Article January 13, 1906 Issue

Laws Which Alter Not

MARY LLOYD MC CONNELL.

There are some remarkable record of the method pursued more than five hundred years before the coming of our Master, in binding men with fetters of self-imposed rules and customs. The Medes and Persians were ruled by absolute monarchs, whose word was law and regarded as irrevocable, until finally it became a common proverb among the nations: "According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." We can imagine how much misery, loss, and injustice were thus occasioned. No government, no matter how honest and sincere, is far-seeing enough to legislate absolutely for all time. Each session of Parliament or of Congress sees the necessity for the revision or rejection of old statutes, and how injurious must have been the results when laws were passed in haste.—oftentimes in passion,—by irresponsible rulers acting upon the impulse of the moment; but in that olden time change of mind, repentance, brought no redress. A decree once issued, and sealed with the royal signet, could not be rescinded even at the desire of the monarch. It had become a law which could not be altered. The best the could be done was to issue further decrees and manifestoes, seeking to mitigate or circumvent the former mandates.

It is not difficult to imagine the conditions of confusion and uncertainty resulting from such law-making. There could be no real security or stability, no absolute assurance of safety in an empire thus governed. We have only to read the Book of Esther to understand something of the workings of this law which forbade the repeal of any decree once issued. The best that King Ahasuerus himself could do to help the Jews, after commanding their massacre, was to allow them to arm and defend themselves, thus entailing terrible additional slaughter throughout his dominions.

We of a more enlightened generation may look backward into the ages and ask, "Who made this rule that no law, however unjust, could be repealed? Why were the people so stupid as to bow beneath such a yoke? Could they not realize that, having themselves originated such a law, they could by their own act also repeal it?"

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Holding our Own
January 13, 1906
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