"Thirty Years In Hell" Or, "From Darkness to Light"Fresenborg, Bernard
Religion
"Thirty Years In Hell" Or, "From Darkness to Light"
Fresenborg, Bernard
Anti-Catholicism; Catholic Church -- Controversial literature; Catholic ex-priests
As there is great freedom and diversity permitted in the unity of
nature, so, in our country of religious and political freedom, we
must grant the greatest latitude possible to the individual
conscience in personal, religious and civil rights consistent with
good government. But that there must be a code of morality common to
all as the basis of our civilized jurisprudence, in which the rights
of all center or unite and are equally protected, every reasonable
mind must admit. But where do we get our ideas of what is morally
right, and what is morally wrong, as the basis of our common law and
jurisprudence? What book or books contain the best code of morals? We
answer, the Bible. For the excellency of the morality of the Bible
has been admitted by the most distinguished men who have opposed its
supernatural revelation, among whom are Gibbon, Byron, Carlyle, Lord
Bollingbroke, Napoleon Bonaparte, Goethe and Renan. Thomas Jefferson,
speaking of Christ as a teacher, said: "He set forth the sublime
ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms and precepts of the purest
morality."
Catholicism says: "No Bible shall be taught in the public schools,"
but demands that she be allowed to proclaim her dogmas.
Benjamin Franklin, five weeks before his death, said of Christ: "I
think His system of morals, and His religion, as He left them, are
the best the world ever saw or is likely to see." The services of the
Bible in behalf of human rights and freedom, and in reforming and
purifying jurisprudence and politics, have been recognized by many of
the most distinguished historians, jurists and statesmen.
As the makers of our laws and the founders of our government have
accepted the moral code of the Bible as the basis of our
jurisprudence, and have forbidden the union of church and state, and
have left every citizen free to "worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience," so long as he does not interfere
with the rights of others or violate the moral code common to all
citizens, for the law cannot allow a person to murder or steal, or
burn human sacrifices, or be a polygamist, or commit any other public
crime, even if the dictates of his conscience should lead him into
such a form of religion, because the moral code of the Bible is the
basis of our jurisprudence, and it forbids such things.
Therefore, we demand that the "book of books" be kept where the
rising generation shall come under its moral teaching without party
or sectarian comment, so that all may understand the fundamental
principles upon which the science of our common law rests, and thus
one of the objects of the order is "to maintain the public school
system of the United States and to prevent sectarian interference
therewith, and upholding the reading of the Holy Bible therein."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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