General Conference Bulletin, vol. 5

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

A. T. Jones

Sermon by A. T. Jones, Friday, April 10, 7:30 P. M.

I am to speak to you to-night on the subject of Christian Education. The phase of Christian education to which I shall call your attention to-night is the want, the longing, of the world for it, and the world’s expression of this longing. First, we will study a little as to what it really is, then set before you the world’s call for just that; not necessarily that the world is intentionally and in set terms calling for Christian education, but that the world is longing and calling for that in education which Christianity alone can supply. GCB April 14, 1903, page 205.10

In the apostles’ days there were three great centers of the world’s education,—Corinth, Ephesus, and Athens. And of these three, Athens was the chief. Christianity was preached in all three of these places, especially by Paul; and in these three greatest centers of the world’s education, Christianity, Christian education, and the world’s education met, and, as in everything else. Christianity, Christian education, and the world’s education were found to be direct opposites. GCB April 14, 1903, page 205.11

Corinth has been spoken of as in that day “The Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire, at once the London and the Paris of the first century after Christ.” This will give you an idea of the standing of Corinth at that time, in all that goes to make up human culture, expressed in the word “education.” Paul preached there, you remember, somewhat over a year and six months. He wrote letters to the church at Corinth. In the first of these letters he wrote these words, in the first chapter, “After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” The world’s wisdom was the cause of their not knowing God. That wisdom was in their education; it was the product of their education; so their education caused them not to know God. But not to know God is the ultimate of ignorance. Ignorance is not to know, and when their education directly caused them not to know, their education is thus shown to have been ignorance. GCB April 14, 1903, page 205.12

Paul went to Ephesus, in Asia, and there he preached, and, as was suggested in our Conference the other day, really taught school more than two years. Ephesus was the “Vanity Fair of Asia;” and of her it has been written that “no name is more splendidly emblazoned in the annals of human culture than the name of Ephesus.” Paul wrote a letter to the church in Ephesus, in which he said, “That I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” That states again, in the words of Inspiration, that the pinnacle of human culture, expressed in one word, “education,” in that day was ignorance. It separated men from the life of God—“alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.1

Thus Inspiration has twice set it down that the education of that day was ignorance. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.2

Paul went to Athens. While Corinth and Ephesus were two chief cities, and centers of education, Athens was the chief center of the world’s education of that day, and of the education of that sort that has been since unto to-day. Paul, when in Athens, was encountered by certain of the philosophers, and by these he was brought before the Supreme Court to answer as to what bearing his teaching was having upon the question of his being a setter forth of strange gods, and so violating the law. He was brought to the Supreme Court, and there, in his explanation, in preaching the gospel to them, he used these words, “As I passed by and saw your devotions, I beheld an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God.” Leave off the last word, and that altar tells the same,—“To the Unknown.” But not to know is ignorance. That altar was a monument erected by the Athenians to their own ignorance. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.3

Further in that speech, Paul cited even one of their own poets, that we are the offspring of God, and then upon that said: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at.” He suffered it. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.4

Look at the situation, and see the force of Paul’s reference to these images made of gold and stone, etc., graven by art and man’s device. He was standing on Mars Hill. Wherever the eye could be turned was simply planted thick with these images in stone, or gold, or silver, graven by art and man’s device. And this was their art. Their education culminated in art. This art culminated in such idolatry that they did not know God. That, Inspiration declared, was ignorance. So, then, their education culminated in art, and their art culminated in ignorance. That certifies again, by the voice of Inspiration, that Athenian education was, and is, ignorance. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.5

Now note what he said: “We are not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or precious stones, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at”—He suffered it—“but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Repent of what? Of their ignorance?—Surely. But their ignorance was their education. Their ignorance was the product, was the consequence, and the ultimate, of their education. Then, when by the apostle of Christ they were called to repent of their ignorance, they were called to repent of their education. And that is my text for to-night. The times of this ignorance,—past ignorance of to-day,—God has suffered. But now He commands all men to repent of their education. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.6

Now, that you may see the strength of that, I will present some truth. Wherein, and how is it, that that education was ignorance?—Thus: The philosophy, the idea, the very basis, of that education, the spring of it, was doubt. And doubt causes him who exercises it not to know. How long can you doubt a thing in order to know that thing? In other words, some one tells you the truth, the very truth of God. Suppose you doubt it; how long can you keep on doubting it before, by that means, you will know it?—To all eternity. Thus you see that doubt causes him who exercises it not to know; and not to know is ignorance. Thus Greek education, being founded in doubt, proceeding by doubt, and built up by doubting reason, was only ignorance. Because by doubt they never could know. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.7

Now against this ignorance God set knowledge, and sent the message of that knowledge to the whole world, and to be preached to every creature. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.8

Now see how entirely that is the truth. Read the text again that was written to the Corinthians: “After that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God,” that as the world was ignorant of God, when that was so by their education, their wisdom—“it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching”—preaching what?—Preaching the gospel, preaching the cross of Jesus Christ—“it pleased God, by the foolishness of” this preaching, and of the preaching of this, “to save them that believe.” That shows to you that against the world’s ignorance God set divine knowledge, and sent to that world in its ignorance the message of the knowledge of God. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.9

Now see how entirely that is so, by the Scripture. We read a little while ago, in Ephesians, that the world, the Gentiles, were alienated,—separated, cut off,—from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. The life of God is eternal life. Then the world, by its education, was cut off from eternal life. But it was ignorance that cut them off from eternal life. Then what joins men to eternal life?—Knowledge. And so it is written, “This is life eternal, that they might know”—and it would be eternally true if I stopped there, and read no further. The full text, you know, is, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.10

Then, just as certainly as ignorance alienates, cuts men off, from the life of God, which is eternal life, so certainly knowledge joins men to the life of God, which is eternal life. And the message of life which Jesus Christ sent by His apostles, to be preached to every creature, was the message of education, the message of church education, the message of Christian education, the message of knowledge, which joins men to the life of God. GCB April 14, 1903, page 206.11

Look at this, and see it another way. You assented, awhile ago, that, so long as a man doubts a thing, he can not know that thing, even if it be the veritable truth that is told him. Very good. Then you allowed that, if I tell the truth, and you doubt it, you can not know it. Suppose I tell you a lie, and you believe it; can you know it?—Impossible, for it simply is not so, and we never can know what is not so. Now I ask you to proceed from that, to study there a moment, so that we shall find the essentials to knowledge. There are two of them, and any person in this world who has these two essentials will always be able to know; he will be educated. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.1

Let me state the proposition again: I tell you the truth; you doubt it; you can not know it, and you will be ignorant. I tell you a lie, and you believe it; you can not know it, because it is not so. Then, the truth doubted can not be known; a lie believed can not be known. Then the truth believed,—truth and faith working together,—this is the way to knowledge. Do you see that? Then what are the two essentials of knowledge?—Truth and faith. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.2

Now which of these is first? (Voice: The truth.) Yes, the truth, because if you believe a lie, you can not know. So faith is not first. Something to be believed, something to exercise the faith upon, something to be received by faith, that is the first essential. And, since the truth believed is essential to knowledge, faith is the second essential to knowledge. Then, though you have all the truth in heaven and earth, and doubt it, you are still ignorant; and though you have only one single truth in heaven or earth, and believe it, you know. So, then, truth and faith are the two essentials to knowledge: the first, truth; the second, faith; faith exercised upon the truth, the truth believed, that is the true way to knowledge. See that now in the text, which again I read: “After that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not [was ignorant of] God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching”—preaching what?—preaching the truth; preaching Jesus Christ, who is the Truth; preaching the Word of God, which is the truth—“by the foolishness of preaching” this truth, “to save them that believe” the truth. Then you see again that against the world’s ignorance God sent the message of knowledge, the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. And that is the message for to-day. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.3

Now the church of Jesus Christ is the only means by which that message of education can ever reach this world. Read that: “These things write I unto you, hoping to come unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground [the support and stay] of the truth.” The church of Christ is the support, the stay, of the truth, for it upholds and maintains the truth in the world. That is the means by which the truth of God reaches the world. God, Jesus Christ, the Head of His church, speaking to His church, leading His church, dwelling in His church, which is the church of God, who is the God of truth, the church of Christ, which is the truth, to her is committed the Word of God, which is the truth. Thus she is the pillar and the ground, the support and stay, of the truth in the world. The world must know the truth, and believe the truth, in order to know. Then the church must present the truth to the world, which the world shall believe, in order that the world shall attain to knowledge. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.4

That is true to-day. For the world’s way of education to-day is the world’s way of education always. And the world’s way of education in the days when Greek Christianity first began in the world, and this message was first sent to the world, is the world’s system of education to-day. And particularly this system of education represented in these three centers of education to which I called your attention.—Greek education,—is the supreme education of the world to-day. The highest course in any system of education in the world to-day is the classical course; classical, because the predominant study in that course is the Greek and the Latin. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.5

Then that tells to us that the education of to-day is precisely the education that caused the world to be ignorant in the days when Christ sent the message of His salvation and His truth first to the world. And as certainly as that education caused the world of that day to be ignorant, and so intensely ignorant that it did not know God, so certainly that education to-day causes the world to be ignorant, for its only tendency is to cause the world not to know God. So that to-day God’s message of eternal life, God’s message of God’s truth, is just as certainly to a world in its ignorance as it was when it was preached in Corinth, Ephesus, or Athens, and it must be the message of God’s knowledge to a world in its ignorance. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.6

Now you said a while ago that the truth is the first essential to knowledge. What did you say is the other essential to knowledge?—Faith. Then what is the way to knowledge?—Taking the truth; the truth exists, whether men believe it or not. God lives. What is the way to knowledge?—Faith is the way to knowledge; faith is the means of knowing. Then without faith no knowledge can be attained. Without faith, ignorance is the result. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.7

Now, what was the spring of the world’s education that came from Greece, which education was ignorance?—Doubt. What must be the spring of the education that is knowledge?—Faith. There are the two ways. It is just as natural for the world to-day to doubt as it has ever been for the world to do so. And faith to-day is just as strange to the world as it ever was. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.8

So now here we are. We talk about the truth, preaching the truth, the message of the truth that God has sent us with the truth: that is right. And that message of the truth is to be preached to the world, that the world may believe it, and, by believing it, may know; and that is education. And without it there can be no true education. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.9

Now I will turn to the other phase of the subject. You can see by what has been presented that the world’s way of education and the true way of education are at opposites. Can a person, then, learn God’s truth in the world’s way? Can I obtain the knowledge of God in the world’s way of education?—Impossible. Then, when I have been educated in the schools of the world, when my education is altogether composed of the courses of instruction of the schools of the world, and I come to God to learn the truth as in His Word, can I learn it by that means?—Impossible. Then, if I have been educated in the world’s education, and the world’s system, and the world’s schools, and come to God to learn, what is essential?—That I repent of my education. To repent is to change your mind, to turn about. Very good. Turn about, leave that, and take the truth by faith. GCB April 14, 1903, page 207.10

So it is as literally true to-day as it ever was that those who are taught in the world’s way, and have the world’s education, must repent of their education, in order to learn the true education, and find the knowledge of God, which is to find very knowledge itself. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.1

Now, that you may see that the world calls for just this distinction, I will give you the evidence, for it is pertinent evidence to us to-day; it is truth for us to-day; and it comes to us on the highest earthly authority, that is, the authority of the United States Government. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.2

The United States Government has published, upon authority, the report of the national Commissioner of Education, and he makes precisely this distinction between the world’s method of education and the religious method of education. And the United States Government by that, and in words, calls that there shall be an absolute separation between these two things, and calls that the Church shall not adopt, shall not even borrow, the method of the world, the method of secular education. And, of course, the State must not borrow religious education, for that is a union of Church and State. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.3

The annual report of the United States Commissioner of Education for the school year of 1896-97 distinctly separates the methods of the secular school and the religious school, sets them apart, and says that neither shall borrow from the other. I would rather give you these words than to say it in my own words, because this comes from the side of the world, and is therefore valid. It comes also from the highest possible authority on the side of the world, and is therefore authoritative. No one can call us in question when I simply present that which the United States Government itself has presented. First, as to the secular school:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.4

“The secular school gives positive instruction. It teaches mathematics, natural science, history, and language. Knowledge of the facts can be precise and accurate, and a similar knowledge of the principles can be arrived at. The self-activity of the pupil is before all things demanded by the teacher of the secular school. The pupil must not take things on authority, but, by his own activity, must test and verify what he has been told. He must trace out the mathematical demonstrations, and see their necessity. He must learn the method of investigating facts in the special provinces of science and history. The spirit of the secular school, therefore, comes to be an enlightening one, although not of the highest order. But its enlightenment tends to make trust in authority more and more difficult for the young mind.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.5

That is a valid and authoritative statement of the secular school method. Attention to two or three items: “The self-activity of the pupil is before all things demanded by the teacher of the secular school.” What is the one thing before all things demanded by the teacher of a Christian school, or of Christianity? Not self-activity, not self-exaltation, but self-emptying, self-denial, self-surrender. That is the difference. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.6

“The pupil must not take things on authority.” When you go forth to preach the truth of God, what do you preach?—You preach the Word of God. Do you expect the people shall not accept what you say on the authority of God, on the authority of the Bible? If you do not accept it on authority, you can not accept it at all. For when God speaks, that is authority. There is the difference again. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.7

Therefore “the enlightenment of the secular school tends to make trust in authority more and more difficult for the young mind.” Is it a valuable thing that our children shall be so taught, so educated, as that it will be more and more difficult for them to accept things on authority when they are told by the parent or by the Lord? Is that a good education for the children? When a system of education tends to make trust in authority more and more difficult for the young mind, then that system of education directly leads away from God every step it takes. For you and I, every soul, must accept the truth of God upon authority of God; and that is where faith comes in. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.8

Then that is the highest authoritative description and definition of the secular school method, or of secular education. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.9

Now the religious; see how clearly he sets that forth also:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.10

“Religious education, it is obvious, in giving the highest results of thought and life to the young, must cling to the form of authority, and not attempt to borrow the methods of mathematics, science, and history from the secular school. Such borrowing will result only in giving the young people an over-weaning confidence in the finality of their own immature judgments. They will become conceited and shallow-minded. It is well that the child should trust his own intellect in dealing with the multiplication table and the rule of three. It is well that he should learn the rules and all the exceptions in Latin syntax, and verify them in the classic authors; but he must not be permitted to summon before him the dogmas of religion, and form pert conclusions regarding their rationality.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.11

Then, if a church organizes a school, an academy, or a college, and in that school, academy, or college, mathematics, science, or history is taught, can that school be Christian when it teaches mathematics, science, and history in the same way that it is taught across the road in the secular school? The United States Government says you can not even borrow the methods that are used across the road, much less employ them. The United States Government publishes, on authority, and its own authority, that you and I, Seventh-day Adventists, must not attempt to teach mathematics in Seventh-day Adventists’ schools as mathematics is taught in the secular school. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.12

The United States Government publishes that you and I, as Seventh-day Adventists, must not attempt to teach science or even history in Seventh-day Adventist schools as that science or history is taught in the public school. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.13

Then, if we are going to stand straight before the United States Government, and escape the arraignment that that government makes of the churches of the United States for taking a false course, we have come to the time when we can not afford to teach mathematics, science, or history in our schools as they are taught in the public schools and the system of teaching that is in those books. This will appear more fully as I go on, that the United States Government arraigns the churches of the United States directly upon this issue, and calls for the churches of the United States to take their stand on religious ground, and not on secular ground. GCB April 14, 1903, page 208.14

By the way, when a church takes its position on secular ground, the ground of the State, then what have you?—The Church and the State become one. The Church is working right along in the way of the State. But in Christianity the Church and the State are separate, you say. We believe in religious liberty, separation of Church and State. Amen! The United States Government is calling upon the churches of the United States to stand indeed upon that principle, and have no union of Church and State, even in education. For the Church to stand on secular ground, and adopt secular methods, is a union of Church and State formed by the Church. For the State to stand on religious ground, and adopt religious methods in its course, is for the State to form a union of Church and State. And the union of Church and State can be formed on either side in education, and by education. And the union of Church and State that you and I are looking for in the United States, which is to make the image to the beast, is progressing faster to-day in this mixture of secular and religious education by the churches than by any other means. And that is why it is doubly high time that this church to which you and I belong shall find out where we stand, and what is the true place in which to stand, on the question of religious education. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.1

“They will become conceited and shallow-minded.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.2

When the highest authority in the United States on the secular side of education says that the secular method adopted in the religious education will cause the children to become conceited and shallow-minded, then is that the kind of education that Christians want to adopt for their children? GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.3

Now his arraignment of the Church:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.4

“With the spectacle of the systematic organization of the secular schools and the improved methods of teaching before them, the leaders in the Church have endeavored to perfect the methods of religious instruction of youth. They have met the following dangers which lay in their path:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.5

“First, the danger of adopting methods of instruction in religion which were fit and proper only for secular instruction; secondly, the selection of religious matter for the course of study which did not lead in the most direct manner toward vital religion, although it would readily take on a pedagogic form. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.6

“Against this danger of sapping, or undermining, all authority in religion, by the introduction of the methods of the secular school, which lay all stress on the self-activity of the child, the Sunday-school has not been sufficiently protected in the more recent years of its history. Large numbers of religious teachers, most intelligent and zealous in their piety, seek a more and more perfect adoption of the secular school methods. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.7

“On the other hand, the topics of religious instruction have been determined largely by the necessities of the secular school method. That method is not adapted to teach mystic truth. It seeks everywhere definite and especially mathematical results. But these results, although they are found everywhere in science and mathematics, are the farthest possible from being like the subject matter of religion. Hence it has happened that, in improving the methods of the Sunday-school, greater and greater attention has been paid to the history and geography of the Old Testament, and less and less to the doctrinal matters of the New Testament.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.8

That says that the Sunday-school has been taught by the secular method; and what does that do?—It saps or undermines all authority in religion. Then when we as Christians send, for five days of the week, our children to the secular schools to be educated in a system that saps or undermines all authority in religion, and then expect them to go to Sabbath-school on the Sabbath, and keep pace with that, or, rather, overdo all that, are not we expecting an impossible thing? Then is it strange at all that our young people are being lost to the church, when we send them to school where they are taught under a system of education which directly and constantly saps or undermines all authority in religion? Then is it not high time that this church to which you and I belong should rise up as one man in Christ Jesus, and wed ourselves to God’s own order of schools, to the religious method in education, and stand clear of this arraignment that the United States brings upon the churches of the United States? GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.9

“That method is not adapted to teach mystic truth.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.10

Now a question, brethren. When you have it on the authority of one of the leading educators of the world, by being commissioner of education of the United States, that the secular method is not adapted to teach mystic truth, I want to ask. Is the secular method adapted to the study of mystic truth? When I am taught in the secular system, my education has been upon the secular plan, in a secular college, and in the secular course of education, and I become a Seventh-day Adventist, and turn to the study of the Bible, can I study the Bible by that method of education which I have learned in that system of studying, which is not adapted to mystic truth? “That method is not adapted to teach mystic truth.” It is no more adapted to the study of mystic truth. Then that develops it again that, when you and I come to the study of the Bible, we must repent of our education that we get in the world, and ask God to teach us. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.11

And the “results are the farthest possible from being like the subject matter of religion.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.12

How far? As far as possible?—No; but “the farthest possible.” And that is the result, the United States Government declares, of the secular education to religious people. I need follow that thing no further. That draws the distinction for us, so that we can in no sense lay ourselves liable to reproach or misjudgment when we ourselves accept it and insist that religious education and secular education shall be as wide apart as the heavens are from the earth. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.13

And this is not antagonizing the secular method, nor the secular school, nor opposing the secular method in the secular school. It is only opposing the secular method in the religious school. The secular is the method for those who choose to be secular. The State is secular. You can not expect anything but the secular method in State education. But religious people,—the Church,—are apart from the State. And what right has the Church to go over to the realm of the State, and bring over to the Church the State method, which is the furthest possible from her realm? That is a union of Church and State. No. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.14

The State has right to be, has right to exist. It has right to establish such a system of education as the State may choose. It must in any case be secular, for it can not occupy the ground of the Church. The Church exists; God has put her in the world to teach to the world the truth, to teach to the world the religion of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ. She must occupy her own realm utterly apart from the State, and must have her own system of education utterly apart from the State, not condemning the State, or its system, or its work. The State has right to exist, and to do as it pleases in its own realm. The Church must stand apart from the State, and do as God wants her to do in His own realm. GCB April 14, 1903, page 209.15

The world is longing, the world is calling, for exactly the education that Christianity supplies, and which this message of the truth in these days the church of Jesus Christ alone can supply. That is, the world itself has found, and is expressing the fact, that this education that the world has will not do; that it is a failure; that it comes utterly short of meeting the demands. And therefore the world is calling for that which will meet the demand, and in this call calls for that alone which Christianity can supply. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.1

President Eliot, of Harvard University, is one of the leading educators of the world. Last fall he gave three addresses to state conventions of New England teachers, on the needs of education: and the needs of education because of the failures in popular education. He delivered an address at New Haven, Oct. 17, 1902, in his own words, “advocating the expenditure of more money for education in the United States, on the ground that the shortcomings and failures in American education have been many and grievous.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.2

The evidences which he presented of these shortcomings and failures in American education, summed up in his own words, are eight. The first is drunkenness; the second is gambling; the third is bad government; the fourth is crime, mob, and riot; the fifth is bad reading; the sixth is the popular theater; the seventh is medical delusions; the eighth is labor strikes. He presents the growing and rapid increase of these things in the United States as evidences that popular education in the United States is a failure. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.3

And another leading educator, Professor Daniells, of Washington, has said in so many words that the “country youth of this land are growing up in hopeless savagery in many states.” When we stand in the presence of these things,—leading educators of the United States and of the world telling to you and to me that the course of things, in spite of popular education, is to savagery,—is it not high time for us to wake up, and stand up, and hold fast to the principles of education which God has given us, and be delivered from this course of things which tends to savagery? GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.4

It would not have been becoming for you and me to make such an arraignment of popular education as that; but when one of the leading educators of the world does it, concerning the popular education of the United States, then you and I can believe and read it, and think seriously over it, and ask God to deliver us from it. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.5

Now I say that when a leading educator of the world presents that arraignment, eight distinct counts summed up in his own word as evidence of the failure of popular education in the world to-day, then is it not time that we, a people professing to be Christians, professing to have a message from the Lord that is to save the world from that,—is it not time for us to lift up that system of education where the world can see it? GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.6

A few days afterward, President Eliot delivered another address, in which he advocated more expenditure of money, and what should be done with the money, in order to deliver the country from this failure and this shortcoming in popular education. I will not read all the counts; but when you get a chance to read it,—as certainly as you are acquainted with the system of education that has been given to Seventh-day Adventists, as certainly as you are acquainted with the Testimonies,—as you read President Eliot’s statement of what is needed to deliver the United States from the ruin of its education, you can point, item by item, to the instruction that is given to us in the Testimonies. So that President Eliot in presenting as that which is needed to deliver this country from the ruin of this false education.—he presents the very things that God has given to us to give to this country and to the world for that express purpose of saving them from this ruin. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.7

And when the world is calling for the very thing that God has given to you and me to give to the world, then is it not time that you and I should rise up and take hold of that with heart, soul, and spirit, and pass it on to the world? GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.8

Then what is our message to the world to-day?—It is the message of education. You can no more separate the third angel’s message from the message of Christian education, and make that one message and then education another message, than you can separate Christianity from Jesus Christ; for, in our study of the points of education here, you saw that knowledge connects with eternal life, and it is only knowledge that can do it. Doubt leads to ignorance; faith gives us knowledge, and that gives us the eternal life which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. And that is our message, that anybody and every one has to give to this world,—the message of eternal life through Jesus Christ. It is summed up in that. I do not mean by this that every minister and everybody else shall go out and talk on nothing but education as a subject, but I do say that when we preach the third angel’s message, we do not truly preach it unless we preach it in such a way that it delivers people from the bondage of this world, and brings them around and joins them to the education that God has given as a system, that they may have something to stand upon and to hold them in the way of eternal life, because they know. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.9

And in this very thing President Eliot arraigns the church, and says the church is recreant, that the church has come short altogether of her calling. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.10

I have not put it too strong. Mark, as I read, his own words:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.11

“The church and its ministers can not be said to have risen in public estimation since the Civil War. Its control over education has distinctly diminished. In some of its branches it seems to cling to archaic metaphysics and morbid poetic imaginings [that is, the “higher criticism”]; in others it apparently inclines to take refuge in decorums, pomps, costumes, and observances. On the whole, ... it has shown little readiness to rely on the intense reality of the universal sentiments to which Jesus appealed, or to go back to the simple preaching of the gospel of brotherhood and unity—of love to God and love to man. So the church as a whole has to-day no influence whatever on many millions of our fellow-countrymen—called Jews or, Christians, Protestants or Catholics, though they be. GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.12

“We still believe that the voluntary church is the best of churches; because a religion which is accepted under compulsion is really no religion at all for the individual soul, though it may be a social embellishment or a prop for the state. Yet, believing thus, we have to admit that the voluntary church in the United States has no hold on a large and increasing part of the population.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 210.13

He has got it straight. And that emphasizes that you and I must dwell upon the intense realities to which Jesus appealed. Think of it! The world itself, by one of its leading voices, calling for the simple preaching of the gospel, and for the church to exert an influence on education by the simple preaching of the gospel! Come along, then; let us stand up, and say, Here we are, to preach the simple gospel with the intense reality that Jesus put into His message. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.1

Now is it not time we swung out of that ring? Come, now, shall we be included in that? Shall it be so, brethren and sisters, that any suggestion of any such arraignment as that shall lie against the Seventh-day Adventist Church, that we are not of any influence whatever in education, and that our influence is a distinctly diminishing quantity? God forbid. Come, let us rally to the standard of the Lord, and come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and be a distinct, ever-widening, ever-increasing quantity in education, so that the world that is longing for what God has given to us to give to the world shall know that there is one church in the world that has a power in education. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.2

“By no positive fault of their own, but by a sort of negative incapacity, legislature, court, and church seem to be passing through some transition which temporarily impairs their power.... To redeem and vivify legislatures, courts, and churches, what agency is so promising as education?” GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.3

Oh, think of it! One of the leading educational voices of the world calling that the church shall be redeemed by education! That the world should call for the church to be redeemed at all, shows that she has got below the world. When it becomes necessary that the church must be redeemed by the world, where stands the church? It is true that there is nothing so potent as education to redeem legislatures, courts, and churches. We are talking about churches now. Nothing is so potent to redeem and vivify the church as is education. That is the truth, the eternal truth. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.4

Now the question, Can that education come to the church from the world?—No. That education which must be redeemed and vivified by that must come down from heaven to the church. It can not come from the world to the church. Then, as certainly as that is the truth,—and it is the truth,—as certainly as the church must be redeemed and vivified by that most potent of all means, education, and that education must come from heaven, from the Head of the church Himself, then that calls this Seventh-day Adventist Church to put herself before God, and open heart and mind to heaven itself alone, in order that we may receive that education which will redeem and vivify the church, and will enlighten the world. That is the situation. That is where we stand. And that is the situation in which we stand as a church to-night. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.5

Now another sentence that he speaks:— GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.6

“The masses of the people must be taught to use their reason, to seek the truth, and to love justice and mercy. There is no safety for democratic society in truth held, or justice loved, by the few: the millions must mean to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.7

They must have it in their mind. The millions must mean “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.8

Can the state give that? Can the world give that?—Only the church can give that. But the masses must be taught it. The masses are running away to ruin, in drunkenness and gambling and bad government and crime and mobs and riots and bad reading and the popular theater and medical delusions and labor strikes,—the world is running to ruin in that; and the masses must be taught to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.9

Only the church can meet the demand. And only the church that receives this instruction, this education, from heaven, and passes it on to the world, to enlighten the world,—only such a church will meet the demand. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.10

You and I profess to belong to precisely that church; then shall we not arise and be that church indeed, in such a way that the world shall find it out? GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.11

That is not all. See what President Eliot’s whole plan culminates in—“the perfecting of an intelligent individual citizenship in a Christian democracy.” That is, the people a self-governing Christianity. Can that be produced by the world? Can that be produced by the state? For the state to do it would be to erect an image of the Papacy; and even that would not do it, but would sink the state in eternal ruin. Then is it not the truth that nothing but the church alone can accomplish that thing? GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.12

Then what does that call for?—It calls for a revival, a reformation, today, as truly as in the day of Martin Luther, and a reformation upon precisely the same principles as those upon which Martin Luther led out. And that principle was a repudiation of the world’s method of education, and the Greek method at that. Martin Luther spoke directly that we must repudiate Aristotle and “other teachers of a deceitful philosophy.” He declared that “Aristotle, that blind heathen, has displaced Christ.” And he put the Bible in its true place, as the source of all education, and called upon the people to send their children to no school where the Bible was not predominant. That is the message to-day. That was the reformation in that day. That is the reformation that is called for to-day, and the reformation that Seventh-day Adventists are set in the world to accomplish for the world. And that reformation will come. We are here in order that it shall come. And when it comes, it will come only in and through the Word of Him who is in heaven, and who is the Head of the church. That education will be conveyed and inculcated only in the “terms of creation;” the church by which this education will be given to the world will be a church that communicates only in “terms of creation,” as against evolution. And that can be done. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.13

By the way, that expression, “terms of creation,” is one that was used by a physician in a lecture last October to a class of medical students in Syracuse University, New York, when he was teaching them how to study anatomy. He taught them to get in harmony with God, where they could think the thoughts of God, and study the human system as God has constructed it. A great teacher, a physician, in New York City, giving a lecture on how to study anatomy to a class of medical students, took that very course to show them how to study anatomy; that they must get into communication with God, so that they shall think His thoughts, and catch His mind, and see where He began to construct the man, and why He made the man, and then follow God’s thought in the making of the man. That is Christian education. That is the way to teach in our schools. GCB April 14, 1903, page 211.14

And that tells to you and me that there are people in the world whom we have never dreamed of as having anything to do with the truth who have found truth that we ourselves have not found. What teacher among Seventh-day Adventists is prepared to stand before his class and teach them how, in the thoughts of God, to study anatomy from the Bible, as this man did? He cited the Scripture itself as the basis of his study of anatomy, and developed before his class the very anatomy of the human system as in God’s thought in creation. I ask again, What teacher among Seventh-day Adventists is prepared to do it? GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.1

And that tells to you and me that there are people in the world whom we have never dreamed had the truth, but who are holding the truth, and teaching the very things that God has called us to these thirty years. That doctor’s address was so precisely Christian education that I wrote him and asked for permission to print it. He gave me permission, and in his reply told me that he had had a remarkably large number of letters from teachers in medical colleges approving his method, calling upon him to produce text-books upon that, so that they could follow the Christian method, too. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.2

Brethren and sisters, and I say this in all kindness, unless we wake up very soon, we shall be as it was in the days of Elijah, when he looked around and thought there were none but himself, when there were 7,000 that he did not know of. We shall be dallying along in this way of indifference, failing to rise to where God wants us, and the world wants us, thinking that we are the only ones, and God will find 143,999 somewhere else. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.3

This physician mentioned to me that he had been thinking he would have to produce a series of text-books embodying this system of education. I replied urging him to please let us have that series of books as soon as possible. But it ought not to be that Seventh-day Adventists should have to find such text-books as these outside of our body, and have to bring them in. We have been in the world these forty years to produce just such textbooks as these. But when there is a Christian in the world who has the Christian method, and has God’s thoughts running through his instruction, who deals only in “terms of creation,” who takes his text in the Bible when he goes to lecture to his students and teach them how to study anatomy,—when there is such a man who produces text-books that are the kind that God has wanted us to have all these years, thank the Lord, we can get them that way. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.4

But our own physicians should be teaching the world the Christian way to study anatomy. Our own physicians should have learned and published to the world the medical truth of the Scripture text that there is healing in the sunshine. But, instead of that, the Bible told us all the time that there is healing in the sunshine, our physicians waited until a man who knows nothing of us discovered that thing, and sets it before the world, and benefits the world, by God’s blessed truth that there is healing in the sun’s beams. These are some tokens of our failure in education and the evidences that call us to arise and shine, that the light may go forth to the world that is longing for it. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.5

I will finish the proposition now that education will be inculcated only in “terms of creation.” And who can do that but the people who have in their every-day life the memorial of creation? Why has God given to us the Sabbath?—One of the greatest things for which He gave it to us is that we should stand as the representatives of creation in this day when evolution is sweeping the world away from God. And we must have this power and work of creation in our own lives. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, unto good works which He hath foreordained that we should walk in them.” And when I am created in Christ Jesus, the Sabbath is as much a memorial of this creation as of that creation of the world back yonder. So when we speak in “terms of creation,” the memorial of creation is that which is the principle of our lives; it holds us to creation back yonder and holds us to creation here; and when people have God’s own memorial in creation, and stand upon it, and have no place for evolution, only that church can give this truth to the world. Then, of all the churches in the world that the world is calling to for help, the Seventh-day Adventist is the only church that can answer and say, “Here I am.” God has given to us the truth by which we can answer, “Here I am.” Oh, let that principle find lodgment in the life, and embrace the life, vivify the life, clarify the life, and then shine forth to the world, when we say, “Here we are,” because God will cause the light so to shine that the world will know that here we are. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.6

The church by which this education will be given to the world will be a church that deals and communicates only in “terms of creation.” The Instructor of that church will be the Creator Himself through the creative Word by the creative Spirit. The principles and the standard of morals of that church will be the moral law of the Creator, as written with His own finger on the tables of stone, as demonstrated in His life on earth in the flesh, and as written by His Spirit in fleshly tables of the heart of the believer in Jesus. In all education conducted by this church the text-book will be the Book of the Word of the Creator and Redeemer, and the study book will be all creation and all redemption. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.7

Thus that church will be distinctly a universally educational church. She will establish a system of education after this order; and will truly educate all who will receive the education. Though she will fully and truly supply that education for which the world is longing and expressing its sore need, yet neither this church nor the education which she gives will be popular with the world. Rather she will be considered a straight-laced extremist. Nevertheless, in this she will be right, absolutely and eternally right. She will be the true church of to-day and for to-day. And the education which she will give will be the true education for to-day and forever. GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.8

Let all people who are longing for a better system of education, who are looking for a system that will fully supply all needs in education,—let all these open their eyes and look prayingly to see that heavenly educational church; and God will cause them to see her. Now is her time. She must, and she will, arise and shine; and the glory of the Lord will be seen upon her. And this is the church which Christ will present to Himself at His coming, “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but ... holy and without blemish.” GCB April 14, 1903, page 212.9

[The quotations in this address of Elder Jones are all taken from a pamphlet just issued by the Pacific Press, entitled “The Place of the Bible in Education.” It is a pamphlet of 250 pages, written by Elder A. T. Jones, and is full of invaluable matter—matter of the greatest importance to all, but especially to teachers, church-schools, and all of our own people. The price of the pamphlet is only twenty-five cents. Address Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal., or your state tract society.—Editor.] GCB April 14, 1903, page 213.1