National Character | Page 5

a nation, there is no subject of general interest which seems to be so little understood.[C]
Nations of necessity have a religious character. The civil government is of God's ordination, and does God's ministry. The civil government is administered by and upon men who are religious beings, who cannot under any circumstances divest themselves of their religious character. The prevalence of true religion amongst its citizens, is of the highest advantage to the State.
Every nation has its God or its gods. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." Blessed is America so long as a pure, scriptural Christianity stimulates and governs its public life.
It may be mentioned, but need not be discussed as a distinct topic, although its full consideration would greatly enforce the views just presented, that, as a matter of fact, God does regard nations as responsible persons, and does hold them in strict account to himself. The highest truth of universal history being the universal and comprehending providence of God, and the great factors of history being the nations of mankind, and the personal and responsible character of nations continuing only in this life and obtaining God's full judgment of mercy or wrath during the time of their present continuance, the historic page, recording the majestic movements of empires in their rise and fall, becomes unspeakably sublime as the record of the Almighty's manifested character, smiling and blessing in their righteous prosperity, and frowning and overthrowing in their guilty doom.
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II. But let us pass to another view of nations. The race of men we behold in a family of nations. We may consider the relations of these nations one to another.
I use the word family in reference to nations, to indicate at once, at the outset, and as fully as possible, their true relations. Nations are most closely and most tenderly related. Their relation is one of blood, and their one parent is God. "He hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." Each nation has a certain completeness in itself, yet it is but a partial completeness. Nations are still connected. They are dependent on one another. They are under obligations to one another. They are alike and together bound to the same God. They are a brotherhood before God their common Father. Patriotism has its limits, and philanthropy, its appropriate and transcendent sphere.
See the physical dependence of nations. Does not every nation on the face of the earth contribute to the conveniences and comforts and luxuries, not to say the necessities of our every-day life? And do we not, as a nation, contribute something for the physical well-being of every nation in turn? What mean these thousand ships, at all times and in all directions traversing the main? Are they not all hastening on the wings of the wind, with their precious burdens, to do the ministries of nations one toward another? All commerce is significant, first of all, of national interdependence.
This mutual dependence in things physical is, however, but an image of a higher dependence. What is civilization? Is it the culture of the national life? Yet how is national life cultivated? Is it by self-effort only, put forth from a stimulus self-begotten? Or is not civilization, like the education of the individual, in some measure dependent on the efforts of others? Must there not be an outward contact, and a stimulus provoked by such contact? Turn a child into the woods, and let him grow up to manhood without the society or the sight of his fellow-men. Where is his self-culture? He is a wild man of the woods; he is a barbarian. So nations need the stimulus which comes from a contact with their fellow nations; and that, not only that they may advance in civilization, but even that they may save themselves from going down into barbarism. See China, the largest empire of men, yet separated from its neighbors by a stone wall. See Hindostan, insulated by surrounding seas and mountains, and destitute of commerce for many hundred years. See Africa, secluded from all the world by its miasmatic regions and its fever-bound coasts. What stereotyped character! What stagnant life! What hopeless barbarism! Interchange of thought among the nations,--communication of the products of art and literature, and of the discoveries of science;--this is requisite for the welfare of nations.
It would easily follow from this mutual dependence of nations, even if it did not come to us in a more direct way, that the intercommunion of nations should be guided and governed by religious principles, and for the end of highest mutual spiritual benefit. Nay, the statement may be made thus, in reference