Patriotism and Endurance.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 14 May 1915, Page 3

Patriotism and Endurance.

(By His Eminence Cardina Mercier Archbishop of Malines.

Through the smoke of conflagration, through the steam of blood, have you not glimpses, do you not perceive signs, of His love for us? Nay, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page of our national history ? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation ? When in her throes she brings forth heroes, our Mother Country gives her own energy to the blood of those sons of hers. Let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in patriotism. There were Belgians, and many such, who wasted there time and their talents in futile quarrels of class with class, of race with race, of passion with personal passion. Yet when, on the second of August, a mighty foreign power, confident in its own strength and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, then did all Belgians, without difference or party, or of condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close-ranged about their own king, and their own government, and cry to the invader: “Thou shalt not go through 1 ” At once, instantly, wo were concious of our patriotism. For down within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal kinships, than party feeling; and this is the need and the will to devote ourpelves to the more general interest w which Borne termed the “ Bes publica.” And this profound will within us is Patriotism. Our country is not a mere .- concourse of persons or of families inhabiting the same soil, having amongst themselves relations, more or less intimate, of business, of neighbourhood, of a community of memories, happy or unhappy. Not so ; it is an association of living souls subject to a social organization to be defended and safeguarded at all costs, even the cost of blood, under the leadership of those presiding over its fortunes. And it is because of this general spirit that the people of a country live a common life in the present, through the past, through the aspirations, the hopes, the confidence in a life to come, which they share together. Patriotism, an internal principle of order and unity, an organic bond of the members of a nation, was placed by the finest thinkers of Greece and Borne at the head of the natural virtues. Aristotle, the prince of the philosophers of Antiquity, held disinterested service of the City—that is, the State —to be the very ideal of human duty. And the religion of Christ makes of patriotism a positive law; there is no perfect Christian who is not also a perfect patriot. For our religion exalts the antique ideal, showing it to be a realizable only in the Absolute. Whence, in truth, comes this universal, this irresistible impulse which carries at once the will of the whole nation in one single effort of cohesion and of resistance in face of the hostile menace against her unity and her freedom ? Whence comes it that in an hour all interests were merged in the interest of all. and that all lives wero together offered in willing immolation ? Not that the State is worth more, essentially, than the individual or the family seeing that the good of the family and of the individual is the cause and reason of the organization of the State. Not that our country is a Moloch on whose altar lives may lawfully be sacrificed. The rigidity of ancient morals and the despotism of the Caesars suggested the false principal—and modern militarism tend to revive it —that the State is omnipotent, and that the discretionary power of the State is the rule of Bight. Not so, replies Christian theo-

logy, Bight is Peace, that is, the interior order of a nation, upon Justice. And itself is absolute only because it formulates the essential relations of man with God and of man with man.

Moreover, war for the saks of war is crime. War is justifiable only if it is the necessary means for securing peace. St. Augustine has said : “ Peace must not be a preparation for war. And war is not to be made except for the attainment of peace. ” In the light of this teaching, which is rep s a ted by St. Thomas Aquinas, Patriotism is seen in its religious character. Family interests, class interests, party interests. and the material good of the individual take their place in the scale of values, below the ideal of Patriotism, for that ideal is Bight which is absolute. Furthermore, that ideal is the Public recognition of Bight in in national matters, and of national Honour. Now there is no absolute except God. God alone,, by His sanctity and His sovereignty, dominates all human interests and human wills. And to affirm the absolute necessity of the subordination of all things to Bight, to justice, and to Truth, is implicitly to affirm God. When, therefore, humble soldiers whose heroism we praise answer us with characteristic simplicity, “We only did our duty,” or “We were bound in honour,” they express the religious character of their Patriotism. which of us does not feel Pariotism is a sacred thing, and that a violation of national dignity is in a manner a profanation and a sacrilege ? I was asked lately by a staff officer whether a soldier falling in a righteous cause and our cause is such, to demonstration — is not veritably a martyr. Well, he is not a martyr in the rigorous theological meaning of the word, inasmuch as he dies in arms, whereas the martyr delivers himself, undefended and unarmed, in the hands of the executioner. But if lam asked what I think of the eternal salvation of a brave man who has conspicuously given his life in defence of his country’s honour, and in vindication of violated justice, I shall not hesitate to reply that without any doubt whatever Christ crovv ns his military valour ; and that death, accepted in this Christian spirit, assures . the safety of that man's soul. “Greater love than this no mau hath,” said our Saviour, “ that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And the stidier who dies to save his brothers, and to defend the hearths and altars of his country, reaches this highest of all degrees of charity. He may not have made a close analysis of the value of his sacrifice; but must we suppose that God requires of the plain Soldier in the excitement of battle the methodical precision of the moralist or the theologian ? Can we who revere his heroism doubt that his God welcomes him with love ?

Christian mothers, be proud of your sons. Of all griefs, “of all our human sorrows, yours is perhaps the most worthy of. veneration. I think I behold you in your affliction, but erect, standing at the side of the Mother of Sorratws, at the foot of the Cross. Suffer us to offer you not only our condolence but our congratulation. Not all our heroes obtain temporal honours, but for all we expect the immortal crown of the elect. For this is the virtue of a single act pf perfect charity ; it cancels a whole lifetime of sins. It transforms a sinful mau into a saint.

Assuredly a great and a Christian comfort is the thought that not only amongst our own men. but in any belligerent army whatsoever, all who in good faith submit to the discipline of their leaders in the service of a cause they believe to be righteous, are sharers in the eternal reward of the soldier’s sacrifice. And how many may there not be among these young men of twenty, who, had they ■survived, might possibly not have had the resolution to live altogether well, and yet in the impulse of patriotism had the resolution to die so well ?

Is it not true, my Brethren, that God has the supreme art of mingling His mercy with His wisdom and His justice ? And shall we not acknowledge that if war is a scourge for this earthly life of ours, a scourge wherefore we cannot easily estimate the destructive force, and the extent, it is also for mulititude.s of souls, an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness ? ENDURANCE.

We may now say, my brethren, without unworthy pride, that Belgium has taken a foremost place in the esteem of nations. I am aware that certain onlookers, notably in Italy and Holland, have asked how it could be necessary to so expose this country to so immense a loss of wealth and life, and whether a verbal manifesto against hostile aggression, or a single cannonshot on the frontier, would not have served the purpose of protest. But assuredly all men of good feeling will be with us in our rejection of the paltry counsels. Mere utilitarianism is no sufficient rule of Christian citizenship.

I On the 19th of April, 1839, a i treaty was signed in London by King Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one part, and by the Emperor of Austria, the King oi France, and the Queen of England, the King of Prusssia, and the Emperor of Bussia, on the other; and its seventh article decreed that Belgium should form a separate and perpetually neutral State, and should be held in the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other States. The co-signatories promised, for themselves and their successors, upon their oath, to fulfil and observe that treaty in every point and every article without contravention, or tolerance of contravention. Belgium was thus bound in honour to deiend her own independence. She kept her oath. The other powers were bound to respect and protect her neutrality. Germany violated her oath ; Great Britain kept hers. These are facts.

All classes of our citizens have devoted their sons to the cause of their country ; but the poorer part of the population have set the noble example, for they have also suffered prrivation, cold and famine. If I may judge of the general feeling from what I have witnessed in the humbler quarters of Malinos, and in the most cruelly afflicted districts of my diocese, the people are energetic in their endurance. They look to be righted; they' will not hear of surrender. ■Truce, then, my Brethren, to all murmurs of complaint. Bemember.St. Paul’s words to the Hebrews, and through them to all of Christ’s flock, when, referring to the bloody sacrifice of Our Lord upon the cross, he reminded them that they had not yet resisted unto blood. Not only to the Bede >mer.’s example shall you look, but also to that of the thirty thousand,perhaps forty thousand, men who have already shed their life-blood for their country In comparison with them what have you endured who are deprived of the daily comforts of your lives, your newspapers, your njeans of travel, communication with your families ? Let the patriotism of our army, the heroism of our King, of our beloved Queen in her magnanimity serve to stimulate us and support as. Let us bemoan ourselves no more. Let us deserve the coming deliverance. .Courage, Bretliern. Suffering passes away ; the crown of life for our souls, the crown of glory for our nation, shall not pass.

I do not require of you to renounce any of your national desires. On the contrary, I hold it as part of the'obligations of my episcopal offioe to instruct you as to your duty In face of th’e Power that has invaded our soil and now occupies the greater part of our country,. The authority of that Power is no lawful authority. Therefore, in soul and conscience you owe it neither respect, nor attachment, nor obedience. The sole lawful authority in Belgium is that of our King, of our Government, of the elected representatives of the nation. This authority alone has a right to our affection, our submission. Thus, the invader’s acts of public administration have in themselves no authority, but legitimate authority has tacitly ratified such of those acts as affect the general interest, and this ratification, and this only, give them juridic value. Occupied provinces are not conquered provinces. Belgium is no more a German province than Galicia is a Russian province. Nevertheless, the occupied portion of our country is in a position it is compelled to endure. The greater part of our towns, having surrendered the to enemy on conditions, are bouid to observe those conditions. From the outset of military operations the civil authorities of the country urged upon all private persons the necessity of abstention from hostile acts against the enemy’s army. That instruction remains in force. It is our army, and our army solely, in league with the valiant troops of our Allies, that has the honour and the duty of national defence. Let us entrust the army \vith our final deliverance. Towards the persons of those who are holding dominion among us by military force, and who assuredly cannot hut he sensible of the chivalrous energy with which we have del ended, and are still defending, our independence let us conduct ourselves with all needful forbearance. Some among them have declared themselves willing to mitigate, so far as possible, the severity of our situation and to help us to recover some miuumim of regular civic life. Let us observe the rules they have laid upon us so long as those rules do not violate our personal liberty, nor our consciences as Christians, nor our duty to our country. Let us not take bravado for courage, nor tumult for bravery. Wherever it lias been possible, I have questioned our people, our clergy, and particularly a considerable number of priests who had been deported to German prisons, but whom a principle of

humanity, to which I gladly vender homage, has since set at liberty. Well. I affirm upon my honour, and I am prepared to assert, upon faith of my oath, that uniil now I liavo not met a single ecclesiastic, secular or regular, who had once incited civilians to bear arms against the enemy. Ail have loyally followed the instructions of their Bishops, given in the early days of August, to the effect that they were to use their moral influence over the civil population so that order might be preserved and regulations observed. With a touching goodness, our Holy Father, Benedict the Fifteenth, lias been the first to incline his heart towards us. When, a few moments after his election, he deigned to take me in his arms, I was bold enough there to ask that the first Pontifical Benediotion he spoke should be given to Belgium, already in deep distress through the war. He eagerly closed with my wish, which I knew would also be yours.

Accept, my dearest Brethren, my wishes and prayers for you, and for the happiness of your families, and receive, I pray you, my paternal benediction.

D. J. Card. MERCIER, Archbishop of Malines.