NOW that the people of the United States have as a nation consented to abolish the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, the question of enforcing such a drastic law remains to be convincingly answered. That it is being satisfactorily answered daily is evident to those conversant even in a measure with the facts, but the voices of those who cry, "It can never be done!" are still loud in the land. The chief argument advanced is that there are not enough active agents to police the entire country for this special purpose. There are just two types of persons who voice such an argument —those who desire that the law shall not be enforced and those who have so little understanding of the power of good, of God, that they fear it cannot be. Lawlessness and fear—what have they ever done except to boast for a time and then scamper away when hard pressed?
The fact is that when a great nation of its own volition takes such action, there is less need than the opponents of the act may surmise for great numbers of special agents to enforce the law. Over and over again history records proof that numbers are not accurate indications of force. The great urge toward better conditions which prompted the making of the law will also accomplish its enforcement; every loyal citizen will become a special agent, in a sense, and the devils of mortal desire, selfishness, and brutality which cry out at the appearance of reform, "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" will be compelled to admit and make evident the powerlessness of evil before the impulsion of good.
"When the human mind is advancing above itself towards the Divine," says Mrs. Eddy on page 10 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1902,"it is subjugating the body, subduing matter, taking steps outward and upwards. This upward tendency of humanity will finally gain the scope of Jacob's vision, and rise from sense to Soul, from earth to heaven. Religions in general admit that man becomes finally spiritual. If such is man's ultimate, his predicate tending thereto is correct, and inevitably spiritual." Now Spirit is God, and the derivative adjective therefore means "of or from God." If, therefore, such action as is lifting humanity out of its mistakes and miseries is spiritual, or of God, what is there to hinder its enforcement? As Job puts it, "Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?"
