For centuries mankind has bowed down to a personal and limited concept of God. Now the government of any country is obviously the result of its understanding of law, of power, —in short of God; hence the government of countries worshiping an arbitrary God endowed with both good and evil qualities is naturally despotic. In the evolution of some form of popular control, nations have passed through certain well-defined stages, corresponding to a considerable extent with their progressive discernment of truth. In fact, there is a manifest interdependence between the individual's mental concept of God and his ideal of the most effective method of the practical administration of human affairs.
The usual type of government of any country, when it has emerged from the tribal and patriarchal state, is theocratic; that is, the ruler is endowed by the popular mind with divine qualities, and his power depends on this fact. Obviously one man cannot tyrannize over a nation. It is the people's submission to the idea he stands for and their superstitious and ignorant belief in the semidivine powers he is supposed to wield which has enabled tyrants to build up organizations empowered to oppress, to deceive, and to exploit the people. It is not many years since the government of a certain eastern nation, when faced by strong popular opposition to a measure it wished to pass, was enabled to silence the opposition altogether by obtaining a decree from the former despotic ruler; thus showing that the people rendered allegiance more readily to an autocratic sovereign than to their own elected representatives. The Israelites, at one period in their history, when their understanding of Truth became clouded by the beliefs of the surrounding people, demanded a type of government which was monarchic. Under this influence, the Jews' expectation of a Messiah could rise no higher than a mighty warrior, a personal ruler, a great king.
The churches have taught that good and evil are both derived from God; that the divine administration may be capricious. Thus they have helped to build up this belief in a deity resembling a human being, and have encouraged nations in their subservience to a despotic regime, with the assurance that it is the divinely appointed method of salvation. But gradually, as the bonds of the old theological beliefs became loosened, humanity emerged into a better understanding of the structure of government, until, in the year 1875, Mrs. Eddy published "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and gave to the world the full revelation of God, good, as Principle.
