Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1915 — FOR ALL THE EARTH [ARTICLE]

FOR ALL THE EARTH

Christianity and Patriotism Are One and the Same, According to the Bible. World events have brought before us at time most forcibly the questions of nationality and patriotism, and I have seen the statement made repeatedly that Christianity is inimical to both. Christianity, we are told, is not national, but cosmopolitan. Its tendency is to obliterate boundaries and distinctions between race and race. This cosmopolitanism of Christianity, people say, is absolutely fatal to patriotism. That was, for Instance, one of the criticisms which the Japanese passed upon Christianity. Patriotism amongst the Japanese has become exalted almost Into a religion. Devotion to their land and to their emperor seems to be their ruling passion, and one of their objections to Christianity Is Its universalism, which, th«r say. Is fatal to patriotism, and that it would inevitably sap the devotion to their country, which has been the Jap’s boast and prldA Let us look at this criticism for a moment and see how much truth there is In it If it could be shown that Christianity is antipatriotic it would lack a certain element which appeals to the American just as surely as it does to the Jap; for love for one’s land Is not a passion which appeals only to the dwellers in that eastern empire, but a passion which should burn with an undying flame in the heart of every true American. That Christianity is cosmopolitan in its spirit cannot be disputed. It is the gospel for the world. It addresses Itself to man as man, and not to man as a member of any particular nation. Other religions are for the most part tribal or national. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of all the earth, and the father of all who dwell upon It. This Gospel of ours Ignores all national distinctions. Men come to the cross from the Bast and from the West, from the North and from the South; It is just as much for the black man as for the white. It reveals a love that lavishes itself upon all without respect to differences of race or color or tongue. It preaches a universal fatherhood, and consequently a universal brotherhood of men. The Gospel not only ignores natural and racial differences, but It looks forward to a time when these racial and national differences shall cease to sunder and divide men as they do today. I do not say that the Gospel looks forward to a time when differences shall cease to exist. Difference In itself Is not an evil, for I believe that each nationality has its important contribution to make the civilization of mankind as a whole. But these differences shall cease to be sources of Jealousy and strife. The prophets of old were given the vision of a united world. Enmities were to be abolished. The lion Is to lie down with the lamb, the calf, the young lion and the fatling together. Racial jealousies are to disappear; war and bloodshed are to cease; men are to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and to learn war no more. There is no doubt about it that the Gospel is cosmopolitan In its message and in its spirit. To Human Brotherhood. Now, I believe that every earnest man who thinks seriously is a cosmopolitan in the Gospel sense of the word. No matter what causes may be assigned for the great war which is ravaging the world today, it is evident to every thinking man that the ultimate cause of the war is national' jealousies and rivalries. That is what lays the great burden of armament upon the nations today; the burden which has been growing greater and heavier every year. In spite of 1,900 years of Christianity the spirit of war still rages among mankind, and God has permitted this great war to scourge us as the inevitable outcome of the jealousy and hatred and rivalries among the nations. Perhaps we can now see that only in the brotherhood of nations can there be happiness and well-being. That does not mean the death of patriotism, it means no surrender of the love which we have for our own land. Tennyson was a strong and vehement patriot, and yet he thought of the golden age as a time when

The war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled. In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. It is an error of judgment to think that this sort of cosmopolitanism—the Wnfl which the Gospel teaches—ls destructive of patriotism. The error is due to a false conception of what patriotism is. What is patriotism? My dictionary defines it as “love of country; devotion to the welfare of one’s country; the passion which inspires one to serve one’s country." I am content with the definition. Patriotism, you will notice, is a positive thing. It is love of one’s country. It is not hatred of other countries —it is love of your own. You can love your own family and your own home without hating your neighbor. But the mistake which so many people make is of interpreting patriotism as if it meant hatred and jealousy of other nations instead of love and devotion to their own. Bnrely nothing has shown more plainly the source of the present war than the Chants of Hate which it has brought forth.—Rev* Btephqp Paulson. '