We Once Had It But Now We Have Lost It

(Elder Culver's Daily Devotion for June 3, 2004)

We once had our youth but we grew older and now we have lost it. Our youth has disappeared. We may have had good looks, beauty, or whatever appearance of yesteryear, but time has changed all that. We have muscles that are weak, features that sag and are wrinkled. Our hair has changed from its vibrant, healthful look, having lost its sheen (if we have not lost the hair itself!)

These things are not so important as some other things that we once had but have now lost. Consider the fact that we once read the Bible and prayed in our schools, providing our youth with the proper training in giving respect to God and thanking Him for what He has done for us.

We once taught our children in school - as we were taught when we were in school - that this nation was founded upon the principles contained in the Ten Commandments. The morals and virtues taught therein were also instilled in the hearts and minds of school chil- dren throughout their school years. Today, this is not the case. We can no longer speak the name of Jesus - or anything else Biblical - anywhere within the school systems of this country.

We once had it but now we have lost it.

Below is a message received via e-mail. It attests to some things we once had but now have lost. Let us pray fervently that the Lord will enable us to return to the old paths wherein is the good way and when we find it may we have the courage to walk therein. I am aware that this may have crossed your desk before; however, it is still good for us to remember these things and to share them with those who would never learn them in the schools of today.

In The Master's Service,

Elder Louis Culver

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The Article:

HISTORY OF FOUNDING OUR COUNTRY

Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of Scripture for the people of this nation.

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, "Give me liberty or give me death"; but in current textbooks, the context of these words is omitted. Here is what he actually said: "An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks. Was Patrick Henry a Christian? The following year, 1776, he wrote this: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."

Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the front of his well-worn Bible: "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our creator." He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role. On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: "It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country." In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: "The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools."

William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools, with over 125 million copies sold, until it was stopped in 1963. President Lincoln called him the "Schoolmaster of the Nation." Listen to these words of Mr. McGuffey: "The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our nation, on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free Institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. For all these extracts from the Bible, I make no apology."

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that stu dents seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the Scriptures: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies, is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said this: "We have staked the whole future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."
Most of what you read in this article has been erased from our textbooks. Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our country's Christian roots. You are encouraged to share this with others, so that the truth of our nation's history will be told. This information shared is only a drop of cement to help secure a foundation that is crumbling daily in a losing war that most of the country doesn't even know is raging on, in, and around them....

Please share this with as many as possible and make the ill-informed aware of what they once had.

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