Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15Temple, William
Religion
Church and Nation: The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1914-15
Temple, William
Church and state
anticipated or desired, but his conscious desires were utilised by
Providence to serve an end of which he never dreamed. His early death
before his Empire could be consolidated in a political sense is as
markedly providential as his emergence at the precise moment of history
when he appears upon the scene.
The case is similar with Napoleon. Alexander at his death was 32 years
old. Napoleon was 52. He also appears at a critical moment, is active
precisely as long as he can serve what we now see to have been the cause
of progress, and is then removed. The great feature of the period is
the growth of the sentiment of nationality. This is the sense of
membership in a people united by common characteristics and a common
purpose; it is therefore always democratic in spirit though it need not
at all necessarily be democratic in machinery. The old European
constitutions, which had been valuable enough in their time, were
becoming a barrier to its further development; the flood of progress
burst the dam in France, and soon after there appears the supreme
genius, not himself a Frenchman, who was to carry the spirit of which
France had just become consciously possessed through the entire length
and breadth of Europe. Napoleon, like Alexander, was conscious of his
mission; he thought of himself as being the organ of the Revolution; he
is reported to have said that moral principles did not apply to him;
they applied only to persons, and he was a force. But there can be no
doubt that he was as much concerned with establishing a vast French
Empire as he was with merely carrying the principles of the French
Revolution into the other nations. He is allowed success so long as the
work of destruction is still needed; his activities first as general and
then as ruler began the unification alike of Italy and Germany; but as
soon as the spiritual work which he was to do is fully accomplished, the
political construction, which was as a great scaffolding surrounding it,
falls to pieces, and he is driven into exile to end his days in solitude
and impotence. Perhaps some day people will look back upon the horror
that now lies upon the world and not only believe that God was active in
it, but see the blessings which He was conferring by its means.
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* * * * * * * *
_*By the Rev. WILLIAM TEMPLE.*_
THE FAITH AND MODERN THOUGHT. SIX LECTURES. With an Introduction by
Professor Michael Sadler.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. A COURSE OF FOUR LECTURES.
THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY. A COURSE OF LECTURES.
STUDIES IN THE SPIRIT AND TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. BEING UNIVERSITY AND
SCHOOL SERMONS.
REPTON SCHOOL SERMONS. STUDIES IN THE RELIGION OF THE INCARNATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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