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cannot be. When nations become anti-relig
ious, or even non-religious, they perish from
moral weakness, turpitude and dissoluteness
of character. France tried in the bloody days
of the commune, but was soon whipped back
into a belief in God and worship of Him. Rus
sia has apparently been making a similar ex
periment in recent years, with what lament
able results the world well knows. Relig
ion is as essential to national character and
felicity as it is to individual character and
felicity.
Religion Necessary to Morality.
But the only way to secure good character
to the nation is to secure it to the individual;
and as character is formed largely in youth, if
religious instruction is to influence character
it must be given to the young in the home, in
the school, in the college, during the whole edu
cative period of life. If true education has
for its chief aim the formation of right char
ters, then no system of education can be com
plete with the element of religion left out.
Here is where our state schools and universi
ties find themselves seriously handicapped.
They are forbidden by law to teach religion.
In at least one of the states it is against the
law as interpreted by its supreme court even to
read the Word of God in the state schools. In
a distant state a short time since twenty men
were taken by force from their lawful work
in a coal mine, bound as criminals, treated with
untold indignities and barbarity and finally
shot down like dogs. In 1920 one city in thig
same state, according to the statement of one of
its own officials, had more than eight times
as many arrests for murder as the whole of
England and Wales, and the same city, it is
said, stands so far this year second in the list
of American cities in the number of burglaries
and house-breaking. This is only a confirma
tion of the age-old fact that without religion
morality cannot long be maintained among
any people.
Public Education.
Perhaps we have gone too far in the mat
ter of religious instruction in the state schools.
It is well enough to keep separate the state
and the church ; but it is fatal to separate the
state from religion, for religion is the founda
tion stone of the successful state. Moreover, the
state is as truly an institution of God as is the
church. "The powers that be are ordained of
God." Can the creature wisely ignore its crea
tor? However, this may be, the fact remains
that our state schools, when the mass of our
children are educated, give no religious in
struction. Some of the leading educators in
the state schools recognize this lack, and are
calling upon the churches to meet the need.
When the state entered the field of educa
tion so generously, putting into it large sums
of money, and an equipment far beyond the
ability of the Church to equal, and as this
was done by taxes levied on all the people, it
was thought by many that the Church should
withdraw from the field of so-called secular
education and confine herself to religious in
struction in the home, in the Sunday-school
and in theological seminaries. I remember
hearing a prominent churchman thirty years
ago, himself a well-known educator, express
grave doubts as to the wisdom or necessity of
the Church establishing and supporting schools
and colleges to teach the things the state was
already teaching in her well-equipped institu
tions of learning. Under such influences, while
the Church did not altogether abandon the
work, her efforts were reduced to a minimum.
The Call to the Church.
The call now comes to the Church from edu
cators, statesmen, publicists and economists,
to reenter this field of service. The churches
are hearing and heeding the call. Our Meth
odist and Baptist churches in the South alone
in the past few years raised many millions of
dollars for their schools and colleges. Our own
Church in the South has heard the call, and
has raised more money for schools and col
leges the past three years than in the thirty
years preceding. What is true of these
churches in the South is true in some measure
of all the churches in all sections of our coun
try.
This the Church must continue to do to her
utmost ability. The spiritual is the Church's
special sphere of service. For this she was
founded by her divine Author, who "died, the
just for the unjust, that He might bring us to
God," and who bade Ilis Church to carry
this good news "to the uttermost part of
earth." It is, therefore, the special province
of the Church to bring men to God and to bind
them to Him. The Church is the one institu
tion which can give to the young a complete
education, not only the body and the mind,
but also of the spirit. This she must do first
in the home ; second in the Bible-school and the
sanctuary; third in the school and colloge.
In the College.
Particularly in the college for this reason :
In the grammar and high school, the young
are still under the influence of the home, the
Bible school and the church. The critical pe
riod with them comes when they leave home
for college, when they leave the high school
for the university. They have now a new free
dom; there are new perils and responsibili
ties which must be met largely without the
counsel of father, mother or pastor. It is a
period when they are forming ideals for life;
when they are reasoning out things for them
selves; when they are determining their future
career; when their characters are setting for
life. IIow important the institution to which
they go ? its professors, its students, its tradi
tions, its atmosphere ! For every institution
has an atmosphere of its own, just as every
home has, and it is the most subtle and power
ful of all influences in the formation of char
acter. Many are poisoned and ruined for life
during their college career. Bismark is quoted
as having said: "One-third of the students
who go to German universities contract evil
habits from which they die young: one-third
are idlers and come to naught; one-third im
prove their opportunities at school and later
rule Europe." Another has said: "It is not
of so much importance what a man knows
when he leaves college as what he loves. This
is true, for what he loves decides what he will
do with what he knows, decides his character,
his life and his destiny. And it is given to the
Church to teach men what to love, viz: "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and thy neighbor as thyself."
The Church's Missions.
Moreover, the Church has a world-wide mis
sion to perform. It is to proclaim to all the
world the life everlasting through her divine
Lord ? a stupendous task. She cannot accom
plish it without spiritually equipped men and
women as leaders. She cannot get these in
sufficient humbers, sufficiently trained, except
from her own institutions of learning. And
while the Church under present conditions may
not be able to educate the masses, she can go
far in furnishing for the masses an educated,
spiritually equipped leadership. This she aims
to do in her colleges and seminaries, and as go
the leaders, so go the nation and the world.
Memphis, Tenn.
AN HISTORIC OAK.
By Mrs. Mary M. North.
America has a plethora of beautiful trees.
From the day when white men came and
began making history, there have been many
trees which have become a part of the history
of the United {States because of their connec
tion with the history -makers of the country.
The northern section of the country at first
furnished the rocks, hills and trees which were
so closely identified with the great country's
history, then like a stream it flowed to the
south, and one auspicious day, it struck St.
Simon's Island, off the coast of Georgia, and
a towering oak became famous because John
Wesley, the English clergyman, who became
the apostle of Methodism preached under its
spreading branches.
This tree is still standing at Frederiea and
not far away from the remains of a fort, where,
the British were quartered and in the early
days made a stand against the Spaniards. Some
of the old cannon are still to be seen. America
was yet young when John and Charles Wesley,
sons of Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth
parish, were invited by Oglethorpe, founder of
the Savannah colony, to go with him as "mis
sioners" to the new colony. They came over
in an emigrant ship. Both were divinity stu
dents, and believed in methodical, abstemious
living. John Wesley had only recently been
ordained a priest in the Church of England,
and was such when he preached his first ser
mon in America in 1736. He organized a Sab
bath school in Savannah soon after, and before
returning to England, he probably preached a
number of times beneath the grand old ''king
of the forest" on St. Simon's Island, which
still stands as a memorial to him and bears
the name of the Wresley Oak.
Just back of the oak is an Episcopal church,
which in pictures of the oak looks as if it
were under its branches.
Until a few years ago a crude, but strong,
oak pulpit was under the oak and close to the
trunk.
From the hoary crown of the great tree, to
the lowest limb, and almost touching the
ground, hangs the grey Spanish moss which
covers all southern oaks. The writer of this,
nominated this tree for the hall of fame of the
American Forestry Association, and gave its
history in the Forestry Magazine. A gavel
made from a limb of the Wesley Oak, which
broke off about twenty-five years ago, was
presented to Bishop John W. Hamilton by
the writer upon the eve of his departure for
London, to be used by him at the Methodist
Ecumenical Conference, over which he pre
sided, and afterwards to be deposited in the
Museum of the Methodist University in Wash
ington, D. C.
Herndon, Va.
THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD? PAST
AND PRESENT.
By C. B. Stevens.
To Christians who attended divine worship
and preaching say 40 years ago, the majority
of sermons delivered today seem strangely out
of line. Let us examine and see wherein we
have lost or gained by the change. Well do
we remember that preaching, and we can tes
tify to the power of those sermons to make
one think and act.
The gist of the message was Repentance,
Faith, Salvation and holy living. To these
mighty themes was added God's joy over the
pardoned one and God's warth for the impen
itent and the ungodly. #
Such preaching, under the power of the Holy