Each year, as November draws to a close, the citizens of the United States recall anew the many reasons they have for thankfulness, and chief among these is their existence as a nation standing for the loftiest ideals of government known to any people. Vast and splendid as is their territory, stretching from the arctic circle to the tropics, and rich in all that makes for material wealth, yet this counts for nothing when compared with what the nation has stood for in its recognition of the rights and responsibilities of manhood. In spite of the relative narrowness of the age in which they lived, the founders of this great republic, the men who laid its foundations in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, had a tremendous grasp of the things that are vital to a nation's existence.
It is true that some may complain of a lack of fulfilment of all that these promise, but the question at once presents itself as to what the complainant has done and is doing to bring out good citizenship, and whether or not he is taking into account all the elements which go to make up the nation. It is vain to plead lack of opportunity, for true manhood is omnipotence humanly expressed, and the pages of history plainly tell how men of the lowliest station have taken the loftiest places in the affairs of the world, if they were brave enough and unselfish enough to see "beyond a narrow bounded age," to quote one of our poets.
In scanning the pages of history we find distinct evidence of a divine call to certain nations to aid in the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. In the case of the Hebrews this was very marked, and so far as we can judge of the divine purpose as voiced by the prophets, it ever tended to establish a pure democracy. The fact that the Jews were at first governed by their prophets in no wise disproves this; it only shows that they needed a deep foundation of moral and spiritual law to prepare them for true self-government. We read that they were warned against the introduction of kingly power, the divine purpose being expressed by St. John in the Apocalypse, where he tells us that all the faithful were to be "kings and priests unto God." This accords with Mrs. Eddy's statement respecting the government of man by divine Principle when she says: "For this Principle there is no dynasty, no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only crowned head is immortal sovereignty. Its only priest is the spiritualized man" (Science and Health, p. 141). This does not, however, aim at the overthrow of existing conditions, so far as they represent justice and progress. From the divine side, God's kingdom is an eternal fact, and the rulers and people who constantly strive to bring out what the Bible calls "righteousness," are on a sure foundation and are under the protection of the Most High.
