OUR NATION'S RESPONSI- B I L I T I £ S tSho-ughis J^or the tStmes •By FraLi\klin Butler Dwight FLEMING H. R.EVELL COMPANY J^eiat yorK Chicago Toronto OUR NATION'S RESPONSI- I L I T I E S Uhou^hfs _for the ^tmes "By Fretnklin Butler Dwight FLEMING H. R.EVELL COMPANY JVcfcw yorK Chicago Toronto \ 92193 Ltbrsiry of Conviruu* I WO Copies Received DEC 22 1900 Copyright entry SECOND copy Oellvtred to ORDER DIVISION JAN 9 1901 Copyright, 1900, by Fleming H. Revell CompoLtiy To THE MBMO'RV OF My FATHB'R whose high ideals of life and character were cherished by him as a priceless heritage from a Puritan ancestry, whose broad sym- pathies led him to delight continually in the onward progress of the world, and whose strong faith in God was the ground of his confidence in the great future of the American feople OUR NATION'S RESPONSIBILITIES. Psalm 147 : 20 — " He hath not dealt so with any nation." Luke 12 : 48— "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." I. It is a very familiar subject which is sugges- ted by these words of the Psalmist: " He hath not dealt so with any nation." If this was true of ancient Israel, and the Scripture record abun- dantly confirms the statement, quite as true is it of our own nation. And as our own land is vastly larger, our population incomparably greater and our opportunities immeasurably superior to those of whom the text speaks, so much the more may we say, as we recall God's mercies to us in the past and as we think upon our present blessings and our future possibilities, truly " He hath not dealt so with any nation." I. It is well for every American citizen to think seriously of the hand of God in shaping the nation's history. How wonderful it seems that this great continent should have been kept in store through all the centuries waiting for the accomplishment of God's designs. All the really great leaders in the affairs of the Western world have delighted to recognize God's hand and to render praise to Him as the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, by whose good providence all our- (5) 6 OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. blessings have been attained. In the letter of Columbus to the King of Spain, recounting his first discoveries, he closes with these solemn words, "Truly great and wonderful is this, and not corresponding to our merits, but to the holy Christian religion. . . , What the human understanding could not attain that the divine will has granted to human efforts. For God is wont to listen to His servants who love His precepts, even in impossibilities, as has happened to us on the present occasion, who have attained that which hitherto mortal men had never reached. Therefore let the king and queen, the princes and their most fortunate kingdoms and all other countries of Christendom give thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has bestowed upon us so great a victory and gift." I like to go back to that old letter of Columbus. It was written by an ad- miral, not a bishop, but it is devoutly religious in tone, and it acknowledges the sovereignty of God and gives Him the praise for the discov- ery of our Western continent. The century which followed Columbus gave rise to little that is of special interest, except as it taught by sad examples that *'all is not gold that glitters," and that the lust of gold is not the quality which God uses in order to make a nation. It was the century of great voyages of discovery. It was the century of expeditions starting out with high hopes, expecting to find OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 7 a boundless eldorado on the western side of the ocean, and too often returning discouraged and disappointed at their lack of success. But the century which followed this was the real time of rapid colonization, and it is not the lust of gold, but it is the desire for freedom in which to worship the God of their fathers, which brings to these shores the men and women who, under God, lay the foundations of the nation, and whose descendents still control its national affairs. Dark was the storm of relig- ious persecution which had settled down upon the British Islands in the early years of the seventeenth century. The great Reformation of the times of Luther and Calvin and Knox had left many things, both in doctrine and prac- tice, still unreformed. As the Rennaisance was a return to the real truth of things in art and literature, so the Reformation was a return to what was true and real and vital in the most important of all matters, the matter of religion. There was a party in England which would not be satisfied with the compromises which had been effected in that country between the spirit of truth and the bonds of error. Had the English Church continued to be wisely toler- ent, as in the days of Queen Elizabeth, we know not what might have been the result. But this was not to be. Persecution drove out the Pilgrim Fathers and God made even the "wrath of man to praise Him," in the great 8 OUR nation's responsibilities. results which followed their coming to this "rock-bound coast." Truly, " the New World was called into exis- tence to redress the balance of the Old." Eng- land's loss was our gain. Europe was depleted of much of its best blood. But God was pre- paring a people which should in future genera- tions give back to Europe and to the world more blessings than they had taken away, — a people whose vast grain crops should one day feed the hungry multitudes in European cities, and whose missionaries should take the Bread of Life to the heathen nations in the remotest parts of the earth. " As years went by," says Richard Henry Green, the historian, "and the contest grew hotter at home, the number of emigrants rose fast. Three thousand new colo- nists arrived from England in a single year. Between the sailing of Wintrop's expedition (1630) and the assembling of the Long Parlia- ment (1640) in the space, that is, of ten or eleven years two hundred emigrant ships had crossed the Atlantic, and twenty thousand Englishmen had found a refuge in the West."* There was the real planting of the nation. There is the true beginning of American history, of which the letter of Columbus is but the foretaste and prophecy. From this time events move fast. Not alone to England do we owe the stock from which our people are sprung, • 5ee Green's_History of the English People; Vol. Ill, p. 165. OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 9 The Dutch and the German Protestant, the French Huguenot, and later the Scotch, Irish and Welsh each contributed their quota of men, their various strong traits of national character, their individual virtues and their inherited accumulation of knowledge and experience to the common weal and the national life of the new country. Commerce flourished from the beginning, so far as it was permitted, and would have continued to flourish, but for the selfish legislation of Great Britain, which crippled American trades and brought on at last what Macaulay has termed "the inevitable separa- tion " from the Mother Country. Agriculture, especially in the Southern states, found ample opportunities to make its way in the virgin soil. Manufactures were, of course, not to be thought of for a long time, and the colonies looked to the Old World for all but the neces- sities of life. But the striking feature of all this early history is the care of our ancestors for two things, — Education and Religion. Harvard College, the fountain-head of American learn- ing, was founded in 1638. Yale began its noble career in 170T, and Princeton was started as a highschool in 1746, later to become a college, and then, in due time, a great University. Various other colleges were established from time to time, and great sacrifices were made to foster the cause of education and promote the interests of sound learning. lO OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. But in all these institutions the main thing was religion. Education was chiefly in order to religion. It was chiefly to raise up an educated ministry that colleges were founded. Our fathers believed that "wisdom," — "the wisdom which cometh from above," — "is the principal thing," and however sterile the soil, however poor the crops, however long and hard the New England winter there must always be something set aside for the Lord's work. They were men of strong convictions. They believed that some things were right and some things wrong, and there was no compromise. Because they feared the Lord, they hated evil. Churches, or as they always called them, "meeting-houses," must be built and maintained, and Christian schools and colleges must be planted through- out the land. The rising generations must come to their task better equipped than those which went before them; and industry and thrift were made the willing servants of noble aims and high ambitions. They believed that condition depends upon character, far more than character upon condition. They would make " the wilderness and solitary place rejoice and blossom as the rose," thus impressing them- selves upon their surroundings, rather than allowing their environment to impress itself unduly upon their own lives. Of course they were in some degree susceptible to outward conditions. Their solitary forest life, away OUR NATIONS RESPONSIBILITIES. II from the crowded haunts of men in old-world cities, had its peculiar influence upon their minds and hearts. That some of them became superstitious, and that they sometimes imag- ined themselves the special favorites of heaven and the sole possessors of the truth in matters of duty and doctrine is only what was to be expected of human nature under such condi- tions. But the great feature of their character was its recognition of the divine element in human life. They saw God in everything. They believed that, " Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush on fire with God ; But only He who sees takes off his shoes." This was their spirit through all the early years of their trials and triumphs. They saw God, and they stood before Him in reverence and godly fear. It was only as worldly prosperity increased, as the haste to be rich possessed the minds of many, and as, in later generations, luxury and extravagance began to take the place of simplicity and thrift, that the perils of a materialistic type of civilization began to appear. But the old standard of character still dominates many thousands of Christian homes, and the thought that lies behind that one word "duty" still rules the lives of the spiritual descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. Planted at a time in the world's history when there was need of more room for the expansion 12 OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. of the best elements of European society, this nation has grown with a rapidity and strength which has been the wonder of history and the delight of its own children. It has absorbed men of every nation under heaven, and made them American citizens, not always of a high type, too often only to be a drag upon the state and a burden upon their fellows. But it has held out the boon of citizenship in a common- wealth where there is free opportunity for every man to make the most of himself, unhindered by the prejudices of class distinction, and with every encouragement to seek education and culture. One great and awful plague-spot threat- ened for many years the life of the nation. With the declaration that " all men are created free and equal " ever standing as our national profession of faith in freedom, an entire race of men, so far as they had been forced to come among us, were held in bondage. The under- lying principle of the national life was denied in practice, and the keenest minds in a large sec- tion of the country were employed in supply- ing arguments to bolster up an institution for which no real defence could possibly be made. But *' whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap " applies to nations as well as individ- uals. The most sanguinary war of modern times was the outcome of a state of things which could never continue to exist, while America boasted to the world that it was a free country. OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 13 But God, in His good providence, saved the state from ruin. The fatal disease was arrested by a " blood-letting " which cost the land more than half a million lives, but which left us free to work out our appointed destiny unhin- dered by the dark shadow which had thus far lowered over the nation's life. With a wonderful vitality the people rose to new tasks. Prophecies of failure under the new conditions of free labor were unfulfilled. The great cotton crop of our Southern States increased with amazing rapidity. Manufactures, long successful in the North, made their way steadily southward and notwithstanding the great difificulties of the problems to be faced and the pitiable mistakes, — of which that part of our national history furnishes, alas, too many examples; — still the land was blessed with increasing prosperity, and the old work of receiving and assimilating a great foreign population went on apace. The nearly 4,000,000 of Revolutionary days had become more than 30,000,000 at the outbreak of the Civil War, and in the nearly forty years since that time we have grown to more than 76,000,000. Surely the Pilgrim's vision is realized, " The babes have grown to sturdy men, The remnant waxed a throng." **He hath not dwelt so with any nation." 2. So much for the history of the past. I shall not dwell in detail, upon the present 14 OUR nation's responsibilities. resources of our land. But as we recall our national blessings, we can not but be reminded of how much has been given to us in the providence of God of material wealth, of rich treasure of the mine, of the forest and of the field, and also of the capacity which has been granted to us to use those things to promote civilization and to increase the welfare and hap- piness of mankind. Last year there was dug out of the earth, where God had stored it, $1,000,000,000 worth of mineral wealth. That means so much new riches added to the national possessions. The total receipts of the govern- ment from all sources amount to about $500,- 000,000 in a single year, and the aggregate wealth of the country is reported in the last com- plete national census (1890) as having reached the sum of over $65,000,000,000, a sum so vast that we can form no adequate concep- tion of it.* The national wealth is now (1900) probably more than $76,000,000,000, and this statement appeals to us more directly when we see that, if divided up among all our population, every man, woman and child would receive about $1,000 each, which would be his or hers, quite irrespective of any new wealth, which they might create or acquire. These figures certainly show great national prosperity and incidentally suggest the great inequality be- tween man and man in a land where, could we « See Statesman's You: Book. OUR NATIONS RESPONSIBILITIES. 1 5 have something like equal distribution of wealth, there need be no real poverty, no destitution, no unrelieved want. Dr. Josiah Strong gives some interesting facts bearing upon this subject. *' Our wealth in 1820 was less than $2,000,000,000. In twenty years it had increased eight fold. During the thirty years following, from i860 to 1890, we created and accumulated $49,000,000,000, more than the entire wealth of Great Britain, and notwithstanding the great increase of population our wealth per caput, />. , for each individual, doubled during this interval. From 1850 to 1890 the area of our farms was increased by 245,000,000 acres, an average of 16,000 acres every day." In 1830 we had twenty-three miles of railway. Up to 1895 we had built over 230,000 miles of rail- way, and during the last twenty years of this period we expended on new lines an average of one million dollars a day.* These are but a few of the figures which might be indefinitely extended. The pyramids of Egypt, the armies of Xerxes, the fabled wonders of the East fade into insignificance as we study the present resources of our own favored land. Well may we exclaim with the ancient prophet, "What hath God wrought?" Well may we remember that "every good * See "The Twentieth Century City," by Josiah Strong, D.D The Baker & Taylor Co., New York, p. 22. i6 OUR nation's responsibilities. and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights." To the questions of the Apostle, " Who maketh thee to differ from another? " and " What hast thou that thou didst not receive? " we can only answer, "All things come of Thee, O, God; Thou makest Thy sun to rise on the evil and on the good; Thou sendest rain on the just and on the unjust; Thou hast crowned our labours with success beyond our largest hopes. Truly, the lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage." " He hath not dealt so with any nation." 3. But there is one other aspect in which these words appeal to us at this time. Think of the opportunities which God has given to this nation, and think how those opportunites have increased during the past two years. Our future is no longer bounded by the oceans which wash our shores. " Our line is gone out into all the earth and our words to the end of the world." Since that May morning in Manila Bay, when our flag was raised on the Philip- pine Islands, we have become, as never before, a great world power, a political factor in the problem of eastern progress. We have a com- mon share with the nations of Europe in the work of taking western civilization to the other side of the world. It is false to say that we were not a world-power before the Spanish war. The moral and religious influences which had OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 1 7 gone forth with our missionaries, the enterprize and industry of our merchants, the example set by our free-schools and our unfettered social usages had been felt and recognized in many lands, and had become the models which some older countries had delighted to follow. There are those who think we should have been con- tent to let our influence in those far off islands remain moral rather than military. There are many, and among them men of the first intelli- gence, who think that we made a great mistake, when, following up a plain duty (the rescue from cruel oppression of an island lying only one hundred miles from our own shores), we allowed ourselves to become involved in the vast political problems of the East, and to enter upon a costly career of colonial conquest. If " all governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed," it seems like a con- tradiction in terms that our free Republic should be forcing upon an alien race a govern- ment which they, or at least a large section of them, do not wish, preferring to govern them- selves, however unfit they may be for the under- taking. But if " the consent of the governed " is denied to those measures which are necessary to put down lawlessness and maintain order, if "the consent of the governed " is denied to meas- ures which are necessary to cleanse foul alleys and disinfect squalid lanes, to make streets clean and buildings pure and wholesome, then 16 OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. a larger principle comes in and the common good of humanity, the greatest good of the greatest number demands that the stronger hand shall rule, where the wiser head and the larger heart have conceived plans and purposes which are plainly for the good of all. But whatever the wisdom, or unwisdom, of our remaining as a military power in those distant islands, it is too late now to discuss this ques- tion. The fact remains that we have stayed there with our ships and our army for more than two years, and we are there now with no immediate prospect of our complete withdrawal. And furthermore, and here is the point I would emphasize, this may mean vastly increased opportunities for spreading the best influences of our national life through all the East. It does mean vastly more of good or of evil for the Philippine Islands. Which it is to mean de- pends upon the American people ; and our faith in God leads us to hope confidently that in the end it will mean great good. More than half a century ago the poet sang: " Better sixty years of Europe Than a cycle of Cathay." And better thirty years of America, with all its faults and failings, than thirty thousand years of Asia with its heathen darkness, its ignorance and its need. Better the land where the Gospel has had the freest opportunity to mould men's characters and shape their lives, OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 1 9 than the continent where the iron hand of an ignorant conservatism would make all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. " We're the heirs of all the ages, In the foremost files of time," II. This leads me naturally to speak of the sec- ond part of the theme suggested at the outset, and I shall only call attention to a few salient features of the subject, as it has been plainly suggested by all that has gone before. " Unto whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required." Great blessings mean great responsibilities. Great gifts from God mean large requirements at His hand. The fact that we are a favored nation should lead us to ask ourselves the most searching questions as to what we are doing for our own people and for the world. Are we seeking to honor the God and Father who has so richly blessed us ? Or are we seeking our own national aggran- dizement, our own selfish gain, our own present glory ? There are many dark omens abroad which bring sorrow to the loyal heart in the present crisis. There are many dark shadows which fall athwart the nation's pathway as we look into the future and endeavor to read the signs of the times. Let us leave off vain glorying 20 OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. and loud boasting. With all our many causes for thanksgiving this is a time for deep search- ing of heart! Truly God has blessed us, but what have we done to show our gratitude ? Some awful sins lie on the national conscience. The menace of Mormonism has extended its dread influence and thrust its serpent fangs into nearly every State in the Union. Why have we suf- fered it to increase ? Lax divorce laws in some of our States have enabled men and women in the most con- spicuous walks of life to defy the plainest moral instincts with impunity and to lend their influ- ence and example to the destruction of family life and to the debasement of the most sacred relations. The liquor traffic, as an organized power, has been permitted to go on its course, spending vast sums to secure legislation favor- able to its interests; while its opponents, fre- quently disagreeing among themselves, always with great zeal, but often without the best dis- cretion, have so little support that their opposi- tion is like that of a helpless child struggling with an armed giant. The temperance cause, though led by the noble army of total abstainers, has often suffered defeat because of confusion in the minds of its followers between a moral and a political issue; and through the lack of union among good men, the liquor interests constantly succeed. There are now 158 American saloons in the city of Manila, whereas, according to OUR NATIONS RESPONSIBILITIES. 21 reports, there were only six under Spanish rule.* If that is all we can do for the Filipinos, let us recall our ships and armies and put on sack- cloth and ashes, while we keep days of prayer and fasting as a people that have failed in the work to which God has called them. And how can we enter except with the ut- most care and gravest concern upon the gov- ernment of another "inferior race," when the awful news of negro lynchings comes to us from time to time? It is wafted northward from the once slave-holding States as a black night-mare to disturb our fancied security, to fill our hearts with shame and to put our faces to confusion ? How can any one imagine that the government of our new dependencies is to be anything but a stupendous task, involving the utmost vigilance and the most self-sacrificing labor? If you think otherwise, recall "the century of dishonor," which (notwithstanding much splendid effort on the part of individuals *The figures given are conservative. President Schurman quotes a native Filipino as saying, " You have brought us the blessings of civil- ization, and have lined our most beautiful street with 500 saloons." Some of these are doubtless native wineshops. Our most accurate information is from the President's report to the Senate (March c,th, igoo), which shows that this government has licensed places for the sale of intoxicating liquors in the city of Manila as follows: Saloons 158 Wholesale dealers 77 Native wineshops 613 Distilleries 15 Breweries i Total 864 This does not include the "canteens," or Army Post saloons, of which there are nearly 200. One does not need to be a Prohibitionist nor a "total abstainer" to regard this state of things with indignation and alarm. 22 OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. and religious societies) has stained our history in dealing with the Redmen of the West. No! It is not a holiday excursion upon which we have embarked. It is no time as we recall these things, for self-satisfied applause, but rather for devout thanksgiving, that our national judgments have been so long averted, and for earnest prayer and united effort for better things. "New occasions breed new duties." We stand on the threshold of a new century. Shall we make it a century of progress for God and His Church ? Two duties should be kept con- stantly before us. The first is the recognition, in all our national life, of God as our Ruler and Judge. His law alone should be the guide of our conduct and the standard of our appeal. The other duty is the recognition of Christ Jesus as the Great Elder Brother of all men as they hear His voice calling them to come unto Him. O, how much that implies. It reminds us of God, not alone as Judge and Ruler, but as Father and Friend. It compels us to realize that as He is our Father, all we are brethren. And it forces us, if we mean anything by these words, to act toward the children of suffering and want, wherever they may be as though they really are our brothers, not so favored as we, not so blessed in lineage, in surroundings, in opportunities, but having the same needs, feeling the same sorrows, burdened by a vastly OUR NATION S RESPONSIBILITIES. 23 heavier weight of the same cares, and needing the same divine help and strength and guidance for the unceasing battle of life. " Unto whom- soever much is given of him shall much be required." Let us realize that God has given us a great work to do as a nation, and as we give thanks for past mercies, let us rejoice most of all that there are many signs abroad of an awakening of the national conscience to a due sense of public duty. Let us remember that the strength of the nation is made up of the united strength of every individual which calls this land his own. Let us see to it, each one, that our influence and example and efforts are all for God and for righteousness and for the highest good of those about us in the world. Then may we face our responsibilities with new courage, and await the future knowing that the same God who led our Fathers in the past will lead us on to larger and still larger blessings in the days to come. And so shall we have ever new reason to say, "He hath not dealt so with any nation." " Praise ye the Lord." Mttan . 12 IPOl LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 0:0 22 1900 011 527 872 1