National character : $b A Thanksgiving discourse: Delivered November 15th, 1855, in the Franklin Street Presbyterian ChurchBurt, N. C. (Nathaniel Clark)
Religion
National character : $b A Thanksgiving discourse: Delivered November 15th, 1855, in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church
Burt, N. C. (Nathaniel Clark)
Nationalism; Thanksgiving Day sermons
The State, then, has a character directly religious, due to its origin
and nature, as instituted by God for doing his ministry with men.
Hence, its laws should be founded on the highest views of the divine
will ascertainable. It should enact that alone to be crime which God
pronounces to be sin. And again, the State has a character indirectly
religious, in view of the fact, that it is administered by and upon
those who are under religious obligations, and in view of the fact
that religion has material connection with that public welfare which
it is the design and duty of the State to promote. The State must, on
the one hand, respect the conscience of its citizens, leaving them
free in religious opinions and practices; and yet, on the other hand,
it must seek to promote the interests of true religion, with whose
prosperity the public welfare is vitally connected.
It belongs to our government, my hearers, to conform its legislation
to the principles of the Bible, and to impose its penalties for
violated law, on the authority and with the sanction of the God of the
Bible: and it belongs to our government, while indulging the largest
and most liberal toleration of religious opinions and practices, still
to seek the diffusion and establishment of Christianity throughout the
length and breadth of our land. It is right that our government
enforces, to a good degree, the observance of the Christian Sabbath.
It is demanded that such observance be enforced in still larger
degree. Our government, if it be bound to afford an education to the
children of its citizens at all, is bound to give them a Christian
education. The Bible should be in all our Public Schools. Chaplains
should be provided for all State institutions, as they are for the
Army and Navy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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