THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN GOVERNMENT.
By G.
There is no doubt that the growth and prosperity of the United States, as compared with the kingdoms of the Old World, were owing to the direct providence of God, through the influence of the Gospel. Wherever the Gospel of Christ has free course, it works for even the temporal prosperity of the people. This is because of the freedom of the individual and his solicitude for the welfare of others, which prevail wherever the spirit of religious liberty is felt. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Religious liberty is always the precursor of civil liberty. The noted French statesman and author, De Tocqueville, was constrained to acknowledge this fact in an official report. In the year 1831 he visited the United States, having received a commission to examine the penitentiary system of this republic. He remained here a year, and on his return made a report to the French Senate. In that report he said:— I went at your bidding and passed along their thoroughfares of trade; I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys; I visited their manufactories, their commercial marts and emporiums of trade; I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls, but I sought everywhere in vain, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul-elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as it fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America is great and free, and why France is a slave. The Gospel of Christ, however, does not produce two antagonistic classes—the very wealthy and the very poor. It finds them in this world and aims to conciliate them, to reconcile them to God, and to save them, but it does not create such conditions of hostility. These inharmonious interests arise because of opposition to the principles of Christ. They do not indicate a condition of true prosperity, whatever the appearance, or whatever the claims of optimistic politicians. Therefore, when we see the ever-increasing prominence of such mutual hostility, we see the fruit of predominating selfishness and greed, which can only obtain through the rejection of the Spirit of the Master, and the consequent waning of the power of the Gospel. And the crowning evidence is in the effort to make some kind of religious legislation do the work of the Spirit. It was the extreme of this principle, coupled, as it always is, with the concentration and oppression of wealth, that reduced France to a condition of infidelity, of rebellion, and anarchy. Such was but a natural reaction. While France might have learned much from us in the past, it is possible for us to learn a lesson from the experience of France. G.