We were taught in childhood to emulate the noble quality of patriotism. A patriot, of whatever nation, is remembered with admiration, and the person devoid of any affection for his motherland is to be pitied. But a virtue carried to excess becomes a vice. We are living in an age when extreme patriotism, or as better defined, nationalism, has become a passion in every land. Men's ideas have thereby often become cramped, their outlook narrowed, and their eyes blinded to the good qualities of others. While claiming all virtues as their very own, they pass on their vices to the foreigner.
This truth is evident in the language we use every day. If a man is a coward, we speak of him as having "Dutch courage." If he goes away without permission, we say he took "French leave." Should a man fail in the payment of money he owes, we say he paid in "Spanish coin." The naughty child is a "young Turk." Should a man show sagacity in business, we speak of his "American enterprise." And if he exhibits marked courage, we refer to his "British pluck." Objectionable American tourists are described in the following manner in the Delineator:
"They carry an American flag as a badge, they proclaim loudly the inferiority of everything they see in comparison with what they know at home, they ridicule the customs they find prevalent, they make a vulgar display of money, and when they embark for America, they let everyone know they are going back to 'God's country.' "
This objectionable characteristic of intolerance for other people is evidently not one of recent, derivation, for more than a hundred years ago, the Abbe Dubois, Jesuit priest and traveler, spoke of such individuals in this manner: "Trammeled by the prejudices of their own surroundings, some persons think nothing well regulated that is not included in the polity and government of their own country."
Well over a century ago saintly Henry Martyn, chaplain of the East India Company, told how he annoyed the general of the troops of the station at which he was located, "by what I said about the natives." He dared to say : "These men are not all fools, and all ingenuity and clearness of reasoning are not confined to England." Apparently the general had thought otherwise. Nor was Martyn alone in this opinion, for Robert Morrison, famous missionary to Africa, speaks in the same strain, and his words are as true today as they were the day they were spoken:
"A notion which some people possess that there is nothing good or comfortable out of England, that all God's works everywhere are inferior and to be despised in comparison with what He hath done for England, may be called patriotism, but it is a notion that is unjust and of an impious tendency, and one unworthy of a Christian missionary."
That the hateful spirit of race superiority was in the hearts of the apostles is made clear in the word of God. We see that even so noteworthy a man as Cornelius, the Roman centurion, was beneath the contempt of Peter. As we read the record, we note the rebuke he received for his lack of spiritual comprehension: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." Acts to:15. And that Peter learned his lesson is clear, for he declared: "God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." Acts to :28. Have we learned the lesson yet?
Unsanctified pride of race is hateful in the sight of God, for we read: "Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly : but the proud He knoweth afar off." Ps. 138:6. Even those in a lowly estate have the respect of the Lord, and who are we to despise them, or to treat them with haughty condescension? What right have we to use such disrespectful terms as "dago," "chink," or "nigger"? Lamentable as race snobbery may be among the nations of the world, it should have no place in the remnant church. Dr. Stanley Jones, the noted missionary lecturer, once truly said :
"The church has not fearlessly and uncompromisingly taken its stand against race snobbery. Unless it does, it cannot lead in a world where the superstition of blood will surely fade, and the fact of character take its place."
Does it matter in the sight of God what is the color of a man's skin, or in what land he was born, or from what division of the human race he sprang? He is a brother in the Lord. Other things are mere incidentals. "Blood is thicker than water," we are reminded. Yes, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, is thickest of all ! Knit together in one great family by the blood of Christ shed for the sins of the whole world, let us put away every shred of race prejudice, and claim relationship with those of like precious faith in all parts of the world, be they who they may. Jesus exercised no spirit of racial superiority toward the despised Samaritan; nor should we.
In Christ there is no east or west,
In Him no south or north,
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth.
Join hands, then, brothers of the faith,
Whate'er your race may be;
Who serves my Father as a son,
Is surely kin to me.
