ANARCHY AND ITS ONLY CURE.
THE rapid growth of Anarchy, and of societies of socialistic and communistic nature, is causing great concern throughout the governments of earth. Those governments wherein Anarchy was born are laying the blame for its promotion and growth upon those countries in which the people are given greater liberties. The countries that are granting to the people the greatest liberty are putting the blame back upon the countries in which anarchy was first manifest. For the cure of Anarchy one class advocates greater respect to the rights of individuals; the other class advocates more rigorous measures, severer punishment, restriction of the liberties of speech and of the press. But what may we expect along these lines from what the world itself is able to do for the cure of the menace of Anarchy? We are told that the nations must better the conditions of the oppressed and down-trodden and poverty-stricken; that in that they will lay bare the root of Anarchy, and pluck it out of the world. Let us examine the prospect along this line. What are Italy, Hungary, and Russia doing to alleviate the distress and poverty of the discontented who are swelling the ranks of Anarchy?—Heaping on taxes, and banishing, whipping, and imprisoning the discontented, thereby increasing the discontent and the occasion for punishment. What is being done by the legislative departments of other nations to alleviate the suffering of the masses?—Enacting legislation in the interests of the powerful—legislation which makes it possible for great monopolies, or syndicates, to grasp and control the wealth-producing industries of the different countries, and thus increasing the cost of living for the purpose of piling millions on millions. This certainly does not better the condition of the suffering and poverty-stricken, but, instead, heaps upon their backs a load heavier than the one which they had been bearing before. Look over the legislative acts of Congress and the Legislatures, and you may be surprised to see how few of them are in the interests of the unfortunate and depressed. Great affairs of finance, and great state, national, and international affairs consume almost the entire attention of the law-making bodies. The legislative bodies of the world will furnish no lotion capable of healing the raw sore of Anarchy. It is utterly useless to look to them for any such healing balm. Is there, then, no hope for the cure of Anarchy?—None in the way in which the world is looking for it. Nations can not legislate hate out of the human heart, nor love and contentment into it; neither can men drive out hate by the sting of the whip and the fear of banishment and death; and while nations and individuals are striving for mastery and for gold, the cry of distress and oppression will continue to go up unheard or unheeded. Hasty and unwise laws may be passed against Anarchy, out of pure personal fear for what the Anarchist may do, and in the hope that the law may deter him; but legislation will never reach and eradicate the root of that perennial and pernicious weed. Anarchy means against law, without law,—lawless. It began with Lucifer in heaven; it will end with Lucifer in the consuming fires of God’s judgment. Rev. 20: 7–10. Anarchy will come to its end, but that end will be only when the twin sisters, selfishness and sin, are burned out of the world with all the dire results that they have brought into it. That burning will be the burning of the great day of God. 2 Thess. 2: 8; 2 Peter 3: 10–12; Mal. 4: 1–3. Then Anarchy, the revolt against God’s law, will have compassed its own destruction, will have suffered the result of its own misguided course. But there is a cure for Anarchy. It is not a human cure; it is not brought about by legislation. It comes through the great Physician, and through Him alone. It will not only cure Anarchy; but it will save the Anarchist. It will do this in the individual, but only in the individual who willingly allows it to be done for him. There will be no compulsion about it; there will be no salvation of Anarchy en masse, or as a society. That work of cure must go on in the heart until every root of bitterness is eradicated, until every selfish impulse is banished, and submission to the will of God is complete. Satan was the first Anarchist; he revolted against the law of God. He sought the overthrow of government; he sought the exaltation of self. Now the cure for Anarchy must be the very opposite of that, and we find it in Christ Jesus. This is the all-important admonition: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” That mind which was in Christ Jesus led Him to lay down His life for those who had merited death through the breaking of God’s law. Thus was the majesty of the law upheld, and at the same time a way opened that men might be saved from the results of their own anarchistic course. The heart of the carnal man is the heart of Anarchy; for we read: “The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God.” Then, in the regeneration of the heart of man, is the cure for Anarchy; that is, letting the mind of Christ displace the carnal mind. That takes Anarchy out of the individual; that saves the individual—and it is the only thing that can. That is Anarchy’s only cure. And in the application of that cure, submission to the will of God, is the only true and perfect liberty. s.