America’s ninth president, William Henry Harrison, delivered a two-hour inaugural speech in January 1841 that contained great wisdom. He said, “Republics can commit no greater error than to continue any feature in their government which may increase the love of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the management of their affairs. When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. The danger to all well-established free governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believe in the influence of designing men. Caesar became the master of the Roman people and the senate under the pretense of supporting the democratic claims of the former against the aristocracy of the latter. Limited as are the powers which have been granted to the American government, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.”
(Friday Church News Notes, February 19, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)