Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns: An Educational Problem for ProtestantsSutherland, E. A. (Edward Alexander)
Religion
Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns: An Educational Problem for Protestants
Sutherland, E. A. (Edward Alexander)
Church and education; Education -- History; Religious education
Should Israel attempt to adopt the education of surrounding nations, that
moment her education would become papal in character, for it would then
be a combination of the divine with the worldly. If a man-made theocracy,
a church and state government, is papal in principle, the divine and the
worldly combined in educational systems is no less a papal principle.
Israel formed such a combination more than once, but with the results
recorded in Ps. 106:34-38: “They mingled among the heathen, and learned
their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.
Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters into devils, and shed
innocent blood, even the blood of their _sons_ and of their _daughters_,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan.”
Truth and error never form a compound, although they may be mingled.
The union of the two never produces truth, and the end is death. Truth
amalgamated with error, as gold with mercury, lies dormant until
released. Israel could not positively forsake her God-given forms of
education without relinquishing her place as leader of nations. Destined
to be the head and not the tail, she immediately reversed her position
when she adopted a mixed system.
[Sidenote: Spiritual nature of their education]
The education which was outlined for the children of Israel was
soul-culture, pure and simple. Its object was to develop the soul which
is God in man; and Divinity so planned that every true Jew should be
a God-man. Education was to develop the spark of divinity bestowed at
birth, and it was the privilege of every Jew to have, as did that _One_
Jew, Christ, the Spirit without measure.
Let us see, then, what the plan was which would take the newborn babe,
and follow him through life, making him one unit in a nation of spiritual
beings. God recognized prenatal influence, and so gave directions and
laws concerning the life of the parents. This is illustrated in the story
of Hannah and the wife of Manoah, in Elizabeth, and in Mary the mother of
Jesus.
[Sidenote: Jewish schools]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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