National Bible Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to my colleague, Congressman Doug Lamborn. He is so faithful every year to organize this Special Order series. And this year, we recognize, as has been mentioned, the 79th anniversary of National Bible Week.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand with all my Members and friends today to share our perspectives on why the Bible is so important to us and to our country. I am often reminded, I think about and reflect upon, and we quote all the time, the Founders. George Washington, who was the father of our country, and he famously said, ``Of all the disposition and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.'' They were the foundation of the very Republic.

And John Adams is our second President. He comes next. He says, ``Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''

What he meant was that this is essential to who we are as Americans. Even more fundamental than that, who we are as human beings.

And it was one of my favorite Presidents, Ronald Reagan, who said that, ``If we ever forget that we are one Nation under God, we will be a Nation gone under.''

Mr. Speaker, in the very short time I have, I would share one brief paragraph, a preface to a historic text that I have in my collection. Some of the guys have this as well. But this is a copy of a New Testament Bible study that was approved by and published for the public schools of Dallas, Texas, by its Board of Education in September of 1946.

The preface was written by a gentleman by the name of Henry van Dyke. And it is a wonderful summary of what the Bible means to us and to the world. I will read that into the Record.

``Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of the world with familiar feet and enters land after land to find its own everywhere.

``It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the hearts of men. It comes into the palace to tell the monarch that he is a servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he is a son of God.

``Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life. It has a word of peace for the time of peril, a word of comfort for the time of calamity, a word of light for the hour of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely.

``The wicked and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and the penitent, it has a mother's voice. The wilderness and the solitary place have been made glad by it, and the fire on the hearth has lit the reading of its well-worn page.

``It has woven itself into our dearest dreams; so that love, friendship, sympathy and devotion, memory and hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured speech, breathing of frankincense and myrrh. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own.

``When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the Valley named of the shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend and comrade; `Goodbye, we shall meet again.' And comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who walks through darkness and into light.''

Mr. Speaker, that is a pretty good summary about what the Bible means to us. I am delighted to honor National Bible Week and to stand with my friends here.

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