“It seems to me the elementary branches have been very competently taught heretofore in our schools, consequently I do not see the need of a change on this head,” said Gerlach. “But you have not understood my question. I mean, who are to fill the office of instructors in morals and in religion?”
The chieftains looked puzzled, for such a question they had not expected to hear from the wealthiest man of the country.
“You see, Mr. Gerlach,” said Sand bluntly, “religion must be done away with entirely. We haven't any use for such trash. Children ought to spend their time in learning something more sensible than the catechism.”
“I am not disposed to believe that what you have just uttered is a correct expression of the general opinion of this community on the subject of the school question,” returned the millionaire with some warmth. “It is impossible to bring up youth morally without religion. You are a housebuilder, Mr. Sand. What would you think of the man who would expect you to build him a house without a foundation—a castle in the air?”
“Why, I would regard him as nothing less than a fool,” cried Sand.
“The case is identically the same with moral education. Morality is an edifice which a man must spend his life in laboring at. Religion is the groundwork of this edifice. Moral training without religion is an impossibility. It would be just as possible to build a house in the air, as to train up a child morally without a religious belief, without being convinced of the existence of a holy and just God.”
“Facts prove the contrary,” maintained Hans Shund. “Millions of persons are moral who have no religious belief.”
“That's an egregious mistake, sir,” opposed the landholder. “The repudiation of a Supreme Being and the violent extinction of the idea of the Divinity in the breast are of themselves grave offences against moral conscience. I grant you that, in the eyes of the public, thousands of men pass for moral who have no faith in religion. But public opinion is anything but a criterion of certainty when the moral worth of a man is to be determined. A man's interior is a region which cannot be viewed by the eye of the public. You know yourselves that there are men who pass for honorable, moral, pure men, whose private habits are exceedingly filthy and corrupt.”
Hans Shund's color turned a palish yellow; the eyes of the chieftains sank.
“Besides, gentleman, it would be labor lost to try to educate youth independently of religion. Man is by his very nature a religious being. It is useless to attempt to educate the young without a knowledge of God and of revealed religion; to be able to do so you would previously have to pluck out of their own breasts the sense of right and wrong, and out of their souls the idea of God, which are innate in both. Were the attempt made, however, believe me, gentlemen, the yearning after God, alive in the human breast, would soon impel the generation brought up independently of religion to seek after false gods. For this very reason we know of no people in history that did not recognize and worship some divinity, were it but a tree or a stone, that served them for an object of adoration. In my opinion, it would be far more indicative of genuine progress to adhere to the God of Christians, who is incontestably holy, just, omnipotent, and kind, whilst to return to the sacred oaks of ancient Germany or to adopt the fetichism of uncivilized tribes would be a most monstrous reaction, the most degrading barbarism.”