The National tribune., 1888-06-14
SUNDAY MEDITATION.

To THE NATION.
/. The Sunday-school is department Of the
Church, and hence an institution of religion in
the form of Christianity.
We hold the true religion is the basis of
civilization and morality, and that the State
cannot prosper and endure without the Church.
No statesman, be he imfide or skeptic, would
be willing to vote the Church out of the coun-
try. As mere police force, the Church is an
economy. Its support stands substitute for
taxes that would be uncomfortable. 1t is ques-
tiOnable whether, at any expense, we could get
on at all without the moral restra ming inliu-
ence of Christianity. But if this is true of the
Church as whole, it is of each department.
So it is of the Sunday school, which is every
Lords day seeking to develop the very princi-
pies which underlie all law. A Bible school
put down amid scenes of wickedness and pow
erty will soon transform the whole neighbor-
hood into thrift and neatness The minor
morals are taught, Temperance is enforced,
and many Sunday-schools are themselves for
NAL Temperance societies. The baptismal cove
nant enfOrces soberness and demands of US to
keep our bodies in temperance. The use of
habitual narcotics is discountenanced. Pupils
are urged to keep faithfully the Lords day
These are but items of the work of the Sun
day-schoOl. As nation is concerned in So
briefly; In the due recognition of Gods day,
Sunday; in the education of the young, it is
interested in every Sunday school
Luther one time said: " If thou hast son
that is fit for instruction and art able to hold
him to 1T aud dOst not, but goest thy way and
carest not what shall become of the secular
government, its laws and its peace, thou war
rest against the secular government as much
as in thee lieth, like the Turk, yea like Satan
himself, for thou withholdest from the King
dom, principality. country, or city, a Redeemer,
Comforter, a Cornerstone, Helper, a Savior"
There is truth in this. man who willfully
neglects looking to anything which may serve
the good of his land is to that degree traitor.
With our knowledge of the utility of the Sun
day-school from national standpoint we can
not see how an opposer of the institution can
be a patriot His prejudice TO Christianity
must outrank his love of country.
just before his death (I827) La Place, the ia
nous French astronomer and mathematician,
said: " have lived long enough to know what
at one time did not believe-that no society
can be upheld in happiness and honor without
the sentiments of religion" The Sunday
school is power against every evil.
2. The Sunday school is educational and that,
too, reigionsly. Learning alone will not save
nation. Culture which ignores the Bible
and God cannot keep land from extinction
Hence compulsory education merely as educa-
tion is not precisely what the nation wants and
ON which it must insist We require an educa-
tiOn on Bible foundation. The State has
found that general culture is so important as
to demand it to compel parents to send their
children to school, Now, remember the Bible
assembly is a school, place for mental train
ing. There is special call for attention to our
Sunday schools, considered from a National
standpoint, from the fact that so generally the
Bible is being disused in secular schools and
the least possible minimum of religious cul-
ture allowed. Education without God being
recognized, and without the Bible, is a curse
and would soon lead to a repetition on Ameri-
can soil of the bloody scenes in the land of
France during her goddess, ungodly days. As
supplement- to public-school education we
| must have welldrled Bible schools.
g. The Sunday-schooI Is fundamental in its
work-preventive, and most apt to be fixed in
its permanency. 1t is better to take pains to
keep in health than to secure effective RENE
dies for sickness 1t is less expensive The
Nation could well afford to pay all the expenses
of imparting Sunday-school instruction. We
do not want, however, to be understood as ad-
vOcating the doctrine that the country should
support the Sunday y-school by direct taxation
1t is from the very fact that the Sunday-school
attempts to save the children from sin and
criminality of all sorts, rather than wait and
spend its energies in the harder and more hope
less work of trying to reform the erring that
its iabors are specially commendable. The
dangerous periods of life-those which will pay
| for greatest labor and which will require the
| greatest care-are childhood and youth. It is
| through these portions of life that the Sunday
school is particularly serviceable.
4. The Book studied, to loit. the H0ly Bible is
the basis Of legal principles Hence it is service
| able as textbook to all who are subjects of
| laws thus originating. No eminent iurst has
| ever written legal volume, specially any
| treating on the elementary principles of law,
| but he was greatly indebted to the Mosaic law,
and Obliged to acknowledge that many Of his
most effective pages were composed under the
| inspiration of the Word written at the dictation
| of the lawgiVer Of Sinai; that for much of his
| data he was necessitated to study aud philOso-
| phize on the sermon delivered by Christ at the
Mount of the Beatitudes. The student of
| Blackstone is much impressed with this feature
| of his legal commentaries. The Bible is al
ways on the side of law. 1t teaches obedience
on the parts of children to their parents and
| subjects to their rulers. 1t explains the rela-
| tOns between magistrates and the people; en-
| forces reverence for all civil officers, aud de-
mand5 respect for all laws. Hence the Sunday
school is doing grand fundamental work for
our land. AS patriots we must stand by the
| institution.
D. Hear WhGt statesmen say They understand
national matters. They know the conditions
! needful for success in civil concerns. They
can tell us, with authority based on expe-
| rience whether or not Bible schools are of ma
| tiOnal value.
| jIOll. w. l.. w llley Saiu, one Lltne, Our DeSC
statesmen, cur best citizens and soldiers have
come from the Sunday-scho0l. All or nearly
all the men of power and influence at the
present day have made proof of religion in
| early life"
Adam Smith, the famous author of the vol
ume known as THE Wealth of Nations" a
man thoroughly conversaDt with national af-
fairs, speaking ofa time, as to the Sunday school
institution, declared that no agency since Apos-
| tolic times had effected greater change oil
manners for the better of society with equal
ease aud simplicity, than had the Sunday Bible
| schools.
We close, quoting letter written by o. s.
| Grant, June g, 1876 1t was his Centennial
Message" TO the children of the United States
It was directed to the editor Of the Sunday
School Times, Philadelphia:
Your favor of yesterday, asking a message from
me to the children and youth of the United States
to accompany your centennial number, is this mo.
| ment received.
Ny advice to Sunday schools, no matter what
their denomination, is: Hold fast to the Bible as
the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its pre-
cepts in your hearts, and practice them ia youl
lives.
TO the influence of this book we are indebted
for ali the progress made in true civilization, anC
10 this must look guide in the future.
Righteousness ezalteth u nation; but sin Is {
reproach to any people,"
Yours respectfully, U. 8. GRANT.
Col. Matson and Pensions.
EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: It seems a.
though Col. MatSon takes curious view O