In His Image

by William Jennings Bryan

The divine law of rewards is self-evident. When God gave us the earth with its fertile soil, the sunshine with its warmth and the rains with their moisture, His voice proclaimed as clearly as if it had issued from the skies: Go work, and in proportion to your industry and ability so shall be your reward. This is God's law and it will prevail except where force suspends it or cunning evades it. It is the duty of the Church to teach, and the duty of Christians to respect, God's law of rewards.

It is the duty of the government to give free course and full sway to the divine law of rewards; first, by abstaining from interference with that law; and second, by preventing interference by individuals. No defense need be made of the righteousness of this law; just in so far as the government can make it possible for each individual to draw from society according to his contribution to the welfare of society it will encourage the maximum of effort on the part of the individual and, therefore, on the part of society as a whole. If some receive more than their share, others will necessarily receive less than their share—the very essence of injustice; the former will become indolent because work is not required of them and the latter will grow desperate because their toil is not fairly rewarded. Injustice is the greatest enemy of government.

But there is a sphere which the government cannot and should not invade. The government's work ends when it has insured just rewards by preventing unjust profits, but even a just government cannot bring about an equal distribution of happiness. It can and should guarantee equality before the law—that is, equality of opportunity and equal treatment at the hand of the government—but that will not insure equal prosperity to each or bestow on all an equal amount of enjoyment. Ability will have to be taken into consideration, and likewise, industry, integrity and many other factors.

While the government can encourage all the virtues it cannot compel them; there is a zone between that Which can be legally required and that which is morally desirable. When the government has done all in its power—all that it can do and all that it should do—there will be inequalities in success, based upon inequalities in merit. There must, therefore, be a spiritual law to govern when the statute law, based upon economic principles, has reached its limit.

Christ suggests such a law—the law of stewardship. We hold what we have—no matter how justly acquired—in trust. That which is ours by economic right and by the government's permission, is not ours to waste. We have no more moral right to squander it foolishly than we have to throw away our bodily strength, our mental energy or our moral worth.

When we analyze ourselves we find that there is little of real value in us for which we can claim sole credit. We inherit much from ancestry and draw much from environment long before we are able to choose our surroundings. The ideals which come to us from others will account for nearly all that we do not derive from the past and from those among whom we spend our youth. If one has accepted Christ, received forgiveness of sin and been brought into living contact with the Heavenly Father, he becomes indebted beyond the power of language to describe. Our indebtedness if discharged at all must be paid not, as a rule, to those who have contributed most largely to making us what we are, but by general service to those now living and to those who succeed us. Our debtors are as impersonal as our creditors.

Nothing could contribute more to the security of the government than an approximation to the divine standard of rewards, and if all then recognized and obeyed the law of stewardship nearly all the complaint that would still exist would be silenced by the volunteer service rendered by the fortunate to the unfortunate.

"The mob"—the terror of orderly government—has been described by Victor Hugo as "the human race in misery." When the brotherhood of Christ is established a just standard of rewards will abolish law-made misery and private benevolence will relieve such suffering as may come upon the members of society without their fault and in spite of all the government can do.

But plain as are the dangers arising from love of money, and reasonable as seem the means of meeting them, the mad race for riches goes on all over the world. The mind is powerless to call a halt; intellectual processes fail—man needs a voice that can speak with authority—a voice that must be obeyed. He needs even more—he needs to be born again. His heart must be cleansed and his thoughts turned to higher things. It is to such that Christ appeals when He asks: "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Let man cease to be brutish and become brotherly and he will need few restraining statutes.

If it is brutish to turn so-called legitimate business into grand larceny, what shall be said of those forms of money-making that deprave both parties to the transaction? The liquor traffic furnished the best illustration of the power of the dollar to blind the eyes of greedy men to the crime and misery produced by drink. The beneficiaries of this wicked business formerly included high church officials—and does yet in some countries—who swelled their incomes with the dividends collected from vice; they included also highly respected brewers and distillers as well as saloon-keepers of all degrees. The fact that the liquor traffic manufactured criminals, ruined men and women, produced poverty, disrupted families, lowered the standard of education, lessened attendance upon worship and even afflicted little children before their birth, was not sufficient to deter people from engaging in it—even some calling themselves Christians. The handling of intoxicating drinks continued openly until these centers of pollution were closed by an emphatic expression of the nation's conscience.