American Minute

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The Boys Scouts of America was incorporated FEBRUARY 8, 1910. Sir Robert Baden-Powell began the movement in England two years prior. A hero of the South African Boer Wars, Sir Baden-Powell's troops were besieged 200 days by an overwhelming army, but his resourcefulness saved his men. The Boy Scouts are now the largest voluntary youth movement in the world, with membership over 25 million. In the pamphlet "Scouting & Christianity" 1917, Baden-Powell wrote: "Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity." The Scout Oath states: "On my honor, I will do my best: To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law, To help other people at all times. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight." In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge addressed a gathering of Boy Scouts in New York: "The three fundamentals of scouthood are reverence for nature...reverence for law...and reverence for God. It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Doubters do not achieve." President Coolidge concluded: "No man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is part of an unending plan."

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"Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was the campaign slogan of 9th President William Henry Harrison, born FEBRUARY 9, 1773. He was the first President to die in office, serving the shortest term of only 30 days. The son of Benjamin Harrison, signer the Declaration, and grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President, William Henry Harrison was aide-de-camp to General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who defeated the British and Indian forces at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Harrison became Secretary of the Northwest Territory - 260,000 square miles from which was formed Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He was the area's first delegate to Congress and in 1801 became Governor of the Indiana Territory. Harrison disrupted Chief Tecumseh's confederation at the Battle of Tippecanoe. In his Inaugural Address, 1841, William Henry Harrison stated: "I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness."

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Cortez ordered his ships sunk. There was no turning back. With 500 men Cortez set out FEBRUARY 10, 1519, toward Mexico City. Cortez' secretary, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, recorded that after they triumphantly entered the city, Montezuma proudly showed them the grand buildings, including a theater made of human bones, wherein was counted 136,000 skulls... a tower was made of skulls too numerous to count...walls and steps covered with human blood, pits where the human bodies were thrown after people had eaten off the arms and legs...black-robed priests with hair matted down with human blood. Soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo recorded that Cortez' remarked: "'Senor Montezuma, I do not understand how such a great Prince and wise man as you are has not come to the conclusion...that these idols of yours are not gods, but...devils'...He explained to him very clearly about creation of the world, and how we are all brothers, sons of one father and one mother who were called Adam and Eve....That a cross (when they asked why we worshipped it) was a sign of the other Cross on which our Lord God was crucified...for the salvation of the whole human race."

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On FEBRUARY 11, 1861, newly elected President Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois for Washington-never to return. In his Farewell Speech he said: "I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well...Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now.." Forty-five days before his assassination, Lincoln stated in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God...The prayers of both could not be answered...If God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the Judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"

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Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the exact same day, FEBRUARY 12, 1809, but their lives had completely different effects. Lincoln is best known for freeing the slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, affirming in his Gettysburg Address, 1863: "Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Darwin is best known for the theory of evolution, arguing that men are not only not "created" but they are not "equal" as some are more evolved. In his Descent of Man, 1871, Darwin wrote: "Civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate the savage races throughout the world...The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." Whereas Darwin's theory has been used by atheists to explain away belief in God, the last act of Congress signed by Abraham Lincoln before he was shot was to place the phrase "In God We Trust" on all national coin.

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"Man has forgotten God, that is why this has happened" was Solzhenitsyn's response when questioned about the decline of modern culture. A Russian author, Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned for eight years by Joseph Stalin, as he described in his autobiography, Les Prix Nobel: "I was arrested on the grounds of what the censorship had found in my correspondence with a school friend, mainly because of certain disrespectful remarks about Stalin, although we referred to him in disguised terms. A further basis for the 'charge' were drafts of stories and reflections which had been found in my map case." He wrote "The Gulag Archipelago" for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970, but the Communist government did not allowed him to leave the country to accept it. Finally, under international pressure, the Soviet Union expelled him on FEBRUARY 13, 1974. The following year in Washington, D.C., Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned: "I...call upon America to be more careful...because they are trying to weaken you...to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat-one that has never been seen before in the history of the world."

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In the 3rd century, Emperor Claudius II was faced with defending the Roman Empire from the invading Goths. He believed single men made better soldiers so he temporarily forbade marriage. He also forced the Senate to deify the former Emperor Gallienus, including him with the Roman gods to be worshipped. Legend has it that Valentine was a bishop in Italy who risked the Emperor's wrath by refusing to worship idols and for secretly marrying young couples. Saint Valentine was dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and have his head cut off, FEBRUARY 14, 269AD. While awaiting execution, it is said he prayed for the jailers' sick daughter, who miraculously recovered. He wrote her a note and signed it, "from your Valentine." In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius designated February 14th as "Saint Valentine's Day." Signing an X for a kiss began in Medieval times where those who could not write marked a criss-cross or "Christ's cross" in the presence of witnesses and kissed it to show sincerity. The X, or Chi symbol, was the Greek letter used to represent the name of Christ, as X-Mas for Christmas, and was used as a written form of the oath "So help me God."

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Slave trade in Cuba began earlier and lasted longer than anywhere else in the Americas, 1521 to the late 1870's. In 1868, a Creole farmer began a revolt for racial equality, freedom of speech and association. Spain spent ten years putting down the insurgency. The independence movement grew and in 1895 Spain sent 200,000 soldiers who put tens of thousands of Cubans in concentration camps. Many died of starvation, disease and exposure. The American public demanded President William McKinley intervene for peace, but on FEBRUARY 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine blew up in Havana Harbor. President McKinley approved the Resolution of Congress: "Whereas the abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States battle ship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured...Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives...That the people of the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free."

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"From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli"-the Marine anthem recalls when Muslim Barbary Pirates of North Africa committed terrorist acts on American ships, selling crews into slavery. Tripoli demanded tribute and a treaty was attempted, but it was not honored as the Koran prohibited friendship with infidels: "Infidels are those who declare 'God is Christ, the son of Mary'"-Surah 5:17; "Infidels are those that say 'God is one of three in a Trinity'"-Surah 5:73; "Infidels are your sworn enemies"-Sura 4:101. The Koran continued: "Make war on the infidels"-Sura 9:123; "When you meet the infidel in the battlefield strike off their heads"-Surah 47:4; "Muhammad is Allah's apostle, those who follow him are ruthless to the infidels"-Surah 48:29; "Take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends"-Surah 5:51. President Jefferson finally sent in the Marines, and in what Admiral Horatio Nelson described as the "most bold and daring act of the age," Lieut. Stephen Decatur sailed his ship, the Intrepid, on the night of FEBRUARY 16, 1804, into the pirate harbor, burned a ship and escaped unharmed amidst fierce enemy fire. The Marines captured Tripoli and forced the Pasha to make peace on U.S. terms.

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A baseball star, Billy Sunday played for the Chicago White Stockings (Sox) in the 1890's. Born during the Civil War in a log cabin in Iowa, his father, a Union Army soldier, died of pneumonia when Billy was a month old. At age 15, he struck out on his own, working several jobs before playing baseball. His career took off and he became one of the most popular athletes in the nation. While recovering from a baseball injury in 1887, he heard a group of gospel singers after leaving a Chicago saloon. They invited him to their mission where he experienced a conversion. He began attending YMCA meetings, quit drinking and got married. A national sensation occurred FEBRUARY 17, 1889, when Billy Sunday preached his first sermon as an evangelist in Chicago. He went on to pioneer radio broadcasting so enthusiastically that the FCC was formed in response. During the next 46 years, till his death November 6, 1935, over 100 million people would hear him. In his animated style, Billy Sunday said: "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile."

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Pilgrim's Progress was published FEBRUARY 18, 1678. An allegory of a pilgrim's journey to the Celestial City, it was written by John Bunyan, born in Bedford, England. At age 29, Bunyan became a Baptist minister and was imprisoned over 12 years for preaching without a license. While in jail, he supported his family by making shoelaces. His book, found in nearly every colonial New England home, was the world's best-seller for centuries. Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Autobiography: "From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes." Franklin continued: "My old favorite author, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress...has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more generally read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible." In it, John Bunyan wrote: "Christian ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross...So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back."

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The groans of a dying man kept him awake in the little inn outside New York. He was hardened to the cries because a college friend at Brown University had persuaded him to be an atheist. The next morning he learned the man who died in the night was none other than his college friend. This rude awakening led him to become America's first foreign missionary. His name was Adoniram Judson, born in Massachusetts, August 9, 1788. At age 23, and his wife 22, they sailed from New England on FEBRUARY 19, 1812, for Calcutta, India, but were forced by the British East India Tea Company to Rangoon, Burma. They preached in Burmese, translated Scriptures and started schools. Enduring hardships, Adoniram was imprisoned during the Burmese War. He later gained respect from the Burmese and British officials, translating his English-Burmese Dictionary and the Bible. By his death, there were 63 churches, 123 ministers and over 7,000 baptized Christians in Burma. Adoniram wrote: "How do Christians discharge this trust committed to them? They let three fourths of the world sleep the sleep of death, ignorant of the simple truth that a Savior died for them."

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A Revolutionary War Colonel, he built the fortifications at Breed's Hill and commanded the militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. He fought in the battles of Long Island in 1776 and Saratoga in 1777. His name was William Prescott, born FEBRUARY 20, 1726. After the Boston Tea Party, where colonists threw 342 chests of British East India tea overboard, Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, blockading the harbor and starving the inhabitants. The Committee of Correspondence sent word to the other Colonies, who called a Day of Fasting and Prayer, June 1, 1774, "to seek divine direction and aid." In August 1774, William Prescott led the men of Pepperell, Massachusetts, to deliver many loads of rye, telling Boston's inhabitants: "We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort and relief, knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider that we are all embarked in (the same boat) and must sink or swim together." Prescott continued: "Let us all be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. And may He, of His infinite mercy, grant us deliverance of all our troubles."

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The Uniform Holiday Bill, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, moved the celebration of Washington's Birthday to the third Monday in FEBRUARY. Sometime after this, with Lincoln's birthday also in the month of February, people began referring to the holiday as "Presidents' Day." Of note is that virtually every President swore into office with their hand upon a Bible, ended their oath with "So help me God" and acknowledged a Supreme Being in their address upon assuming the Presidency. Eisenhower, Reagan and George H.W. Bush included prayers. President Eisenhower began his Inaugural, 1953: "My friends, before I begin...would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own. And I ask that you bow your heads. Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment..." Ronald Reagan began his Inaugural, 1985: "I wonder if we could all join in a moment of silent prayer..." George H.W. Bush began his Inaugural Address, 1989: "My first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads. Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank you for your Love. Accept our thanks for the peace..."

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George Washington was born FEBRUARY 22, 1732. He was unanimously chosen as the Army's Commander-in-Chief, unanimously chosen as President of the Constitutional Convention, and unanimously chosen as the first U.S. President. After the Declaration of Independence was read to his troops, General Washington ordered chaplains placed in each regiment, stating: "The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country." In his Inaugural Address, Washington said: "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe...No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential agency." After his Inauguration, Washington attended a service conducted by Congress' chaplains in New York City's St. Paul's Chapel.