Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns: An Educational Problem for Protestants

by E. A. Sutherland

CONTENTS

Chapter		Page
I	God the Source of Wisdom	[9]
II	The Heavenly School	[15]
III	The Edenic School	[22]
IV	The History of Fifteen Centuries	[42]
V	The School of Abraham	[54]
VI	Education in Israel	[68]
VII	The Educational System of the Pagan World	[92]
VIII	Christ the Educator of Educators	[117]
IX	Education in the Early Church	[139]
X	The Papacy—An Educational Problem	[156]
XI	Education of the Middle Ages	[184]
XII	The Sixteenth-Century Reformation an Educational Reform	[214]
XIII	The Reaction after the Educational Reformation	[248]
XIV	America and the Educational Problem	[288]
XV	America and the Educational Problem (Continued)	[316]
XVI	Christian Education	[339]
XVII	Christian Education (Continued)	[380]

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I
INTRODUCTORY: GOD THE SOURCE OF WISDOM

“Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.... As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; and under it is turned up as it were fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires; and it hath dust of gold. There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen. The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it....

“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me. It can not be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.... The gold and the crystal can not equal it; and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.... Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding?... God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof.”[1]

Man sometimes feels that he understands the way of wisdom, and boasts that he knows the place thereof. He may indeed understand it in a measure, and he may ascertain its abiding place; but that knowledge comes in one way, and only one. He who understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof, opens a channel which connects earth with that fountain of life.

In the creation of the universe that wisdom was manifested. “When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder; then did He see it, and declare it; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out.” Written on the face of creation is the wisdom of the eternal. “And unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” In other words, when man lives in harmony with God,—that is, when physically he acts in accordance with the laws of the universe; when mentally his thoughts are those of the Father; and when spiritually his soul responds to the drawing power of love, that power which controls creation,—then has he entered the royal road which leads direct to wisdom.

Where is the wise? There is implanted in each human heart a longing to come in touch with wisdom. God, by the abundance of life, is as a great magnet, drawing humanity to Himself. So close is the union that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In one man—a man made of flesh and blood like all men now living—there dwelt the spirit of wisdom. More than this, in Him are “hid all the treasures of wisdom;” and hence the life of Immanuel stands a constant witness that the wisdom of the ages is accessible to man. And the record adds, “Ye are complete in Him.”

This wisdom brings eternal life; for in Him are “hid all the treasures of wisdom,” “and ye are complete in Him.” “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God.”

Christ, at Jacob’s well, explained to the woman of Samaria, and through her to you and me, the means of gaining wisdom. The well of living water, from the depths of which the patriarch had drawn for himself, his children, and his cattle, and which he bequeathed as a rich legacy to generations following, who drank, and blessed his name, symbolized worldly wisdom. Men to-day mistake this for that wisdom described in Job, of which God understandeth the way and knoweth the place. Christ spoke of this latter when He said, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.”

Why, then, if wisdom may be had for the asking, if that spiritual drink may be had for the taking, are not all filled? The fountain flows free; why are not all satisfied? Only one reason can be given: men in their search accept falsehood in place of truth. This blunts their sensibilities, until the false seems true and the true false.

“Where is the wise?... hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” “Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect (full-grown): yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this age which are coming to naught: but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, ... which none of the rulers of this world knoweth.”[2]

There is, then, a distinction between the wisdom of God and that of this world. How, then, can we attain unto the higher life,—to the real, the true wisdom? There are things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, which eyes should see and ears hear, and these “God hath revealed unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”

To man, then, if born of the Spirit, is given a spiritual eyesight which pierces infinitude, and enables the soul to commune with the Author of all things. No wonder the realization of such possibilities within himself led the psalmist to exclaim, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it.” And Paul himself exclaimed, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!... For who hath known the mind of the Lord?” “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” And “we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” Hence to us is given the power to commune with Him and to search into the mysteries of the otherwise unfathomable.

Dealing with wisdom is education. If it be the wisdom of the world, then it is worldly education; if, on the other hand, it is a search for the wisdom of God, it is Christian Education.

Over these two questions the controversy between good and evil is waging. The final triumph of truth will place the advocates of Christian education in the kingdom of God. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

That education which links man with God, the source of wisdom, and the author and finisher of our faith, is a spiritual education, and prepares the heart for that kingdom which is within.

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II
THE HEAVENLY SCHOOL

God’s throne, the center around which circled the worlds which had gone forth from the hand of the Creator, was the school of the universe. The Upholder of the worlds was Himself the great Teacher, and His character, love, was the theme of contemplation. Every lesson was a manifestation of His power. To illustrate the workings of the laws of His nature, this Teacher had but to speak, and before the attentive multitudes there stood the living thing. “He spake, and it was; He commanded, and it stood fast.”[3]

Angels, and the beings of other worlds in countless numbers, were the students. The course was to extend through eternity; observations were carried on through limitless space, and included everything from the smallest to the mightiest force, from the formation of the dewdrop to the building of the worlds, and the growth of the mind. To finish the course, if such an expression is permissible, meant to reach the perfection of the Creator Himself.

Angel teachers

To the angelic host was given a work. The inhabitants of worlds were on probation. It was the joy of angels to minister to and teach other creatures of the universe. The law of love was everywhere written; it was the constant study of the heavenly beings. Each thought of God was taken by them; and as they saw the workings of His plans, they fell before the King of kings, crying, “Holy, holy, holy.” Eternity was all too short to reveal His love.

Lucifer’s place in the school of Christ

The Father and Son were often in council. Wrapped together in that glory, the universe awaited the expression of Their one will. As one of the covering cherubim, Lucifer stood the first in power and majesty of all the angelic host. His eye beheld, his ear heard, he knew of all except the deep counsels which the Father, from all eternity, had purposed in the Son. “Christ the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father,—one in nature, in character, in purpose,—the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God.... The Father wrought by His Son in the creation of all heavenly beings. ‘By Him were all things created, ... whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him, and for Him.’ Angels are God’s ministers, radiant with the light ever flowing from His presence, and speeding on rapid wing to execute His will. But the Son, the anointed of God, the ‘express image of His person,’ the ‘brightness of his glory,’ ‘upholding all things by the word of His power,’ holds supremacy over them all.” Lucifer, “son of the morning,” who “sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, ... every precious stone was thy covering.” “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; I have set thee so; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”[4] He who had hovered over the throne of God, who had stood on the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north, and walked up and down among those living stones, each flashing with electric brightness the glory of reflected light, looked upon the council, and envied the position of the Son.

Reason takes the place of faith

Hitherto all eyes had turned instinctively toward the center of light. A cloud, the first one known, darkened the glory of the covering cherub. Turning his eyes inward, he reasoned that he was wronged. Had not he, Lucifer, been the bearer of light and joy to worlds beyond? Why should not his might be recognized? “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee.” “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.”[5] “Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the Most High.”[6]

Character of the true Teacher

While Lucifer thus reasoned, Christ, wrapped within the glory of the Father, was offering His life for the world at its creation. Sin had not yet entered, the world was not yet created; but as the plans were laid, the Son had said, “Should sin enter, I am, from this time, one with those We now create, and their fall will mean My life on earth. Never has My heart gone out for any creation as I put it into this. Man in his earthly home shall have the highest expression of Our love, and for him My love demands that I lay My life beside his in his very creation.” O wondrous gift! O unselfish love! How could that covering cherub, at the moment when the Son of God laid down His life, plan on his own exaltation? Sorrow, the first sorrow that was ever known, filled heaven. The angel choir was silent; the living stones withheld their shining. The stillness was felt throughout the universe.

Creation chooses teachers

An offer was made to return, but pride now closed the channel. Pity and admiration for the leader of the hosts led many to feel that God was unjustly severe. The universe was on trial. “Satan and his sympathizers were striving to reform the government of God. They wished to look into His unsearchable wisdom, and ascertain His purpose in exalting Jesus, and endowing Him with such unlimited power and command.” Those who before, inspired by love, took God at His word, and found their highest pleasure in watching the revealings of His love, now put their own minds in place of God’s word, and reasoned that all was wrong. The unfoldings of His love, which had meant their very life, now looked but darkness and despair. God’s wisdom, darkened by placing self between the throne and them, became foolishness. “All the heavenly host were summoned to appear before the Father to have each case decided.” “About the throne gathered the holy angels, a vast, unnumbered throng,—‘ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,’—the most exalted angels, as ministers and subjects, rejoicing in the light that fell upon them from the presence of the Deity.”

Birth of the rival system of education

The principles of God’s government were now laid bare: it was nothing but a great, broad system of educational development, and angelic hosts then and there decided whether faith in His word would be the standard of their obedience, or whether finite reason would bear sway. Even Satan himself was almost won, as the notes of praise resounded through the domes of heaven; but again pride ruled. Here was born the rival system,—supreme selfishness facing the utter self-forgetfulness of Christ, reason over against faith. After long pleadings, and amidst deep mourning, heaven’s portals opened to close forever upon the one who, with his followers, turned from light into the darkness of despair.

A new era was ushered in; a controversy was begun. High heaven, with its eternal principles of love, life, progress, was challenged by a subtle foe, the father of lies. Deep as is the misery attending the step, yet coexistent with the downward move was formulated the plan which, after the lapse of ages, will prove in a greater degree, and manifest eternally the truth, that “God is love.” The pathway is the way of the cross. It is a retracing of the mental degradation occasioned by the fall, but the process is according to the law of the school of heaven,—“according to your faith.” If ye believe, all things are possible.

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III
THE EDENIC SCHOOL

Creation

“He spake, and it was; He commanded, and it stood fast.”[7] Forth from the throne of the Infinite passed the decree, and life flashing out into space, a world stood forth. Myriads of other worlds, held in their orbits by the ceaseless power of love, made their circuit about the throne of God. But one space in the universe had been reserved for the highest expression of His love, where was to be manifested the depths of this divine attribute. “And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”[8] But even into the darkness His presence penetrated; and as “the Spirit of God was brooding upon the waters,” He said, “Let there be light,” and darkness scattered before the word. The light, reflective of His own being, pleased Him; and He willed that it should be ever present, accompanying every form of life. The first day’s work was done,—a day such as the future man would know, and which, even in his fallen state, would measure off his years.

The second day heard the mandate for the water to separate; and a third gathered the waters into seas, with the dry land appearing. And then “God said, Let the earth put forth grass,”—the lowly blade covering the earth’s nakedness with a robe of living green, itself so humble, yet a part of His life; for his life-breath formed it, and it partook of that life. Then came the herbs and lofty trees, each bearing seed,—self-productive,—for life is reproductive; and as the living coal kindles a sacred fire, so each tree bore within itself the power to reproduce its kind. “And God saw that it was good.” Then, that His own light might ever be the cause of growth, He placed luminaries in the heavens, each being the reflection of His own countenance. By this should life be sustained.

Into the moving waters passed the power of life. “God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”[9] At His word an abundance of life filled earth and sky and sea. Every drop of water sustained life; every square inch of air supported its myriads. And from the mighty leviathan that sported in the waters to the mote that floated in the air, all life proclaimed the love of God; and the Creator, viewing with satisfaction the work of His hand, pronounced each form of life perfect in its sphere. Each held within its own body the breath of life; each in its every movement sang hallelujahs to the Maker of the heavens and the earth.

Mind—the highest form of creation

But the work was not yet complete. A mind controlled the universe; and its powers could be appreciated, its heart-love returned in the fullest sense, only by mind,—by beings made in the image of God Himself. And so “God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” He can then hold dominion over the lower orders of creation, and standing to them as We do to the universe, all nature will see Our power in him. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”[10]

As if the moment of supreme endeavor had been reached even by God, He molded the form of clay,—one, only one, in the image of Himself. He breathed into its nostrils His own breath,—that breath which, vocalized, moved the worlds; before which angels bowed in adoration. That all-pervading element of life surged through the mighty frame, the organs performed their functions, the brain worked; the man Adam stood forth, strong and perfect; and instead of the piercing wail which now announces the beginning of a new life, his lips parted, and a song of praise ascended to the Creator.

Standing by his side was his Elder Brother, Christ, the King of heaven. Adam felt the thrill of unity and harmony; and while for a “little time inferior,” yet within him lay the possibilities of attaining greater heights than angels held. He was to be the companion of God, the perfect reflection of His light and glory; there was no thought of God that might not have access to the brain of man. The universe spread out in panoramic view before him. The earth, newborn, presented untold beauties. By his side stood his companion, the other half of his own nature, the two forming a perfect whole. The harmony of thought brought strength and life; and, as a result of this unity, new beings like themselves would be brought into existence, until the earth was peopled.

The Eden home

God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and from the beauties of the earth chose the most beautiful spot for the home of the new pair. In the midst of the garden stood the tree of life, the fruit of which afforded man a perfect physical food. Beneath its spreading branches God Himself visited them, and, talking with them face to face, revealed to them the way of immortality. As they ate of the fruit of the tree of life, and found every physical want supplied, they were constantly reminded of the need of the spiritual meat which was gained by open converse with the Light from heaven. The glory of God surrounded the tree, and enwrapped in this halo, Adam and Eve spent much time in communing with the heavenly visitors. According to the divine system of teaching, they were here to study the laws of God and learn of his character. They “were not only His children, but students receiving instruction from the all-wise Creator.”

Subjects taught in the first school on earth

Angels, beholding the wonders of the new creation, delighted to fly earthward; and two from the heavenly host, by special appointment, became the instructors of the holy ones. “They were full of vigor imparted by the tree of life, and their intellectual power was but little less than that of the angels. The mysteries of the visible universe—‘the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge,’—afforded them an exhaustless source of instruction and delight. The laws and operations of nature, which have engaged men’s study for six thousand years, were opened to their minds by the infinite Framer and Upholder of the universe.

a. Botany b. Zoology c. Astronomy d. Physics e. Meteorology f. Mineralogy

“They held converse with leaf and flower and tree, gathering from each the secrets of its life. With every living creature, from the mighty leviathan that playeth among the waters to the insect mote that floats in the sunbeam, Adam was familiar. He had given to each its name, and he was acquainted with the nature and habits of all. God’s glory in the heavens, the innumerable worlds in their orderly revolutions, ‘the balancing of the clouds,’ the mysteries of light and sound, of day and night,—all were open to the study of our first parents. On every leaf of the forest or stone of the mountains, in every shining star, in earth and air and sky, God’s name was written. The order and harmony of creation spoke to them of infinite wisdom and power. They were ever discovering some attraction that filled their hearts with deeper love, and called forth fresh expressions of gratitude.”

As new beauties came to their attention, they were filled with wonder. Each visit of the heavenly teachers elicited from the earthly students scores of questions which it was the delight of the angels to answer; and they in turn opened to the minds of Adam and Eve principles of living truth which sent them forth to their daily tasks of pleasure full of wondering curiosity, ready to use every God-given sense to discover illustrations of the wisdom of heaven. “As long as they remained loyal to the divine law, their capacity to know, to enjoy, and to love would continually increase. They would be constantly gaining new treasures of knowledge, discovering fresh springs of happiness, and obtaining clearer and yet clearer conceptions of the immeasurable, unfailing love of God.”

Method of instruction

The divine method of teaching is here revealed,—God’s way of dealing with minds which are loyal to him. The governing laws of the universe were expounded. Man, as if looking into a picture, found in earth, sky, and sea, in the animate and inanimate world, the exemplification of those laws. He believed, and with a heavenly light, which is the reward of faith, he approached each new subject of investigation. Divine truths unfolded continually. Life, power, happiness,—these subjects grew with his growth. The angels stimulated the desire to question, and again led their students to search for answers to their own questions. At his work of dressing the garden, Adam learned truths which only work could reveal. As the tree of life gave food to the flesh, and reminded constantly of the mental and spiritual food necessary, so manual training added light to the mental discipline. The laws of the physical, mental, and spiritual world were enunciated; man’s threefold nature received attention. This was education, perfect and complete.

The magnetic power about the tree of life held man, filling his senses with a thrill of delight. Adam and Eve lived by that power, and the human mind was an open channel for the flow of God’s thought. Rapidly the character of the Edenic pair was being formed, but strength could not come from mere automatic action. Freedom to choose God’s company and spirit was given; and while He wooed them with His tenderest love, He had placed in the midst of the garden a tree of another sort.

A lesson in faith

To the man He said, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”[11] What was the meaning of this command? As the angel teachers heard the question from man’s lips, a cloud seemed to dim the brightness of their glory. Did not Adam feel a strange sensation, as if the fullness of divine thought was suddenly checked in its course through his brain? He was preparing himself to accept teachings of a different character. Then was told the story of the one sorrow heaven had known,—of the fall of Lucifer, and the darkness it brought to him; that while he lived, the decree of God was that he could no longer remain within the walls of Paradise. In low tones it was told how some could not see the justice of this; that Lucifer had been given the earth as his present home; that he would use his arts to capture them; but that light and power had been placed about the tree of life, and remaining true to the teaching given within the circle of its rays, no evil could overtake them. “Faith, have faith in God’s word,” said the angel, as he winged his flight toward heaven.

The word “death” sounded unnatural to human ears, and as they sat together talking of the angel’s words, a longing to understand filled their hearts. Fear?—they knew no such word. Was not their Maker love? Eve, wandering from her husband’s side, found, before she knew it, that she was nearing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She stood gazing from a distance, when from the rich verdure came a voice of sweetest music:—

“Beautiful woman, made in God’s own image, what can mar thy perfect beauty? What can stop that life now coursing through thy veins? ‘Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?... Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.’” Speaking, he plucked and ate. Was this the deceiver? Had she not been promised a knowledge of all things? Was she not to be with God? Perhaps this was some new revelation of his goodness. She felt no danger. He ate, why should not she?

Effects of doubt

Her curiosity was aroused, and she was flattered by the words of the serpent. Instead of fleeing, she argued with him, and attempted to decide in her own mind between right and wrong. But God had told her what was right. That moment of indecision, of doubting, was the devil’s opportunity.

Unable to reach the soul of man by direct means, Satan approached it through those outer channels, the senses. He had everything to win, and proceeded cautiously. If man’s mind could be gained, his great work would be accomplished. To do this he used a process of reasoning—a method the reverse of that used by the Father in his instruction at the tree of life. The mind of Eve was strong, and quickly drew conclusions; hence, when her new teacher said, “If ye eat, ‘ye shall be as gods,’” in the mind of Eve arose the thought, God has immortality. “Therefore,” said Satan, “if ye eat, ‘ye shall not surely die.’” The conclusion was logically drawn, and the world, from the days of Eve to the present time, has based its religious belief on that syllogism, the major premise of which, as did Eve, they fail to recognize as false. Why?—Because they use the mind to decide the truth instead of taking a direct statement from the Author of wisdom. From this one false premise comes the doctrine of the natural immortality of man, with its endless variations, some modern names of which are theosophy, Spiritualism, reincarnation, and evolution. The sons and daughters of Eve condemn her for the mistake made six thousand years ago, while they themselves repeat it without question. It is preached from the pulpit, it is taught in the schoolroom, and its spirit pervades the thought of every book written whose author is not in perfect harmony with God and truth. Now began the study of “dialectics,” so destructive to the Christian’s faith.

Eve was deceived because she depended upon sense perceptions

Having accepted the logic of the serpent, and having transferred her faith from the word of God to the tree of knowledge at Satan’s suggestion, the woman could easily be led to test the truth of all his statements by her senses. A theory had been advanced; the experimental process now began. That is the way men now gain their knowledge, but their wisdom comes otherwise. She looked upon the forbidden fruit, but no physical change was perceptible as the result of the misuse of this sense. This led her to feel more sure that the argument used had been correct. Her ears were attentive to the words of the serpent, but she perceived no change as a result of the perverted use of the sense of hearing. This, to the changing mind of the woman, was still more conclusive proof that the words of Christ and angels did not mean what she had at first thought they meant. The senses of touch, smell, and taste were in turn used, and each corroborated the conclusion drawn by the devil. The woman was deceived, and through the deception her mind was changed. This same change of mind may be wrought either by deception or as a result of false reasoning.

A change in the mind of Adam

Eve approached Adam with the fruit in her hand. Instead of answering in the oft-repeated words of Christ, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” he took up the logic of the serpent. Having eaten, his mind was also changed. He who from creation had thought the thoughts of God, was yielding to the mind of the enemy. The exactness with which he had once understood the mind of God was exemplified when he named the animals; for the thought of God which formed the animal passed through the mind of Adam, and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

Evidence of a changed mind

The completeness of the change which took place is seen in the argument used when God walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. Said Adam, “The woman gave me to eat. Thou gavest me the woman. Therefore Thou art to blame.” This was another decidedly logical conclusion, from the standpoint of the wisdom of the serpent, and it was repeated by Eve, who laid the blame first on the serpent, and finally on God himself. Self-justification, self-exaltation, self-worship,—here was the human origin of the papacy, that power which “opposeth and exalteth itself above all that is called God.”

Spiritual death the first result of sin

The spiritual death which followed the perversion of the senses was attended, in time, by physical death. Indeed, the fruit had scarcely been eaten when the attention of the man and his wife was turned toward externals. The soul, which had enveloped the physical man as a shroud of light, withdrew, and the physical man appeared. A sense of their nakedness now appalled them. Something was lacking; and with all the glory they had known, with all the truths which had been revealed, there was nothing to take the place of the departed spiritual nature. “Dying, thou shalt die,” was the decree; and had not the Saviour at this moment made known to Adam the plan of the cross, eternal death would have been inevitable.

God, through His instruction, had taught that the result of faith would be immortal life. Satan taught, and attempted to prove his logic by a direct appeal to the senses, that there was immortal life in the wisdom that comes as the result of human reason. The method employed by Satan is that which men to-day call the natural method, but in the mind of God the wisdom of the world is foolishness. The method which to the godly mind, to the spiritual nature, seems natural, is foolishness to the world.

True education and redemption

There are but two systems of education,—the one based on what God calls wisdom, the gift of which is eternal life; the other based on what the world regards as wisdom, but which God says is foolishness. This last exalts reason above faith, and the result is spiritual death. That the fall of man was the result of choosing the false system of education can not be controverted. Redemption comes through the adoption of the true system of education.

Re-creation is a change of mind,—an exchange of the natural for the spiritual. “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In order to render such a change possible, Christ must bruise the head of the serpent; that is, the philosophy of the devil must be disproved by the Son of God. Christ did this, but in so doing, his heel, representing his physical nature, was bruised. The result of the acceptance of the satanic philosophy has been physical suffering; and the more completely man yields to the system built upon that philosophy, the more complete is the subjection of the race to physical infirmities.

Physical degeneracy

After the fall, man turned to coarser articles of diet, and his nature gradually became more gross. The spiritual nature, at first the prominent part of his being, was dwarfed and overruled until it was but the “small voice” within. With the development of the physical and the intellectual to the neglect of the spiritual, have come the evils of modern society,—the love of display, the perversion of taste, the deformity of the body, and those attendant sins which destroyed Sodom, and now threaten our cities. Man became careless in his work also, and the earth failed to yield her fullness. As a result, thorns and thistles sprang up.

It is not surprising, after following the decline of the race, to find that the system of education introduced by Christ begins with the instruction given in the garden of Eden, and that it is based on the simple law of faith. We better appreciate the gift of Christ when we dwell upon the thought that while suffering physically, while taking our infirmities into his own body, He yet preserved a sound mind and a will wholly subject to the Father’s, that by so doing the philosophy of the archdeceiver might be overthrown by the divine philosophy.

Again, it is but natural to suppose that when called upon to decide between the two systems of education, the human and the divine, and Christian education is chosen, that man will also have to reform his manner of eating and living. The original diet of man is again made known, and for his home he is urged to choose a garden spot, away from crowded cities, where God can speak to his spiritual nature through His works.

The false science and death

God does use the senses of man; but knowledge thus gained becomes wisdom only when enlightened by the Spirit, the gateway to whose fountain is opened by the key of faith. Beneath the tree of life originated the highest method of education,—the plan the world needs to-day. Beneath the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil arose the conflicting system, having ever one object in view,—the overthrow of the eternal principles of truth. Under one guise, then under another, it has borne sway upon the earth. Whether as Babylonish learning, Greek philosophy, Egyptian wisdom, the high glitter of papal pomp, or the more modest but no less subtle workings of modern science, the results always have been, and always will be, a savor of death unto death.

The true science of life

As was the unassuming life of the Saviour of man when walking the earth unrecognized by the lordly Pharisees and wise men of his day, so has been the progress of truth. It has kept steadily on the onward march, regardless of oppression. Men’s minds, clouded by self-worship, fail to recognize the voice from heaven. It is passed by as the low mutterings of thunder at the gate. Beautiful when the Father spoke to his Son, and the halo of heavenly light encircling eternal truth is explained by natural causes. Man’s reason is opposed to simple faith, but those who will finally reach the state of complete harmony with God will have begun where Adam failed. Wisdom will be gained by faith. Self will have been lost in the adoration of the great Mind of the universe, and he who was created in the image of God, who was pronounced by the Master Mind as “very good,” will, after the struggle with sin, be restored to the harmony of the universe by the simple act of faith.

“If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”

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IV
THE HISTORY OF FIFTEEN CENTURIES

As a stone, hurled from some mountain peak, crashes its way toward the valley beneath, gaining velocity with each foot of descent, until, wrapped within it, lies a power of destruction unmeasured, so man, turning from the gate of Paradise, began a downward career which in intensity and rapidity can be measured only by the height from which he started.

Two schools before the flood

Giant minds held mighty powers in abeyance. Before the strong will of men of the first ten centuries few forces could stand. As the plane to which it was possible for him to attain was perfection, so the level to which he descended was confusion itself. Men’s lives, instead of being narrowed by the brief span of threescore years and ten, were measured by centuries; and intellects, mighty by birth, had time as well as power to expand. The man of seventy was then but a lad, with life and all its possibilities spread out before him. Adam lived to see his children to the eighth generation; and when we think that from his own lips Enoch learned the story of the fall, of the glories of the Eden home; when we bear in mind that Enoch probably saw this same ancestor laid in the earth, there to molder to dust, we better understand the relation he desired to sustain to his God. After a life of three hundred years, in which, the Sacred Record says, he “walked with God,” earth’s attraction grew so slight that he himself was taken into heaven. This was less than sixty years after the death of Adam. Passing beyond the gate of Eden, two classes of minds developed. Clear and distinct as light from darkness was the difference between the two. Cain, by exalting his own reasoning powers, accepted the logic of Satan. Admitting the physical plane to be the proper basis for living, he lost all appreciation of spiritual things, and depended wholly upon feeling. True, for a time he adhered to the form of worship, coming week by week to the gate of Eden to offer sacrifice; but his eye of faith was blind. When he saw his brother’s sacrifice accepted, a feeling of hatred sprang up in his breast, and, raising his hand, he took that brother’s life.

Men are startled at the rapidity of the descent from Edenic purity to a condition where murder was easy, but it was the natural result of the educational system chosen by Cain. Reason exalted above faith makes man like the engine without the governor.

Character developed in the worldly school

Murder, however, was but one result of the decision made by Cain. He fled from the presence of God, and, with his descendants built the cities of the East. Physical needs predominated, so that the whole attention of this people was turned to the gratification of fleshly desires. Pride increased, love of wealth was a ruling passion; the artificial took, more and more, the place once occupied by the natural. In the place of God-worship was self-worship, or paganism. This was the religious aspect, and here are to be found the first worshipers of the sun, the human progenitors of the modern papacy.

Affects government

As there was a change in religion, so there was a change in government. There could no longer be a theocracy, the father of the family being the high priest unto God; for God had been lost sight of, and his place was filled by man himself. Hence, these descendants of Cain flocked together into cities, where the strong bore rule over the weak, and thus developed an absolute monarchy, which is perpetuated to-day in the kingdoms of eastern Asia.

The education which upheld paganism in religion and monarchy in government was the same as that which in later days controlled Greece, and is known by us to-day as Platonism. It is but another name for an education which exalts the mind of man above God, and places human philosophy ahead of divine philosophy.

Origin of false philosophy

The philosophy which was thus exalted,—this science falsely so-called,—deified nature, and would to-day be known as evolution. You think the name a modern one. It may be, but the philosophy antedates the flood, and the schools of those men before the flood taught for truth the traditions of men as truly as they are taught to-day.

We think, perhaps, that there were no schools then, but that is a mistake. “The training of the youth in those days was after the same order as children are being educated and trained in this age,—to love excitement, to glorify themselves, to follow the imaginations of their own evil hearts.” Their keen minds laid hold of the sciences; they delved into the mysteries of nature. They made wonderful progress in inventions and all material pursuits. But the imaginations of their hearts were only evil continually.

City life unfitted minds for truth

Children educated in the cities had their evil tendencies exaggerated. The philosophical teaching of the age blotted out all faith; and when Noah, a teacher of righteousness, raised his voice against the popular education, and proclaimed his message of faith, even the little children scoffed at him.

So polluted were the cities that Enoch chose to spend much time in retired places, where he could commune with God, and where he would be in touch with nature. At times he entered the cities, proclaiming to the inhabitants the truth given to him by God. Some listened, and occasionally small companies sought him in his places of retirement, to listen to his words of warning. But the influence of early training, the pressure brought to bear by society, and the philosophy of the schools, exerted a power too strong to resist, and they turned from the pleadings of conscience to the old life.

Antediluvian science teaching was contrary to God’s word

As Noah told of the coming flood, and as he and his sons continued to build the ark, men and children derided. “Water from heaven! Ah, Noah, you may talk of your spiritual insight, but who ever heard of water coming out of the sky? The thing is an impossibility; it is contrary to all reason, to all scientific truth, and to all earth’s experience. You may think such things were revealed to you; but since the days of our father Adam, no such thing ever happened.” Such statements seemed true. Generation after generation had looked into a sky undarkened by storm-clouds. Night after night dew watered the growing plants. Why should they believe otherwise? They could see no reason for it. To those antediluvians, the possibility of a flood seemed as absurd as does its recital as a matter of history to the modern higher critic. It was out of harmony with men’s senses, hence an impossibility.

The student in the nineteenth century finds in the earth’s crust great beds of coal, or the remains of monsters which once lived upon the face of the earth, and he accounts for these by saying that “time is long.” In the words of Dana, “If time from the commencement of the Silurian age included forty-eight millions of years, which some geologists would pronounce much too low an estimate, the Paleozoic part, according to the above ratio, would comprise thirty-six millions, the Mesozoic nine millions, and the Cenozoic three millions.” Modern text-books are filled with these and related ideas of evolution, which account for the effects of the flood by gradual changes consuming millions of years.

An education of sight and not faith

The Word of God is again laid aside, and man by his own power of reasoning draws conclusions contrary to the testimony of the Inspired Record. The theory of evolution is thus substantiated in the human mind; and as the antediluvians were, by their scientific research and wisdom, falsely so-called, unfitted to receive the message of the flood, so people to-day, by pursuing a similar course, are unfitting themselves for the message of Christ’s appearance in the clouds of heaven. When will man learn that there are things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and yet which exist as really as do those few things—few compared with the many in the regions beyond—which fall within our range of vision?

Before the flood, no peal of thunder had ever resounded among the hills, no lightning had ever played through the heavens. You who to-day have read the works of earth’s greatest authors, who have delved into the secrets of science, have you discovered the soul of man? Have you yet found the golden cord of faith? Should the Almighty question you as He did His servant Job, how would you pass the examination? To you would befall the fate of the generation of Noah. Four men built the ark. Such a thing had never been seen before. “How unshapely,” say they. “How absurd to think of water standing over the earth until that will float!” But in the ears of the faithful four whispered the still, small voice of God, and the work went steadily on.

Flood a result of wrong education

The controversy was an educational problem. Christian education was almost wiped from the earth. Worldly wisdom seemed about to triumph. In point of numbers its adherents vastly exceeded those in the schools of the Christians. Was this seeming triumph of evil over good a sign that evil was stronger than truth?—By no means. Only in the matter of scheming and deceiving does the devil have the advantage; for God can work only in a straightforward manner.

The tree of life was still upon the earth, an emblem of the wisdom of God. Man, however, had turned his back upon it. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil brought death, and this the inhabitants of the earth were about to realize, although their worldly wisdom taught them the contrary.

Wrong methods of education cause the withdrawal of God’s Spirit

The tree of life was taken to heaven before the flood,[12] thus symbolizing the departure of true wisdom from the earth. The flood came. Deep rumblings of thunder shook the very earth. Man and beast fled terrified from the flashes of lightning. The heavens opened; the rain fell,—at first in great drops. The earth reeled and cracked open; the fountains of the great deep were broken up; water came from above, water from beneath. A cry went up to heaven, as parents clasped their children in the agony of death; but the Spirit of the Life-giver was withdrawn. Does this seem cruel? God had pleaded with each generation, with each individual, saying, “Why will ye, why will ye?” But only a deaf ear was turned to Him. Man, satisfied with schooling his senses, with depending upon his own reasoning powers, closed, one by one, every avenue through which the Spirit of God could work; and nature, responding to the loss, was broken to her very heart, and wept floods of tears.

One family, and only one, bound heaven and earth together. Upon the bosom of the waters rocked the ark in safety. God’s Spirit rested there, and in the midst of greater turmoil than angels had ever witnessed, a peace which passeth all understanding filled the minds and hearts of that faithful company.

Faith the basis of the new education

The waters subsided; the earth lay a desolate mass. Mountains stood bleak and barren where once stretched plains of living green. Trees, magnificent in their towering strength, lay dying as the waters left the earth. Great masses of rock covered places hitherto inhabited. This family came forth as strangers in a strange land. The plan of education must start anew. Each successive step away from God rendered more difficult man’s access to his throne; it had lengthened, as it were, the ladder one more round. There was at first this one lesson to be taken by faith,—that God was true in saying, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” It was a lesson of faith versus reason. Next came two lessons of faith: first, faith opposed by reason; and, second, the plan of redemption through Christ. Then came the third lesson,—the flood. Would that man could have grasped the first, or, missing that, he had taken the second, or even losing hold of that, he could have taken the third by faith, and prevented the flood.

From beginning to end it was a matter of education. Christians to-day exalt the material to the neglect of the spiritual, as surely as did men before the flood. Shall we not look for similar results, since similar principles are at work?

The education of the popular schools advocated nature study; but, leaving God out, they deified nature, and accounted for the existence of all things by the same theories which are to-day termed evolution. This is man’s theory of creation with faith dropped out of the calculation.

“This they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment.”[13]

“As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”[14]

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V
THE SCHOOL OF ABRAHAM

Rapid decline after the flood

The ease with which men fall into evil habits is illustrated in the history of the world after the flood. Upon leaving the ark, four families who had known God, had committed to them the peopling of the earth. But evil tendencies, the result of years of acquaintance with the iniquity of the antediluvian world, gained the ascendency, and the sons of Noah, failing to carry out the principles of true education in their homes, saw their children drifting away from God.

True, the bow of promise appeared often in the heavens as a reminder of the awful results of sin, and telling them also of the God-Father who sought their hearts’ service. But again the logic of the evil one was accepted, and men said, “We shall not surely die.” As a sign of their confidence in their own strength they built the tower of Babel. They had been scattered in the hill country, where nature and natural scenery tended to elevate their thoughts. They followed the valley, and built cities in the low plains.

Not more than a single century had elapsed since the flood had destroyed all things. The change was a rapid one. The successive steps in degeneration are readily traced. They chose an education of the senses rather than one of faith; they left the country and congregated in cities; a monarchy arose. Schools sprang up which perpetuated these ideas; paganism took the place of the worship of God. The tower was a monument to the sun; idols filled the niches in the structure. Men offered their children as sacrifices.

The slaying of infants and children is but carrying out in the extreme what is always done mentally and spiritually when children are taught false philosophy. That man might not bring upon himself immediate destruction, the language was confused, and education in false philosophy thus rendered more difficult.

Abraham called from Ur

It was from this influence, as found in the city of Ur of the Chaldees, that Abraham was called. Although the family of Terah knew the true God, and His worship was maintained in the home, it was impossible for him to counteract the influence of the city with its idolatrous practices; so God called Abraham into the country.

He was obliged to go forth by faith. The removal meant the severing of every earthly tie. Wealth and ease were exchanged for a wandering life. How he could make a living Abraham did not know. How he could educate his children he did not understand. But he went forth Terah, his father, and Lot, his nephew, went with him. They halted at Haran, a smaller city, and remained there until the father’s death. Then came the command to go forward. Out into a new country he went, a pilgrim and a stranger.

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith.”[15]

Called to teach

It was when the patriarch had journeyed into this strange land, and knew not whither he was going, that his work as a teacher began. The commission of Christ to the apostles, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,” was not more emphatic than the command to Abraham. God called him to teach, and he was to be a teacher of nations. To the disciples it was said, “All power is given unto Me; ... go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” A power was to attend their teaching. Power is synonymous with life; there is no power without life, and a teacher has power in proportion as he lives what he wishes to teach.

Abraham was to be a teacher of nations, hence he must have power. Power could come only as the result of a life of faith, and so his whole life was one continual lesson of faith. Each experience made him a more powerful teacher.

God prepares Abraham to teach

His faith grew by trial, and only as he mounted round by round the ladder which spanned the gulf twixt heaven and earth, and which had seemed to lengthen with each succeeding generation. A period of not less than twenty-five years—years filled with doubt, fear, anxiety—was necessary to bring him to the place where the name Abraham—the father of nations—could be rightly claimed by him. Another quarter of a century rolled over his head, years in which he watched the growth of the child of promise; then the voice of God called him to raise his hand to take the life of that same son. He who had said that in Isaac should all nations of the earth be blessed, now demanded the sacrifice of that life at the father’s hand. But He, the Life-giver in the event of the child’s birth, was now believed to be the Life-giver should death rob him of his child, and the father faltered not.

These fifty years, with God and angels as teachers, reveal to us, as no other period does, the results of true education, and merit careful attention. If the workings of the Spirit ever wrought changes in the human heart, those changes came to Abraham. It is not strange that when God called the first time the voice seemed far away, and but partially awoke the slumbering soul. As if in a dream, he, his father, his nephew, and his wife, broke away from earthly ties and from the beautiful Chaldean plains, where luxury and learning were daily things of life, and journeyed toward the hill country.

How God taught faith

It has been stated before that God teaches by the enunciation of principles, or universal laws, and the spirit which comes by faith enlightens the senses that they may grasp the illustrations of these laws in the physical world. That is heaven’s method of teaching the angelic throng, and it was the method applied before the fall. With Abraham the case was at the beginning far from ideal. Here was a pupil lacking faith. How should he be taught the wisdom of the Eternal? God leads in a mysterious way. As Christ lived His visible life, because the eye of faith was blind in Israel, so, in the time of Abraham, God taught inductively, as He now says the heathen are to be taught. To him who had no faith, God came visibly at first, and, leading step by step, developed a faith which before his death enabled Abraham to grasp eternal principles of truth if God but spoke.

In Ur, God said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and will make thy name great.” Years passed, age crept on, and still there was no heir. Could he have mistaken the voice which bade him turn his face toward Canaan, and promised to him and his descendants all the land from the “great river, the river Euphrates, ... unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun”? “And Abraham said, Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless? Shall it be that my steward, Eliezer, shall become my heir? Shall he be the child of promise? Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.”[16]

This was man’s way of working out a promise made by the Maker of the universe. Have we passed beyond this elementary lesson of faith? Can we grasp God’s promise of faith, and, with no fear or thought, leave results with Him who knows?

No, Abraham; think not that heaven is limited by the line which bounds thy horizon. “This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.” And, standing under the starry canopy of heaven, Abraham’s soul grasped the power of the Creator. He himself to be a father! His face lighted with a holy joy as he related to Sarai his experience with God.

But Sarai bare him no children; and that she might help heaven fulfill its promise, she forsook the divine law of marriage, and gave to Abraham her handmaid, Hagar, to be his wife. Would that man could grasp at least the beginnings of the possibilities of God! Untold suffering was the out-growth of that one step of unbelief. Not one, not two people, but generations then unborn, had their destinies marred by this lack of faith. Hagar, sitting over against her dying child, and weeping because of the bitterness of her fate, is a constant portrayal of an attempt to live by sight.[17] Again, the approach of the angel and the rescue of the child records in burning characters the longing of Him who pities our blindness, and awards us far above what we can ask or think.

Birth of Isaac

Ninety-nine years passed over the patriarch’s head, and still the voice of heaven’s messenger was greeted with a laugh when the promise was repeated. Sarah turned within the tent door when the angel guest, whom they had fed, repeated to Abraham the promise concerning his wife. But she bare to Abraham a son whom God named Isaac, in whom the nations of the earth were blessed. Joy untold filled the heart of the mother and father as they beheld the babe.

This was the joy of sight. Twenty-five years before, the thing was just as true, and Abraham might lawfully have worked upon the basis of its truth; but the stubborn human heart requires many lessons. Twenty-five years after this, the strength of Abraham’s faith was tested at the altar of sacrifice. Leaving home early one morning, he carried fire, laid wood upon the young man’s shoulders, and journeyed toward Mount Moriah. “Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” asked the son. “God will provide himself a lamb,” answered the man who had at last learned to believe God. It is but the simple story of an ancient patriarch; but the word of God bears record that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

And “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” Herein lies the value of this lesson to us. We are his heirs if we link ourselves to the power of the Infinite by that cord of faith. Only by a life and an education such as his can the kingdom of Christ be set up within. Such lessons made Abraham a successful teacher.

Abraham’s school

Those who wished to worship the true God gathered about the tents of Abraham, and became pupils in his school. God’s word was the basis of all instruction, as it is written, “These are the commandments, ... which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it.”

This word was the basis for the study of political science, and Abraham’s “methods of government” were “carried out in the households over which they [his students] should preside.” The equality of all men was a lesson first learned in the home. “Abraham’s affection for his children and his household led him ... to impart to them a knowledge of the divine statutes, as the most precious legacy he could transmit to them, and through them to the world. All were taught that they were under the rule of the God of heaven. There was to be no oppression on the part of parents, and no disobedience on the part of children.” His was not a school where theory alone was taught, but the practical was emphasized. In studying political science they formed the nucleus of a divine government; in the study of finances, they actually made the money and raised the flocks which brought recognition from surrounding nations. “The unswerving integrity, the benevolence and unselfish courtesy, which had won the admiration of kings, were displayed in the home.”

This school was the beginning of a nation

The influence of country life and direct contact with nature, in contrast with the enervating influence of the city with its idolatrous teaching and artificial methods, developed a hardy race, a people of faith whom God could use to lay the foundation for the Israelitish nation. We see, then, that when God founds a nation, he lays that foundation in a school. The nation of which Abraham and his followers formed the beginning, prefigured the earth redeemed, where Christ will reign as King of kings. The education of the school of Abraham symbolized Christian education.

“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” not only of the kingdom, but of the education which prepares the inhabitants for that kingdom.

As faith was the method employed in teaching in the days of the patriarch, so in the schools of to-day faith must be the motive for work, the avenue to the fountain of wisdom. There are to-day those who can not harmonize their feelings and their ideas of education with the plan which God has committed to his people. Likewise in the days of Abraham there was at least one family which withdrew from the influence of the school.

Lot chose a worldly school

Lot had felt the effects of the teaching of Abraham, but through the influence of his wife, “a selfish, irreligious woman,” he left the altar where they once worshiped together, and moved into the city of Sodom. “The marriage of Lot, and his choice of Sodom for a home, were the first links in a chain of events fraught with evil to the world for many generations.” Had he alone suffered, we would not need to follow the history; but the choice of a new home threw his children into the schools of the heathen; pride and love of display were fostered, marriage with Sodomites was a natural consequence, and their final destruction in the burning city was the terrible but inevitable result.

“When Lot entered Sodom, he fully intended to keep himself free from iniquity, and to command his household after him. But he signally failed. The corrupting influences about him had an effect upon his own faith, and his children’s connection with the inhabitants of Sodom bound up his interests in a measure with theirs.”

The statement is a familiar one, that schools should be established where an education differing from that of the world can be given, because parents are unable to counteract the influence of the schools of the world. The experience of Lot is a forcible reminder of the truth of the statement. And the injunction to “remember Lot’s wife,” should serve as a warning to Christians against flocking into the cities to give children an education. The words of Spalding are true: “Live not in a great city, for a great city is a mill which grinds all grain into flour. Go there to get money or to preach repentance, but go not there to make thyself a nobler man.”

The two systems of education are nowhere more vividly portrayed than in the experiences of Abraham and Lot. Education in the tents of Abraham, under the guidance of the Spirit of Jehovah, brought eternal life. Education in the schools of Sodom brought eternal death. This was not an unnatural thing. You can not find here any arbitrary work on the part of God. To partake of the fruit of the tree of life, imparts life. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil it has been said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

The system of education revealed to Abraham, would, if fully carried out, have placed Israel on a plane of existence above the nations of the world. It was a spiritual education, reaching the soul by a direct appeal to faith, and would have placed the people of God as teachers of nations. Not a few only were intended to teach, but the nation as a whole was to teach other nations. The second Israel will occupy a similar position, and they will be brought to that position by means of Christian education.

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VI
EDUCATION IN ISRAEL

“Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.” As God dealt with the one man, so He dealt with the nation. As He had led the man from a lowly plane to an exalted position, so He led the nation until they stood a spectacle to the whole world. He chose them not because of their great numbers, but, taking the fewest of men, He wished to show to the world what could be done by the power of love.

Israel a peculiar people

This small people, however, were intended to lead the world, and lead it in every sense of the word. That they might lead instead of being led, He made them a peculiar people unto Himself, giving them in the first place the rite of circumcision, which put a barrier forever between the believer in the God of Israel and all the nations of the world. This separation was for a purpose. The fact that they were to be peculiar in the eyes of the other nations was merely a precautionary step, not a thing of importance in itself. God had a mission for the nation; and in order that it might be accomplished, every effort must be bent in that direction. Oneness of purpose is a divine law; and that Israel might lead, Israel must occupy a position in advance of all other peoples.

Planes of existence

Men live on various planes. There are those so constituted physically as to be content with the gratification of physical wants and desires. These can readily be led by men who live on a mental plane; for mind has ever been recognized as superior to matter, so that without knowing it, the physically strong yields to his mental superior. Almost unconscious of his power, the man on the mental plane guides and controls those on the physical plane; he can not help it. It is a natural law; the one leads, the other follows. Two individuals, one living in one of these spheres and the other in the sphere above, will never contend on account of principle; for the man physically organized finds it natural to follow the dictates of the other. This is, and always has been, the condition of society. Nature herself singles out the leaders. They are born, not made, for leadership. They are the few, it is true; the masses always prefer to be led.

But it was not as mere mental leaders that God called Israel. There is above the mental a still higher plane, the ladder to reach which is scaled by very few. As the numbers decrease while passing from the physical to the mental plane, so they decrease yet more in passing from the mental to the spiritual plane.

How men reach the spiritual plane

Man reaches this highest plane of existence only by faith. It requires constant self-denial and continual development. In reality it is living as seeing Him who is invisible. The physical man depends almost entirely on knowledge gained through the senses. The mentally developed depends upon reason. Many combine these two natures, and such individuals are guided by the sense of reason just in proportion as the two natures are developed. Knowledge as a result of sense perceptions and finite reason capture the majority of mankind. The life of faith, the walking with God, takes in the few.

Israel should live on the spiritual plane

Do you see why God chose a small people? He chose them, as a nation, to be priests or teachers unto Himself. As individuals, and as a nation, Israel was to stand upon the spiritual plane, attaining and maintaining the position by a life of faith. Standing there, it would be in accordance with the natural law for all on the lower planes to yield obedience. As the mental controls the physical without any friction, so the spiritual controls all others. Therefore (for this reason) said the Lord, “I have taught you statutes and judgments.... Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”[18]

Israel as teachers of the world

Statutes in themselves can not command respect for any people, but God gave Israel a manner of life which linked them with Himself. Living on a spiritual plane, all the world looked to them for guidance. As one can not reach up and help those above him, but must come from above and lift others to himself, so Israel was pointed to a life which made others follow in spite of themselves, while at the same time they were following what they knew to be the truth. This is the exalted position which truth has ever held.

Peculiarity depended upon the system of education

Granting it clear that Israel would lead by virtue of the plane of existence upon which they stood, and that this was attained by a life of faith, it is easily seen why there was marked out for the nation a system of education differing as completely from the systems of the other nations of the world as the spiritual life differs from a purely physical or a strictly mental existence. It made it impossible for any mingling of systems to take place without the utter ruin of the spiritual; for as soon as this came down to the level of either of the others, it ceased to be spiritual, and lost its power to lead.

Result of mixture in educational systems

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.

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.

Jewish schools

In the early history of the nation, “Education,” says Painter, “was restricted to the family, in which the father was the principal teacher. There were no popular schools nor professional teachers. Yet the instruction of the Jew ... embraced a vast number of particulars.”[19] Hinsdale says: “Jewish education began with the mother. What the true Jewish mother, considered as a teacher, was, we know from both the Testaments and from many other sources. The very household duties that she performed molded her children in accordance with the national discipline. ‘The Sabbath meal, the kindling of the Sabbath lamp, and the setting apart of a portion of the dough from the bread for the household—these are but instances with which every Taph, as he clung to his mother’s skirts, must have been familiar.’ The bit of parchment fastened to the doorpost, on which the name of the Most High was written, ... would be among the first things to arrest his attention.

“It was in the school of the mother’s knee that the stories of patriarchs and prophets, of statesmen and warriors, of poets and sages, of kings and judges, wise men and patriots, and of the great Law-giver Himself,—the whole forming the very best body of material for the purposes of child-nurture found in any language,—were told and retold until they became parts of the mind itself.” He then mentions the case of Timothy, and adds: “As teachers of their children, the women of every country may learn lessons from the matrons of Israel.”[20] This was evidently the original plan, and had the families proved faithful to the trust, the greater part, if not all, of the education would have been in the family school. Always, however, as long as Israel was a nation, the child (and the term covered the first twelve or fifteen years) was under the instruction of the parents.

Jewish church schools

From the home school we follow the Jewish child to the synagogue or church school. Moses was instructed by the Lord to make every priest a teacher, so the nation had a whole tribe of teachers. As every town had its synagogue, so “a town in which there is no school must perish.” Quoting again from Hinsdale: “The children were gathered for instruction in the synagogues and schoolhouses, where the teacher, generally the Chazzan, or officer of the synagogue, ‘imparted to them the precious knowledge of the law, with constant adaptation to their capacity, with unwearied patience, intense earnestness, strictness tempered by kindness, but, above all, with the highest object of their training ever in view. To keep children from all contact with vice; to train them to gentleness, even when bitterest wrong had been received; to show sin in its repulsiveness, rather than to terrify by its consequences; to train to strict truthfulness; to avoid all that might lead to disagreeable or indelicate thoughts; and to do all this without showing partiality, without either undue severity or laxity of discipline, with judicious increase of study and work, with careful attention to thoroughness in acquiring knowledge—all this and more constituted the ideal set before the teacher, and made his office of such high esteem in Israel.’”[21] These teachers took the youth at the most critical period of their development. And how thoroughly they understood the needs of the developing minds!

Schools of the prophets

In the days of Samuel we read, for the first time, of the schools of the prophets, where young men were gathered together for the study of the law, of music, poetry, and history, and of the various trades. The name School of the Prophets would indicate the spirituality of their work, and reference to the time of Elijah and Elisha and the experience of Saul would prove the truth of the inference.

Studies in Jewish schools

Concerning the subjects taught we are not left in ignorance, if we study the history of the people. Thus, quoting again from Painter: “The Hebrew parent was not only to impart oral instruction to his children, but to teach them also reading and writing. As he was to inscribe the words of the Lord upon his doorposts and gates, he must himself have learned to write; and, as he wrote them for his children, they must have been taught to read. Hence, it appears that the ability to read and write was general among the ancient Jews; and, in this particular, they surpassed every other nation of antiquity.”[22] Hinsdale says: “From the teaching of the alphabet, or writing in the primary school, to the farthest limit of instruction in the academies of the rabbis, all was marked by extreme care, wisdom, accuracy, and moral and religious purpose as the ultimate object.”[23]

The Bible as a text-book

“Up to ten years of age the Bible was the sole text-book; from ten to fifteen the Mischna, or traditional law, was used; and after that the pupil was admitted to the discussions of the rabbinical schools. So extensive a course of study, however, was taken only by those who showed decided aptitude for learning. Bible study began with the book of Leviticus; then came other parts of the Pentateuch; next the prophets, and finally the Hagiography.”[24]

Physiology

In working for this chosen people, God cured physical infirmities with the same case that he healed a sin-sick soul; and with the laws for spiritual growth were given directions for the preservation of health. Every priest was likewise a physician, and the laws concerning the use of simple, healthful foods, proper breathing, ventilation, the use of disinfectants, the bath, etc., were familiar to all who read the statutes of Jehovah.

Additional studies

Painter says, concerning other subjects taught: “Among the potent educational agencies of the Jews, that of the annual national festivals merits consideration.... Commemorating important national events, they kept the people acquainted with their past history.... These frequent reunions not only contributed to national and religious unity, but they exerted a strong educating influence upon the people.”[25]

“The Levites, more than other Hebrews, were to study the book of the law; to preserve and disseminate it in exact copies; to perform the duties of judges and genealogists, and consequently to be theologians, jurists, and historians.... As the priests and Levites were to test the accuracy of weights and measures, ... it was necessary that they should understand something of mathematics; and as they were to determine and announce the movable feasts, new moons, years, and intercalary years, they had occasion for the study of astronomy,” says Jahn.

Since the schools of the prophets flourished in the days of Saul and David, it would not be surprising if David gained some of his musical skill there as well as on the hillside tending sheep, for poetry and music formed part of the course of instruction in these schools. One author pays high tribute to these subjects by saying: “Greek poetry is beautiful; Hebrew poetry is sublime.”

Effects of Jewish education

When children were fortified by such an education from infancy to manhood, it is little wonder that the influence which the nation “has exerted upon the world is incalculable. It has supplied the basis of all true theology; it has given a system of faultless morality; and, in Christianity, it has provided the most perfect form of religion. The civilization of Europe and America can be directly traced to the Jews.”[26]

What might have been the result had the nation lived up to its privileges in educational lines is not difficult to determine. Earth’s history would have been shortened by at least two thousand years; for the nation would never have gone into bondage, and Christ would never have been betrayed. As these principles of Christian education are again taking hold of people, with what interest must the progress of the work be watched by the inhabitants of other worlds, who have seen past failures through lack of faith! That Hebrew education tended mainly to a development of the inner man instead of giving merely a conglomeration of facts, is well expressed by Wines. He says: “The Hebrew law required an early, constant, vigorous, and efficient training of the disposition, judgment, manners, and habits, both of thought and feeling. The sentiments held to be proper to man in society were imbibed with the milk of infancy. The manners considered becoming in adults were sedulously imparted in childhood.”

The threefold nature educated

The education, however, was not only moral and intellectual, but physical as well; for every Jewish boy was taught some trade which rendered him self-supporting. Nor did wealth or position remove the need of this. Paul, who sat at the feet of Gamaliel while studying the law, was able to gain a livelihood as a tentmaker when preaching the gospel.

True teaching exemplified

There was, however, in it all this one thought: all instruction was intended to develop the spiritual nature. It was considered the highest honor to become a priest (every Jew might have been both priest and teacher), and in this office man stood next to God. This was wholly a spiritual position, and prefigured the work of the Messiah. True, Israel as a nation never reached the standard set for her, never mounted, as it were, that ladder reaching from earth to heaven; and it was left for the One Man, the Master of Israel, to bind together the two realms of the physical and the spiritual. But from time to time men arose in the Jewish nation who grasped in a far broader sense than the majority, the meaning of true education as delivered to the Jews, and who, by submitting to the educating influence of the Spirit of God, were enabled to become leaders of the people and representatives of God on earth. Such were Moses, Daniel, Job, and Ezekiel, and, to a certain extent, all the prophets of Israel. In each of these the soul rose above the physical man, until it met its parent force in the heart of God. This made it possible for Moses to talk face to face with the Father, and for Ezekiel to follow the angel of revelation to the border land of God’s home.

These men were but enjoying what every man in Israel might have experienced had the nation remained upon the plane to which they were called, receiving their education by faith. One is tempted to ask why they fell. The answer is the same as to that other question, Why do not we arise? They ceased to look upward; faith failed, and reason took its place, and instead of leading they sought to be like the nations about them.

Worldly systems of education

There lay Egypt, with its mighty men, and the carnal heart longed for some of the Egyptian display. To understand it, we must again consider the difference in life and education. Life on the spiritual plane means whole self-forgetfulness; but when carnal desires are heeded, a fall is inevitable. Egyptian education was largely on the physical basis. It is true that mental heights were reached, but only by the few, and those few, bound by earth’s fetters, were unable to break entirely away. The masses, not only in education but in religion, were physical, and basely physical. The sacred bull was a personification of deity. Why?—Because God, to an Egyptian, was an embodiment of lust. All their gods, all their rites and ceremonies, every temple wall and religious service, breathed the dreadful odor of licentiousness. Historians state that the priestly class knew better. And so they did; but their grasp was not that of truth, else they could never have been the priests and teachers of such a religion or of such a system of education.

These words, put in the mouth of an ancient Egyptian priest, speak truly the spirit of Egyptian education. He says: “I that have seen nigh four-score years of misery; ... I that have mastered all the arts, sciences, and religion of ancient Egypt—a land that was wrinkled with age centuries before the era of Moses; I that know both all that the priests of Kem ever taught the people, and also the higher and more recondite forms of ignorance in which the priests themselves believed—I verily know nothing! I can scarcely believe in anything save universal darkness, for which no day-spring cometh, and universal wretchedness for which there is no cure. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this death?”

And yet the Jews would leave that education which offered eternal life, for this which the best-educated Egyptian might acknowledge to be darkness and only darkness. It was from this that God delivered Israel; but many to-day, claiming to be Israel in Spirit, seek still the wisdom and philosophy of Egypt for themselves and their children. Israel could not come in touch with this form of life without contamination. Nay, more, she fell from her exalted state, and never reached it again. “Jerusalem was destroyed because the education of her children was neglected.”

The ceremonial law given after leaving Sinai, at the beginning of that memorable march of forty years, was necessary because the nation had lost all appreciation of the spiritual in the abstract, and could gain no idea whatever of God as a Spirit except through some appeal to the physical senses. This condition was due to the fact that four generations had been subject to Egyptian education.

Israel at the Exodus

The plan of types and ceremonies alone appealed to the mind. And even in this inductive method of teaching, the nation seemed slow to learn; for the forty years between the Red Sea and Jordan served to develop scarcely enough faith to carry the people into the promised land. God’s law, written on the tablets of the heart by the pen of faith, appealed to but few. Men ate manna from heaven, but knew not that it was the token of a crucified Saviour: they drank of water flowing constantly from the smitten rock, never dreaming that it prefigured the shed blood of the dying Son of God. Once settled in Canaan, the whole system of education was so planned as to teach the child to accept Christ by faith. Some grasped this spiritual truth; but a few had eyes which saw the things hidden from the multitude, because faith was an avenue to the very soul.

Having the privilege of living by faith, and accepting the divine teaching in this its highest form, they preferred the old way, and walked by sight. “Except ye see, ye will not believe;” “O ye of little faith.” When we look at what the Israelites might have been, and then at what they were, there is a feeling of intense pain, for the fall is inexpressibly great. By little and little, Jehovah strove to reach the higher nature again, and bring Israel to its heaven-selected place. There was steady progress until the days of Solomon, whose wisdom outshone that of the great men of earth, and Israel as a nation was again on the verge of becoming the leading people of the world politically, intellectually, and morally.

Solomon’s wisdom

Solomon was raised to a position of eminence among the great men of earth because he learned from God the secret of true education. His wisdom was not a gift to him exclusively, but was offered to all who would comply with the educational requirements. Of Solomon we read that God gave him a hearing ear. His spiritual senses were awakened by faith, and he found himself so in harmony with the God of nature that all the works of the Creator were read by him as an open book. His wisdom seemed great in contrast with that of other Jews merely because others failed to live up to their privileges. God desired the whole nation to stand before other people as Solomon stood before the kings of the earth.

The surprising feature to most students is the fact that the system of education given by God will, when followed, open to man such material benefits. It is not, as it is often accused of being, ideal and theoretical, but lacking the practical. On the contrary, it is of the most practical nature, and opens to its followers all legitimate lines of prosperity, placing its devotees above all contestants. This is seen in the experience of the king just mentioned. As a statesman and lawyer, Solomon was noted; as a scientist, he excelled the scholars of the world; for wealth and splendor, the half has not been told; during his reign Jewish architecture, as exemplified in the temple, assumed such grandeur that it became the model for even the æsthetic Greek. In tilling the soil and raising fruit it was always intended that Israel should excel other nations.[27] Youth were trained to fill positions of trust, and were taught the practical duties of everyday life. Such training was given to girls as well as to boys, fitting them to fill properly their allotted sphere as housewives and mothers in Israel.[28]

From the fall which followed this exaltation, Israel never recovered. The educational system losing its true character, the nation was at last carried into captivity. When the Hebrew race lost the spirituality of their education, they lost everything; for political power, national reputation, all, hung upon one thread. “Jerusalem was destroyed because the education of her children was neglected.” This destruction did not come suddenly. There was a decline, then a forward lunge, and another relapse, each time the fall being greater and the reaction weaker.

An educational reform

Several times a halt was made, and the national life was prolonged by a return to the prescribed methods of education. Jehoshaphat, for instance, appointed Levites as teachers to the different cities of Israel, and, as a result, “The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war.”[29] Had the reform been carried on which was then begun, the whole national history would have been changed.

Another noticeable fact is that release from bondage was always heralded by two reforms. For instance, before deliverance from Babylon, Daniel was raised up to give the people instruction in health reform and educational reform. These two always accompany each other. The one affects the body, preparing it to become the temple of the Holy Ghost; the other turns the mind toward truth, that the Spirit of God may think through it. A body purified by right living, and a mind trained according to the laws of Christian education, brings an experience such as Daniel had.[30] That he lived on a plane above the majority of men is evident; for “I, Daniel, alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision.” What to Daniel was the voice of God those whose ears were not in tune with the Infinite heard as thunder or as an earthquake. It had been the privilege of all to see and hear as Daniel saw and heard, but they chose a coarser life, a slower vibratory existence, where the mental strain was less, and the heart strings were looser. It was easier to keep in tune with Egypt or Babylon than with the God of heaven. And when the Son of Man was born, he found it hard to select even a small company whose lives were in harmony with His own.

Israel’s education was a spiritual education. Her King was to set up a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of a people spiritualized by the presence of truth. It was the same system which had been delivered by Christ to Adam; the same by which Abraham was taught; and what was not accomplished in the ages past will be accomplished by Christian education in the days preparatory to His second coming.

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VII
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF THE PAGAN WORLD

God called Israel to become a nation of teachers, and gave them statutes and judgments which, when made the basis of the educational systems, tended to make of the nation a peculiar people, a nation of priests, a spiritual race, thereby constituting them the leading people of the world. From what did he call them?—“The Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt.”[31] And again, “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.”[32] Egypt stands as a personification of the heathen world, and its very name means darkness. The dark mantle of paganism has ever obstructed the bright shining of the light of truth.

As Israel’s power, physical, intellectual, and political, was derived from, and depended upon, her system of education, so it would be but natural to suppose that the opposing power of paganism would possess educational ideas, and be controlled by a system of instruction in harmony with its practices. Or, to state it more logically, we necessarily conclude that the pagan world rested upon a distinct system of education, and that the customs and practices of pagan nations were the result of the educational ideas which they advocated.

The God-given system, as found among the Hebrews, rested upon faith, and developed the spiritual side of man’s nature, making it possible in the highest sense for divinity to unite with humanity. The result of this union of the human and the divine—the Immanuel—is the highest creation of the universe. It in itself was a power before which men and demons bowed.

Paganism self-worship

As to paganism and its system of education, what was the religion of the pagan world? and what were the ideas it strove to propagate? First, it placed above God the study and worship of self. Christ is the “true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” All men have, then, at some time in life, light enough to lead them to truth, for the gospel “reveals a divine anger from heaven upon all wickedness and iniquity of men who pervert the true into the false; because the knowledge of God is clear within themselves, God having revealed it to them; for from the creation of the world His invisible attributes might be discovered from the created facts,—that is, His unseen power and Godhead. Consequently, they are inexcusable.”[33]

Men, therefore, who of necessity have light may reject that light, and they then become pagan. Paul, in the first chapter of his Roman letter, states a universal law in that when truth is rejected, error takes its place. The quotation is again taken from Fenton’s translation, because the wording, by differing slightly from the authorized version, stimulates thought: “Because, knowing God, they did not honor Him as a God, or rejoice, but trifled in their augmentations, and darkened their senseless hearts; professing to be philosophers, they played the fool, and transformed the glory of the imperishable God into an image of perishable man, and birds! and beasts! and reptiles! And, therefore, God abandoned them in the lusts of their hearts to filthiness, to dishonor their own bodies to themselves; they having changed the truth of God into falsehood, by honoring and serving the creature contrary to the Creator, who is truly blessed in all ages.”[34]

Having turned from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of man, then bird, and beast, and reptile, we find associated with worship the grossest forms of licentiousness. This is stated by Paul in the first chapter of Romans. The thought which must be borne in mind is that man turns from God and worships himself. He can conceive of no power higher than his own mind, no form more lofty than his own. His first idol is the human form, male or female. He endows this with human passions, for he knows no heart but his own. By beholding he becomes changed into the same passionate creature; a beast becomes the personification of his deity, and the sacred bull his god. Everything about the worship is gross, and birds, crocodiles, and all sorts of reptiles become objects of worship. This is Egypt. This, in fact, pictures the final worship in any country which turns from Christ and places faith in man.

There are a variety of forms in worship, as there are a variety of complexions in the men of different countries; but it is one and the same plan throughout, resting upon one system of education, producing the same results, whether traced in the proud Babylonish court, the loathsome filth of Egypt, Greece with its intellectual pride and culture, in Roman law, or in the more modern European countries. Paganism is the green-eyed monster, crouching on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, whose body follows the course of the Nile, whose paws reach both east and west, and whose breath has poisoned the atmosphere of all Europe. Into those eyes men have gazed expecting to find wisdom. It was but the glare of the demon, as the tiger’s gaze at night.

Egyptian religion and education

For Egypt itself, it blotted out all individual rights, placing the masses as a common herd writhing in superstition under the hands of a tyrannical king and a scheming priesthood. It was indeed “an iron furnace,” as God had called it, and as Israel had found by sad experience. It was tyranny in government; it was still more bitter tyranny in education and religion. As well might one strive to move the pyramids, or get words from the silent sphinx, as to hope to change the life in Egypt by means of anything presented in Egypt.

Cultivation of the senses

Of Egyptian education, Jahn says: The “priests were a separate tribe, ... and they performed not only the services of religion but the duties of all civil offices to which learning was necessary. They therefore devoted themselves in a peculiar manner to the cultivation of the sciences.... They studied natural philosophy, natural history, medicine, mathematics (particularly astronomy and geometry), history, civil polity, and jurisprudence.” Place this course of study by the side of Jewish education, and you notice in the latter the Bible and such subjects as tended to develop spirituality, those things which faith alone could grasp; while the education of the Egyptian had an entirely intellectual basis, and dealt with those subjects which appeal to the senses and to human reason.

When this system as a system is traced in other countries, especially in Greece, this characteristic becomes startling in the extreme; and if reference is made to it often in contrast to the Jewish system, it is because herein lies the pivot upon which the history of nations revolves. It is either faith or reason to-day, as it has been faith opposed to reason throughout the ages. In place of reason use the word philosophy, for that was a favorite expression among the pagans.

Pagan philosophy folly

The gospel has stood opposed to the philosophy of the world since the beginning; hence we read, “For the reason of the Cross is certainly folly to the reprobate, but to us, the saved, it is a divine power; for it is written, ‘I will destroy the philosophy of the philosophers, and upset the cleverness of the clever.’ Where is the philosopher? where is the scholar? where is the investigator of this age? Has not God made the philosophy of this world folly? For when in the divine philosophy the world did not perceive God through the philosophy, it pleased God to save the faithful by means of the folly of preaching. As, however, Jews demand a sign, and Greeks seek after philosophy, we now proclaim a crucified Christ, a certain offense to the Jews, and joke to the heathen, but to the called, whether Jews or Greeks,—Christ a divine power and a divine philosophy.... For observe your calling, brothers, that there are not many fashionable philosophers, nor many powerful men, nor many of high birth.”[35]

It is this divine philosophy which the spiritually minded grasp, and which is the sum and substance of their education. It is this human philosophy, or natural philosophy, which in the sight of God is folly, that Egypt and her followers adopted. Minds delving into human philosophy never find God, nor do they approach the realms of divine philosophy. There is a divine philosophy, and it is grasped by faith; and there is a human philosophy, a creation of the human mind, a science formulated from deductions which appeal to natural senses. But the man, wisest in human learning alone, remains still a fool in the eyes of God, for the inner man has not been reached.

Egyptian wisdom

Our study of pagan education is not, however, confined to the Nile Valley. Indeed, some of the most interesting phases, some of the strongest features of the system, were developed elsewhere. Egypt was the cradle, but Greece and Rome were fields in which these ideas gained strength. We read: “The ancients looked upon Egypt as a school of wisdom. Greece sent thither illustrious philosophers and lawgivers—Pythagoras and Plato, Lycurgus and Solon—to complete their studies.” “Hence, even the Greeks in ancient times were accustomed to borrow their politics and their learning from the Egyptians.”[36]

Spartan education and Egypt

Of the four men mentioned, we look upon Lycurgus as the founder of the Spartan government, noted for the physical training it gave and the utter subjection of the individual to the state. Every historian recognized this as due to the system of education introduced by Lycurgus, and followed out by his people. The newborn babe was adjudged worthy of life or death by a council of the state, the decision being based on the physical condition of the infant. At the age of seven the child became the property of the state, and so remained until sixty. It was more exclusively a physical or purely secular education than that offered elsewhere on earth.

Athens and Egypt

The prosperity of Athens, where was “wrought out the most perfect form of heathen civilization,” dates from the time of Solon, who, as we have already learned, finished his education in Egypt. In these two men we see the leaning toward the physical side, made so prominent in pagan education. “The course of study in the school of Pythagoras embraced mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and medicine. Especial prominence was given mathematics, which Pythagoras regarded as the noblest science.” Here is revealed the inclination of the pagan education toward the purely intellectual. Of Plato we shall read later.

Egyptian education universal

If Egypt offered ground for the germination of the seed of pagan education, Greece brought the plant to its seed-producing state; and Rome, acting as the wind with the thistle down, scattered pagan education broadcast. Of Rome we read: “It gathered into its arms the elements of Grecian and Oriental culture, and as its end drew nigh, it scatters them freely over the rest of Europe. Rome has been the bearer of culture to the modern world.”[37]

Plato in education

In order to understand the fertility of the seeds of pagan education, it is necessary to regard with care the master mind of that system, and this we find in Plato. Emerson, in his “Representative Men,” defines his position and the position of his philosophy in the pagan and in the so-called Christian world, making the teachings of this Greek, schooled in Egypt, crowd out the Word of God itself. He says: “Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought.... The Bible of the learned for twenty-two hundred years, every brisk young man, who says in succession fine things to each reluctant generation ( ... Erasmus, Bruno, Locke, Rousseau, Coleridge) is some reader of Plato.”

That is saying that for twenty-two hundred years Plato and his educational system, known everywhere as Platonism, have taken the place of the Bible to the leading minds of the world. “Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,—at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories,” continues Emerson. “No wife, no children had he, and the thinkers of all civilized nations are his posterity, and are tinged with his mind. How many great men nature is incessantly sending up out of night, to be his men,—Platonists!”

Then he gives a list of illustrious names who have stood for learning in the various ages of the world’s history, and continues: “Calvinism is in his [Plato’s] Phædo: Christianity is in it.” How little this writer knew of the power of the truth as given by Christ! Doubtless he formed his judgment from professedly Christian teachers. But he continues: “Mahometanism draws all its philosophy, in its handbook of morals, ... from him [Plato]. Mysticism finds in Plato all its texts. This citizen of a town in Greece is no villager nor patriot. An Englishman reads, and says, ‘How English!’ a German, ‘How Teutonic!’ an Italian, ‘How Roman and how Greek!’” And to show that the recognition of Plato is not stopped by the Atlantic, our versatile New England writer says: “Plato seems, to a reader in New England, an American genius.” Has the reader any suspicion that our American educational institutions may have recognized the universality of this master of philosophy, and adopted into their curricula his system of reasoning? One traces, without the aid of magnifiers, the thread of pagan philosophy throughout the American schools.

“As our Jewish Bible has implanted itself in the table talk and household life of every man and woman in the European and American nations, so the writings of Plato have preoccupied every school of learning, every lover of thought, every church, every poet,—making it impossible to think, on certain levels, except through him. He stands between the truth and every man’s mind, and has almost impressed language and the primary forms of thought with his name and seal.... Here is the germ of that Europe we know so well, in its long history of arts and arms; here are all its traits, already discernible in the mind of Plato.... How Plato came thus to be Europe, and philosophy, and almost literature, is the problem for us to solve.”[38]

One ceases to wonder that, surrounded as was the Corinthian church by this philosophy and in daily touch with these ideas which have swayed the world, Paul wrote to it against accepting the philosophy of men in place of that divine philosophy which he and other apostles were preaching through the cross of Christ. “When I came to you, brethren,” writes the apostle, “I came not proclaiming the testimony of God with grand reasoning or philosophies, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and He was crucified.... And my thought and my statement was not clothed in captivating philosophical reasons; but, in demonstrated spirit and power, so that your trust might not be in human philosophy, but in Divine power.”[39] “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements [margin] of the world, and not after Christ.”[40]

Evolution the basis of Platonism.

Seeing, then, that the Platonic system of education has exerted, and is still exerting, such an influence over the minds of men, it behooves us to ascertain the basic principles of his system. What did the man believe, and what did he teach? Quotations have already been given showing that he is the father of modern philosophy. Emerson defines this philosophy. He says: “Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world.” All attempts, then, to account for the constitution of the world when a “thus saith the Lord,” is refused, is philosophy. And philosophy is Plato.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”[41] But Platonism is the mind trying to account to itself for the constitution of the worlds. How, think you, did the author of this philosophy go about to account for things which can be grasped by faith alone? “To Plato belongs the honor of first subjecting education to a scientific examination,” says Painter. Here began the laboratory studies which have been continued by Huxley, Darwin, and others. And thus from Plato Europe and America have gained their ideas of evolution. Plato brought these ideas from Egypt and Babylon, and the schools of to-day follow this man-made philosophy. Our men of intellect write text-books which they place in the hands of youth, teaching them to account for the constitution of the worlds according to the reasoning of men’s minds.

A few more thoughts concerning Plato, and we shall see what evolution is, and where it is now found. Aristotle, the illustrious pupil of Plato, “created the science of logic,” “the science of exact reasoning,” as Webster puts it. Says Emerson: “The balanced soul came.” “His daring imagination gives him the more solid grasp of facts.... According to the old sentence, ‘If Jove should descend to the earth, he would speak in the style of Plato.’” This last, the Christian can readily believe; but the Son of man used an entirely different speech, although Plato antedates his birth over four hundred years, and was, at the time of the advent of Christ, the ruler of the intellectual world.

Platonism in modern schools

“In reading logarithms, one is not more secure than following Plato in his flights.” Plato himself is given credit for saying: “There is a science of sciences—I call it Dialectic—which is the intellect discriminating the false and the true.” There is indeed a science of sciences—the science of salvation. There is verily a way of judging between the false and the true, for the Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth. But the human brain can never do this. It was this same logic, Plato’s “science of sciences,” which was given such prominence in the papal schools and all medieval education. Here stand the two systems side by side, the one guided by human reason, the other by the Spirit of the living God. Remember that the world bows to Plato; and, raising its hands in an attitude of worship, lays at his feet its tribute, its dearest idol,—its educational system. Chambers’s Encyclopedia, art. “Plato,” shows conclusively that this Greek philosopher holds still his exalted position in literary circles and among educators. It says: “Since the French Revolution particularly, the study of Plato has been pursued with renewed vigor in Germany, France, and England; and many of our distinguished authors, without expressly professing Platonism,—as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, Ruskin, etc.,—have formed a strong and growing party of adherents, who could find no common banner under which they could at once so conveniently and so honorably muster as that of Plato.”

Christians are to be gathered under the ensign of Christ;[42] but many educators of to-day find “no common banner under which they could so conveniently and so honorably muster as that of Plato.” Christianity or paganism, which shall it be in the education of Protestant children of to-day? How did it happen that the ideas of Plato were so generally accepted throughout Europe? The article in Chambers’s Encyclopedia, from which the foregoing quotation is made, tells in the following words how the early Christian church became contaminated by the teachings of Plato: “The works of Plato were extensively studied by the Church Fathers, one of whom joyfully recognizes, in the great teacher of the academy, the schoolmaster who, in the fullness of time, was destined to educate the heathen for Christ, as Moses did the Jews.” If the early church adopted the educational system of Plato, one does not wonder that by the Middle Ages Europe was ready for Greek philosophy.

Platonism in Europe and America

In the year 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople, and “many Greek scholars took refuge in Italy. The times were propitious for them.” Let it be remembered that this was one of the mileposts in the history of the Dark Ages. The Latin tongue had been the universal language during the days of papal supremacy. There was an uprising against the tyranny of the papacy over thought, and the modern tongues began to appear. In order to stem the tide without losing ground, the papacy turned the attention of men’s minds to Greek classics rather than to the Bible of Wyclif or Erasmus, and a little later to the writings of Luther. Indeed, for the papacy the “times were propitious.”

“Noble and wealthy patronage was not lacking, and under its fostering care they (the Greeks) became for a time the teachers of Europe. They succeeded in kindling a remarkable enthusiasm for antiquity. Manuscripts were collected, translations were made, academies were established, and libraries were founded. Several of the popes became generous patrons of ancient learning.... Eager scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of Italian masters, in order afterward to bear beyond the Alps the precious seed of the new culture.”[43] Painter further gives the effects of this spread of Greek classics: “In Italy it tended strongly to paganize its adherents. Ardor for antiquity became at last intoxication. Infidelity prevailed in the highest ranks of the church; Christianity was despised as a superstition; immorality abounded in the most shameful forms. The heathenism of Athens was revived in Christian Rome.” And scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of these heathen teachers, drinking in their philosophy, and then hastening across the Alps to propagate these ideas in the schools for the education of the young. This was the influence against which the Reformation had to fight. It is from Oxford, Cambridge, and the universities of Germany and France that American colleges and universities have imbibed these same pagan ideas.

Nature of the classics

The classics form the backbone of paganism, as the Bible forms the basis of Christian education. The classics are enduring, because they are the highest product of the human mind. The recent move in educational circles, and on the part of some of our leading colleges against the study of the “humanities” (the Greek and Latin classics), and in favor of the study of “moderns” (that is, science, modern languages, and history), can never reach a point of stability until the Bible is put in its proper position as an educational factor, for to push out the classics without putting in their place that which is equally as strong, if not stronger, is useless. A reaction is inevitable, and the classics will be returned to their old-time place of honor. Christian education in its simplicity is the only alternative.

This does not mean the substitution of a class in Bible or sacred history for the former classics. As the classic literature has been the basis of all instruction in our schools since the Middle Ages, a reformation necessitates a decided breaking down of the old system, and the adoption of a new system built upon an entirely different foundation,—a system in which the Word of God shall be the basis of all education, and the text-book in every line of study.

Paganism and our children

Parents, reading this, may say that but a small proportion of the people ever obtain a classical education. But if you send your child only to the modern kindergarten, he is there told the story of Pluto; or of Ceres, goddess of the golden grain; Mercury, the winged messenger god; the wood nymphs; Æolus, who rules the winds and brings the storms; or Apollo, who is driven across the heavens in a chariot of fire. Or, if the real Greek names are dropped, nature is personified in such a way as to give the childish mind a distorted idea of things which leads to anything but the pure and simple truth of God’s Word. He thus drinks in the myths and fables of the Greeks from very infancy. One of his First Readers has the story of Proserpina, who was stolen, and hidden under the earth for a season. Nature-studies are often made attractive to youthful minds by being associated with the ancient Greek gods and goddesses. But even in a more subtle way the ideas of classic lore are taught in the evolutionary theories of science and philosophy, through primary, grammar, and high-school grades.

Evolution

“Philosophy,” as before quoted, is defined to be “the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world.” That philosophy is now termed evolution, for evolution is man’s way of accounting for the constitution of the world, and the creatures which inhabit it. Take notice of these words from the pen of Henry Drummond. In a paper prepared for the Parliament of Religions, entitled “Evolution of Christianity,” he says: “Working in its own field, science made the discovery of how God made the world.” “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,” writes Paul to the Hebrews.[44]

Mr. Drummond continues: “To science itself this discovery was startling and as unexpected as it has ever been to theology. Exactly fifty years ago Mr. Darwin wrote in dismay to Mr. Hooker that the old theory of specific creation—that God made all species apart, and introduced them into the world one by one—was melting away before his eyes. He unburdened the thought, as he says in his letter, almost as if he were confessing a murder. But so entirely has the world bowed to the weight of facts before which even Darwin trembled, that one of the last books on Darwinism by so religious a mind as that of Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, contains in its opening chapter these words: ‘The whole scientific and literary world, even the whole educated public, accepts as a matter of common knowledge the origin of the species from the other allied species, by the ordinary process of natural birth. The idea of special creation, or any other exceptional mode of production, is absolutely extinct.’”

It would be well if each could read the words of Drummond for himself; but in brief he says: “It is needless at this time of day to point out the surpassing grandeur of the new conception [evolution]. How it has filled the Christian imagination and kindled to enthusiasm the soberest scientific minds from Darwin downward is known to everyone. For that splendid hypothesis we can not be too grateful to science; and that theology can only enrich itself which gives it even temporary place in its doctrine of creation.”

How strange that God failed to make known this stupendous truth (?) through his Word, and left it for science in the hands of Plato’s descendants to figure out! “What it needed,” says Drummond, “was a credible presentation, in view especially of astronomy, geology, paleontology, and biology. These, as we have said, had made the former theory simply untenable. And science has supplied theology with a theory which the intellect can accept.” Faith has been laid aside. The human intellect has been exalted. Paganism has cast out Christianity, and our boys and girls now study the nebular hypothesis, explanatory of the creation of the worlds, in their astronomy and geography; they dwell upon the eons of ages consumed in the formation of the geologic strata of the earth; they study the fossils of the ages past, and from them describe the evolution of man from a polyp.

Schools have greatest influence

Of what use is the preaching of the gospel on one day of the week, while six days out of seven paganism guides the intellect? Why sit dreaming of heaven, or spend money to proselyte, while pagan education leads your own children by the hand, and weaves about their mind a network of theories which blinds their eyes to spiritual truths? There is weight in the words of President Harper, of Chicago University, who says: “It is difficult to prophesy what the result of our present method of educating the youth will be in fifty years. We are training the mind in our public schools, but the moral side of the child’s nature is almost entirely neglected. The Roman Catholic Church insists on remedying this manifest evil, but our Protestant churches seem to ignore it completely. They expect the Sunday-school to make good what our public schools leave undone, and the consequence is that we overlook a danger as real and as great as any we have had to face.”

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VIII
CHRIST THE EDUCATOR OF EDUCATORS