n: "Ye know that the rulers of the
nations lord it over them and their great men hold down the rest by
force." In its earlier and cruder forms, the State is a contrivance of a
victorious group to hold down the conquered, and exploit them. If anyone
has not yet read political history as an account of systematic
exploitation of nation by nation and class by class, he has some education
still coming to him.

Even where political leadership has not been plainly predatory but rested
on real service, humanity has often had a heavy price to pay for it.
Successful military leaders were able to perpetuate a royal dynasty and
perhaps fasten a race of hereditary incapables on a nation, to be
maintained in royal splendor. The feudal nobility performed useful work in
the earlier, turbulent times, but it continued to take rent and tribute
for centuries after its useful functions had lapsed. Modern business men
who have organized public service corporations have often served the
nation well, but they now own the highways and fundamental outfit of the
nation, and if their descendants or assignees collect tribute, perhaps on
inflated capitalization, for generations to come, it looks like rather
costly service. The obligations of power have a curious way of getting
lost in the shuffle of time, but titles, rank, legal privileges, rent, and
interest are carefully groomed. If one man loses them, some other man
nurses them, and the people always pay.

The Kingdom of God sets a fraternal and righteous social order against the
predatory and unrighteous order which humanity has inherited from the
past. The new order must have a new dynasty of leaders, for every social
order has its own kind of aristocracy. Jesus does not propose to abolish
leadership, but he proposes a new basis for greatness which is sharply
opposed to the old: "Whoever has ambition to be a great man among you, let
him be your servant; and whoever is ambitious to rank first among you, let
him be your bondservant. Just as the Son of Man did not come to have
others serve him, but to render service and to give his life as a ransom
for many." Ability and ambition are still to lead, but they are to be
yoked to the service of all. Not he who kills and subjugates, but he who
makes life safe and happy, shall have the statue set up in his honor. Not
the great warrior and killer, but the great healer and the man who
multiplies the blades of grass and the ears of wheat and the size of
p