God and government; or, Christ our king in civic and social righteousness

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS.

Boston University*

GOD AND GOVERNMENT

CORONATION

AH hail the power of Jesus' name!

Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,

And crown him Lord of all.

Crown him, ye morning stars of light,

Who fixed this earthly ball;
Now hail the strength of Israel's might.

And crown him Lord of all.

Ye chosen seed of Israel's race,

Ye ransomed from the fall,
Hail him who saves you by his grace,

And crown him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne'er forget

The wormwood and the gall;
Go, spread your trophies at his feet,

And crown him Lord of all.

Let every kindred, every tribe,

On this terrestrial ball.
To him all majesty ascribe,

And crown him Lord of all.

O that with yonder sacred throng

We at his feet may fall!

We'll join the everlasting song.

And crown him Lord of all.

— Edward Perronet.

God and Government

OR

CHRIST OUR KING IN
CIVIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS

<V By ^^zT"

J.«^MARTIN ROHDE. A.M.

Author of ** The Joy of Prayer "

Introduction by

HON. A. C MATTHEWS

Ex-Speaker Illinois House of Representatives, and Former
Comptroller United States Treasury, Washington, D. C.

The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice ; let the multitude of
isles be glad thereof, — 'Psa* 97, t.

m.

NEW YORK: EATON. & MAINS
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM

CVirCsttav^\tu

Copyright, 1904
By J. MARTIN ROHDE

All rights reserved

\\ l^i

TO

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union

in recognition of

NOBLE VICTORIES ACHIEVED

FOR

GOD AND HOME AND NATIVE LAND

PREFACE

THIS book is not a volume of sermons or lectures.
The matter here produced was never before pre-
sented in pubUc discourse. The Scripture texts
heading the chapters are used merely to present the
leading thought on the subject treated in the brief
language of God's Word.

Appreciating the scope and the importance of the
great themes in contemplation, the very best resources
on the outline of thought here presented have been
studiously consulted and utilized to develop new and
conclusive opinions on the civic and social issues of the
day as related to the rulings of Christ our King in the
great conflict for God's supremacy and sovereignty in
our Republic and in all Christian civilization.

Realizing that we are in a practical age of telegraph
messages and ten-minute speeches, verbosity and la-
borious deliberations have been avoided and the ut-
most brevity, as well as clearness and conciseness of
style, has been observed, so as to place the great
field of thought explored within a narrow compass
easily available to the busiest reader.

7

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction 11

I. Sovereignty op God 15

II. Divinity in Government 33

III. National Safeguards 45

IV. Resources of Reform 59

V. Social Revolution 83

VI. Church and State Ill

VII. International Fraternalism 127

VIII. Race Problems 145

IX. Industrial Solutions 175

X. Our National Ideal 213

XI. Supremacy of Law 239

XII. Christian Citizenship 283

INTRODUCTION

** A^OD AND GOVERNMENT " should be read
Vj by all lovers of vigorous English and fair
play. The discussions of this new and sprightly
book cover the living questions of the hour, and elu-
cidate the great civic and social problems that will
not down until they are fully argued and correctly

solved.

The high moral tone given to the subjects treated
gives the author a standing which at once insures him
a candid hearing. His presentation is clear, forcible,
and diplomatic. He is at times severe, but always
sound in his philosophy and logical in his conclusions.

The chapters on "Sovereignty of God," "Divinity
in Government," " National Safeguards," "Resources
of Reform," "Social Revolution," "Church and
State," and "International Fraternalism " are val-
uable contributions to the literature of applied Chris-
tianity as related to our civic and social life. His
review of "Race Problems," including as it does the
discussions of " Our Foreign Population," " The Ameri-
can Indian," "The Negro Problem," "The Jewish
Question," and like subjects, is a model of its class,
and should be read by all who are interested in those
questions. His discussion of "Capital and Labor,"
"Anarchy," "Paternal Government," "Supremacy of

11

12 Introduction

Law," "Lynching and Laxity of Courts," and "Chris-
tian Citizenship," to be properly appreciated, should
be read.

In an age when pessimism proclaims a gospel of
despair, and when State atheism thrives unrebuked,
such a book as this is timely and has an important
mission. The whole volume, based as it is upon the
idea of divine supremacy, is worthy a place in the
library of any student of living questions and serious
thought.

While there is a diversity of opinion on several of
the important questions discussed, and while some
readers may not agree with all the author has said,
nor in all cases with his manner of putting the prop-
osition, they will all admire his candor, his courage,
and the skill and ability with which he keeps to the
front the divine influence.

In conclusion, on the subject of "Christian Citizen-
ship," the author boldly presses to the front this
statement: "Thus it is apparent that the typical
American and the ideal citizen ought to be — indeed,
must be — in the highest and broadest sense of the
term, a Christian gentleman."

I cheerfully recommend the entire volume to the
reading public, in the belief that it will be read with
pleasure and that all who read it will be profited
thereby. A. C. Matthews.

SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

SOVEREIGN OF NATIONS

God ever glorious!
Sovereign of nations!
Wave the banner of peace o'er the land.
Thine is the victory,
Thine the salvation;
Strong to deliver, own we thy hand.

Still may thy blessing rest,

Father most holy,
Over each mountain, rock, river, and shore.

Sing "HaUelujah!"

Shout in hosannas!

God keep our country free evermore!

— Smith.

GOD AND GOVERNMENT

SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

*' The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men." — Dan. 4. 17.

WHAT think ye of Christ? This is the supreme
question of the ages; and the responsibiUty
of the disposal of this cardinal interrogative of our
Lord is incumbent upon Christians both individually
and nationally.

Our Saviour himself plainly signified the twofold
relation of the individual believer to the spiritual
kingdom and to the government of the State by his
distinct injunction: "Render therefore unto Csesar
the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things
that are God's.'' Individual Christianity and State
atheism are two things so entirely at variance with
each other that both cannot consistently be compo-
nent parts of one and the same character. The
true Christian faith is largely and necessarily a theo-
cratic faith, a faith which acknowledges divine
rulership in all national affairs.

15

16 God and Government

This was the faith of our fathers, the founders of
our great RepubHc, though not Uterally inscribing
the name of Christ in the Constitution as the Ruler
of Nations; though denying the organic unity of
Church and State, though rejecting the idea of a
reUgious hierarchy — the rule of priesthood or clergy
— yet they were largely God-honoring men, and rec-
ognized the rulership of God as the ground of all
sovereignty and authority.

This idea of divine sovereignty, which has been
perpetuated as a dominant principle in our national
life and history, is evidently in accordance with the
teachings of the divine Word, which speaks just as
distinctly of Christ's kingly character as it does of
his prophetic and priestly offices. Though Jesus of
Nazareth refused to be crowned by his followers as
an earthly ruler of a temporal kingdom, yet he em-
phatically asserted his eternal and spiritual sover-
eignty in the royal declaration : " I am a king. To
this end was I born, and for this cause I came into
the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."
History has demonstrated that this declaration of
our Lord was not mere figurative language, but that
it has real and abiding significance.

Christ was God incarnate, ^'the Most High," who
"ruleth in the kingdom of men." This accounts for
the scope and the magnitude of his power as the Great

Sovereignty of God 17

Unseen King, who overrules and counteracts the
gigantic Satanic forces of the world and wields the
destiny of nations to accomplish his purpose of divine
sovereignty among men.

Though the unbelieving world is blind to provi-
dential leadings, yet to the Christian observer there
are positive and undoubted evidences of God's rul-
ings in the kingdoms of men. By marvelous dispen-
sations of Providence, overruling evil for good and
making all things subservient to the divine will, na-
tional events in both Jewish and Gentile history,
though otherwise intended, were made to play
important parts in the great Messianic drama of
preparation for the dawn of the Christian era.

Israel, God's chosen nation, was divinely placed in
such relation with Egyptian and Chaldean glory that
she might become better equipped with literary and
material resources and enjoy greater advantages for
proclaiming to mankind the knowledge of the one
true and living God. Rome ascended to civil su-
premacy and with worldly purpose formulated excel-
lent codes of law and built great highways to her
remotest boundaries, and thus unconsciouslv and
unintentionally provided civil protection and means
of communication for the coming messengers of the
Gospel. Alexander, with his great army, swept

down from Macedonia, through Greece, across the
2

18 God and Government

Hellespont, into Palestine and surrounding coun-
tries. His object was conquest; but he served a
better purpose than he knew by giving to the Jewish
people the fittest language ever known for the em-
bodiment of the Gospel and the earliest Christian
literature.

Thus the succession of undoubted providential
events in history preparing the world for the first
advent of the Messianic King justify the common
belief in a divine sovereignty shaping national desti-
nies preparatory to his second and final coming and
reign in millennial glory. Though the plans of God's
providences are in a great measure mysterious and
inscrutable, yet when we trace the progress of em-
pire, the rise and fall of dynasties, in bygone ages, we
see that God carries the destiny of nations in the
hollow of his hands, and that the powers, the prin-
cipalities, and the kingdoms of the world must
be God's loyal agencies for the promulgation of
Christ's kingdom in order to merit divine favor and
to accomplish their mission of sovereignty among
men.

The government of God as manifested among
men through Jesus Christ should be the desire and
the aim of all nations because Oidst is the Ideal
Sov^eign, in_the proper recognition of whose au-
thority lies the secret of perfect political organi-

Sovereignty of God 19

zation and the only successful remedy for all the
evils of social disorder.

Only God, by his overruling Providence, can coun-
teract successfully the Satanic powers of wickedness
that militate against godliness; and he only can
establish the ultimate triumph of Christianity in
the world, as he has pledged himself to do by
the irrevocable decrees and promises of his inspired
Word. The Most High, who ruleth in the kingdom
of men, will be true to his Word. Heaven and
earth may pass away to be supplanted by a new
creation, but God's Word shall never fail. The
kingdom of Jesus in millennial glory is no mere
poetic dream of imaginative pietism, but a com-
ing reality just as certain and glorious as God
himself.

Already we can see that the predominance of Chris-
tian principles and the evidences of providential
leadings in great events of our day and age are
prophetic of the approaching Gospel kingdom of our
coming Lord. In the modern deductions of science
reflecting God's light on Bible truth, in the framing
of laws aiming at equality and justice, in the progress
of great national reforms pointing toward a political
and moral betterment of men, in the great mis-
sionary enterprises spreading Gospel truth in all lands
and among all people, in the march of Christian

20 God and Government

civilization over the continents of both hemispheres
and the isles of the seas, and in the general trend of
human thought toward Christ's coming and reign
we behold the dawn of the glorious Gospel era in
which, according to divine promise, all nations shall
acknowledge our Lord and Saviour as their rightful
Ruler and Lawgiver.

This happy knowledge of providential ruhngs in
past and present-day events inspires the believing
heart with hope and cheer, and makes the prospect
for the coming ages of the endless future bright and
inviting to all mankind.

Bless God, to know that we are not in a world of
mere chance without system, design, or certainty in
the happening of events, nor in a world of godless
nature without a governor to control and regulate the
laws, tendencies, and forces of the universe, nor in a
world of hopeless fatalism without a God to condemn,
defy, and overrule the powers and the works of the
Devil among men; but that we are in a world of
divine providences, a world that has been redeemed
from the curse of sin and death and hell by the
highest price of heaven, a world in which God lives
and loves and rules to reveal his kingdom and power
and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord and
Saviour!

Inspired history commemorates the dawn of the

Sovereignty of God 21

world's creation as a time "when the morning stars
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for
joy." Glorious concert of heavenly music when the
world and humanity were born! Divine foreknowl-
edge more than justified the work of creation. To
God the whole future was as clear as a cloudless
day. He foreknew great purposes and eternal des-
tinies accomplished. The preconception of sin and
Satan coming into the world was counteracted by
the eternal plan of redemption through the atoning
merits of the Son of God. In the mind of the Creator
it was perfectly clear that divine sovereignty should
never be overruled, and that the great purpose of
creation should not be thwarted. God foresaw the
great conflict of coming ages — the warfare between
sin and righteousness — not only as related to human-
ity on earth, but also as related to other beings in
other worlds of his dominion. There was no doubt as
to the final issue; and the certainty of victory over
the " deceiver of the nations" by the glorious triumph
of the coming Hero of the Cross, was from the begin-
ning, is now, and ever shall be the occasion of joy and
song both in heaven and on earth.

To unregenerated humanity, however, the sover-
eignty of God is yet largely a hidden mystery, and
even in this enlightened age, bridging the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, "the fools," as in days of

22 God and Government

yore, "will say in their hearts, There is no God," and
faint-hearted pessimists, overlooking the evidences of
divine sovereignty and ignoring the plausibility of
Christian faith, will, as in the dark days of Malachi,
declare, "It is vain to serve God!" and will defyingly
raise the question, "What profit is it that we keep
his ordinance, and that we walk mournfully before
the Lord of Hosts?"

This pessimistic disposition of mind, born of infi-
delit}^, Aveakness, and wickedness, incites men to be-
lieve and proclaim a gospel of despair; to misconceive
the world essentially and continually growing worse;
to magnify the power of the Devil and to minify the
omnipotence of the Saviour of the world by declaring
Christianity a failure and by decrying humanity
totally depraved and hopelessly irredeemable. Pes-
simism, though characterized by the despondency
and fatalism of the darkest ages of the world, is
an antiquated and a cosmopolitan evil as old as the
origin of sin, and has been as prevalent in all the
centuries of the past as indeed have been the baleful
influences of the counteracting forces that have
always impeded the promulgation of the Gospel
among the nations.

As easily perceivable from the Acts of the Apostles,
the Pauline letters, and the Church history of the
past, human nature has been much the same in all

Sovereignty of God 23

ages; there have always been serious difficulties both
in the Church and in the world confronting the
progress of Christianity ; and cheerless prophets mis-
taking local or individual tendencies for the gen-
eral movement of humanity have always declared
their own age the worst in all history. Consequently,
as a recent editorial of the Sunday School Times
very truly says : " In every age since the Gospel was
first preached there has been complaint of the decay
of Christianity. In every age men have declared
that the inner substance of religion has vanished,
leaving only an empty husk of profession. In every
age the charities of the Gospel have been spoken
of as about to take their flight from an unworthy
world, and the nominally Christian people as no better
than whitewashed heathen. The gulf between pro-
fession and practice has been declared to have grown
impassable, and the hope of growth into better
things has been treated as a delusion."

In modern times pessimism has been elaborated
into a complete philosophy or theory by the systems
of Schopenhauer and his successor, E. von Hartmann,
besides being fostered and further proclaimed through
the "sadness of science," as incorporated in the lit-
erature of Haeckel and Froude.; yet in the light of
truth as revealed in the divine Word, as seen in the
evidences of Christianity, and as realized in the per-

24 God and Government

sonal religious experience of every true believer, it is
or ought to be apparent to every intelligent person
that pessimism is utterly incompatible with that
joyous faith which overcomes the world and brightens
the undying hope of the highest type of Christian
manhood and womanhood.

The apostles of pessimism and infidelity are
certainly not representative minds of "the age of
faith and Christian progress " in which we live. What
are the names just cited, and indeed all others of a
like character that might be mentioned, in compari-
son with such noble minds as Browning, Tennyson,
Whittier, and Lowell in the laurels of Christian poetry,
or what are they in comparison with such immortal
names as Professor Young, George J. Romanes, Sir
William Crookes, Balfour Stewart, Asa Gray, Sir J.
W. Dawson, Professor Tate, and Henry Drummond
of scientific fame in Christian literature? These are
men of faith whose lives and teachings were illum-
inated by the Star of Bethlehem and whose names
will live and grow with a cheerful and pleasing luster
in the memory of mankind long after the murky
shadow of poor benighted pessimists and infidels shall
have vanished away under the light of Christian pro-
gress in coming ages.

But while there is no happiness for pessimism and
no hope for infidelity, there is "light sown for the

Sovereignty of God 25

righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart."
The espousers of Christianity are not the victims of a
hopeless cause, neither are they the deluded advo-
cates of a forlorn mission, nor are they the forsaken
followers of a departed Lord for whose return they
must wait for ages before he shall reappear. The
fact is. King Jesus is already here, fulfilling his prom-
ise : " Lo, I am with you alway , even unto the end of
the world." Although the Kingship of Jesus has not
yet been fully established in the world, and although
his very name is prophetic of things yet to come,
nevertheless he is to-day already the greatest power
among the nations, leading his mighty hosts onward
to glorious victory. He is the great white-horsed
Hero of the ages, whose power is invincible, whose
cause defies defeat, and whose already accomplished
victories are prophecies of the assured and final su-
premacy of Christianity in all the world.

Our kingly Christ thus in evidence as an operative
and a triumphant power for righteousness gloriously
exemplifies the inspired declaration, " The Lord reign-
eth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles
be glad thereof." With godly confidence in the fu-
ture, we may believe that the miracles of the twen-
tieth century will be the miracles of Christian
missions spreading the Gospel among all people in
all lands. The Lord our King gave the command.

26 God and Government

"Go, teach all nations!" and he taught us to pray,
" Thy kingdom come ! ' ' Surely he that doeth wonders,
and whose mercy endure th forever, will reward the
faithful obedience and fervent prayer of his Church
with the benedictions of future Gospel victories in all
the world, and in the fullness of the time in which we
live we may congratulate ourselves on the happy
outlook for coming Gospel triumphs. " The evangel-
ization of the world," says Dr. Claudius B. Spencer,
"ought to be quite easy in this age. The whole
Roman empire heard the story of salvation in a few
generations at most. And now consider: Europe is
knit to America by electricity and steam, the whole
world are our immediate neighbors; Bombay was
sixty days by mail from London only a few years ago,
to-day it is but about eighteen; in 1859 it took
Bishop Thoburn four months to go from Massachus-
etts to Calcutta, now it needs less than thirty days.
There are 170,000 miles of submarine cables. There
are 6,000,000 cable messages every year. Are we
not neighbors? Are we not called to be a good Sa-
maritan to our neighbors? Are we not summoned
to arise and preach the Gospel to every creature?
It can be done. And opportunity is only another
spelling of responsibility! What can be done for
the kingdom should be done to-day. For to-day is
the day of salvation — even to all the world."

Sovereignty of God 27

Of course, abundance of material resources and
speedy means of communication, though advanta-
geous for successful evangeUsm, must not mislead
us to presuppose easy triumph for Christianity by
the mere genius and power of human agency; for
" not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts." Despite all the splendid advan-
tages and golden opportunities of modern evangelism,
old-time earnestness and united Christian endeavor
appUed in the whole armor of the Lord and in the
fullness of his Spirit will still be in demand for the
advancement of Christ's kingdom. The struggle of
Christianity for supremacy, though in fulfillment
of divine promise to be more successful than here-
tofore, will in the future, as in the past, continue to
be a great fight against the anti-Christian forces of
the world, which, according to Christ's prophecy
concerning the last days preceding his final coming,
will doubtless grow in magnitude and vehemence
with the spread of the Gospel among the nations.
Already we can see the combative anti-Christian
forces of apostasy, of infidelity, of paganism and
Mohammedanism gathered and marshaled in defiance
of Christian progress. But greater than all the anti-
Christian powers of the PrincQ of Darkness will be
the Spirit's might of the Hero from the tribe of
Judah of whom Providence has decreed that "his

28 God and Government

scepter shall not depart from him/' that "to him the
people shall be gathered," and that "the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlast-
ing Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of
whose government and peace there shall be no
end."

This doctrine of divine and invincible sovereignty
in the kingdoms of men was the citadel of patriotic
hope, the bulwark against national degeneracy, and the
strong motive power in all successful governments of
the past; and in the Christian civilization of to-day,
not only in the monarchies of Europe, where the peo-
ple believe in "the divine right of kings" and main-
tain established State Churches, but also in the Re-
publics of America, where we adhere to a pure and
reciprocal independence between Church and State,
and where we have government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, faith in providential su-
premacy controlling and shaping national destiny is
a fundamental power for political stability and pro-
gressive government.

However, while we, as a great Christian Republic
adhere to our faith in divine supremacy, we must
nevertheless recognize the fact that God rules not by
force or fate, but by the power of sovereign grace and
moral suasion over freewill agents, who can and must

Sovereignty of God 29

do their will and reap the consequences of reward or
punishment according to the inevitable retributions
of eternal justice; and that to redeemed men and
women as God's coworkers is intrusted the important
work of making the kingdoms of the world "the
kingdoms of our God and his Christ."

Our national destiny must and will therefore be
determined not by fate, coincidence, or chance, in the
happenings of events, but by our own freewill atti-
tude of loyalty or disobedience to God in Christ,
"who ruleth in the kingdoms of men." In the
criterion of Christian righteousness is centered our
only hope of national prosperity and happiness.
Therefore, our sons and daughters of liberty must
recognize divine supremacy both in personal and
national life. Apprehending that nations, as well
as churches and individuals, have a responsibility
and a mission in the future triumphs of Christianity,
and that under prevailing conditions the United States
of America doubtless occupies a pivotal position in
the great and final conflict for the establishment of
Christ's kingdom among all nations, our Republic
should seek to be an ideal Christian nation by rec-
ognizing the importance and the preeminence of
Gospel precepts and principles in public affairs and
in national life. Indeed, inasmuch as it is evident
that all of King Immanuel's providential dispen-

30 God and Government

sations are in harmony with human happiness and
well-being, all nations should acknowledge his sov-
ereignty and endeavor to be accounted worthy in
the Lord's great day to join God's mighty host in
the great thundering chorus of eternity, "Hallelujah,
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"

DIVINITY IN GOVERNMENT

THE SHIP OF STATE

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of Statel
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hop>e of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock,

'Tis but the wave and not the rock;

'Tis but the flapping of the sail.

And not a rent made by the gale!

In spite of rock and tempest roar,

In spite of false lights on the shore,

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee — are all with thee!

— Longfellow.

II

DIVINITY IN GOVERNMENT

"The powers that be are ordained of God." — Rom. 13. 1.

SHOULD our federal Constitution be amended by
inserting a section recognizing Jesus Christ as
the Ruler of Nations, and declaring his revealed will
as the supreme authority in civil affairs? This is
a question of earnest debate in many minds.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church and other
influential religious bodies contend that we cannot
be a Christian nation without a distinct recognition
of divine rulership in our national Constitution.

The Covenanter Church in the United States
even requires, as a condition of membership, the
acceptance of the position known as that of polit-
ical dissent. This signifies that her members shall
not accept any civil office or trust in which there is
required an oath of allegiance to the present Consti-
tution of the United States, nor vote for any officer
who is required to take such an oath. This posi-
tion is said to be maintained "in no spirit of unpa-
triotic disloyalty to our country, but in the spirit of
patriotic loyalty to our Lord."
3 33

84 God and Government

This proposed Constitutional Amendment has been
urged for many years, and at one time a resolution
proposing such an amendment was introduced in both
houses of Congress, but no decisive action has ever
been taken in the matter, nor is there any immediate
promise of such a resolution being passed. The
defeat of the measure, however, is not to be ascribed
to the bitter opposition made by the American Sec-
ular Union and Free Thought Confederation or other
infidels, but must be attributed to the fact that it is
largely and clearly apparent that such a formal rec-
ognition of Christ in the Constitution is not essen-
tially necessary to make us a Christian nation.

While it is certainly true that a literal recognition
of Christ as the head of the nation and a formal
declaration of his Gospel as the fundamental teach-
ing on which all legislation should be based would
not be out of place and could do no harm, and while
the advocates of this so-called " God-in-the-Constitu-
tion" movement are undoubtedly men and women of
pure motives and well-meant endeavors, yet it must
be conceded that such a mere form of words alone
would have little or no significance or influence in
Christianizing our people.

Outward forms do not constitute a Christian nation.
While it is obvious that we might acknowledge divine
rulership in our federal Constitution and still be

Divinity in Government 35

essentially a pagan nation, it is also apparent that,
all things else being favorable, we can he and are
really a Christian nation, even without such a formal
acknowledgment. Not by legislation or formal dec-
larations, but alone by evangelization and the incul-
cation of spiritual life and Gospel principles, can our
nation be truly Christianized.

But regardless of such a verbiage of our national
code the doctrine of the divine origin and authority of
the State cannot be denied and must, by all means,
be maintained. Plutarch has well said: "There has
never been a State of atheists. You may travel over
the world; you may find cities without walls, with-
out a king, without a mint, without theaters or gym-
nasiums; but you will never find a city without a
god, without prayer, without oracles, without sacri-
fice. Sooner may a city stand without foundations
than a State without belief in the gods. This is the
bond of all society, the pillar of all legislation."

Thus a significant religious impulse recognizing a
higher power in all law and authority w^onderfuUy
prevades all mankind. The State atheist in Chris-
tendom is therefore an exception and not the rule of
opinion in human society.

Indeed, the secular idea of the State maintaining
that men originally existed in a state of individual
isolation; that without divine direction, and as a

36 God and Government

mere matter of convenience and greater security,
they grouped themselves together into societies;
that the authority of civil government, as the result
of such association, is derived solely from the consent
of the governed; and that therefore the State, as a
mere human invention and secular institution, has
nothing to do with God, and has no other purpose
than the mere temporal advantage and security of
man — this idea is erroneous and lacks the support
of history, reason, or revelation.

The clearest and strongest minds, from Plato to
Paul and from Paul to the sages of the present day,
have believed and declared that God is the author
and source of all law and authority.

Confirming this unanimity of opinion, we have
the inspired declaration, "There is no power but of
God; the powers that be are ordained of God."

Therefore, in all government, whether the forms
of administration be autocratic, monarchical, or
democratic, we should recognize the authority of the
one great Unseen Lawgiver " by whom kings rule and
princes decree justice." There are differences of
administration, but the same spirit.

National constitutions may differ, administrations
may change, some governments may be corrupt, and
unrighteous rulers may abuse authority, yet all this
cannot and does not annul the reality of divinity in

Divinity in Government 37

government. God has not ordained the corruption
of governments, he has not authorized the mal-
administration of evil rulers, nor is he responsible for
all the differences, imperfections, and abuses of civil
institutions, yet all power and authority of the State
originates in the Divine Ruler and is therefore just
as sacred as any other divine ordinance under the
sun. "Thou," said Christ to Pilate, "couldest have
no power at all against me, except it were given thee
from above."

Christianity recognizes divinity in human govern-
ment, and encourages submission and loyalty to
properly constituted authority. Even under Roman
government, Jesus, the Son of God, although to him
was given all power in heaven and on earth, set an
example of loyalty to the State and enjoined obedi-
ence to magistrates. Says one: "Never did a sov-
ereign prince pervert justice as Nero did, and yet Paul
appealed to him, and under him had the protection
of the law and the inferior magistrates more than
once. Better bad government than none at all."

Government is a human necessity, as well as a
divine institution. Without the sovereignty of law,
disorder and anarchy would prevail among men, and
hell would reign supreme on earth. " Order is the
first law of heaven," and government is God's pro-
vision of order and well-being for humanity.

38 God and Government

God's beneficence, as well as his sovereignty, are
revealed in "the powers that be;" and while the rul-
ings and the bounties of the divine hand may be seen
in all human history, there are certain unmistakable
evidences of God's special husbandry and paternal
care for our people in the origin and progress of
our beloved "land of the free and home of the
brave.''

In the great historical epochs leading to the estab-
lishment of our precious and blood-bought liberty,
in the fortunate geographical position of our land
and the vastness of our territorial domain; in the
magnitude of our agricultural and mineral resources
and commercial commodities; in the great achieve-
ments of industry, invention, and commerce; in the
wonderful progress of science, art, and literature;
in the wholesome influence of religion, morality, and
education; in the growth of our population; in the
expansion of our sovereignty; and in the general
progress and prosperity of our great Republic we
may clearly and gratefully perceive the gracious and
all-wise providence and sovereignty of our Divine
Ruler and Benefactor.

Due recognition of divinity in government should
therefore be constantly, practically, and gratefully
manifested on the part of the State in all work of
legislation, education, and political reform, and on the

Divinity in Government 39

part of every individual citizen in his patriotic
devotion and loyalty to his country and its
laws.

The appreciation of divine sovereignty in civil gov-
ernment should inspire both ruler and ruled with
respect and even reverence for law and authority.

Alas, that by partisan prejudice, political cor-
ruption, and abuse of free speech, during political
campaigns, degrading influences too frequently prevail
that diminish the respect of the people for the officials
and the authorities of the State. The Highest
declares, "Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of
thy people!" While the ruler of a nation is not
above criticism in the administration of authority
and power, yet he should never be exposed to mis-
representation, slander, or ridicule on partisan
grounds. The Christian ruler, whether elected to
office by the suffrage of his people or placed in author-
ity by royal inheritance, is, by virtue of his position —
even regardless of his personality or political cast —
entitled to the respect of his people.

State officers should recognize the sacredness of
power, and exercise authority not in their own per-
sonal interest nor in the interest of any political
party, but according to the will of God and for the
good of the people, ever mindful of their responsi-
bility to the great King of kings, from whom they

40 God and Government

will eventually receive a just return of reward or
punishment for their administration.

Christian citizens should vote as they pray, and
"in all their ways acknowledge God," remejn})oring
that true religion is not limited to mere forms or
acts of worship, but extends over our whole life, even
to our civil and political duties and interests.

Divine authority in civil power implies Christian
obligation of obedience to the laws of the State.
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher power."
This injunction applies to every individual citizen
without exception or respect to person. The majesty
of the law must be recognized even without regard
to personal preference or opinion, or if need be, even
without respect of character in those who administer
the affairs of State. The authority of law is not to
be based upon our own ideas of propriety, nor upon
our opinion of the character (jjf our lawmakers or
executives, but upon the sovereignty of God, who is
the author and source of all true law. Only when
the laws of the State violate the laws of God or stand
in conflict with our Federal Constitution is disobedi-
ence or ignorement of the law justifiable on the part
of a citizen.

Divinity in government also commands financial
support for the benefit of the State. " For this cause
pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers

Divinity in Government 41

attending continually upon this very thing." Rev-
enue is a necessity for defraying the expenses of
government, and all who enjoy the benefits of civil
authority should cheerfully contribute their part for
the support of the State.

Yet it is remarkable indeed with what reluctance
some people pay their taxes. Persons and corpo-
rations who would consider it beneath their dignity
to be otherwise dishonest resort to all manner of
base and fraudulent methods — even to falsehood and
perjury — to swindle the government out of her rev-
enue. Such dishonesty is a crime against God, as
well as men, and deserves the contempt of all good
citizens, besides prompt and unsparing condemna-
tion to the severe penalties of the law.

God's authority apprehended in the behests of civil
government justifies and commands patriotic defense
of country against foreign and internal foes. Our
forefathers bore arms in defense of home and native
land, and fought and prayed to win our heritage of
freedom. Our fathers braved the bloody conflicts
of the great rebellion to save the Union and to free
America from the curse of human slavery. Our
brothers responded to the Spanish-American war
cry to reclaim an oppressed people from the ban of
a despotic sovereignty and to drive an oppressive
foreign power from its footholds on the western

42 God and Government

hemisphere. In like manner true and loyal Ameri-
cans will henceforth be the gallant defenders of their
country, and this, not only by force of arms against
foreign enemies, but also by the power of moral
agencies against atheism, bacchanalianism, Mormon-
ism, anarchism, plutocracy, social vices, political cor-
ruption, and indeed against every other internal
foe that threatens ruin to our national welfare.

Great interests are at stake in this moral warfare,
but our resources of armaments are abundant, our
powers of defense, supplemented and sustained by
the help of God, are more than equal to all oppos-
ing forces, and the hope of victory in behalf of
Christian civilization in America is fully justified.

While the fear of punishment and the hope of
reward are powerful incentives in all warfare, yet no
selfish motive, but the fear of God in the presence of
divine authority and moral obligation in civil affairs,
should be the popular inspiration to obedience and
loyalty toward "the powers that be" in munici-
pality, county, State, or nation. As our vision of
God in government grows and brightens in the
hearts and minds of our people, ideal citizenship
loyal to Gospel principles and patriotic in national
duty will be the true ambition of the typical
American.

NATIONAL SAFEGUARDS

UNITED STATES NATIONAL ANTHEM

God of the Free! upon thy breath

Our flag is for the right unrolled,
As broad and brave as when its stars

First lit the hallowed time of old.

For Duty still its folds shall fly;

For Honor still its glories burn,
Where Truth, Religion, Valor, guard

The patriot's sword and martyr's urn.

No tyrant's impious step is ours;

No lust of power or nations rolled;
Our Flag, for friends, a starry sky,

For traitors, storm in every fold.

O thus we'll keep our Nation's life,
Nor fear the bolt by despots hurled;

The blood of all the world is here.

And they who strike us strike the world!

God of the Free! our Nation bless.
In its strong manhood as its birth;

And make its life a star of hope.
For all the struggling of the Earth.

Then shout besides thine oak, O North!

O South! wave answer with thy palm;
And in our Union's heritage

Together sing the Nation's Psalm!

—W. R. Wallace.

Ill

NATIONAL SAFEGUARDS
" Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." — Psa. 33. 12.

^'T ONG live the Republic!" This patriotic
i— / motto, though of French origin, nevertheless
expresses alike the hope and prayer of the American
people. As the believing soul of the Christian indi-
vidual yearns for individual immortality, so the
patriotic heart of a great people longs for national
longevity and prosperity in all coming time.

This noble hope of endurance and well-being is
divinely inwrought for the maintenance of life and
the pursuit of utility and happiness on the part of
the individual and the nation.

God, the great dispenser of all national blessings,
has bountifully and wonderfully endowed our great
Republic with magnificent safeguards of national
greatness and endurance; and there are those who
maintain that in the situation, size, boundaries, and
resources of our nation, together with our racial
characteristics and the divine purpose manifest in our
history, we find ample grounds for the hope of the
future endurance and prosperity of the United States
of America.

45

46 God and Government

Yet, after all, the question, "Shall the American
Republic endure?" is indeed a serious and an open
question. God forbid that by an overestimation of
our national greatness we should lapse into carnal
security, or that by an abuse of the advantages en-
joyed we should effeminate our powers and otherwise
invite or hasten our downfall and ruin.

The voice of history resounds with echoes of warn-
ing from the ruins of fallen nations. In the annals
of the world we read of empires, kingdoms, and repub-
lics born, of great powers that arose, grew strong and
flourished for a time, and then succumbed to the rav-
ages of sin, decay, and death.

The great nations of antiquity, that knew not God,
have all responded to the death knell of helpless fate,
and one by one have gone down into the awful depths
of degradation and eternal ruin. Their idols and their
temples, their altars and their priesthoods, their laws
and their rulers, their treasures and their glory, have
all passed away, and for all time their ruins are mon-
uments of warning to the awful truth that ''the nation
or kingdom that will not serve God shall perish."

Not only the dead nations of the past, however,
but even the yet living ungodly nations of the pres-
ent day, are standing evidences of the fact that while
" righteousness exalte th a nation, sin is a reproach to
any people." Powers that once waxed strong and

National Safeguards 47

flourished in the vigor of national glory have by reject-
ing God and his Word lost their national prestige;
and to-day, as a result of their ungodliness and
heedless disloyalty, perpetual discontent, restlessness,
misrule, violence, degradation, brutality, and crime,
within their own borders, are relentlessly threatening
them with revolution, downfall, and destruction.

But while we hear the death knell of other nations
that have perished in bygone ages, and while we
heed the warning evidences of decay in the dying
ungodly nations of to-day, let us not be unmindful
of our own national defects and dangers.

Though apparently not immediately endangered by
any outward or foreign foe, let us remember that our
foreign relations are not always within our own con-
trol, but are, in a great measure, influenced by other
powers with whom unforeseen complications may
arise at any time. Above all, let us remember that
possibly our greatest danger lies within, that even in
the very bosom of our great Republic there may be
engendered the demons of our national destruction.

It may be clearly seen that the future of Ameri-
can society is already threatened with many ominous
signs of our times. High surge the tides of infidelity
and wickedness, and almost on every side we see
moral corruption eating its way into the political,
commercial, and social life of the nation. We see

48 God and Government

honesty outraged by fraud, truth supplanted by false-
hood, law overruled by disorder, and the welfare of
the Republic endangered by a host of evils, such as
bribery, political intrigue. Sabbath desecration, social
vice, the liquor traffic; the decline of the family
institution, the loss of individual virtue, and the
estrangement of the masses from the Church of
God.

In the presence of such gigantic evils and national
perils it is evident that the common grounds of con-
fidence are inadequate to warrant the safety and
prosperity of the nation. Large scope of territory,
great numbers in population, wealth of material re-
sources, military equipments, great naval forces,
political wisdom, commanding diplomacy, and free
institutions for the promotion of education and be-
nevolence— all these and more, though they are im-
portant factors of national greatness, security, and
power, are, nevertheless, in themselves alone, in-
sufficient requisites for the abiding preservation of
our government.

The record of antiquity demonstrates that though
a nation may be great and strong from a purely
worldly standpoint, yet if she be lacking in godliness
and national virtue she will be unable to shield her-
self against the ravages of national decay, and in the
judgments of the Almighty she will eventually be

National Safeguards 49

"dashed in pieces as a potter's vessel." The great
walls of Babylon, the treasures of Egypt, the might
of Alexander, the intellect and culture of Greece,
the pomp and power of Rome, were all of no de-
fense against the retribution which God administers
over nations according to their deeds.

For all nations and for all time there is but one
hope of redemption from the thraldom of sin, but
one hope of preservation against the perils of in-
iquity, but one hope of future progress and pros-
perity, and this one supreme hope is anchored solely
and inseparably in the immutable safeguards of
Christianity.

Through Christ and his Gospel, the one and only
safe moral order and unfailing salutary power of
individual and national security and prosperity has
been born into the world. The social significance of
the Gospel is therefore supremely important, hopeful,
and commanding. While purely material grounds
are no guarantee for national stability, and while all
atheistic efforts at civilization are hopeless, yet the
marked superiority of Christian nations over pagan
lands clearly demonstrates that Christianity is Heav-
en's greatest boon to humanity, and that the Gospel
is a power of God unto salvation, a power to elevate,
purify, and bless mankind.

The Gospel as a moral uplifting power is a national
4

50 God and Government

safeguard against the wrongs and penalties of un-
righteousness and wickedness. Sin was doubtless
never a greater and a more dangerous power in society
than to-day. The Devil, as the great " deceiver of the
nations/' has scattered broadcast, over the heart-soil
of the people in all lands, the deadly seeds of skepti-
cism, anarchism, desperation, and wickedness, until a
powerful and dangerous upas of Satanic socialism has
been engendered, that, at times, through the apostles
of dynamite, threatens the thrones of Europe and
startles the American people from their idle dream
of safety and security.

Bad men have learned to appropriate God's powers
in science, art, and nature to diabolic uses, until their
capacity for havoc in society is indeed appalling.
By the destructive capacity of dangerous explosives
and infernal machines, palaces, factories, public
buildings, and the avenues of commerce are at the
mercy of desperate men in the ranks of anarchy and
ruin.

Gloating over such powers of havoc, the Chicago
socialists, in a pubhc meeting boasted: "It is now
certain that men of nerve can go into large congrega-
tions in broad daylight and explode their bombs with
safety;" "a little hog's grease and nitric acid make a
terrible explosive ; ten cents' worth will blow a build-
ing to atoms. Dynamite can be made of dead bodies

National Safeguards 51

of capitalists as well as of hogs ; and private property
must be abolished if we have to use all the dyna-
mite there is, and blow ninety-nine hundredths of the
people off the earth."

Such a diabolic spirit in the hearts of mad and
reckless men armed with gigantic powers for ruin
bodes awful danger for society; and the world's great
need of to-day is a mighty, invincible, and subduing
heart force, strong enough, as a moral purgative, to
take the spirit of the Devil, root and branch, out of
man's evil nature and restore him to right relations
toward his God and his fellow-men.

Bless God for such a redeeming and saving power
in Christ Jesus our Lord, who came into this world to
destroy the works of the Devil and to glorify the
name of God through the salvation of immortal
souls: How beautifully the Saviour's mission is being
accomplished among men! His Gospel lifts up hu-
manity out of the gutter, washes away the defile-
ments of transgressions, regenerates man's evil nature,
liberates the soul from the bondage of sin, and sheds
abroad in human hearts the Spirit of God — that
Holy Spirit which guides believers in all truth,
inspires them with love to their Lord and their fellow-
men, and empowers them to know and to do the will
of God in every discharge of duty.

Eulogizing these salutary powers of the Saviour's

52 God and Government

Gospel in their national significance, Dr. Thompson
appropriately says : " An earthly immortality has been
bestowed on Christian nations; they can only die by
willful suicide. Even their sins can be retrieved by
turning back to righteousness ; and out of their worst
winter can come forth a new springtime of hope, a
new harvest of righteousness."

The Gospel, as the great enlightening power of the
world, is a national safeguard against the dangers of
illiteracy and ignorance. " Knowledge is power," as
Bacon has well said; but ignorance is also a power
in the world — a power to degrade, to tear down, to
retard progress, to breed evil, and to do harm — a
dangerous power indeed.

In a government like ours ignorance is fraught with
special dangers to the safety and welfare of the
nation, because it empowers bad, designing men to
mislead voters and to impose fraud and political
intrigue upon the public. Our only safeguard against
such dangers is Christian intelligence.

"We must educate! We must educate!" said an
American patriot sixty years ago, " or we must perish
by our own prosperity." Our country has not been
heedless of this warning given, and though she is far
short of her true ideal in the great work of education,
yet, through her great public school system and
numerous State normals and universities, splendid

National Safeguards 53

results in the diffusion of knowledge among our peo-
ple have been achieved. Despite the steady influx of
foreign immigration and ignorance, our per cent of
illiteracy has been steadily lowering and our standard
of education has been continually rising.

Much of the zeal manifested in our educational
work and a great deal of the success thereby
achieved must, however, be ascribed to Christian
sentiment and Gospel influences. Heeding the divine
command, "Go, teach all nations," Christianity has
not only awakened and fostered a general interest in
common secular education, but has founded and
maintained Christian schools, colleges, and universities
in all our States and Territories, has established public
libraries for the common good of society, and is to-day,
through Christian teachers and through press and
pulpit, the great leading educative power of the
land.

The Gospel is a national safeguard against the
danger of political lethargy and retrogression. Chris-
tian civilization has always been characterized by
rapid and continued progress, while the Christless
nations of the world have, as a rule, always been
essentially corrupt and nonprogressive; and this has
been one of, the leading causes of failure in the history
of pagan nations. Political torpor and inactivity
breed corruption, and a monotonous fixity in things

54 God and Government

obsolete and antiquated impede advancement and
lead to retrogression and decay.

Nations, as well as individuals, are subject to the
divine law of growth, progress, and development, and
this explains why the history of prosperous nations
has always been characterized by great revolutions
and reformations. Our political blessings and national
institutions are not to lie dormant under the mere
pretense of preservation, but to be applied and used
for the progress of our conmionwealth. We dare not
stop and be satisfied with past achievements or
present attainments, but, with " Excelsior '^ as
our motto, we must press steadily forward in pur-
suit of the highest ideal of progress in Christian
civilization.

Conceding that our progress in the past has not been
all that might have been desired, yet it is gratifying
to know that the same Christian spirit which actuated
our Pilgrim Fathers in their immigration to our shores
in 1620, and which has, through continued Gospel
influences among our people, been the leading source
of progressive sentiment and actual growth in our
civilization, is still with us as the mighty incentive
to present advancement and as the guarantee of com-
ing social and political victories. As a pagan nation
we could not have prospered as we have, but the
Lord our God has been our shield, our refuge, and

National Safeguards 55

our support, and upon him, and him only, shall be
stayed our hope of national vitality, and strength
for the duties and responsibilities of coming
ages.

Christianity is a safeguard against national imbe-
cility, and is the leaven of prosperity and happiness
in civilization because it proclaims a Gospel of glad
tidings and good cheer to humanity. God, revealed
in Christ, is gladness personified to create happiness
in human hearts. Man's vision, illuminated and
intensified by Gospel intelligence, perceives heavenly
benedictions in all things and everywhere, express-
ing God's eternal desire to dispel the gloom and des-
pondency of sin and to thrill with undying gladness
the immortal souls of men. Where Christian piety
prevails the evils that wound the heart and breed
despair are sought out and found to be removed.
Even the disasters and sorrows of Christian lands
are stepping-stones of their betterment, and the very
difficulties defying progress engender stronger deter-
mination to advance.

Thus the Gospel has been, and is to-day, a boon
to our civilization, having enabled us to make noble
advancements in both Church and State. That our
work in the noble cause of civil and religious liberty
is not all done, and that our opportunities for still
greater triumphs, even in the face of opposition^ are

56 God and Government

continually enlarging our great responsibilities, is not
by any means a matter of regret but rather of con-
gratulation, and should cheer us onward in the paths
of duty, trusting the sustaining guidance of King
Immanuel, who ruleth in our national destiny, and
who will surely lead us onward and upward to even
greater and nobler victories yet to be achieved.

RESOURCES OF REFORM

OUR COUNTRY

God bless our native land!
Firm may she ever stand,

Through storm and night:
When the wild tempests rave,
Ruler of wind and wave,
Do thou our country save

By thy great might!

For her our prayer shall rise
To God, above the skies;

On him we wait:
Thou who art ever nigh,
Guarding with watchful eye,
To thee alone we cry,

God save the State!

— Charles T. Brooks, alt.

IV
RESOURCES OF REFORM

" All things are yours."— 1 Cor. 3. 21.

'*DEHOLD, I make all things new!'' This
1—) promissory declaration of our Lord inspires
the Christian heart with hope and cheer. Though
the earth is a storehouse of divine munificence,
and the wonders of creation "declare the glory of
God and show forth his handiwork/' yet it is true
that sin is a ruinous power among men, and that
there is much in the world that is not good or desir-
able— much, indeed, that calls for regeneration and
transformation.

If the world is tending to perfection, as some opti-
mistic reformers would surmise, it is, to say the least,
perfection yet unattained. Man's individual nature
is depraved, and reveals human frailties in the in-
numerable disorders and wrongs of society. From
the hour that sin came into the world, individual
and social reform has been an abiding necessity
among all people in all ages.

But, by the grace of God, Christianity, as the
great transforming power of the world, meets the

59

60 God and Government

necessities and requirements of human amelioration;
and, during the nineteen centuries that have elapsed
since the angels sang their carol at the Saviour's
birth, many and great reforms have been accom-
plished through the noble triumphs of the Gospel.
Human slavery has been abolished; the cruelties of
the coliseum and ampitheater have been abandoned ;
war between nations has been rendered more humane
and merciful; womanhood has been honored and re-
stored to greater prominence in society; childhood
has been shielded with the embrace of tenderness and
care; the sanctity of marriage has been recognized
and confirmed; the privileges of education and the
rights of liberty have been extended; charities for
the afflicted, the poor, and the fallen have been estab-
lished; the advantages of civilization have been ex-
panded; and the salvation of the Gospel has been
proclaimed to all nations.

In all these measures of social progress, and in fact
in all true reforms, Christ always has been, and ever
will be, the ruling spirit. His spirit is the spirit of
progress, and his Gospel laws of human betterment
are fundamental.

Both by precept and by example Christ has dem-
onstrated that men are not reformed en masse, but
one by one. Modern socialism, w^iich ignores the
importance of the individual man as distinct from

Resources of Reform 61

collective bodies and corporations, and seeks to con-
struct a perfect society out of strikingly imperfect
individuals, is woefully mistaken both in theory and
practice. As Herbert Spencer truly says, "There is
no political alchemy by which you can get golden
conduct out of leaden instinct." The Gospel appeals
to both the personal and the social nature of man.
It reaches and changes first the individual, and
through him it transforms and elevates the collective
life of society.

Nor are Gospel reformations accomplished by the
powers of law, but by the powers of the Divine Spirit
in the hearts and minds of men. The good old-time
method of social reformation by way of pereonal
repentance from sin and regeneration of the indi-
vidual man appears too prosy and tedious to the
average social reformers of the present day, and in
their mistaken conception of social reconstruction
they would resort to shorter cuts to universal reform
by means of legislation. But experience proves that
law alone can never be successfully applied a^ a
moral panacea for the ills of society, and that the
millennium can never be brought about by legis-
lative enactments. The fact is that the prolific source
of all the evils that afflict humanity, socially or
otherwise, is sin in the human heart ; and the cleans-
ing of this fountain of bitter streams can never be

62 God and Government

accomplished by human agencies alone. Christ, by
the powers of his saving grace, must come to our
rescue, or all our reformatory labors will be in vain.
His blood must be applied, by faith, in atonement for
sin, and his Spirit must be received by the reestab-
lishment of a new divine life in the souls of men.
Then, and only then, will men stand in right rela-
tions to each other and their God, and society, as a
whole, be truly reformed.

That time is always necessary for the accomplish-
ment of great social reforms is another fact that
must not be overlooked. Even though Gospel
methods be pursued and divine aid be implored, all
reformatory labors must be rendered with untiring
patience and with willingness to wait — long if need
be — for successful results. If God could wait four
thousand years to find the world ready for the advent
of his Son, and if the Son, though the Prince of all
reformers, could wait thirty years in preparatory
seclusion before entering upon his ministerial and
Messianic labors for the accomplishment of the refor-
mation of humanity, then surely we, as his subordi-
nate coworkers, can afford to labor and wait for
the reformatory triumph of his Gospel. Impatience
and overhaste, even in a good cause, may, by rash
and imprudent endeavor, precipitate failure and
disappointment.

Resources of Reform 63

The Lord has bountifully provided us with ample
means for all labors of reform, both at home and
abroad. Great indeed is our debt of gratitude to
God, not only for our material wealth, but especially
for the abundance of the Christian resources of our
country. These, as Dr. J. M. King has well said, " in-
clude all there is of Christ and the Bible, in our history,
government, laws, institutions, homes, and hearts."

Though to enumerate our wealth of Christian
resources specifically and exhaustively would indeed
be a task too great to be attempted in the narrow
compass of space that can here be allotted thereto,
yet it may be well to cast a passing glance at the
"bow of promise'^ set before us in order that we may
be reminded, in a measure at least, of just what
resources God has given us as a Christian people for
labor in his service.

Our Religious Forces

While the numerical growth of evangelical Chris-
tendom in the United States, at a rate approxima-
ting an increase of a million souls in Church mem-
bership annually, is encouraging, yet the general
progress of a distinct Christian sentiment, and the
growing power and influence of the Gospel as a great
reformatory and uplifting force among our people, is
of still greater significance.

64 God and Government

The social importance and applicability of the
Gospel is becoming more and more apparent; and
while the Gospel message from our Christian pulpits
appeals primarily and directly to the individual souls
within the pale of the Churches, it also reaches
beyond the immediate circles of the congregations,
and molds public opinion and sentiment among the
masses. This spirit of Christian socialism which
seeks to evangelize men not only from an individual
standpoint, but also endeavors to Christianize hu-
manity on the lines of social relationships and social
ties, manifests itself in the discussions of our religious
assemblies, in the deliberations of our popular con-
ventions, in the organization of societies for works
of beneficence and reform, and in the establishment
of great missionary agencies and enterprises for the
spread of the Gospel at home and abroad.

With the great absorbing purpose of reaching the
masses at home, and of spreading the Gospel among
all people in all lands, evangelical Christianity has
established numerous channels of communication, and
organized complete and extensive missionary enter-
prises conducted on such systematic principles and
by such skillful methods as to make our Gospel re-
sources best available to all our religious forces, and
render them directly and quickly communicable to
all parts of the world.

Resources of Reform 65

Thus evangelical machinery has been contrived
by which any society or person can place work or
means for Gospel enterprise in any part of the
world. What magnificent opportunities for all man-
ner of noble work, and what vast fields of labor
for scattering seeds of Gospel truth that shall bring
a glorious and an eternal harvest in the heavenly
garners of our Lord!

Our Racial Characteristics

Though the racial contributions of foreign nations,
by immigration to our country, have been, and still
are, fraught with dangers against which we must
constantly guard our shores, yet the fact is clearly
apparent that Providence has undoubtedly displayed
a guiding hand in establishing an Anglo-Saxon civi-
lization in America.

That two thirds of our white population, our lan-
guage, our civil and religious institutions are Anglo-
Saxon is a national characteristic of inestimable
importance, inasmuch as the Anglo-Saxon race is the
exponent of the two great ideas, civil liberty and
spiritual Christianity.

These two representative ideas, so potent in the

spread of Christian civilization, are more effective and

have a fuller development in the United States than

in Great Britain, where civil liberty and spiritual
5

66 God and Government

life are more or less restrained and hampered by
the union of Church and State.

Whether or not an international Anglo-Saxon alli-
ance should be sought and accomplished is yet an
open question, but in our zeal for liberty and reli-
gion it is a happy reflection indeed to know that within
the borders of our own national domain we already
have an assured and a powerful alliance between
forty-five sovereign States, a Union indeed of com-
manding opportunities and possibilities.

May God, who is so manifestly using Anglo-Saxon
power to conquer the world for Christ, and who is
continually opening new fields of usefulness unto us,
and who is so marvelously enlarging our scope of
influence, enable us to account ourselves worthy of
our national responsibilities and help us to act well
our part in the great and peaceful Gospel warfare of
King Immanuel.

Our Christian Education
"Moral education," says Fenelon, "is the bulwark
of the State." The founders and fathers of our Re-
public early foresaw that the safety, perpetuity, and
progress of the nation depended largely upon the
Christian education of our people.

They realized that true education consists, not
alone in the acquirement of knowledge or the culture

Resources of Reform 67

of the intellect, but that it includes also the train-
ing of our moral nature and the uplifting of the soul
on Gospel principles.

Accordingly, the common school of colonial days
was strictly a Church school, in which the children
were carefully educated in the orthodox faith. The
school-teacher stood next in rank of profession to
the minister of the Gospel, and religious requirements
were incorporated in the laws.

The idea of purely secular education is, therefore,
not an inheritance from our fathers, but evidently
a product of modern atheism and irreligion, foisted
upon the public under the hypocritical pretense of
religious freedom.

The time has come when the Christian sentiment
of our people ought to reassert itself and, returning
to the foundation principles upon which rest our na-
tional rights and liberties, demand that the skeptical
idea of pure secularity be banished from our public
schools, and require that Christian morality be taught
wherever education is maintained by public funds.

The inculcation of Christian morals and principles
through our State universities, normal schools, and
colleges is even still more urgent. These fountain
heads of higher learning, from which go out among
the people our educators for the rising generation,
should be sources of Gospel light and savor, as

68 God and Government

well as knowledge for public enlightenment and
amelioration.

That the higher educational resources of our coun-
try are largely under Christian control is fortunate
indeed; and the noble work of our various denomi-
national schools should be duly recognized and en-
couraged. While the State should not, under any
consideration, appropriate public funds for the sup-
port of parochial or sectarian schools; yet there
should be no legislation or administration of State
authority to discourage the work of Christian educa-
tion on the part of the Churches.

Liberal support and patronage should, of course,
be accorded our State schools in order to make them
progressive and successful, but aside from this they
should not be granted special privileges or advantages
over other schools of equal merit, and there should
be no partial discrimination between graduates from
State schools and graduates from denominational
schools of equal proficiency. Before our commis-
sioners of public schools, and in fact everywhere, real
merit on the basis of knowledge and Christian char-
acter alone should win.

Our Christian education should be fostered and
cherished as our strongest resource of national virtue
and prosperity. God bless the great army of Chris-
tian teachers in this our beloved land; and may that

Resources of Reform 69

same sweet spirit of Christian munificence which
called the three hundred and seventy universities
and colleges of our own country into existence main-
tain and prosper them in all the future.

Our Christian Homes

That during the past twenty years three hundred
and twenty-eight thousand divorces have been
granted by the courts of the United States is in-
deed appalling; and this fact indicates very clearly
that the perpetuity of the family and home life of
our people is endangered, and should be vigilantly
guarded by the powers of civil law and by every
possible precaution to prevent improper marriages
and divorces.

While the mania for divorce in the degenera^^ed
circles of society is deplorable, yet it is encouraging
to know that when the total number of divorces is
compared with the total number of marriages, in any
given year, the per cent of unhappy marriages is,
after all, comparatively small — so small, indeed, that
there is probably no other important institution in
all civilization that can show so small a per cent of
total failure as marriage.

The family is not only the oldest and most sacred
institution of humanity, but is also a divine ordi-
nance, which has from earliest times been main-

70 God and Government

tained and blessed of God as the nucleus of society
and the basis of Church and State.

The Saviour, who wrought his first miracle at a
marriage feast, has bestowed his choicest benedic-
tions on family altars and family ties. " All hail the
power of Jesus' name" in Christian homes!

'^ The foundation of a nation's glory," says Dr.
Lucien Clark, " is the home, where men and women
receive the bent and tone of their characters." The
real heroes and benefactors of the nation are not
our warriors who lead our armies to victory, not our
statesmen who wield authority in our seats of power,
not our authors of literary genius who mold public
opinion — nay, not even our ministers who sway the
multitudes with the powers of the precious Gospel.
All these, it must be admitted, have wrought wonders
for the public good, and merit immortal recognition
in the laurels of the nation's glory ; yet, in the light of
Gospel history and Gospel truth, it is evident that,
eventually, in the Lord's great and eternal day, the
highest roll of honor will, doubtless, be accorded
our Christian fathers and mothers as the true and
fundamental reformers, civilizers, and builders in the
national household of God.

Our Christian homes are our mightiest resources of
social influence and power. Home is the school of
character in which the earliest and most abiding

Resources of Reform 71

impressions are made by the moral and spiritual
training of the human mind and heart. Here father-
hood has a mission, but motherhood must lead as
the most impressing power. Home! what a noble
sphere for the exercise of the gifts and graces of
Christian womanhood! Though in our day ampler
and more public spheres have been opened to women,
through the professions and the various reformatory
and benevolent organizations, and though it is true our
sisters, as coworkers in the Lord's cause, have every-
where exalted the Gospel ideal of Christian steward-
ship, yet woman's first and highest mission is not, by
any means, in doubt; her crowning glory of noble
power and influence is, unquestionably, centered in
the queenly administration of the Christian home.

Our Christian Sabbath

The observance of the Christian Sabbath as the
Lord's Day in America is coeval with the most sacred
usages of our fathers in the early days of our Republic.
The Puritans of New England, the Huguenots of the
Carolinas, the Roman Catholics of Maryland, the
Dutch of New Jersey, and the Quakers of Pennsyl-
vania were all observers and defenders of the Christian
Sabbath.

The noblest men of our history — statesmen like
Washington, Webster, and Lincoln — have recognized

72 God and Government

the Lord's Day as a divine institution; Sunday laws
have been enacted by the national government and
by every State in the Union, save one ; and more than
a century of American history has demonstrated the
moral, mental, and physical necessity of Sabbath
observance.

The Christian Sabbath is our national citadel, our
strong tower and bulwark against the moral degradation
and physical degeneracy of our race ; and hence, even
from a purely secular and civil standpoint, the right
and propriety of Sunday legislation is unquestionable.

The Sabbath is a salutary pause in the hurry and
bustle of the busy age in which we live. It is the
laborer's "Magna Charta" to an established septenary
day of sweet franchise and needed rest from mental
and physical toil ; and, above all, it is a day of family
reunions and social intercourse, a day of quiet Bible
study and prayer in the Christian home, a day of
public worship and spiritual edification in the Church
— in short, a day of noble enjoyment in every good
word and work, remembering that " to do good and
to communicate we must not forget, for with such
sacrifices God is well pleased."

" In holy pleasures, let the day,

In holy duties, pass away;

How sweet the Sabbath thus to spend,

In hope of that which ne'er shall end!"

Resources of Reform 73

How animating and edifying to the soul are the
sacred memories of the Sabbath as the Lord's resur-
rection day; the day on which he, as the great Hero
of the ages, led captivity captive by his glorious
triumph over death, hell, and the grave; the day on
which he, in his resurrection body, repeatedly ap-
peared unto his followers ; the day on which he insti-
tuted his Church by imparting his baptism of the Holy
Ghost and by commissioning his apostles to preach
his Gospel to all people in all the world.

These sacred and historic events made the Lord's
Day holy in the estimation of Christ's disciples and
his immediate followers, and naturally led to its
observance as the Christian Sabbath for all time to
come. On the Lord's Day the disciples met for devo-
tional services. The great apostle Paul and the
primitive Church fathers, as also the faithful of God's
people in all the centuries of the Christian era, have
remembered and kept holy the Sabbath of our Lord,
who has so happily manifested his good pleasure
over the observance of his day by the spiritual
baptisms and marvelous benedictions vouchsafed unto
his people.

But, regardless of such remarkable and memorable
providences in the establishment of the Lord's Day,
the State would be justifiable, even on purely secular
grounds, in prescribing the first day of the week as

74 (jiOI) AND (JJoVEliNMKNT

our Cliristiun Sal)haih. Sabbath legislation without
r(MU)gniti()n of ajiy one particular day would ho
iMS})(H'ifi(^, ridiculous, and useless. Says Bishop John
W Newman: ''The States is bound to intervene; the
I)rincipl(^ of reciprocity (k^niands attention; rest for
all nu^n demands that all men shall rest; if one banker
rests all bankers must r(;st, all merchants must sus-
pend business, all prof(\ssi()ns must cease to labor.
Uniformity and conformity must go hand in hand."

Christinn unity in Sabl)ath observance ought to be
as practic.Mble niid satisfactory to all as it is desirable
and n(^C(\ssary. The Providcnice directing the change
from Jewish to the (/hristian Sabbath by the resur-
rection of (/iu'ist is certainly just as clear and unmis-
takable as was the Providence directing the change
from the patriarchal to th(^ Mosaic Sabbath by the
falling of the maima in the wilderness. That the
divine law as to our septenary day of rest may apply
as well to the first as to the last of seven days is also
very a|)j)nrent from the fact that man's first day on
earth was a Sabbath day, and therefore, in the very
nature of things, ]u\ even in his original state of sin-
lessness bc^fore the fall, observed Sabbath first before
he labored to "dress" and " keep" the "gank'U Eden."

All ('hristian people should labor and pray for unity
and elliciency in a ])ro|)er observance of the Lord's
Day, and in the enforcement of our Sunday laws.

Resouiices of IIeeohm 75

Sabbath (J(;secration is orio of tho crying!; sins of
our times. Evil in the urirc^geruirate hcsart is th(^
fountain head of the various causes leading to such
a gross violation of the fourth cornniandrn(;nt.

While th(j powers of law and force of argument
must, of course, be; apf)rK;d, yet we must r(;member
that only Gospel truth lodgcMJ in the soul, the divine
Word, accompanied by the Holy Spirit moving the
conscience and leading to divinfily inwrought con-
victions in respect to Sabbath observance — this alone
will be; permanently effectual in the work of Sabbath
reform.

In this great work the Christian peof)l(; of our land
must lead both })y precept and cixample, as made
effectual in the important work of tlir; home, the
school, and the Church.

Our Christian Beneficence

Providence has placed great material resourc(!S at
our command. Our national wealth, aside from our
new possessions, is estimat(;d at ov(;r S1M,00(),()0(),()00,
constituting us the richest nation on the globe. One
fifth, or S18,800/X)0,0()(), of this wealth is in Christian
hands.

Though it must be conceded that our Christian
munificence is not what it might be and should be,
in vi(;w of such vast resourcfjs, y(;t the; consciousness

76 God and Government

of stewardship in the use of wealth and the prev-
alence of a strong and growing spirit of benevolence
in the hearts of our people is encouraging.

This spirit not only animates men and women of
small means, who, as a rule, are the most liberal dis-
pensers of their substance for the Lord's cause, but
it also inspires the rich with the love that conquers
selfishness and makes noble sacrifices in deeds of
charity and munificence.

The increasing millions of consecrated wealth flow-
ing out annually from the treasures of the rich for
the establishment of benevolent institutions and for
the maintenance of great educational, philanthropic,
and missionary enterprises are living evidences of the
fact that wealth, as well as talent, is becoming Chris-
tianized, and that many persons of ample means are
realizing that riches are not given to be hoarded up
in great fortunes to be squandered in sensuality, or to
be displayed in gorgeous pomp and power, but to
be dispensed in noble and immortal administrations
of beneficence redounding to the glory of God and
to the welfare of humanity.

Both the disposition to give and the substance
given are of God, and are essential in the advance-
ment of our Lord's kingdom. While there are certain
divinely inwrought powers of faith, hope, and love
that cannot be substituted by material things, yet it

Resources of Reform 77

is a fact that money has a noble mission and a com-
manding power in the great problems of Christian
work. Says Dr. Strong: "For Christians to appre-
hend their true relation to money, and the relations
of money to the kingdom of Christ and its progress
in the world, is to find the key to many of the great
problems now pressing for solution. Money is power
in the concrete; it commands learning, skill, expe-
rience, wisdom, talent, influence, numbers. It repre-
sents the school, the college, the Church, the printing
press, and all evangelizing machinery."

In view of such a relation of money to the Lord's
kingdom, and in view of our opportunities for Chris-
tian influence, usefulness, and power, parsimony is
certainly incompatible with a truly Christian char-
acter, and the giving of our support for Gospel
enterprises should be considered by far more a joy
and a privilege than a self-denial and a duty, inas-
much as our beloved Lord has declared, " It is more
blessed to give than to receive." " He that give th
to the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and, look, that
which he layeth out he will pay him again." "He
that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully." There-
fore," be merciful after thy power: if thou hast much,
give plenteously; if thou hast, little, give gladly of
that little."

78 God and Government

Our Christian Journalism

Of the 15,000 newspapers and periodicals published
in the United States, about 700 are religious pub-
lications, circulating more than 120,000,000 copies
annually.

These religious journals in connection with the re-
ligious intelligence and influence also furnished by
most of our secular papers constitute a literary
potency of first rank among the Christian resources
of our country.

While the freedom of the press is evidently exposed
to many abuses that are fraught with danger of evil
to society, yet it is true that the liberty of thought
and speech, where properly applied, constitutes one of
our most important resources of Christian intelligence
and moral power for accomplishing wise and happy
solutions of the social, political, and religious issues of
our day and age.

The power of the press in exalting the ideal of life
in the individual, in shaping the course of events
in the history of nations, and in promulgating Gospel
truth for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, is in-
calculable and inestimable.

Ours is a reading age, and our journalists, who
are not only the historians of current events, but
also the expounders of modern thought and public
opinion, wield an immortal power for good or

Resources of Reform 79

evil, according to the merit or demerit of their
influence.

Both those who write and those who read should
heed the eternal responsibility devolving upon them
and seek to account themselves worthy of their lit-
erary duties and opportunities.

In view of the deplorable self -prostitution of a large
portion of our secular press, as manifested in the bent
and tone of evil teaching and in the unblushing detail
of all manner of revolting vice and crime, it becomes
the duty of Christian journalists not only to make
their papers pure, elevating, and inspiring to their
readers, but also to use their power of influence in
seeking to induce the editors of our great dailies to
expunge from their columns all that is impure, de-
grading, and vulgar. Says Dr. M. B. Chapman: " Car-
lyle used to ask pathetically in his last days why
God did not speak. Let him speak through the
columns of the religious press, and let us reiterate
the sweet message that came from our Lord : ' Blessed
are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.' "

SOCIAL REVOLUTION

6

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is tramphng out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are

stored,
He hath loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaming lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

^ As ye deal with my contenmers, so with you my grace shall

deal;"
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the feerpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat:
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
O, be swift, my soul, to answer him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, —
While God is marching on.

— Julia Ward Howe.

V

SOCIAL REVOLUTION

" Fight the good fight of faith."— 1 Tim. 6. 12

THAT ours is a sociological and revolutionary age
is not a misfortune, but rather a matter of con-
gratulation and encouragement. Social revolutions on
Gospel principles do not imply violence, and the ex-
treme interest of the civilized world in social prob-
lems is not, by any means, a token of degeneracy, but
by far more a living evidence of Christian progress.

The Gospel, though it condemns the spirit and prac-
tice of the skeptical and violent socialism of degen-
erated society, yet it teaches the Fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man. It recants narrow and
selfish individualism, it inculcates the spirit of kind-
ness and good will to others, and enjoins the duty of
altruism and mutual help. Christian socialism, born
of Gospel intelligence, spiritual conviction, and moral
betterment of men, is inspired by the purest motives
and seeks the revolution of society, not for selfish
ends, but for the common good,^nd not by violence,
but by the power of applied Gospel principles.

Our Lord's counseling his disciples to buy swords

83

84 God and Government

was not, even in the remotest sense, a repudiation of
faith in the triumph of the Gospel through love and
sacrifice, nor was it, in any way, an indication of the
idea of violence in Gospel warfare, but was absolutely
and clearly only a striking metaphorical expression
suggesting the vehemence and uncompromising char-
acter of the great irrepressible moral conflict of Chris-
tianity against the evils and dangers which threaten
humanity individually and socially.

That the great moral transformation of society to
be accomplished by the Gospel may be properly
termed a social revolution is unquestionable; for the
struggle leading to this result is not an imaginary
warfare against a mythical foe of only a mere super-
stitious significance, but it is the supreme conflict of
ages by which the mightiest forces of the universe —
Christ and Satan — clash; a conflict in which the
greatest temporal and eternal interests are involved,
and by which the destiny of individuals and of
nations shall be determined.

Our country is evidently one of God's chosen battle-
fields for this great social conflict, in which we are
already so irrevocably involved; and we, as a Chris-
tian people, may congratulate ourselves upon our
opportunities of moral heroism and noble warfare
"for God and home and native land." The fact that
there are many gigantic and dangerous evils con-

Social Revolution 85

fronting us, and threatening the fate of our RepubUc,
need not overwhelm us with dispair, but should re-
mind us of the earnestness of the conflict and lead us,
in the fear of God, to seek and exercise the heroic
faith and dauntless courage of a Caleb and a Joshua
in facing the enemies of our national vantage ground.
"If God be for us who can be against us?" Our
Hero of the Cross is invincible, and with a proper alle-
giance of ourselves to him victory is assured. Indeed,
Christianity, though it occupies no visible throne and
wields neither civil nor military forces, is already the
coming mightiest power of the land. But while we
thus enmlate the winning powers of our Leader in Gos-
pel warfare, and endeavor to appreciate the scope and
the magnitude of the social revolution to be accom-
plished, let us also seek properly to locate the main
strongholds of Satan and to comprehend the nature of
the national dangers confronting our progress.

Atheism

Among the legion of evils and dangers threatening
our fair Republic, atheism stands first in line because
it is the fundamental principle in Satan's warfare
against truth, virtue, and religion; and because it is
the fountain head of the bitter stream swelling the
flood gates of vice and crime in society.

As the old serpent in Paradise disguised falsehood

86 God and Government

under the pretense of truth, so the Devil of atheism
in our day conceals his Satanic identity and diabolic
purposes under various names and pretenses. Athe-
ism appears in various forms under the names
Rationalism, Materialism, Pantheism, Socialism, Com-
munism, Nihilism, Christian Science, ad infinitum; but
the prevailing spirit and the ultimate ruinous results
are invariably the same.

Atheism, if permitted to accomplish its baneful pur-
pose, would annihilate the Holy Scriptures, abolish the
Church of God, deny the existence of the Deity, the
immortality of the soul, the reward of heaven, and the
penalty of hell; it would substitute diabolic falsehood
for divine truth; it would inspire the human mind
with hatred for God and holy things; it would de-
throne Christianity from human hearts, and establish
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of
life, self-will, social disorder, and general debauchery
as common and unrestrained evils in society.

The prevalence and progress of atheism as evident
from the infidelic theories and practices of various
anti-Christian elements of our social fabric and from the
general estrangement of the masses from the Churches,
and from Gospel precepts and principles, must there-
fore be regarded as a most serious national danger
against which every Gospel force and Christian re-
source at our command should be vigorously directed

Social Revolution 87

in defense of the faith of our Fathers, and the safety
and perpetuity of our RepubHc.

With the dangers of atheism confronting us, we
certainly cannot afford dehberately to expunge the
name of God from the curriculum of our public educa-
tion. "Culture," says Bunsen, "without religious
consciousness, is nothing but civilized barbarity and
disguised animalism."

There should be no divergence between education
and religion in our common schools and State univer-
sities. Even in a free State it is not necessary that
public education should be entirely divorced from
revealed religion. With all the differences between
our various religious denominations, there is, never-
theless, a common basis upon which the faith of all
rests. The great fundamental truths concerning the
existence and supremacy of God, the divinity and
authority of Christ, the power and inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, the immortality of the soul, the moral
obligation in matters of right and wrong, the sacred-
ness and solemnity of the oath, the certainty of eter-
nal reward or punishment — these are doctrines upon
which all forms of Christianity practically agree, and
upon which the morality essential to our national
preservation is founded.

Though it is not the function of a Christian free
State to teach sectarian doctrines, or to support sec-

88 God and Government

tarian institutions, yet it is nevertheless her duty as a
power ordained of God to support Christianity and to
secure her own preservation by fostering a broad un-
denominational system of Christian education to be
supplemented by the more specific religious instruc-
tion of the Churches in the doctrines on which Christian
denominations differ.

Apprehending the inadequacy of mere secular educa-
tion in view of the dangers of atheism confronting
us, it is indeed refreshing to perceive a strong and
healthy Christian sentiment aroused and expressed
in the declarations and purposes of our new national
organization, the Religious Education Association.
All hail the power of this timely organization, so
full of promise for our future of Church and State;
and may its noble purposes in the dissemination of
religious knowledge in all branches of Christian
education, and in the moral elevation of our people,
be gloriously accomplished.

Mammonism
Mammonism consists not in the possession of
wealth, but in the idolatry of things possessed.
Mammonism is an evil, but wealth is a good thing.
Our forefathers were poor, but the Republic which
they founded has developed into the richest and
mightiest nation of the world. This our material

Social Revolution 89

progress is certainly not a mere coincidence, but a
dispensation of Providence; not a calamity, but a
benediction; not an occasion for pessimistic alarm,
but a cause for joyful gratitude to God.

Wealth, beneficently employed, is an important
factor in great industrial and commercial enterprises;
it is the handmaid of art, science, literature, and
religion among our people, and the fostering friend
of the laboring class, who are thereby enabled to en-
joy the reward and happiness that waits upon honest
industry. Wealth, and the honorable accumulation
thereof, from worthy motives, is therefore not an evil
to be denounced, but a virtue to be encouraged.

But the idolatry of wealth, the love of money for
money's sake, is " the root of all evil" — a menace and
a danger that bodes degeneracy and ruin to our Re-
public. "Avarice and luxury," says Livy, "have
been the ruin of every great State." History con-
firms the truth of this declaration. While poverty
has never killed a nation, wealth has precipitated the
ruin of many. Israel, Babylon, Rome, and Spain —
as other fallen nations — each began their decline
while in the zenith of their glory. Their great wealth
and national splendor generated carnal security,
false pride, moral corruption, discontent, and final
destruction.

Mammonism is doubtless as progenerative of evil in

90 God and Government

our times as in days of yore, and we know from living
evidences innumerable that it leads men to ignore the
claims of God and to indulge a materialism that
pollutes the heart, sears the conscience, and stultifies
the soul with the ban of a moral paganism that is as
ruinous and damnable as the idolatry of heathendom.
The passion for money breeds servility of trade to all
manner of criminality; it engenders fraudulent money-
getting monopolies that outrage every sense of hon-
esty and justice; it spreads broadcast over the land
a nefarious literature that demoralizes immortal souls;
it distills the fruits of earth into poisonous liquids that
brutalize human beings; it fosters dens of iniquity that
curse society with pauperism, drunkenness, theft, riot,
incendiarism, murder, and crimes, nameless and in-
numerable; it generates an aristocracy of mammon
worshipers, who in their homage of the money god
sacrifice principle for gain and grow fat on the life-
blood of the toiling masses; and it prostitutes the
political life of the nation by placing in our legisla-
tive halls men who will abuse their official prestige
and power to defraud and outrage the constituency
which they represent.

Facing such dangers by the ravages of mammon-
ism wise legislation on trusts, bribery, the money
problem, and our growing land aristocracy is certainly
in demand. In defense of the nation's honor and

Social Revolution 91

perpetuity, the abuses of wealth must be denounced
and restricted, fraudulent money-getting schemes
must be condemned and abolished, and the great
money accumulations of the country must be made
to bear their due portion of the support of the
government and of the care of the dependent classes.

We must not, however, depend on external remedies
alone, or confine our reformatory efforts exclusively
to certain localities or classes. Mammonism is a
moral malady requiring a moral remedy, a cosmo-
politan evil extending to all classes and all places; and
though all may not be equally contaminated, yet per-
haps none are entirely exempt, and all need the at-
tention of the great Physician, "who healeth all our
diseases, and redeemeth our life from destruction.'^

The Gospel of healing for this malady was pro-
claimed on the hills of Galilee two thousand years
ago; and where the saving grace of this Gospel is
applied the Spirit of Christ drives out the Devil of
avarice and establishes the supremacy of Christian
charity in the heart. The souls thus liberated look
above the eagle on our dollars, and can truly and
reverently say, "In God we trust!"

BACCHANALIAmSM

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." This

92 God and Government

scriptural and proverbial saying is as vital and true in
our day and generation as it was three thousand years
ago. Other evils and idolatries have had their limita-
tions of time and place, and have been restrained
and overcome by counteracting forces, but the Devil of
strong drink, deified by men and women into a mighty
God of Bacchus, has not grown antiquated, but has
survived and prospered through all ages, and is to-
day the most diabolic and ruinous foe of humanity.

Depraved appetite and greed, the allianced and
licensed copartners of the hellish liquor traffic, have
relentlessly conspired to thwart the powers of virtue
and religion in society, and there is not a nation
in all civilization that is free from the blighting and
brutalizing curse of Bacchanalianism.

Gladstone declares: "Intemperance has injured the
Anglo-Saxon race more than war, pestilence, and
famine." Governor Dix, of New York, admits: "In-
temperance is the undoubted cause of four fifths of
all the crimes, pauperism, and domestic misery of
the State." Indeed, it seems idle to quote eminent
authorities or to reiterate the wrongs and woes of this
appalling evil so commonly known and condemned
since there is scarcely a home in our land into which
the trail of the serpent has not entered, and whose
happiness has not been marred by the fiery demon
of strong drink.

Social Revolution 03

The liquor traffic, so progenerative of the drink
evil, is doubtless one of the most serious problems
confronting the nation. This giant of iniquity so
thoroughly organized, so powerful in its influence,
so arrogant in its demands, and so confident in its
rule of ruin, is " God's worst enemy and the Devil's
best friend in the bosom of civilization."

Bacchanalianism fostered by the licensed liquor
traffic degenerates our race morally, mentally, and
physically; it creeps into our homes, our schools, and
our Churches ; it blasts the lives and fortunes of thou-
sands of our citizens annually; it controls political
parties, debauches legislators, and perjures courts; it
prostitutes our towns and cities; it holds public offi-
cers and party machines with iron grasp; it bull-
dozes and vilifies the advocates of temperance,
morality, and religion; and seeks to muzzle the press,
the platform, and even pulpit of the land.

With such a progeny of Bacchanalianism known
by all men, and admitted even by liquor dealers
themselves, the duty of Christian citizenship, in tem-
perance work and legislation, seems to be very plain.
Knowing that but very few of the victims of the drink
evil are ever permanently redeemed, it is clear that
prevention is better than cure, and that the only suc-
cessful remedy lies in the principles and practices of
total abstinence and prohibition.

94 God and Government

Though a century of temperance warfare has not
yet been able to overthrow BacchanaHanism in the
United States, yet noble results in temperance re-
form have been achieved, and the encouraging out-
look for the future is promissory of greater triumphs
yet to come.

Agitation and discussion through the pulpit, plat-
form, and press has placed the temperance question
as a living issue in the minds of our best people, and
Churches, political parties, financial enterprises, and
business corporations, are studying its bearings and
are more than ever alive to its merits.

Public instruction, through our common schools, on
the evils of narcotics and intoxicating liquors is edu-
cating our rising generation on the drink habit, our
people generally are becoming more practically en-
lightened on the evils of intemperance, and are real-
izing more and more that the liquor problem is not
simply a moral issue, but a question of health, lon-
gevity, financial prosperity, social purity, and public
safety.

While it is a self-evident fact that the Hquor evil
can never be wholly abolished by any law so long as
men and women have a craving appetite for strong
drink, yet it has been unquestionably demonstrated
by legislative and judicial achievements that prohibi-
tion does diminish drunkenness and Bacchanalianism.

Social Revolution 95

Though the power of saloon prestige in certain
locahties and the complete enslavement of the drink-
ing element of our population is deplorable, yet the
general growth of temperance sentiment and the in-
crease of total abstinence are encouraging. Drinking
is no longer looked upon as a common and unchal-
lenged attribute o! true manliness, while total absti-
nence is the becoming and laudable characteristic of
the typical American.

Personal prohibition — total abstinence by individ-
ual choice — is perfectly consistent with the principles
and practices of true American liberty, and this is the
balm in Gilead that will eventually solve the drink
problem of the land, reasonably, naturally, and con-
clusively. Our drunkard-makers and their dupes
may declare that high license will not dethrone Bac-
chanalianism, that prohibition does not prohibit, that
local option is a farce, but let all our sons and daugh-
ters of liberty not yet enslaved by the rum tyrant
simply assert their rights, privileges, and duties in
temperance reform by the enforcement of personal
prohibition unanimously and permanently, and our
drink problem will be gloriously solved. Our liquor
traffic thus relegated to the exclusive support of our
drunkards, who, as a rule, are poor and short lived,
would soon die a natural death, and Bacchanalianism
would become a thing of the past.

96 God and Government

Let the temperance forces of Uncle Sam's domin-
ion, such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
the Anti-Saloon League, etc., take noble courage.
Heaven's approbation rests upon the great reform
for which they labor. God's power is mightier than
the power of the enemy, and victory is bound to come.

The final abolishment of the army canteen, which
for a time was a matter of contention between our
citizens at home and a great demoralizing evil among
"our boys" in the military service, was doubtless one
of the happiest events of our national legislation in
the first year of the new century. Though the harm
done by the alleged ambiguity, which made inefficient
the first Anti-Canteen law, can never be made good,
yet it is gratifying to know that by the authority of
the new law, more explicit and more stringent than
the old law, the "army saloon" has now been
abolished.

But legislative triumphs of still greater importance
in anti-Bacchanalian warfare are the recently enacted
federal laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liq-
uors in our national capitol buildings, as also in our
immigrant stations, and protecting the yet unciv-
ilized islands of the Pacific Ocean from the liquor
and opium traffic. May the providence of God, pre-
vailing through the councils of men, so direct our
future national legislation as to eventually establish

Social Revolution 97

and strictly maintain the long-sought and much-
needed interstate commerce law, which shall empower
local option territory and prohibition States not only
to control the liquor traffic within their own bounds,
but also to forbid the importation of intoxicating
liquors from other States — a power hitherto denied
by the Supreme Court.

The Social Vice

Licentiousness, the great social vice in all lands, is,
according to an eminent statistician and expert in
criminal history, one of the most powerful causes of
crime, pauperism, and misery in the United States
of America. The sexual purity of the rising genera-
tion and of the manhood and womanhood of the
nation is threatened and largely prostituted by the
immoralities of sex prevailing through a defective
parental influence, a perverted social intercourse, a
poisoned public literature, a degrading abuse of fine
arts, and the allurements of houses of infamy in our
towns and cities.

The social vice is a vulture which preys upon the
rottenness of the vilest instincts and panders to the
basest passions in human nature. It poisons the
intellect, crucifies virtue, blunts the obligation of
personal purity, disseminates loathsome diseases,
spreads hereditary taints of evil, endangers the
7

98 God and Government

home life of our people, and breeds moral degra-
dation and ruin.

Alas, that the magnitude of this evil is so rarely
comprehended, and that the remedies applied are so
frequently by far inferior to the malady treated. The
delicacy of the subject instinctively leads to an atti-
tude of avoidance and inactivity regarding sexual
vices. Parents shut their eyes and, even without
counsel or warning, risk the exposure of their children
to vicious social influences; teachers find difficulty in
imparting proper instruction; ministers are tempted
to avoid directness in broaching such subjects; and
public journals are prone to treat social evils with
silence. Hence, under the ban of a false sense of
shame, the dangers of the social vice remain unex-
posed, and thousands of our youths are entrapped
into the snares and follies of nameless sins.

Our duty in confronting this evil is unquestionable,
and the remedy to be applied is plain and unmistak-
able. The work in the crusade against the social vice
is largely a work of prevention, an ounce of which is
better than a pound of cure. Impurity must be pro-
hibited by teaching purity, dishonor must be averted
by inculcating principles of honor, and vice must be
counteracted by f orestallments of virtue in the hearts
and minds of our people.

In this noble work the Christian homes, the schools,

Social Revolution 99

and the Churches must lead, while the White Cross
League, the American Purity Alliance, the Western
Society for the Suppression of Vice and kindred or-
ganizations, shall join in the ceaseless and vigorous
warfare against the social vice, which is the corrupter
of our youth, and the insiduous foe of our race.

While the meagerness and futility of laws in the
interest of social purity must be deplored, yet it is
gratifying to see prevailing public sentiment discard-
ing the passing idea of merely restricting the social
vice to certain ill-famed localities in our cities, and
seeking by the powers of prohibitory laws to suppress
this loathsome evil everywhere.

Much credit is due the Woman's Christian Temper-
ance Union, which, through the distinguished in-
fluence of Margaret Dye Ellis, at the national capital,
has done such noble work toward securing, through
the legislation of Congress, the restoration of the law
to exclude obscene pictures and prizes from pack-
ages of tobacco, and the appointment of six women as
immigrant inspectors at the port of New York to aid
in preventing the importation of women for immoral

purposes.

The City Problem

The rapid increase of our city population from four
to over thirty per cent during the past century sug-
gests the importance of the city problem. Our rural

100 God and Government

population in many States is coming to a standstill,
or even to an actual shrinkage, and the increase is
in our cities, which are rapidly multiplying in num-
ber and growing in size and in power.

Attracted by superior privileges of enjoyment, the
enticements of vice, the opportunities for specula-
tion, the conveniences for commerce and manufac-
ture, and the possibilities of social and political
power, our population is gradually drifting to the
towns and cities.

The fact that we already have within the United
States nearly three hundred important cities, with
the passenger elevators lifting them skyward, and the
conveniences of rapid transit pushing them out to
the remotest bounds of our territory, is certainly a
significant, though not necessarily, as some would sur-
mise, an alarming aspect of our modern civilization.

True it is, that evil is, and always was, most potent
in large cities. The great cities of antiquity were, in
a great measure, the citadels of Satanic powers and
influences. Think of the debaucheries of Sodom and
Gomorrah, of the pollutions of Tyre and Sidon, of the
idolatry of Nineveh, the wickedness of Babylon, and
of the degeneracy of even Jerusalem in her latter
days. Casting our eyes from the past upon the pres-
ent, we are painfully reminded of the fact that sin-
fulness, as an abiding quality of human nature, still

Social Revolution 101

asserts its debasing powers by utilizing our great
modern cities as the fountain heads of the polluting
streams of evil, which are fraught with moral degra-
dation and eternal ruin to human souls.

While it is true that ungodliness abounds every-
where, yet it is certainly most rife and powerful in the
cities where all forms of dissipation that lure to vice
and crime are shielded by an influence that is well-
nigh omnipotent; and where gorgeous wealth, impos-
ing splendor, persuasive eloquence, and social prestige
are all in the ranks of the world, the flesh, and the
Devil as weapons of wickedness against holiness,
virtue, and religion. Here the low, the vile, and the
outcast elements of societ}^, as well as the fine-haired
and blue-blooded vultures in human form, organize
for purposes of intrigue, and prey upon the unsus-
pecting victims who are entrapped in their snares.
Here, in the nightly debaucheries of gambling dens
and houses of infamy, Satan corrupts the innocence
of youth, destroys the purity of home, and enslaves
the soul in chains of darkness, death, and hell. The
city government only too frequently lays down her
scepter before the powers of iniquity, and her police
force, ignoring its mission of law, decency, and order,
becomes the shield of vice and crime in these Gib-
raltars of Satanic power.

Thus it is plain that the seats of the powers of

102 God and Government

wickedness are located in our cities, and that here are
the decisive battle grounds of civilization and religion.
Herein lies the great importance of special effort for
the evangelization of our cities. Bless God, for the
powers of the Saviour's Gospel by which our cities
are redeemable from the perils of wickedness, and
may be transformed from centers of darkness into
centers of Gospel light and power and purity. City
evangelization is encouraged by the example and
precept of our Saviour, who devoted his personal
ministry largely to cities, and commanded his apostles
to preach his Gospel, beginning at Jerusalem. Cities
were the theaters of the Holy Spirit's first visita-
tions, and marvelous achievements in the conversion
of souls. Cities in our day enjoy peculiar advan-
tages for the promotion of religion, besides exerting a
commanding influence on the country and the world.
For the evangelization of our cities many things
are needed — one of which certainly is the extension
of Gospel privileges and opportunities to the care-
less, the vicious, and the neglected classes of society.
Happily, the Institutional Church, our National City
Evangelization Union, and other organizations, have
set out in real earnest to study the solution of the city
problem, to quicken the conscience of the Churches in
the work, and to devise ways and means whereby the
unevangelized may be reached and supplied with

Social Revolution 103

the Gospel. God save our cities and make them great
Gibraltars of power in the work of evangeUzing the
world!

Political Corruption

Possibly our greatest national danger is political
corruption, the disease of which governments die.
History does not record a single instance of a gov-
ernment absolutely pure, and doubtless there has
always been more or less corruption in the manage-
ment of government affairs among all nations. That
American government is subject to this common
tendency of human depravity, and that there has
been a marked and rapid decadence in the direction
of political corruption in our own country during the
last decade is painfully evident.

The cost of conducting political campaigns is grow-
ing enormously. Money is becoming more and more
a powerful element in our politics, and King Dollar
too frequently holds the balance of power in elec-
tions. This is unmistakable evidence of a dangerous
political corruption. There is, of course, a legitimate
use of money in elections, that is when money is ap-
plied for printing and circulating political literature,
for the hiring of public halls, and for the employment
of campaign oratory. But no intelligent person
would suppose that the vast amount of money now
being expended by the political parties in national

104 God and Government

and State elections is thus applied to legitimate uses.
The greater portion of it passes from the bribe-givers
to the bribe-takers to buy votes.

Bribery — what a burning shame and a blighting
curse to American politics! There was a time when
bribery was despised as a disgraceful crime to which
none but traitors would resort, but alas, the day has
come when bribery no longer bows its head with
shame, but even boldly defies honesty in politics and
decides elections in its own favor. By such tactics the
will of the people is defeated, honest government is
overruled, public virtue is prostituted, politics becomes
degraded, corrupt officials are conveyed to seats of
power, and the stability of the nation is threatened.

Surely American freedom can and must be guarded
against the rule and ruin of merchandise in political
suffrage. The safeguards of the nation must be
strengthened by elevating the standard of political
morality — by teaching through every available re-
source of education that bribery and corruption con-
stitute a crime against our flag and our country's
God. With the aid of millions of loyal Americans,
who, as worthy sons and daughters of liberty, could
not be bribed by all of the combined forces of earth
and hell, the outlook for the future of our Republic
ought to be bright and full of promise.

The desire of the people for pure and honest gov-

Social Revolution 105

ernment is manifested by the recent progress in
ballot reforms, by the laws regulating the expendi-
ture of money in elections, by the growing sentiment
advocating the election of United States senators by
a direct vote of the people, by the general crusade on
behalf of pure civic life, and, with all these things
favorable, the opening years of the new century
should witness a marked and rapid cleansing of our
State and national politics.

Extravagance and Luxuriousness

Finally, before closing this chapter, extravagance
and luxuriousness should be mentioned as dangerous
foes to our Republic. Though wealth is no more
a crime than poverty could be a virtue, yet it is
apparent that our material prosperity, where not
accompanied by a corresponding moral, intellectual,
and spiritual advancement, is progenerative of a
materialism that is liable to assert itself in an ex-
travagance and a luxuriousness that bodes danger
to our national welfare.

Luxury generates imbecility of manhood. Says
Herodotus : " It is a law of nature that faint-hearted
men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we
never find that the same soil produces delicacies and
heroes." Even more is true, Luxury not only unmans
the individual, but it demoralizes society by generating

106 God and Government

and fostering a spirit of envy, hatred, and sedition
among men. Says George Bancroft : " Sedition is bred
in the lap of luxury." The fallen nations of history
are witnesses to this fact. By the dissolution of king-
doms, by the overthrow of empires, and the fall of
republics, luxurious extravagance has sounded the
death knell of great nations.

Having no guarantee that the rule of history shall
be specially reversed for our national safety, we, as
the people of a great and prosperous nation, with en-
ticements to luxurious self-indulgence on every hand,
may do well to apprehend the timely forewarnings of
the dangers confronting us. Were the great nations
of antiquity tempted by their material prosperity to
indulge the sins of luxurious extravagance, then we
would better be reminded that we are already under-
going the same trial and are indeed being threatened
with coming judgment.

Behold the millions of our wealth lavishly and reck-
lessly squandered in sumptuous State dinners, in
riotous campaign feasts, in gaudy inauguration balls,
in "vigorous foreign policies," in sensual amusements,
in carnal indulgencies, in social shams, and imposing
bigotries innumerable; while the multitudes of the
poor are in want for even the actual necessaries of life!

Moreover, unworthy stewardship of God's bounty is
revealed, not only in unblushing luxuriousness of the

Social Revolution 107

rich, but is also manifested in the reckless extrava-
gances of the people of moderate means; for by the
influence of mechanical invention, which cheapens
luxuries, self-indulgence has been so greatly extended
and multiplied that even among common people the
annual expenditures for luxuries far exceed the
outlays for the necessaries of life.

While there is much diversity of opinion as to the
propriety and method of legal restrictions and pro-
hibitions on personal indulgence, yet, from a scientific
as well as a moral and political standpoint, the impor-
tance of counteracting luxurious extravagances by
opposing them on Gospel principles is unquestionable.
Our national perpetuity, as well as our advancement
in Christian civilization, demands the protection of
our young and rising generation against the evil of
luxurious indulgences, the cultivation of the higher
elements of human nature in individual lives, and the
establishment of a public sentiment that will condemn
and forbid the luxurious extravagances that threaten
our race and imperil our nation.

Let the great work of modern social reform begin-
ning at Washington go on and accomplish its mis-
sion there and everywhere throughout the land.

The old-time idea that official society at the national
capital is or should be the whole or crowning thing
in social life deserves to pass away.

108 God and Government

Presidential administrations should no longer be
embarrassed by the responsibilities of leadership in
the events of the social season. Incumbents of cabinet
positions, our senators and representatives in Con-
gress, as well as all other public officials, should not
be incumbered with social extravagances that would
either tempt them to dishonesty or relegate them to
private life. All hail the power of the public sentiment
that frowns down the moblike functions of the official
receptions, at which small fortunes are lavishly
squandered. The official dishonesty generated by
the enormous expenditure of such social eclat con-
demns such extravagance in the minds of the people.
Ours is a practical business age, and the common
sense of the people's representatives at the national
capital is dictating a more simple and rational per-
formance of social obligations in official circles.
Though usage as well as social etiquette will command
the future continuance of the formalities of official
receptions, yet let us hope that the force of pubhc
sentiment and the practice of proverbial Jeffersonian
simplicity will eventually eliminate the abominations
of former extravagances and establish a more honest
and healthy condition of things in social matters at
Washington, as also in the capitals of the various
States of the nation.

CHURCH AND STATE

THE PILGRIMS

Across the rolling ocean

Our Pilgrim Fathers came,
And here, in rapt devotion,

Adored the Maker's name.
Amid New England's momitains,

Their temple sites they chose,
And by its streams and fountains

The choral song arose.

Their hearts with freedom burning,

They felled the forest wide.
And reared the halls of learning.

New England's joy and pride;
Through scenes of toil and sadnass

In faith they struggled on,
That future days of gladness

And glory might be won.

The men of noble spirit,

The pilgrims, are at rest —
The treasures we inherit

Proclaim their memory blest!
From every valley lowly,

From mountain tops above.
Let grateful thoughts, and holy.

Rise to the God of love.

— P. H. Sweetser.

VI

CHURCH AND STATE

" Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Csesar's;
and unto God the things that are God's."— Matt. 22. 21.

CHURCH and State are not organically related
in the United States. Though both are recog-
nized as divine institutions, yet they have separate
functions, and each pursues an independent course in
its own sphere. The Church, having to do with
spiritual things, has religious liberty in all that pertains
to the kingdom of God. The State, having to do with
public affairs, has free course in all that relates to the
administration of civil government. Notwithstanding
this reciprocal independence, there is, however, a very
close cooperative relation between Church and State in
America. While the State depends for its existence
upon the character given its citizens by the Church,
the Church in turn depends upon the State for pro-
tection of property, of worship, and all beneficent
work. This system of independence and coopera-
tion between Church and State accomplishes the end
of noninterference and free-working the most complete
in history, and demonstrates to the world that civil
and religious liberty are happy and fundamental

111

112 God and Government

principles in a successful Christian "government of
the people, by the people, for the people." "What-
ever," says Dr. Schaff, "may be the merits of the
theory of the American system, it has worked well in
practice. It has stood the test of experience. It has
the advantage of the union of Church and State with-
out the disadvantages. It secures all the rights of
the Church without the sacrifice of liberty and inde-
pendence, which are worth more than endowments."

This relation of independence between Church and
State must therefore not be misconstrued as a skeptical
provision necessitating an absolute divorcement of
religion from the State, but should be regarded as a
consistent and practically applied principle of liberty
that is essentially both republican and Christian in
theory and practice.

From the State papers, the speeches, and the polit-
ical literature of colonial days, it is evident that the
deliberations of our fathers in framing our National
Constitution were not actuated by skeptical motives,
but that they fully realized the importance of the
prevalence of Christian principles in the adjustment
and conduct of public affairs, and in the promotion
of our national welfare. But it is also apparent that
the wise men who founded our Republic had read
history with a full understanding of the baleful effects
of the mingluig of religion and politics, and hence,

Church and State 113

endeavoring to solve the vexed problem of the ages
and seeking to escape the serious difficulties encoun-
tered by the nations of the old world, they were care-
ful to rear a structure of government unhampered
by ecclesiastical entanglements.

Accordingly, the provision was made in our National
Constitution that "No religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any office or public trust
under the United States," and that "Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thus perfect
religious liberty was assured, the establishment of a
State Church was prohibited, religious institutions were
forever debarred from the sphere of political con-
troversy, and all ecclesiastical bodies were made
absolutely equal before the law of the land.

For centuries past three theories concerning the rela-
tion of Church and State have prevailed in practice
among the nations. First, Church supremacy over
civil government. Second, State supremacy over the
Church. Third, Church and State reciprocally inde-
pendent. All three methods have been amply tried.
In countries where Roman Catholicism has swayed
power the doctrine of the supremacy of the Church
has been assumed, and in countries where Protestant-
ism has prevailed the doctrine of the supremacy of the
State has been maintained.
8

114 God and Government

Neither Church supremacy in national affairs nor
State supremacy in Church affairs has ever given
satisfaction, but both relations have been detrimental
and harmful to both Church and State.

The independence of Church and State as prac-
tically applied and successfully in vogue in the United
States, for very apparent reasons, deserves the com-
mendation and support of every American citizen,
whether Catholic or Protestant. Even between the
two great opposing factions of Christendom there
should be no occasion for strife over the true relation
of Church and State in our Republic. Every patriotic
American citizen should be a loyal advocate of civil
and religious liberty and an uncompromising defender
of the Union against any power or influence that
would seek to bring the Church and the State into
unnatural relations which would militate against the
welfare of the nation.

Pure reciprocal independence is the ideal relation
between Church and State; and, doubtless, our fathers
were providentially guided in the establishment of
this relation, by virtue of which we have not only
escaped all theological embarrassments in our politics,
but have secured, besides, all the advantages of re-
ligious sentiment and achievement. Our history dem-
onstrates that the complete separation of Church
and State neither signifies the secularization of the

Church and State 115

State nor the effemination of the Church, but that
such a reciprocal relation of independence is best
for both institutions, and most conducive to the
prosperity and happiness of the people.

Indeed, our national policy and practice relative to
the principle of Church and State relation has been
more than vindicated by the remarkable progress of
religion in the United States, and by the clearly
manifested tendency toward the disestablishment of
State Churches in other countries. The sweeping
tendency of modern times is in the direction of civil
and religious liberty, and therefore, though we have
no State Church in America, yet in view of the power
of revealed religion in our country, we are, in the
eyes of the civilized world, not regarded as a godless
people, but are respected at home and abroad as a
Christian nation.

The absence of an established State Church in our
land is more than replaced by a multitude of free
and independent Churches. The principles of the
Christian religion underlie the foundations of our
federal and State governments, and permeate our
legislative, our judicial, and our executive depart-
ments. While as far as numbers are concerned, it
must be admitted that in our country, as in other
lands, the really nonreligious portion of our people
is yet in the majority; yet it is a fact beyond

116 God and Government

question that applied Christianity has been an
active and a potent influence in the work of our
national conquest and progress, and that the reli-
gious element of our population of the present
day is largely the controlling power in our national
life.

In remembrance of the superintending Providence
guarding us, and in recognition of the beneficence
of religion promoting our national welfare, our gov-
ernment has, from its origin to the present day,
honored and embraced Christianity in various ways.
In all the colonial charters and compacts, in the
Declaration of American Independence, in most of
our State Constitutions, and in all the inaugural ad-
dresses of our Presidents, save one, we find distinct
recognitions of divine rulership in national affairs.
Besides the chaplaincies in our army and navy, in
Congress, and in our State Legislatures, the use of the
Bible in our inaugural ceremonies, and in public in-
stitutions, the administration of the oath in our
courts of justice, the enactment of laws pertaining
to Sabbath observance, to public worship, and to
moral obligations, the annual Thanksgiving procla-
mations by the President of the nation and by the
governors of every State in the Union, the inscrip-
tion on our coins, "In God we trust" — all these and
many other things are evidences of the fact that our

Church and State 117

government embraces religion and that we are really
a Christian nation.

The propriety and beneficence of the mutual inde-
pendence of Church and State in a Christian nation
are easily apparent. This relation places the Church
in a consistent attitude toward the teachings of
Christ, who has declared that his kingdom is not of
this world, it liberates the Church from servile sub-
mission to political relations, and influences and gives
her the power of self-adaptation and self-develop-
ment as a divine institution; it places the Church on
a self-sustainmg basis, demonstrating to the world
that Gospel enterprises and religious institutions can
stand alone and are not dependent upon national
support.

Moreover, freedom of the Church encourages Chris-
tian unity by inciting spirituality and enthusiasm in
religious endeavor, and by evoking a sentiment of
common loyalty to the noble cause and high calling
in Christ Jesus. True it is that some people of the
State Church idea would denounce religious freedom
under the plea that it has generated a denomina-
tionalism that has been detrimental to the cause of
Christian unity in America. Now it is true that,
while State Churchism has fostered a dead formal-
ism and even a rank skepticism in European nations,
the abuse of religious liberty has, in many instances,

118 God and Government

disturbed the peace and harmony of religious workers
and corporations b}^ placing sectarianism at war with
the best interests of true Christian unity in America.
Even at the present day, and in all the future, we
shall do well to recognize the danger of religious strife
and to avoid the sins of denominationalism, remem-
bering that a divided Christendom wages an imequal
contest against united sin.

Fortunately, however, the folly of denominational
rivalries is becoming more and more apparent, and
religious sentiment in America is moving in the direc-
tion of Church federation and Christian unity. The
Congregational National Council of 1898 approved the
proposal for a confederation of all our Protestant de-
nominations. Actual attempts at local Church federa-
tion in Pittsburg, New Haven, Hartford, in a portion
of New York, and in other cities, have shown excellent
results. More significant still is the accomplished fed-
eration of the principal denominations of the State of
Maine, as having already existed for half a dozen
years.

Even the two great opposing factions of Christen-
dom, Catholicism and Protestantism, are laying aside
many of their former antagonisms, and are being
drawn closer toward each other by various affilia-
tions in different forms of work. The Hon. Justice
David J. Brewer, in an article published in The

Church and State 119

Inde'pendent, cites two remarkable instances showing
the growing spirit of fraternaUsm between Cathol-
icism and Protestantism in America. He relates:
" Cardinal Gibbons, the head of the Catholic Church
in this country, and Bishop Paret, of the Episcopal
Church, were invited to attend a gathering in which,
by reason of its official character, the rank of the
various guests was a matter of consideration. The
bishop, turning to the cardmal, said: 'Which has the
higher rank, a cardinal in the Catholic or a bishop
in the Episcopal Church?' 'I do not know,' was
the reply; 'let us not raise the question, but let us
go in side by side,' and they did." At a gathering
of Congregationalists in Pennsylvania the eloquent
Catholic Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, was a
welcome guest, and in the course of his speech truth-
fully said, that "the spirit of charity is the spirit
of the day. The time is past when the Protestant
should look back upon the horrible things of the In-
quisition and denounce Roman Catholicism on ac-
count thereof, or the Cathohcs, on the other hand,
look back at the hanging of the witches, or the perse-
cution of the Quakers, and denounce Protestantism
therefor, but each should shake hands and join in a
common effort to further the cause of a common
Master."
This growing spirit of religious charity effecting

120 God and Government

cooperation in Church work does not by any means
indicate that denominationaUsm shall cease, and that
an ultimate organic unity of the Churches shall take
place in this country; but it does indicate a growing
Christian unity without organic Church unity, which
are two quite different things, as may be clearly
seen from many forms of undenominational Christian
work now being done; for instance, by the Young
Men's Christian Association, by the Christian En-
deavor Society, by the Sunday School Unions, by the
Children's Aid Society, by the Chautauqua assem-
blies, and by various other associations and organ-
izations instituted for Christian cooperation in many
lines of evangelistic and beneficent work.

Such evidences and possibilities of growing Chris-
tian unity in a land of civil and religious liberty speak
volumes, not only for the maintenance of our Church
and State independence, but also for our adherence
to the old landmarks which characterize our Republic
as a Christian nation. There are those who denounce
the old established usages recognizing the supremacy
of God and the importance of religion in national
affairs as only so many relics of an antiquated State
religion that ought to be abolished, and who, under
the plea of independence between Church and State,
emphatically demand the complete separation of
every vestige of religion from everything pertaining

Church and State 121

to the government; and there are those also who, by
the abuse of pohtical prestige, would seek to estab-
lish and intrench ecclesiastical power and influence
through access to our public treasuries for the pur-
pose of securing funds for sectarian interests.

Both of these influences should be promptly and
vigorously rebuked in defense of our national welfare.
Should our government ever become completely secu-
larized by an absolute divorcement of religious pre-
cepts and principles from all State affairs, she would
thereby become bereft of her only safeguard of na-
tional virtue and security, and would be hopelessly
doomed to the same downfall and ruin that has be-
fallen every other godless nation in the world's his-
tory of bygone ages.

Nor would an organic union of Church and State
in our Republic be free from impending danger.
"History," says Dr. J. M. King, "shows that where
religious sects have been allowed to take public lands
or public money they become gorged with wealth,
and have forced a union of Church and State. It also
shows that, wherever religion has been wedded to the
State individual conscience has been debauched and
a gigantic, tyrannical, political machine has been
instituted."

To avert both the perils of secularization on the
one hand, and of ecclesiasticism on the other, for all

122 God and Government

future time, the same patriotic vigilance that has
hitherto confronted the intrigues of atheism and
Mormonism in this country must also assert itself
in prompt and vigilant resentment against both the
infidelic and the politico-ecclesiastical agencies threat-
ening our national welfare.

Generally speaking, however, it is gratifying to
know that Christian faith is a much greater power in
our religious and political relations than infidelity
can now hope ever to be, and that the politico-
ecclesiastical aspirations unfriendly to our civil and
religious independence is limited exclusively to the
primitive branch of Christendom. The Protestant
Churches of the United States, though representing
perhaps even a hundred denominations, differing
with each other in their creeds, their forms of worship,
and in their Church administrations, yet, as a rule,
they are not in any wise antagonistic to the Consti-
tution or the laws of the land, but are in harmony
with the government, and regard the national wel-
fare as a matter of great and common interest. They
are, of course, interested in national affairs, they
hold their convictions on all questions of public wel-
fare, and in their conventions and conference as-
semblies they declare themselves freely and emphat-
ically on the moral and living issues of the day,
but they are never found dictating a political party

Church and State 123

policy or seeking to control State or national legisla-
tion for sectarian purposes. The Churches, as a
whole, are truly patriotic and loyal to our flag,
they respect and uphold civil law and authority,
they foster morality and virtue, and seek the safety,
perpetuity, and progress of the nation.

Therefore, though Church and State are not and
ought not to be organically united in this country,
there is every plausible reason for a truly friendly and
cooperative relation that should lead them as twin
divine institutions into a spiritual unity and unto a
harmonious power in confronting the great moral evils
that threaten ruin to humanity, and in fulfilling the
eternal obligations devolving upon them for the com-
plete establishment and successful advancement of
Christ's kingdom in every State and Territory or new
possession of our entire national domain.

INTERNATIONAL FRATERNALISM

WELCOME TO THE NATIONS

Bright on the banner of lily and rose,

Lo, the last sun of our century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,

All but her friendships the nation forgets!

All but her friends and their welcome forgets!
These are around her: but where are her foes?

Lo, while the sun of her century sets.
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose!

Welcome! a shout like the war-trumpet's swell

Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around!
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell,

Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!

Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound!
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;

Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome! still trembles on Liberty's bell!

Thrones of the Continents! Isles of the sea!

Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine;
Welcome, once more, to the land of the free,

Shadowed alike by the palm and the pine;

Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine;
Hushed is our strife in the land of the free;

Over your children their branches entwine.
Thrones of the continents! Isles of the sea!

— Oliver Wendell Holmes.

VII

INTERNATIONAL FRATERNALISM

" On earth peace, good will toward men." — Luke 2. 14.

THAT the Gospel millennium of peace on earth
and good will to men is not yet at hand is very
clearly evident from the daily records of modern
warfare. The Devil of grasping greed and brutal con-
flict has not yet been subdued and banished from the
realms of civil authority, but he still reigns as the
great disturbing element in humanity, and still re-
veals his diabolic power in the upheavals of bloody
strife among the nations. Hence, in spite of all ad-
vancements in the arts of civilization, we still have
wars and rumors of war. The great armored navies
on the seas and the large standing armies on the con-
tinents menace the peace of the civil powers. Indeed,
the transition from the old into the new century has
been marked by deplorable conditions of war, involv-
ing the leading nations of the world ; and the horrid
scenes of bloody conflict portrayed from the varior
theaters of war in Africa, in the Philippines, and i.
China, have brought about the common observation
that the world is passing through a crisis, with the

127

128 God and Government

question at issue, whether civiUzation or barbarism
shall prevail. Yet, with all the discord and strife
between the powers of the present day, we must not
ignore or overlook the salutary and pacifying influ-
ence of Christianity in the international affairs of the
world.

Though the present status of international rela-
tions is very far from its true ideal of what it should
be, yet, when we compare the present with the past,
there is evident a pleasing and a remarkable progress
toward international fraternalism in Christian civi-
lization. Among the nations of antiquity there was
no such thing as acknowledged international law.
With the Greeks and Romans the opponents in war
were regarded as barbarians, and their laws and
practices of warfare knew no limit beyond enslave-
ment and extermination. Their captives in war were
supposed to have lost all rights of life or liberty, and
were tortured, enslaved, or killed at the captor's
pleasure.

Though the jus gentium was finally evolved as a
branch of internatiotial law among the Romans, and
though the Greeks had their Amphictyonic League
to regulate differences between the Hellenic States,
yet, in either Grecian or Roman warfare with other
lands, these laws were frequently suspended and, as
a rule, had little power over complications with

International Fraternalism 129

foreign nations. In those times a nation's right to
exist depended solely upon its ability to exist. In-
ternational communication was frequently denied or
violated, ambassadors were often savagely executed,
and hostility, with the base motives of subjugation,
extermination, or plunder, was regarded as the
natural attitude of nations toward each other.

That the progress of the modification of inter-
national relations on Christian principles, and accord-
ing to established laws, was, from the beginning,
fragmentary and slow, is true and quite natural.
It could, from the very nature of prevailing condi-
tions and circumstances, not be otherwise. There
had to be a distinct national organization of civil
governments before a code of international laws
could be formulated; and, since international law
is a voluntary thing, there had to be a free and a
submissive surrender of the independent and self-
controlling States to the rules and regulations of
national arbitration before the laws of nations could
be applied and enforced in the adjustment and settle-
ment of differences between the civil powers of the
world.

International law, like every other good thing, has
been confronted by opposing difficulties. The cen-
tralization of power in the Roman empire and the
chaotic confusion of the formative period succeeding
9

130 God and Government

the fall of the Western empire were, for ages, the
chief impediments to the progress of Christian princi-
ples as expressed in the powers and regulations of
laws between the nations. "But," says Dr. Storrs,
"in spite of all that was weak, ignominious, and
morally disgraceful in these centuries, and in those
which followed, the undestroyed power of the Chris-
tian religion continued to operate."

The march of Christian civilization from the Middle
Ages to modern times, the settlement of international
disputes by papal arbitration as practiced until the
close of the fifteenth century, and the importance of
the Reformation during the sixteenth and succeeding
centuries are facts of history, showing how Christian
principles in international relations were eventually
established "in good faith" between the nations, and
how finally, by the treaty in 1648, international law
was stamped with a positive character as an authority
and a means of justice and fraternal regard between
the civil powers.

In the progress of Christian civilization from that
time to our day and age, international relations
have been greatly ameliorated. The growing ideas
of justice and good will have ripened into domi-
nant principles among men recognizing the fraternal
obligations of nations toward each other. Though
the Armenian and Chinese massacres, as also the

International Fraternalism 131

atrocities of recent wars, are unwelcome reminders
of the barbarisms of darker ages, yet it is gratifying
to know that the frequency of war is lessened, the
occasion for it is limited, and its horrors have, on the
whole, been greatly diminished. War between nations
is now only an ultimate expedient reluctantly re-
sorted to after all efforts of diplomacy have failed.
Arbitration as a means of settling national disputes is
growing in favor, international law is becoming more
and more a recognized standard of universal author-
ity, and the good offices of peaceful diplomacy are,
as a rule, regarded with favor and approval through-
out the civilized world.

But in our review of present international relations
our attention is quite naturally directed to the grow-
ing principle of national expansion as now prevalent
with the leading powers of civilization. . The transi-
tion of the political world from the once prevailing
principle of nationalism to that of imperialism, or
national expansion, is remarkable and significant.
Both principles are important factors of civilization.
Nationalism was the predominating influence which
developed the leading civil powers of the nineteenth
century into strong national States; and national
expansion will doubtless be the sweeping political prin-
ciple of the twentieth century for the spread of Chris-
tian civilization throughout the world. Expansion

132 God and GovERNiMENT

is a natural consequence of nationalism. The na-
tions, having passed through their historic evolution,
have developed into great sovereign powers competing
with each other for supremacy. Expansion in pop-
ulation and resources necessitates expansion in terri-
tory and generates the endeavor to extend control
over as large a portion of the world as power and
opportunity will permit.

National expansion, though not altogether a mod-
ern political principle, has become of paramoimt
importance mainly within the last decades. As late
as the middle period of the nineteenth century there
was still, among European nations, much indifference
toward colonial possessions. But later on, England's
example, of looking beyond the sea for an extension
of territory and for a reinforcement of national powers
and resources, aroused the envy of the other conti-
nental powers and eventually started a general inter-
national competition for the yet unoccupied portions
of the world, with an eye directed, in later times,
especially toward the vast and wealthy realm of
China, which because of its apparent inefficiency as
a civil power threatens to become a prey to foreign
invaders.

Remarkable, indeed, is the manner in which the
United States, involved by unforeseen complications
of war, was drawn into a change of our traditional

International Fraternalism 133

foreign policy and placed unexpectedly in the center
of oriental politics, thus incurring far-reaching na-
tional obligations relative to the foreign territorial
encroachments upon various portions of the Celestial
Empire.

In this new and responsible attitude of our Re-
public toward foreign affairs the American people
must not suffer themselves to be misled by a false
and sentimental enthusiasm, under the plea of " pa-
triotism" and " the flag," but should seek to recognize
and guard against the threatening dangers of national
expansion.

Political phariseeism, daring the informal seizure
of territorial and other national possessions under
hypocritical pretexts, should be condemned at home
and abroad. While a vigorous and respectable for-
eign policy must be maintained, we cannot afford
to allow the national rivalries in foreign relations to
so consume all our energies that we shall be compelled
to neglect home interests or domestic reforms; nor
should we sacrifice principle and adopt the un-Chris-
tian methods of foreign competing powers and thus
become untrue to our real social and political mission
as a great Christian Republic.

In view of our present international relations,
into which we seem to have been providentially called,
it is vain twaddle to deny or discuss the propriety of

134 God and Government

national expansion on Christian principles. We are,
once for all, in the arena of international competition
as one of the five great sovereign powers of the world,
and om- position is irrevocable. We have no time to
lose for argument over "what might have been,"
nor for pessimistic deliberations over the great harm
that has been done to the noble cause of Christen-
dom by the grasping greed and bloody strife of
other nations in foreign lands, but we must seek to
apply ourselves worthily to the work to which we
have been called, and endeavor, in the fear of God, to
imbue ourselves with becoming Christian motives for
the important part w^e are to play in the great in-
ternational drama for the advancement of Christian
civilization among the nations of the world.

Neither the glory of conquest nor the absurd ideal
of a great world-republic, nor the grasping greed for
greater material resources, but the amelioration of
existing antagonistic relations between the civil pow-
ers, and the promotion of the principle of interna-
tional fraternalism among all nations, should be our
ruling motive in our national attitude toward the
now prevailing issue of territorial expansion as ad-
vocated and practiced by the leading nations of
the world.

In our day and age of great missionary enterprises
spreading Christianity among all people in all lands,

International Fraternalism 135

permeating heathen institutions and promising an
abundant harvest of Gospel transformations by the
peaceful agencies of Christian virtue and revealed
religion, commercial greed and political ambition,
spurred with the fury of gory conquest, should not be
allowed to threaten destruction to the noble achieve-
ments, which the faithful messengers of Christ have
accomplished by centuries of self-denying service.
In behalf of the great cause of Christendom all Chris-
tian nations should observe a peaceful policy toward
each other and especially toward heathen lands.

Though it is true, as Dr. Parkhurst has well said,
that God can overrule all things to his own glory, and
to the spread of the Gospel, even the denials of Peter
and the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, yet this should
not by any means encourage ''the wrath of man"
because "God can make the wrath of man to praise
him." Whatever there may be of truth in the senti-
ment which regards the pagan nations of the world
as " the threshing floor where God is using the armies
of civilization to tread out the wheat that will be
used for seeding to bring forth a harvest of righteous-
ness and contentment and prosperity in the dark
places of the earth," yet it must be conceded that
this Mohammedan way of spreading religion by the
sword of conquest and by political power is abso-
lutely incompatible with the teachings of Jesus

136 God and Government

of Nazareth and positively unworthy of Christian
nations.

The founder of Christianity was characterized by
inspired prophecy, as the "Prince of Peace," whose
Gospel dispensation should bring an era when men
"shall beat their swords into plowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks ; and when nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more." And when in the fullness of time
the promised "Prince of Peace" was born into the
world the plains of Bethlehem resounded with the
immortal anthem of the heavenly host: "Glory to
God in the highest, on earth peace, good will to
men." The Saviour incarnate among men was a
messenger of peace on earth. His ministry was in-
spired by the purest motives of love and good will
to all, he labored by both precept and example to
proclaim and perpetuate the Fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of man, and one of his final bene-
dictions upon his followers was: "Peace I leave you,
my peace I give unto you."

To be true to its fundamental principles, to be
loyal to its founder, and to accomplish its mission of
Gospel dispensations preparatory to our Lord's final
coming and reign in millennial sovereignty, Christian-
ity must be the advocate and guardian angel of
peace and fraternalism among all nations. That the

International Fraternalism 137

nations bearing the emblem of the cross have not
always adhered to the pacific principles of the Sav-
iour, and that the history of Christian civilization is
largely a record of gory conquest is unfortunate and
deplorable.

The trend of civilization toward peace and inter-
national fraternalism is, however, gratifying and en-
couraging. Though wars still exist, yet it is the
common desire among men that peace might prevail.
Indeed, the conviction that the clash of arms between
nations is wrong and unnecessary lies so deep in the
common consciousness of our day that it is needless
to recount the fearful cost, to emphasize the miseries,
or to condemn the barbarities and cruelties of war.
Public sentiment in all civilization demands that
wars shall cease.

Arbitration, which has already averted many armed
conflicts, is rapidly growing in favor as a method of
settling international disputes, and the twentieth cen-
tury bodes well to become a period of association, of
union, and fraternalism among nations. The Peace
Conference at The Hague, the most notable event in
the history of international arbitration, is a great step
toward the abolishment of war and the final estab-
lishment of amicable relations between the sovereign
powers of the world. The historic details of that con-
ference, though not to be discussed here, merit the

138 God and Government

most careful and universal study. Wise Christian
statesmanship has doubtless gained an important
triumph over the prestige of war by the organiza-
tion of arbitration and by the establishment of a
permanent international tribunal.

Hitherto arbitration in national affairs has been
greatly discouraged by the time and patience re-
quired for the selection of the court, the designation
of the place of meeting, the specification of the rules
and regulations of procedure, and the arrangements
of numerous minor details before a final decision in
pending national differences could be reached. Now,
however, the establishment of a permanent court of
international justice, through which diplomatic dif-
ferences can be easily, speedily, and fairly settled,
creates a powerful and almost an irresistible incen-
tive to the use of peaceful arbitration, in preference
to war, for the adjustment of difficulties between con-
tentious civil powers. This method of adjustment in
national affairs is so humane, reasonable, and practi-
cal that it can hardly fail to meet universal approval,
and it will doubtless accomplish more to avert war in
future national history than all other agencies com-
bined now operating toward the establishment of a
universal peace among the sovereignties of the world.

Our zeal for arbitration, however, must not mislead
us to suppose that the international court at The

International Fraternalism 139

Hague will, in spite of a yet unconquered Devil of
strife still at large in the world, be able to legislate
humanity into the glorious millennium of universal
peace at once and without fail. The fact that, before
the echoes of the high debate at the great Peace Con-
ference had fairly died away, wars originated in the
Philippines and in South Africa and in China reminds
us very forcibly that there are some issues of civili-
zation that cannot be arbitrated, but must be settled
by force. Says Baron de Constant, one of the
strongest advocates for arbitration at the Peace Con-
ference, " No one at The Hague flattered himself that
disorders, strikes, riots, nationalist, or other upris-
ings could be prevented in any civil country, much
less in China. Every day we see newspapers in Lon-
don, Paris, New York, Berlin, and Rome preaching
war upon foreigners. Too often these agitations are
followed by attacks upon individuals and property."
In the tumult of such disorders, when they occur,
as they do, by riotous and anarchistic mobs, mad-
dened with diabolic hatred and inflamed with hellish
designs of destruction and ruin, there can be no
thought of arbitration, since arbitration can only be
a method of compromise to prevent war between
civil and law-abiding corporations or powers that
have reasonable issues to settle and are willing to
adjust their differences on peaceful terms.

140 God and Government

Arbitration, for instance, in such atrocities as the
Armenian and Chinese massacres would be ridicu-
lous and futile. In such diabolic uprisings for whole-
sale murder it behooves the national " powers that
be," as institutions "ordained of God'' for the main-
tenance of law and order and for the protection of life
and liberty, to remember that " they do not bear the
sword in vain" and to extend the strong arm of pro-
tection to those " who are persecuted for righteous-
ness' sake." While Christian nations should never
forget that their Eternal Sovereign is the "Prince of
Peace" and should, in view of this fact, always seek
to avoid an attitude of hostility toward each other
and especially toward non-Christian lands, and while
there should be no thought of "extending the Gos-
pel with the power of the sword," or of "guarding
the cross with Krupp guns," yet it must ever be
remembered that national responsibility cannot be
shirked and God-given national prestige, in principles
of honor or justice, cannot be sacrificed without sin
against God and humanity.

When people are being ruthlessly oppressed and
murdered, as they were by the violent and blood-
thirsty mobs in Armenia and China, the nearest nation
that can come to the martyrs' rescue is their natural
and responsible protector. That the disgraceful sin
of noninterference, committed by the European pow-

International Fraternalism 141

ers in the first instance, was not repeated by the
United States and other nations in the second in-
stance, is a pleasing record of modern history; and it
is well that the danger of such anti-Christian up-
heavals, as probable obstructions to the future prog-
ress of Christian civilization in Mohammedan and
pagan lands, has been recognized by a cooperative
union of the principal Christian States of the world in
defense of their rights and interests in foreign non-
Christian lands. In the unforeseen and peculiar origin
of this international alliance, the mere idea of which
only a short time ago would have seemed chimer-
ical, but which has now by force of events, become
a reality, it is not difficult for the eye of Christian
faith to perceive the guidance of a superintending
Providence of God in national destiny.

May the newborn union between the Christian
nations become universal and permanent as an
alliance of the powers against barbarism and as a
shield of civil and religious liberty in all the world;
and may the perceivable indications of Providence
lead all nations to comprehend their becoming rela-
tion to peace and war in the civilization of the
twentieth century.

While complete disarmament of the civil powers
would yet be premature, and while it is apparent
that war will still have a place in the civilization of

142 God and Government

the immediate future, let us hope that it will have a
much narrower place than it has had in the history
of preceding centuries. Wherever peace can be
maintained without the sacrifice of principles more
precious than blood and without the tolerance of
anarchistic and barbarous disorders that would meet
the displeasure of the God of all government and
threaten ruin to Christian civilization — yea, wherever
diplomatic differences can be settled by just and am-
icable arbitration — there let peace be the motto and
the aim of all Christian nations.

But if, by the prestige of diabolic powers beyond
control, wars prove inevitable, let them, as Dr. Ham-
lin suggests, occur for fewer and more reasonable
causes, let them be prosecuted more humanely and
terminate more speedily into more lasting peace, by
replacing a lower by a higher civilization, and by
supplanting the martial spirit by the not less brave
but more gentle spirit of the "Prince of Peace."
This, it seems, should be the endeavor and the suc-
cessful accomplishment of the international frater-
nalism of Christian nations in the future history of
the world.

RACE PROBLEMS

AMERICA FOR FREEDOM

America for Freedom!

That was the old-time cry;
The word for which our fatners stood

To battle and to die.
From throned oppression fleeing,

They felt the galling chain
A tyrant held within his hand,

To pluck them back again.

The word with which they started

The globe has girdled round,
Across its seas and deserts

The wild man knows its sound;
And something of the story

That lifts our hearts to-day,
How one heroic handful barred

The old -v^Tong from its way.

When ours it was to struggle.

All good men wished us well;
To them our crowned conquest

A prophecy did tell:
" That beauteous land doth promise

Joy to the troubled earth,
With welcome wide and peaceful

For all of human worth."

O friends, we owe this promise

To all the world to-day:
The children of the fathers

Who for our weal did pray;
The tawny-hued Mongolian,

The dusky slave of Ind,
Have had of us an earnest

God's hostel here to find.

Woe worth the day we conquered

If we this pledge forsake,
For greed or wild ambition

A devious record make!
Against the world's injustice

Rings still our battle cry,
America for Freedom !

By this we live or die. — Julia Ward Howe.

VIII
RACE PROBLEMS

" God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell
on all the face of the earth." — Acts 17. 26.

DOUBTLESS the most serious and complicated
questions confronting the American people are
the race problems. Our types of racial inheritance
from other lands are varied and many-colored like
the ever-changing figures in a kaleidoscope. While, by
the subtle action of climatic and social influence, our
racial mixture has, in some localities, gradually melted
into a comprehensive and fixed assimilation of Ameri-
can character, yet in other sections amalgamation has
been much retarded by a continuous infusion of new
blood from mixed types through the channels of for-
eign immigration, and thence racial differences are
marked and well preserved.

The advantages of Anglo-Saxon predominance in
our racial evolution may be recognized with a
becoming national pride; but the danger and ruin
that may come from Anglo-Saxon arrogance, which
stigmatizes other races as inferior and which can see
no equality and few rights among the Freedmen of
10 145

146 God and Government

the South or among the people of Cuba, Hawaii,
Porto Rico, or the Phihppines, should be guarded
against and counteracted by a broad and cosmopolitan
spirit, which discards race prejudice, which recognizes
the good in all races, and honors the equal rights of
all people.

Though some races have more genius, more bril-
liancy of intellect, and more moral sensibility than
others, yet the moral betterment and the intellectual
elevation of all races bases itself, not on their collective
ability as a whole, but upon the base-rock of their
individuality. Races are not collective entities, but
individual personalities that can be reformed, civi-
lized, educated, and Christianized only by an indi-
vidual process and on personal principles. It is
wrong and unjust in any case to degrade men in our
estimation as subject to fixed racial laws which must
inevitably doom them to foreordained and hopeless
inferiority; but, remembering ^Hhat God has made
of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the
face of the earth," we must regard all people as
human beings of equal rights, and honor men as men,
individually, according to their personal merits, irre-
spective of color, race, or nationality. Christian mag-
nanimity certainly has grand opportunities for the
promulgation of great and far-reaching reforms by
the wise, impartial, and humane solution of the mo-

Race Problems 147

mentous race problems among the mixed and multi-
form population of the great American Republic.

Our Foreign Population
Foreign immigration, which has contributed so
much toward our national growth, still brings thou-
sands of people annually from all parts of the world
into our country. Hitherto the Anglo-Saxon was so
largely the predominant element of the inpouring flood
of immigration that assimilation was quick and easy.
The main body of the people being of English descent,
Puritanism gave its spirit of simplicity and religion
to our racial amalgamation, and the love of liberty,
intelligence, and progress characterized our national
origin and development. But later on, and especially
in recent years, a radical change has set in, and other
races have been coming into our country; so that
aside from the English, also the Germans, the French,
the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Swedes, the
Danes, and Bohemians now constitute a large pro-
portion of our population. But a change of races
implies also a change in our institutions, in our politics,
in our intelligence, in our religion, and in our customs
far-reaching and, in many instances, dangerous to our
national welfare and progress.

Now we may regret these changes and their accom-
panying dangers, as occasioned by the continuous

148 God and Government

influx of undesirable racial elements, but we can
neither alter the force of circumstances beyond our
control nor blame our newcomers for seeking to
better their condition by coming to our country.
The fact, however, that some restriction upon the
coming of foreigners is desirable and necessary as
a safeguard to the integrity of our institutions and
the welfare of our posterity has been recognized by
our legislation on immigration and nationalization in
recent years. But such legislation, to be compatible
with the American spirit of liberty and good will to
all nations, must always be free from all odious dis-
criminations against nationalities or classes. What-
ever of restriction or limitation is imposed on the
Chinese ought to apply equally to all others, whose
coming is not desirable. There are classes of Euro-
peans whose immigration to our country is just as
detrimental to our social, our industrial, and our re-
ligious interests as the influx of the Mongolian races
from Asiatic lands; and the Christian statesmanship
of America ought to be sufficient to maintain our
cherished doctrine of equal rights and to meet all
future necessities of restriction upon foreign immigra-
tion or naturalization by enacting laws that shall be
honorable to ourselves and satisfactory to all nation-
alities, because they do not discriminate against races
or classes, but apply to individuals on equal conditions.

Race Problems 149

But what is to be done with the yet un-Christianized
and un- Americanized foreigners who are already here
and here to stay? Many of them are ignorant, poor,
immoral, disorderly, and but half civilized. Some
of them, coming from countries where they have had
few or no advantages of a Christian civilization and
where they have been hardly dealt with, have be-
come narrow and prejudiced in their opinions, and
are full of hatred and bitterness against all civil and
religious institutions. These, of course, are danger-
ous classes, and we can never hope to reform or
benefit these poor benighted and misguided people
by denouncing or suppressing them, or by allowing
them to override our institutions of law and order.
For the ignorance, intemperance, and barbarism of
foreigners, as well as of vicious Americans, there is
but one remedy, and that remedy is the Word of God
in the Gospel of Christ.

In the great work of reforming and Christianizing
our foreign population. Christian citizens, irrespec-
tive of religious creed or party affiliations, must co-
operate in earnest personal endeavor, vigorously and
successfully, to counteract the constant agitation of
nihilists, atheists, and infidels who antagonize all
religion, denounce the Scriptures, and seek to sub-
vert all faith in divine and holy things. False ap-
prehensions must be removed by Christian teaching;

150 God and Government

the people must be enlightened and persuaded to
turn from evil and to accept, by faith and personal
consecration to God, the Gospel of our coming Lord.
Much has already been accomplished. Many have
been won over to nobler opinions and better lives
by kindness, love, and Christian teaching. Much
more remains to be done. Let all Christians realize
their duty toward their neighbors and their coun-
try's God and then do with all their might what
their hands find to do, and the result will go very far
toward solving the great problem of the foreign
element in America.

Our New Races
The result of the Spanish-American War has im-
posed upon us a new national phase of the race
problem. Ten millions more of the darker races
have been added to the care of the United States,
and our assumed responsibility of government for
the people in our newly acquired territory places us
before the nations of the earth with the obligation of
defending our national honor by demonstrating to all
the world that in our war with Spain we were actuated
by humane motives, and fought to relieve and liberate
the oppressed people who have now become a part of
our national heritage in order to enjoy with us the
securities and benefits of American sovereignty.

Race Problems 151

Broad-minded, unselfish, and cosmopolitan states-
manship will be in demand to render us equal to the
obligations imposed upon us as a nation. The loyal
millions of the inhabitants of the conquered islands,
recognizing American sovereignty, must be protected
both against the invasion of foreign imperialism and
the outrages of lawless elements disturbing the peace
of the people and defying the authority of law and
order. Our sense of liberty and justice, as already
manifested in our enforced policy for the establish-
ment of a free and independent government in Cuba,
must reassert itself and go with us into our new pos-
sessions in the islands of the seas. Our aim must
be to civilize and Christianize the people who have
come under our national care, and by God's help
eventually to make them competent for self-govern-
ment in the same way that our people at home are
qualified for Christian sovereignty and citizenship.
Ours being a "government of the people, by the
people, and for the people," the right of self-govern-
ment, as hitherto recognized in our Territories, must
also be respected in the islands, and the privilege of
Statehood in our Union, or separate independence
under American protection, should be granted as
soon as the people in question can be safely trusted
to govern themselves. Our Territorial government,
as now extended over lands under tropic suns in dig*

152 God and Government

tant seas, must be free from pecuniary greed, polit-
ical ambition, or moral degradation, and our methods
of reconstruction and pacification, as applied through
our administration of sovereignty, should demon-
strate to the world that the American people are
fully equal to the civil and racial problems confront-
ing them.

Public schools, free, unsectarian, and sufficient for
the education of the people, should be established
and supported out of the revenues of the islands,
and American institutions should be generally intro-
duced to enhance Christian civilization and material
progress.

A great work and a long task confronts us in the
problem of successfully evangelizing and Ameri-
canizing the people of our new territory in the
West India and Philippine Islands. The accom-
plishment of great civil and religious reforms and
the uplifting of abused and degenerated races are
difficult and require great effort. Sacrifice is the
price of success in great undertakings, and progress
is usually hampered by opposition. Time, patience^
and persevering endeavor have thus far been
necessary in every advancement of our Republic,
and the forward movement among our new races
will doubtless be subject to the same conditions
and requirements. Indeed, it would be presump-

Race Problems 153

tuous to suppose that the people of the islands of
those tropic seas should at once throw off the evil
habits and usages that have been formed and hard-
ened by centuries of Spanish misrule. At least three
fourths of the people of Cuba, Porto Rico, and
the Philippine Islands can neither read nor write,
many of them are scarcely half civilized, they know
practically nothing of God, of home rule, or honest
government; and we must not be discouraged, even
though it may require several decades of persistent
and earnest work on our part, to discharge our national
duty in this our new field of labor for God and
humanity. Nor should our solution of the mighty
problem of civilization resting upon us be further
complicated by the mistaken and unworthy doctrine
that "we shall lose our own liberties by securing the
enduring foundations of liberty to others." As the
immortal William McKinley, in his second inaugural
address, wisely said: "Our institutions will not de-
teriorate by extension and our sense of justice will
not abate under tropic suns in distant seas. As
heretofore, so hereafter will the nation demon-
strate its fitness to administer any new estate
which events devolve upon it, and in the fear of
God will take occasion by the hand and make the
bounds of freedom wider yet,"

154 God and Government

The American Indian

" The only good Indian is a dead Indian!" This
proverbial saying of Indian haters is replete with ani-
mosity, misrepresentation, and fatalism. Prejudiced
observers of Indian life, reviewing the sad history of
savagery and degeneracy among the Apaches, the
Comanches, the Chippewas, the Delawares, the
Shawnees, and indeed among Indian tribes generally,
have been erroneously led to suppose that Indians
were hopelessly bad and were never providentially
designed to live civilized lives, but that by the
pressure of civilization this entire race, in all its
branches, is destined to disappear and pass away
entirely within the next few generations.

To the more humane element of those who believe
in the eventual extinction of the red man there has
never appeared to be any other course left open to
the American people, in the solution of this phase of
our race problem, than to keep the Indians within
the territorial limits of their reservations, and by
government aid to supply their animal wants imtil
these poor creatures shall cease to exist. Others,
however, repudiate this conception of Indian affairs
and entertain a more reasonable and hopeful idea of
the red man and his future. Depravity is evidently
a sad, threatening reproach among red men, but it
is also a reproach among white men. Indeed, much

Race Problems 155

of the degradation and savagery among the Indians is
the fruit of the wickedness and debauchery of the
white men, who by the profligacy of frontier hfe, the
fraudulency of perverted government agencies, and
the abusiveness of mihtary forces have been the
prohfic causes of the moral degradation and phys-
ical degeneracy of the American Indian. Christian
evidences demonstrate that for the common evil
of sin there is but one common remedy, and this,
irrespective of races or nationalities. And blessed
be God for the universal efficiency of the remedy
wherever applied. The same Gospel of redemption
which converts Caucasian sinners into good white
men also converts American savages into good In-
dians; and this marvel of salvation is accomplished
not by eulogies of the dead, but by the virtues of
the living — Indians as well as white men — who stand
monumental to the powers of saving grace in
Christ Jesus. Thus in the light of Gospel dispensa-
tions, aside from ethnological principles, the Chris-
tian mind observes that the Indian is not a mere
animal doomed to extinction, but that he is a human
being, a living soul, having a mission and a future
in this world and in the world to come.

Over a quarter of a million of our population are
Indians, and we find their scattered tribes in Maine,
New York, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota,

156 God and Government

Iowa, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Washing-
ton, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Idaho,
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wisconsin,
Wyoming, CaUfornia, Florida, Texas, and the Indian
Territory.

Realizing that our original government policy of
paternalism, treating with the various tribes as inde-
pendent sovereignties, granting them reservations
and annuities under fixed regulations, has never been
satisfactory, inasmuch as such provisions encouraged
indolence, dependence, and profligacy, besides
impeding the moral betterment, the civilization,
and progress of the red race; and perceiving that
our primitive methods of adjusting and regulating
Indian affairs is no longer expedient, there now
appears to be but one solution of our Indian prob-
lem, and that is to break up by amicable methods
the tribal relations, gradually to withdraw govern-
ment support, and to put the red man upon the same
basis of legal protection and self-support as the
white man, besides extending to him, under proper
conditions, the same privileges of citizenship.

With this end in view the Indians must be civilized,
educated, and guided so that they may, as speedily
as possible, become an intelligent, industrious, and
self-supporting people, able and willing to obtain
their means of subsistence by their own industry,

Race Problems 157

ready to assume the responsibilities and privileges of
citizenship, and eventually to be merged into the
general body of the people of our Repubhc.

Some progress in this direction has been made,
and the outlook for the future is promising of ulti-
mate success. The most, however, in the great work
of Indian reform remains yet to be done. Until the
Indians shall have become civilized and no longer
require special guardianship they should still remain
under the direct control of the national government.
Intrusions by pilfering agents, liquor dealers, and
swmdlers should be prohibited. Habits of indolence
should be counteracted and discarded, labor as an
equivalent for support received should be strictly
required, and instruction in manual as well as intel-
lectual traming should be liberally imparted. A uni-
form system of licensing and recording of marriages
should be introduced and enforced, and at each Indian
agency a permanent register of marriages, births, and
deaths should be kept for convenience and justice in
supervision of allotments. Public schools should be
established in all reservations, and a law should be
instituted compelling the attendance at school of all
Indian youth of school age. Asylums should be
established and maintained by the government for
the insane; the poor, the orphans, and the blind of
the various tribes. The forming of private corpora-

158 God and Government

tions, and the issue of bonds by incorporated towns
for the maintenance of water works, sewerage, and
pubHc institutions in the Indian Territory should be
authorized by laws of our Congress. While the gov-
ernment thus does its work among the Indians, let the
evangelical Churches, the Christian philanthropists,
the benevolent societies, such, for instance, as the
Indian Rights Association and other charitable and
missionary organizations of the land, fall in line and,
recognizing their great opportunities and responsibil-
ities in this home field of labor, lay hold of God's
noble work in the redemption and civilization of
the American Indian.

The Negro Problem

The fact that there is a Negro problem in the
United States is not wholly to our credit as a Chris-
tian nation advocating equal rights and liberties to
our people. In time, as our civilization advances in
the universal extension of our constitutional rights
and privileges, irrespective of races or nationalities,
this problem will be fully and finally solved, and then
the Negro question will no longer be, as it now is, a
living and a burning issue in our national politics.
Regardless of admitted Caucasian superiority, and
despite the bitter prejudice against the much hated
doctrine of Negro equality, it must be conceded that

Race Problems 159

with God, who is no respecter of races or persons,
color is not regarded as a badge of inferiority, but
industry, inteUigence, and virtue are the divinely rec-
ognized standards of merit; and equality of rights
and privileges of education, of franchise, of business
opportunity, and of complete citizenship for both
white and colored races is the only true solution of
this and all phases of our race problems.

How to accomplish this ideal solution of our race
problems is a vital question that touches not only
the interests of our colored people, but which also
indirectly involves the welfare of our whole country.
When, in consideration of the disfranchisements, the
lynchings, the stockade horrors, and the general dis-
orders among the Freedmen of our Southern States,
we are painfully reminded how far we still are from
a solution of the Negro question, and are thus fore-
warned of the black terror threatening us, then it
seems awful to contemplate the fate of our Republic
in the event of failure to meet properly our irre-
trievable responsibilities toward the colored people
within our borders. Our national penalty suffered
for the sins of slavery should forewarn us of the pos-
sible retribution of this issue, which, indeed, seems
difficult to solve and is of sufficient complication and
magnitude to tax our resources of philanthropy and
statesmanship to the utmost.

160 God and Government

The Negro problem assumes greater proportions
and doubtless engages in a severer way the thought
of the country now than it ever did at any time in
our history since the stormy days of the abolition
movement. Although the result of our civil war
gave the Negro his liberty, yet even that awful and
bloody conflict could not completely settle our colored
race problem. The Negro himself realizes that by his
emancipation he has only been thrown into the great
struggle of the race course to battle for his place
among the races of mankind, and to strive with earnest
endeavor to reach the final goal for which the races
and nations of the world contend. The blunders and
wrongs of political demagogues in the history of the for-
mation period of the Negro question have aggravated
the solution of our colored race problem, and we are
now in the earnest of the conflict, in the transition
period, where danger threatens, where wise leadership
must be our guide, and where the best moral, intel-
lectual, and spiritual forces nmst be vigorously applied
to properly meet our obligations and responsibilities
toward the claims of God, the demands of our black
population, and the necessities of our own national
security.

Frederick Douglass in his day deplored the practical
defeat of Negro emancipation, and without pessimis-
tically augmenting the woes of the black man in our

Race Problems 161

time it may be truly said that the Negro's path-
way has been rough and trying, his history in our
national record is largely a sad story of enslavement,
suppression, disfranchisement, and persecution. Ram-
pant Negro hatred declaring the Negro must remain
subordinate, that he must be abused, reenslaved,* or
driven out of the country breeds violence and disorder
so common in localities where our colored population
is strong.

Common sense, however, reminds us that Negro
suppression and subordination cannot thus go on
unabated and indefinitely. As Negro ignorance, stu-
pidity, dependence, and submissiveness pass away by
the enlightening and elevating powers of Christian
education, moral progress, and practical civilization,
his latent manhood will assert itself, his ambition will
rise higher, his dignity will declare that superiority
and inferiority are not racial but individual char-
acteristics, and his hot African blood will repudiate
and resent with vehemence every dictum affirming his
subordination and inferiority before other races. Then
the sphere of action will be changed from the harm-

* Negro reenslavement, as predicted by the late Robert Toombs
in an interview in the Atlanta Constitution nearly twenty years ago,
is to-day boldly asserted and actually carried out by the infamous
peonage system in different sections of the South; a system which is
in some respects even more disgraceful than lynching, because it is
created and protected by law.
11

162 God and Government

less, inoffensive, thoughtless, unobtrusive Negro sub-
missiveness of to-day into an attitude of open con-
tempt for Caucasian arrogance, and of violent defense,
if necessary, in behalf of the constitutional rights
and liberties of the American Freedman.

Thus the gravity of the Negro problem threatens
an inevitable crisis to the American people, and it
would be folly indeed to suppose that the crisis could
be averted by Negro suppression or subjugation. The
divine Providence which by force of events wrought
the Negro's emancipation has evidently also decreed
his progress as an important element in the future
history of our Republic. That the progress of the
American Negro, during the first period succeeding his
emancipation, has been slow and difficult is true and
quite natural; but the fact remains unquestionable
that in spite of the various hostile forces and causes,
which for a third of a century have conspired and mili-
tated against Negro progress in America, the black
race, favored by an uplifting Providence, human and
divine, has been continually rising, and is to-day more
than ever a progressive element of our population.

The statistics of progress among our colored people
from the lowest stratum of ignorance, superstition,
and poverty to their present stage of advancement
indicate very plainly that their emancipation was
not a failure, but was the beginning of a brighter

Race Problems 163

and more prosperous day and age of the African
race in America. Forty years ago the Negroes of the
United States were as penniless as paupers; to-day
their real estate and personal property is valued at
$700,000,000. Only a third of a century ago our
colored people had no land and no homes; to-day
they own 150,000 farms and 175,000 homes.

On the day of their emancipation only a very
small portion of the Negroes of the South could read
Lincoln's proclamation of freedom, to-day 45 per
cent can read and write. The rising generation of
the Negro race bodes well for intelligence. There are
1,500,000 colored pupils in the public schools, 45,000
students in higher institutions, and 35,000 teachers
in educational work.

With such a showing it is easy to see that the con-
dition of the colored people in this country is all
that could be expected under the circumstances, and
considering the time they have had for the progress
made, and knowing that they are doing their share
toward producing the wealth of the nation, it is, to
say the least, idle and impractical to entertain for a
moment, the idea of solving our Negro problem either
by continued subjugation of the race, as hitherto in
vogue in some parts of the Union, or by exportation
of the Negroes to Africa, Cuba, or the Philippines,
as has been proposed.

164 God and Government

Realizing that the Negro is an important and a
permanent element of our population, and perceiving
that, after all that has been accomplished, the
great work of lifting up our Negro population, now
ten millions strong, has in fact only been begun,
while the vast field of labor in this part of our
Lord's vineyard still lies unexplored before us, it be-
hooves us, as Christian people and American patriots,
to seek properly to apply ourselves and to act well
our part in the final solution of our Negro problem.
Our disposition of this question should be based on
Christian principles. America, equal to her mission
for God and humanity, should demonstrate to coming
ages the practicability of interracial unity and equal-
ity, thus creating a new and as yet undiscovered page
in the history of the world.

Race prejudice, sectionalism, and partisanship
should have no voice in our solution of the Negro
problem. The animosities of the civil war and the
"reconstruction period" should be forgotten. North
and South should not judge too harshly of each other,
but remember that both have sinned and consider that
racial differences have always and everywhere been
difficult of solution. The historic unity of the whole
country against a common foe during the late Spanish-
American War should reassert itself in the settlement
of this momentous question. Press, platform, and

Race Problems 165

pulpit should not be abused to foster political par-
tisanism and racial prejudice, but should unite to
mold public opinion and popular sentiment accord-
ing to the best interests of the common welfare,
irrespective of nationality. Differences of opinion
should not necessitate a division of the people on this
issue, since all have a common interest in the solution
of this and all national problems. The colored peo-
ple of the land should not widen the breach by bitter
denunciations, but seek by amicable and pacifying
methods of procedure to win public favor for their
race, and to aid materially and substantially in the
final disposal of this issue so vital and far-reaching
in their own behalf. Surely all sections of the Amer-
ican people should be too great to be small, too
magnanimous to be oppressive, too just to perpe-
trate wrong upon an unfortunate race, but seek, in
the fear of God, to make honorable restitution for the
sins of human slavery by now and forever making the
most of the blood-bought liberty of the American
Freedman.

The Jewish Question

Jewish ascendency and the consequent anti-Semitic
movement, forming in recent years an exciting fea-
ture of social affairs in some countries of Europe, has
occasionally assumed some importance in the United
States. Out of the entire Jewish population of the

166 God and Government

world, variously estimated at from eight to eleven
millions, our country's portion would not much ex-
ceed one and a half million. Though not numerically
strong, the Jews are recognized as God's chosen peo-
ple, whose wonderful history, occupying two thirds of
the Bible, is an authenticated story of ancient proph-
ecies fulfilled, of divine powers manifested, and of
heavenly Providences revealed — a remarkable race,
which is the marvel of nations and the standing mir-
acle of ages.

The chaplain of Frederick William of Prussia, being
requested by his sovereign to furnish in a single sen-
tence a proof of Christianity, replied: "The Jews,
your majesty." Well said, indeed! The Jews as
God's elect people were heaven's torch-bearers of
divine truth for the enlightenment of the world. In
their golden age these people, though not strong in
numbers, were strong in the Lord and the might of
his power, a great and glorious kingdom of com-
manding importance and influence among the nations
of the ancient world. And though the day of apos-
tasy and sad retrocession came in Israel, so that for
a time God's light of revelation burned very low,
though the Jewish commonwealth has long since
passed away, and the sons and daughters of Abra-
ham have been scattered to the four winds of the
earth, yet God, in his gracious and marvelous Provi-

Race Problems 167

dence, has maintained these people, and they are
to-day a living evidence of God's truth, not only as
manifested in the teachings of Moses and the proph-
ets, but also as incorporated in the precepts and prin-
ciples of the Gospel of Christ, the King of the Jews.
Says Ossian Davis: "In one long stream the Jewish
race flowed down through the Egyptians, the Assyri-
ans, the Persians, and the Spaniards, without getting
lost in those races. How wonderful their vitality and
their preservation. The mixed and persecuting races
are disappearing and the persecuted race remains.
The Jew of this century is as much a Jew as old
Abraham was. Faces graven on a slab lately ex-
humed from Nineveh closely resemble the faces we
meet with in London to-day." To the skeptical mind
there is no solution of this riddle of racial vitality;
but to the believer it is apparent from the teach-
ings of the Bible that Israel had been chosen of God
for a moral purpose to be realized in human destiny
by the establishment and maintenance of the wor-
ship of the true and living God, the preservation and
application of the divine statutes and ordinances in
the Church of God, the recognition of divine author-
ity and the execution of righteousness in civil gov-
ernment, and the entertainment and setting forth of
the hope of salvation in Christ as the Saviour of the
world. In these things the Jewish people, as a race,

168 God and Government

have, to some extent at least, served a purpose; and
though, as is only too common in all human obliga-
tions, they have fallen far short of their high calling,
yet the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob has
spared this historic people as monumental to his
truth and grace, and by his endurance and mercy
they still have a mission and a promise in the final
triumph of the Gospel kingdom of our coming
Lord.

God's estimation of the Jewish people may be con-
ceived from the prophetic promise vouchsafed unto
his chosen nation. In the divine Word we read : " No
weapon that is forged against thee shall prosper —
though I make a full end of nations whither I have
driven thee — yet will I not make a full end of thee.
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. Thy
seed shall inherit the Gentiles." In the truth of these
promises lies the secret of the Jewish vitality. God,
though no respecter of persons, as his Word emphat-
ically declares, found it expedient and even necessary
for the execution of his great plan of salvation for
humanity to grant special promises for the encourage-
ment of the Jewish nation. These divine promises
full of hope and cheer were the prophets' antidote
against popular despair in the dark days of tribula-
tion, and were the means of inspiring the upright and
faithful hearts to action in God's service.

Race Problems 169

Jewish faith in the promise of divine protection
for God's chosen nation has been maintained and
strengthened by the occasional striking phenomena of
penal retributions that have befallen the persecutors
of Israel among the nations. ^To oppress the Jews/'
said Frederick the Great, of Prussia, "has never
brought prosperity to any country." Indeed, Jewish
persecutors are ill-fated characters in history. The
great Rameses of Egypt enslaved them and sought
to prevent their departure to their promised land;
as a result, his people were cursed by plagues and his
army was buried in the Red Sea; Sennacherib assailed
them, and his host was smitten by pestilence ; Nebu-
chadnezzar and Belshazzar outraged Israel's holy
things, and both were doomed to downfall and ruin;
Antiochus Epiphanes oppressed them, and Crassus
plundered their temple, but each in turn came to a
miserable and disgraceful end. Nations hostile to
the Jewish race have shared the same fate as their
sovereigns. Spain, disgraced by her cruelties to the
Jews, is to-day a warning evidence of national retri-
bution. Infidels may cry superstition at such cita-
tions from history, but believers will recognize a
divine Providence in such startling national retri-
butions.

Alas, that Jewish persecution still continues even in
Christian lands of the present day. Let us hope that

170 God and Government

the anti-Semitic crusade may never stir up social and
religious animosities among our people. Anti-Jewish
prejudice should have no tolerance in this country.
On the basis of religious freedom granted by our
National Constitution the Jew has as much right to
be an Israelite as the Gentile has to become a Chris-
tian. Of course, our Christian Churches have a justi-
fiable mission in seeking by amicable methods to
evangelize the Jews, but aside from this antagonism
against this race on the common anti-Semitic princi-
ples is indefensible. Jewish vices and defects must
be condemned, not as racial instincts, but as indi-
vidual wrongs, which in a great measure may be
ascribed to the debasement and oppression that have
in many instances warped the conscience and weak-
ened the sense of honor in the Jew.

Many features of the Jewish scramble for wealth
must be denounced, but the average Yankee, who in
his tricks of trade is quite a match for his Jewish
competitor, must not be excused for avarice under
the plea that the greed for wealth is a common and
deplorable evil in all lands. There is really but little
occasion for war between Jew and Gentile on eco-
nomic grounds in this country, and the anti-Jewish
sentiment, therefore, rarely takes an acute form in
the United States.

Americans see that Jewish energy has contributed

Race Problems 171

much to our country's wealth, and that Jewish char-
ity has also been a very important factor in many
lines of beneficial work. Nor should we condemn the
Jew for his zeal for Zionism, but pardon the Israelite's
love for the land of his fathers under the plea that
this peculiar race still has an important and a won-
derful mission in the future dispensations of God
among men.

INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS

RISE ON THE SHADOWED NATIONS

Rise on the shadowed nations,

O Sun of Righteousness!
With heavenly revelations

The sin- worn people bless!
Break with thy radiant splendor,

O glory of our God,
With light divine and tender.

O'er every land abroad.

O Christ, our sky is lighted

With beams that fall from thee;
Rise thou on souls benighted,

Thy light let all men see.
Stay not for heathen blindness.

Stay not for unbelief!
Come, in thy love and kindness.

And bring the world relief!

Send heralds swift before thee, —

Men who have seen the King;
Those who will show thy glory,

And joyous tidings bring.
The Church, thy love confessing,

Be filled with holy zeal
To speak the words of blessing,

To seek, to save, to heal!

Let her, in faith victorious,

Subdue earth's sin and pain;
Prepare the way all-glorious

For thy most blessed reign.
Desire of every nation,

Come in thy love and might;
Bring in the great salvation.

The world-wide reign of Light!

— Mrs. Merrill E. Gates.

IX

INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
do ye even so to them." — Matt. 7. 12.

TWO men passed through the wards of a great
hospital.* Both were visitors and made intent
observations. Both were directed by the same guide
and reviewed the same scenes, yet their distinctive
impressions were entirely different.

Said one of them : " I am thrilled with horror over
what I have seen and heard. That hospital is a
place of sighs and tears and groans. I cannot banish
from my memory the spectacle of the little children,
the cripples, the consumptives, and the other dis-
tressing sights which we witnessed in the surgical
ward. The glitter of the surgeon's scalpel flashes even
now before my eyes with dreadful effect. I can never
go there again. It is a horrible place."

Said the other: " I have quite another impression of
the hospital from that which has horrified you. I
saw all the painful things that you did, and I am as
easily affected by human suffering. But, for the time,

* For the above ilhistration the writer gratefully acknowledges his
indebtedness to the New York Christian Advocate.

175

176 God and Government

I lost sight of everything except the provisions which
medical and surgical skill, prompted and supplemented
by the humanitarianism of the Gospel, has made for
the alleviation of pain, the relief of the crippled, and
the healing of the sick. As I saw the nurses and the
physicians moving through the midst of the patients,
I could not help thinking of the great Physician of
Galilee, who himself took our infirmities and bore our
diseases. In fancy I could see him once more on
the earth, surrounded as he used to be, with a great
company of sick people, hearing their appeals, speaking
words of cheer to them, and healing all their diseases.
My heart throbbed with gratitude as I reflected
that we are blessed in our day with speedy, painless,
and effective methods of medication and surgical
treatment, such as our fathers never dreamed of. My
visit to the hospital inspires within my heart a spirit
of gratitude for the wonderful things which medicine,
surgery, skilled nursing, anaesthetics, and aseptic
treatment have combined to do for all manner of
human ills."

Such a diversity of opinion is quite natural and
reminds us forcibly of the striking contrast between
the pessimistic and optimistic observations concern-
ing the status of society in the industrial world of
to-day. Appropriating and misappropriating the
advantages we enjoy for the study of social and

Industrial Solutions 177

industrial issues, would-be social reformers, with reason
and without reason, are reviewing this great " hospital
world" of ours and are passing all manner of diverse
and conflicting opinions and judgments on the rights
and wrongs of our capital and labor problems, and
cognate issues.

Pessimists and demagogues declare : " The world is
wrong and growing worse. Plutocracy is king and
civilization is a failure. Our economic system is
simply a game of the big fish swallowing up the little
fish. The country is in the grasp of soulless autocrats,
who through gigantic trusts control the wealth of the
land, and as a result the rich are growing richer and
the poor are growing poorer. The working men and
women are already being trodden under foot by those
who have wealth, and with the present tendencies
toward the centralization of wealth things will grow
rapidly from bad to worse, and soon our much boasted
liberty will be a farce, inasmuch as the great mass of
our population will become more and more dependent
upon the capitalists, and will eventually be hope-
lessly doomed to serfdom and practical slavery.
Surely the machinery of the industrial and economic
world is unhinged, and everything is hurrying to
destruction. Sorrow, want, crime, greed, vice, and
disease are rampant everywhere. Indeed, one hears

nothing but groans, sees nothing but misery, feels
12

178 God and Government

nothing but despair, and life is scarcely worth living
in this horrible world."

While such pessimistic language by those who have
unfortunately grown sour and unappreciative, by
becoming absorbed with one-sided views of human
wrongs and woes, is a sad reflection, it is indeed a
pleasing thought to know that by viewing our indus-
trial and economic systems from a more enlightened
and optimistic standpoint this selfsame world appears
in a much happier aspect and prospect.

The Christian optimist, believing in a divine Provi-
dence, which counteracts and overrules the works of
the Devil, proclaims a Gospel of good cheer and hope-
ful encouragement, saying: "This world is not all
wrong nor is it hopelessly doomed to grow worse.
True it is that there are real and intelligent reasons
for tremulous anxiety about our capital and labor
problems, and that certain phases of our industrial
and commercial life are of sufficient gravity to com-
mand the most serious contemplation and the prompt-
est action, yet when we compare our past industrial
history with the present we see no special occasion for
hysteric alarm. Plutocracy has not yet and never
will be enthroned in the United States, and our civi-
lization compares favorably with that of the best
nations of the world. While it is true that, as a
rule, the rich are growing richer, it is not shown,

Industrial Solutions 179

by statistical evidence, that the poor, on the whole,
are growing poorer. It is not true that the masses of
our labor population are living in penury and hunger,
with the gloomy prospect of eventual serfdom or
slavery. The poor we shall always have among us, as
the Saviour, who honored poverty by embracing it
himself, has declared; but observation shows that
most of our laboring people are living in tolerable
and enjoyable circumstances. Reliable statistical evi-
dence has proven beyond a doubt that the wages of
labor have risen greatly in recent years and are still
rising. The laboring man of to-day is much better
off than was the wage earner of one or two hundred
years ago. The common people of to-day have better
chances than ever before enjoyed. They have larger
popular franchises, ampler educational opportunities,
more comfortable homes, more books, better cur-
rent literature, and better religious advantages than
our forefathers enjoyed. Altogether, reviewing the
accomplishments of the past, the achievements of the
present, and the prospects for the future, the Ameri-
can laborer, as well as the capitalist, has much occa-
sion for gratitude to God for prosperity and progress."
Whether or not the pessimistic or the optimistic view
of the world is the better and more becoming state of
mind for noble enterprise and successful work in the
solution of great issues it is scarcely necessary to say,

180 God and Government

but it may not be superfluous to remark that there is
much needless hysteria in the cry of alarm connected
with the many present-day theories and solutions of
our social and industrial problems. Of course, we are
not without occasion for work and worry over living
issues on social and industrial lines. Every age has
its dark, as well as its bright side, and might, as Pro-
fessor A. W. Small, of Chicago University, remarks,
find use for a Jeremiah or two, but doubtless he is also
correct in saying : " The truer note for every age, how-
ever, is that of Isaiah — the Isaiah who saw the evils,
but who also foresaw the way of remedy, and did his
bravest to make it a beaten path." But that our
modern reformers are not all of the Isaiah stamp, and
that there is much fakery and bombastic humbug in
their alarming and revolutionary accusations against
the present order of things is apparent, not only from
the vagueness of their pessimistic harangue of teach-
ing and from the ridiculous and impossible reforms, by
which they propose to affect a "new redemption" in
the present social and industrial world, but this is also
evident from actual facts in our continued and indis-
putable prosperity and progress, speaking a louder and
truer language than is contained in the current social
theories of the Anarchism, Bellamyism, Communism,
Georgeism, Knights of Labor schemes, Nationalism,
German Socialism, Christian Apostolate revolutions,

Industrial Solutions 181

and all the so-called Christian Socialism of the self-
professed martyrs and saviours of poor dependent
and down-trodden humanity.

While true Christian Socialism is a good thing, and
enjoys the support of the best men and women in
Europe and America, yet we all know that nmch in
the so-called Christian Socialism of our day is not
Christian but diabolic in spirit and purpose, inasmuch
as it engenders envy, jealousy, and strife in both
Church and State, contrary to the peace of society and
the spirit of the Christian religion. This kind of social-
ism is known and condemned by its fruits. It has
never had any well-defined influence for good in the
past, and, under the irrepressible light of progressive
truth which is mightier than diabolic falsehood, it
will fail to maintain an existence of its own in the
future.

Pure, unadulterated Christian Socialism, however,
deserves to live and, as already indicated by the many
noble reforms now actually in progress, will doubtless
accomplish an important mission in our industrial
future. This kind of socialism, actuated by motives
of peace and good will to all mankind, is to-day in-
citing our best people in all parts of the country to
a serious study and to earnest endeavor in the solu-
tion of our industrial problem on the established prin-
ciples of practical altruism and Christian brotherhood.

182 God and Government

Our Industrial Problem
Capital and labor arc prime factors in our industrial
problem. Capital is the product and representative
of labor, and labor is God's law of life and progress.
In this world of work both God and man must labor
to accomplish the designs of Providence. God's prov-
idence is manifest not only in the achievements of
religious progress but just as well also in the achieve-
ments of useful and honest industry. Both capital and
labor are sacred and should be utilized in doing the
world's work for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom
and the promotion of his glory among men on earth.
If all men could maintain this view of capital and labor
and be persuaded to make a proper consecration of
themselves to God and his service, then there would be
no difference or strife between employer and employee,
and there would really be no industrial problem in the
present sense of the word. But because men differ
in their perverted opinions of what they have and
what they do, and because many are neither reason-
able nor righteous in their motives and relations
toward each other, therefore we have an industrial
problem which has come down to us as an old land-
mark of inheritance from our forefathers and which
in the peculiar vitality of its bearings bodes well to
remain a living issue in future generations.

This is the problem of the ages. From the earliest

Industrial Solutions 183

dawn of civilization up to the opening of the twentieth
century the struggle for social equality and industrial
fraternalisrn has been a continuous problem. This
problem was the bone of contention between the slaves
and the masters in the realms of Persia and Greece,
between the plebeians and the patricians of the Ro-
man empire, between the serfs and the knights of the
Middle Ages, and in our own day and age the struggle
goes on between the laborers and capitalists. Philos-
ophers, statesmen, economists, and philanthropists in
all ages have labored to solve this problem. Our
country, on the birth of her independence, solved one
phase of this problem over a century ago, and, on the
emancipation of our slaves, another phase of this prob-
lem was solved over forty years ago. Though some
progress has thus been made, yet certain phases of
this problem remain still unsolved and the long-
sought-for Utopia of the coming golden age has not
yet been realized.

Progress only brings about new conditions of life,
new environments of men, new labors of enterprise,
and new theories of reform, but in fact the old social
problem, though reconstructed by new phases of social
relations, still remains, and Dr. Small is doubtless cor-
rect in saying: "There is no social problem to-day
which has not been in principle the problem of every
day since men appeared on the earth." Hence, we must

184 God and Government

not be discouraged if this problem will not down, but
let us rather rejoice over the divinely inwrought
immortality of this continuous struggle upward and
onward toward the final goal of equality and brother-
hood. Let both laborers and capitalists cooperate in
settling all their differences, according to the precepts
and principles of the Golden Rule, and let all, in the
fear of God, aim for righteousness, peace, and good
will among men.

Prevailing Conditions
Though the lot of the laboring class of our people
compares favorably with that of other countries, yet
it is universally conceded that our economic conditions
are wrong in many respects. While a few, by an
adroit use of the money-getting advantages enjoyed,
are accumulating large fortunes, which run into the
hundreds of millions, many of our laboring people are
oppressed by poverty and are exposed to the ravages
of want. Many are not fairly remunerated for the
labors which they perform, while thousands are unem-
ployed. Poverty and idleness, thus generated, breed
misery, moral degradation, and crime among the peo-
ple. Machinery, introduced in all branches of indus-
try, has rendered capital more and more independent
of labor, and the result is a dearth of employment,
and an unfair distribution of the wealth produced

Industrial Solutions 185

by the living industries of the country. Differences
of advantages between capital and labor engaged in
mechanical enterprise have generated a feeling of es-
trangement between employees and employers and an
unwholesome stratification of society, which by the
occasional upheavals of industrial warfare through the
riotous disorders of strikes and boycotts have disgraced
our fair civilization with humiliating scenes of vio-
lence and barbarism. That such economic conditions
are wrong and far beneath the true ideal of whole-
some industrial life in a great Christian Republic is
self-evident. Certainly there should be no unfriendly
differences betw^een our working and capitalistic
classes. Both the common laborer and the moneyed
employer should stand upon an equal basis of rights
before the laws and business usages of the land.
Machinery, the blessed fruit of inventive genius, should
not be misapplied to monopolize the power of capital
over labor, but should be utilized to lessen the burdens
of toil and enhance the productiveness of all branches
of useful industry. Shrewd, unprincipled capitalists
should not be allowed to fatten on the lifeblood of the
laboring people who are the bone and sinew of the
land. Blue-blooded plutocrats should not be per-
mitted to centralize the wealth of the land into a
tyrannous plutocracy that would sound the death
knell of our national democracy. Nor should the in-

186 God and Government

dus trial toilers of the nation be suffered to drift into
a condition of practical servitude that would disgrace
our boast of American equality and liberty; but the
God-given fruits of honest toil should be distributed
in accordance with the laborers' industry, ability, and
actual worth as related to the capital invested in
the production of industrial commodities.

Remedial Methods

Though all are everywhere agreed that prevailing
conditions in our social system are wrong, yet opin-
ions differ as to the causes of what is wrong. Here
the contention over our industrial problem begins.
All know that "Poverty ails the world," but we are
not agreed as to what causes poverty and how it can
be remedied. Atheistic socialists contend that the
cause of poverty is attributable to our social condi-
tions and that it can be remedied only by a complete
and wholesome renovation of our " social system." But
Christian reformers and political economists, though
admitting that much in our social system is wrong,
urge that sin in the individual man is the fountain of
all social wrongness, and that accordingly our social
malady must be remedied not only from without, by a
renovation of our social system, but mainly from within
by a radical reconstruction of the individual man as a
member and component part of our social system.

Industrial Solutions 187

The causes of poverty, as enumerated by Dr.
William A. Quayle in his book on Current Social
Theories, are: 1. Intemperance; 2. Crime; 3. Dis-
honesty (noncriminal from the standpoint of law, but
causing poverty in creating an inability to secure
credit) ; 4. Shiftlessness, including a roving disposi-
tion; 5. Laziness; 6. Extravagance (disposition to
live up to the limit of income rather than under that
limit) ; 7. Improvidence, which while apparently in-
cluded under extravagance, differs sufficiently to
justify a separate head; 8. Incompentency in work-
manship, which throws the worker out of employ-
ment; 9. Misfortune.

Now, it will be seen by a glance at the above
enumeration, which is doubtless reasonably exhaust-
ive, that the first eight of these causes originate with
individuals and that the ninth element alone can be
properly attributed to our social system. Thus it is
plain that, while there are some people who are
worthily and unavoidably poor, yet, by a fair esti-
mate, the main bulk, perhaps ninety-nine per cent, of
the world's poverty is attributable not to the misfor-
tunes of 'Our social system but to the wrongs of indi-
vidual causes. Accordingly, the malady is interior
and requires an individual remedy more drastic than
any theory of social reform.

The four leading methods of suggested social and

188 God and Government

industrial reform are: Nihilism, Communism, Pater-
nalism, Christian Individualism.

Nihilism. — Nihilism is of Russian origin. Previous
to 1878 Nihilism contented itself with orderly social-
istic agitations, but from the year named to the
present date its revolutionary endeavors have been
characterized by violence and bloodshed. Its recruits
have been gathered from every social grade, alike
from the nobles and peasants of the land of its nativity;
and now the spirit of Nihilism appears to have per-
meated every stratum of Russian society. Its growth,
however, has not been confined to the imperial realm
of the Czar alone, and to-day we find more or less of
Nihilism in all lands, and it is as violent and diabolic
in America, where individuals have equal rights, as
in Russia, where the rights of the individual are
overruled and ignored. Nihilism is maddened indi-
vidual supremacy. Its aim is annihilation, disorder,
and ruin under the guise of bringing about a new social
creation in a coming golden age. This social monster
of annihilation, though influenced by environments,
is bred and born, not of conditions or circumstances,
but of character that is as Satanic as it is real and
ruinous.

Communism. — Communism is that branch of social-
ism which sacrifices individual interests for the
common welfare, in a greater or less degree, and which

Industrial Solutions 189

in its most radical form adheres to the tenet : " Nobody
own anything, everybody own everything." In the
book of Acts we read of a pure operative Christian
commune in the first Church at Jerusalem, where all
sold their goods and lived in common. This com-
munity of goods as practically in vogue during the
first few weeks or months of that society was, how-
ever, never instituted by Christ himself as a permanent
thing; but it was only a temporary apostolic arrange-
ment pertaining to the mother Church and was not
compulsory. Ananias and Sapphira were not com-
pelled to sell their goods, nor were they punished for
retaining a part of what they had sold, but for lying.
As the Christian societies grew larger and more numer-
ous. Communism became impractical and was aban-
doned. Individual possession of property is not
forbidden by our Lord, but is declared by him to
be a stewardship, for the administration of which
each possessor is personally accountable to God.

Communisms, as instituted at Plymouth, James-
town, and other places in modern times have all
failed. Their failure was inevitable. Absolute and
equal division of property among persons who differ
not only in their needs but also in their intellectual,
industrial, and moral capacities is both un-Christian
and impractical. Experience teaches that the equal
sharers in the wealth of to-day would be the unequal

190 God and Government

possessors and bankrupts of to-morrow. Absolute
equality on communistic principles is impossible and,
therefore, entirely outside of the question of practical
economics. Nor is the partial Communism proposed
by the single tax and land confiscation schemes of
Henry George and others to be considered as, in any
sense, a wise, a just, or even by any means a possible
solution of our social or industrial problem. Henry-
Georgeism, replete as it is with misconception and
false logic, grossly overrates the magic properties of
the remedies it proposes, and in the light of Christian
liberty, justice, and reason stands self-evidently con-
demned and doomed to failure.

Paternalism. — Communism being abandoned as a
failure, and the compulsory socialism of Europe being
discarded as inapplicable to American industrial life
and enterprise, voluntary socialism as applied through
the ownership and conduct of industry by the State
has been advocated and set forth as the kind of
socialism America needs. To some this seems to be a
very plausible and happy solution of our industrial
problem. The government is to own what are con-
veniently termed "public rights," such as lands,
mines, forests, railways, telegraph and telephone
lines, street railways, rivers, canals, harbors, munici-
pal water works, light plants, public schools, and
currency or moneys, and operate them immediately

Industrial Solutions 191

by the people and for the people, to whom all the
profits shall accrue. This means national Paternal-
ism, an economic system by which the government
is deified into a great common fatherhood provid-
ing for everybody as a child is cared for by its par-
ent. By such a system it is proposed to liberate the
people from the " tyranny of trusts," and the " slavery
of corporations," to avert the disorders of abominable
strikes, and bring about the long-sought economic
ideal of industrial equality, peace, and prosperity.

This gospel of Paternalism sounds well in socialistic
oratory and reads smoothly in Utopian literature, but
in fact it would hardly be worth the cost of an experi-
ment to realize that in practice such a system would
be incompatible with the spirit and genius of Ameri-
can institutions, and would not work with any degree
of satisfaction to those who appreciate the impor-
tance and dignity of God-given individualism. Of
course, the advocates of Paternalism do not explain
how the government could get possession and con-
trol of all these properties termed "public rights"
without saddling upon the American people a haz-
ardous multibillion-dollar national debt many times
larger than that of the worst debt-ridden nation of
the Old World, nor do they demonstrate intelligently
the propriety and consistency of seeking to abolish
private corporations, that can be legally controlled

192 God and Government

and whose industrial enterprises have been a bene-
diction to our progress and civiUzation, by trans-
forming the national government into a gigantic
monopoly, against which there is no appeal save
revolution — and which is meant in its last and con-
summate stages to swallow up all the individual
enterprises of the land.

Paternalism, as applied in European countries, dem-
onstrates that State ownership and control does not
abolish poverty by cheapening the necessaries of life;
it ignores the desire of individual possession ; it stifles
personal enterprise; it reduces the laborer to the con-
dition of a soldier under military law, and in case of
any personal grievance leaves him without recourse
for the adjustment of inflicted wrongs; and, last but
not least, in a republican form of government it
breeds a political corruption that is hazardous and
contemptible. In the face of much government
ownership in Europe the Italian Railroad Commis-
sion, after accumulating an immense mass of infor-
mation by a careful and exhaustive investigation,
requiring three years of time, declared that it was
not expedient for the State to run railways for three
main reasons: 1. Private companies can give better
and cheaper service than the State; 2. State man-
agement is more costly than private management;
3. The political dangers would be very great.

Industrial Solutions 193

Paternalism in America, where people believe in
the largest personal liberty consistent with public
order and the general welfare of the nation, would be
even less satisfactory than it is in the monarchies of
Europe where the people believe in the " divine right"
of kings and where the government consists largely in
the will of the sovereign. True American statesman-
ship will never resort to Paternalism for a solution of
our industrial problem. President Grover Cleveland,
in his second inaugural address, wisely said : " Pater-
nalism is the ban of republican institutions and the
constant peril of our government by the people. It
degrades to the purposes of craft the plan of rule our
fathers established and bequeathed to us as an object
of our love and veneration. It perverts the patriotic
sentiment of our countrymen and tempts to a pitiful
calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their
government's maintenance. It undermines the self-
reliance of our people and substitutes in its place
dependence upon governmental favoritism. It stifles
the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every
ennobling trait of American citizenship. The lessons
of Paternalism ought to be learned, and the better
lesson taught that, while the people should patriotic-
ally and cheerfully support their government, its func-
tions do not include support to the people."

Christian Individualism. — The last here named of
13

194 God and Government

the four leading methods of industrial reform is first
in importance. In our government of the people,
by the people, for the people, Individualism is a
sovereign power both in our national life and in our
industrial progress. The regeneration of the individ-
ual on Christian precepts and principles is therefore
essential and fundamental in our social and industrial
reform. "We must be born again," applies primarily
to the individual, but where this doctrine of our Lord
is experimentally carried out and true religion becomes
vitalized and exemplified in the Christian lives and
characters of our American manhood and woman-
hood, there the true philosophy of our social amelio-
ration and the whole secret of a proper and successful
solution of our industrial problem have been conceived
and realized in miniature. Christian Individualism
exemplifying, in model characters, the highest type of
true manhood and womanhood demonstrates to the
world that godliness is profitable in all things and
wields a pacifying and progressive power in the suc-
cessful solution of the trying problems connected with
industrial life and enterprise.

What Nihilism, Communism, and Paternalism must
inevitably fail to do will be accomplished by Christian
Individualism in our industrial progress. Individu-
alism, vitalized and made potent by the shields of
Christian organization maintaining order, and secur-

Industrial Solutions 195

ing permanence and peace, has been the mighty pro-
pelling power in our country's history, in winning
our freedom, in overthrowing error, in forbidding
wrong, in accomplishing reform, in supplying the
energizing forces of government, and it will doubtless
be, in the future as it has been in the past, the great
invincible and advancing power in our industrial
progress.

Applied Christianity

Though Christianity does not teach Nihilism, Com-
munism, and Paternalism, or other fads of modern
socialism, yet it does magnify Christian Individualism.
Christ himself was ideal Individualism exemplified,
and this not only in the personality of his nature
but also in the dispensations of his ministry, including
not only the multitudes but also the individuals who
were the happy recipients of his marvelous bounties
and his heavenly benedictions. Indeed, many of his
sweetest and most important messages and the great
majority of his miracles were his direct attentions
given to individuals, including even the poorest, the
weakest, and meanest of mankind, demonstrating to
all the world and for all time to come that God is not
a respecter of classes, high or low, and that divine
Providence, as well as human responsibility, is direct
and personal in the purest and strongest sense of
Individualism.

196 God and Government

While the Saviour's Gospel is not, and does not
contain, a treatise on political economy, and though
Christ, once for all times, sternly refused to comply
when urged to settle a property dispute between two
brothers, yet Christianity is not by any means left
without Gospel teaching pertaining to capital and
labor and the solution of industrial issues. In the
New Testament self-denial is set forth as a cardinal
virtue, diligence in business is specifically enjoined,
mammonism is emphatically forbidden, violation of
the rights of property is condemned, servants are
instructed to discharge their duties faithfully, "not
with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness
of heart," and employers are commanded to treat
their employees " no longer as servants, but as breth-
ren beloved."

Christianity enlightens and spiritualizes man's
understanding. It teaches plainly, as human experi-
ence reiterates, that a man's real happiness does not
depend upon the abundance of earthly things pos-
sessed, and that an equal distribution of wealth
would not bring about the promised millennium of
industrial peace, contentment, and happiness, as pro-
claimed by modern socialism. In the light of Gospel
intelligence it is easily and clearly perceivable that nei-
ther riches nor poverty are to be necessarily regarded
as vices or virtues, and that the unwholesome extreme

Industrial Solutions 197

or abuse of the one may be as prolific of misery and
ruin as would be the abuse or extreme of the other.
Indeed, the Gospel indicates very plainly that wealth
may be the greater snare to the soul, since "it is
hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven."

That the majority of our American people, though
happy, healthy, and comfortable, in only tolerable
living circumstances — in other words — that in our
time and in our country, as in all ages and in all
lands, the few are rich and the many are poor, may
be, and doubtless is, a blessing in disguise. Says Dr.
William A. Quayle : " Poverty is healthy, and supplies
the centuries with poets, painters, philosophers, states-
men, orators, preachers, inventors ; indeed, all but the
whole of human genius. To vilify the condition from
which the world's betterment has sprung would be
captious at least, and foolish at worst. Poverty makes
nothing against usefulness, goodness, worth, and hap-
piness, and is not, therefore, to be accounted an evil.
People do not commiserate the rich, should not com-
miserate the poor, and need only to commiserate the
ranks of penury."

Applied Christianity in the industrial world dignifies
labor. Alas, that the mistaken idea of ancient
heathendom discarding labor as a disgraceful drudgery
akin to slavery still survives and lives in the benighted

198 God and Government

misconception of those who look upon honest toil not
as a blessing but as a curse, and who shirk the duties
and privileges of even honorable and profitable em-
ployment because they erroneously suppose manual
labor beneath their dignity and standing in society.
Counteracting this idle fancy, which from the days of
Aristotle to modern times has been prolific of so much
unwholesome shame and misery, Christ, the Son of
God and King of kings, dignified labor by exalting
it to a nobler estimation in enlightened opinion. Our
Saviour, who by choice might have been as rich as
Dives, identified himself with the common people.
He himself labored at the carpenter's bench. His
chosen disciples were from among the laboring class.
All his associates and first Church members were
working people, and his whole life and teachings tended
to elevate and bless laboring humanity. Thus in the
Gospel dispensation labor is no longer an evil burden
to be despised, no humiliating drudgery of which to
be ashamed, but, in its true estimate, a noble calling
which is an honor and a blessing before God and
men.

Christianity not only dignifies labor, but it also
proclaims the royalty of service through the practical
application of the Saviour's decree that "he who
would be greatest among men must be the servant
of all." This law of service, however, is universal

Industrial Solutions 199

and applies not only to the sons and daughters of
daily toil, but alike, and, indeed in a much higher
and more obligatory sense, to the capitalists of all
Christendom, because their capacity for service is
much greater and more powerful for usefulness to God
and humanity. The Christian capitalist living up to
this law of Christ finds in happy experience that
not selfish gain but faithful service in true evan-
gelical humanitarianism brings in return the richest
and most enduring reward. Thus by service, through
helping others, he invests in men instead of things,
securing thereby unto himself an instrumental rela-
tionship in the advancement of Christ's kingdom, an
eternal revenue of reward far more enriching and
enduring than ownership in material wealth could be.
It is gratifying, indeed, to know that with the
spread of Christianity among the people this spirit of
service is spreading, and is teaching men and women
everywhere that not gain but sacrifice, not selfish-
ness but love, not mammon but usefulness, not ease
but activity, not the nobility of wealth but the nobility
of character is the true ideal and mission of a success-
ful Christian life. True Christianity thus applied to
both capitalists and laborers will banish strife from
the industrial arena and bring, men together in a
becoming and an abiding spirit of cooperation and
fraternalism.

200 God and Government

Combinative Tendencies

The tendency toward organization and combination
in the industrial and commercial world is a remark-
able characteristic of our times. Prevailing social
tendencies and business expediency have incited and
wrought a union of forces, both of capital and labor.

Under the competitive system, in the days of our
forefathers, when the labor of manufacture was done
by hand and when commerce was limited to individual
enterprise, there was little occasion for the combination
of either capital or labor. Competition then had full
sway, and was either a blessing or a curse. Every
man stood on an equal basis of industrial freedom, and
enjoyed comparatively equal chances of business suc-
cess. Both employers and employees were inde-
pendent of allied influences and stood in direct
individual relations toward each other. In those
"good old times" there were no "trusts" or "com-
bines" to monopolize business or to rob society, and
no labor "organizations" or "unions" to paralyze
commerce or to disgrace civilization with riotous
strikes.

But the invention of machinery for all kinds of
labor, the multiplication of public carriers for rapid
transit, and the vast increase of all lines of manufac-
ture, agriculture, and commerce have brought about
great changes, and have reversed the condition of

Industrial Solutions 201

things in the industrial world. The productive capacity
of manufacturing industries has been increased a
thousandfold, and commercial enterprises have been
extended and augmented to gigantic proportions.
Capital has gained a commanding prestige over labor,
wage-earning individuality has been largely dis-
counted, and single-handed competitors with small
means have been driven from the race for wealth.

This new condition of things has disturbed the
industrial peace of society, has raised the tempera-
ture of the battle for bread and gain to a white heat,
and has naturally brought both capital and labor into
masses and combinations. Workmen, seeing their
individuality practically destroyed, and knowing that
without combined action they would be absolutely
helpless against the encroachments of organized capi-
tal, naturally resorted to organization and union. On
the other hand, the investor, seeing himself involved
in a double conflict, with strong competition for
markets on the one side and powerful labor unions
on the other, found himself unable to carry on the
battle single-handed, and hence resorted, first to part-
nerships and corporations, and finally to combinations
and trusts.

Now it would be idle to overlook the natural causes
and forces of circumstances leading to and generating
these combinative tendencies; and certainly it would

202 God and Government

be misguided pessimism to decry unequivocally all
organization, of capital or labor, as the mere outgrowth
of moral retrogression, commercial greed, and unblush-
ing mammonism, now threatening the country with
financial vampirism, economic despotism, and politi-
cal ruin. Though much in the combinative tendencies
of to-day is both unrighteous and unwholesome, yet
not all of our economic system is necessarily of evil,
but much in the organizations of investors and work-
men for mutual protection and improvement is
unquestionably legitimate and beneficial, not only
to capitalists and laborers but also to the general
industrial and commercial interests of the people.

Organization, where properly conducted, does not
necessitate the annihilation of individualism nor the
sacrifice of liberty, but in its legitimate sphere it may
mean and does accomplish the betterment of economic
conditions, the increase of personal usefulness, the
promotion of industrial progress, and the securement
of human comfort and happiness. " That," says Henry
King, " is the difference between freedom and slavery,
independence and servility. The tendency of organ-
ization on the part of any element of society is to
stimulate its self-respect, to concentrate its energies,
and to make it more effective. It is easy to under-
stand from the reading of history that all important
results have been accomplished by associated effort.

Industrial Solutions 203

by the combination and cooperation of men having a
common interest and seeking a common object. This
fact is exempHfied in the annals of mihtary conquest,
of pohtical progress, of rehgious development, of
material prosperity. Every great man has been a
great organizer, carrying out his designs by enlisting
a large number of people in the service of a given
cause or movement. The whole wonderful story of
civilization, in short, is a series of illustrations of the
power of aggregations, as distinguished from individ-
ualities, of united endeavor in contrast with strictly
personal exertion."

The material benefits of organization, both in behalf
of capital and labor, are indisputable. Organization
destroys unhealthy competition, it commands a recog-
nition of rights, it wields social and political influence,
it curtails the expenses of manufacture, it regulates
the output and the sale of commodities, it protects
mutual interests, and, where the stock books of the
corporation are open to the employee as well as to
the employer, and laboring men become investors,
the great interests of labor and of capital become
united in a state of mutual ownership and coopera-
tion. Thus organization is a good thing and serves
a beneficent purpose.

But even a good thing may be abused and trans-
formed from a blessing into a curse. Though organ-

204 God and Government

ization and combination is, within certain restrictions,
a good thing, yet, under conditions where the union
and cooperation of either capital or labor, or of both,
combined, is flagrantly abused to rob and tyrannize the
people, there the "union," the "trust," or the "com-
bine," whatever may be its name, becomes a menace
to society and a dangerous threat upon industrial
peace and individual enterprise. The objections to
combinations or trusts, either of capital or labor,
are that they create monopoly, they deprive society
of the advantages of competition, and concentrate
dangerous powers in the hands of a few men as
oflftcers and managers of corporations. Organization,
if abused, is fatal to individualism and single-handed
enterprise. It robs the poor man of business oppor-
tunities; it groups men together in masses to be
dealt with collectively as mere numbers or commod-
ities; it reduces the laborer to the flesh and blood
functions of an animal or a machine, and generates
hatred and strife between the capitalists and the
laboring classes.

Certainly these evils in our combinative tendencies
must be recognized and counteracted. How and how
not to deal with trusts and corporations is and doubt-
less ivill continue to be a much debatable question
that shall tax the wisdom and skill of our best states-
manship in coming time; but society's right and ability

Industrial Solutions 205

to control such combinations cannot be gainsaid, and
surely we cannot afford to allow organization to crush
our independence, energy, and manhood, by complete-
ly abolishing or paralyzing single-handed effort and
personal enterprise. Trusts, whether of capital or la-
bor, must not be allowed to control our courts, to gov-
ern our legislation, to quash our industrial freedom, nor
to override our institutions of law and order. While
our past is beyond recall and tears of repentance can-
not wash away our stains, yet our wrongs must be
righted and our future republicanism must, irre-
spective of political creeds or partisan interests, brave
the conflict between monopoly and private enterprise
by demanding that neither individualism nor organ-
ization shall be unduly exalted or empowered,but that
both contending forces, having a mission in our civ-
ilization, shall be restrained and punished in their
wrongs, as well as encouraged and protected in their

rights.

Our Industrial Future

Carnal security is dangerous and unbecoming
for nations as well as individuals, and political
wisdom and foresight will command vigilance and
precaution against the perils of monopoly and
organization.

But whatever may be our future policy toward
organization and capitalization, as shall be manifested

206 God and Government

in the amendment of our corporation statutes, and
the new restrictions upon our present system of cap-
itahst production, we shall always remember that
both organized labor and incorporated wealth, though
sometimes abused to evil purposes, are and always
will be potent and indispensable factors in our indus-
trial progress and civilization. To seek to destroy
organization or to abolish capitalization would be the
height of political folly, for in the future, as in the
past, we shall need to utilize and apply both the
powers of capitalized wealth and organized labor in
the development of our industrial resources, in the
extension of our commerce, and in the promulgation
of our civilization.

There is no immediate occasion for pessimistic alarm
over our prospective industrial future. Our present
prosperity, resulting partly from the advantages in-
herited from our fathers and partly from our indus-
trial developments blessed of God, bodes hopefully
for our coming advancement. Both capital and labor,
though never fully satisfied, have much occasion for
satisfaction and gratitude.

The prevalence of harmony and good will as mani-
fested in the humanitarianism shown in the reduction
of pauperism, and in the securement of help for the
unemployed, are hopeful signs of our times. Moreover,
the experiment of voluntary cooperation and profit-

Industrial Solutions 207

sharing as introduced by some of our leading indus-
tries, showing the advantages of mutual benefit be-
tween capital and labor, has brought forth a new
and very important factor in the future solution of
our industrial problem.

Organization of both capital and labor encourage
and facilitate conciliation, and with the growing and
universal desire for peace and harmony the doctrine
of arbitration, supplemented by New Zealand's suc-
cessful demonstration, that the disorder and violence
of strikes can be abolished, is rapidly winning favor,
and from present indications, permanent peace by
arbitration between the two great contending forces,
capital and labor, is one of the practical certainties
of our industrial future.

God in Our Industrial Problem

God's dealings with his people in bygone ages
teach us very distinctly that in the solution of our
industrial problem we must not limit ourselves
exclusively to mere secular conditions or human
agencies. We say : " Man is the architect of his own
fortune," and ascribe economic conditions solely to
the potency of material agencies and influences. We
speak of good and bad, or of hard and prosperous
times, and name their various causes. The supply
of profitable employment, the amount of money in

208 God and Government

circulation, the condition of the banks, public faith,
tariff legislation, the values of stocks, the monopoly
of trusts, the prestige of labor organizations, these,
and many other things, are material agencies affect-
ing our times. Recognizing the potency of these
various elements, as related to our economic system,
we apply ourselves to the solution of our industrial
problem, seeking by political agitation, by enforce-
ment of reformatory measures, by legislative enact-
ments, and by the control of industrial and capital-
istic corporations, to evade the financial disasters of
threatening panics, and to restore public confidence
and business enterprise. Yet, after all, we fail to
prevent the reoccurrence of the hard times, the busi-
ness depressions, and the panics that overcome us, and
often we are all in a quandary as to their cause and
cure.

Here we may learn something from the holy pro-
phets of old — some of the wisest and best men the
world ever saw. They looked beyond material forces
and human agencies. They recognized the sovereignty
of God behind all times, good or bad. They attrib-
uted the evils of the hard times befalling the people,
not to their defective financial system, but to the
divinely inflicted retributions on account of the sin-
fulness of sin, and proclaimed righteousness as the
only safeguard against national ruin — a great moral

Industrial Solutions 209

principle as fundamental in national prosperity to-day
as it was three thousand years ago.

God still reigns. He is the one great sovereign
power whose retributive justice can never be defeated
or debased by national politics or economic systems,
and we, as a people, at all times, in all things — and
especially in our solution of our industrial problem
— will do well to study the relation of God to nations
and national sins. On God's favor and blessing
depends our national destiny in all coming time. If
we violate his laws and reject the rulership of his Son,
in our departments of government or in our industrial
systems, he will smite us like a potter's vessel, as he
has smitten other fallen nations by judgments inflicted
for their sins. ^' These," says Bishop Warren, "are
times when every good man should come to the aid
of establishing righteousness. To do this every public
teacher should be burdened with the most vivid idea
that God reigns, that his law is supreme, that he is
not slack as some men count slackness. We are con-
scious of the power of gravitation only when some
house falls, or an avalanche slips from the mountain
to bury helpless villages. So we are not conscious
of God's supreme rulership until he comes in judg-
ment. But when once the soul- of a community is
vividly full of the reality of God's presence and man's
accountability, every man will think of his own sin
14

210 God and Government

and amend. It is better that the felt ^woe is me^
should come from the seen holiness of God than from
any reasoning of others. He, thus impressed, is taken
by a flank movement and surrenders at once. Hard
times in commercial circles are good times for the
Church and soul's prosperity. When God has a con-
troversy with a nation there is no way to settle it but
on God's terms."

OUR NATIONAL IDEAL

FORWARD

God, to the human soul,

And all the spheres that roll,
Wrapped by his Spirit in their robes of light,

Hath said: "The primal plan

Of all the world, and man,
Is forward! Progress is your law — your right."

The despots of the earth.

Since Freedom had her birth,
Have to their subject nations said, "Stand still."

So from the Polar Bear

Comes down the freezing air.
And stiffens all things with its deadly chill.

He who doth God resist —

God's old antagonist —
Would snap the chain that binds all things to him,

And in his godless pride.

All people would divide.
And scatter even the choirs of seraphim.

God, all the orbs that roll.

Bind to one common goal —

One source of light and life — his radiant throne

In one fraternal mind

All races would he bind,

Till every man in man a brother own.

— J. Pierpont.

X

OUR NATIONAL IDEAL.

"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to
any people." — Pro v. 14. 34.

STATECRAFT, or the art of government, has been
the study of mankind in all lands and in all ages;
but nowhere and at no time, perhaps, as the stu-
dent of political history will observe, has this theme
attracted greater interest and attention than it does
at the present time among the American people, who
by the acquisition of new territories, as the result
of the recent Spanish-American War, have gained a
new and universal interest in the question of govern-
ment, and particularly in that branch of it relating to
the extension of our sovereignty over our new pos-
sessions. Though, of course, there can be no variation
in our form of government, and the essential principles
of our national sovereignty must always remain the
same regardless of our change of policy as to national
expansion, yet our aim must be to advance con-
tinually and press forward and upward in pursuance
of an ever-rising and progressive ideal of Christian
government.

In all the world, and especially in all civilization,

213

214 God and Government

the desire and the struggle for better government is
continually going on, and though often the struggle
is characterized by violence and bloodshed, 3^et, on
the whole, there is everywhere a manifest tendency
to discard dishonorable methods of political agitation
and to aspire to higher and better forms of political
existence. The false conceptions of national great-
ness as originally inherited from the barbarisms of
heathendom are rapidly passing away and giving
place to the nobler and more elevating ideals of
Christian government as now entertained by the
leading nations of the w^orld.

Our Republic, therefore, to retain her place or to
take the lead, as she should, among the sisterhood
of the great nations of the earth, must pattern all
her advancements after the noblest ideal of Christian
government. Though there is no such a thing as
infallibility in government, 3^et there is such a thing
as a becoming national ideal, which gives definite
direction to endeavor for political progress.

History demonstrates the power of ideals in
national destiny. High ideals exalt, and base ideals
degrade nations. For healthy, progressive govern-
ment our national ideal must not be a stereotyped or
a fixed model of sovereignty independent of times,-
conditions, or circumstances, but must be such as
to command a perpetually rising standard of national

Our National Ideal 215

duty as time and emergency in the march of civiU-
zation shall demand. Only a rising standard of action
continually improving on the past and constantly
going forward to the new ranges of national life, to
which the risen standard of duty calls, should be
conceived as our becoming national ideal.

Since no one can foretell the complications and
problems of our future national history, therefore, it
would be difficult for anyone to say, in detail, just
what should be our national ideal for all the future.
But with ideal, popular government as our aim a few
general but very important and permanent principles
may here be explicitly and profitably suggested.

Christian Republicanism
The American conception of popular self-govern-
ment seems to be the divine ideal of national organi-
zation and sovereignty. Israel's commonwealth, as
divinely instituted and supervised under Moses and
Joshua and the Judges, was a popular government
and remained so until in the days of Samuel, the
degenerated sons and daughters of Abraham, enticed
by heathen nations, ignored God's plan and purpose
of sovereignty by demanding a king. Jehovah's con-
cession to Israel's plea for a ^ monarchical sover-
eignty is only explainable on the grounds of God's
supremacy over all forms of government, because, as

216 God and Government

the inspired Word declares, "there is no power but
of God," "and the powers that be are ordained of
God.'*

The divine favor of republicanism is inscribed by
characters of living light in the annals of governmental
history. God's displeasure has sounded the death knell
of the cruel despotisms and tyrannical monarchies
of ancient and mediaeval times, and the new light
from Bethlehem's manger illuminating the political
firmament by the rise and progress of civil and
religious liberty has generated and inculcated an irre-
sistible spirit of democracy so gloriously manifested
in the noble achievements of Christian republicanism
of modern times. Indeed, so marvelous and progress-
ive has been the sweeping march of Christian civili-
zation and political liberty that to-day not only in
the republics of the new continents, but also in the
greater number of European nations, representative
government has been established, either in the form
of republicanism as in the United States, or in the
form of a limited monarchy as in England.

What a charming privilege and what an inspiring
observation to trace the guiding hand of God directing
the course of events^ leading to the discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus and to the found-
ing of our Republic by our forefathers. With an
inspiration thus obtained, Henry W. Grady was more

Our National Ideal 217

than justified in saying: "Our history has been a
constant and expanding miracle all the way — even
from the hour when, from the voiceless and track-
less ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the
inspired sailor. Let us resolve to crown the miracles
of our past with the spectacle of a Republic compact,
united, indissoluble in the bonds of love — blazing
out the path and making clear the way up which all
the nations of the earth must come in God's appointed
time."

To reciprocate God's favor vouchsafed unto us in
the birth, perpetuity, and progress of our national
life, and to accomplish our mission in the noble cause
of Christian republicanism all our endeavors and
movements in the administration of sovereignty must
be Christocentric. Christ's spirit of love for God and
humanit}^ must be our ruling incentive in freedom's
great conflict against national sins, and Christ's king-
dom must be our aim in the defense and propagation
of liberty among the nations of the world.

Expansion of Liberty

Liberty is the keynote of our national ideal. Our
Pilgrim Fathers, who first planted Christian civiliza-
tion upon American soil, were men whose virtues had
been kindled by the spirit of the Reformation and
whose hearts had been ennobled by the passion for

218 God and Government

civil and religious liberty. That inherent and irrepress-
ible principle of liberty, which was so strong that
it could not be subdued even by a superior alien power,
eventually found expression in the immortal Declara-
tion of American Independence in 1776, and led to the
establishment of our Republic under a federal Consti-
tution, the whole genius of which is popular freedom.
American liberty thus originated has been expan-
sive and progressive from our nation's birth to the
present day. Jeffersonianism, in the early days of our
Republic, was a triuniph of the people over aristo-
cratic forces and tendencies, and opened the way for
the further extension of American liberty as finally
accomplished and expressed in the Constitutional
Amendments augmenting our freedom, in the expan-
sion of our territorial domain, in the abolishment of
slavery and the establishment of equal rights for all
races. Thus, through all the great political epochs and
national conflicts of our history, has the trend of our
liberty been continuous and unabating. Yet, in the
face of all our expansion of populai sovereignty it
is evident that the final goal of our freedom and the
highest ideal of our continually rising standard of
liberty is still unattained. Indeed, with the rights and
blessings of freedom taught in our public schools,
preached from our pulpits, proclaimed from our plat-
forms, magnified by our press, and worshiped by our

Our National Ideal 219

people, who can preconceive or foretell the glorious
and happy possibilities of our expansion of liberty?

The expansion and progress of American freedom
is blessed and magnified in its ennobling power and
prospect by a rapidly growing Christian sentiment
continually exalting our national ideal of civil and reli-
gious liberty. In the progressive light of that Christian
liberty, which is already dawning upon other less
favored nations, and which in God's appointed time
shall enlighten the world, the imported false ideas of
liberty inherited from darker ages and brought to our
shores by ignorant and benighted immigrants, who
have misconceived liberty to imply a license for
drunkenness, anarchism, and unbridled wickedness,
must be suppressed and replaced by that noble
heritage of freedom imparted by the Son of man,
who maketh free indeed. As Christian liberty makes
progress and develops the true ideal of freedom our
people will learn in theory and demonstrate in prac-
tice that real liberty consists in doing as we please
only in so far as we please to do right. This noble
ideal of liberty adhered to will guard us against
prostitutions of our freedom at home, will forbid a
career of imperialistic tyranny abroad, and will inspire
us with worthy and becoming motives in all the
policies and practices of our future political life.

The United States of America, in her protection of

220 God and Government

Cuban independence and in her extension of repub-
lican sovereignty over her new possessions in Hawaii,
Porto Rico, and the Phihppines certainly has a great
and important mission in the noble cause of liberty
for God and humanity. The task assumed, of estab-
lishing self-government in those tropic lands among
a but half-civilized people, saturated with treacherous
cunning and incapacity for self-rule, is indeed one of
the most intricate and perplexing problems of modern
times. Sacrifice, patience, forbearance, and resolute
endeavor will be necessary in the discharge of our
assumed national duty; reaction and disaster must
not be precipitated by a hasty and premature
bestowal of independence before a capacity for self-
government has been developed; and the God of all
true liberty must be our shield, our guide, and our
sustaining power to enable us fully to accomplish our
purpose, through our new departure, in the expansion
of popular sovereignty, which by force of the example
of American republicanism may be the providential
means for " extending the bounds of freedom further

yet."

Monroe Doctrine

Peacefulness is a cardinal feature in our ideal of
government. Our national self-respect, as a great and
free people, prompts and maintains our desire for
amicable relations with all nations.

Our National Ideal 221

It was our love for peace and the hope of averting
further miUtary invasions upon American soil that
originated our foreign policy as expressed in the Mon-
roe Doctrine. Forewarned by England's threat of
seizure upon territory claimed by Venezuela, Pres-
ident Monroe declared that " the American continents
are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for
future colonization by any European power."

This declaration against the aggrandizement of
American territory by non-American powers was in-
deed a wise and justifiable departure in our foreign
policy favorable to the universal peace of the world,
inasmuch as it debarred Old World powers from
further imperial warfare in the New World and
shielded us from the necessity of becoming a military
power in defense of our liberty.

The amicable purposes of the Monroe Doctrine so
often proclaimed in our Presidential messages and
other State documents have been demonstrated in
our historic attitude of peace and good will toward
the nations of both hemispheres. Our war with
Mexico was, of course, a deviation from our usual
policy of peaceful diplomacy in settling national
differences, but even that regretful episode in our
history has, in a measure at least, long since been
atoned for by our government invoking the Monroe
Doctrine to drive Maximilian from his imperialistic

222 God and Government

war path out of Mexico ; and our paternal disposition
toward Cuban independence and popular self-govern-
ment in our newly acquired territory demonstrates
conclusively that in our late war with Spain we were
not actuated by the base motives of territorial aggran-
dizement or the glory of conquest, but by our moral
obligation toward a flagrantly oppressed people, and
by the principle of the Golden Rule as expressed in
the enforced purpose of the Monroe Doctrine.

European imperialistic nations have, of course,
questioned our motives, and even the American Re-
publics have, at times, been jealous and somewhat
afraid of us; but as time brings up truth, and newly
made history, as incident to the recent Venezuelan
imbroglio, vindicates our noble purposes, the world is
learning to understand our sincerity in declaring that
we are not an imperialistic nation and do not aspire
to become a military world power, but that we desire
peace and prosperity not only for ourselves, but also
for all nations, and especially for our sister Republics
of North and South America.

While we shall in the future, as in the past, as
much as in us lies, seek to avoid an attitude of
hostility toward other powers, both trans-Atlantic
and cis-Atlantic, prudence and foresight born of ex-
perience will command us to remember that an ade-
quate and highly trained navy is " the best guarantee

Our National Ideal 223

against war and the most effective peace insurance.''
Says President Roosevelt, in his first annual message
to Congress : " Probably no other great nation in the
world is so anxious for peace as we are. There is not
a single civilized power which has anything whatever
to fear from aggressiveness on our part. All we want
is peace; and toward this end we wish to be able to
secure the same respect for our rights from others
which we are eager and anxious to extend to their
rights in return, to insure fair treatment to us com-
mercially, and to guarantee the safety of the Amer-
ican people. Our people intend to abide by the
Monroe Doctrine and to insist upon it as the one sure
means of securing the peace of the Western Hemi-
sphere. The navy offers us the only means of making
our insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine anything
but a subject of derision to whatever nation chooses
to disregard it. We desire the peace which comes
as of right to the just man armed; not the peace
granted on terms of ignominy to the craven and the
weakling."

Commercial Enterprise

Akin to our policy of peace, as formulated in the
Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule, is our indus-
trial growth, which has developed a commercialism
that has become a marked characteristic of our
national ideal. Says our Secretary of State, John

224 God and Government

Hay : " We frankly confess we seek the friendship of
all the powers; we want to trade with all peoples; we
are conscious of resources that will make our com-
merce a source of advantage to them and a profit to
ourselves."

Originally, in the primitive days of our pioneer life,
immediately after the discovery of America by Co-
lumbus, there was, of course, but little traffic directly
consequent upon that discovery. The early settlers
on our eastern borders were agriculturists and hunt-
ers, whose meager productive capacities were limited
to the plow and the gun, and whose colonies, for want
of means of communication, were isolated from all
association with the outer world. But that same
unmistakable and favoring Providence which led to
the discovery of the New World also directed its de-
velopment and progress ; and soon after the Mayflower
landed our Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock, there
dawned a new era of both civil and religious advance-
ment on American shores.

From the landing of the Pilgrims to the present day
the salutary powers of the Gospel have been applied
to evangelize our rapid growing population, and the
invincible powers of labor and genius have been
utilized to transform the rich hunting grounds of
Indian savagery into a national commonwealth whose
industrial and commercial resources are already the

Our National Ideal 225

marvel of civilization. Manual labor, combined with
inventive ingenuity blessed of God, has developed the
vast resources of our agricultural and mineral wealth,
has multiplied the manufacturing capacity of our in-
dustrial interests, has harnessed the gigantic powers
of electricity and steam as now applied in the public
carriers that facilitate commerce, and has extended
our traffic in all lines of trade, placing our nation in
the commercial supremacy of the civilized world.

Speaking of our industrial and commercial achieve-
ments during the last quarter of a century, the Hon.
Charles Emory Smith has fittingly said: "Familiar
as we are with the legend of our national growth,
we do not realize its stupendous proportions until we
analyze and measure it by comparison. In 1870 the
annual value of our manufactures was $3,700,000,000;
now (1900) it is about $12,000,000,000. For half a
century England had been the w^orkshop of the world,
and we had only just begun. Still we had got such a
start that in 1870 the manufactures of the United
States just about equaled those of Great Britain.
But since then our growth has been so prodigious
that now our manufactures amount to two and a half
times the total volume of Great Britain, Germany, and
France put together. The increase in the annual
American products within thirty years has been dou-
ble the combined increase of those three great nations
15

226 God and Government

of Europe. In other words, if you matcli the United
States against Great Britain, Germany, and France
together our manufactures are now equal to all theirs
and are growing twice as fast. We are manufacturing
nearly two thirds as much as all Europe, with its
380,000,000 people, and more than one third of all that
is manufactured in the world."

Marvelous as our industrial growth appears in the
presence of such comparisons, yet present conditions
of industry at home and abroad are promissory of still
greater advancements in our commercial future. Our
perpetual growth in natural capacities for production,
our rapid advancements in the arts of manufacture,
our increased facilities of transportation over land and
sea, our commercial advantages achieved by our new
possessions giving us an "open door" even to the
markets of the vast Chinese empire, all these, and
other signs of progress, headed by the new Depart-
ment of Commerce and Labor in our national gov-
ernment, indicate the correctness of Julian R. Elkins's
prediction, that " the United States is to be commercial
mistress of the high seas," and point to the fulfillment
of Mr. Gladstone's prophecy that this country would
replace Great Britain as the leading commercial nation
of the world.

In our commercial supremacy we shall do well to
look to our motives, our methods, and our responsi-

Our National Ideal 227

bilities, and to seek to avoid the abominations of other
avaricious nations who in their greed for filthy mam-
mon have disgraced civihzation by the rum traffic, the
opium trade, and other evils progenerative of degra-
dation and ruin. Commercial prosperity is, of course,
more or less perilous to any nation, because, as a
rule, success is naturally accompanied with temptation
and danger. Yet it is not prosperity, but sm, that
ruins nations. Our commercial progress need not be
inconsistent with our Christian civilization, nor need
it hasten our national decline, but may, and should be,
the means of greater opportunities for the extension
of Christian sovereignty.

Indeed, our own national origin and progress from
our colonial days to the present time, as well as the
history of other nations, indicates that the lines of
Christianity and commerce move so closely side by
side that they have been fittingly declared " the twin
sisters" and "the handmaids of progress" in the
march of civilization. "Whether the one or the
other," says Dr. W. S. Hooper, "is the predecessor,
they are handmaids in human progress. Commerce
is the bindins; link of nations, the element that induces
intercommunication and promotes fraternal feeling,
but Christianity purifies the people, promotes morals,
and prepares for the higher commerce of nations.
Commerce is as essential to the divine plan for the

228 God and Government

protection of government and the well-being of the
people as Christianity to the salvation of the soul.
The establishment of multiplied lines of commerce
is the immediate result of continued necessity and
man's desire for gain; they are not the product of the
thought of a moment, but of long-continued study,
necessity, and experiment. But behind them all is
the overruling hand of Providence as the great de-
termining cause who uses them as civilizers and agents
in the progress of Christianity."

Interior Development

Our recently attained commercial supremacy is
doubtless related, in a great measure, to the new
phase in our national ideal demanding an internal
expansion of our industrial capacity through our
interior development. Called, on the one hand, by the
opportunities and responsibilities of our exterior ex-
pansion to be the torchbearers of a new civilization,
and the espousers of true republicanism and Christian
liberty in the islands of tropic seas, we are, on the
other hand, impelled, by the trend and pressure of
enlightened public sentiment demanding the develop-
ment of our domestic resources, to a new national
policy proposing important interior improvements
of our national landed heritage on home territory.
Thus, our so-called "vigorous foreign policy" is

Our National Ideal 229

matched, as it should be, by a correspondingly vigor-
ous home policy.

Interior development has been advocated in the
party platforms of both great political organizations,
our Secretary of the Interior has declared that there
is no one question now before the American people
of greater importance, and our President, thoroughly
familiar as he is with the conditions in the West, has
advised and urged important measures, to be pursued
on lines of the broadest public interest, for saving our
forests, for reclaiming our arid lands, for conserving
our water supply, and for utilizing the yet unoccupied
territory of our vast public domain.

Our future prosperity and our trend toward pro-
gress in all lines of industry and commerce necessi-
tate the execution of these measures for our interior
development. The importance of forestry to the
mining, grazing, and lumber interests of our country
demands that our future administration of govern-
ment over the timbered lands of our public domain be
such as to henceforth not only shield our forests from
destruction by the ravages of fire or public intrusion,
but also to perpetuate their growth, so as to maintain
or even increase their utility and value for the future.

The fact that one third of the home territory of the
United States is still vacant, and that, as investi-
gation shows, there still remain 600,000,000 acres of

230 God and Government

vacant land that is now barren and practically worth-
less, but could be reclaimed by irrigation and made
valuable productive soil for cultivation, demonstrates
conclusively the importance of the new national pol-
icy of interior development and improvement.

Colorado, Utah, California, Kansas, and Arizona
have already taken the lead in this new departure
by introducing irrigation, partly by canals with vast
mountain reservoirs and also by artesian wells. The
work thus far done by private enterprise or State
capital proves satisfactorily the plausibility of the
great national irrigation plans now proposed. How-
ever, what has been done is only a beginning of what
may and should be done by the government, because
the great work of reclamation proposed is entirely too
large in scope and too expensive in construction for
private enterprise. Besides our arid public lands to
be reclaimed are of right the common heritage of
our people and should not be made the subject of
speculation by private enterprise, but should be irri-
gated by the national government and made available
for industrious settlers who will build homes and cre-
ate productive communities.

As to reimbursement for the great expenditures
occasioned by such vast irrigation works, and as to
the salableness of the lands thus reclaimed, our Secre-
tary of the Interior, the Hon. Ethan Allen Hitchcock,

Our National Ideal 231

who is now about to put in operation the national
irrigation act of 1902, has well said: "It is safe
to predict from recent struggles for homes upon the
public domain that every acre of vacant land to be
supplied with water would be immediately taken in
small tracts by men who would not only cultivate the
ground when water is had, but in the meantime would
be available as laborers in the construction of works,
and would ultimately refund to the government the
cost of the undertaking. In this manner thousands
of the best class of citizens in the country would be
permanently located in prosperous homes upon what
is now a desert waste. It has been estimated that
the western half of the United States will sustain a
population as great as that of the whole country at
present if the waters now unutilized are saved and
employed in irrigating the ground.'^

Industrial Peace

Our national aim of peace and progress would be
futile without the inclusion of industrial peace and
harmony in our ideal of government. In the great
industrial conflict for bread and gain, capital and la-
bor are the two prime factors and contending forces.
Both are indispensable to production and should seek
to cooperate in friendly relations to each other on the
fundamental precept and principle of the Golden Rule,

232 God and Government

which is the acknowledged standard of justice with
all honorable men.

But experience teaches that differences will occur
and that offenses will come disturbing our industrial
peace. That such disharmony arises is, of course, not
desirable, yet it is quite natural and perhaps, in many
instances, inevitable. Though capital and labor are
twin brothers, dependent upon each other and are
mutually interested in their ends and aims, yet their
rights and claims are by no means identical, and com-
plications will arise where conciliatory mediation will
be necessary for an adjustment of rights and for the
establishment of peace.

Such prevailing conditions, though inconsistent
with the ideal state of society, are, nevertheless, liv-
ing evidences of a virility, which is preferable, by far,
to that torpor and quietude, which is born of helpless
submission to injustice, and is, therefore, a greater
evil than even strife in defense of sacred rights. The
tranquillity to be sought, in any event, must not be
attributable to passiveness, dependence, or subjec-
tion; nor should peace ever be desired as an end in
itself, but only for the purpose that it serves in accom-
plishing a just and amicable result of mutual conces-
sions satisfactory to all.

While there are no inherent powers in government
capable of averting strife or of securing unbroken

Our National Ideal 233

peace in the industrial world, yet in the light of
observation and experience the fact remains apparent
that much can be done on the part of the State in
behalf of industrial peace by impartially recognizing
the rights of both capital and labor and by maintain-
ing a healthy equilibrium between the two contending
forces, so as to reduce their friction, to mitigate their
antagonism, to lessen the wastes and damages of the
economic conflict, and to encourage more humane
ways and means of adjusting differences in doing the
world's work.

Let us hope that our solutions of industrial prob-
lems may always be consistent with righteous princi-
ples and that the recently instituted Industrial
Committee of the National Civic Federation may
accomplish much for the promotion of peace in the
industrial future of America.

Righteous Government

Every precept and principle of our national ideal,
in order to be true and consistent with God's demands,
must be centered in righteousness, which, as Canon
Farrar has appropriately said, is as much the law of
Christ as it is the law of Sinai. Our Christian re-
publicanism, our expansion of liberty, our Monroe
Doctrine, our commercial enterprise, our interior de-
velopment, our industrial peace, and, indeed, every

234 God and Government

aspiration of our whole political career must, in
order to be ideal and permanent, be based upon
righteousness as the fundamental and all-inspiring
principle.

Faithless men who adhere to the secular idea of
government may sneer at moral obligations in polit-
ical measures and proclaim other principles as their
criterions of civil government, but with God and
Christlike citizens there is no national standard
higher than righteousness, the supreme and abiding
principle by which all nations under the sun are
judged in God's estimation and shall eventually stand
or fall in accordance with their merit or demerit in
the scales of eternal justice. Righteousness is our
only safeguard against the awful doom of the godless
nations that have already gone down in the terrible
judgments that have befallen them. For this reason
God's word must be vitalized in our statesmanship,
our laws must be enacted in accordance with the
Decalogue, our national sins must be condemned,
and our evil practices must be forever repudiated.

Righteousness applied and manifested in our
national life will command honorable diplomatic rela-
tions with other nations, incite just methods of tax-
ation and home rule, and maintain honest policies in
all our public affairs. By a strict regard for righteous
principles we may happily cherish the hope of divine

Our National Ideal 235

approval and meritoriously enjoy national stability
and progress in coming time.

If in our past, which is now beyond recall, we
have come short of our true national ideal, then let
us not be discouraged, but let us, as a great Chris-
tian nation, seek all the more to make the most of
our future, which still lies before us as an unwritten
page to be inscribed, not as fate may by chance de-
termine, but as we ourselves shall dictate by our
relation to the mandates of Hun, who ruleth in
the kingdom of men.

Should our great ship of State ever founder she will
be shattered upon the rocky shoals of skepticism, and
will go down in the whirlpool of worldly and unright-
eous ambitions, but if she steers clear of the threat-
ening dangers, as we hope and pray she may, by
heeding God's signals of warning, and finally enters
the haven of saved and triumphant nations gath-
ered into the glorious realm of the eternal King, she
will enter there by obedience to divine truth, with
righteousness inscribed upon her banner, and as
the herald of Gospel liberty.

SUPREMACY OF LAW

GOD FOR OUR NATIVE LAND

God's blessing be upon

Our own, our native land!
The land our fathers won

By the strong heart and hand,
The keen ax and the brand,

When they felled the forest's pride,

And the tyrant foe defied,

The free, the rich, the wide —
God for our native land!

Our native land! to thee

In one united vow,
To keep thee strong and free,

And glorious as now —
We pledge each heart and hand

By the blood our fathers shed,

By the ashes of our dead.

By the sacred soil we tread,
God for our native land!

— Rev. Dr. Bethune.

XI

SUPREMACY OF LAW

*• The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty." — Psa. 93. 1.

AMERICA has many occasions of gratitude to God
for the bounties of her national heritage. Co-
lumbia may justly glory in the vastness of her territory,
in the wealth of her material resources, in the variety
and healthfulness of her climate, in the intelligence
and enterprise of her people, in her institutions of
education and benevolence, in her forces of virtue
and religion, and surely she may rejoice in her noble
systems of law and government, the best ever known
or devised.

Law is the common heritage of all mankind, and
is indeed as universal as God's omnipresence and
handiwork. In all the realms of nature, of prov-
idence and redemption, law is the absolute and eternal
king to whom every atom of matter and every germ
of life, every volition and every power, every intelli-
gence and every spirit, earth and heaven, men and
angels, must bow and yield in submission to his
authority. Thus there is no vacuum — no place of
absolute anarchism or of coincidence by chance — in

239

240 God and Government

all the universe. From the throne of God to the
depths of hell, law is as perpetual and as supreme
as God himself. Therefore, it is suicidal folly to ignore
or defy the supremacy of law.

Nor can there be a reasonable motive for contempt
of law, for, as Burke truly says, " Law is beneficence
acting by rule." As God bestows his loving-kind-
ness in every ray of light, in every drop of water, in
every atom of matter, in every spire of grass, in every
flower of the field, and in every fruitage of the earth,
so God, the one great Lawgiver, who is the fountain
head of all authority, dispenses his beneficence to hu-
manity, and indeed to every creature of his hands,
through the inestimable benedictions of law and
authority. Says John P. Newman : " Law is no less
good in what it forbids than in what it commands;
all its prohibitions promote the highest interests of
society. It throws its muniments around life, mar-
riage, property, reputation, home, and heaven. Every
act of obedience adds to the perfection of man's moral
nature; it enlarges and ennobles. Obedience and
happiness are inseparable. 'The law is holy, and just,
and good. ' "

Law implies free agency and personal responsi-
bility. Our Lawgiver recognizes his own image in
human souls and appeals to their volition governed
by conscience, forewarned against disloyalty by the

Supremacy of Law 241

fear of punishment, and encouraged to obedience by
the hope of reward. Law and retribution are insepar-
able. God's decree of eternal justice is irrevocable
and inviolable: ''Whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap." Loyalty and virtue may, at
times, seem to go unrewarded, and evil-doers evading
the penalties of the broken law may appear to be the
scapegoats of justice, yet God's law of retribution
can never be defeated, and justice will eventually be
dispensed as the eternal reward or doom of every soul.
Even in the joys and sorrows of the present life,
ensnared by so many powers and influences that
militate against righteousness, may be seen the un-
mistakable evidences of retributive justice consequent
upon the merit or demerit of human conduct. By
word and deed, in characters of living fire, divine truth
declares: "The way of the transgressor is hard;"
''There is no peace, sayeth my God, to the wicked;"
"The wages of sin is death;" but "blessed is the
man whose delight is in the law of the Lord; and in
his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that
bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall
not wither: and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
Even Christ our Lord, who- vindicated the law by
his glorious triumph on the cross and who is to all
nations the herald of Gospel grace, declares : " I am
16

242 God and Government

not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." " Verily
I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled." Says Dr. J. M. Buckley: "The redemp-
tion provided by Jesus Christ is not to make void
the law, but to magnify and make it honorable. If,
reacting from despair to presumption, we sin in hope
of finding forgiveness, we turn the grace of God into
lasciviousness. The highest dignity, the purest happi-
ness, the only security of man is in alliance with the
only Lawgiver. Independence of him is impossible.
Indifference, resistance, or alliance are the only choice.
Indifference is resistance; the alternative is to resist
or to ally one's self by repentance, faith, and a holy
life to Him who sitteth upon the throne of the universe.
Such alliance does not weaken, but does immeasurably
strengthen man for every physical, mental, and
spiritual struggle, burden, and work, and is the sole
source of that true hope of everlasting life which is an
anchor to the soul."

Aside from the hope of eternal life attained through
the powers of saving grace upon the terms of the
Gospel, personal alliance of our citizenship with Christ,
our Lord and Lawgiver, is the only reliable safeguard
against disloyalty to authority and the only means of
establishing and maintaining the supremacy of civil
and religious law in both Church and State.

Supremacy of Law 243

Authority of Law

The supremacy of law commands obedience to all
properly constituted authority as divinely delegated
to the home, the school, the municipality, the com-
monwealth, the nation, and the Church. " Let every
soul be subject to the higher powers," and this not
only because ''the powers that be are ordained of
God," but because our country's welfare demands that
the majesty of law and authority be respected and
maintained.

The disloyal and socialistic plea of liberty and
equality, as viciously misconstrued from our Declara-
tion of Independence, is grossly incompatible with
the real design of our fathers and the true spirit of
American freedom. As Abraham Lincoln, in one of
his speeches, wisely observed, our fathers did not
declare that all men are "born equal," but that they
are "created equal." The two expressions are very
different in meaning, the former implying a natural
identity of individuality and the latter a conferred
equality of rights and opportunities under the com-
mon heritage of independent sovereignty. Sancti-
fied common sense will always concede the preva-
lence of indisputable inequalities of natural gifts, of
acquired capabilities and personal fortunes, as well as
demand an equality of rights and opportunities in
the privileges of our citizenship. Surely our declara-

244 God and Government

tion of equality and freedom was never intended
either to annihilate the God-given diversity of indi-
vidualism or to establish anarchism under the insane
and hypocritical pretense of personal liberty. True
American liberty is not by any means the inherent
and unrestricted right of the individual to do as he
chooses irrespective of the rights of others; nor is
it in any sense the liberty of the barbarian who
defies authority and gloats in unrestrained lawless-
ness and wickedness; nor is it the despotic liberty
of the plutocrat who would claim the right to swallow
up the material wealth of the nation and relegate the
laboring class of our people into practical serfdom or
slavery; but it is the civil liberty of a free and
independent nation respecting alike the rights of
the citizen individually, and the rights of the peo-
ple collectively.

There need be no question as to the limitations of
our liberty, no misunderstanding as to its purpose, and
no dissatisfaction as to its universality or franchise.
AVith all the prerogatives of sovereignity vested in
the people without discrimination as to race, nation-
ality, or person, every citizen stands on an equal basis
with every man, so far as rights and opportunities are
concerned, and shares alike not only in the benefits
of government but also in the obligations of patriotic
loyalty toward his country and its laws.

Supremacy of Law 245

Notwithstanding this, however, it must be conceded
that while the increase of crime in the United States
is not as great as some sensational writers would make
it appear, yet the appalling depravity of human na-
ture, the decline of discipline in our many homes,
schools, and Churches, the perversion of public senti-
ment, the malpractice in law, and the general laxity
in the administration of civil authority have generated
a growing lack of reverence for God and government,
and a lessening respect for law and order, as now so
appallingly indicated by the multiplication of crime
and mob violence, which is one of the gravest aspects
of our modern degeneracy in civilization. Such ugly
sores on the body of our American society should re-
mind us that liberty without conformity to law is a
disgraceful failure, and that in spite of our much
boasted progress in civilization we need above all a
thorough revival of civic virtue to dethrone wicked-
ness from high places, as well as to counteract mean-
ness in low places, besides seeking, on the whole, to
remove the causes of disrespect for authority and
to inculcate principles of loyalty in the hearts and
minds of the people.

Promulgation of Law

Intelligence and morality are two prime factors in
the promulgation of law. There must be an edu-

246 God and Government

cation of the heart as well as the intellect and a
recognized distinction between the divine authority
and the human administration of sovereignty. Inferi-
ority or worthlessness in administration of power can
never justify disloyalty, but the majesty of law must
be recognized wherever we meet with properly con-
stituted authority.

Loyalty as well as charity must begin at home. The
proper administration of parental authority is funda-
mental in the promulgation of loyalty through the
young and rising generation.

As is our discipline in our homes so will be our
administration of law in the community and the
nation. Any tendency toward undue laxity in the
administration of parental authority, or any inclination
to allow home government to go by default, must there-
fore be looked upon as a dangerous malpractice, which
is fruitful of much harm by generating a spirit of
unrestrained liberty and disloyalty that threatens a
breaking down of law and order in our nation's future.
Therefore, as our American fathers and mothers rec-
ognize their eternal responsibilities toward their
children and honor their duty toward God and the
nation, they will seek to avoid the sin of lawlessness
in their homes and endeavor to strike the golden
mean between Puritan severity and modern laxity by
making their households amenable to law and by

Supremacy of Law 247

enforcing family government under rules of dis-
cipline consistent with Christian principles and adapt-
able to our free institutions of civil and religious
liberty.

The work begun by our parents in our homes must
be supplemented by the pastors in our Churches in
order to fully develop and maintain Christian loyalty
in both our present and prospective citizenship. While
our Churches are not political clubhouses, and must
stand aloof from organic relations to political parties,
yet they certainly have a very important mission in
the civil life and national destiny of our people. With-
out Gospel teachings and religious influences we
should be on a common level with the degraded and
disorderly pagan nations of the world. Our Churches,
though not State corporations, are law-abiding insti-
tutions having clearly defined rules for their own
regulation, besides exerting a moral influence that
incites loyalty to both civil and religious authority.
Laxity of discipline must be avoided and authority
must be strictly maintained in our American Churches
if they shall accomplish their God-given mission, for
they are destined to be and to remain in all coming
time the heralds of both the law and the Gospel, the
fountain heads of educative influences, flowing out
from pulpit, press, and school, enlightening and ele-
vating the people morally, mentally, and spiritually,

248 God and Government

thus qualifying them for the duties of an intelligent
and law-abiding citizenship.

Next to the parents in our homes and the pastors
in our Churches stand the teachers in our schools as
promulgators of law and order in American society.
Not only the accumulation of knowledge, but also
the inculcation of respect for authority, the learning
of obedience to law, and the training of "Young
America" in orderly deportment, is recognized by our
leading educators as an essential part of our school
work. The discipline in our common schools com-
pares favorably with that of other schools in other
lands. Perhaps nowhere is order more observed, and
with so little physical punishment, as in American
schools, and yet there is much room for improvement.
Realizing that teachers will impress their individuality
upon their pupils, school boards should always seek
to select teachers of the right stamp for the inculca-
tion of Gospel precepts, moral principles, and loyal
sentiments. Parents should recognize the difficulties
of school government, and should avoid the dis-
paragements of unfriendly criticism, and always, so
far as consistent with righteousness, uphold the
authority of teachers.

In like manner the powers of sovereignty vested
in our municipalities, our commonwealths, and our
national government, should, of course, always be so

Supremacy of Law 249

administered as to command respect for authority and
to promulgate obedience to law. Civil authority and
legal power should never be abused for selfish ends
or extravagant purposes, but should be executed in
the fear of God and in the interests of the people,
who, in our system of popular government are the
ultimate and real sovereigns of the land. Our laws,
when once made, be they enacted by our city Coun-
cils, our State Legislatures, or our national Congress,
must be respected and rigidly enforced. Dead statu-
tory laws or unpunished violations against civil
authority are abominations which American govern-
ment cannot afford to tolerate. The Christian virtue
in the patriotic manhood of our American citizen-
ship must assert its power in the promulgation of
statutory law by strongly resisting disloyal practices
and sternly demanding the enforcement of the powers
and penalties of the law, in order to maintain the
dignity and majesty of civil authority.

Perils of Anarchism

How noble the mission of law and government.
Law is to establish and uphold authority; to protect
life, property, and the pursuit of happiness; to teach
in matters of right and wrong; to direct in the dis-
charge of duty; to deter from evil-doing; to show
the obligation of men toward God and each other;

250 God and Government

and to exemplify retributive justice in human affairs.
How ennobling are these prerogatives of law. What
an inspiration to the soul to bow before its majesty,
and to acknowledge in thought, word, and deed our
obligation to authority and our allegiance to the
throne of the Highest by the behests of laws enacted
both for our temporal welfare and our immortal
glory.

Yet even in this enlightened age of faith and civili-
zation we find anarchism in open revolt against law
and authority as a serious and an ever-present danger
threatening the nations of the world. " Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown." King George the
Third is reported to have said: "The life of a king
belongs to any man who will pay his own." Between
1848 and 1878 there were twenty-eight attempts
upon the lives of rulers, and in the last forty
years three Presidents of the United States, one for
every three terms, or three elected Presidents out
of the last seven, have fallen as victims to assassins'
bullets.

Thus red-handed anarchism, criminally displayed
in horrifying deeds of violence upon the heads of
governments in both hemispheres, is a sad and shock-
ing reminder of the awful and unwelcome fact that
there is in all the leading countries of the civilized
world a prevailing sentiment of criminal hostility

Supremacy of Law 251

against established authority regardless of the forms
of government or the dispositions of character in
rulers. Anarchism does not discriminate between
monarchies and republics, nor between severe and
liberal administrations of sovereignty. It is simply
and insanely opposed to all law and authority, and,
regardless of every principle of virtue or reason, pro-
poses to abolish government and to establish the su-
premacy of criminal liberty and social disorder.

Even the best governments and the noblest rulers
have not been exempted from the deadly blows of
anarchism, but seem rather to have been the chosen
targets of this monstrous and insane progeny of
diabolic violence. Indeed, with few exceptions, the
victims of murderous anarchism have been the
friends of the people. Alexander II, emperor of
the Russians, the great Czar who liberated the mil-
lions of serfs in his dominion; M. Sadi-Carnot, the
president of the French Republic whose character
was above reproach and who, in the most extreme
period of French history, guided his ever-rolling and
tossing ship of State so gallantly and so successfully ;
King Humbert of Italy, the brave and popular ruler
whose charity endeared him to his people and whose
statesmanship was a national safeguard in the tur-
moil of Itahan politics; Elizabeth, the empress of
Austria, that noble woman whose life had been par-

252 God and Government

ticularly beautiful, so far as her relations to the
Austrian empire were concerned; James A. Garfield,
a man of the people and a Christian statesman
whose administration so nobly begun was full of
promise for the best interests of his country; Abra-
ham Lincoln, the great emancipator of American
slaves and God's chosen instrument, with charity to
all and malice toward none, directing the shattered
Union's destiny during the dark and stormy days of
the great rebellion ; and William McKinley , a gentle,
kindly, spotless man of God, a wise and noble Pres-
ident, solicitous of discharging the duties of his high
office in the interests of his people and in the fear
of God — these were the victims of some of the his-
toric assassinations that have disgraced and grieved
the civilization of modern times.

Even in the face of such a record of murder criminal
anarchism is aided and promulgated by a certain class
of self-styled reformers who would seek to shield an-
archistic sentiment under the plea that they can see no
good in the existing conditions of society, and who,
under the guise of innocent disloyalty — which is rebel-
lious inconsistency — would argue a respectable dif-
ference between a creed of peaceful anarchism and the
propaganda of criminal anarchism. But such argu-
ments, though claimed to have been suggested by the
teachings of Count Tolstoi, who, though a respect-

Supremacy of Law 253

able man, is almost or quite an anarchist in philo-
sophic conviction, or by the creed of the Society of
Friends, a reputable body whose doctrines, though
not directly anarchistic, very closely approach the
denial of the rightfulness of human government, can
hardly substantiate the avowed harmlessness of so-
called peaceful anarchism. Some anarchists may not
contemplate violence at the beginning, yet the fact
remains that sin always multiplies and theoretical
anarchists are the easy prey of anarchistic lecturers
and infamous journalists, who by slanderous speech
and libelous caricature are continually misrepresenting
the officials of the government and viciously appealing
to the basest passions of human nature in those who,
by the false logic of anarchist sentiment already em-
braced, soon become the contemptible dupes for dia-
bolic violence as expressed in the destruction of
property and the taking of human life. Thus there
is, doubtless, a much closer relation between the
apparent harmless and the open criminal anarchism
than is commonly supposed.

Nor should anarchism receive any tolerance or
comfort from any tendency in public sentiment
declaring that anarchism is "prima facie a freak of irre-
sponsible criminal insanity, and that the frequent re-
occurrence of such deeds of violence, must be accounted
for as the acts of individual cranks or fanatics who are

254 God and Government

not accountable for their deeds of havoc and murder.
The assaults of criminal anarchism are undoubtedly
the ultimate results of disloyal influences and tenden-
cies which have a serious meaning but which have
usually been regarded with a puzzled and passive
attitude of mind in public sentiment. Miserable
and disreputable anarchists, whose names are the very
synonyms of corruption, have been allowed, through
press and platform, to proclaim their seditious doc-
trines and to organize anarchist societies with a degree
of unchallenged freedom that has been directly dan-
gerous to the peace and safety of society. Hitherto
the opinion prevailed that even anarchists, so long as
they did not resort to violence against the government,
were harmless and had a right to promulgate their
doctrines, which dared not be restrained until they
had actually occasioned public calamity. But the day
of easy-going tolerance and of laisscz faire has
passed. People are waking up and beginning to see
that it is criminal indifference and negligence to allow
anarchists to go unrestrained until their hostility is
actually demonstrated in deeds of public violence.

It is the right and duty of nations to protect them-
selves against vital danger, and the time has come
when strong and vigilant repressive action pn the
part of all governments against anarchism is in
demand. Too many precious lives have been sacri-

Supremacy of Law 255

ficed already, and every reoccurrence of successful
anarchistic violence stirs up and revives throughout
the world the copperhead fiends who, unlike the
rattlesnakes that always warn their victims before
they inject their venom, quietly and stealthily deal
their deadly blows without warning or even under
the disguise of pretended friendship, as Czolgosz
did.

Great evils require strong and radical remedies.
The zeal of our government manifested in the enforce-
ment of the anti-anarchist law in the Turner case is
commendable. The law excluding anarchists, as passed
after the assassination of President McKinley, pro-
vides, that "No person shall be permitted to enter
the United States who disbelieves in, or who is opposed
to, all organized government, or who is a member of,
or affiliated with, any organization entertaining or
teaching such disbelief in, or opposition to, all organ-
ized government."

This law is directed as well against the teachers of
anarchistic doctrines as against the perpetrators of
anarchistic violence. Bothare justly excluded. Within
the past year there have been anarchistic assaults
upon the king of Belgium, the king of Spain, and the
FrenM^reiuier; and plots have been made against
^the ™Br the German emperor, of the king of Italy,
and of the Czar of Russia, to say nothing of the at-

256 God and Government

tempts of armed cranks to get at the President of the
United States.

All these crimes remind us of the necessity of vigi-
lance against anarchism. The appointment, last year,
of a special immigration inspector to learn who the
European anarchists are, and to keep track of their
movements, was decided upon because it was thought
important to gather information about all kinds of
potential assassins, not only those who seek to kill
rulers or government officials, but also those who
incite murder by anarchistic teaching. The experiences
of the past, supplemented by the threatening dangers
of the present, remind us that the solution of the
anarchist problem is not the easy offhand work of a
day, but that it is a complicated and a vital issue that
will require our best statecraft, sustained by the loy-
alty and patriotism of the entire country.

Lynch Law

Lynchings are revolting ulcers on our body politic
sadly indicating the poison of anarchy in the life-
blood of American society. The seeds of disloyalty
sown by the organization of the Ku-Klux-Klan in
the reconstruction days of the Central South have
generated a deadly upas of social disorder ^^^ is in
recent years bringing forth an abundantHPrest of
barbarism in the infamous atrocities of Ivnch law.

Supremacy of Law 257

Though the unlawful execution of criminals is
supposed to have been introduced by a man named
Lynch long before the Ku-Klux days, yet the
alarming increase of lynchings in the United States
is doubtless to be accounted for in the manner here
indicated. The organization referred to was originally
in the hands of good men, who never dreamed of re-
sorting to violence, much less to murder, but who
simply proposed, by apparent legitimate and syste-
matic methods of intimidation, to shield themselves
against the thieving propensities of that class of
Southern plantation negroes who had become demor-
alized and unruly by the suddenly conferred and
much abused boon of emancipation.

But the result in this and all similar instances
shows that it is always dangerous to resort to an
unlawful expedient even for the accomplishment of
what may appear to be a laudable and praiseworthy
purpose. Crusaders, though actuated by good motives
in advocating commendable reforms, must be careful
to keep their endeavors within the limits prescribed
by law, otherwise, they may, by unlawful proceedings,
inadvertently institute mischievous practices calcu-
lated to attract disloyal elements and to generate
disorders, leading to actual crime and violent abom-
inations. Such was the case in the history of the
notorious Ku-Klux-Klan, which in its evil course of
17

258 God and Government

events, as it extended its unruly membership, passed
from bad to worse by going over from a once
harmless vigilance to ultimate criminal violence as
manifested in unlawfully whipping and killing negroes
and terrorizing the people until it became a vast con-
spiracy against the public peace, and originated the
horrible practice of lynchings, which are a growing
menace of the country to-day, although the organi-
zation that formally introduced those barbarities has
long since disappeared and no longer exists as an
organized body.

The earlier lynchings, it is alleged, were the des-
perate efforts of the people to protect their women
from the outrageous assaults of black monsters who
fully deserved the terrible penalties inflicted upon
them. But the public records of lynchings show that
as time rolled on the mania for lynch law continued to
grow, negroes were lynched not only for high crimes
but for the most trivial reasons, such as unpopularity,
violating contracts, testifying in court, refusing to tell
where fugitives were concealed, being relatives of
accused persons, etc.

The fact that during the last five years one hundred
and forty-seven white persons were lynched indicates
that these outrages are no longer limited to negroes.
The frequent occurrence of lynchings in the other
States within the last few years shows that these atroc-

Supremacy of Law 259

ities are no longer confined to the South, but that also
the North, the East, and the West, and, indeed, the
whole of our fair-famed Union is threatening to become
disgraced by these hellish barbarities, that are not
only increasing in number, but are also growing in
shocking brutality, so that out of the two thousand
persons put to death by mobs in the United States,
during the last ten years, fifteen were actually burned
to death with demoniacal cruelties that will not bear
description in decent public print.

Such barbarisms are worse than the crimes for
which they are inflicted. Much sadder indeed than
the appalling increase of crime is the alarming growth
of lynch law resorted to in the unlawful and brutal
retaliation of crime in America. No commonwealth
in the Union can tolerate lynchings without losing
caste abroad and suffering moral deterioration at
home. Lynchings have aggravated criminal violence
in this country. Crime is not diminished but increased
by barbarisms in the infliction of punishment. Great
Britain's history under Henry VIII, when two hundred
and sixty-three crimes were punishable by death, and
when, as it is claimed, seventy-two thousand persons
were executed during his sovereignty, is an historic
object lesson demonstrating that a reign of terror
is no protection to society, and that crime thrives
on horrible penalties. If newspaper reports be true,

260 God and Government

black desperadoes were never more numerous, criminal
violence was never more frequent, and white women
were never less secure than now in those States where
burnings and lynchings originated and have been most
frequent in recent years. When, in view of such a
baleful progeny and progress of lynch law, we think
of the cruelties in the dreadful days of the Council of
Ten in Venice and of the terrors of the Inquisition we
may with deep concern raise the question, What shall
the harvest be if these burnings and lynchings continue
to multiply m number and to increase in cruelty as
they have in the last two decades of our history?

Surely it is time for Americans to realize the danger
and the inexcusableness of mob violence. Though
the Vigilants of '49 in the border mining camps or in
frontier communities, where legal authority had not
been fully organized, had a mission with some shadow
of excuse for the punishment of crime without due
process of law, there can be no reasonable apology
for lynch law in our time when we have established
courts in all parts of the Republic, besides all the legal
machinery that is necessary for the dispensation of
justice.

We have undoubtedly reached a crisis in this matter
of lynch law. The eyes of God and the world are
upon us, and we as the people of a great nation shall
be eternally responsible for these damnable atrocities

Supremacy of Law 261

unless we seek by every legitimate means to clear our
skirts from the infamy of such abominations. Terrible
crimes must, of course, be speedily and severely pun-
ished, but fiendish mobs, whose brutalities put even
savagery to shame, must not be allowed to escape
unpunished. The swift punishment of the mob is
indeed just as essential to the administration of justice
and the maintenance of law and order as is the pun-
ishment of the criminal. Too many exhibitions of
lawless savagery have already disgraced our civiliza-
tion, and in order to avert the future progress of
disloyalty and the ultimate overthrow of civil author-
ity it is high time to call an abrupt and decisive
halt to the mania for mob violence everywhere.

The press, platform, and pulpit of the land must
combine in a vigorous and unceasing campaign of
education that will create, arouse, and maintain a
healthy public sentiment that will condemn all sav-
agery and establish loyalty to law and authority as a
ruling principle among the people. The anti-lynching
parties of the country must put forth every legitimate
effort to labor harmoniously and effectively for the
noble cause of law and order. The millions of Chris-
tian people in the Churches must be called to the work
and brought to apply every Oospel agency at their
command to counteract immorality, to diminish
crime, and to establish the supremacy of law. Patri-

262 God and Government

otic citizens must labor earnestly to counteract that
moral apathy which tolerates crime without rebuke
and seek to enforce the powers and penalties of the
law. Our courts must abandon the delays which have
done so much to encourage lynchings, and endeavor
to be the impartial, diligent, and prompt dispensers of
justice. Leaders of mobs, and in fact all participants
of mob violence, should be unsparingly prosecuted;
and State laws should be enacted in every common-
wealth of the Union to hold the counties in which
lynchings occur responsible under heavy penalties for

such atrocities.

Strike Disorders

Organizations, as orderly bodies having commend-
able purposes in view and operating within the bounds
of the law, are invested with certain self-evident and
indisputable rights and privileges. Both capitalists
and laborers may, if they choose, respectively associate
themselves together into corporations for business
purposes and agree to abide by certain established
rules and to be governed by chosen officers as their
representatives or leaders. So long as such voluntary
and self-constituted organizations are impelled by
worthy motives and by legitimate proceedings, follow
the lines of mutual interest and dependence, they
serve a laudable purpose, and neither their existence
nor their aims and efforts can be gainsaid. But the

Supremacy of Law 263

moment an organization of either capitalists or labor-
ers steps beyond the bounds of its own fraternity
and invades the rights of other corporations or indi-
viduals, thereby disturbing the peace and safety of
society, they become offenders of the law and intruders
upon the rights of others, and are, therefore, no longer
entitled to the respect and support of the people.

Experience enlightened by our own industrial
history proves, however, that the prestige of organiza-
tion, though designed for mutual benefit, both in the
fraternity of capital and labor, is, neverthelesss, as a
rule, involved with temptation in the abuse of power.
Insincere labor agitators on the one hand, and non-
scrupulous capitalists on the other, have marshaled
and clashed their forces against each other in industrial
warfare, disturbing the peaceful business interests of
the country. Both classes of such leaders are pubUc
enemies. Neither has the happiness of their fellow-men
or the welfare of their country at heart, but both are
actuated by selfish motives and are liable to resort to
unlawful expedientSjOr even violence, for dishonest gain.

Ordinarily, under healthy social conditions, there
should be no occasion for strife between capital and
labor or between employers and their workmen. Both
are mutually dependent up^n each other and are
jointly interested in the benefits of peaceful and pro-
gressive industry. But the sin of Judas, which is the

264 God and Government

curse of the ages, is liable to repeat itself not only in
the avaricious disposition of dissatisfied workmen,
but also in the revolutionary propensities of profes-
sional labor agitators, who are workingmen in name
only; and who get their living by their craft. Such
men as leaders, enticed by the emoluments of gain
and notoriety, are apt to seek provocations for griev-
ances, and to venture the organizations which they
represent into riotous strikes which make leaders
conspicuous and equip them with official powers easily
available for selfish purposes.

The same principle of selfishness is liable to assert
itself in a different manner through the tyrannies of
heartless and grasping capitalists, who, regardless of
every principle of honor, combine in a damnable con-
spiracy, despotically to take advantage of common
environments and necessities of the poor in order to
press the lifeblood out of honest workmen at the
least possible cost and with the largest possible gain
to themselves. Capitalists of this type, posing as
employers, are the enemies of peaceful industry and
the progenitors of tyrannies that produce tyrannies.
Thus the flagrant abuse of power on the part of either
capitalists or workmen, or both combined, as the case
may be, generates the anarchy and violence that so
frequently disturb our industrial peace and disgrace
our civilization.

Supremacy of Law 265

The terror and danger of mob violence is clearly
divulged in the history of strikes in America, and the
imperial mob, which is the real despot of the country,
stands self-condemned by its own record of ruinous
tyranny. Mob violence in strikes has repeatedly
stopped our great railway systems; has frequently
closed our mines, our factories, and indeed all our
leading industries; has often caused panics and hard
times; has wantonly applied the torch to valuable
properties ; has paralyzed the various lines of trade ;
has endangered our public carriers with dynamite
and other dangerous explosives; has thrown thou-
sands of workmen out of employment; has brought
starvation and want into the homes of the poor;
has occasioned great loss of life, time, and wealth; has
embarrassed our people with the outrageous and
humiliating impositions of the boycott, besides en-
gendering innumerable cruelties that are scarcely
surpassed by the savagery of heathendom.

Disorders of this kind are the abettors of anarchy
and must be abolished in the defense of life, liberty,
and happiness. The suppression of such atrocities
is, however, difficult, for the reason that the partici-
pants in these abominations are voters, and therefore
politicians cowering before their voting power are
frequently coerced into silence or laxity in the enforce-
ment of the laws against such flagrant intrusions upon

266 God and Government

civil authority. But our government would be a sad
failure indeed if it could not protect its citizens, their
fortunes, and their lives against the disgraceful tyr-
annies of mob violence.

There needs to be a realization of the fact that the
solution of the question of mob violence in strikes is
not a mere party issue, or a sectional or State affair,
but that it is a national problem to be solved in
defense of orderly society against anarchy in the
United States.

Doubtless our statecraft sustained by the power of
Christian sentiment and present tendencies toward
industrial peace will be fully equal to the task in the
solution of this momentous problem. The settlement
of the great coal strike through the intervention of
the President of the United States has scored a dis-
tinct triumph for the principles of arbitration and
has strengthened the possibilities of industrial peace.
Arbitration, however, to accomplish its mission in the
pacification of our industrial future, must become
compulsory. To this end labor unions, as well as
business corporations, must become incorporated un-
der State laws, so that they can be held responsible
for the awards of the courts of arbitration. The
announcement, therefore, that certain important labor
organizations contemplate becoming incorporated is a
step in the right direction toward establishing a per-

Supremacy of Law 267

manent guaranty that henceforth agreements between
employees and employers can be enforced upon both
parties alike. As we advance in the arts of industrial
peace, experience will teach the benefits of such in-
corporations, other labor unions will follow in the
same line, and eventually the abominations of strike
warfare will be abolished through the salutary media-
tions of compulsory arbitration.

Polygamy and Divorce

Restrictive measures against polygamy and divorce
have for years been intelligently and popularly re-
garded as moral necessities and public safeguards in
defense of the purity and stability of the home life
of the American people; and doubtless the irresistible
force of growing public sentiment aroused, not only
to the white heat of pure patriotic indignation, but
impelled to radical and decisive action, will eventually
command and enforce congressional legislative action
against these twin gigantic evils.

Neither of the restrictions proposed is new. Both
measures are living issues of long standing and have,
indeed, already received much legislative consider-
ation. Divorce laws are embodied in the statutes of
every State in the Union, and laws against polygamy
are not only included in all State laws which adhere
to the principles of monogamy in holy matrimony,

268 God and Government

but aside from all these considerations in State legis-
lation, polygamy has been thrice rebuked, and in a
measure restrained, by the passage of the Edmunds
Law in 1882, by the exclusion of Brigham H. Roberts,
the defiant polygamist representative from the fifty-
sixth Congress, and by the vigorous protest against
the seating of Senator Smoot, of Utah. Both the
divorce laws of the various States and the anti-
polygamy laws of the nation have accomplished
effective and beneficial results, although it is now
becoming more and more apparent that, on account
of the conflicting differences in State divorce laws and
the abused power of Statehood conferred upon Utah,
further legislative action through Congress and by the
way of a federal Constitutional Amendment is abso-
lutely necessary for adequate restrictions against the
demoralizing encroachments of polygamy and divorce
in the United States.

The proposition of a Constitutional Amendment
empowering Congress to make laws regulating mar-
riages and divorces has been before former sessions of
Congress, and though it has thus far failed to secure
much favorable consideration, yet the recent enact-
ment of a new divorce law, in and for the District of
Columbia, has encouraged Congressman Taylor, of
Ohio, to renewed energy in behalf of his bill providing
for a constitutional amendment to this effect. The

Supremacy of Law 269

new law in the District of Columbia provides that,
although separation may be granted for other reasons,
infidelity shall be the only reason for absolute divorce,
and that in such cases only the innocent party may
remarry. A national law of this kind, to be enacted
and made effective in all the States of the Union, is
now regarded with much favor by many of our best
people and some of our leading statesmen.

At the same time the people over in Utah and her
adjoining States in the Mormon territory of the West
are beginning to realize that in spite of the enact-
ment of the Edmunds Law and the rejection of
Roberts, the question of polygamous Mormonism is
still unsolved. They see from unmistakable evidence
that the public disavowals of polygamy by the Mormon
hierarchy a few years ago were insincere, and that
many of the Latter-Day Saints, as well as some of the
most prominent of their official leaders, are still, both
in theory and in practice, the secret adherents to the
doctrine of polygamy as originally instituted by
Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and as still
incorporated in the articles of the Mormon faith.
Mormonism has grown from less than twenty thou-
sand adherents in the days of Joseph Smith to three
hundred thousand devotees 6f to-day, and with the
political sagacity and adroitly applied influence of
Mormon leaders, colonizing Utah's adjoining territory

270 God and Government

for the purpose of controlling balances of power
between political parties in other States — Idaho,
Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, California, Arizona,
Oregon, Washington, and Montana — are threatened
to be made political allies of the Mormon kingdom.
'That," says Dr. T. C. Iliff, '' would mean twenty
United States senators and about as many represent-
atives controlled by a trio of polygamists with head-
quarters on Brigham Street, Salt Lake City, and
polygamists from Utah sitting in both ends of the
national Capitol."

To avert such an ascendency, not of Mormonism
as a religious creed, but of polygamy, which is only
another name for adultery and prostitution, our
federal Constitution should, as speedily as possible,
be so amended as forever to prohibit polygamus
practices throughout the land, and also to deprive
polygamists of the right of franchise and of the
power of holding office in either our civil or military
service. In this measure lies our only hope of effect-
ive warfare against the disgraceful and demoralizing
abomination of polygamy.

But as a detaining impediment, the question arises :
"Which is the greater evil of the two — fornication
by divorce or fornication by polygamy?" Let us
not argue the question. In God's eyes the one sin
is doubtless as damnable as the other; and in order

Supremacy of Law 271

to be consistent, to save time, to shorten the work,
and to combine the advocates of both reforms in one
strong, united force, why not make the proposed
federal restriction against both polygamy and
divorce twin measures to be provided for in one
Constitutional Amendment?

The urgent and immediate necessity of such
restrictions is not by any means in doubt. Both
the growing mania for divorce, disclosed by the
increasing thousands of divorces granted annually
by the courts in all the States of the Union, and the
rapid increase of polygamous practices, divulged by
actual authenticated facts in Mormon history and
present-day life, are the appalling and alarming
evils threatening us with national dangers that
should arouse the eternal vigilance and the combined
Christian forces of the whole country. There can
be no reasonable apology for disharmony or indiffer-
ence regarding these measures. The restrictions
here proposed in defense of the home life of the
nation would not be an infringement upon State
rights nor would it be an intrusion upon religious
liberty. Only federal legislation can accomplish a
conformity of divorce laws throughout the Republic,
and only national laws can ever hope to abolish
polygamy in Utah, since she has been endowed with
the powers of Statehood. Mormon opposition to

272 God and Government

any further restrictions against polygamy is unim-
peachable evidence of the importance of the pro-
posed amendment.

Now is the day of opportunity for successful
action to accomplish the desired restrictions against
both polygamy and divorce. Perhaps never before
in all our history were the great majority of our
people, throughout the land, more desirous of safe-
guarding the home life of the nation by the federal
law than now. Not only our citizenship in general
but even Mormonism among the more enlightened
class of Latter-Day Saints is beginning to realize as
perhaps never before that polygamy is a demoraliz-
ing and a disgraceful evil that must be abolished
in defense of purity in the home and stability of
government in the nation.

Though the Anti-Polygamy Amendment Bill was
smothered in the House Committee of the fifty-
seventh Congress, yet the supporters of this bill, as
also the friends of the Anti-Divorce measure, should
not and will not be discouraged, but continue their
energetic labors with the hope of success in the next
Congress or in coming time.

Besides resorting to prohibitory legislation, how-
ever, it must be remembered that the solution of our
Mormon problem requires not only the prohibitory
powers of the law, but also the salutary powers of

Supremacy of Law 273

the Gospel, and that the crusade against polygamy
is largely a work of Christian missions in the yet
unevangelized Mormon territory of the great West.

In this great home missionary field the Utah
Gospel Mission, an undenominational organization
incorporated in Cleveland, 0., has begun a noble
work of evangelism which should receive the support
and cooperation of all Evangelical Churches, and, in
fact, of all patriotic citizens who are interested in the
proper solution of the Mormon problem.

Legal Reform

The question of legal reform is a perpetual living
issue m our civilization. Continuous changes in our
judicial needs and in our social environments neces-
sitate corresponding changes in law. Hence, the
need of the perennial changes in our statutory laws,
which, indeed, are so frequently revised that our com-
mon people, as a rule, are scarcely able to keep them-
selves posted on our legal code.

American aggressiveness in lawmaking has devel-
oped codes of laws and systems of court machinery
unsurpassed by the combined legislative and judicial
skill of the civilized world. Theoretically, our
legal reforms have usually met the real needs of the
people, and to-day our laws are doubtless, in a literal
sense, about all that is desirable or necessary, for the
18

274 God and Government

present, in a legal code for the administration of
justice.

Our efficiency in the dispensation of justice, how-
ever, is not, by far, equal to our efficiency in law-
making, and the result is that in spite of all our legal
machinery, both State and national, our courts are
failing to meet the actual needs and the just expecta-
tions of the people. "The letter killeth, but the
spirit maketh alive." Much law and little justice in
our courts make legal proceedings a farce and gen-
erates loss of confidence in our legal tribunals as
effective agencies in the redress of either private or
public wrongs. "Blessed are those who do not
expect anything in law, for they shall not be dis-
appointed." If this proverbial beatitude is appli-
cable to civil law, it certainly is applicable to criminal
law. Indeed, the number of convictions in criminal
cases is so scandalously out of proportion to the
number of crimes committed that our administra-
tion of criminal law has fallen so low in disrepute
that people are despairingly saying our laws are made
to defeat prosecution and to facilitate the escape of
criminals, who appear under such conditions to be
the privileged classes of the country.

All concede that such a state of affairs should not
be. The American people, with a republican form
of government under a federal Constitution which

Supremacy of Law 275

prohibits the granting of patents of nobility to citi-
zens, do not beUeve in privileged classes of any kind
and most emphatically never had the remotest inten-
tion of making contemptible thieves and murderers
the privileged classes of the land by shielding them
against the deserved penalties of the law, even at the
high price of sacrificed public honor and safety. As
a rule our people abhor crime and desire law and
order. Our public sentiment demands that the
criminal, though he is to be accorded every iota of
justice due him, shall not in any sense be so shielded
against the penalties of the law as to arouse or main-
tain the suspicion that he is the favored character
in our criminal courts. The common idea is that
the evil-doer should have a fair and impartial and a
speedy trial, but nothing more that would either
directly or indirectly defeat an honest vindication
of the law.

Therefore, in recognition of the will of the people,
as well as in compliance with the just intentions of
the law, criminal tactics to defeat justice in our
courts should be rebuked and forbidden. Perjurers
upon the witness stand or in the jury box should be
unsparingly prosecuted. Criminal lawyers should
be honest expounders of law and sincere defenders
of justice, and the disreputable attorneys who would
knowingly and willfully seek by foul means to clear

276 God and Government

red-handed criminals, and thus bring disrepute upon
criminal courts, should be abhorred and condemned
by public sentiment and promptly discharged from
the practice of law in our courts.

That a certain degree of charity for criminals,
even after conviction for crime, is justifiable and
commendable, is universally conceded. Vengeance
should not be a factor in punishment. Justice tem-
pered by Christian charity, seeking not only to pun-
ish, but also, if possible, to reform the criminal and
to reclaim him from vice and crime should be the
motto of prison administration. Accordingly, it is
gratifying to see that such plausible measures as the
probation of criminals, indeterminate sentences,
reparation for injury, prison dietaries, civil service
in prison administration, etc., are being thoroughly
discussed and favorably considered.

But the vital question in legal reform is. How can
the malpractices of criminal courts be abolished and
the supremacy of law be obtained? Let some of our
leading jurists speak and answer the question.
President J. J. McCarthy, of the Iowa Bar Associa-
tion, regards the prevalence of perjury and bribery
in American courts of justice as our greatest evil.
''Where," says he, "is there a lawyer who has not
seen the guilty criminal pass out of the court room
acquitted and set free because of perjured testimony?

Supremacy of Law 277

What one of us but has seen the rights of persons and
property sacrificed and trampled under foot; presum-
ably under due form of law, but really and truly by
the use of corrupt and false and sometimes purchased
testimony? These are things that beget distrust
and disrespect for the courts and for verdicts and for
our boasted form of law. These are the things that
produce anarchy, lynching, and invite just con-
tempt as well as lack of confidence in those tribunals
called courts of justice. One judge of long expe-
rience upon the bench writes me that, in his opinion,
about one half of all the evidence received on behalf
of the defense in criminal cases is false. Another
judge of equally high repute writes that he believes
seventy-five per cent of the evidence offered in di-
vorce cases approaches deliberate perjury. Another
writes that perjury is committed in a majority of
important lawsuits, and that the crime is rapidly
increasing. In short, with reference to the preva-
lence of perjury, the time has come when, in the
words of another, justice must wear a veil, not that
she may be impartial, but that she may hide her face
for shame." Mr. McCarthy proposes remedies. He
says oaths are too common. He favors the abolition
of all official oaths and the emphatic administration
of the judicial oath. He believes that the judge
himself should administer all oaths; that it should

278 God and Government

be done with gravity and solemnity, and that wit-
nesses should be told that extreme punishment would
be meted out to perjurers. Then he holds that the
law should be enforced, that perjury should be
swiftly and severely punished, and if so punished
a strong public sentiment would rapidly grow up
against it, and men would hesitate before com-
mitting this most heinous, wicked, and cruel crime.

Judge I. C. Parker, of the United States District
Court for the Western District of Arkansas, who has
presided over more than one hundred murder trials,
proposes as a remedy in legal reform the establish-
ment of appellate criminal courts. He says: "To
destroy the greatest of all promoters of crime I would
remodel the appellant court system. I would organ-
ize in the States and in the nation courts of criminal
appeals, made up of judges learned in the criminal
law, and governed by a desire for its speedy and vig-
orous enforcement. I would have sent to these
courts a full record of the trial, and they should be
compelled to pass upon the case as soon as possible
according to its merits, and ascertain the guilt or
innocence of the accused from the truth and the law
of the case manifest on record. I would brush aside
all technicalities that did not affect the guilt or inno-
cence of the accused. I would not permit them to
act on a partial record, or on any technical pleas

Supremacy of Law 279

concocted by cunning minds. I would provide by
law against the reversal of cases unless upon their
merits innocence was manifested. The guilt or
innocence of the party should be the only guide. I
would require prompt action upon the part of the
court. By the establishment of courts of this kind
public confidence, in a great measure lost at the
present time, would be restored, and the people
would again be taught to depend upon legal protec-
tion against crime, and in this way a vigorous
support to the courts and juries would be given by
the masses of the people looking toward the law's
vindication."

Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme
Court, deplores the law's delays and the failure of
the courts to meet the public necessities. The legal
profession, he says, is becoming crowded with unfit
men, who are debasing it into the meanest of voca-
tions, and it would be a blessing to all true lawyers, as
well as to the people, if some Noachian deluge would
engulf half of those who have a license to practice.
The remedy for the prevailing evils and abuses in the
administration of justice he indicates as follows:
"Shorten the time of process. Curtail the right of
continuances. When once B, case has been com-
menced deny to every other court the right to inter-
fere or take jurisdiction of any matter that can be

280 God and Government

brought by either party into the pending Utigation.
Limit the right of reviews. Terminate all review in
one appellate court, and instead of assuming that in-
jury was done if error is shown, require the party
complaining of a judgment or decree to show affirma-
tively not merely that some error was committed in
the trial, but also that if that error had not been
committed the result must necessarily have been
different. In criminal cases there should be no
appeal. I say it with reluctance, but the truth is
that you can trust a jury to do justice to the accused
with more safety than you can an appellate court to
secure protection to the public by the speedy pun-
ishment of a criminal. To guard against any pos-
sible wrong to an accused a board of review and
pardons might be created with power to set aside a
conviction or reduce the punishment if on the full
record it appears, not that a technical error has been
committed, but that the defendant is not guilty or
has been excessively punished.'*

Let the opinions of such experienced jurists as
these be heard and proclaimed throughout the land
and practically applied in the accomplishment of
a radical and healthy law reform that shall meet
the actual needs of the people and restore public
confidence to our legal tribunals.

CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP

NATIONAL HYMN

My country! 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the pilgrims' pride!
From every mountain side

Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee.
Land of the noble, free,

Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rUls,
Thy woods and templed hills:
My heart with rapture thrills

Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze.
And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom's song:
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

Our fathers' God! to thee,
Author of liberty,

To thee we sing:
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by thy might,

Great God, our King!

—Rev. S. F. Smith.

XII

CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP

" Fellow citizens with the samts." — Eph. 2. 19.

UNITED STATES citizens sojourning in other
lands do not, on account of their foreign resi-
dence, lose their American citizenship; and if they be
ambassadors or pubUc servants of the government, or if
they be missionaries going forth to other lands to pro-
claim the Gospel of Christ, their children, though
born in other lands, lose none of the rights and priv-
ileges which pertain to persons born within the ter-
ritory of our own national domain. Such children,
though having had their birth and their residence in
other lands, are citizens of their parents' country.

In like manner Christian citizens, as children of
the heavenly King, born from the Spirit above,
sojourning as pilgrims on earth and having no con-
tinuing city or abiding residence in this transitory
world below, have a noble birthright in the heavenly
land; and with that noble heritage in view the fol-
lowers of King Jesus in every State and Territory of
our Republic will do well in pursuance of the teach-
ings of the divine Word to recognize the true rela-

283

284 God and Government

tionship of citizenship to saintship and reverently
to subordinate the faithful discharge of civil duties
to the supremacy of the great and glorious fact of
their eternal citizenship in heaven from whence they
look for the reappearance of their coming Lord.

"Children of the heavenly King,
As ye journey sweetly sing;
Sing your Saviour's worthy praise,
Glorious in his works and ways."

The poet's suggestion of joy and song is certainly
in harmony with the spirit and purpose of true
Christian citizenship, which, aside from its happy
mission of useful service and noble victory here
below, enjoys also the promise of saintly citizenship
in the heavenly kingdom.

The close alliance of Christianity and citizenship
is indeed a significant and a happy sign of our times.
Once it was supposed that the Master's saying, "My
kingdom is not of this world, " implied a divorcement
of all religion from citizenship and that, in conse-
quence of that, true Christians could not afford to
take much interest in politics without falling from
grace and becoming disloyal to their Lord. But the
time has come when a better exegesis of that Gospel
saying reveals the fact that what our Lord meant
and said indicates that the authority in virtue of

Christian Citizenship 285

which he reigns was not derived from this world,
but from the Father above, who by the sovereignty
of his Son ruleth in the kingdom of men. No,
Christ's kingdom is not of this workl, but for this
world and the world to come, and, therefore, not only
the salvation of the individual, but also the salvation
of society, of the State, of the nation, and of the
world lies within the purpose and providence of his
saving grace. The State or nation is as truly divine
as is the Church of which it is in reality the divinely
designed outcome as a social organization invested
with the authority and power of sovereignty. The
Christian citizen may, therefore, be as much a serv-
ant of his Lord in the politics of his country as in
the sacred duties of his home or his Church; and it
is, therefore, his duty and privilege to labor and pray
not only for the salvation of individual souls and the
success of the Church, but also to seek by reforma-
tory endeavor to make the kingdoms of this world
become the kingdoms of Christ.

Christian citizenship, therefore, stands for certain
definite national reforms on Gospel principles. The
ideal citizen-politician in our Christian Republic is
the man to whom the great importance of applied
Christianity in public affairs is ever present, who
accepts the Bible as his statesman's manual, and
whose political endeavor or statesmanship is but a

286 God and Government

subordinate element of vitalized Christianity. The
Gospel virtues should, therefore, be vitalized in the
personality of a pure and intelligent American man-
hood, characterized by the noble attributes of Chris-
tian citizenship and imbued with a deep sense of the
fact that every individual contributes a quota to
the life of the nation, and is, therefore, responsible
to his country and his God for the potency and tend-
ency of his influence.

Realizing our dependence upon divine aid in all
things we shall do well in our endeavor of personify-
ing ideal Christian citizenship in our individual lives
to remember the divine injunction: ^^ Have faith in
God. " Christian faith, which has been such a power-
ful factor in our national history and political destiny,
is still and must continue to be an essential attribute
of aggressive and truly American citizenship in our
national future. Deistical sociology, which adheres
to the false doctrine of purely secular or man-made
government and looks upon God as wholly external
to the machinery of sovereignty — as a Creator who,
in Carlyle's phrase, " having wound up the universe,
contents himself with sitting on the outside of it and
seeing it go" — is both un-Christian and un-American,
and is, therefore, unworthy and unbecoming as an
attribute in our citizenship. True it is, and it must
be regretfully conceded that there is, even to-day,

Christian Citizenship 287

a great deal of practical atheism among our people,
as manifested in the flagrant abuse of the elective
franchise, in the disrespect for civil law, in the vio-
lence and recklessness of political partisanism, and
in the tendency toward setting aside the basic prin-
ciples of republicanism by permitting the strong to
oppress the weak; but the fact remains, and nothing
is plainer in our past history and in our present day
political life than that God is a sovereign power in
our government and that Christian faith, which has
characterized typical American citizenship from
Washington to our best statesmen of the present day,
is still and must, for the life and future prosperity of
our Republic, continue to be a vital and an essen-
tial quality in the individual disposition of our
people.

Moreover, true faith in God implies faith in human-
ity, a disposition which is also essential in good citi-
zenship. While there is much depravity in human
nature, yet all is not vile in man; and the fact of
redemption and saving grace through Christ should
inspire faith in redeemed humanity. But infidelity
against God also generates infidelity against human-
ity, and, as a rule, both kinds of infidelity thrive
best where depravity is greatest. The two men in
ancient history, Nero and Heliogabalus, of whom
it is recorded that they firmly believed that no human

288 God and Government

being was pure, were undoubtedly the meanest and
most contemptible men ever produced by a corrupt
and decaying civilization. Alas that the dark and
forlorn misconception of these debased tyrants did
not die with them in those ancient days, but has
survived them and has also manifested its blighting
influence in degenerated characters of mediaeval and
modern times. We read of Diogenes searching in
daylight with a lantern to find a man in the streets of
Athens, of Phocion inquiring if he had said anything
wrong to have occasioned a given demonstration of
applause in his speech before the people, of Pyrrho
describing men as a herd of swine rioting on board a
rudderless vessel in a stormy sea, of La Rochefoucauld
discarding even human virtues as only so many vices
in disguise, of Voltaire describing humanity as a com-
pound of bears and monkeys, and of Schopenhauer
declaring the world and humanity hopelessly bad and
growing worse. We see this same spirit of pessimistic
infidelity manifested in the revolutionary fatalism
which can see nothing but evil in the public officials of
Church and State or in the civil and religious insti-
tutions of our day and age. Men of this type may,
to some extent, be the objects of some pity, as well
as blame, because a diseased liver, a phlegmatic
temperament, evil environment, disappointment in
business or politics, betrayal of friends, imposition

Christian Citizenship 289

by scoundrels, and a thousand other causes beyond
their control, may have operated to generate such
unfortunate and forlorn state of mind and heart.
However, such infidelity toward God or humanity
disqualifies good citizenship and ought to be dis-
couraged. The man w^ho has no faith in human
nature and who habitually fosters a feeling of dis-
pleasure and bitter distrust and condemnation for
others shows unmistakable signs of depravity in his
own evil disposition and deserves to be regarded as
an unreliable character capable of strategy and
treachery.

Pure and wise disposition in citizenship will dis-
countenance infidelity toward God or humanity and
heed the good advice of Dr. F. W. Farrar when he
says: "Look at man in his eternal aspect. Look
not at the feet of clay, but at the golden head crowned
with spiritual stars, and you will learn to say, as even
the pagan moralist said: 'Man should be a sacred
thing to man,' and with the Christian apostle:
'Honor all men.' "

Next to faith in God and in humanity stands
patriotism as an attribute of Christian citizenship.
Those who decry patriotism as the quintessence of
selfishness and, under the plea of a higher and more
fraternal civilization, propose to substitute for our
love of country a kind of "milk and water cosmo-
19

290 God and Government

politanism" may mean well, but they certainly do not
display that degree of intelligence, fidelity, and cour-
age characteristic of good citizenship. Love for one's
country is perfectly in harmony with our Lord's
Golden Rule of love and good will toward our fellow-
men. Just as a man keeping that rule may have
particular friends or naturally and dutifully loves
his wife and children more than he does those of his
neighbor, and could not, in fact, keep that rule
unless he did entertain such a sacred preference, so
a man can and should love his own country more
than he does any other nation.

Love of country is a God-given and a common
virtue of mankind. Among all people and in all
nations that emotion of the soul which fosters un-
dying affection for the land of man's nativity is
enthroned as a national safeguard in human hearts.
America is not an exception to the rule, and our
patriotism is not inferior to that of other nations.
Indeed, some of the noblest examples of patriotism
ever produced in the annals of nations stand re-
corded in American history. Quite naturally and
spontaneously the sons and daughters of the great
American Republic glory in their national heritage,
and patriotism seems to be such a universal senti-
ment among our people that no political party,
no religious creed, and no section of country appears

Christian Citizenship 291

to have a monopoly of this noble attribute of
citizenship.

If there has ever been a dearth of patriotism in this
country then it is all the more pleasing and gratifying
to observe in recent years what President Harrison
in his day termed "a renaissance of patriotism,"
beginning with the great centennial celebration of
1876 and maintained since then by the various
patriotic societies, such as the Sons of the American
Revolution, the Colonial Dames of America, the
United States Daughters, the Mount Vernon Ladies'
Association, and other bodies that have been organ-
ized for the purpose of stimulating and cultivating a
spirit of patriotism throughout the nation.

The culture and propaganda of patriotic senti-
ment is far more important in a Republic than it is
in an autocratic government, and our national safety
demands the inculcation of patriotic principles in the
hearts of our people and a continuous strengthening
of our popular faith in American institutions. The
kind of patriotism we need is not the bombastic and
hysterical kind, so common in Fourth of July oratory,
nor of that kind which depreciates the dignity of
other nations, or glories in the heroism of bloody con-
quest, but a truly Christian patriotism consistent
with the highest type of Gospel liberty and a morally
progressive civilization.

292 God and Government

Kindred to true love of country is the disposition of
self-sacrifice in Christian citizenship. Under God
our RepubUc owes its origin to the self-sacrifice of
our forefathers, who gave their prayers and their
struggles, their tears and their lives as the price of
our blood-bought liberty. Our nation's founders
and her noblest heroes to the present day were
American patriots not only in noble sentiment
expressed in poetry or in song, in things written, or in
things spoken, but in self-denying service expressed
in deeds of valor in their country's behalf. Thus the
principle of self-sacrifice has been and always will be
an important factor in our best citizenship.

Isolated selfishness, which knows no other motive
than self-interest, which indulges no other passion
but grasping greed, and which seeks no other en-
deavor but self-aggrandizement, is absolutely un-
worthy of any true American and should not disgrace
or characterize our citizenship. Selfishness in our
citizenship bodes ruin to the individual and the
nation. '' For," saith the Lord, " whosoever will save
his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it." Innumerable historic
evidences indicating that selfishness is a debasing
curse and that self-sacrifice is an exalting virtue,
both individually and socially, demonstrate and ver-
ify the eternal truth of this Gospel declaration. As

Christian Citizenship 293

the true ideal of Christian citizenship grows and
becomes predominant among our people, pubhc
sentiment will condemn and repudiate selfish prin-
ciples and practices both in public men and in politi-
cal parties, and will stamp the national life with the
gifts and graces of Christian charity.

Self-sacrifice must be supplemented, however, by
the heroic virtue of moral courage in our citizenship.
Heroic courage has always been an important and
laudable factor in civilization. In the annals of
war in our own and other countries we read of men's
deeds of daring and emulate their bravery. Though
we do not glory in the exploits of mortal combat, yet
we cannot help admiring the heroism and the courage
of a Leonidas at Thermopylae, of an Arnold von
Winkelried at Sempach, or of a Washington or a
Jackson in our own history. Even such physical
courage is the pride of heroic manhood and stands
monumental in noble victories won as recorded in
the history of nations.

But higher still than physical courage, that will
defy danger and even death in the clash of arms, is
moral courage, that will endm^e the derision and
contempt of the world for daring to do what is right
in order to counteract the powers of wickedness and
to promote the cause of truth and righteousness
among men. Such examples of moral heroism are

294 God and Government

historically demonstrated in the courage of Christ
before Pilate, of Paul on the Areopagus, of Athanasius
against the world, of John Huss at Constance, of
Martin Luther at Worms, and of Wesley facing the
mobs of England.

Reviewing the records of the great moral reforms
in America, we can say without boasting that noble
examples of moral courage have added luster to our
national history. Aside from scores of names that
might be quoted from our earlier history the more
familiar names of James Russell Lowell and George
William Curtis may here be mentioned as modern
examples of moral courage applied to American
social life. Both were men of splendid gifts and
commanding influence, besides being actuated by
strong righteous impulses that led them to devote
the latter part of their useful lives to the earnest
advocacy of reforms that were unpopular in their
day and that could be accomplished only by cour-
ageously rebuking wrong and faithfully witnessing
to the truth which applied in actual life makes men
free indeed.

Such moral courage will doubtless be as much in
demand in our future as it has been in our past
history. There is still much work ahead for states-
men and reformers. Great moral problems are
pending for solution, and never in the history of our

Christian Citizenship 295

country was there a more inviting field for com-
petent leadership in momentous reformatory meas-
ures than has opened to our view in the beginning
years of the century. Evidently we are on the eve
of great social and industrial changes. Christian
citizens must take their stand on the right side of
great issues and do their part in the conflict for
victory. What side to choose and what course
ought to be pursued is usually not very difficult to
determine. But frequently men are deficient in
moral courage to show color and to do their duty as
they see it before God. Many will halt between
policy and principle, and in the hour of decision will
only be too easily inclined to come out on the wrong
side of pending issues. Heroic moral courage, ex-
pressed in a faithful adherence to principle and in
prompt and faithful discharge of duty in accordance
with intelligent and positive convictions, is the only
proper and becoming disposition of Christian citizen-
ship on great living issues.

Where moral courage predominates nonpartisan-
ship will also prevail in the administration of Chris-
tian citizenship. The man of principle may belong
to a political party, but he will not be driven by the
party lash to do homage to. political bosses or to
become the slave to partisanship.

Of course, in a popular government political

296 God and Government

parties are public necessities as agencies of volun-
tary organization for the promotion of principles
upon which men agree and for the decisions of ques-
tions of policy, law, and government. But while
political parties have a useful mission and are there-
fore not to be regarded as necessarily of evil, yet
the bitterness of the party spirit, as often asserted
during the violent upheavals of political campaigns,
is never, by any means, excusable or defensible,
much less commendable.

Notwithstanding all allowances that are to be
made for the heat of passion and the exaggeration of
language which controversy over great issues is apt
to engender there can, from a Christian standpoint,
be no apology for what there is of wrath, of clamor,
of evil-speaking, of reputation smirching, and of
partisan vilification so common during our political
campaigns. Libelous and slanderous vituperations
through our political press and platform have a very
sinister influence both at home and abroad. For-
eigners judging our political status from such cam-
paign oratory and literature must conclude that our
popular government is a miserable failure and that our
public men are criminals of the worst type. Public
confidence at home is demoralized by such indis-
criminate detractions. Good men, who cannot afford
to sacrifice the honors of a good reputation by expo-

Christian Citizenship 297

sure to unprincipled political slander, are deterred
from politics and bad men, who have little honor to
lose, but who have much to gain from political
success, are naturally drawn into the public service,
and the result is seen in the official maladministra-
tions that so frequently disgrace our public service.

The dangers of blind partisanship which sees its
own party all white and other parties all black, which
keeps self-seekers and scoundrels in office, which
obstructs important legislation and enables party
bosses to fatten on the boodle of political spoils,
should be vigilantly guarded and counteracted by
the supremacy of a pure and unbiased patriotism
prevailing over prejudiced motives and corrupt
practices in our political life. With the common
sense and moral sentiment of thousands of patriotic
citizens throughout the land, and with the host of
independent voters, who prize political purity and
good government higher than the vain glory of
mere party triumph, there is at least a reasonable
hope for the future prevalence of patriotism over
partisanship in America.

But to insure this desirable result the fundamental
virtue of integrity must not be wanting in our citi-
zenship. Though American- integrity doubtless com-
pares favorably with the political honesty of other
nations, yet it cannot be denied that in our country,

298 God and Government

as well as in others, dishonesty, effectively applied
in fraudulent political methods, always has been,
and is to-day, a dangerous and a corrupting partisan
power in the hands of unprincipled politicians.
Wlien we see the evidences of fraud in election
returns, the power of money in legislation, and the
merchandise of the sacred franchise by men who
will unblushingly sell their votes for all sorts of
bribes, from pledges of public patronage and sums
of money down to cigars and drinks of beer or whis-
ky, we have reason to fear that even in our day
there may be the same or similar conditions of dis-
honor in our politics that induced Sir Robert Wal-
pole, of England, in his time to declare with refer-
ence to the political conditions of his country that
"every man has his price."

There is some consolation in the thought that it
was Patrick Henry who did honor to the integrity
of American patriotism when he supplemented
Walpole's reflection with the significant declaration,
"But my price is the kingdom." Millions of patri-
otic and bribeless sons and daughters of American
liberty would, doubtless, say as much to-day; and
it is a hopeful sign of our times that in recent years
so much attention is paid to the personal character
of political aspirants, and especially with reference
to their integrity and reliability in places of public

Christian Citizenship 299

trust, and that dishonest office seekers have less and
less opportunity of political success. Experience
has taught our people that "vigilance is the price
of liberty," and patriotic precaution against cor-
ruption is manifesting a growing intolerance for
political rascality and is establishing the laudable
precedent that only men of stainless honesty and
unimpeachable character are desirable and available
in our official service.

But all the aforementioned characteristics of
faith, patriotism, self-sacrifice, moral courage, non-
partisanship, and integrity must, in true adherence
to the Christian ideal of citizenship, be supplemented
and sustained by the crowning disposition of loijalty.
Without loyalty all our boast of liberty and ideal
citizenship would be a contemptible sham. In a
despotism of illegally assumed authority ruling in a
manner contrary to every principle of liberty and
justice there might, of course, be some apology for
contempt of law, but in a Republic like ours there is
neither provocation for nor dignity in sl refusal to
recognize legal obligations on partisan or other
grounds. Public officers though elected by party
votes are not the officers of any particular party or
faction, but the officers of nil the people, and laws
though enacted by party power in authority are not
the laws of a part but of the whole body politic.

300 God and Government

The world's greatest men in the history of nations
have always condemned disloyalty as contemptible
and mean, and have, as a rule, been law-abiding
citizens, who entertained a self-respecting pride in
their nationality and who, by a loyal recognition of
duly constituted authority, deported themselves
worthy of the personal benefits of Christian civiliza-
tion. As our ideal of citizenship arises and advances
on Christian principles men will perceive above a
human contrivance a divine ordinance in civil gov-
ernment and concede that obedience is required of
all who would keep in harmony with the obligations
and dignities of true Christian citizenship.

Though in our country, in which every man is
born a citizen-king, the disposition to rule is innate,
yet the capacity or fitness to rule can only be ac-
quired by first learning obedience. Of George
Washington, the hero of the American Revolution
and the father of his country, it is said that he
learned to command by first learning to obey. This
is doubtless true in every instance of efficient ruler-
ship, whether it be in the home, the school, the
municipality, the commonwealth, or the nation.
Only by an intelligent study of our political life and
sociological conditions, by patient and prudent
training for patriotic usefulness, and by learning
under wise and helpful counsels, the lesson of loyal

Christian Citizenship 301

subjection to superior authority, can those indis-
pensable quaUfications of citizenship be best devel-
oped in a man, so that, when the voice of the people
calls him from the common labors of his ordinary
vocation to the important duties of official life, he
may be able to respond manfully to the call by an
honorable and a successful administration of the
responsibilities and powers of authority intrusted
to his supervision and care. Thus, it is apparent that
the typical American and the ideal citizen ought to
be — indeed, must be — in the highest and broadest
sense of the term, a Christian gentleman.

Now, in the conclusion of this volume the writer is
well aware that much diversity of thought prevails
relative to the various topics treated in the pre-
ceding chapters, but he has not aspired to meet the
approval of all prevailing opinions, but has sought,
in the fear of God, to express the truth as he sees it
from a nonpartisan and a nonsectarian and yet a
strictly Christian standpoint. May the truths herein
expressed and already entertained by millions of our
best citizens become more and more vitalized in the
sentiment of our beloved people, and may God reign
in our Republic and in all the world now and forever.
Amen!

Date Due

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