Avalon Chronicles #62: "America's Documents and Our Legacy of Virtue"
by Allen B. Clark allenbclark@aol.com
www.combatfaith.com www.combatfaith.blogspot.com
Reference: Unto the Generations the Roots of True Americanism
Daniel L. Marsh Life Chancellor Boston University
The Long House, Inc: New Canaan, CT. 1968
For a recent church presentation in Terrell, Tx. on July 3, 2016 I pulled from my book shelves the above book which I probably had not opened since our Bicentennial year 1976. My next eight Chronicles will be written based on the contents of this exceptional book, a treasure indeed! After my talk a mother, home-schooling four children, approached me in the parking lot and said she was ordering the book to introduce it to her children. I commented it surely must be out of print. She said she had already ordered it on Amazon!
The author's motivation to write it in the turbulent 1960s is expressed thusly:
"Almost a generation later conditions throughout the country became in many ways parallel to those of the 1930s, only now they had become truly alarming. Our systems of government-local, State, and national-were honeycombed with corruption and malfeasance, and sinister legislation was being bought and paid for by those whom it would benefit. Vice and crime of every sort was transmuting our urban and rural thoroughfares into labyrinths of danger. It is hardly necessary to further recite the obvious."
Two generations later in 2016 how would he view the further deterioration of the moral and ethical conditions of our land? Many of us truly weep as we view the landscape of our land. It is appears a Trojan Horse in the dark of night, while we have slept, has emptied its combatants into our "City on a Hill." They are pillaging what is expressed by my friend Bill Wilson (www.DailyJot.com), "The Founding Fathers chose a Constitutional Republic as the governmental system because they wanted the rule of law in our nation. They wanted one law for all so that the rich, the mighty, the despot would not be able to escape justice; so that the poor, the weak, the lesser in society would have the same justice as all citizens....The Biblical principle behind the rule of law is God's way to hold society accountable and provide individual protections....The beauty of the American Republic was that people were not above the law."
Author Marsh has compiled some monumental documents of America into a sequencing that relate to our Christian Bible in a very unique and creative fashion. The Foreword by John Howard relates that these documents can only be held valid to people of virtue. He describes the documents to be pregnant with wisdom that does not fail to be impactful and enduring, if we but reflect on their timeless content. He wrote, "Here are giants of American history, men who not only led our Nation through times of stress, but lived their religious faith, and earnestly and humbly sought to do their utmost for the lasting good of their fellow beings."
May these recollections of our past inspire us to emulate their ideals for our future.
