CHRIST’S LAW FOR A NATION AND ITS NEIGHBOURS
‘The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?’
Nations are in many respects like individuals. They are made up of individuals, and the character of the nation is the general product of the character of the individuals. ‘Nationality,’ said Kossuth, ‘is the aggregate individuality of the greatest men of the nation.’ Perhaps it would be nearer the truth if we put most influential instead of greatest. But, at any rate, the character of the individual counts for the character of the nation; some more, some less. And there is another point that makes nations like single human beings. Each has a past history which influences the present. ‘A nation’s character,’ it has been said, ‘is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation’s inheritance; they awe foreign powers, and arouse and animate our own people.’ I am afraid the bad acts of a nation in the past help to make up its identity as a whole as much as the good; but, at any rate, you see that a nation has a continuous character, like an individual, for which it is responsible. A nation can be hated or loved, feared or despised, esteemed or distrusted. It has been said, indeed, that ‘all nations, great and small, having having any distinctive character of their own, may be said to hate one another, not with a deadly but a lively hatred.’ But that is not always necessarily true. Nations have at different times entered into warm and friendly alliance with each other, and been on terms of real cordiality and friendship.
Our own people, the British nation, has lately waked up to the same unflattering discovery that I was imagining in your case or in mine. We have found ourselves quite distinctly unpopular. Not necessarily more so than other nations, but still in a way that was both unflattering and unpleasant. We thought we were going on admirably; that all our conduct and motives were quite beyond criticism; that we were a most praiseworthy, benevolent, and honourable nation; that we were on the best terms with all other nations, or ought to be, and that if we were not it was their fault and not ours. The pictures of John Bull and Britannia in the comic journals express the flattering unction that we lay to our souls: the one eminently virtuous, respectable, and amiable, the ideal of an admirable paterfamilias; the other noble, generous, courageous, high-souled, almost a demi-goddess. And then suddenly we are brought face to face with unmistakable evidences of downright dislike. Lest my own words should be misunderstood, I will quote a short paragraph from a thoughtful and unexcited review: ‘We look around and see many foes, while for real friends we look in vain. This, then, is the fate of Great Britain in the last years of the nineteenth century. She has had a glorious history, the parallel to which no other nation of modern times can offer. She has carried her flag to all the quarters of the world, and holds an Empire which in its vastness and its magnificence surpasses anything known to history. She is conscious of no wilful wrong-doing towards her neighbours. She believes, indeed, that in extending the wide limits of her rule she has at the same time extended the area of civilisation. She knows that wherever her flag waves there freedom is to be found, and along with freedom an asylum which is open to men of every tribe and tongue. Alone among the Great Powers of the earth she has kept an open door for the alien as well as for men of her own blood, and has decreed that no accident of birth shall debar any man who seeks shelter under her sway from the full privileges of citizenship. Yet as the end of it all she sees herself pursued by ill-will and jealousy, and confronted at every point by eager and envious rivals. This is the phenomenon which presents itself to us to-day, and which we are bound to consider as dispassionately as may be, if we are to profit by the lessons which it ought to teach us.’
I would remind my readers of the four ways of meeting personal unfriendliness: defiance, or the way of the fool; indifference, or the way of the proud; cringing, or the way of the mean; self-scrutiny and amendment, or the way of the wise. I ask you, with the help of God’s grace, to try with me at this time to see whether we can make anything of the latter plan. Of course, the fault is not all on our side; other countries have their faults as well as ourselves; but we cannot expect them to amend whatever share they have had in the present want of cordiality unless we begin to amend our own share amongst ourselves at home.
My brothers, there cannot be the least doubt that whatever may be our national virtues—and I trust that they are many—there are four moral dangers which a busy, mercantile, prosaic people like ours is sure to encounter in its dealings with other countries; and these are Self-conceit, Selfish Ambition, Insincerity, and Discourtesy.
I. Self-conceit.—There is certainly much to make the British race self-satisfied. The British Empire has grown to be seventy times as large as the British Islands. This fact we ought to regard with thankfulness, but we may be tempted to survey it with self-satisfaction. Self-conceit is as morally poisonous to a nation as it is to an individual.
II. The next moral risk we run is that of selfish ambition.—There is the risk that, having become so vast and world-wide an Empire, we may be afflicted with the lust of becoming even vaster and greater.
III. Thirdly, let me speak very briefly of the risk of insincerity.—Just as a man of honour will fulfil his word without any hesitation whatsoever, even if it is to be at the cost of personal loss or sacrifice, so will it be with an honourable nation. If it has once pledged its credit, no consideration of expediency will prevail on it to recede. From our system of government we have necessarily a succession of parties in office with different views. It is of the most momentous importance that they should observe each other’s promises and fulfil each other’s pledges.
IV. Lastly, there is the risk of discourtesy.—We ought always to speak of a foreign nation with the same delicacy and self-restraint which we should use in regard to a friend, whether we always approved of his conduct or not. Let us reserve our caricatures for our own people who understand them; they do not help the comity of our intercourse with other countries.
Archdeacon Sinclair.