Chapter 13

Let us consider the party. A political party cannot be better than its ideal; in fact, it is good in proportion as its ideal is worthy, and its place in history is determined by its adherence to a high purpose. The party is made for its members, not the members for the party; and a party is useful, therefore, only as it is a means through which one may protect his rights, guard his interests and promote the public welfare. The best service that a man can render his party is to raise its ideals. He basely betrays his party's hopes and is recreant to his duty to his party associates who seeks to barter away a noble party purpose for temporary advantages or for the spoils of office. It would be a reflection upon the intelligence and patriotism of the people to assert, or even to assume, that lasting benefit could be secured for a party by the lowering of its standards. He serves his party most loyally who serves his country most faithfully; it is a fatal error to suppose that a party can be permanently benefited by a betrayal of the people's interests.

In every act of party life and party strife we weigh the soul. That the people have a right to have what they want in government is a fundamental principle in free government. Corruption in government comes from the attempt to substitute the will of a minority for the will of the majority. Every important measure that comes up for consideration involves justice and injustice--right and wrong--and is, therefore, a question of conscience. As justice is the basis of a nation's strength and gives it hope of perpetuity, and, as the seeds of decay are sown whenever injustice enters into government, patriotism as well as conscience leads us to analyze every public question, ascertain the moral principle involved and then cast our influence, whether it be great or small, on the side of justice.

The patriot must desire the triumph of that which _is_ right above the triumph of that which he may _think_ to be right if he is, in fact, mistaken; and so the partizan, if he be an intelligent partizan, must be prepared to rejoice in his party's defeat if by that defeat his country is the gainer. One can afford to be in a minority, but he cannot afford to be wrong; if he is in a minority and right, he will some day be in the majority.

The activities of politics center about the election of candidates to office, and the official, under our system, represents both the party to which he belongs and the whole body of his constituency. He has two temptations to withstand; first, the temptation to substitute his own judgment for the judgment of his constituents, and second, the temptation to put his pecuniary interests above the interests of those for whom he acts. According to the aristocratic idea, the representative thinks _for_ his constituents; according to the Democratic idea, the representative thinks _with_ his constituents. A representative has no right to defeat the wishes of those who elect him, if he knows their wishes.

But a representative is not liable to knowingly misrepresent his constituents unless he has pecuniary interests adverse to theirs. This is the temptation to be resisted--this is the sin to be avoided. The official who uses his position to secure a pecuniary advantage over the public is an embezzler of power--and an embezzler of power is as guilty of moral turpitude as the embezzler of money. There is no better motto for the public official than that given by Solomon: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold." There is no better rule for the public official to follow than this--to do nothing that he would not be willing to have printed in the newspaper next day.

One who exercises authority conferred upon him by the suffrages of his fellows ought to be fortified in his integrity by the consciousness of the fact that a betrayal of his trust is hurtful to the party which honours him and unjust to the people whom he serves, as well as injurious to himself. Nothing that he can gain, not even the whole world, can compensate him for the loss that he suffers in the surrender of a high ideal of public duty.

In conclusion, let me say that the nation, as well as the individual, and the party, must be measured by its purpose, its ideals and its service. "Let him who would be chiefest among you, be the servant of all," was intended for nations as well as for citizens. Our nation is the greatest in the world and the greatest of all time, because it is rendering a larger service than any other nation is rendering or has rendered. It is giving the world ideals in education, in social life, in government, and in religion. It is the teacher of nations; it is the world's torch-bearer. Here the people are more free than elsewhere to "try all things and hold fast that which is good"; "to know the truth" and to find freedom in that knowledge. No material considerations should blind us to our nation's mission, or turn us aside from the accomplishment of the great work which has been reserved for us. Our fields bring forth abundantly and the products of our farms furnish food for many in the Old World. Our mills and looms supply an increasing export, but these are not our greatest asset. Our most fertile soil is to be found in the minds and the hearts of our people; our most important manufacturing plants are not our factories, with their smoking chimneys, but our schools, our colleges and our churches, which take in a priceless raw material and turn out the most valuable finished product that the world has known.

We enjoy by inheritance, or by choice, the blessings of American citizenship; let us not be unmindful of the obligations which these blessings impose. Let us not become so occupied in the struggle for wealth or in the contest for honours as to repudiate the debt that we owe to those who have gone before us and to those who bear with us the responsibilities that rest upon the present generation. Society has claims upon us; our country makes demands upon our time, our thought and our purpose. We cannot shirk these duties without disgrace to ourselves and injury to those who come after us. If one is tempted to complain of the burdens borne by American citizens, let him compare them with the much larger burdens imposed by despots upon their subjects.

I challenge the doctrine, now being taught, that we must enter into a mad rivalry with the Old World in the building of battleships--the doctrine that the only way to preserve peace is to get ready for wars that ought never to come! It is a barbarous, brutal, un-Christian doctrine--the doctrine of the darkness, not the doctrine of the dawn.

Nation after nation, when at the zenith of its power, has proclaimed itself invincible because its army could shake the earth with its tread and its ships could fill the seas, but these nations are dead, and we must build upon a different foundation if we would avoid their fate.

Carlyle, in the closing chapters of his "French Revolution," says that thought is stronger than artillery parks and at last moulds the world like soft clay, and then he adds that back of thought is love. Carlyle is right. Love is the greatest power in the world. The nations that are dead boasted that people bowed before their flag; let us not be content until our flag represents sentiments so high and holy that the oppressed of every land will turn their faces toward that flag and thank God that it stands for self-government and for the rights of man.

The enlightened conscience of our nation should proclaim as the country's creed that "righteousness exalteth a nation" and that justice is a nation's surest defense. If there ever was a nation it is ours--if there ever was a time it is now--to put God's truth to a test. With an ocean rolling on either side and a mountain range along either coast that all the armies of the world could never climb we ought not to be afraid to trust in "the wisdom of doing right."

Our government, conceived in liberty and purchased with blood, can be preserved only by constant vigilance. May we guard it as our children's richest legacy, for what shall it profit our nation if it shall gain the whole world and lose "the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere"?

VII

THREE PRICELESS GIFTS

The Bible differs from all other books in that it never wears out. Other books are read and laid aside, but the Bible is a constant companion. No matter how often we read it or how familiar we become with it, some new truth is likely to spring out at us from its pages whenever we open it, or some old truth will impress us as it never did before. Every Christian can give illustrations of this. Permit me to refer briefly to four. My first religious address, "The Prince of Peace," was the outgrowth of a chance rereading of a passage in Isaiah. This I have referred to in my lecture entitled "His Government and Peace."

The argument presented in my lecture on the Bible, in which I defend the inspiration of the Book of Books, was the outgrowth of a chance rereading of Elijah's prayer test. I was preparing an address for the celebration of the Tercentenary of the King James' Translation when, on the train, I turned by chance to Elijah's challenge to the prophets of Baal. It suggested to me what I regard as an unanswerable argument, namely, a challenge to those who reject the Bible to put their theory to the test and produce a book, the equal of the Bible, or admit one of two alternatives, either that the Bible comes from a source higher than man or that man has so degenerated that less can be expected of him now than nineteen hundred years ago.

In preparing a Sunday-school lesson on Abraham's faith I was so impressed with the influence of faith on the life of the patriarch and, through him, on the world, that I prepared a college address on "Faith," a part of which I have reproduced in my lecture on "The Spoken Word."

It was a chance rereading of an extract from the account of the Ten Lepers which led me to prepare the lecture reproduced in this chapter. The subject to which I invite your attention is as important to-day as it was when the Master laid emphasis upon it. As He approached a certain village ten lepers met Him; they recognized Him and cried out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us." He healed them; when they found that they had been made whole, one of them turned back and, falling on his face at Jesus' feet, poured forth his heart in grateful thanks. Christ, noticing the absence of the others, inquired, "Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?" This simple question has come echoing down through nineteen centuries, the most stinging rebuke ever uttered against the sin of ingratitude. If the lepers had been afflicted with a disease easily cured, they might have said, "Any one could have healed us," but only Christ could restore them to health, and yet, when they had received of His cleansing power, they apparently felt no sense of obligation; at least, they expressed no gratitude.

Some one has described ingratitude as a meaner sin than revenge--the explanation being that revenge is repayment of evil with evil, while ingratitude is repayment of good with evil. If you visit revenge upon one, it is because he has injured you first and the law takes notice of provocation. Ingratitude is lack of appreciation of a favour shown; it is indifference to a kindness done.

Ingratitude is so common a sin that few have occupied the pulpit for a year without using the story of the Ten Lepers as the basis of a sermon; and one could speak upon this theme every Sunday in the year without being compelled to repeat himself, so infinite in number are the illustrations. Those who speak of ingratitude usually begin with the child. A child is born into the world the most helpless of all creatures; for years it could not live but for the affectionate and devoted care of parents, or of those who stand in the place of parents. If, when it grows up, it becomes indifferent; if its heart grows cold, and it becomes ungrateful, it arouses universal indignation. Poets and writers of prose have exhausted all the epithets in their effort to describe an ungrateful child. Shakespeare's words are probably those most quoted:

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child."

But it is not my purpose to speak of thankless children; I shall rather make application of the rebuke to the line of work in which I have been engaged. For some thirty years my time, by fate or fortune, has been devoted largely to the study and discussion of the problems of government, and I have had occasion to note the apathy and indifference of citizens. I have seen reforms delayed and the suffering of the people prolonged by lack of vigilance. Let us, therefore, consider together for a little while some of the priceless gifts that come to us because we live under the Stars and Stripes--gifts so valuable that they cannot be estimated in figures or described in language--gifts which are received and enjoyed by many without any sense of obligation, and without any resolve to repay the debt due to society.

These gifts are many, but we shall have time for only three. The first is education; it is a gift rather than an acquirement. It comes into our lives when we are too young to decide such questions for ourselves. I sometimes meet a man who calls himself "self-made," and I always want to cross-examine him. I would ask him when he began to make himself, and how he laid the foundations of his greatness. As a matter of fact, we inherit more than we ourselves can add. It means more to be born of a race with centuries of civilization back of it than anything that we ourselves can contribute. And, next to that which we inherit, comes that which enters our lives through the environment of youth. In this country the child is so surrounded by opportunities, that it enters school as early as the law will permit. It does not _go_ to school, it is _sent_ to school, and we are so anxious that it shall lose no time that, if there is ever a period in the child's life when the mother is uncertain as to its exact age, this is the time. I heard of a little boy, who, when asked how old he was, replied, "I am five on the train, seven in school and six at home." The child is pushed through grade after grade, and, according to the statistics, a little more than ninety per cent, of the children drop out of school before they are old enough to decide educational questions for themselves. They are scarcely more than fourteen.

Taking the country over, a little less than one in ten of the children who enter our graded school ever enter high school, and not quite one in fifty enter college or university. As many who enter college do not complete the course, I am not far from the truth when I say that only about one young man in one hundred continues his education until he reaches the age--twenty-one--when the law assumes that his reason is mature. I am emphasizing these statistics in order to show that we are indebted to others more than to ourselves for our education. That which we do would not be done but for what others have already done. Even those who secure an education in spite of difficulties have received from some one the idea that makes them appreciate the value of an education.

When we are born we find an educational system here; we do not devise it, it was established by a generation long since dead. When we are ready to attend school we find a schoolhouse already built; we do not build it, it was erected by the taxpayers, many of whom are dead. When we are ready for instruction we find teachers prepared by others, many of whom have passed to their reward.

How do we feel when we complete our education? Do we count the cost to others and think of the sacrifices they have made for our benefit? Do we estimate the strength that education has brought to us and feel that we should put that strength under heavier loads? We are raised by our study to an intellectual eminence from which we can secure a clearer view of the future; do we feel that we should be like watchmen upon the tower and warn those less fortunate of the dangers that they do not yet discern? We _should_, but do we? I venture to assert that more than nine out of ten of those who receive into their lives, and profit by, the gift of education are as ungrateful as the nine lepers of whom the Bible tells us--they receive, they enjoy, but they give no thanks.

But it is even worse than this; the Bible does not say that any one of the nine lepers used for the injury of his fellows the strength that Christ gave back to him. All that is said is that they were ungrateful; but how about those who go out from our colleges and universities? Are not many of these worse than ungrateful? I would not venture to use my own language here; I will quote what others have said.

Wendell Phillips was one of the learned men of Massachusetts and a great orator. In his address on the "Scholar in a Republic," he said that "The people make history while the scholars only write it." And then he added, "part truly and part as coloured by their prejudices."

Woodrow Wilson, while president of Princeton University, said:

"The great voice of America does not come from seats of learning. It comes in a murmur from the hills and woods, and the farms and factories and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume until it comes to us from the homes of common men. Do these murmurs echo in the corridors of our universities? I have not heard them."

President Roosevelt, while in the White House, presented an even stronger indictment against some of the scholars. In a speech delivered to law students at Harvard he declared that there was scarcely a great conspiracy against the public welfare that did not have Harvard brains behind it. He need not have gone to Harvard to utter this terrific indictment against college graduates; he might have gone to Yale, or Columbia, or Princeton, or to any other great university, or even to smaller colleges. It would not take long to correct the abuses of which the people complain but for the fact that back of every abuse are the hired brains of scholars who turn against society and use for society's harm the very strength that society has bestowed upon them.

Let me give you an illustration in point, and so recent that one will be sufficient: A few months ago the Supreme Court at Washington handed down a decision overturning every argument made against the Eighteenth Amendment and the enforcement law. Who represented the liquor traffic in that august tribunal? Not brewery workers, employees in distilleries, or bartenders; these could not speak for the liquor traffic in the Supreme Court. No! Lawyers must be employed, and they were easily found--big lawyers, scholars, who attempted to overthrow the bulwark that society has erected for the protection of the homes of the country.

Every reform has to be fought through the legislatures and the courts until it is finally settled by the highest court in our land, and there, vanquished wrong expires in the arms of learned lawyers who sell their souls to do evil--who attempt to rend society with the very power that our institutions of learning have conferred upon them. All of our reforms would be led by scholars, if all scholars appreciated as they should the gift of education. There are, of course, a multitude of noble illustrations of scholars consecrating their learning to the service of the people, but many scholars are indifferent to the injustice done to the masses and some actually obstruct needed reforms--and they do it for pay.

My second illustration is even more important, for it deals with the heart. I am interested in education; if I had my way every child in all the world would be educated. God forbid that I should draw a line through society and say that the children on one side shall be educated and the children on the other side condemned to the night of ignorance. I shall assume no such responsibility. I am anxious that my children and grandchildren shall be educated, and I do not desire for a child or grandchild of mine anything that I would not like to see every other child enjoy. Children come into the world without their own volition--they are here as a part of the Almighty's plan--and there is not a child born on God's footstool that has not as much right to all that life can give as your child or my child. Education increases one's capacity for service and thus enlarges the reward that one can rightfully draw from society; therefore, every one is entitled to the advantages of education.

There is no reason why every human being should not have _both_ a _good heart_ and a _trained mind_; but, if I were compelled to choose between the two, I would rather that one should have a good heart than a trained mind. A good heart can make a dull brain useful to society, but a bad heart cannot make a good use of any brain, however trained or brilliant.

When we deal with the heart we must deal with religion, for religion controls the heart; and, when we consider religion we find that the religious environment that surrounds our young people is as favourable as their intellectual environment. As in the case of education, lack of appreciation may be due in part to lack of opportunity to make comparison. If we visit Asia, where the philosophy of Confucius controls, or where they worship Buddha, or follow Mahomet, or observe the forms of the Hindu religion, we find that except where they have borrowed from Christian nations, they have made no progress in fifteen hundred years. Here, all have the advantage of Christian ideals, and yet, according to statistics, something more than half the adult males of the United States are not connected with any religious organization. Some scoff at religion, and a few are outspoken enemies of the Church. Can they be blind to the benefits conferred by our churches? Security of life and property is not entirely due to criminal laws, to a sheriff in each county, and to an occasional policeman. The conscience comes first; the law comes afterward.

Law is but the crystallization of conscience; moral sentiment must be created before it can express itself in the form of a statute. Every preacher and priest, therefore, whether his congregation be large or small, who quickens the conscience of those who hear him helps the community. Every church of every denomination, whether important or unimportant, that helps to raise the moral standards of the land benefits all who live under the flag, whether they acknowledge their obligations or not.

But lack of appreciation on the part of those outside the Church would not disturb us so much if all the church members lived up to their obligations. How much is it worth to one to be born again? Of what value is it to have had the heart touched by the Saviour and so changed that it loves the things it used to hate and hates the things it formerly loved? Of what value is it to have one's life so transformed that, instead of resembling a stagnant pool, it becomes like a living spring, giving forth constantly that which refreshes and invigorates? What is it worth to the Christian, and what is it worth to those about him, to have his life brought by Christ into such vital living contact with the Heavenly Father, that that life becomes the means through which the goodness of God pours out to the world?