Editorial June 11, 1910 Issue

"LET THEM HAVE DOMINION"

John B. Willis

The extent of man's God-given authority is graphically outlined in the first chapter of Genesis, where man is spoken of as having "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The dynamic efficiency of this rule, as the expression of a spiritual law, is indicated in the Master's words when he said to the seventy: "I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you;" while its ethical and redemptive nature—that it is to be corrective, healing, and all-encompassing—is made clear in his final injunction that they should "preach the gospel to every creature."

St. Paul's apprehension of the all-inclusive, all-emancipating range of the Christ-idea is made to appear in his letter to the Romans, where he says that "the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. ... because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." All this teaching presents a concept of the extent and completeness of the rule of the spiritual consciousness unto which the Christian disciple is called, that reveals a very great contrast to the thought of privilege and responsibility respecting this matter which is entertained by the average Christian believer.

The great body of Christian people are disposed to be pretty well content if they can realize a more or less complete dominion over the temptations to selfishness and sensuality, and though not a few are awakening to the thought of overcoming sickness as well as sin, this idea of realizing not only the redemption of humanity, but of so-called nature, that not only the disease which pertains to mankind, but the distress which pertains to the phenomenal world, is to vanish at he appearing of "the sons of God,"—this to the many no doubt seems altogether visionary. And yet, centuries before the Prince of Peace demonstrated his power over the so-called law and order of nature, a prophet of God had foreseen the compass and completeness of the reign of Christ, Truth, and thus pictures his vision: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. ... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea"! Moreover, while the sages of the East were singing of the coming of universal peace in the reign of the Messiah, the Greeks, that most wonderful people, were telling their children the story of Orpheus, the child of the sun-god Apollo, who lured the beasts from the control of their cruel instincts with his sweet-toned lyre, and thus actualized, as the tradition ran, that peace in wood and field of which the Hebrew prophet had spoken.

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