To be numerous, is not to be great. The Chinese are eight times more
numerous than you, and still China is not great, for she has isolated
herself from the world. Nor does the condition of a nation depend on
what she likes to call herself. China calls herself "Celestial," and
takes you and Europe for barbarians. Not what we call ourselves, but how
we act, proves what we are. Great is that nation which acts greatly.
And give me leave to say, what an American minister of the Gospel has
said to me: "_Nations_, by the great God of the Universe, are
individualized, as well as men. He has given each a mission to fulfil,
and He expects every one to bear its part in solving the great problem
of man's capacity for self-government, which is the problem of human
destiny; and if any nation fails in this, He will treat it as an
unprofitable servant, a barren fig-tree, whose own end is to be rooted
up and burnt."
Jonah sat under the shadow of his gourd rejoicing, in isolated, selfish
indifference, caring nothing for the millions of the Ninevites at his
feet. What was the consequence? God prepared a worm to smite the gourd,
that it withered. God has privileged you, the people of the United
States, to repose, not under a gourd, but beneath the shadow of a
luxuriant vine and the outspreading branches of a delicious fig-tree.
Give him praise and thanks! But are you, Jonah-like, on this account to
wrap yourselves up in the mantle of insensibility, caring nothing for
the nations smarting under oppression? stretching forth no hand for
their deliverance, not even so much as to protest against a conspiracy
of evil doers, and give an alms to aid deliverance from them? Are you to
hide your national talent in a napkin, or lend it at usury? Read the
Saviour's maxim:
"_Do unto others as ye would that others do unto you!_" This is the
Saviour's golden rule, applicable to nations as well as to individuals.
Suppose when the United States were struggling for their independence,
the Spanish Government had interfered to prevent its achievement
--sending an armament to bombard your cities and murder your
inhabitants. What would your forefathers have thought--how felt?
Precisely as Hungary thought and felt when the Russian bear put down his
overslaughtering paw upon her. They would have invoked high heaven to
avenge the interference--and had there been a people on the face of the
earth to protest against it, that people would have shown out, like an
eminent star in the hemisphere of nations--and to this day you would
call it blessed. What you would have others do unto you, do so likewise
unto them.
And though you met no foreign interference, yet you met far more than a
protest in your favour; you met substantial aid: thirty-eight vessels of
war, nineteen millions of money, 24,000 muskets, 4,000 soldiers, and the
whole political weight of France engaged in your cause. I ask not so
much, by far not so much, for oppressed Europe from you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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