GOVERNMENTS OF THE FUTURE.
By M. C. W.
It was suggested by an editor of a prominent English religious journal, some years ago, that the "miry [tempered] clay" of the image of Daniel 2, symbolized the democracy, or principle of government, by the people, while the iron was a symbol of imperialism. However correct or erroneous the application may be, this certainly is true, there never was a time when the trend of earth’s millions was so strong toward popular government, or mis-government, as at present. June 23, 1889, W. R. Huntington, D.D., LL.D., in a baccalaureate sermon, preached at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., thus spoke concerning this tendency among the people of the earth, and unconsciously forecasting events of which he probably did not then dream:— "We might imagine a principle that, so strongly entrenched as this one [that of monarchy] seems to be, so powerfully buttressed by authorities divine and human, would hold its own to the end of time. And yet the keenest observers assure us that the drift is everywhere among enlightened people in the direction of democracy; that it is ebb-tide with monarchy the world over; that the days of kings and thrones are numbered. Among the English-speaking people of the earth, the movement toward democracy has acquired a force and volume that fill some minds with thankful joy and some with undisguised alarm, but all with awe. To stand and watch the onward roll of it is as if one looked up helpless at the great wall of water that issued from the broken dam at Conemaugh." Following close upon this, the emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, a liberal ruler whose government was thought to be among the securest, was forced to yield up his empire, and a republic was proclaimed. The best-informed predict similar revolutions in Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Germany is honeycombed with Socialism; so is Austria; and year by year shows less respect for royalty in almost republican England! It is confidently expected that in a very few years the crumbling towers and palaces of imperialism and monarchism will have given place to the legislative halls of republics. Will it result in good?—It is a difficult question. Were the peoples of earth prepared for self-government, it undoubtedly would. But the great mass of them are but little better than slaves, either to titled aristocracy or a proud hierarchy. And the principle is just as true now as when written by the wise man, that among the things which disquiet the earth, and which it cannot bear, is "a servant when he reigneth." Prov. 30:22. The impulsive, reactive, revolutionary spirit already manifest, even in Old World republics, is not assuring as regards peace for the future. A free people must be an intelligent, temperate, sober, thinking people. But such are not the masses of the present; and an overthrow of existing governments would mean the enthronement of fiery, unscrupulous demagogues, and a worse enslavement of the people than exists under monarchy. We believe in the principles of a democracy for civil government, but we do not believe that it will be a wise, just, and stable government among the ignorant mass, which would exercise the autonomy and kingship of independent suffragists, who know so little of liberty as to be unable to distinguish it from license. There is one power which foresees this trend of the people, and as in the past she has trimmed her sails to profit by every wind, she is repeating the same thing now. We speak of Papal Rome. There was a time when she could curse free and representative governments with a relish. That day is past; it is policy not to do so any longer. And the poor blind world, like children ever amused or interested in something new, forgets her utterances and acts of the past, and accepts with fulsome flattery her benedictions of the republic of Brazil; and her laudations of American freedom. Rome boasts of her loyalty at the time of the Revolution. We have a right to inquire if it would have been as great, if her zeal would have been as unflagging, if England, the mother country from which the Eagle rebelled, had been thoroughly and only Catholic. What would have been Rome’s attitude then? Would it have been favorable to Catholic England or free America? There can be but one answer,—Rome’s blessing would have been placed upon England and her curse upon this country, even as she curses Italy to-day. But republics are now becoming popular, and as Rome has ever used the dominant natural tendencies of the carnal masses to her profit, so will she do again. And two of the principal things she is now using is the clamor for religious instruction in public schools, and the movement for a legal civil Sunday, raised by so-called Protestants. Both are institutions of Rome. Of course she will use all her power in making them a success, in her way. We now see the beginning of the end. Rome will triumph, perhaps, and then a revolution which will make pale into insignificance the French Revolution of 1789; then the battle of the great day; beyond it all the reign, not of Leo XIII., but the Lion of the tribe of Judah. M. C. W.