THE TREND OF POPULAR UPRISING.
OF the Persian governmental policy it will not much longer be said that the law "altereth not" (Dan. 6:8). It is officially stated that Persia is to have a constitution. Of course it will not be such a constitution as that formally acknowledged in the United States, or even in some of the constitutional monarchies of the Old World; but it will be a constitution—at least a small concession to the rights of the people. It is said that the shah found at last, that surrender, or a little show of surrender, had to be made or there would be revolution. The absolute monarchs are finding the truth of the old adage. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” The poor czar of Russia has been forced to surrender twice within a year; first he yielded to the people, and then to the dukes and nobles. At present Russian “government” is a kind of see-saw, with nominal order and virtual chaos sitting on the opposite ends. It remains to be seen what the people of Persia, after thousands of years of absolutism, will do with a little taste of recognition. The people of China are also being agitated by a desire for some measure of popular sovereignty, and it is expected that the government will yield a little before long, and the less important of the Asiatic countries will probably follow. The wave is on, and there are great expectations in some circles that popular sovereignty, liberty, and “civic righteousness” in general will prevail. But it never will reach the degree of liberty comprehended in the Constitution of the United States. This is obvious for two reasons: (1) There is not sufficient time prior to the Lord’s coming for such a development from the crude idea of liberty that prevails among the masses. (2) The ideal set up by the framers of the United States Constitution, which has been the ideal to which the rank and file of other peoples have longingly yet almost hopelessly looked, has lost too much of its force even at home. The tide of liberty is ebbing in the great American republic even faster than it is flowing on the other side of the world. The Constitution has become the victim of Supreme Court construction to such an extent that its dearest and most vital provisions are deemed legitimate food for judicial whim. And it has all been in the interest of the great combinations of capital, who support and control an army of legal counsel and political operators. Long before Russia and Persia and Turkey and China, and a score of smaller peoples, have really learned the rudimentary principles of civil and religious liberty, the United States will be deep in the mire of church and state union. Then the admirers and followers of the Western Star will become so befogged that the “great day of the Lord” will overtake them unawares, and they will perish in their confusion. The trouble with the popular uprisings of our day is, they are largely under the auspices of secret societies and leagues and unions of one kind or another. As the grain bound into bundles is more convenient of gathering, so the gathering of men into organized bundles, especially the secret, oath-bound bundles, renders them more susceptible to manipulation. These are aggregated, or “federated,” and thus made more easily controlled by leading, the unscrupulous, minds whose ultimate purpose is selfish aggrandizement. “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.” 2 Peter 2:19. So it is everywhere to-day; the victims of oppression are banded together and led to their own hurt by agitators of various kinds whose purpose is self-interest. In these last days, days of increasing delusion and deception, the sovereignty of the people, civic righteousness, religious liberty, and political equality for the masses, are dreams that will be but partially realized. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. . . . Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” Ps. 146:3-5.