'"
And not only the race will triumph and regain the Paradise lost. The
city of God shall surely be with men, and God will dwell with them
and in them. But you and I can and shall triumph too.
We are prone to feel that the individual man is too insignificant a
being to be the object of God's care and forethought. But we should
not forget that it is the individual who conforms, and that the
higher and nobler race is to be attained through the elevation of
individuals, one after another. God deals with races and nations as
such. But his laws and promises are made almost entirely for the
individuals of which these larger units are concerned.
But there is another standpoint from which we may gain a helpful
view of the matter. I may be the meanest citizen of my native state,
and my father may leave me heir of only a few acres of rocky land.
But, if my title is good, every power in the state is pledged to put
me in possession of my inheritance. They who would rob me may be
strong; but the state will call out every able-bodied man, and pour
out every dollar in its treasury before it will allow me to be
defrauded of my legal rights. And it must do this for me, its
meanest citizen, else there is no government, but anarchy, and
oppression, and the rule of the strongest. And we all recognize that
this is but right and necessary, and would be ashamed of our state
and government were it not literally true.
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