“How Is'T with Thy Religion?”

Abstract

H DOW is't with thy religion ? asks Margaret of Faust, who replies: As for faith and church, I grant to each his own. Not satisfied with this answer, Margaret presses on: That's not enough . . . believest thou in God? Faust counters: Who shall dare 'I believe in God' to say? ask priest or sage the answer to declare. To which Margaret sorrowfully concludes: Then thou believest not. In these memorable lines between Margaret and the academician Faust, the poet Goethe gives expression to the age-old question with which the Church, in the sense of institutional religion, has confronted college and universityHow is't with thy religion? Once more the Church, dissatisfied with the answers of higher education, concludes: Then thou believest not. All of our public and many of our private institutions of learning, states a Roman Catholic educational leader, have abandoned the teaching of religion.' A prominent Presbyterian elder charges a close correlation between college and crime and the absence of religious instruction in these words: