Political subordination, Mr. Spencer predicts, will give place to
loyalty to the dictates of conscience. Suppose his induction is
realized--will loyalty and its concomitant instinct of reverence
disappear forever? We transfer our allegiance from one master to
another, without being unfaithful to either; from being subjects of a
ruler that wields the temporal sceptre we become servants of the monarch
who sits enthroned in the penetralia of our heart. A few years ago a
very stupid controversy, started by the misguided disciples of Spencer,
made havoc among the reading class of Japan. In their zeal to uphold the
claim of the throne to undivided loyalty, they charged Christians with
treasonable propensities in that they avow fidelity to their Lord and
Master. They arrayed forth sophistical arguments without the wit of
Sophists, and scholastic tortuosities minus the niceties of the
Schoolmen. Little did they know that we can, in a sense, "serve two
masters without holding to the one or despising the other," "rendering
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that
are God's." Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to
concede one iota of loyalty to his _daemon_, obey with equal fidelity
and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His
conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the
day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the
dictates of their conscience!

Bushido did not require us to make our conscience the slave of any lord
or king. Thomas Mowbray was a veritable spokesman for us when he said:

"Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame.
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,