Part 11

The case is similar with Napoleon. Alexander at his death was 32 years old. Napoleon was 52. He also appears at a critical moment, is active precisely as long as he can serve what we now see to have been the cause of progress, and is then removed. The great feature of the period is the growth of the sentiment of nationality. This is the sense of membership in a people united by common characteristics and a common purpose; it is therefore always democratic in spirit though it need not at all necessarily be democratic in machinery. The old European constitutions, which had been valuable enough in their time, were becoming a barrier to its further development; the flood of progress burst the dam in France, and soon after there appears the supreme genius, not himself a Frenchman, who was to carry the spirit of which France had just become consciously possessed through the entire length and breadth of Europe. Napoleon, like Alexander, was conscious of his mission; he thought of himself as being the organ of the Revolution; he is reported to have said that moral principles did not apply to him; they applied only to persons, and he was a force. But there can be no doubt that he was as much concerned with establishing a vast French Empire as he was with merely carrying the principles of the French Revolution into the other nations. He is allowed success so long as the work of destruction is still needed; his activities first as general and then as ruler began the unification alike of Italy and Germany; but as soon as the spiritual work which he was to do is fully accomplished, the political construction, which was as a great scaffolding surrounding it, falls to pieces, and he is driven into exile to end his days in solitude and impotence. Perhaps some day people will look back upon the horror that now lies upon the world and not only believe that God was active in it, but see the blessings which He was conferring by its means.

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_*By the Rev. WILLIAM TEMPLE.*_

THE FAITH AND MODERN THOUGHT. SIX LECTURES. With an Introduction by Professor Michael Sadler.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD. A COURSE OF FOUR LECTURES.

THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY. A COURSE OF LECTURES.

STUDIES IN THE SPIRIT AND TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. BEING UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL SERMONS.

REPTON SCHOOL SERMONS. STUDIES IN THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION.

FOUNDATIONS. A STATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF IN TERMS OF MODERN THOUGHT. By Seven Oxford Men: B. H. STREETER, R. BROOK, W. H. MOBERLY, R. G. PARSONS, A. E. J. RAWLINSON, N. S. TALBOT, W. TEMPLE.

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.