Eric's Beijing Diary

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Jean and Claire and I had dinner with Rachel and her husband in Chegongzhuang this evening. We enjoyed a delicious meal of boiled mutton. Jean was the only one who knew what the special occasion was. She somehow remembered that the Fourth of July was America's Independence celebration. She was trying to get at the official name of the day, so she asked me, "What do Americans call July fourth?" I said, "Actually, they call it the Fourth of July." They all asked me what I thought about the situation in America today, so I told them the story about the pastor from Pennsylvania who wrote a letter to Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury during the early years of the Civil War:Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances. One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the allseeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

To you first I address a subject that must be agitated. The pastor's letter found a responsive ear. Salmon Chase, who made his reputation as an attorney defending escaped slaves, ordered the mint to prepare a coin with the motto IN GOD WE TRUST. It's interesting that the original letter does not mention this exact motto. I suppose it is impossible to know just where Salmon Chase got the exact words, but he could have taken them from the national anthem. The fourth stanza says:Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"At any rate, the point is that the motto seems to stand in contrast the direction of the country. America is turning from God. I suppose it is only a matter of time before the motto is removed from the currency, and when that happens, America will implode, morally speaking. So much of what America has been through all the years, is a result of a sort of national dependency on the mercy and provision of God. Now that is dying. I was listening to a guy on Israel National Radio the other day. He said, "American Evangelicals are always talking about how their country is turning from God. They should take a trip to Europe--it would give them a new appreciation for America." Perhaps, but how much consolation can one take from the knowledge that one is just a little bit less decadent than God-forsaking Europe? America is clearly a civilization in decline. This in itself does not establish that there is no hope, but it does not look good, because the tendency is clearly downward. This means that there is far too much acquiescence to evil on the part of those who claim to believe in something higher than the standards of this world. Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing."