Editorial February 10, 1940 Issue

God's Government

Evelyn F. Heywood

"I am asked: which is the best government?" wrote Goethe. "That which teaches us to govern ourselves."

The well-ordered state, where individual rights and liberties are assured, is the outcome of such self-government as Goethe had in thought. Only those who have learned self-government can satisfactorily maintain and obey a righteous government. That state which enforces obedience without enlightenment may preserve order, but it does not foster intelligent co-operation. Fear and suppression are not fruitful schools of learning. Thus it is that the lives of peoples have been dwarfed and darkened because there has been voluntary or involuntary submission to the laws imposed upon them, or because they have obeyed and forced others to obey what they erroneously believed to be the laws of God. Any form of government which is tyrannical and fearpromoting is fraught with the worst consequences to those who administer its laws and those who conform to its dictates.

The only true and lasting purpose of civic law is to teach mankind, by intelligent and righteous means, how to govern itself. The only purpose of spiritual law, just and beneficent, is to maintain and develop the government of Principle.

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