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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT 



which Goethe, the chief poet of modern Panthe- 

 ism, has given us. " In peace, patriotism proper- 

 ly consists only in this — that each man sweeps in 

 front of his own door, minds his own business, 

 also learns his own lesson, that it may go well 

 with him at home." — (" Wahr. u. Dicht.") Here 

 we may note the total absence of any sense of 

 public duty, or of the benefit of promoting cor- 

 porate reform and improvement. Pure selfish- 

 ness is lifted into an ideal, and political action, 

 as distinguished from military effort, discouraged. 

 These considerations naturally lead to a brief 

 retrospective survey as to the general truth of 

 the charge of anti-patriotism laid against Christi- 

 anity. This charge is a very old one indeed, and 

 coeval with the first beginnings of the infant 

 Church. " If we let II hn thus alone, the Romans 

 will come and take away our place and nation," 

 was the view taken of the founder. " This man 

 ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against 

 the holy place and the law, for we have heard him 

 say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this 

 place, and shall change the customs which Moses 

 delivered us," was the suborned indictment 

 against the protomartyr; while the outcry against 

 the passionately national Saul of Tarsus was : 

 " Men of Israel, help ; this is the man that teach- 

 eth all men everywhere against the people, and 

 the law, and this place." Under the empire, 

 disloyalty to the state was the stock accusation 

 which could be always successfully leveled 

 against Christians, especially such as were in any 

 department of the public service, and, in particu- 

 lar, the nucleus of solid fact which lies within the 

 nebulous mass of Christian hagiology supplies us 

 with many instances of Roman soldiers who had 

 attested their loyalty and courage by valiant ser- 

 vice in war, or who declared that prayers for the 

 safety of the emperor and the welfare of the state 

 made part of their daily devotions, nevertheless 

 convicted and executed as traitors for refusing 

 to take certain oaths, or to join in certain pagan 

 observances. But the general charge is amply 

 refuted by the noteworthy fact that the vast and 

 rapidly-increasing numbers of the Christians, and 

 their highly-organized scheme of intercommuni- 

 cation, never once tempted them, even under the 

 stress of the ten persecutions, one for each gen- 

 eration in the three centuries from Tiberius till 

 Constantine the Great, to try conclusions with the 

 state by siding with any competitor for the pur- 

 ple, or by rebellion and league with foreign ene- 

 mies on the frontier, a policy which distinguishes 

 them remarkably from all the leading Protestant 

 sects of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



It was to Christian missionaries as statesmen 

 that the gradual building up of the social fabric 

 and of the system of laws was mainly due after 

 the irruption of the barbarians, when the fortified 

 camps of wandering tribes began to develop into 

 the kingdoms of settled populations, and it be- 

 came necessary to meet the exigencies of a more 

 complex mode of existence by transforming inde- 

 terminate customary usages into fixed statutory 

 enactments. To the monastic orders belongs the 

 credit of reviving scientific agriculture, as science 

 then was, and of leading the way in draining 

 marshes and reclaiming wastes. To them also 

 belongs the first attempt to supply primary edu- 

 cation, aud to stimulate higher culture, too, so 

 far as they understood it, and the circumstances 

 of the time allowed. Whether they did all these 

 things well or ill is matter of reasonable de- 

 bate, but that they did them somehow, and that 

 such things are integral parts of any complete 

 civil development, admits of no dispute. And, 

 after this, it is not till comparatively modern 

 times, say from the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, that the most eminent statesmen and 

 publicists were other than ecclesiastics, from Al- 

 cuin and Suger, through such names as Stephen 

 Langton, down to Ximenes and Wolsey. In fact, 

 one of the minor grievances which precipitated 

 the Reformation was the constant occupation of 

 the ablest prelates in diplomacy and the conduct 

 of civil government, obliging them to depute the 

 spiritual oversight of their dioceses to suffra- 

 gans and capitular bodies. This policy, again, 

 may have been highly objectionable in itself, but 

 it is at any rate quite incompatible with any rec- 

 ognized antagonism between Christianity and 

 civil politics during the several centuries of its 

 prevalence. 



Turning to another aspect of the question, it 

 is to be observed that religious sentiment has 

 powerfully aided in supporting national life under 

 most unfavorable circumstances. 



It was Christian belief of some kind, what- 

 ever judgment may be passed upon its quality, 

 which prevented Russia from disappearing, as a 

 nation, under the pressure of the Golden Horde ; 

 it was the same influence which preserved Greek 

 and Roumanian nationality during the centuries 

 of Turkish misrule and terrorism. It is precisely 

 the religious question that has made those Polish 

 provinces, which have been transferred to Russia, 

 so much more intolerant of a foreign yoke than 

 their neighbors of Galicia and Lodomiria under 

 Austrian rule, or of Posen under the Prussian 

 crown, because no compulsory proselytism has 



