Public Sentiment and the Law
CONSIDERABLE press comment has been occasioned by the failure of the civil authorities in an Illinois town to prevent a recent public lynching which took place there, or to take any steps to punish those responsible for it after its occurrence. The reason given for this attitude on the part of the authorities is that the law and its agencies were powerless against the strong public sentiment justifying the lynching. This affords an illustration of a very important truth which is often not taken into account in the calculations of those who would reform the world by law. There is something back of the laws which men enact, something of more consequence than the statutes, in maintaining peace and order in society; and that something is public sentiment. And public sentiment, by which the laws of the land are generally supported, is the result of the inborn sense of right and wrong and love of justice which all persons have to a greater or less degree, as an inheritance from the law of God, which was originally implanted in the human heart. The restraining power, which maintains the degree of peace which the world enjoys, is not the laws which men have enacted, necessary as these are, but an agency which looks back to the wisdom and power of the creator. It is a spiritual agency proceeding from and directed by God himself. In the seventh chapter of Revelation a picture is presented of four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds whose blowing upon the earth would fill it with commotion and strife. Peace is preserved only because the winds of strife are held by these agencies of heaven. The power of God is continually exercised to repress the earth's volcano of evil, through the influence of his Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is continually working upon men's hearts, continually flooding over the troubled waters of earth's nations and peoples and tongues. But God's Spirit will not always strive with man. The time will come when his Spirit with its restraining influence will be withdrawn, and then the pent-up volcano of human carnality, inspired and directed by Satan, will burst forth in uncontrollable eruption, and all the laws upon the statute books will be powerless as straws to stay its fury. Then will the earth be filled with strife and violence, and every evil passion will assert itself unrestrained. In the events of to-day, when law and government are swept aside by the passion of the mob, we may see already the beginning of the end. Only through God and his spiritual agencies which are at work in the earth can effective work be done in the establishment of peace and righteousness. By and by, when the four angels let loose the four winds, those who have put their dependence on human enactments will experience a sad disappointment, for which there will be no remedy.