82 Evolution and Religion 



waste our strength, energy, and ammunition, firing 

 into the ranks of each other, simply because some 

 regiments in the army of our common race happen to 

 wear a different uniform from our own. The race has 

 all that it can do to fight and overcome life's natural 

 enemies without adding to their number artificial 

 enemies of its own making, through a lack of sense of 

 our common humanity. 



Patriotism 



I have often wondered, if some brave Babylonish or 

 Egyptian youth who sacrificed his life for those dead 

 empires in their heyday of strength three or four thou- 

 sand years ago could miraculously be brought back to 

 life to-day, whether he would consider that the game 

 had been worth the candle. His empires have long 

 since vanished from the earth; his people are scattered 

 never to be reunited. What is there to show for the 

 heroic sacrifice which he made of his brave young 

 life ? Apparently, absolutely nothing. And yet, did 

 such a thought as this deter our own brave American 

 youth both North and South when the great Civil War 

 issued its dread summons ? Will it indeed ever deter 

 brave, self-sacrificing idealists, at least until they have 

 grown beyond the more limited horizon of mental sym- 

 pathy known as patriotism? Not until that horizon 

 widens, you may be sure, will their idea of morality 

 change in this respect, or rather, become enlarged so 

 as to entertain the wider, more profound ideal of race 

 loyalty. 



