THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL
By Milton Charles Wilcox
JEAN PAUL RICHTER has truly said, "Individuality is everywhere to be guarded and honored as the root of all good." And Daniel Webster, when asked which was the greatest thought that ever came to him, replied to the effect that the greatest thought he could conceive was man's personal responsibility to God. The same great truth is set forth in its ultimate in the following words of Holy Writ: "As I live, saith the Lord, to Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God." Rom. 14:11, 12. Not of another is he to give account; not upon others can he lay the burden; no others can take that awful responsibility upon themselves. Each one of us must give account, must give account of himself, must give account of himself to God. The tremendous responsibility rests between the individual soul and his Maker. This is made most emphatic by other great facts of God's Word, among which we name the following:— 1. The great moral requirements of God are addressed not to the masses, the nation, but to the individual soul. Listen to the thunders from Sinai:—
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. . . .
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. . . .
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work. . . .
"Honor thy father and thy mother. . . .
"Thou shalt not kill.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery.
"Thou shalt not steal.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness.
"Thou shalt not covet." . . . In all the divine commands the monitor of duty singles out the human unit. He can not hide behind nations, or tribes, or cults, or guilds, or organizations of any sort; to the individual person comes the divine requirement clothed in the fire of Sinai, which he must meet at the bar of God in the judgment day. The distinctiveness of the individual loses no power in the lapse of centuries. When the greatest Teacher of the world summed up in positive form the duties of man as spoken from Sinai, these duties are still addressed to the person. More than this; these duties include man, not only in his moral aspect, but his physical and mental. To put it more exactly, the duties of man as set forth in summary by Jesus Christ are made to cover every phase of man's life and work. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Mark 12:30, 31. No phase of life or conduct is so small as to escape this comprehensive obligation of the individual soul. Moral obligation enters into every act of life, and the first of all duty is to God. No obligation to man or men can be permitted to transcend, ignore, pervert, or annul man's duty to God. 2. Man's duty to man will no more permit him to enslave man than will his manhood to be enslaved by man. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is the divine mandate. Whatever his religion, whatever his race, whatever his social standing, whatever his industrial affiliations, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Who is my neighbor?" asked one who would shun the divinely ordained duty. The reply of Jesus told him not as to who was his neighbor, but was explicit as to whom he ought to be neighbor to. A man on the Jericho road had fallen among thieves, and was left by them naked, wounded, half dead. The priest came along, considered the poor man too much trouble, and passed by on the other side. The Levite, belonging to the same guild as the priest, could not break the rules, and did likewise. But a poor, despised Samaritan saw him, saw him one of a people who had cursed Samaritans for centuries, yet his neighbor-heart pitied the poor man, bound up his wounds, and cared for him till well. The Samaritan was the neighbor, not that "thou" shalt help, but such a neighbor as thou shalt be to all who are in need, of whatever race or nation. "Go, and do thou likewise," as did the Samaritan, are the words of the Master. 3. The Golden Rule emphasizes the same sacred individuality of man, man's duty to exercise it, and his responsibility to God. "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them; for this is the law and the prophets." Matt. 7:12. Mark the teaching: It is not whatsoever we would like to do to men, not what men may have done to us, but what we would desire them to do to us were we in their place and they in ours. And everything and everybody that seeks to prevent the soul from doing this is contrary to the Scriptures, and the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. To permit anything to come between us and God-given duty is slavery worse than death. 4. The secret of personal relationship to God—living faith—demands a free individuality, unhampered by State or Church, by society or any organization whatsoever. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "For by grace are ye saved through faith." "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Faith must be personal. One can not believe for another. One person can not accept Christ for another. He may vote en masse, he may fight in platoons, but he must believe as a single man, and so come into personal, living relation to God. Faith is the trolley which connects man with the dynamo of God's power overhead, invisible to human eye; but it makes connection with the infinite Source of power, a connection which no other man or combination of men can make or break. 5. God recognizes man's individuality and personal responsibility by giving him free choice. Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Love, sets before humanity the good way of God's unchangeable law, and warns against the evil way of man's selfishness and sin; but Infinite Power, Infinite Justice, will not coerce one single human soul. In the sacred circle of free choice and personal responsibility with which Deity has surrounded every responsible soul of earth, the individual man reigns supreme. Infinite Love will entreat, but Omnipotence will not compel. "I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed." Deut. 30:19. So speaks the unchangeable God. Therefore, that person, be he priest or parson, that organization, be it trust or trades union, that attempts to deprive the individual of his God-given right of choice, assumes prerogatives which God has not assumed, and places the creature above the Creator. And that man who yields his God-given rights of individuality to any man or combination of men, be the one to whom he yields, priest or parson, be it trust or trades union, enslaves himself and barters his manhood. All these principles so grandly and fully and clearly set forth in Holy Writ are true and operative in the Church of God. He who enters that church enters of his own free choice. None other is a servant of God. Love can not be compelled, and God demands love with all the heart, soul, and strength. By faith the individual accepts Christianity, not a form, not a theory, not a system of ethics, but a life, the life of God sent down to men. Through his faith Christ imparts that life and power that sets man free from sin. He therefore enters Christ's fold free. "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John 8:36. And the divine injunction is, "For freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage." Gal. 5:1. This is the God-given position of the Christian, responsible to the Head he has freely, fully chosen; "for the Head of every man is Christ." And, therefore, the divine injunction: "Let no man rob you of your prize by his own mere will, by humility, . . . vainly puffed up in his own fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God." Col. 2:18, 19, A. R. V. And all this truth is the mere development of the great fact of man's individuality and personal responsibility to God. For "One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren." Matt. 23:8. The Work of the Shepherds.
It is true that God has set gifts and ordained officers in His church according to these gifts; but one of the very highest among these, one who knew the Master, who sat under His teaching for three years, who was baptized and filled with the Spirit of God, declared that those holding the highest positions in the church of God were not there as arbitrary directors or dictators. Hear him: "Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 1 Peter 5:2-4. And Paul declares: "Not that we [apostles] have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in faith ye stand." 2 Cor. 1:24. Because of this fact, with the tribunal of God in view, at which each one must give account of himself, the apostle writes: "Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; . . . for the love of Christ constraineth us." 2 Cor. 5:11-14. The authority of the church of God is the Word of God abiding in the church. The power of the church is the Holy Spirit. The union of the church is life-union with Christ Jesus the Head, and through Him to each of all its members, by faith. The credentials of the church is supreme love to God manifest in keeping His commandments, love to each other and to all men, souls saved from sin and sinning. And no human subterfuge or counterfeits, no creeds or systems of men, tho they be hoary with the ruin of centuries or musty with the "odor of sanctity," no arbitrary authority of men in Church or State, can ever by right set aside these great God-ordained truths, can ever assume authority in the church above that which Christ has given, can ever assume to cut off the individual soul's personal relation to Jesus Christ, without bringing into the church division and weakness and apostasy and loss and death, and putting man in the place of God. The true witness in the church is the agreeing witness with God's Word: "to the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them." Every departure in the nominal church from primitive Christianity has been over the human subjection of the soul's individual rights, of man's assumption of the prerogatives of God; every persecution which has stained the pages of history has been over the perversion of this principle, and every division or schism in the church, wise or unwise, has been a protest against this assumed arbitrary authority which is not of God.3 The State exists because of sin. It is in existence to restrain men who can not control themselves. It is set above all things to guard the rights, not of the mighty or of the majority; for even in feudalism and barbarism such can care for themselves. But the State—the ideal State—exists for the purpose of conserving and defending the individual, even the weakest, in his equal rights with all others. "The greatest good of the greatest number" is often used by good men in an utterly meaningless or pernicious way. It is an end sought, an object aimed at; and in this way it is wholly selfish. There has not been an oppressive system under the sun but what its devotees hoped sometime to have the greatest number, and for their own they have sought the greatest good. The only true seeking in the State is the jealous guarding of the rights of the minority, of the poorest, of the weakest. The conservation of the rights of the one means the conservation of the rights of all, and its inevitable fruitage—result, outworking—is the greatest good to the greatest number. He only knows true liberty, he only works for the permanent conservation of his own liberties, who grants to the other man—be he his most bitter and relentless religious or political opposer—the rights he asks for himself. True civil government is not set to bestow these rights, to uphold or promote certain systems or doctrines apart from men, but to protect man in the rights which his Maker has given him. This is the very fundamental principle on which the Declaration of Independence was based:— "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." The sole object of the founders of this Government was the protection of each person in his rights, which God gave to every one equally. In so protecting the individual, incivility and violence on the part of those who disregard others' rights are restrained, and the result is the greatest good to the greatest number. Under such a government there can be no legal oppression of the poor, no overriding of the rights of the few or the weak, no class legislation, no State fetish of a system or an organization upheld in any way by government support or promoted in any way by government act. "Man is more than constitutions," and we may add of institutions; and if constitution or institution fetter or hinder the exercise of the God-given rights of the man, let the institution die and the man live. "Man is more than constitutions;
Better rot beneath the sod
Than be true to Church and State
While we're doubly false to God.
"We owe allegiance to the State,
But deeper, truer, more
To the sympathies that God has set
Within our spirits' core.
"Our country claims our fealty,
We grant it so, but then,
Before man made us citizens,
Great Nature made us men." Thus wrote the grand American, James Russell Lowell, and such sentiment needs to thrill hearts again to-day to meet the fearful trend and tide which is sweeping the individual from all his rights and subjecting him to the worst forms of tyranny the world has ever known. From the above glorious, holy principles of equality and justice in the church of Jesus Christ as it came from the hands of its Founder, in the Declaration of Independence in the society which was formed and fostered around this standard of liberty, there has been a wide departure. This departure has, especially of late years, been fed and fostered in the church. The class principle exists in the Roman Catholic Church inherently, and is recognized from the pope down to the priest. Authority is vested in the few over the many. The Protestant churches repudiated this in principle at the Reformation, but refusing to follow the increasing light of that Standard which declares that "One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren," they are returning to the traditional view, or to the secular arm. It is not uncommon to see great preachers, like the whilom revivalist, Mr. B. Fay Mills, turn from his work of endeavoring to save individual souls, to endeavor to save them en masse by lifting society to a higher plane, an utterly hopeless task, as Mr. Mills and thousands of others have found. These men are doubtless true to their infidelity of Christ's plan, tho their work is no more effective or fruitful in their own. But it is masses the churches are seeking now, as well as men, and even more than they are seeking the individual soul. As a specimen of this take the following from Rev. John Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), the noted author and ex-moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of England, in an address at Bristol Baptist College a few weeks ago. We quote from the Literary Digest of Nov. 14, 1903:— I suggest one may gather what the message of the next revival will be from the spirit of the age, which we ought to believe is more or less the Spirit of God. If one were asked to mention the difference in standpoint between our generation and that of the middle Victorian period, he might safely point to the change from individualism to collectivism. The old principle of every man for himself is dying out from national politics, from the organization of commerce, from the life of society, and is bound to die out from religion. But the spirit of the age has ever been a long way from the Spirit of God. "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world," said the Master to His disciples. The Church Economist interviewed a number of religious leaders on Dr. Watson's position. Of thirty-five clergymen interviewed, only eighteen opposed Dr. Watson's anti-Gospel position. The saving of the individual is left to such organizations as the Salvation Army; but the army brings into its work an imperialism not of the Gospel. And nearly all the nominally Protestant denominations have for the last quarter century been demanding secular and class legislation for the support of religious dogmas and institutions, an utter repudiation of the principles of Christ embodied in such utterances as the following: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Yet the whole demand has been for legislation to protect or enforce a day without regard to the rights of man. This has been carried so far under the leadership of the church that good citizens have been tried, fined, imprisoned, and compelled to work in chain-gangs with hardened criminals for following as best they knew the example of the Christ under the exercise of their constitutionally-guaranteed rights as American citizens. When the "salt of the earth" loses its peculiar savor, when the "light of the world" grows dim, cradled in the traditions of medieval Church-and-State theology and fed with "scientific" infidelity, we can expect nothing else in the society which is moulded by the church. But with all this departure what a mighty vacuum of spiritual power has been made. A keen sense of sin is almost wanting, iniquity and selfishness are manifestly rampant, and unbelief proclaims itself boldly from religious press and pulpit, and "My people love to have it so, but what will ye do in the end thereof?" Society has always been more or less exclusive in certain circles, but in general, a half century ago, its most exclusive ranks were open to refined education and noble life. Now it is a common saying that the badge of American aristocracy is the dollar mark. Wealth has formed an oligarchy, loud, vulgar, ostentatious, extravagant, garish, flaunting its often ill-gotten gains in the eyes of the poor masses, engendering envy and class hatred. The individual as such is nothing. "The 'guinea's stamp' is more than the man, especially if he wear 'hodden gray.'" The golden calf has its worshipers in many more places than Dan and Beersheba. In commercial life, perhaps, as nowhere else in these rushing, strenuous times when all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes are swallowed with avidity in all circles where wealth is worshiped, do we see the abasement and elimination of the individual and the exaltation of the firm, the combine, the trust, the union, the league, the association. Small dealers are unmercifully frozen out by the trust, without any consideration of personal rights; and the same principles are followed in the labor organizations toward the individual worker, who may choose to retain his manhood and his God-given independence. The history of the Standard Oil Company, and others in other fields, in heaping up riches, is a constant march over the wrecks of humbler fortunes, the subversion of personal rights, and the ruin of human lives. "To live and to let live" has yielded to "to get by any means, fair or foul," only so it is within the pale of a possible perversion of the law. The Suppression of the Individual.
In the labor world we see the same tendencies, the subjection of the individual to the mass. As Mr. John Mitchell, one of the fairest of labor leaders, declares in speaking of the great coal strike of 1902: "To my mind the great lesson which the coal strike has taught is that the individual is nothing, the good of society at large is everything, and that no man, no combination of men, however powerful, whether they belong to capital or to labor, can set their own interests or their own will against the common good." Again: "Following the same instinct [as capital], labor organizes, minimizing the individual for the good of the whole." And yet again: "The manner in which our members subordinate the individual to the general good was shown in the action of our convention of October 20th, which ratified the arbitration argument."—McClure's Magazine, December, 1902. Mr. Mitchell does not know that only as the rights of the unit—man—are conserved are the rights of the aggregate—man-kind—conserved. It was the argument of the Judean combinations of old: "It is expedient that one man die for the people," and so the Christ of God was crucified, because the rights of the man were set aside, and the nation, the cherished "institutions," the human ideals, were exalted. But Christ identifies Himself with every individual, and he who gives himself to any line of action, who identifies himself with any association, which opposes one soul by depriving him of his equal rights, is persecuting Christ in that soul, and must meet the consequences at last. When the people of Israel exalted the institution, the man, at the deprivation of the rights of one, they doomed the nation itself to destruction. And when America shall set herself against the individual for the combination; she strikes her own doom, and shall perish. The effect of this disintegrating trend away from high and noble ideals in the church, in society, in commercial life, is bound to be felt and manifested in governmental circles. Out of it has grown a large demand for legislation in behalf of, or in support of, all sorts of things in religion, in the industrial world, in the world of wealth and its combinations, all of which are class legislation. In response to these demands our statute books have been loaded with partial, unjust, and often inoperative, laws, one class has been favored at the expense of another under the specious plea of patriotism or some other equally delusive claim. And now great combinations of capital, often monopolizing certain lines of trade and manufacture, are linking interests with great organizations of labor, as at present manifest in Chicago, and the individual, he in neither trust nor union, tho he numbers the great majority of the people, must suffer and starve. For the greatest sufferers in all this labor strife are not the capitalists or the unionists, but those who are neither,—the wives, the mothers, the children; those who can not combine, lacking in wealth, or inimical to trade unionists, the professional men; and those having conscience and conviction, who still believe that the individual man and his rights are precious in the sight of God. But those who trust God, trust the unchangeableness4of His righteousness, justice, power, and love, tho they may suffer the hardships of this world, the inequalities of sin and iniquity, fostered by the basest of greed and selfishness, shall find entrance into that world where no syndicate can bar or blacklist, and no trade-mark or label is required as a certificate of membership save the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who saves men by saving each one. And then and there each one of us shall give account of himself to God with exceeding joy.