WSJ: In Hoc Anno Domini

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

The Wall Street Journal

In Hoc Anno Domini
December 24, 2005; Page A8

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression -- for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113537710453230859.html (subscription)

I think that we can substitute several words there - Bush for Tiberius - and it will still be relevant (not that the WSJ would see this, though).