The Bible and Democracy
This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
JOHN WYCLIF,
in Preface to first English
Translation of the Bible, 1384.
Throughout the history of the Western world the Scriptures have been the great instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and political despotism. The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed; down to modern times no State has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties so much more than the privileges of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down.... The Bible is the most democratic book in the world.
T. H. HUXLEY, 1892.
Where there is no reverence for the Bible, there can be no true refinement of manners.
F. NIETZSCHE.