There is much to like about spending a night at the 1874 mansion known today as Pinehill Inn (http://www.pinehillbb.com/).  Upstairs in the Somerset suite, a full canopy bed, period furniture and a (non-period) Bose Wave radio wafting classical music all bid you welcome. 

The fireplace mantle is bedecked with lovely books, including several volumes by the room's namesake, author Somerset Maugham. I inhaled a 110 year old volume from the fireplace collection, then found myself absorbed in—of all things—a 1948 edition of The Handbook for Boys, published by the Boy Scouts of America.

Let me quote a few paragraphs:

A Scout is reverent.  He is reverent toward God....The Scout shows true reverence in two principal ways.  First, you pray to God, you love God, and you serve Him.  Secondly, in your everyday actions, you help other people because they are made by God to God's own likeness.   You and all men are important in the sight of God because God made you.  The “unalienable rights” in our historic Declaration of Independence come from God.

On Mount Sinai, God gave to Moses the Ten Commandments.  He laid down certain definite Laws for all....Keeping these commandments is an important step towards being morally straight.

A morally straight Scout knows how to love and serve God in the way He wants him to.  We are created by God and we owe certain duties to this Heavenly Father of all of us.   You learn to perform these duties in your home and in your church or synagogue. 

Remember, this is the Boy Scouts handbook—not a church publication.  Clearly, this 1948 edition is a time capsule of the America that used to be.   Anybody still wondering just how far we've slid?