




                        The Christian Foundation,

                                   Or,

                     Scientific and Religious Journal

                              Vol. 1. No 3.

                               March, 1880.





CONTENTS


The Influence Of The Bible Upon Moral And Social Institutions.
The Influence Of The Bible Upon Social Life And Social Institutions.
Law, Cause, And Agent.
The Inconsistency Of Modern Unbelievers Or Materialists.
Materialism In Its Bearings Upon Person And Personality.
Was It Right?
It Only Needs To Be Seen, And Its Ugliness At Once Appears.
Did The Race Ascend From A Low State Of Barbarism?
The Flood Viewed From A Scientific And Biblical Standpoint.
The Mosaic Law In Greece, In Rome, And In The Common Law Of England.
Did Adam Fall Or Rise?
Did They Dream It, Or Was It So?
Miscellaneous.






THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE UPON MORAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS.


It is profitable for us to occasionally survey the dark arena where men
have played their part, in lonely gloom, without a Savior and without a
God. Pagan morality, being without the motives and restraints of revealed
religion, and guided wholly by the passions and the lights of reason and
nature, is grossly defective. It has no settled standard of right and
wrong. It is vain to look, in all heathen philosophy for any settled
principles of duty or motives that commend themselves to enlightened
minds.

What is the basis and character of virtue? What is the law of moral
conduct? What is the object which governs it? In what does human happiness
consist? These are questions which have never been satisfactorily answered
by the unaided powers of the human mind. The annals of Pagan history show
the real results of all their speculations upon these questions. They are
comprehensively presented in the following: "They became vain in their
imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. They were filled with
all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
envy, murder, deceit, malignity. They were backbiters, haters of God,
despiteful, proud, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without natural affection, implacable and unmerciful." Their manners and
habits were the results of mere whim and caprice when they were not the
results of simple love of wickedness. The vice of one community was the
virtue of another; and refinement in one was unpardonable rudeness in
another. The public festivals celebrated in Egypt are disgraceful upon the
pages of history, being accompanied with shameful practices. Egypt was
noted for corrupt morals as far back as the times of Abraham. Asia Minor
was no better; unrighteousness, sensuality and luxury prevailed. In Greece
there was brutal savageness in its most hideous forms; in the age of its
greatest refinement sin was dressed up in the finest style. The Olympic,
Pythian and Isthmian games, which were kept up to give strength to the
body and courage in the battle, were debasing and corrupting to the lowest
degree of wretchedness. The ages of ancient heroism were filled up with
crime and debauchery. They were fruitful in incest and parricide, and all
the dark and gloomy events which were necessary to make up the most
fearful picture of immorality. The monarchs of Assyria spent their time
mainly in debasing crime and voluptuousness. The brightest and best days
of Babylon were notorious for lewdness and accomplishment in crime and
iniquity; loaded with riches, they spared no pains and withheld no means
in the production of all that gratified their lusts and fed their
passions. In Babylon there was a certain well known temple in which
adultery was legalized by _compulsory law_ for the purpose of increasing
the public revenue. The ancient Pagan religions sanctioned and practiced
the most detestible licentiousness. Cato commended young men for visiting
houses of ill-fame. Such was the very best