[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both so very much for your wonderful insights and this fascinating discussion!

All that I have to add is that the New England Primer was the school textbook of the age and for another hundred years or so. In their formative years, this is what they would have used to learn how to read and write. And it is very Christian and includes some disturbing anti-Catholicism as well.

[betty boop]

Thank you so much for the link to the New England Primer, dearest sister in Christ! That this text was used in the public schools must be something that the Michael Newdows of this world — that gentleman who is always suing the government to banish all acknowledgements of God and religion from the public square — would like us to forget.

We've come a long way, baby.... But whatever we've become, it is crystal clear to me that this nation's founding ethos was thoroughly Christian.