“Sometime ago I had a conversation with a Marxist economist from China. He was coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship here in Boston, and I asked him if he had learned anything that was surprising or unexpected. And without any hesitation he said 'Yes, I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy ...'"
In 1928, Dr. George Washington Carver worded that sentiment in a spiritual light: "Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to fill ... With one hand in the hand of a fellow man in need and the other in the hand of Christ, He could get across the vacuum ... Then the passage, 'I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,' came to have real meaning."
In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe traveled to Washington, D.C., and saw the city teeming with military, horses galloping all around and innumerable campfires burning. She wrote: "I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind ... "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea; With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free."
In 1851, Maryland's Constitution was amended to allow Jews to hold public office: "ARTICLE 34. That no other test or qualification ought to be required ... than such oath of office as may be prescribed by this Constitution ... and a declaration of belief in the CHRISTIAN RELIGION; and if the party shall profess to be a JEW, the declaration shall be of his belief in A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS."
