When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus
the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it
was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long.
Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the
centurions saw that it was so. But everywhere there was something else,
too. There was oppression -- for those who were not the friends of
Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the
fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry
treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was
the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to
quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to
serve Caesar?
There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard
strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men
whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the
familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for
human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded
world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee
saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God
the things that are God's.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new
Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his
God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom
of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were
afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe
salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man
free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out
the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest
darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not
whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of
Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets,
might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto
them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and
walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands
and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what
they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to
new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men
would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once
more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the
Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the
years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and
be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has
been published annually in the Wall Street Journal since.
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