on of a freedman--one who
but a short time before would have been legally disqualified for the
post even of a private soldier in the Roman army; Louis XI making his
barber his privy councillor: all these had in their different ways a
firm hold of the scientific fact of human equality, expressed by
Barbara in the Christian formula that all men are children of one
father. A man who believes that men are naturally divided into upper
and lower and middle classes morally is making exactly the same mistake
as the man who believes that they are naturally divided in the same way
socially. And just as our persistent attempts to found political
institutions on a basis of social inequality have always produced long
periods of destructive friction relieved from time to time by violent
explosions of revolution; so the attempt--will Americans please
note--to found moral institutions on a basis of moral inequality can
lead to nothing but unnatural Reigns of the Saints relieved by
licentious Restorations; to Americans who have made divorce a public
institution turning the face of Europe into one huge sardonic smile by
refusing to stay in the same hotel with a Russian man of genius who has
changed wives without the sanction of South Dakota; to grotesque
hypocrisy, cruel persecution, and final utter confusion of conventions
and compliances with benevolence and respectability. It is quite
useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are
born good. Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of
itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his
moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every
man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment, which any fool can
trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or
as a rascal. This is the lesson Democracy has to learn before it can
become anything but the most oppressive of all the priesthoods.

Let us now return to Bill Walker and his case of conscience against the
Salvation Army. Major Barbara, not being a modern Tetzel, or the
treasurer of a hospital, refuses to sell Bill absolution for a
sovereign. Unfortunately, what the Army can afford to refuse in the
case of Bill Walker, it cannot refuse in the case of Bodger. Bodger is
master of the situation because he holds the purse strings. "Strive as
you will," says Bodger, in effect: "me you cannot do without. You
cannot save Bill Walker without