Statesmen have been seeking a solution to national and international problems for a long time. This has led to experiments in government. Some of these have proved beneficial to the peoples concerned, and others have proved detrimental. The wide variety in forms of government today shows what deep thought is being given to this question; and every honest effort is entitled to its proportionate reward in a betterment of conditions for the nations.
It is obvious, however, that a nation wherein individuals most nearly acknowledge God's government will be better able to express good to all humanity than one which is less ready to acknowledge and yield to the supreme dictation of divine wisdom. Each individual has to earn his salvation at the price of subordinating his human desires to God's will. And proportionately as he does this he helps his nation and all mankind.
What Utopias have not been planned in human thought! Dreamers—as some have been called—have outlined an earth at peace through this or that political or economic plan. Christ Jesus, however, pointed to the two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets, namely, to love God with all the heart and one's neighbor as oneself. What if men in all nations, instead of striving so violently to evolve a sudden paradise, should start today, individually, and thus nationally, more earnestly to love God, and to love their neighbor, in whatever country, as themselves? This impulse, given effect in national methods of arbitration and treaty, and sustained in spite of all discouragements, would lead to a wide lessening of fear. Trade would be promoted and international amity fostered.
