The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1910-09-22
CHRISTIAN |
CITIZENSHIP
By REV. STEPHEN PAULSON
Pittsburg, Pa.

or high order of manhood. Since here
the common people were to be rulers
1t was plainly necessary to educate the
multitude. No inventor commits his
invention into the hands of an ignorant
man, and our fathers feared to trust
those powerful political tools, the bal
lot and free speech, into the hands of
ignorant and unframed men. So they
established the free school.
4Aey also founded the free press; be-
leying that the citizen should be made
acquainted with all that goes on in
Gods great world, that our people
should not be ignorant peasants but
citizens of the world The result is the
intelligent unity of hundred million
people and the breaking down of all
sectional differences.
They also established liberty and DO
litical equality. Not that all men are
equal in strength of body or quality of
intellect or power of personality, but
that each man has an equal right to
justice and acknowledgment The
grass, the lily, and the oak are not
equal in station, and, perhaps, not
equal in usefulness, but are equal in
their right to claim from soil and rain
| and sun what they need for growth
and sustenance.
Our fathers emphasized the family.
| recognizing that all subsequent rela-
tionships are made or married in the
family circle. They looked upon this
home as miniature republic and they
looked to earnest mothers for the
sturdy and honest citizenship of the
future.
The founders Of the republic also be-
lieved most emphatically in a free
church. They decreed that the Lords
day should be training day for the
soul and conscience that men might
grow fine and strong, and that great
! and true convictions might be devel-
| oped. For the measure of power of
| republic is not in it's resources and
wealth. but in the quality of manhood
produced
We have today many problems be-
fore us, as there always will be great
| problems before growing and pro-
| crossing nation; but our greatest need
is a Christian citizenship. We need
men who live and act the principles Of
| Jesus Christ in our high offices, in
| places of responsibility, in the great
marts of business. That it will be so,
it is not an idealist's dream, but will
| be a realization of the future to which
! present indications point
In a despotism where one family
rules, the task of educating the rulers
is simple. 1t means the teaching of
the members of a single family. In a
monarchy it means the education Of
few thousand of the upper classes. In
a republic the great peril is moral ig-
norance among millions, many Of them
newly come to our shores. We have
established our public schools for the
| training Of the intellect. but unfortu
nately we have eliminated morals and
spiritual knowledge from the class
room. Five or six hours every week
are given to mathematics for years.
because we must count money, and
weigh sugar and salt, compute coal and
measure land Years for the study of
mathematics; not one minute for the
training of a child's morals and char
| acter. The president of the National
| Educational association affirmed in his
annual address that there are ten mil
lions of young people under II who
never cross the threshold of church.
We teach children that two and two
make -four but not that 1t is wrong to
falsify accounts. We teach them that
! fire burns in science. but not that the
boy who tries to satisfy his desire for
pleasure with sin, is like one who
eats red-hot Goals. We teach the girl
that hot water scalds, but we do not
tell her that there are passions which
INDUCED in will blight her very soul.
Look at the jails filled with boys whom
we allow to grow up like vandals. Con-
slider the prisons crowded with young
criminals. Look at the moral insen-
sibility among our rich men and legis-
lators, to whom truth and justice
should be sacred.
We breed our own dangers through
neglect We spend vast energy in the
discussion of the tariff on pig iron, as
If with 1t the republic would survive
Of perish; but we neglect the souls OF
men. We spend hundreds Of millions
digging mud out of the rivers, while
the mouths of our children spout mud,
and the tenement houses ooze disease
and crime Surely there never was
a time in the history of the republic
when the influence and work of the
church was needed more than 1t is to-
day. We have we'll known examples
of how gladly people flock to the
standard of any man who shows him
self a sturdy, uncompromising Chris
tian citizen. And on the other hand
we see that a man who is not a Chris
tian, though he may be exalted to a
high place, is soon weighted and
found wanting.
Our fathers laid we'll the founda-
tons, but their work cannot be per-
fected without the fidelity of the sons.
We have a marvellous heritage; we
reap what we did not SOW. But God
forbid that we should prove faithless
t, the principles of our fathers. So
let US on this day call the roll of con-
viction which lie deep-rooted In true