public opinion

71:2.7Pub­lic opin­ion, com­mon opin­ion, has al­ways de­layed so­ci­ety; nev­er­the­less, it is valu­able, for, while re­tard­ing so­cial evo­lu­tion, it does pre­serve civ­i­liza­tion. Ed­u­ca­tion of pub­lic opin­ion is the only safe and true method of ac­cel­er­at­ing civ­i­liza­tion; force is only a tem­po­rary ex­pe­di­ent, and cul­tural growth will in­creas­ingly ac­cel­er­ate as bul­lets give way to bal­lots. Pub­lic opin­ion, the mores, is the ba­sic and el­e­men­tal en­ergy in so­cial evo­lu­tion and state de­vel­op­ment, but to be of state value it must be non­vi­o­lent in ex­pres­sion.

88:3.4The in­signia of priestly and kingly of­fice were even­tu­ally re­garded as fe­tishes, and the fe­tish of the state su­preme has passed through many stages of de­vel­op­ment, from clans to tribes, from su­zer­ainty to sov­er­eignty, from totems to flags. Fe­tish kings have ruled by “di­vine right,” and many other forms of gov­ern­ment have ob­tained. Men have also made a fe­tish of democ­racy, the ex­al­ta­tion and ado­ra­tion of the com­mon man’s ideas when col­lec­tively called “pub­lic opin­ion.” One man’s opin­ion, when taken by it­self, is not re­garded as worth much, but when many men are col­lec­tively func­tion­ing as a democ­racy, this same mediocre judg­ment is held to be the ar­biter of jus­tice and the stan­dard of righ­teous­ness.

152:6.2While Je­sus and the twelve were rest­ing at Gen­nesaret, the mul­ti­tudes dis­persed, some go­ing to their homes, oth­ers go­ing on up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. In less than one month’s time the en­thu­si­as­tic and open fol­low­ers of Je­sus, who num­bered more than fifty thou­sand in Gal­i­lee alone, shrank to less than five hun­dred. Je­sus de­sired to give his apos­tles such an ex­pe­ri­ence with the fick­le­ness of pop­u­lar ac­claim that they would not be tempted to rely on such man­i­fes­ta­tions of tran­sient re­li­gious hys­te­ria af­ter he should leave them alone in the work of the king­dom, but he was only par­tially suc­cess­ful in this ef­fort.

174:0.2This morn­ing he greeted each of the twelve with a per­sonal salu­ta­tion. To An­drew he said: “Be not dis­mayed by the events just ahead. Keep a firm hold on your breth­ren and see that they do not find you down­cast.” To Pe­ter he said: “Put not your trust in the arm of flesh nor in weapons of steel. Es­tab­lish your­self on the spir­i­tual foun­da­tions of the eter­nal rocks.” To James he said: “Fal­ter not be­cause of out­ward ap­pear­ances. Re­main firm in your faith, and you shall soon know of the re­al­ity of that which you be­lieve.” To John he said: “Be gen­tle; love even your en­e­mies; be tol­er­ant. And re­mem­ber that I have trusted you with many things.” To Na­than­iel he said: “Judge not by ap­pear­ances; re­main firm in your faith when all ap­pears to van­ish; be true to your com­mis­sion as an am­bas­sador of the king­dom.” To Philip he said: “Be un­moved by the events now im­pend­ing. Re­main un­shaken, even when you can­not see the way. Be loyal to your oath of con­se­cra­tion.” To Mat­thew he said: “For­get not the mercy that re­ceived you into the king­dom. Let no man cheat you of your eter­nal re­ward. As you have with­stood the in­cli­na­tions of the mor­tal na­ture, be will­ing to be stead­fast.” To Thomas he said: “No mat­ter how dif­fi­cult it may be, just now you must walk by faith and not by sight. Doubt not that I am able to fin­ish the work I have be­gun, and that I shall even­tu­ally see all of my faith­ful am­bas­sadors in the king­dom be­yond.” To the Al­pheus twins he said: “Do not al­low the things which you can­not un­der­stand to crush you. Be true to the af­fec­tions of your hearts and put not your trust in ei­ther great men or the chang­ing at­ti­tude of the peo­ple. Stand by your breth­ren.” And to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes he said: “Si­mon, you may be crushed by dis­ap­point­ment, but your spirit shall rise above all that may come upon you. What you have failed to learn from me, my spirit will teach you. Seek the true re­al­i­ties of the spirit and cease to be at­tracted by un­real and ma­te­rial shad­ows.” And to Ju­das Is­car­iot he said: “Ju­das, I have loved you and have prayed that you would love your breth­ren. Be not weary in well do­ing; and I would warn you to be­ware the slip­pery paths of flat­tery and the poi­son darts of ridicule.”

177:5.2This was the oc­ca­sion of Je­sus’ warn­ing his fol­low­ers to be­ware of the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude. He re­counted their ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee when time and again great throngs of peo­ple en­thu­si­as­ti­cally fol­lowed them around and then just as ar­dently turned against them and re­turned to their for­mer ways of be­liev­ing and liv­ing. And then he said: “And so you must not al­low your­selves to be de­ceived by the great crowds who heard us in the tem­ple, and who seemed to be­lieve our teach­ings. These mul­ti­tudes lis­ten to the truth and be­lieve it su­per­fi­cially with their minds, but few of them per­mit the word of truth to strike down into the heart with liv­ing roots. Those who know the gospel only in the mind, and who have not ex­pe­ri­enced it in the heart, can­not be de­pended upon for sup­port when real trou­ble comes. When the rulers of the Jews reach an agree­ment to de­stroy the Son of Man, and when they strike with one ac­cord, you will see the mul­ti­tude ei­ther flee in dis­may or else stand by in silent amaze­ment while these mad­dened and blinded rulers lead the teach­ers of the gospel truth to their death. And then, when ad­ver­sity and per­se­cu­tion de­scend upon you, still oth­ers who you think love the truth will be scat­tered, and some will re­nounce the gospel and desert you. Some who have been very close to us have al­ready made up their minds to desert. You have rested to­day in prepa­ra­tion for those times which are now upon us. Watch, there­fore, and pray that on the mor­row you may be strength­ened for the days that are just ahead.”

71:2.8The mea­sure of the ad­vance of so­ci­ety is di­rectly de­ter­mined by the de­gree to which pub­lic opin­ion can con­trol per­sonal be­hav­ior and state reg­u­la­tion through non­vi­o­lent ex­pres­sion. The re­ally civ­i­lized gov­ern­ment had ar­rived when pub­lic opin­ion was clothed with the pow­ers of per­sonal fran­chise. Pop­u­lar elec­tions may not al­ways de­cide things rightly, but they rep­re­sent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evo­lu­tion does not at once pro­duce su­perla­tive per­fec­tion but rather com­par­a­tive and ad­vanc­ing prac­ti­cal ad­just­ment.

141:7.12The apos­tles were be­gin­ning to rec­og­nize the un­af­fected friend­li­ness of Je­sus. Though the Mas­ter was easy of ap­proach, he al­ways lived in­de­pen­dent of, and above, all hu­man be­ings. Not for one mo­ment was he ever dom­i­nated by any purely mor­tal in­flu­ence or sub­ject to frail hu­man judg­ment. He paid no at­ten­tion to pub­lic opin­ion, and he was un­in­flu­enced by praise. He sel­dom paused to cor­rect mis­un­der­stand­ings or to re­sent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He never asked any man for ad­vice; he never made re­quests for prayers.

161:2.87. Re­cently the Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to as­sert his super­hu­man­ity. From the day of our or­di­na­tion as apos­tles right on down to re­cent times, he has never de­nied that he came from the Fa­ther above. He speaks with the au­thor­ity of a di­vine teacher. The Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to re­fute the re­li­gious teach­ings of to­day and to de­clare the new gospel with pos­i­tive au­thor­ity. He is as­sertive, pos­i­tive, and au­thor­i­ta­tive. Even John the Bap­tist, when he heard Je­sus speak, de­clared that he was the Son of God. He seems to be so suf­fi­cient within him­self. He craves not the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude; he is in­dif­fer­ent to the opin­ions of men. He is brave and yet so free from pride.

70:11.6Law is a cod­i­fied rec­ord of long hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, pub­lic opin­ion crys­tal­lized and le­gal­ized. The mores were the raw ma­te­rial of ac­cu­mu­lated ex­pe­ri­ence out of which later rul­ing minds for­mu­lated the writ­ten laws. The an­cient judge had no laws. When he handed down a de­ci­sion, he sim­ply said, “It is the cus­tom.”

70:12.3The king was the ex­ecu­tor of the mores, the orig­i­nal or un­writ­ten law. Later he en­forced the leg­isla­tive en­act­ments, the crys­tal­liza­tion of pub­lic opin­ion. A pop­u­lar as­sem­bly as an ex­pres­sion of pub­lic opin­ion, though slow in ap­pear­ing, marked a great so­cial ad­vance.