The Advocate and news., 1899-02-15


free, but freedom is a plant of slow
growth Our freedom is only partial to-
day. 1t will grow and expand in the air
of a republic, but generations must pass
before man becomes ideally free. Free
dom is result rather than cause Of the
enduring republic,
So Of equality This is a word much
misunderstood and misused. Equality
does not mean likeness. Every son and
daughter OF earth may be, as Emerson
asserts, born in some way superior; may
be able to do some one thing better than
any other Of the multiplied millions Of
Gods children. Nothing is made in vain
and no child would be born unless 1t pos
sessed the potentiality Of excellence and
of excelling in some way. Again equal
ity of opportunity and privilege, the open
field in which to develop heavens
choicest gifts Of mind and soul, is the
fruitage we look for in the ideal, the
enduring republic, but not It's foundation.
Shall we find in education, in the de-
velOpment of the intellect, the fOunda-
tion we seek? Assuredly not. knowledge
is power but it is not the greatest power
Intelligence is strength but there is some
thing stronger. No republic has ever
perished because education was neg
lected. Is it suggested that in good laws
we may find the enduring foundation OF
a republic? II by laws you mean statu-
tory enactments or rules Of conduct pre-
scribed by the people, or their repre-
sentatives, to regulate their own actions,
7 Vck ytf
by law the eternal, immutable, unvary-
ing relation of causes and effects which
prevails so far as we have studied this
universe of ours, you are nearer right;
but you must remember that those laws
prevail everywhere and always, alike in
the direct despOtism and the most de-
voted democracy. These two kinds Of
law are so divorced and distinct in their
nature and operations that l was aston
ished to see our governor confOund them
in a speech he made few nights ago
That natural law which prevails in the
physical world and which we can also
trace in the intellectual and spiritual, is
the only law worthy the name. Such law
always enforces itself. 1t is never vio-
lated. The poor rules we make in our
Congresses and legislatures and call laws
are not laws at ALL They never go any
farther than they are carried. They can
never under any conceivable circum-
stances, enforce themselves 1t is only
as someone stands behind them with
club that men are forced to pay any at
tention to them unless they want to. It
is not then in our man-made laws that
we can seek salvation or the permanence
Of our institutions. They may indeed
show how far we have advanced, but
they are notable as effects rather than as
causes, and a republic that depends on
them to render 1t enduring is like snake
trying to nourish itself by swallowing its
own tail Perhaps the thought has come
to you that justice is the foundation we
seek: that it is the soul Of the law rather
than the law itself upon which we may
found our republic. Our quest is leading
us in the right direction but we have not
yet arrived. There can be no enduring
republic without justice, but justice itself
is product and not the producer A re-
public based on justice and in which ev-
cry citizen respects the rights Of his
neighbors and infringes on them in no
wise is a magnificent dream, but there
must be behind it and below it some
vital cosmic force or it can never be re.
allied.
Where shall we find this force? OF
all the words our language contains,
which one Is the sweetest, the deepest,
the highest, the broadest, the most thrill
ling, the greatest, the hoilest. You can
but answer that it is love, and in love
alone find the foundation of an endur-
ing republic. "Other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid" Without its
vital power, all your systems and all your
institutions are dead, even while they
live. Love is the law of life. It is more
than justice, though it will do no in
justice.
To its heights we have never scared;
its depths we have never fathomed It
has in itself the power Of an endless life.
1t means harmony with all that Is and
progress towards all that can be. Every