, and when Pharaoh repeated it. When Nebuchadnezzar took it up, the minority numbered only three, but when the crisis was forced, there was with them “the form of the fourth,” who was “like the Son of God.” SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.4
When the thing was repeated in the reign of Darius the Mede, when the majority was so imperious as to override the king himself, and the minority numbered only one, still the minority was in the right, and continued just as aforetime; and again, when the issue was forced, God stood with the minority, and “shut the lions’ mouths,” because innocency was found in the minority on its own part, and also because the minority, in disrespecting the program and decree of the majority, had done no hurt to either the king or the state, nor yet to the majority. SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.5
But in the working of this principle of the majority and minority in religion, the climax was reached when there came into the world the Author of the ten commandments and of religion itself. The majority weas against him. The minority was only himself alone. And bear in mind that in this case the majority was composed of the church. He could not, and so he would not, respect the program and the purposes of the majority, even though that majority was of the church. And by the aid of the civil power the majority actually succeeded in carrying through their program by a large majority. But their triumph was short, god was still on the side of the minority, and raised him from the dead, and caused him to triumph over their triumph in ascending to heaven and sitting on the right hand of the throne of God. And because of that grand example and glorious precedent, all who know him have never been at all lonesome nor discouraged in being in the minority, even though the majority be of the church, and even though the minority number only one. And such have been Peter and the other apostles before the Sanhedrim,—Paul under Nero, John under Domitian, the faithful Christians of the Dark Ages, Wycliffe, before his accusers, Huss and Jerome before the council and in the flames, Luther before the Diet, Roger Williams before the New England Puritans, and John Wesley before the Georgia grand jury. Such an unbroken record from the beginning of history until the present time most assuredly gives just ground for the query, In this matter of religion in the public schools, may it not be possible that the minority is in the right? SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.6
It is true that immorality and vice are so rife as to constitute practically a moral pestilence; that crime is enormously on the increase cannot be denied. All this is rightly admitted and greatly deplored. But bad as things may be in the nation, or even in the city of Washington, even yet conditions are not as bad as they were in the Roman empire when Christ sent forth his disciples as sheep among wolves. And yet that little band of one hundred and twenty, endued at Pentecost with the promised power from on high, checked, turned, and beat back the tide of Roman iniquity, and revolutionized the Roman empire. SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.7
Let the clergy of Washington City and of the nation lead the thousands of members of the churches in this city and the millions of them in the nation to the fountain of promised power from on high, in such loyalty to Christ and the ten commandments as characterized that little company of one hundred and twenty, and they can easily, speedily, and permanently revolutionize moral conditions in this city and nation. SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.8
That is the way that is cast up for the church to walk, to work, and to win in. SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.9
The way that is chosen by the committee is another, a wrong, a forbidden way, which as certainly as it is followed will end in multiplied mischiefs more dangerous than any that they thus seek to avoid.
A. T. JONES.
SOWA November 21, 1905, page 758.10