A Perfect Government by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1903

A Perfect Government

By L. A. S.

The only perfect government that ever has existed or ever can exist anywhere is the government of God. This government is established among men through Christianity; and as Christianity is the life of God, the government of God is self-government. God governs himself, and God in any being is a self-governing power. He who has God in him will of his own free will conform to every law of right.

Various systems of self-government have been set up on the earth by men, but the best of them has been far from perfect, because it made no provision, and could make none, for individual self-government. A fault at this point became the root of difficulties which spread through and marred the whole system. In every government that men have devised, where there should have been individual self-government, there has been selfishness, and this selfishness has pervaded the whole government, and has always found means to defeat, to a greater or less extent, the best and most carefully worded provisions designed to safeguard the rights and interests of the people.

In this government of the United States, perhaps the best that men ever devised or could devise, the people are theoretically, wholly free to enjoy the rights of life and liberty, and to engage in the pursuit of happiness. But the reality is widely different from the theory. Though the national Constitution declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall ever be permitted in the United States, there are many slaves in the land, victims of industrial conditions created by greed, or by the warfare of class against class. The story of the wrongs of those oppressed by their fellow men is in every paper. The contest for the rights and privileges which are theoretically secure under this government fills the land with strife and violence. Selfishness is at work, and finds ways to break through and set at naught all the safeguards which constitutions and legal forms can erect about individual rights. Money controls elections, and turns the governments of cities and of States into the most unjust and oppressive channels. Money represents power, and the concentration of wealth gives disproportionate and irresponsible power to a few, who can not resist the temptation to use it for selfish ends.

Many are the remedies proposed for doing away with this discrepancy between theory and practice in American self-government, but they all fall short of the true remedy, because they do not reach the real root of the difficulty. They do not provide for self-government in the heart. Among these proposed remedies one of the most prominent at the present time is socialism. Socialism proposes to cure the national ills by instituting government ownership of railways, coal mines, and other public utilities. The government is to own these things and operate them in the interests of the people; then, it is said, there will be no extortion and unjust discrimination against any, but they will be for the equal benefit of all. But governments become corrupt, and a corrupt government can not be safely trusted to look out for the welfare of the people. Only recently the country was startled by the announcement of the discovery of great frauds in the affairs of the Post-office Department. The control of public franchises and utilities might provide greater opportunities for such evils, and make governmental office a place to be still more eagerly sought by unscrupulous men who would covet such a position as a means of acquiring wealth. This would hasten the corruption of the government, and would only defeat the ends it is designed to serve. The same men who are causing the trouble which exists to-day, would by the same means now employed obtain control of the reins of power, and the same or similar evils would be perpetuated, with only a change of forms and methods.

We have nothing to say against socialism as compared with other political movements or human systems of government. We have nothing to do with comparisons of this sort. But as a remedy for injustice and oppression, it promises more than it is able to perform, and those who trust in it will be deceived

and disappointed.

Human greed for wealth and power will not be balked by a change in governmental forms. The trouble to-day lies not in the form of the government, so much as in the people themselves who complain of injustice and oppression; for those conditions which exist in a “government of the people by the people,” must necessarily be such as the people approve or permit.

Christianity alone can and does reach the root of the whole difficulty, and provides a complete remedy by eradicating selfishness from the heart, and instituting self-government there. It cleanses the fountain head, and thus purifies the whole stream. It is God’s plan of government, and not man’s. A perfect government is to be set up on the earth, and those who will participate in it are being gathered now from all the nations. They are being taught the lesson of self-government, by means of the grace of God, through the gospel. We invite all men to join this government, and through it realize all their highest hopes of success and happiness. L. A. S.