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dignity of Roman citizenship have, through all the weary centuries been preserved for our instruction. One of these we select as fitting introduction to a "Word of Warning," rendered necessary by certain movements now menacing civil and religious liberty.

Paul, a Jew, belonging by blood to the most despised of the Roman subjected peoples is in danger from a mob of his own nation. Charged with grave crimes, he is about to be scourged according to customary usage toward barbarians, that he may be compelled if possible to admit his guilt, and afterwards, receive a more cruel punishment.

In this dire extremity he has but to

The

ask the captain in charge, "Is it lawful to scourge a man uncondemned who is a Roman?" The soldier pauses; holding the cruel thong in his hand he dares not inflict one blow upon that defenseless man. The captain astonished, exclaims: "Art thou then a Roman?" "Yea," answered Paul. "With a great price purchased I this freedom;" continues the soldier. Perhaps, indeed, a price greater than could be valued in money. captain may have thought of the allegiance he had been forced to swear Rome in order to obtain that prized citizenship. He may perhaps have thought of the cruel fact that if his masters bade him, he must fight his own people, his own brethren, in defense of the Roman eagles. Thinking of it all, he said, "With a great price purchased I this freedom." Paul made answer, probably owing to some service rendered to the Roman state by his family, "I am Roman born; I was born free." And then, having so spoken, he could claim as a citizen the defense of Roman law, the

protection of the Roman army, the power of the Cæsars, before one blow should smite him, a man uncondemned.

This is the theory of citizenship the world over among civilized nations. It is its value; it is its dignity. The humblest man beneath the flag may invoke, on his behalf, the might of the entire nation. His citizenship is his defence. His gracious birthright. His noblest possession. This is the glorious inheritance, in theory at least, of American citizens. It was won for us at great cost. No one can portray the agonies, no one can measure the birthpains by which American liberty came into being. It has come to most of us as a gracious inheritance. It has cost us nothing; it came by accident of birth; and we have each been able to say proudly, "I am American born; I was born free."

And if there is a man here who was born by the banks of the Rhine, or the Shannon, or the Thames, he cannot say that with a great price he purchased this

freedom. If he is an American citizen he cannot say, "At great price I have obtained this citizenship."

We have granted it freely, perhaps too freely. American citizenship may have become cheap because it has cost so little. To all of us it has come almost without price, almost without cost, and do we value it as we ought?

Heinrich Heine once said, "The plant of liberty is one of dungeon growth, and men never know the blessings of freedom except in captivity." Is it not true that we of this age fail to value aright our blessings in liberty and our privileges as Americans?

Let us note for a moment, though it is familiar, the theory under which we have been living for more than a hundred years. This government was founded -and it ought to be repeated-upon the theory that a government can rest only upon the lawful consent of the governed-not from above downward, but from below upward, as a people, we have built among us the fabric of Ameri

can institutions. And this, upon the theory that government is a compact, a secular institution. Government may not, and must not, interfere with a man's purely private convictions. We have held to the theory, and held to it at least in theory, that it is a man's right to pray to whatever God he may choose, or to no God, to worship or not to worship, and on that ground solely his right to all the privileges of American citizenship shall never be questioned. This is our creed, and we have carried it out in practice fairly well, considering the history of other nations. I challenge any man to show that in a hundred or more years of American life this theory has ever wrought us ill. Here on American soil numerous churches have been planted; they have grown; they have made their converts by honest measures of instruction and appeal; they have lived together in peace. We have permitted societies contrary to the general opinion to grow and thrive. We have permitted socialistic and communistic