bulwark of monarchy and
hierarchy had been sounded when he said, "Ich kann nicht anders!" The new
Republic founded on the western continent had announced to the world the
initiation of the transfer of Authority to the individual soul. God, the
counterpart of the King, the ruler in a high heaven of a flat terrestrial
expanse, outside of the world, was now become the Spirit of a million
spheres, the indwelling spirit in man. Democracy and the religion of
Jesus Christ both consisted in trusting the man--yes, and the woman--whom
God trusts. Christianity was individualism carried beyond philosophy
into religion, and the Christian, the ideal citizen of the democracy, was
free since he served not because he had to, but because he desired to of
his own will, which, paradoxically, is God's will. God was in politics,
to the confusion of politicians; God in government. And in some greater
and higher sense than we had yet perceived, the saying 'vox populi vox
dei' was eternally true. He entered into the hearts of people and moved
them, and so the world progressed. It was the function of the Church to
make Christians, until--when the Kingdom of God should come--the blending
should be complete. Then Church and State would be identical, since all
the members of the one would be the citizens of the other . . . .

"I will arise and go to my father." Rebirth! A sense of responsibility,
of consecration. So we had come painfully through our materialistic
individualism, through our selfish Protestantism, to a glimpse of the
true Protestantism--Democracy.

Our spiritual vision was glowing clearer. We were beginning to perceive
that charity did not consist in dispensing largesse after making a
fortune at the expense of one's fellow-men; that there was something
still wrong in a government that permits it. It was gradually becoming
plain to us, after two thousand years, that human bodies and souls
rotting in tenements were more valuable than all the forests on all the
hills; that government, Christian government, had something to do with
these.

We should embody, in government, those sublime words of the Master,
"Suffer little children to come unto me." And the government of the
future would care for the little children. We were beginning to do it.
Here, as elsewhere, Christianity and reason went hand in hand, for the
child became the man who either preyed on humanity and filled the prisons
and robbed his fellows, or else grew into a useful,