Torch, Spring/Summer 2012

What Would I Have Done? by Marlena Graves, M.Div. I ask myself that question often. Would I have joined William Wilberforce, for example, in proactively trying to end the slave trade in the British Empire? If I’d lived in the United States during the mid-1800s, would I have been an abolitionist? Would I have supported Andrew Jackson and his policy that forced the Cherokee off of their lands east of the Mississippi and into Oklahoma? Considering that nearly a third of the 15,000 displaced men, women, and children died en route, it’s no wonder that event is remembered as the “Trail of Tears.” I knew a Dutch family in Rochester, New York, whose European relatives hid Jews during World War II. Would I have been so brave? Or would I have caved the moment the Nazis pounded on my door? Would I have actively supported Martin Luther King, Jr., and others during the civil rights era, or would I have been more concerned with the appearance of those “long-haired hippies” who sang about harmony and love? It is hard to know what I would’ve or could’ve done back then. I only have right now. Lessons From History Maybe my conscience-scraping is due to majoring in history at Cedarville and in- depth study of church history during seminary. Learning history has shaped my perspective — especially when it comes to immigration. As Aldous Huxley observed, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” No wonder the Lord commanded the Israelites to remember their immigrant experience — it was a way of routinely commemorating His faithfulness, staving off hypocrisy, and engendering compassion. In Deuteronomy, He commands them, Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and Viewpoints 18 TORCH | Spring-Summer 2012 GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN COLLECTION, 1907 | SHORPY