THE PRINCIPLES OF WORLD-EMPIRE. 



31 



in such service, his own nobility and his powers of mind and 

 body are far more surely built up than by any despotie repression 

 of his fellow-man. 



Sovereignty is of God and from God, and must be adminis- 

 tered as from Him. Not less, therefore, must it be reverenced 

 and obeyed as such. Liberty is of God and from God ; human 

 personality is the highest gift of God, the quality in which our 

 likeness to Him chiefly stands, upon which all our relationship 

 to Him is based. Therefore our own liberty is to be used in 

 the likeness of the Divine beneficence, and not less is the 

 liberty of others to be reverenced by us as the supreme Divine 

 gift to them. 



The " true temper," the right adjustment, of sovereignty and 

 liberty, how is it to be attained, and once attained, how can it 

 be preserved ? Can anything be more difficult for the governor 

 than to maintain due authority, and yet never trench upon 

 liberty ? Or for the governed to secure respect for his individual 

 freedom, and yet never fail in rendering due obedience ? 



It is most difficult ; how should it be otherwise ? The 

 problem is with each one of us daily, and is perpetually 

 changing its form. To reach in every case an immediate and 

 right solution means the highest discernment, wisdom and 

 self-control. The training and shaping of but a single man to 

 be perfect in all his relations with other men ; neither over- 

 bearing nor servile, but unfailingly considerate, and at the 

 same time independent, how great a task it is ; so great a task 

 that if there had not been One Perfect Example, we should 

 say that it could not be accomplished. 



There has been One Perfect Example ; not without cost has 

 it been presented to us ; for of Him it is written — " yet learned 

 He obedience by the things which He suffered." 



The " true temper " of sovereignty and of liberty for the 

 individual man can only be found where the One Example 

 presented it — in Character. And that Character rested not in 

 any bodily strength, not in any intellectual acuteness, but in 

 that continual fashioning of the spirit which resulted from 

 unbroken communion with God. 



When we come to consider World-Empire — that is, the 

 uniting together of all men, whatever their race and nation, in 

 one corporate organization, in which each unit shall nevertheless 

 possess room for full development and growth — we see that it 

 is only in the Christ-like spirit that it can find its fulfilment. 

 For the differences between man and man, between nation and 

 nation, even between multitudes of men as compared with the 



