The Higher Powers of Mind and SpiritTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Mind and body; New Thought
Whatever differences of opinion--and honest differences of opinion--may
have existed and may still exist in America in regard to the great world
conflict, there is a wonderful unanimity of thought that has
crystallised itself into the concrete form--_something must be done in
order that it can never occur again_. The higher intelligence of the
nation must assert itself. It must feel and think and act in terms of
internationalism. Not that the feeling of nationalism in any country
shall, or even can be eradicated or even abated. It must be made,
however, to coordinate itself with the now rapidly growing sense of
world-consciousness, that the growing intelligence of mankind, aided by
some tremendously concrete forms of recent experience, is now
recognising as a great reality.
That there were very strong sympathies for both the Allied Nations and
for the Central Powers in the beginning, goes without saying, How could
it be otherwise, when we realise the diverse and complex types of our
citizenship?
One of the most distinctive, and in some ways one of the most
significant, features of the American nation is that it is today
composed of representatives, and in some cases, of enormous bodies of
representatives, numbering into the millions, of practically every
nation in the world.
There are single cities where, in one case twenty-six, in another case
twenty-nine, and in other cases a still larger number of what are today
designated as hyphenated citizens are represented. The orderly removal
of the hyphen, and the amalgamation of these splendid representatives of
practically all nations into genuine American citizens, infused with
American ideals and pushed on by true American ambitions, is one of the
great problems that the war has brought in a most striking manner to our
attention.
Not that these representatives of many nations shall in any way lose
their sense of sympathy for the nations of their birth, in times of
either peace or of distress, although they have found it either
advisable or greatly to their own personal advantage and welfare to
leave the lands of their birth and to establish their homes here.
The fact that in the vast majority of cases they find themselves better
off here, and choose to remain and assume the responsibilities of
citizenship in the Western Republic, involves a responsibility that
some, if not indeed many, heretofore have apparently too lightly
considered. There must be a more supreme sense of allegiance, and a
continually growing sense of responsibility to the nation, that, guided
by their own independent judgment and animated by their own free wills,
they have chosen as their home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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