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PATRIOTISM,
A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE.
A SERMON PREACHED BY THE REV. JOSEPH FRANSIOLI,
AT ST. PETER'S (CATHOLIC) CHURCH, BROOKLYN,
JULY 26th, 1863.
" When Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the City, he wept over it." — Luke.
These words of the Gospel of this Sunday bring to our con-
templation a fact, that is wonderfully significant in the present
circumstances of our country. The Gospel has recorded only
two instances in which our Holy Redeemer shed tears, — once at
the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, and once at the sight of Jerusa-
lem, the capital of his country.
Neither the persecutions of the magistrates, the calumnies of
the Scribes and Pharisees, the ingratitude of the people, the
insults and tortures of the soldiers — not even the denial of Peter
or the treason of Judas, ever caused a single tear to drop from
the merciful eyes of Jesus.
But when the body of his friend appears decaying in the
grave, and the future irreparable destruction of his motherland
is brought to his mind in sight of the capital of that unfortunate
country, then his tender affection, overpowered so to speak,
moves him to weep. What a lesson for us is contained in this
extraordinary event ! Christ weeps over Jerusalem, because, in
time to come, the magnificent city shall be levelled to the ground,
and with it the whole country destroyed, and the whole nation
swept from the surface of the earth. He weeps because he loves
his country; he weeps because his countrymen do not withstand
the criminal cause of the impending disaster. Hence patriotism
is not only a social virtue, commanding respect, but a christian
virtue, to be rewarded by the blessings of God here and here-
after. On this noble subject I will speak to you, proposing two
points :
1st. To love our country is our duty as men and Christians.
2d. How must we show our love towards our country ?
1st. Man is naturally so born for society that he could not
exist, grow and prosper alone. His first society is the family.
Private families are the members of the great human family.
The immense human family is subdivided by geographical posi-
tions and conventional arrangements into several families or
societies, called nations ; all nations are governed by certain
fundamental laws and additional regulations, directed to protect
all the members in their property and their lives, and to pro-
mote their welfare. All men born in, or by their own choice
belonging to a nation, and enjoying under the laws of the land
the blessings of all kinds emanating from them, are citizens or
children of the national family or motherland. The duty of
loving her stands on the same principle as the duty of a member
of loving his family, and of a child of loving its mother. In
fact, our motherland, the place of our birth or of our adoption,
with an affection that we hardly appreciate, opening her mater-
nal bosom, feeds us in our hunger, refreshes us in our thirst,
clothes us, and takes all cares of our welfare. Hence the duty
of loving her imposed upon us by nature is loudly proclaimed
by the history of mankind. There, shame is recorded for cow-
ards, traitors and tyrants ; there, honors and benedictions are
poured out over the faithful and generous lover of his country.
Yisit all nations, whether barbarous or civilized, travel all over
the earth, and everywhere you shall meet traditions and inscrip-
tions immortalizing patriotic deeds, and monuments erected to
true patriots, by the instinctive gratitude of the nations to per-
petuate to posterity the memory of those noble citizens, as well
as to enkindle in the hearts of all, love to their country. Deny
the duty of loving your country, and you deny your own feel-
ings; you deny mankind itself. Deny the duty of loving your
country, and, I say it emphatically, you reap contempt and
execration.
2d. But, if to love our country is a duty, it is also a virtue ;
for virtue is nothing else than the performance of our duties,
and the value of any virtue is measured by the degree of punc-
tuality and purity shown in fulfilling our duties.
This duty of loving our country, which nature and society
impose upon us, is more strictly enforced by Christian Catholic
religion. As Christian Catholics, we are followers of Christ,
lie came on earth Reformer and Redeemer, not to dissolve the
national and social duties, but to encourage and help us to their
more perfect fulfillment. A Catholic that loves not his country
does not understand his religion.
Take the Holy Scriptures, which is the book of Christianity
and Catholicity ; look from beginning to end over those pages,
and see that no one is celebrated there as a saint or a great man
who was not at once faithful to his God and ever affectionate to
his country. What were the Patriarchs but the founders of the
Jewish nationality? AVho was Moses? The great legislator
and patriot, who, with an excess of confidence in hisGod, could
say to Him : " Or suspend Thy punishment against my people,
or blot me out of the book of life." All the Judges who follow-
ed Moses, like Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, were they not all distin-
guished patriots? Who, among the kings, ranks greater and
more glorious than those who spent their lives for the benefit of
their people, and, of the stock of David, the most popular and
valiant of all the Hebrew monarchs, Jesus Christ was born in
the fullness of time. This great Redeemer of mankind was ex-
pected as the Redeemer of his nation, to which he paid the
tribute, and was so faithful, so liberal, and so affectionate, that
to-day he is represented weeping for the disasters impending
over it. The apostles, the zealous missionaries of Christ, com-
menced their labors in their native country. There, first, they
developed their power, their charity, their heroism. Tell ine
whether, among the holy Fathers who are the representatives of
the golden times of Christianity, you can find one who was not
a patriot ? Read the ecclesiastical history, and from Ambrose
— that refuses entrance into the temple to Theodosious, guilty
of the blood of his people — down to the humble friar Anthony
of Padova, who rebuked the cruelties of Ezelino, the tyrant of
Lombardy, you shall not find one saint that was not, at the
same time, a patriot. You find here and there patriots who
were not, and are not, saints, but you shall seek in vain for a
Catholic saint that was not a patriot.
Do you know the great change effected by Christian religion
in connection with nationalities ? The abolition of the principle
of sacrificing the nation to the individual, and the establishment
of the stupendous system of sacrificing the individualities to the
nation. Hence, according to the spirit of Catholicity, we must
love our neighbors as ourselves, our family more than our neigh-
bor, our country more than our family, and our God alone more
than our country. Hence, our Saviour, who was a Galilean
born in Bethlehem, and residing in Nazareth, in foreseeing the
disasters of his country, wept not in sight of Bethlehem or ap-
proaching Nazareth, but when he drew near Jerusalem, the
capital of his country, he wept then and there. Hence, the na-
tional rights and integrity must be dearer to the Christian patriot
than any other individual right ; consequently must sound ex-
tremely painful to the ears of a patriot the theories of certain
citizens, who favor the intervention of foreign powers in our
national affairs, and deny to the national authorities all inter-
ference in the affairs of the States of the nation.
In accordance with the principles above stated, the duty of
loving our country becomes more sacred and expansive in pro-
portion to the blessings that one enjoys from his motherland.
A country whose institutions provide equally for the welfare of
all classes ; where the laws are enacted by the majority of the
people, to suit the general interest ; where opportunities are
offered to all citizens to develop their abilities, to apply their
mental and physical powers, and raise themselves to a high
respectability; where the land is redundant with all kinds of
products, and offers inexhaustible resources of wealth and gran-
deur ; a country of such description, and offering such advantages
to all, without distinction of birth or class, such a country must
naturally command the most tender affection. Now, if we
ajiply these theories to our own case, how dearly should we,
American citizens, love this wonderful country, the greatest, the
richest on earth, the glorious shelter of mankind. And, indeed,
individually I know thousands who love this country most
affectionately, but, collectively taken, the people do not love
the country as they should. O may they love her as much as
she deserves !
How must we show our love towards our country ? The
answer to this question embraces the second point proposed for
your consideration, and I answer :
1st. By loving the institutions of our country. Hence we
must study them, to understand and appreciate them as the most
wonderful conception and work of political wisdom. Then we
must support them, and, with all means in our power, we must
try to extend their beneficent influences. Forget not, that
these institutions lose not only their beautiful architype of sym-
metry and harmony, but even their efficiency of action if sec-
ondary interests are allowed to prevail over the general interest
of the American Union. Forget not, that such institutions are
the creation and voluntary choice of the people, and that the
people must stand by them with inexorable respect and indomit-
able tenacity. When a building of classical architecture is
threatened with ruin by accidents or age, the efforts of the
architect superintending the work of reconstruction are concen-
trated to preserve the general character and design. Bear in
mind forever the comparison.
2d. By respecting and loving one another, without any regard
to difference of religious creed or political opinion. Prejudices
must be removed ; we are all brothers, all children of the same
mother.
To say that Puritans, or Catholics, cannot be good patriots, is
a deplorable error, contradicted on our side by centuries of
glorious patriots all over the earth, and in this country refuted
by streams of blood and numberless lives sacrificed to the Union
on the fields of battles by heroic Catholic patriotism.
Let us only be just and tolerant, and we shall not have reason
to blame one another, but reasons to forgive one another.
If there are wicked and foolish among us, we do not endorse
them, because our religion teaches us to be good and wise
Christians, good and wise citizens. If we should appeal to the
innocent to throw the first stone against the guilty one, who
would dare to strike the first blow ?
3d. We must love our country by obeying the laws of our
country and standing by the authorities or Government, not as
a party, but as a principle. Except in case that the laws of the
country and the orders of the lawful authorities were in opposi-
sition to the laws of God, we are always bound to obey ; Christ
obeyed the laws of his country, paid the tribute, and gave nun-
mand to render Cseaar the things that are Caesar's, and yet the
Csesars of his time were not the choice of the people, but im-
posed and forced upon the people. How much more must we
respect the authorities of our country, which in a legal manner,
by the vote of the people, are constituted \
The apostles obeyed the laws of the country, wherever they
were, not conflicting with their own Divine mission.
St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the Roman law and
tribunal. And when the primitive Christians were accused by
the Romans as a dangerous set of people, inimical to the coun-
try, because the}' constantly refused to obey the orders of sacri-
ficing to the pagan deities, St. Paul came fa-ward to refute the
accusation and to establish the Christian doctrine upon the im-
portant subject. Take the XIII. chapter of his epistle to the
Uomans : " Let every soul to be subject to higher powers ; for
'• there is no power but from God, and that those that are, are
'• ordained of God; therefore he that resisteth the power resist-
" eth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to
" themselves damnation. For princes (the authorities) are not a
'• terror to the good work, but to the evil. Will thou then not
"be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou
;: shalt have praise from the same : for he is God's minister to
" thee for good, wherefore be subject of necessity not only for
" wrath, but also for conscience sake.''
But I have heard citizens object to this doctrine of the apostle
by saying that, when the law is unjust and unconstitutional and
the administration corrupt there then arises the right of revolu-
tion admitted by all statesmen. I answer. If the law is unjust,
in the sense that it interferes with your duties of a higher sphere,
that is to say your duties towards God and your conscience,
then the martyrs of Christendom teach you how to deal with
it, lay down your life in confirmation of your faith, without any
violent resistance. When the Emperor Maxamilian ordered his
army in crossing the Alps to sacrifice to the idols ; six thousand
and six hundred christian soldiers left their ranks, declaring it
to be sacriligious for them to adore false deities. They retired
from the rest of the army. To this declaration, the answer of
the emperor was an order to a large detachment of the army to
decimate the disobedient soldiers. Upon hearing such an
atrocious command, the noble soldiers of the Theban Legion led
by their Chieftain Morrisa, who fought always bravely against
the enemies of the country, as to deserve the name of the legion
of heroes, laid down their arms, and offered their heads, and one
after the other all were barbarously executed, but gave no
resistance, although with the arms in their hands, and with their
union and valor, they could easily have defended their right.
If the law is unjust, in the sense that it is against the constitu-
tion, you have the legal means to obtain redress to your
grievances. Never any right of revolution can be sanctioned,
but in case that all the legal means were exhausted in vain,
and that the oppression lasted so long, and was so politically
murderous as to cause desolation and despair. Revolution
was never supported even by European statesmen, but for the
purpose of shaking off foreign tyrannical dominion to recon-
struct dismembered nationalities, never to destroy them. A
revolution to destroy the motherland, or the nation, is an
atrocious absurdity — a parricide.
Finally, we must love our country by supporting her existence,
and promoting her welfare with all means in our power. In
prosperous times let us enjoy peacefully and thankfully her
blessings, and in times of trouble and danger, let us rush to her
rescue.
The true Christian patriot brings before the altar of his
country, his property and his life cheerfully ready for the
sacrifice when it is demanded. What kind of friends are those
8
who love their friends only in time of prosperity, and abandon
them in time of adversity ? What kind of children are those
who love their parents and relatives only, when peace, health
and plenty cheer the house, and desert it in time of sickness and
affliction ? Does not the noble mother love more her child
when it is ill and poor? Does not the good son feel more
attachment to his parents when suffering and dying ? Does not
the doctrine and examples of Christ teach us that he loved the
sufferers and wept over the impending disasters of his country ?
If the coming destruction of a country is worth the tears of Jesus,
what shall the troubles, the dangers of our own country demand
from us 2 Here I conclude my discourse, and say to you my
dearly-beloved friends: these are times of trials, of dangers, of
self-denial. Instead of losing our time in merciless criticism, in
querulous complaint, in criminal insinuation of resistance to the
authorities lawfully constituted, let us study the book of our
own troubles with tears in our eyes, with wisdom in our mind,
with fortitude in our hearts.
Let us learn the lesson of the tears of Christ, for fear that one
day to come he should reproach us with having not known the
time of our visitation.
A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE.
A SERMON PREACHED BY THE REV. JOSEPH FRANSIOLI,
AT ST. PETER'S (CATHOLIC) CHURCH, BROOKLYN,
JULY 26th, 1863.
" When Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the City, he wept over it." — Luke.
These words of the Gospel of this Sunday bring to our con-
templation a fact, that is wonderfully significant in the present
circumstances of our country. The Gospel has recorded only
two instances in which our Holy Redeemer shed tears, — once at
the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, and once at the sight of Jerusa-
lem, the capital of his country.
Neither the persecutions of the magistrates, the calumnies of
the Scribes and Pharisees, the ingratitude of the people, the
insults and tortures of the soldiers — not even the denial of Peter
or the treason of Judas, ever caused a single tear to drop from
the merciful eyes of Jesus.
But when the body of his friend appears decaying in the
grave, and the future irreparable destruction of his motherland
is brought to his mind in sight of the capital of that unfortunate
country, then his tender affection, overpowered so to speak,
moves him to weep. What a lesson for us is contained in this
extraordinary event ! Christ weeps over Jerusalem, because, in
time to come, the magnificent city shall be levelled to the ground,
and with it the whole country destroyed, and the whole nation
swept from the surface of the earth. He weeps because he loves
his country; he weeps because his countrymen do not withstand
the criminal cause of the impending disaster. Hence patriotism
is not only a social virtue, commanding respect, but a christian
virtue, to be rewarded by the blessings of God here and here-
after. On this noble subject I will speak to you, proposing two
points :
1st. To love our country is our duty as men and Christians.
2d. How must we show our love towards our country ?
1st. Man is naturally so born for society that he could not
exist, grow and prosper alone. His first society is the family.
Private families are the members of the great human family.
The immense human family is subdivided by geographical posi-
tions and conventional arrangements into several families or
societies, called nations ; all nations are governed by certain
fundamental laws and additional regulations, directed to protect
all the members in their property and their lives, and to pro-
mote their welfare. All men born in, or by their own choice
belonging to a nation, and enjoying under the laws of the land
the blessings of all kinds emanating from them, are citizens or
children of the national family or motherland. The duty of
loving her stands on the same principle as the duty of a member
of loving his family, and of a child of loving its mother. In
fact, our motherland, the place of our birth or of our adoption,
with an affection that we hardly appreciate, opening her mater-
nal bosom, feeds us in our hunger, refreshes us in our thirst,
clothes us, and takes all cares of our welfare. Hence the duty
of loving her imposed upon us by nature is loudly proclaimed
by the history of mankind. There, shame is recorded for cow-
ards, traitors and tyrants ; there, honors and benedictions are
poured out over the faithful and generous lover of his country.
Yisit all nations, whether barbarous or civilized, travel all over
the earth, and everywhere you shall meet traditions and inscrip-
tions immortalizing patriotic deeds, and monuments erected to
true patriots, by the instinctive gratitude of the nations to per-
petuate to posterity the memory of those noble citizens, as well
as to enkindle in the hearts of all, love to their country. Deny
the duty of loving your country, and you deny your own feel-
ings; you deny mankind itself. Deny the duty of loving your
country, and, I say it emphatically, you reap contempt and
execration.
2d. But, if to love our country is a duty, it is also a virtue ;
for virtue is nothing else than the performance of our duties,
and the value of any virtue is measured by the degree of punc-
tuality and purity shown in fulfilling our duties.
This duty of loving our country, which nature and society
impose upon us, is more strictly enforced by Christian Catholic
religion. As Christian Catholics, we are followers of Christ,
lie came on earth Reformer and Redeemer, not to dissolve the
national and social duties, but to encourage and help us to their
more perfect fulfillment. A Catholic that loves not his country
does not understand his religion.
Take the Holy Scriptures, which is the book of Christianity
and Catholicity ; look from beginning to end over those pages,
and see that no one is celebrated there as a saint or a great man
who was not at once faithful to his God and ever affectionate to
his country. What were the Patriarchs but the founders of the
Jewish nationality? AVho was Moses? The great legislator
and patriot, who, with an excess of confidence in hisGod, could
say to Him : " Or suspend Thy punishment against my people,
or blot me out of the book of life." All the Judges who follow-
ed Moses, like Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, were they not all distin-
guished patriots? Who, among the kings, ranks greater and
more glorious than those who spent their lives for the benefit of
their people, and, of the stock of David, the most popular and
valiant of all the Hebrew monarchs, Jesus Christ was born in
the fullness of time. This great Redeemer of mankind was ex-
pected as the Redeemer of his nation, to which he paid the
tribute, and was so faithful, so liberal, and so affectionate, that
to-day he is represented weeping for the disasters impending
over it. The apostles, the zealous missionaries of Christ, com-
menced their labors in their native country. There, first, they
developed their power, their charity, their heroism. Tell ine
whether, among the holy Fathers who are the representatives of
the golden times of Christianity, you can find one who was not
a patriot ? Read the ecclesiastical history, and from Ambrose
— that refuses entrance into the temple to Theodosious, guilty
of the blood of his people — down to the humble friar Anthony
of Padova, who rebuked the cruelties of Ezelino, the tyrant of
Lombardy, you shall not find one saint that was not, at the
same time, a patriot. You find here and there patriots who
were not, and are not, saints, but you shall seek in vain for a
Catholic saint that was not a patriot.
Do you know the great change effected by Christian religion
in connection with nationalities ? The abolition of the principle
of sacrificing the nation to the individual, and the establishment
of the stupendous system of sacrificing the individualities to the
nation. Hence, according to the spirit of Catholicity, we must
love our neighbors as ourselves, our family more than our neigh-
bor, our country more than our family, and our God alone more
than our country. Hence, our Saviour, who was a Galilean
born in Bethlehem, and residing in Nazareth, in foreseeing the
disasters of his country, wept not in sight of Bethlehem or ap-
proaching Nazareth, but when he drew near Jerusalem, the
capital of his country, he wept then and there. Hence, the na-
tional rights and integrity must be dearer to the Christian patriot
than any other individual right ; consequently must sound ex-
tremely painful to the ears of a patriot the theories of certain
citizens, who favor the intervention of foreign powers in our
national affairs, and deny to the national authorities all inter-
ference in the affairs of the States of the nation.
In accordance with the principles above stated, the duty of
loving our country becomes more sacred and expansive in pro-
portion to the blessings that one enjoys from his motherland.
A country whose institutions provide equally for the welfare of
all classes ; where the laws are enacted by the majority of the
people, to suit the general interest ; where opportunities are
offered to all citizens to develop their abilities, to apply their
mental and physical powers, and raise themselves to a high
respectability; where the land is redundant with all kinds of
products, and offers inexhaustible resources of wealth and gran-
deur ; a country of such description, and offering such advantages
to all, without distinction of birth or class, such a country must
naturally command the most tender affection. Now, if we
ajiply these theories to our own case, how dearly should we,
American citizens, love this wonderful country, the greatest, the
richest on earth, the glorious shelter of mankind. And, indeed,
individually I know thousands who love this country most
affectionately, but, collectively taken, the people do not love
the country as they should. O may they love her as much as
she deserves !
How must we show our love towards our country ? The
answer to this question embraces the second point proposed for
your consideration, and I answer :
1st. By loving the institutions of our country. Hence we
must study them, to understand and appreciate them as the most
wonderful conception and work of political wisdom. Then we
must support them, and, with all means in our power, we must
try to extend their beneficent influences. Forget not, that
these institutions lose not only their beautiful architype of sym-
metry and harmony, but even their efficiency of action if sec-
ondary interests are allowed to prevail over the general interest
of the American Union. Forget not, that such institutions are
the creation and voluntary choice of the people, and that the
people must stand by them with inexorable respect and indomit-
able tenacity. When a building of classical architecture is
threatened with ruin by accidents or age, the efforts of the
architect superintending the work of reconstruction are concen-
trated to preserve the general character and design. Bear in
mind forever the comparison.
2d. By respecting and loving one another, without any regard
to difference of religious creed or political opinion. Prejudices
must be removed ; we are all brothers, all children of the same
mother.
To say that Puritans, or Catholics, cannot be good patriots, is
a deplorable error, contradicted on our side by centuries of
glorious patriots all over the earth, and in this country refuted
by streams of blood and numberless lives sacrificed to the Union
on the fields of battles by heroic Catholic patriotism.
Let us only be just and tolerant, and we shall not have reason
to blame one another, but reasons to forgive one another.
If there are wicked and foolish among us, we do not endorse
them, because our religion teaches us to be good and wise
Christians, good and wise citizens. If we should appeal to the
innocent to throw the first stone against the guilty one, who
would dare to strike the first blow ?
3d. We must love our country by obeying the laws of our
country and standing by the authorities or Government, not as
a party, but as a principle. Except in case that the laws of the
country and the orders of the lawful authorities were in opposi-
sition to the laws of God, we are always bound to obey ; Christ
obeyed the laws of his country, paid the tribute, and gave nun-
mand to render Cseaar the things that are Caesar's, and yet the
Csesars of his time were not the choice of the people, but im-
posed and forced upon the people. How much more must we
respect the authorities of our country, which in a legal manner,
by the vote of the people, are constituted \
The apostles obeyed the laws of the country, wherever they
were, not conflicting with their own Divine mission.
St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the Roman law and
tribunal. And when the primitive Christians were accused by
the Romans as a dangerous set of people, inimical to the coun-
try, because the}' constantly refused to obey the orders of sacri-
ficing to the pagan deities, St. Paul came fa-ward to refute the
accusation and to establish the Christian doctrine upon the im-
portant subject. Take the XIII. chapter of his epistle to the
Uomans : " Let every soul to be subject to higher powers ; for
'• there is no power but from God, and that those that are, are
'• ordained of God; therefore he that resisteth the power resist-
" eth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to
" themselves damnation. For princes (the authorities) are not a
'• terror to the good work, but to the evil. Will thou then not
"be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou
;: shalt have praise from the same : for he is God's minister to
" thee for good, wherefore be subject of necessity not only for
" wrath, but also for conscience sake.''
But I have heard citizens object to this doctrine of the apostle
by saying that, when the law is unjust and unconstitutional and
the administration corrupt there then arises the right of revolu-
tion admitted by all statesmen. I answer. If the law is unjust,
in the sense that it interferes with your duties of a higher sphere,
that is to say your duties towards God and your conscience,
then the martyrs of Christendom teach you how to deal with
it, lay down your life in confirmation of your faith, without any
violent resistance. When the Emperor Maxamilian ordered his
army in crossing the Alps to sacrifice to the idols ; six thousand
and six hundred christian soldiers left their ranks, declaring it
to be sacriligious for them to adore false deities. They retired
from the rest of the army. To this declaration, the answer of
the emperor was an order to a large detachment of the army to
decimate the disobedient soldiers. Upon hearing such an
atrocious command, the noble soldiers of the Theban Legion led
by their Chieftain Morrisa, who fought always bravely against
the enemies of the country, as to deserve the name of the legion
of heroes, laid down their arms, and offered their heads, and one
after the other all were barbarously executed, but gave no
resistance, although with the arms in their hands, and with their
union and valor, they could easily have defended their right.
If the law is unjust, in the sense that it is against the constitu-
tion, you have the legal means to obtain redress to your
grievances. Never any right of revolution can be sanctioned,
but in case that all the legal means were exhausted in vain,
and that the oppression lasted so long, and was so politically
murderous as to cause desolation and despair. Revolution
was never supported even by European statesmen, but for the
purpose of shaking off foreign tyrannical dominion to recon-
struct dismembered nationalities, never to destroy them. A
revolution to destroy the motherland, or the nation, is an
atrocious absurdity — a parricide.
Finally, we must love our country by supporting her existence,
and promoting her welfare with all means in our power. In
prosperous times let us enjoy peacefully and thankfully her
blessings, and in times of trouble and danger, let us rush to her
rescue.
The true Christian patriot brings before the altar of his
country, his property and his life cheerfully ready for the
sacrifice when it is demanded. What kind of friends are those
8
who love their friends only in time of prosperity, and abandon
them in time of adversity ? What kind of children are those
who love their parents and relatives only, when peace, health
and plenty cheer the house, and desert it in time of sickness and
affliction ? Does not the noble mother love more her child
when it is ill and poor? Does not the good son feel more
attachment to his parents when suffering and dying ? Does not
the doctrine and examples of Christ teach us that he loved the
sufferers and wept over the impending disasters of his country ?
If the coming destruction of a country is worth the tears of Jesus,
what shall the troubles, the dangers of our own country demand
from us 2 Here I conclude my discourse, and say to you my
dearly-beloved friends: these are times of trials, of dangers, of
self-denial. Instead of losing our time in merciless criticism, in
querulous complaint, in criminal insinuation of resistance to the
authorities lawfully constituted, let us study the book of our
own troubles with tears in our eyes, with wisdom in our mind,
with fortitude in our hearts.
Let us learn the lesson of the tears of Christ, for fear that one
day to come he should reproach us with having not known the
time of our visitation.