The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. THE MAKING OF NATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 127, 7 September 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. THE MAKING OF NATIONS.

■ The history of the nations is the history of their sorrow. The individual who has not suffered has not succeeded; the nation that has not needed to fight physireally and mentally has invariably decayI ed. And so the wise Avords of Rev. Canon JTupper-Carey, spoken in New Plymouth last Sunday, arc valuable because of the familiarity of their truths and their general application to nations that have not yet reached the inevitable time when "the warclouds (burst." The preacher uttered the everyday truth that no European nation could say, as we are able to say, that no armed aggressor had ever come nigh. The fact "wag stamped on every page of history." The reverend gentleman, in showing that "righteousness exalteth a nation," differentiated between "going to church, psalm-singing and saying prayers," and the righteousness that means twenty shillings in the pound, commercial integrity, private honesty and a real belief in one's country, the traditions of the race and the fact that the majority of men are clean and straight and good and that the minority are physically or men- ; tally weak and cannot in very 1 many cases help it. It is the business of the strong to help the weak and not to blame them. It may be possible to 1 prove that all the great European nations because of national righteousness have won their greatness in physical, contact because of the national j I righteousness, hut a great soldier has j said that "God is on the side of the

big battalions," and the nation that will win when "the rivers run red with the blood of friend and foe" is the nation that has kept its mental and physical house in order, The new nation that "allows the irreligion of England" to creep in is obviously inviting defeat at the hands of the invader, who, if he have the necessary "big battalions," can dictate terms. The excellent lesson one may learn from the wisdom of RevCanon Tupper-Carey is that national righteousness of the real kind is the best insurance against "rivers running with blood." No nation, either righteous or heathen, fights without a quarrel, and the people who "play the game" inter-' nally and externally have no cause of quarrel. And the theory of the Christian religion thoroughly taught, honestly 'believed and acted on in good faith, is the finest basis of national*righteousness. | If the careful and mathematical atten-' tion to the duties of religion do not make men righteous, its discipline is of the greatest utility in the prevention I ■of wrongdoing. The religious habit of I a section of people has ato effect on those with whom they come in contact. If allied: to religious observance, there is a] definite desire to carry the finest tenets . of the faith outside the Church into daily life; and if the 1 tenets spread to take root, there can "be no international quarrels. The modern person lacks the simplicity of belief possessed in former times, but if he is slacker in visible observances it does not follow that he is less able to understand, appreciate and act up to eternal truths. It is an axiom that Britain gained* and has maintained her greatness "by her righteousness, but not necessarily of visible observances. If it is true that -Britain is to-day less' righteous than formerly, is her probable I decay to he ascribed to this reason? ■ There is in the Christian Church to-day ; a wonderful newness of energy and work. Because flie basis of this energy i is organisation fcnd discipline, with its foundations laii in rjgiht-doing, honesty, | "straight" trading and clean living, it must have a purifying effect on the nations in which the element is revived.' That observances of any kind can keep t war from the shores of any nation is, ■not reasonable, but that general right- j eousness must minimise the risks and' ;push war further from the arena of inI ternational politics is true. There can be ' no world peace wrthdxrt universal understanding, universal rectitude, universal .honestv. and the, fighters for the solution of difficulties bv righteousness are admirable, indispensable, and of as great use as the great admirals, the great generals, apd the renowned statesmen.