ring the spirit of patriotism, is in
reality hostile to it. "Patriotism itself as a duty," says Lecky, "has
never found any place in Christian ethics, and strong theological
feeling has usually been directly hostile to its growth."

No doubt there is something to be said for that view. The attitude of
the early Christians towards the Roman Empire was not that of
patriotism. The clear shining of the heavenly Jerusalem so dazzled
their eyes that this world, and the temporal empire occupying its
stage, seemed but as a shadow. Their devotion to the Unseen King left
little room for loyalty to the earthly ruler. In the glorious
consciousness of his citizenship in heaven, it was a small thing in the
estimation of St. Paul that he was also a Roman citizen--but he did not
forget it. But when the earthly ruler persecuted, and burnt, and threw
the Christians to the lions, or slaughtered them to make a Roman
holiday, then the poor victims cannot be blamed for not being patriots.

And the Church in the mediaeval period, organised in the mighty
hierarchy of Rome, did not tend to foster a national spirit of
patriotism. In those days when the Emperor Theodosius made penance in
the Cathedral of Milan and Ambrose declared that "the Church is not in
the empire, but the Emperor in the Church"; or in those later days when
Hildebrand promulgated the doctrine that the temporal power was subject
to the spiritual power, and kings and emperors were only vassals of the
Church, and Henry V. was left three days standing barefooted in the
snow waiting humbly to see the Pope at Canossa--in those days certainly
Christianity sought to foster not the sense of national loyalty, but
that of devotion towards that holy Catholic and universal Church whose
visible head was the Pope. Christianity placed the Pope on the throne
of the Caesars, and sought to evoke towards him a patriotism which
transcended nationality. But the Reformation gave its death blow to
Hildebrandism, and the Pope no longer usurped the temporal Thrones of
Europe. And there came the throb of the awakening spirit of
nationality. The spirit of patriotism stirred once more the slumbering
races.

***

The question whether patriotism is a fruit of Christianity must be
answered not by reference to what men did in the name of their
religion--for men are fallible--but by the precept and example of the
Founder of Christianity. He was a Jew, and of all races the Jew was
the most pat