 10. Evil cannot be suppressed by the physical force of the God. 10. Evil cannot be suppressed by the physical force of the government. The moral progress of humanity is brought about not only by individual recognition of the truth, but also through the establishment of a public opinion. Christianity destroys the state, but which is most necessary, Christianity or the state? There are some who assert the necessity of a state organization and others who deny it, both arguing from same first principles. Neither contention can be proved by abstract argument. The question must be decided by the stage in the development of conscience of each man, which will either prevent or allow him to support a government organization. Recognition of the futility and immorality of supporting a state organization, contrary to Christian principles, will decide the question for every man, in spite of any action on the part of the state. Argument of those who defend the government, that it is a form of social life needed to protect the good from the wicked, till all nations and all members of each nation have become Christians. The most wicked are always those in power. The whole history of humanity is the history of the forcible appropriation of power by the wicked and their oppression of the good. The recognition by government of the necessity of opposing evil by force is equivalent to suicide on their part. The abolition of state violence cannot increase the sum total of acts of violence. The suppression of the use of force is not only possible, but is even taking place before our eyes. But it will never be suppressed by the violence of government, but through men who have attained power by evidence recognizing its emptiness and becoming better and less capable of using force. Individual men and also whole nations pass through this process. By this means Christianity is diffused through consciousness of men, not only in spite of the use of violence by government, but even through its actions and therefore the suppression is not to be dreaded, but is brought about by the national progress of life. Objection of those who defend state organizations that universal adoption of Christianity is hardly likely to be realized at any time. The general adoption of the truth of Christianity is being brought about not only by the gradual and inward means, that is, by knowledge of the truth, prophetic insight, and recognition of the emptiness of power, and renunciation of it by individuals, but also by another external means, the acceptance of a new truth by whole masses of men on a lower level of development through simple confidence in their leaders. When a certain stage in the diffusion of a truth has been reached, a public opinion is created which impels a whole mass of men, formally agnostic to the new truth, to accept it, and therefore all men may quickly be brought to renounce the use of violence when once a Christian public opinion is established. The conviction of force being necessary hinders the establishment of a Christian public opinion. The use of violence leads men to distrust the spiritual force, which is the only force by which they advance. Neither nation nor individuals have been really subjugated by force, but only by public opinion, which no force can resist. Savage nations and savage men can only be subdued by the diffusion of a Christian standard among them, while actually Christian nations, in order to subdue them, do all they can to destroy a Christian standard. These fruitless attempts to civilize savages cannot be adduced as proof that men cannot be subdued by Christianity. Violence by corrupting public opinion only hinders the social organization from being what it ought to be and by the use of violence being suppressed. A Christian public opinion would be established. Whatever might be the result of the suppression of use of force, this unknown future could not be worse than the present condition and so there is no need to dread it. To attain knowledge of the unknown and to move toward it is the essence of life. Christianity, in its true sense, puts an end to government, so it was understood at its very commencement. It was for that cause that Christ was crucified. So it has always been understood by people who are not under the necessity of justifying a Christian government. Only from the time that the heads of government assumed an external and nominal Christianity, men began to invent all the impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no honest and serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibility of true Christianity, the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of injuries and love, with government, with its pomp, acts of violence, execution and wars. The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing government, but even destroys its very foundation. But if it is so, and we are right in saying that Christianity is incompatible with government, then the question naturally presents itself, which is more necessary to the good of humanity? In which way is men's happiness best to be secured by maintaining the organization of government or by destroying it and replacing it by Christianity? Some people maintain that government is more necessary for humanity, that the destruction of the state organizations would involve the destruction of all that humanity has gained, that the state has been and still is the only form in which humanity can develop. The evil which we see among people living under a government organization, they attribute not to that type of society, but to its abuses, which they say can be corrected without destroying it, and thus humanity, without discarding the state organization, can develop and attain a high degree of happiness. And men of this way of thinking bring forward in support of their views arguments which they think irrefutable, drawn from history, philosophy and even religion. But there are men who hold on the contrary to that as there was a time when humanity lived without government, such an organization is temporary and that a time must come when men need a new organization and that that time has come now. And men of this way of thinking also bring forward in support of their views arguments which they think irrefutable from philosophy, history and religion. Volumes may be written in defense of the former view and volumes indeed that long ago been written and will still be written on that side. But much also can be written against it and much also and most brilliantly has been written though more recently on this side. And it cannot be proved as the champions of the state maintain that the destruction of government involves a social chaos, mutual spoliation and murder, the destruction of all social institutions and the return of mankind to barbarianism. Nor can it be proved as the opponents of government maintain that men have already become so wise and good that they will not spoil or murder one another but will prefer peaceful association to hostility that of their own accord unaided by the state, they will make all the arrangements that they need and that therefore government far from being any aid under show of guiding men exerts a pernicious and brutalizing influence over them. It is impossible to prove either of these contentions by abstract reasoning. Still less possible is it to prove them by experiment since the whole matter turns on the question, ought we try the experiment? The question whether or not time has come to make an end of government would be unanswerable except that there exists another living means of settling it beyond dispute. We may dispute upon the question whether the nestlings are ready to do without the mother hen and to come out of the eggs or whether they are not yet advanced enough. But the young birds will decide the question without any regard for our arguments when they find themselves cramped for space in the eggs, then they will begin to try them with their beaks and come out of them of their own accord. It is the same with the question whether the time has come to do away with the governmental type of society and to replace it by a new type. If a man through the growth of a higher conscience can no longer comply with the demands of government, he finds himself cramped by it and at the same time no longer needs its protection. When this comes to pass, the question whether men are ready to discard the governmental type is solved and the conclusion will be as final for them as for the young birds hatched out of the eggs. Just as no power in the world can put them back into the shells, so can no power in the world bring men again under the governmental type of society when once they have outgrown it. It may as well be that government was necessary and still necessary for all the advantages which you attribute to it, says the man who has mastered the Christian theory of life. I only know that on the one hand, government is no longer necessary for me and on the other hand, I can no longer carry out the measures that are necessary to the existence of a government. Settle for yourself what you need for your life. I cannot prove the need or the harm of government in general. I know only what I need and do not need what I can do and what I cannot. I know that I do not need to divide myself off from other nations and therefore I cannot admit that I belong exclusively to any state or nation or that I owe allegiance to any government. I know that I do not need all the government institutions organized within the state and therefore I cannot deprive people who need my labor to give it in the form of taxes to institutions which I do not need which for all I know may be pernicious. I know that I have no need of the administration or of courts of justice founded upon force and therefore I can take no part in either. I know that I do not need to attack and slaughter other nations or to defend myself from them with arms and therefore I can take no part in wars or preparation for wars. It may well be that there are people who cannot help regarding all this is necessary and indispensable. I cannot dispute the question with them. I can only speak for myself but I can say with absolute certainty that I do not need it and that I cannot do it and I do not need this and I cannot do it not because such is my own, my personal will but because such is the will of him who sent me into life and gave me an indubitable law for my conduct through life. Whatever the arguments may be advanced in support of the contention that the suppression of government authority would be injurious and would lead to great calamities. Men who have once outgrown the governmental form of society cannot go back to it again and all the reasoning in the world cannot make the man who has outgrown the governmental form of society take part in actions disallowed by his conscience any more than the full grown bird can be made to return into the eggshell. But even it be so, says the champions of the existing order of things. Still the suppression of government violence can only be possible and desirable when all men have become Christians. So long as among people nominally Christian there are un-Christian wicked men who for the gratification of their own lust are ready to do harm to others. The suppression of government authority far from being a blessing to others would only increase their miseries. The suppression of the governmental type of society is not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority of true Christians it would not even be desirable if the whole of a nation were Christian. But among and around them were still un-Christian men of other nations. For these un-Christian men would rob, outrage and kill the Christians with impunity and would make their lives miserable. All that would result would be that the bad would oppress and outrage the good with impunity and therefore the authority of government must not be suppressed till all the wicked and rapacious people in the world are extinct. And since this will either never be or at least cannot be for a long time to come in spite of the efforts of individual Christians to be independent of government authority it ought to be maintained in the interest of the majority. The champions of government assert that without it the wicked will oppress and outrage the good and that the power of the government enables the good to resist the wicked. But in this assertion the champions of the existing order of things take for granted the proposition they want to prove. When they say that except for the government the bad would oppress the good they take it for granted that the good are those who at the present time are in possession of power and the bad are those who are in subjection to it. But this is just what wants proving. It would only be true if the custom of our society were what is or rather is supposed to be the custom in China. That is that the good always rule in that directly those at the head of government cease to be better than those they rule over the citizens are bound to remove them. This is supposed to be the custom in China. In reality it is not so and can never be so. For to remove the heads of government ruling by force it is not the right alone but the power to do so that is needed. So that even in China this is only an imaginary custom. And in our Christian world we do not even suppose such a custom and we have nothing on which to build up the supposition that it is the good or the superior who are in power. In reality it is those who have seized power and who keep it for their own and their retainers benefit. The good cannot seize power nor retain it. To do this men must love power and love of power is inconsistent with goodness but quite consistent with the very opposite qualities pride, cunning, cruelty. Without the ingrained diesment of self and the abasement of others without hypocrisies and deception without prisons, fortresses, executions and murders no power can come into existence or be maintained. If the power of government is suppressed the more wicked will oppress the less wicked. Say the champions of state authority. But when the Egyptians conquered the Jews the Romans conquered the Greeks and the barbarians conquered the Romans is it possible that all the conquerors were always better than those they conquered? And the same with the transition of power within a state from one personage to another has the power always passed from a worse person to a better one? When Louis the 16th was removed and Robespierre came to power and afterward Napoleon who ruled then a better man or a worse? And when were better men in power when the Versailles party or when the commune was in power? When Charles I was ruler or when Cromwell and when Peter III was Tsar or when he was killed and Catherine was Zarina in one half of Russia and Pugachev rule the other. Which was bad then? And which was good? All men who happen to be in authority assert that their authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the good assuming that they themselves are the good. Power excellence who protect other people from the bad. But ruling means using force and using force means doing to him to whom force is used. What he does not like and what he who uses the force would certainly not like done to himself. Consequently, ruling means doing to others what we would not they should do unto us. That is doing wrong. To submit means to prefer suffering to using force. And to prefer suffering to using force means to be good or at least less wicked than those who do unto others what they would not like themselves. And therefore, in all probability, not the better but the worse have always ruled in our ruling now. There may be bad men among those who are ruled but it cannot be that those who are better have generally ruled those who are worse. It might be possible to suppose this with the inexact heathen definition of good but with the clear Christian definition of good and evil it is impossible to imagine it. If the more or less good and the more or less bad cannot be distinguished in the heathen world the Christian conception of good and evil has so clearly defined the characteristics of good and the wicked that it is impossible to confound them. According to Christ's teachings the good of those who are meek and long suffering do not resist evil by force, forgive injuries and love their enemies. Those are wicked who exalt themselves oppress, strive and use force. Therefore, by Christ's teachings there can be no doubt whether the good are to be found among rulers or ruled and whether the wicked are among the ruled or the rulers. Indeed it is absurd even to speak of Christians ruling. Non-Christians that is those who find the aim of their lives in earthly happiness must always rule Christians. The aim of whose lives is the renunciation of such earthly happiness. This difference has always existed and has become more and more defined as the Christian religion has been more widely diffused and more correctly understood. The more widely true Christianity has diffused and the more it penetrates men's conscience the more impossible it was for Christians to be rulers and the easier it became for non-Christians to rule them. To get rid of governmental violence in a society in which all are not true Christians will only result in the wicked dominating the good and oppressing them with impunity, say the champions of the existing order of things. But it has never been and cannot be otherwise. So it has always been from the beginning of the world and so it is still. The wicked will always dominate the good and will always oppress them. Cain overpowered Abel, the cunning Jacob oppressed the guileless Esau and was in his turn deceived by Laban, Caiaphas, and Pilate oppressed Christ. The Roman emperors oppressed Seneca, Epictetus and the good Romans who lived in their time. John IV with his favorites, the syphilitic drunken Peter with his buffoons, the vicious Catherine with her paramours ruled and oppressed the industrious religion Russians of their times. William is ruling over the Germans, Stambolov over the Bulgarians, the Russian officials over the Russian people. The Germans have dominated the Italians, now they dominate the Hungarians and Slavonians. The Turks have dominated and still dominate the Slavonians and Greeks. The English dominate the Hindus, the Mongolians dominate the Chinese. So that whether governmental violence is suppressed or not, the position of good men in being oppressed by the wicked will be unchanged. To terrify men with the prospects of the wicked dominating the good is impossible, for that is just what has always been and is now and cannot but be. The whole history of pagan times is nothing but a recital of the incidents and means by which the more wicked gained possession of power over the less wicked and retained it by cruelties and deceptions, ruling over the good under the pretense of guiding the rights and protecting the good from the wicked. All the revolutions in history are only examples of the more wicked seizing power and oppressing the good. In declaring that if their authority did not exist, the more wicked would oppress the good. The ruling authorities only show their disinclination to let other oppressors come to power who would like to snatch it from them. But in asserting this, they only accuse themselves, say that their power, that is violence, is needed to defend men from other possible oppressors in the present or the future. Footnote, I may quote in this connection the amazingly naive and comic declaration of the Russian authorities, the oppressors of other nationalities, the Poles, the Germans of the Baltic provinces and the Jews. The Russian government has oppressed its subject for centuries and has never troubled itself about the little Russians of Poland or the lets of the Baltic provinces or the Russian peasants exploited by everyone. And now it has all of a sudden become the champion of the oppressed, the very oppressed whom it is itself oppressing. End of footnote. The weakness of the use of violence lies in the fact that all the arguments brought forward by oppressors in their own defense can with even better reason be advanced against them. They plead the danger of violence, most often imagined in the future, but they are all the while continuing to practice actual violence themselves. You say that men used to pillage and murder in the past and that you're afraid that they will pillage and murder one another if your power were no more. That may happen or it may not happen, but the fact that you ruin thousands of men in prison, fortresses, galleys and exile, break up millions of families and ruin millions of men physically as well as morally in the army, that fact is not an imaginary but a real act of violence which according to your own argument, one ought to oppose five violence. And so you are yourselves these wicked men against whom according to your own argument, it is absolutely necessary to use violence. The oppressed I should say to their oppressors and non-Christian men always do say and think and act on this reasoning. If the oppressed are more wicked than their oppressor, they attack them and try to overthrow them and in favorable circumstances, they succeed in overthrowing them or what is more common, they rise into the ranks of the oppressors and assist in their act of violence so that the very violence which the champions of government hold up as a terror, pretending that except for its oppressive power, the wicked would oppress the good has really always existed and will exist in human society. And therefore the suppression of state violence cannot in any case be the cause of increased oppression of the good by the wicked. If state violence ceased, there would be acts of violence perhaps on the part of different people, other than those who had done deeds of violence before. But the total amount of violence could not in any case be increased by the mere fact of power passing from one set of men to another. State violence can only cease when there is no more wicked men in society, say the champions of the existing order of things, assuming in this course that since there will always be wicked men, it can never cease. And that would be right enough if it were the case as they assume that the oppressors are always the best of men and that the sole means of saving men from evil is by violence. Then indeed violence could never cease. But since this is not the case, but quite the contrary, that it is not the better oppressed the worse, but the worse oppressed the better. And since violence will never put an end to evil and there is moreover, another means of putting an end to it, the assertion that violence will never cease is incorrect. The use of violence grows less and less and evidently must disappear. But this will not come to pass as some champions of the existing order of imagine through the oppressed becoming better and better under the influence of government. On the contrary, its influence causes their continual degradation, but through the fact that all men are constantly growing better and better of themselves so that even the most wicked who are in power will become less and less wicked till at last they are so good as to be incapable of using violence. The progressive movement of humanity does not proceed from the better elements in society, seizing power and making those who are subject to them better by forcible means as both conservatives and revolutionists imagine. It proceeds first and principally from the fact that all men in general are advancing steadily and undeviatingly towards a more and more conscious assimilation of the Christian theory of life. And secondly, from the fact that even apart from conscious spiritual life, men are unconsciously brought into a more Christian attitude to life by the very process of one set of men grasping the power and again being replaced by others. The worst elements of society gaining possession of power under the sobering influence which always accompanies power grow less and less cruel and become incapable of using cruel forms of violence. Consequently, others are able to seize their place in the same process of softening and so to say unconscious Christianizing goes on with them. It is something like the process of abolition. The majority of men having the non-Christian view of life always strive for power and struggle to obtain it. In this struggle, the most cruel, the coarsest, the least Christian element of society overpower the most gentle, well-disposed and Christian and rise by means of the violence to the upper ranks of society. And in them is Christ's prophecy fulfilled. Woe to you that are rich. Woe unto you that are full. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. For the men who are in possession of power and all that results from it, glory and wealth and have attained the various aims they set before themselves, recognize the vanity of it all and return to the position from which they came. Charles V, John IV, Alexander I, recognizing the emptiness and the evil of power renounced it because they were incapable of using violence for their own benefit as they had done. But they are not the solitary examples of this recognition of the emptiness and evil of power. Everyone who gains the position of power he has striven for, every general, every minister, every millionaire, every petty official who has gained the place he has coveted for 10 years, every rich peasant who has laid by some hundred rubles passes through this unconscious process of softening. And not only individual men, but societies of men, whole nations pass through this process. The seduction of power and all the wealth, honor and luxury it gives seems a sufficient aim for men's efforts only so long as they are unattained. Directly a man reaches them, he sees all their vanity and they gradually lose all their power of attraction. They are like clouds which have form and beauty only from the distance, directly one ascends into them, all their splendor vanishes. Men who are in possession of power and wealth, sometimes even those who have gained for themselves their power and wealth, but more often their ears, cease to be so eager for power and so cruel in their efforts to obtain it. Having learned by experience under the oppression of Christian influence, the vanity of all this is gained by violence. Men sometimes in one, sometimes in several generations lose devices which are generated by the passion for power and wealth. They become less cruel and so cannot maintain their position and are expelled from power by other less Christian and more wicked. Thus they return to the rank of society lower in position but higher in morality, raising thereby the average level of Christian consciousness in men. But directly after them against the worst, coarsest, least Christian element of society rise to the top and are subject to the same process as their predecessors and again in a generation or so seeing the vanity of what is gained by violence and having imbibed Christianity. They come down again among the oppressed and their places again filled by newer presses. Less brutal than former oppressors though more so than those they oppress. So that although power remains eternally the same as it was with every change of the men in power, there is a constant increase in the number of men who have been brought by experience to the necessity of assimilating the Christian conception of life. And with every change though it is the coarsest, crudest and least Christian who come into possession of power, they are less coarse and cruel and more Christian than their predecessors when they gain possession of power. Power selects and attracts the worst element of society, transforms them, improves and softens them and returns them to society. Such is the process by means of which Christianity in spite of the hindrance to human progress resulting from the violence of power gains more and more hold of men. Christianity penetrates to the consciousness of men not only in spite of violence of power but also by means of it. And therefore the assertion of the champions of the state that if the power of government was suppressed the wicked would oppress the good not only fails to show that that is to be dreaded since it is just what happens now but proves on the contrary that it is governmental power which enables the wicked to oppress the good and is the evil most desirable to suppress and that it is being gradually suppressed in the natural course of things. But if it be true that governmental power will disappear when those in power become so Christian that they renounce power of their own accord and there are no men found willing to take their place and even if this process is already going on say the champions of the existing order when will that come to pass? If after 1800 years there are still so many eager for power and so few anxious to obey this seems no likelihood of it's happening very soon or indeed of it's ever happening at all even if there are as there have always been some men who prefer renouncing power to enjoying it the massive men in reserve who prefer dominion to subjection is so great that it is difficult to imagine a time when the number will be exhausted before this Christianizing process could so affect all men one after another that they would pass from the heathen to the Christian conception of life and when voluntarily abandoned power and wealth it would be necessary that all the course of savage men completely incapable of appreciating Christianity or acting upon it of whom there are always a great many in every Christian society should be converted to Christianity. More than this all the savage and absolutely non-Christian people who are so numerous outside the Christian world must also be converted and therefore even if we admit that the Christianizing process will someday affect everyone still judging by the amount of progress it has made in 1800 years it will be many times 18th century before it will do so and it is therefore impossible and unprofitable to think at present of anything so impracticable as the suppression of authority we ought only to try to put authority into the best hands and this criticism would be perfectly just if the transition from one conception of life to another were only accomplished by the single process of all men separately and successively realizing each for himself the emptiness of power and reaching Christian truth by the inner spiritual path that process goes on unceasingly and men are passing over to Christianity one after another by this inner way but there is also another external means by which men reach Christianity and by which the transition is less gradual this transition from one organization of life to another is not accomplished by degrees like the sand running through the hourglass grain after grain it is more like the water filling a vessel floating on water at first the water only runs in slowly on one side but as the vessel grows heavier it suddenly begins to sink and almost instantaneously fills with water it is just the same with the transitions of mankind from one conception and so from one organization of life to another at first only gradually and slowly one after another men attain to the new truth by the inner spiritual way and follow it out in life but when a certain point in the diffusion of the truth has been reached it is suddenly assimilated by everyone not by the inner way but as it were involuntarily that is why the champions of the existing order are wrong in their arguing that since only a small section of mankind has passed over to Christianity in 18 centuries it must be many times 18 centuries before all the remainder do the same for in that argument they do not take into account any other means besides the inward spiritual one by which men assimilate a new truth and pass from one order of light to another men do not only assimilate a truth through recognizing it by prophetic insight or by experience of life when the truth has become sufficiently widely diffused men at a lower stage of development accepted all at once simply through confidence in those who have reached it by the inner spiritual way and are applying it to life every new truth by which the order of human life has changed and humanity is advanced is at first accepted by only a very small number of men who understand it through inner spiritual intuition the remainder of mankind who accept and trust the preceding truth on which the existing order is based are always opposed to the diffusion of the new truth but seeing that to begin with men do not stand still but are steadily advancing to a greater recognition of the truth and a closer adaption of their life to it and secondly all men in varying degrees according to their age their education and their race are capable of understanding the new truth at first those who are nearest to the men who have attained the new truth by spiritual intuition slowly and one by one but afterward more and more quickly pass over to the new truth thus the number of men who accept the new truth becomes greater and greater and the truth becomes more and more comprehensible and thus more confidence is aroused in the remainder who are at a less advanced stage of capacity for understanding the truth and it becomes easier for them to grasp it and an increasing number accept it and so the movement goes on more and more quickly and on an ever increasing scale like a snowball till it lost a public opinion in how many with the new truth is created and then the whole mass of men is carried over all at once by its momentum to the new truth and establishes a new social order in accordance with it those men who accept a new truth when it has gained a certain degree of acceptance always pass over all at once in masses they are like the ballast with which every ship is always loaded at once to keep it upright and enable it to sail properly if there were no ballast the ship would not be low enough in the water and would shift its position at the slightest change in its condition this ballast which strikes one at first as superfluous and even as hindering the progress of the vessel is really indispensable to its good navigation it is the same with the mass of mankind who not individually but always in a mass under the influence of a new social idea pass all at once from one organization of life to another this mass always hinders by its inertia frequent and rapid revolutions in the social order which have not been sufficiently proved by human experience and it delays every truth a long while till it has stood the test of prolonged struggles and has thoroughly permeated the consciousness of humanity and that is why it is a mistake to say that because only a very small minority of men has assimilated Christianity in 18 centuries it must take many times as many centuries for all mankind to assimilate it and since that time is so far off we who live in the present need not even think about it it is a mistake because the men at a lower stage of culture the men and the nation who are represented as the obstacle to the realization of the Christian order of life are the very people who always pass over in masses all at once to any truth that has once been recognized by public opinion and therefore the transformation of human life through which men in power will renounce it and there will be none anxious to take their place will not come only by all men consciously and separately assimilating the Christian conception of life it will come when a Christian public opinion has arisen so definite and easily comprehensible as to reach the whole of the inert mass which is not able to attain truth by its own intuition and therefore is always under the sway of public opinion public opinion arises spontaneously and spreads for hundreds and thousands of years but it has the power of working on men by infection and with great rapidity gains a whole on great numbers of men but says the champions of the existing order even if it is true that public opinion when it has attained a certain degree of definitiveness and precision can convert the inert mass of men outside the Christian world the non-Christian races as well as the course and depraved who are living in its midst what proofs have we that this Christian public opinion has arisen and is able to replace force and render it unnecessary we must not give up force by which the existing order is maintained and by relying on the vague and impalpable influence of public opinion expose Christians to the risk of being pillaged, murdered and outraged in every way by the savages inside and outside the civilized society since even supported by the use of force we can hardly control the non-Christian elements which are always ready to pour down on us and destroy all that has been gained by civilization is it likely that public opinion could take the place of force and render us secure and besides how we define the moment when public opinion has become strong enough to be able to replace the use of force to reject the use of force and trust to public opinion to defend us would be as insane as to remove all weapons of defense in a menagerie and then to let loose all the lines and targets relying on the fact that the animals seem peaceable when kept in their cages and held in check by red-hot irons and therefore people in power who have been put in positions of authority by fate or by God have not the right to run the risk ruining all that has been gained by civilization just because they want to try an experiment to see whether public opinion is or is not able to replace the protection given by authority a French writer forgotten now Alphonse Carr said somewhere trying to show the impossibility of doing away with the death penalty Kermay says Les Essances commence par nous donner l'example often I have heard this bon mot repeated by men who thought that these words were witty and convincing argument against the abolition of capital punishment and yet all the erroneousness of the argument of those who consider that governments cannot give up the use of force till all people are capable of doing the same could not be more clearly expressed than it is in that epigram let the murderers say the champions of state violence set us the example by giving up murder and then we will give it up but the murderers say just the same only with much more right they say let those who have undertaken to teach us and guide us set us the example of giving up legal murder and then we will imitate them and they say this not as a jest but seriously because it is the actual state of the case we cannot give up the use of violence because we are surrounded by violent ruffians nothing in our days hinders the progress of humanity and the establishment of the organization corresponding to its present development more than this false reasoning those in authority are convinced that men are only guided and only progress through the use of force and therefore they confidently make use of it to support the existing organization the existing order is maintained not by force but by public opinion the action of which is disturbed by the use of force so that the effect of using force is to disturb and to weaken the very thing it tries to maintain violence even in the most favorable case when it is not used simply for some personal aims of those in power always punishes under the one inelastic formula of the law what has long before been condemned by public opinion but there is this difference that while public opinion censures and condemns all the acts opposed to the moral law including the most varied cases in its reprobation the law which rests on violence only condemns and punishes a certain very limited range of acts and by so doing seems to justify all other acts of the same kind which do not come under its scope public opinion ever since the time of Moses has regarded covetousness, profligacy and cruelty as wrong and censure them accordingly and it condemns every kind of manifestation of covetousness not only the appropriation of the property of others by force or fraud or trickery but even the cruel abuse of wealth it condemns every form of profligacy whether with concubine slave, divorced woman or even one's own wife it condemns every kind of cruelty whether shown in blows in ill treatment or in murder not only of men but even of animals the law resting on force only punishes certain forms of covetousness such as robbery and swindling certain forms of profligacy and cruelty such as conjugal infidelity murder and wounding and in this way it seems to countenance all the manifestations of covetousness profligacy and cruelty which do not come under its narrow definition but besides corrupting public opinion the use of force leads men to the fatal conviction that they progress not through the spiritual impulse which impels them to the attainment of truth and its realization in life and which constitutes the only source of every progressive movement of humanity but by means of violence the very force which far from leading men to truth always carries them further away from it this is a fatal error because it leaves men to neglect the chief force underlying their life their spiritual activity and to turn all their attention and energy to the use of violence which is superficial sluggish and most generally pernicious in its action they make the same mistake as men who trying to set a steam engine in motion should turn its wheels round with their hands not suspecting that the underlying cause of its movement was the expansion of the steam and not the motion of the wheels by turning the wheels by hand and by levers they could only produce a semblance of movement and meantime they would be wrenching the wheels and so preventing their being fit for real movement that is just what people are doing who think to make men advance by means of external force they say that christian life cannot be established without the use of violence because there are savage races outside the pale of christian societies in africa and in asia there are some who even represent the chinese as a danger to civilization and that in the midst of christian societies there are savage corrupt and according to the new theory of heredity congenial criminals and violence they say is necessary to keep savages and criminals from annihilating our civilization but these savages within and without christian society who are such a terror to us have never been subjugated by violence and are not subjugated by it now nations have never subjugated other nations by violence alone if a nation which subjugated another was on a lower level of civilization it has never happened that it succeeded in introducing its organization of life by violence on the contrary it was always forced to adopt the organization of life existing in the conquered nation if ever any of the nations conquered by force have been really subjugated or even nearly so it has always been by the action of public opinion and never by violence which only tends to drive a people to further rebellion when whole nations have been subjugated by a new religion and have become christian or mohammedan such a conversion has never been brought up about because the authorities made it obligatory on the contrary violence has much often are acted in the opposite direction but because public opinion made such a change inevitable nations on the contrary who have been driven by force to accept the face of their conquerors have always remained agnostic to it it is just the same with the savage elements existing in the midst of our civilized societies neither the increased nor the diminished severity of punishment nor the modifications of prison nor the increase of police will increase or diminish the number of criminals their number will only be diminished by the change of the moral standard of society no severities could put an end to duels and vendettas in certain districts in spite of the number of tekerkeses executed for robbery they continue to be robbers from the youth up for no maiden will marry a tekerkes used till he has given proof of his bravery by carrying off a horse or at least a sheep if men cease to fight duels and the tekerkeses cease to be robbers it will not be from fear of punishment indeed that invest the crime with additional charm for youth but through a change in the moral standard of public opinion it is the same with all other crimes force can never suppress what is sanctioned by public opinion on the contrary public opinion need only be in direct opposition to force to neutralize the whole effect of the use of force it has always been so and always will be in every case of martyrdom what would happen if force were not used against hostile nations and the criminal elements of society we do not know but we do know by prolonged experience that neither enemies nor criminals have been successfully suppressed by force and indeed how could nations be subjugated by violence who are led by their whole education their traditions and even their religion to see the loftiest virtue in warring with their oppressors and fighting for freedom and how are we to suppress by force acts committed in the midst of our society which are regarded as crimes by the government and as daring exploits by the people to exterminate such nations and such criminals by violence is possible and indeed is done but to subdue them is impossible the sole guide which directs men and nations has always been and is the unseen intangible underlying force the resultant of all the spiritual forces of certain people are of all humanity which finds its outward expression in public opinion the use of violence only weakens this force hinders it and corrupts it and tries to replace it by another which far from being conducive to the progress of humanity is detrimental to it to bring under the sway of Christianity all the savage nations outside the pale of the Christian world all the Zulus and Chus in Chinese whom many regarded savages and the savages who live in our midst there is only one means that means is the propagation among these nations of the Christian ideal of society which can only be realized by a Christian life Christian actions and Christian examples and meanwhile though this is the one only means of gaining a hold over the people who have remained non-Christian the men of our days set to work in the directly opposite fashion to attain this result to bring under the sway of Christianity savage nations who do not attack us in whom we have therefore no excuse for oppressing we ought before all things to leave them in peace and in case we need or wish to enter into closer relations with them we ought only to influence them by Christian manners and a Christian teaching setting them the example of the Christian virtues of patience meekness, endurance, purity, brotherhood and love instead of that we begin by establishing among them new markets for our commerce with the sole aim of our own profit then we appropriate their lands that is rob them then we sell them spirits, tobacco and opium that is corrupt them then we establish our morals among them teach them the use of violence and new methods of destruction that is we teach them nothing but the animal law of strife below which men cannot sink and we do all we can to conceal from them all that is Christian in us after this we send some dozens of missionaries prodding to them of the hypocritical absurdities of the church and then quote the failure of our effort to turn the heathen to Christianity as an incontrovertible proof of the impossibility of applying the truth of Christianity in practical life it is just the same with the so-called criminals living in our midst to bring these people under the sway of Christianity there is one only means that is the Christian social ideal which can only be realized among them by true Christian teaching and supported by a true example of the Christian life and to preach this Christian truth and to support it by Christian example we set up among them prisons, guillotines, gallows, preparations for murder we diffuse among the common herd idolatrous superstitions to stupefy them we sell them spirits, tobacco and opium to brutalize them we even organize legalized prostitution we give land to those who do not need it we make a display of senseless luxury in the midst of suffering poverty we destroy the possibility of anything like a Christian public opinion and studiously try to suppress what Christian public opinion is existing and then after having ourselves studiously corrupted been we shut them up like wild beasts in places from which they cannot escape and where they become still more brutalized or else we kill them and these very men whom we have corrupted and brutalized by every means we bring forward as a proof that one cannot deal with criminals except by brute force we are just like ignorant doctors who put a man recovering from illness by the force of nature into the most unfavorable conditions of hygiene and dose him with the most deleterious drugs and then assert triumphantly that their hygiene and their drug saved his life when the patient would have been well long before if they had left him alone violence which is held up as the means of supporting the Christian organization of life not only fails to produce that effect it even hinders the social organization of life from being what it might and ought to be the social organization is as good as it is not as a result of force but in spite of it and therefore the champions of the existing order are mistaken in arguing that since even with the aid of force the bad and non-Christian elements of humanity can hardly be kept from attacking us the abolition of the use of force and the substitution of public opinion for it would leave humanity quite unprotected they are mistaken because force does not protect humanity but on the contrary deprives it of the only possible means of really protecting itself that is the establishment and diffusion of a Christian public opinion only by the suppression of violence while a Christian public opinion seems to be corrupted and being able to be diffused without hindrance and men will then turn their efforts in the spiritual direction by which alone they can advance but how are we to cast off the visible tangible protection of an armed policeman and trust is something so intangible as public opinion does it yet exist moreover the condition of things in which we are living now we know good or bad we know it's shortcomings and are used to it we know what to do and how to behave under present conditions but what will happen when we give it up and trust ourselves to something invisible and intangible and altogether unknown the unknown world on which they are entering in renouncing their habitual ways of life appears itself as dreadful to them it is all very well to dread the unknown when our habitual position is sound and secure but our position is so far from being secure that we know beyond all doubt that we are standing on the brink of a precipice if we must be afraid let us be afraid of what is really alarming and not what we imagine as alarming fearing to make the effort to detach ourselves from our perilous position because the future is not fully clear to us we are like passengers in a foundering ship who though being afraid to trust themselves to the boat which would carry them to the shore shut themselves up in the cabin and refuse to come out of it or like sheep who terrified by their bond being on fire huddled in a corner and do not go out of the wide open door we are standing on the threshold of the murderous war of social revolution terrific in its miseries besides which as those who are preparing it tell us the horrors of 1793 will be a child's play and can we talk of the danger threatening us from the warriors of dahomany the zulus and such who live so far away and are not dreaming of attacking us and from some thousands of swindlers, thieves and murderers brutalized and corrupted by ourselves whose number is in no way lessened by all our sentences prisons and executions moreover this dread of the suppression of visible protection of the policemen is essentially a sentiment of the townspeople that is of people who are living in abnormal and artificial conditions people living in natural conditions of life not in towns but in the midst of nature and carrying on the struggle with nature live without this protection and know how little force can protect us from the real dangers with which we are surrounded there is something sickly in this dread which is essentially dependent on the artificial conditions in which many of us live and have been brought up a doctor, a specialist in insanity told a story that one summer day when he was leaving the asylum the lunatics accompanied him to the street door come for a walk in the town with me the doctor suggested to them the lunatics agreed and a small band followed the doctor but the further they proceeded along the street where healthy people were freely moving about the more timid they became and they pressed closer and closer to the doctor hindering him from walking at last they all began to beg him to take them back to the asylum to their meaningless but customary way of life to their keepers to blows, straight waistcoats and solitary cells this is just how men of today huddle in terror and draw back to their irrational manner of life their factories, law courts, prisons, execution and wars when Christianity calls them to liberty to the free, rational life of the future coming age people ask how will our security be guaranteed when the existing organization is suppressed what precisely will the new organization be that is to replace it so long as we do not know precisely how our life will be organized we will not stir a step forward an explorer going to an unknown country might as well ask for a detailed map of the country before he would stop if a man before he passed from one stage to another could know his future life in full detail he would have nothing to live for it is the same with the life of humanity if it had a program of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage it would be the surest sign that it was not living, not advancing but simply rotating in the same place the conditions of the new order of life cannot be known by us because we have to create them by our own labors that is all that life is to learn the unknown and to adapt our actions to this new knowledge that is the life of each individual man and that is the life of human society and of humanity end of chapter 10 recording by Bill McGilvery of Hengham, Massachusetts chapter 11 of the kingdom of God is within you this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by David Shep the kingdom of God is within you by Leo Tolstoy translated by Constance Garnett chapter 11 the Christian conception of life is already arisen in our society and will infallibly put an end to the present organization of our life based on force when that will be the condition and organization of our society are terrible but they rest only on public opinion and can be destroyed by it already violence is regarded from a different point of view the number of those who are ready to serve the government is diminishing and even the servants of the government are ashamed of their position and so often do not perform their duties these facts are all signs of the rise of public opinion which continually growing will lead to no one being willing to enter government service moreover it becomes more and more evident that those offices are of no practical use men already begin to understand the futility of all institutions based on violence and if a few already understand it all will one day understand it the day of deliverance is unknown but it depends on men themselves on how far each man lives according to the light that is in him the position of Christian humanity with its prisons, galleys, gibbets its factories and accumulation of capital its taxes, churches, gin palaces licensed brothels its ever increasing armament and its millions of brutalized men ready like chained dogs to attack anyone against whom their masters incite them would be terrible indeed if it were the product of violence but it is preeminently the product of public opinion and what has been established by public opinion can be destroyed by public opinion and indeed is being destroyed by public opinion money lavished by hundreds of millions tens of millions of disciplined troops weapons of astounding destructive power all organizations carried to the highest point of perfection a whole army of men charged with the task of deluding and hypnotizing the people and all this by means of electricity which annihilates distance under the direct control of men who regard such an organization of society not only as necessary for profit but even for self-preservation and therefore exert every effort of their ingenuity to preserve it what an invincible power it would seem and yet we need only imagine for a moment what will really inevitably come to pass that is the christian social standard replacing the heathen social standard and established with the same power in universality and the majority of men as much ashamed of taking any part in violence or in profiting by it as they are today of thieving, swindling, begging and cowardice and at once we see the whole of this complex and seemingly powerful organization of society fall into ruins of itself without a struggle and to bring this to pass nothing new need be brought before men's minds only let the mist which veils from men's eyes the true meaning of certain acts of violence pass away and the christian public opinion which is springing up what overpower the extinct public opinion which permitted and justified acts of violence people need only come to be as much ashamed to do deeds of violence to assist in them or to profit by them as they are now of being or being reputed a swindler a thief, a coward or a beggar and already this change is beginning to take place we do not notice it just as we do not notice the movement of the earth because we are moved together and everything around us it is true that the organization of society remains in its principal features just as much an organization based on violence as it was one thousand years ago and even in some respects especially in the preparation for war and in war itself it appears still more brutal but the rising christian ideal which must at a certain stage of development replace the heathen ideal of life already makes its influence felt a dead tree stands apparently as firmly as ever it may even seem firmer because it is harder but it is rotten at the core and soon must fall it is just so with the present order of society based on force the external aspect is unchanged there is the same division of oppressors and oppressed but their view of the significance and dignity of their respective positions is no longer what it once was the oppressors that is those who take part in government and those who profit by oppression that is the rich no longer imagine as they once did that they are the elect of the world and that they constitute the ideal of human happiness and greatness to attain which was once the highest aim of the oppressed very often now it is not the oppressed who strive to attain the position of the oppressors and try to imitate them but on the contrary the oppressors who voluntarily abandon the advantages of their position prefer the condition of the oppressed and to try and resemble them in the simplicity of their life not to speak of the duties and occupations now openly despised such as that of spy agent of secret police, moneylender and publican there are a great number of professions formally regarded as honorable such as those of police officials, courtiers, judges and administrative functionaries clergymen, military officers speculators and bankers which are no longer considered desirable positions by everyone and are even despised by a special circle of the most respected people there are already men who voluntarily abandon these professions which were once reckoned irreproachable and prefer less lucrative callings which are in no way connected with the use of force and there are even rich men who not through religious sentiment but simply through special sensitiveness to the social standard that the springing up relinquish their inherited property believing that a man can only justly consume what he has gained by his own labor the position of a government official or of a rich man is no longer as it once was and still is among non-christian peoples regarded as necessarily honorable and deserving of respect and under the special blessing of God the most delicate and moral people there generally also the most cultivated avoid such positions and prefer more humble callings that are not dependent on the use of force the best of our young people at the age when they are still uncorrupted by life and are choosing a career prefer the calling of doctor, engineer, teacher, artist, writer or even that of a simple farmer living on his own labor to legal, administrative, clerical and military positions in the pay of government or to an idle existence living on their incomes monuments and memorials in these days are mostly not erected in honor of government dignitaries or generals or still less of rich men but rather of artists men of science and inventors persons who have nothing in common with the government and often have been in conflict with it they are the men whose praises are celebrated in poetry who are honored by sculpture and received with triumphant jubilations the best men of our day are all striving for such places of honor consequently the class from which the wealthy in the government officials are drawn grows less in number and lower in intelligence and education and still more in moral qualities so that nowadays the wealthy class and men at the head of the government do not constitute as they did in former days the elite of society on the contrary they are inferior to the middle class in russia and turkey as in america and france however often the government changes its officials the majority of them are self-seeking and corrupt and so low a moral standard that they do not even come up to the elementary requirements of common honesty expected by the government one may often nowadays hear from persons in authority the naive complaint that the best peoples are always by some strange as it seems to them fatality to be found in the camp of the opposition as though men were to complain that those who accepted the office of hangman were by some strange fatality all persons of very little refinement or beauty of character the most cultivated and refined people in our society are not nowadays to be found among the very rich as used formally to be the rule the rich are mostly coarse money-grubbers absorbed only in increasing their hoard generally by dishonest means or else the degenerate heirs of such money-grubbers who far from playing any prominent part in society are mostly treated with general contempt and besides the fact that the class from which these servants of government in the wealthy are drawn grows less in number and lower in caliber they no longer themselves attach the same importance to their positions as they once did often they are ashamed of the ignominy of their calling and do not perform the duties they are bound to perform in their position kings and emperors scarcely govern at all they scarcely ever decide upon an internal reform or a new departure in foreign politics they mostly leave the decision of such questions to government institutions or to public opinion all their duties are reduced to representing the unity and majesty of government and even this duty they perform less and less successfully the majority of them do not keep up their old unapproachable majesty but become more and more democratized and even vulgarized casting aside the external prestige that remained to them and thereby destroying the very thing it was their function to maintain it is just the same with the army military officers of the highest rank instead of encouraging in their soldiers the brutality and ferocity necessary for their work diffuse education among the soldiers inculcate humanity and often even themselves share the socialistic ideas of the masses and denounce war in the last plots against the Russian government many of the conspirators were in the army and the number of disaffected in the army is always increasing and it often happens there was a case indeed within the last few days that when called upon to quell disturbances they refuse to fire upon the people military exploits are openly reprobated by the military themselves and are often the subject of jests among them it is the same with judges and public prosecutors the judges whose duty it is to judge and condemn criminals conduct the proceedings so as to whitewash them as far as possible so that the Russian government to procure the condemnation of those whom they want to punish never entrust them to the ordinary tribunals but have them tried before court-martial which is only a parody of justice the prosecutors themselves often refuse to proceed and even when they do proceed often in spite of the law really defend those they ought to be the learned jurists whose business it is to justify the violence of authority are more and more disposed to deny the right of punishment and to replace it by theories of irresponsibility and even of moral insanity proposing to deal with those they call criminals by medical treatment only jailers and overseers of galleys generally become the champions of those whom they ought to torture police officers and detectives are continually assisting the escape of those they ought to arrest the clergy preach tolerance and even sometimes condemn the use of force and the more educated among them try in their sermons to avoid the very deception which is the basis of their position and which it is their duty to support executioners refuse to perform their functions so that in Russia the death penalty cannot be carried out for want of executions and in spite of all the advantages being bestowed on these men who are selected from convicts there is a constantly diminishing number of volunteers for the post governors police officials tax collectors often have compassion on the people and try to find pretexts for not collecting the tax from them the rich are not at ease in spending their wealth only on themselves and lavish it on works of public utility landowners build schools and hospitals on their property and some even give up the ownership of their land and transfer it to the cultivators or establish communities upon it mill owners and manufacturers build hospitals schools savings banks asylums and dwellings for their work people some of them form cooperative associations in which they have shares on the same terms as the others capitalists expend a part of their capital on educational artistic philanthropic and other public institutions and many who are not equal in parting with their wealth in their lifetime leave it in their wills to public institutions all these phenomena might seem to be mere exceptions except that they can all be referred to one common cause just as one might fancy the first leaves on the budding trees in april were exceptional if we did not know that they all have a common cause the spring and that if we see the branches on some trees shooting and turning green it is certain that it will soon be so with all so it is with the manifestation of christian standard of opinion on force and all that is based on force if this standard already influences some the most impressionable and impels each in his own sphere to abandoned advantages based on the use of force then its influence will extend further and further till it transforms the whole order of men's actions and puts it into accord with the christian ideal which is already a living force in the vanguard of humanity and if there are now rulers who do not decide on any step on their own authority who try to be as unlike monarchs and as like plain mortals as possible who state the readiness to give up their prerogatives and become simply the first citizens of a republic if there are already soldiers who realize all the sin and harm of war and are not willing to fire on men either of their own or a foreign country judges and prosecutors who do not like to try and to condemn criminals priests who abjure deception tax gatherers who try to perform as little as they can of their duties and rich men renouncing their wealth then the same thing will inevitably happen to other rulers other soldiers other judges priests tax gatherers and rich men and when there are no longer men willing to fill these offices these offices themselves will disappear too but this is not the only way in which public opinion is leading men to the abolition of the prevailing order and the substitution of a new order as the positions based on the rule of force become less attractive and fewer men are found willing to fill them the more will their uselessness be apparent everywhere throughout the christian world the same rulers and the same governments the same armies the same law courts the same tax gatherers the same priests the same rich men landowners manufacturers and capitalists as ever but the attitude of the world to them and their attitude to themselves is altogether changed the same sovereigns have still the same audiences and interviews hunts and banquets and balls and uniforms there are the same diplomats and the same deliberations on alliances and wars there are still the same parliaments with the same debates on the eastern question and africa on treaties and violations of treaties and home rule and the eight hour day and one set of ministers replacing another in the same way and the same speeches and the same incidents but for men who observe how one newspaper article has more effect on the position of affairs than dozens of royal audiences or parliamentary sessions it becomes more and more evident that these audiences and interviews and debates on parliaments do not direct the course of affairs but something independent of all that which cannot be concentrated in one place the same generals and officers and soldiers and cannons and fortresses and reviews and maneuvers but no war breaks out one year ten twenty years passed by and it becomes less and less possible to rely on the army for the pacification of riots and more and more evident consequently that generals and officers and soldiers are only figures in solemn processions objects of amusement for governments a sort of immense and far too expensive core de ballet the same lawyers and judges and the same as sizes but it becomes more and more evident that the civil courts decide cases on the most diverse grounds but regardless of justice and that criminal trials are quite senseless because the punishments do not attain the objects aimed at by the judges themselves these institutions therefore serve no other purpose than to provide a means of livelihood for men who are not capable of doing anything more useful the same priests and archbishops and churches and synods but it becomes more and more evident that they have long ago ceased to believe in what they preach and therefore they can convince no one of the necessity of believing what they don't believe themselves the same tax collectors but they are less and less capable of taking men's property from them by force and it becomes more and more evident that people can collect all that is necessary by voluntary subscription without their aid the same rich men but it becomes more and more evident that they can only be of use by ceasing to administer their property in person and giving up to society the whole or at least a part of their wealth and when all this has become absolutely evident to everyone it will be natural for men to ask themselves but why should we keep and maintain all these kings emperors presidents and members of all sorts of senates and ministries since nothing comes of all their debates and audiences wouldn't it be better as some humorous suggested to make a queen of india rubber and what good to us are these armies with their generals and bands and horses and drums and what need is there of them when there is no war and no one wants to make war and if there were war other nations would not let us gain any advantage from it while the soldiers refuse to fire on their fellow countrymen and what is the use of these lawyers and judges who don't decide civil cases with justice and recognize themselves the uselessness of punishments in criminal cases and what is the use of tax collectors who collect the taxes unwillingly when it is easy to raise all that is wanted without them what is the use of clergy who don't believe in what they preach and what is the use of capital in the hands of private persons when it can only be of use as the property of all and when once people have asked themselves these questions they cannot help coming to the same decision and ceasing to support these institutions which are no longer of use but even before those who support these institutions decide to abolish them the men who occupy these positions will be reduced to the necessity of throwing them up public opinion more and more condemns the use of force and therefore men are less and less willing to fill positions which rest on the use of force and if they do not occupy them are less and less able to make use of the force in them and hence they must become more and more superfluous i once took part in Moscow in a religious meeting which used to take place generally in the week after eastern near the church in the Oteniro a little knot of some 20 men were collected together on the pavement engaged in serious religious discussion at the same time there was a kind of concert going on in the buildings of the court club in the same street and the police officer noting the little group collected near the church sent a mounted policeman to disperse it it was absolutely unnecessary for the officer to disperse it a group of 20 men was no obstruction to anyone but he had been standing there the whole morning and he wanted to do something the policeman a young fellow with a resolute flourish in his right arm and a clink of his saber came up to us and commanded us severely move on what's this meeting about everyone looked at the policeman and one of the speakers a quiet man in a peasant's dress answered with calm and gracious air we are speaking of serious matters and there is no need for us to move on you would do better young man to get off your horse and listen it might do you good and turning around he continued his discourse the policeman turned his horse and went off without a word that is just what should be done in all cases of violence the officer was bored he had nothing to do he had been put poor fellow in a position in which he had no choice but to give orders he was shut off from all human existence he could do nothing but superintendent give orders and give orders and superintend superintendents and his orders served no useful purpose whatsoever and this is the position in which all these unlucky rulers ministers members of parliament governors generals officers archbishops priests and even rich men find themselves to some extent already and will find themselves all together as time goes on they can do nothing but give orders and they give orders and send their messengers as the officer sent the policeman to interfere with people and because the people they hinder turn to them and request them not to interfere they fancy they are very useful indeed but the time will come and is coming when it will be perfectly evident to everyone that they are not of any use at all and only a hindrance and those whom they interfere with will say gently and quietly to them like my friend in the street meeting pray don't interfere with us and all the messengers and those who send them to will be obliged to follow this good advice that is to say we'll leave off galloping about with their arms akimbo interfering with people and getting off their horses and removing their spurs will listen to what is being said and mixing with others will take their place with them in some real human work the time will come and is inevitably coming when all institutions based on force will disappear through their uselessness stupidity and even inconvenience becoming obvious to all the time must come when the men of our modern world who fill offices based on violence will find themselves in the position of the emperor in anderson's tale of the emperor's new clothes when the child seeing the emperor undressed cries in all simplicity look he is naked and then all the rest who had seen him and said nothing could not help recognizing it too the story is that there is once an emperor very fond of new clothes and to him came two tailors who promised to make him some extraordinary clothes the emperor engages them and they begin to sew with them but they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position the courtiers come to look at the tailor's work and see nothing for the men are plying their needles in empty space but remembering the extraordinary property of the clothes they all declare they see them and are loud in their admiration the emperor does the same himself the day of the procession comes in which the emperor is to go out in his new clothes the emperor undresses and puts on his new clothes that is to say remains naked and naked he walks through the town but remembering the magic property of the clothes no one ventures to say that he has nothing on till a little child cries out look he is naked this will be exactly the situation of all who continue through inertia to fill offices which have long become useless directly someone who has no interest in concealing their uselessness exclaims in all simplicity but these people have been of no use to anyone for a long time past the condition of christian humanity with its fortress cannons dynamite guns torpedoes prisons gallows churches factories customs offices and places is really terrible but still cannons and guns will not fire themselves prisons will not shut men up themselves gallows will not hang them churches will not dilute them nor customs offices hinder them and palaces and factories are not built nor kept up of themselves all those things are the work of men if men come to understand that they ought not do these things then they will cease to be and already they are beginning to understand it though all do not understand it yet the advanced guard understands that the rest will follow them and the advanced guard cannot cease to understand what they have once understood and what they understand the rest not only can but must inevitably understand hereafter so that the prophecy that the time will come when men will be taught of god will learn war no more will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into reaping hooks which means translating it into our language the fortresses the prisons the barracks the palaces and churches will remain empty and all the gibbets and guns and cannons will be left unused is no longer a dream but the definite new form of life to which mankind is approaching with ever-increasing rapidity but when will it be 1800 years ago to this question christ answered that the end shall come when the tribulation of men is greater than it has ever been and when the gospel of the kingdom of god that is the possibility of a new organization of life shall be preached in the world unto all nations but of that day and hour knoweth no man but the father only said christ for it may come any time in such an hour as ye think not to the question when this hour cometh christ answers that we cannot know but just because we cannot know when that hour is coming we ought to be always ready to meet it just as the master ought to watch who guards his house from thieves as the virgins ought to watch with lamps alight for the bridegroom and further we ought to work with all the powers given us to bring that hour to pass as the servants ought to work with the talents entrusted to them and there could be no answer but this one men cannot know when the day and the hour of the kingdom of god will come because it's coming depends on themselves alone the answer is like that of the wise man who when asked whether it was far to the town answered walk how can we tell whether it is far to the goal which humanity is approaching when we do not know how men are going toward it while it depends on them whether they go or do not go stand still slacken their pace or hasten it all we can know is what we who make up mankind ought to do and not to do to bring about the coming of the kingdom of god and that we all know and we need only begin to do what we ought to do we need only each live with all the light that is in us to bring about at once the promised kingdom of god to which every man's heart is yearning end of chapter 11 recorded by david shep los angeles california