t from Paul, and from Christ himself--the revelation of
individual responsibility, that God the Spirit would dwell, by grace, in
the individual soul. Ah, we had paid a terrible yet necessary price for
freedom. We had wandered far from the Father, we had been reduced to
the very husks of individualism, become as swine. We beheld around us,
to-day, selfishness, ruthless competition, as great contrasts between
misery and luxury as in the days of the Roman Empire. But should we, for
that reason, return to the leading-strings of authority? Could we if we
would? A little thought ought to convince us that the liberation of the
individual could not be revoked, that it had forever destroyed the power
of authority to carry conviction. To go back to the Middle Ages would be
to deteriorate and degenerate. No, we must go on. . . .

Luther's movement, in religion, had been the logical forerunner of
democracy, of universal suffrage in government, the death-knell of that
misinterpretation of Christianity as the 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 material