IV
The remedy for every woe on earth is the one commandment—'Love one another, as I have loved you.' It is so divinely simple—perhaps that is why the generations refuse to listen. The measure of the law is its greatness—'As I have loved you.' To obey that law means—blood. It was the greatness of the sacrifice that was made and the greatness of the sacrifice demanded that stirred the hearts of men to life. 'He loved me, and gave Himself for me,' the Christian said, and with rapture in his heart he looked at others and said, 'He loved that man also, and gave Himself for him. I cannot rob or murder or leave in misery a man for whom Christ's hands were nailed to the cross.' That was what revolutionised the world long ago. It is the only way in which the world can be revolutionised to-day. If only the world can be brought to listen to the law of love, the world will become new.
CHAPTER III
IN THE SACRED NAME OF LIBERTY!
'The ranks are gathering; on the one side of men rightly informed and meaning to seek redress by lawful and honourable means only, and on the other of men capable of compassion and open to reason but with personal interests at stake so vast and with all the gear and mechanism of their arts so involved in the web of past iniquity that the best of them are helpless and the wisest blind.'—The Right Hon. C. F. G. MASTEBMAN.
It is difficult for men and women to arrive at a true estimate of their own state of mind. What others think of us is often a truer gauge than what we think of ourselves, for we can only look at ourselves through the distorting glass of self-love and self-interest. In these last days we have had a wonderful revelation of what others think of us. Our hoardings and our advertisement pages are crowded with appeals which could only appeal to a generation that had ceased to think and ceased to bear upon their hearts the woes of their fellows. In the sacred name of liberty, in the cause of brotherhood and equality, we were exhorted on every horizon to hold fast and change not. And we were, above all, to beware of fanatics! We are indeed fallen very low if this measure of our intelligence be correct.
I
In the sacred name of liberty we are exhorted to lay no sacrilegious hand on the sacred ark of our licensing system. Whatever results may ensue of perishing babes and ruined manhood we must vote No Change, for liberty is great. Moloch of old was great; so great that he demanded and got the sacrifice of a child now and then. But ' Liberty' is greater still. If it be true that in proportion to the number of licences in a district is the death-rate among the babies; if in districts crowded with public-houses there be a death-rate of something like 160 to 180 per 1000 babies in the first year of life, while in districts where public-houses are rare the death-rate is about 40 per 1000 babies in the first year of life; and if we are to vote No Change and acquiesce in that in the name of liberty, how great that idol Liberty must be! We must examine it and make sure that its feet be not of clay.