CHAPTER 1 ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { 12 }


 CHAPTER  1  -  ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY )  -  { PT.  12 } - Nearly all our rural schools have been built since 1800. So extreme was the ignorance that a Methodist preacher in Somersetshire was charged before the magistrates with swearing because in preaching he quoted the text, He who believes not, shall be damned! To top it all off, the vice-chancellor of Oxford actually expelled six students from the university because they held Methodist like beliefs and began to pray, read, and expound Scripture in private houses. Some people said that for an Oxford student to spontaneously swear would not get the student in trouble, but to spontaneously pray was an offense that would not be tolerated! What were the morals like a hundred years ago? It is probably enough to say that dueling, adultery, fornication, gambling, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and drunkenness were hardly regarded as wrong at all! They were the fashionable practices of people in the highest ranks of society, and no one was thought any worse of for indulging in them.                                                                                     _______________________________________________________

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