Anarchy does not mean
disorder, when a philosopher is talking: it means merely the absence of
external government. And that is the ideal that we are approaching.
Paul says, you know, that the law was made for wicked people, for the
disobedient and the disorderly, not for good people. How many people
are there in New York to-day, for example, who are honest, who pay
their debts, who did not commit a burglary last night, who do not
propose to be false to wife and home, on account of the law, the
existence of courts and police? The great majority of the citizens of
America to-day would go right on being honest and kind and loving and
helpful, whether there were any laws or not. They are not kept to these
courses of conduct by the law. They have learned that these are the
fitting ways of life that these are the things for a man to do; and
they despise themselves if they are less than man. In other words, this
governmental order, which exists as an outside force, at last gets
written in the heart and becomes a law of life.
Now precisely the same process is going on in other departments of the
world: it is going on in religion. And now let me come to religion, and
illustrate the working of the law here. The old types of religious
thought and life and practice, the first ones that the world knew, are
long since outgrown. We regard them as barbaric, as cruel.
We have learned that there are not a million gods of whom we need stand
in awe. We have learned that God is no partial God.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272