Our fathers' God, -to Thee, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM 1 ARCHBISHOP JOHN IRELAND (1838- > Be this my theme in praise of America: She is, as none other, the land of human dignity and human liberty. When the fathers of the Republic declared: “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," a principle was enunciated which, in its truth, was as old as the race, but in practical realization was almost unknown. Slowly and laboriously, amid suffering and revolution, humanity had been reaching out towards a reign of the rights of man. Paganism utterly denied such rights. It allowed nothing to man as man; man was what wealth, or place, or power made him. Even the wise Aristotle taught that nature intended some men to be slaves and chattels. The sweet religion of Christ proclaimed aloud the doctrine of the common fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Eighteen hundred years, 1 From "The Church and Modern Society. Lectures and Addresses by John Ireland." Copyright, 1896, by D. H. McBride & Co., Chicago and New York. Used by permission of the author. however, went by, and the civilized world had not yet put its civil and political institutions in accord with its spiritual faith. During all that time the Christian Church was leavening human society, and patiently awaiting the promised fermentation. This came at last, and it came in America. It came in a first manifestation through the Declaration of Independence; it came in a second and final manifestation through President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation. In America all men are civilly and politically equal; all have the same rights; all wield the same arm of defense and of conquest -the suffrage; and the sole condition of rights and of power is simple manhood. Liberty is exemption from all restraint, save that of the laws of justice and order, exemption from submission to other men, except so far as they represent and enforce those laws. The divine gift of liberty is God's recognition of man's greatness and man's dignity. In liberty lie the sweetness of life and the power of growth. The loss of liberty is the loss of light and sunshine, the loss of life's best portion. Under the spell of heavenly memories, humanity never had ceased to dream of liberty and to aspire to its possession. Now and then, here and there, liberty had for a moment caressed humanity's brow. But not until the Republic of the West was born, not until the star-spangled banner rose towards the skies, was liberty caught up in humanity's embrace and embodied in a great and abiding nation. In America the government takes from the liberty of the citizen only so much as is necessary for the weal of the nation. In America there are no masters who govern in their own right, for their own interest, or at their own will. We have over us no Bourbon saying: “L'état, c'est moi"; 1 no Hohenzollern,2 proclaiming that in his acts as sovereign he is responsible only to his conscience and to God. Ours is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our government is our own organized will. In America rights begin with and go upward from the people. In other countries, even in those which are apparently the most free, rights begin with, and come downward from, the state; the rights of citizens, the rights of the people, are concessions which have been wrested from the governing powers. In America, whenever the government does not prove its grant, the liberty of the individual citizen remains intact.. The God-given mission of the Republic of America is not confined to its own people — it extends to all the peoples of the earth, to whom it is the symbol of human rights and of human liberty, and towards whom its flag flutters hopes of future happiness. Is there not for Americans meaning to the word "country"? Is there not for Americans reason to live for country, and, if need be, to die for country? . . . In every country, patriotism is a duty in America, it is a duty thrice sacred. . . . The duty of patriotism is the duty of justice and of gratitude. The country fosters and protects our dearest interests; it protects our hearths and altars. Without it there is no safety for life and property, no opportunity for development and progress. We are wise of our country's wisdom, rich of its opulence, strong of its fortitude, resplendent of its glory. The prisoner Paul rose at once into proud distinction and commanded the respect of Roman soldiers and 1 "The State, that is I." 2 The family name of the kings of Prussia. Palestinian Jews when, to the question of the tribune at Jerusalem: "Art thou a Roman?"... he replied, "I am." The title of honor, among the peoples of antiquity, was, "Civis Romanus a Roman citizen." More significant today, throughout the world, is the title: "Civis Americanus — an American citizen." -- THE GLORY OF PATRIOTISM 1 CARDINAL MERCIER Across the smoke of conflagration, across the steam of blood, have you not glimpses, do you not perceive signs, of His love for us? Is there a patriot among us who does not know that Belgium has grown great? Nay, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page of our national history? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? When in her throes she brings forth heroes, our Mother Country gives her own energy to the blood of those sons of hers. Let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in patriotism. There were Belgians, and many such, who wasted their time and their talents in futile quarrels of class with class, of race with race, of passion with personal passion. Yet when, on the second of August, a mighty foreign 1 Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium, stands out as one of the most heroic and patriotic figures in the world, by virtue of what he has said and done for the people of his country during the period of their oppression by a foreign military power. From "Pastoral Letter of His Eminence Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Primate of Belgium. Christmas, 1914." Published by Burns & Oates, Ltd., London. power, confident in its own strength and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, then did all Belgians, without difference of party, or of condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close-ranged about their own king, and their own government, and cry to the invader, "Thou shalt not go through!" At once, instantly, we were conscious of our own patriotism. For down within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal kinships, than party feeling, and this is the need and the will to devote ourselves to that more general interest which Rome termed the public thing, Res publica. And this profound will within us is Patriotism. Family interests, class interests, party interests, and the material good of the individual take their place, in the scale of values, below the ideal of Patriotism, for that ideal is Right, which is absolute. Furthermore, that ideal is the public recognition of Right in national matters, and of national Honor. Now there is no Absolute except God. God alone, by His sanctity and His sovereignty, dominates all human interests and human wills. affirm the absolute necessity of the subordination of all things to Right, to Justice, and to Truth, is implicitly to affirm God. And to When, therefore, humble soldiers whose heroism we praise answer us with characteristic simplicity, "We only did our duty," or, "We were bound in honor," they express the religious character of their Patriotism. Which of us does not feel that Patriotism is a sacred thing, and that a violation of national dignity is in a manner a profanation and a sacrilege? |