Steve Farrell
Thursday, May 19, 2005

1. Divine Providence

Americans used to believe in Divine Providence, especially as it related to the role of the United States in world history, past, present and future.

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Here is how George Bancroft, writing in his "History of the United States" back in 1834, approached the introduction to his monumental classic on American history:

"It is the object of the present work to explain how the change in the condition of our land has been brought about; and, as the fortunes of a nation are not under the control of blind destiny, to follow the steps by which a favoring Providence, calling our institutions into being, has conducted the country to its present happiness and glory."

Would to God that we could return to this enlightened perspective, not just because it promotes faith, and mission, and goodness among our young people – but also because it is a true reflection of how the founding generation felt; and history ought to be about truth.

2. Columbus' Last Words

"Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit" were the words of Christopher Columbus on Ascension Day 1506 as he breathed his last. Source: "History of the United States" by George Bancroft, 1834.

3. American Colonists Like Israel of Old

More from history your kids are no longer permitted to study:

In a chapter summarizing the settling of America and the establishment of the 13 colonies, Bancroft observed:

"The people, separating itself from all other elements of previous civilization; the people, self-confiding and industrious; the people, wise by all traditions that favored its culture and happiness – alone broke away from European influence, and in the New World laid the foundations of our republic. Like Moses, as they said of themselves, they had escaped from Egyptian bondage to the wilderness, that God might there give them the pattern of the tabernacle. Like the favored evangelist, the exiles, in their western Patmos, listened to the angel that dictated the new gospel of freedom. Overwhelmed in Europe, popular liberty, like the fabled fountain of the sacred Arethusa, gushed forth profusely in remoter fields. ..."

4. Christianity: The Cradle of Liberty

Again quoting from Bancroft's "History of the United States," here's another unmentionable your kids and my kids are not permitted to study in the 'open-minded,' 'free-speech protecting,' 'truth-seeking' public school system:

"The colonists, including their philosophy in their religion, as the people up to that time had always done, were neither skeptics nor sensualists, but Christians. The school that bows to the senses as the sole interpreter of truth had little share in colonizing our America. The colonists from Maine to Carolina, the adventurous companions of Smith, the proscribed Puritans that freighted the fleet of Winthrop, the Quaker outlaws that fled from jails with a Newgate prisoner as their sovereign – all had faith in God and in the soul. The system which had been revealed in Judea – the system which combines and perfects the symbolic wisdom of the Orient and the reflective genius of Greece – the system, conforming to reason, yet kindling enthusiasm; always hastening reform, yet always conservative; proclaiming absolute equality among men, yet not suddenly abolishing the unequal institutions of society; guaranteeing absolute freedom, yet invoking the inexorable restrictions of duty; in the highest degree theoretical, and yet in the highest degree practical; awakening the inner man to a consciousness of his destiny, and yet adapted with exact harmony to the outward world; at once divine and humane—this system was professed in every part of our widely extended country, and cradled our freedom."

5. History Hinges on the Actions of 'Insignificant' Players

"The settlement of New England was a result of implacable differences between Protestant dissenters in England and the established Anglican church.

"Who will venture to measure the consequences of actions by the humility or the remoteness of their origin? The Power which enchains the destinies of states, overruling the decisions of sovereigns and the forethought of statesmen, often deduces the greatest events from the least considered causes. A Genoese adventurer, discovering America, changed the commerce of the world; an obscure German, inventing the printing-press, rendered possible the universal diffusion of ever-increasing intelligence; an Augustine monk, denouncing indulgences, introduced a schism in religion which changed the foundations of European politics; a young French refugee, skilled alike in theology and civil law, in the duties of magistrates and the dialectics of religious controversy, entering the republic of Geneva, and conforming its ecclesiastical discipline to the principles of republican simplicity, established a party of which Englishmen became members, and New England the asylum."

Source: Bancroft, "History of the United States," Vol.1, p.177

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NewsMax pundit Steve Farrell is associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend Marriage (a project of United Families International), and the author of the highly praised inspirational novel "Dark Rose" (available at amazon.com)

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