Notes on Dr. Scott's Bible and Politics

Excerpt from Notes on Dr. Scott's Bible and Politics

These pages are given to the public under the following circumstances: In the course of my regular pulpit ministrations, I delivered four evening lectures on the propriety and importance of placing the Bible in the Common Schools of California. These lectures were published first in the Pacific, and afterwards in pamphlet form. The reasons assigned by me for their delivery and publication were in these words:

"It may be asked, why discuss the matter at all? We do it for two reasons. First, to direct the attention of the community to it. It is a lamentable truth that, with here and there an exception, California has no Bible in her Public Schools; she invokes not the name of God in her legislative halls, and her Sabbath law has been wrested from her by her Supreme Court. This state of things exists not, as some allege, because the majority of the citizens are infidel or papist, but because the public mind is not aroused to the subject.

"Our second reason is a sectarian one. In common with all the other branches of Christ's House, the Presbyterian Church is forming its character on the Pacific coast - and what shall be its type? Shall it bear the noble form of the old church at home, which has ever been found in the van, when stout battle was to be fought with infidelity and popery, in defense of the Bible in schools, in defense of laws for the better observance of the Sabbath, and for the suppression of Sunday mails? Or shall it lower its standard, and assume a form which will not do violence to the spirit of the world, and the existing state of things here?

"In discussing this subject we hope to contribute somewhat toward the restoration of the Bible to our California schools, and at the same time to show to those unacquainted with us on this coast, what is the uniform faith and action of the Presbyterian Church of the General Assembly in relation to the subject, for the views we hold and here express, are but the views held and expressed by our whole Church."

In a pamphlet of one hundred and forty-six pages, designed as a general answer to all the arguments of all the friends of the Bible in schools, and as an exhibition of the true doctrine on the subject, Dr. Scott, after quoting the above reasons says: "I regret that an effort has been made to show to those unacquainted with us, that the type of this Church on this coast is to be found in stout battle in defense of the Bible in Schools; in defense of laws for the observance of the Sabbath, and for the suppression of Sun day mails."

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