p. 406 | THE MODEL REPUBLIC

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1867

THE MODEL REPUBLIC.

Under this heading we find in the last Methodist a sermon from Cyrus D. Foss, Pastor of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York, from which our readers will be gratified to have us quote quite largely, inasmuch as it has a direct bearing upon a prophetic question which is to us of great interest. The sermon sets forth these United States as the model Republic, erected by the direct providence of God, and destined to fulfill a glorious mission in the evangelization of the world. But while we cannot endorse the statements concerning the great and good work to be accomplished by this government, believing them to be but a part of that peace-and-safety cry which was to be raised when sudden and final destruction should be impending over the world and its guilty inhabitants, yet the extracts we present are important as giving many reasons why it might be reasonably expected that this nation would be a subject of prophecy, as it unquestionably is one of God's providence. It shows also the prevalent and inwrought conviction in the minds of thinking men, that this nation, although they do not attempt to find a place for it in prophecy, must yet be an especial instrument in the hands of God in accomplishing the providential events of history. But all such instruments he has noted in his prophetic book. How, then, can it be otherwise than that this has a place therein? We are more and more confirmed from day to day in the view that it is a subject of prophecy. How can it be possible that a nation so remarkably developed, and at such a peculiar time, a nation of such power and resources, a nation of such a peculiar profession, and one to which the eyes of the whole world are turned, as to a prodigy among the governments of earth, a nation with which the people of God, if he has a people now on the earth, are specially connected;—how can it be possible, while all other governments with which his people have had any connection, and some of them of much less importance are noted on the prophetic page, that such a nation as this should be passed over in silence? But if it is noted in prophecy, where else but in Rev. xiii, 11-18? But to the sermon, which says:

Let every thoughtful American bless God that he lives in this age of the world and in this country on the globe; not in the dark past, where greatness and even goodness could accomplish so little; not in the Oriental world, where everything is stiffened and is hard as cast-iron; but just now where such mighty forces are at work for the uplifting of humanity, and just here at this focal point of power.

In no vainglorious spirit, but with a sincere desire to awaken your gratitude to Almighty God for his astonishing mercies to us as a people, I propose this inquiry: What is the place of America in history? God gives each nation a work to do. For that work he bestows adequate and appropriate endowments, and to it he summons the nation by a thousand trumpet-calls of providence. If those calls are unheeded, if the nation is hopelessly recreant, he dashes it in pieces like a potter's vessel. Witness Assyria; witness the Jewish people; nation after nation—a long procession—has faded away at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

I maintain to-day that God has signalized this great American nation, this democratic republican nation, this Protestant Christian nation, above all the nations there are or ever have been upon the face of the globe, by the place and the work he has assigned it. Look at its place on the globe, and its place among the centuries. What a magnificent arena for a young nation to step forth upon and begin its march to a destiny inconceivably glorious! Suppose an angel flying over all the earth two hundred years ago, looking down upon the crowded populations of Europe and Asia, and the weak and wretched tribes of Africa, perceiving that humanity never rises to its noblest development, save in the north temperate zone—turning his flight westward across the Atlantic, there dawns upon him the vision of a new world—a world unpopulated save by a few scattered and wandering tribes of aboriginal savages, and by thirteen sparse colonies of the hardiest and best of emigrants along the Atlantic coast. He beholds a continent marvelously beautiful, with unlimited resources to be developed; its rivers open all parts of the country, and bring all into communication with two great oceans and with the tropic gulf. He sees a soil inexhaustibly fertile; he sees the mountains (for an angel's eye can search their treasures) full of gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal. He sees a country insulated by three thousand miles of ocean from all the nations, needing contiguity with none—a Cosmos in itself. Would not this angel-gazer say, “My God has assuredly made and endowed this peerless continent for some glorious end. The rest of the world is occupied, and the most of it cursed by occupation. Here is virgin soil; here is an arena for a new nation, which, perchance, profiting by the mistakes of the long, dark past, may, by the blessing of God, work out for itself and for humanity a better destiny?”

Note again the place of America in the scale of the centuries. Why was this continent hid from the eye of Europe so long? And why, after its discovery, was it kept unsettled for a century and a quarter longer, the thought of it all that time being only a disturbing leaven in the mind of Europe? Ah! God would not suffer it that tyrannical ideas of government or religion should take root here. He veiled the New World from the vision of the Old, until the Old had cultivated a seed worthy to plant the New. No crowned despots, no hooded monks were to flourish here. No hoary superstitions, no ancient usurpations were to take root here. Why was the era of this nation's birth coeval with that of the development of inventive genius? Why was it that this land was comparatively unsettled until the iron horse was ready to career across its plains, leap its rivers, dive through its mountains, and bring its most distant cities into vicinage?—until Leviathan stood waiting to plough the ocean, and bring the nations into brotherhood?—until the fiery steeds of heaven were being harnessed to fly with tidings in a single instant across the continent or under the ocean? Why was the beginning of our national history delayed until the doctrines of civil and religious liberty—a thousand times strenuously asserted and bravely defended—had emerged into prominence and power, so that the American freeman of to-day stands upon the shoulders of thirty generations of heroic battles for the right? Why—most remarkable coincidence of all—why does it occur that just at the time of the vigorous infancy of this favored nation the church of God should awake from the slumber of ages, acknowledge the universal bond of brotherhood, and begin in this age, within the lifetime of men here present, those sublime evangelizing agencies which are the chief glory of the century, and which are to bring this world to the feet of Jesus? No candid man can ponder these thoughts without wondering what God designs for this young giant which he has so located on the surface of the globe, and on the scale of the centuries.

The thesis I shall defend is this: God designated the United States of America as the Model Republic and the great evangelizer of the world. The questions I have just propounded suggest a line of argument which will prove this proposition, and by proving it, devolve upon us here in this country a responsibility, the like of which has never been laid upon any nation. Let me premise two things essential to the argument. America is certainly the observed of all observers. The eyes of all nations are upon her. This free government, this “experiment at free government,” as European absolutists have sneeringly termed it, fixes the gaze of the whole world. There is no nation, no tribe, civilized or semi-civilized, on the whole earth, that does not look this way, and feel that humanity has a stake in this land. This Hercules, who, when in his cradle, bearded and defeated the British Lion; who, in his callow youth, repeated that feat on those watery plains, where, till then, the foe had ranged as acknowledged lord; and who has just now, in his vigorous manhood, throttled and slain the many-headed hydra of rebellion—secession, treason, and slavery—this Hercules, somehow, has come to be gazed upon by all lands, and, somehow, the oppressed of every nation on the face of the earth have reached the conviction that he is their champion.

The other preliminary thought is this: In stating the mission of America, I have mentioned two things—that God meant it to be a model Republic, and the great evangelizer, and these two are one. We cannot consider them separately, and draw out entirely distinct lines of proof. It is idle for any nation at this age to expect greatness without acknowledging God, and falling into the ranks as an obedient subject of his kingdom. In ancient times, the case was different; but now Christian nations control the world, and, depend upon it, brethren, the hands will never go backward on the dial. France tried to get on without a God in the time of her first revolution, but Napoleon, for reasons of State, restored the Catholic religion. His most appreciative historian, M. Thiers, gives us a deeply interesting account of this singular passage in his history. Napoleon said: “For my part, I never hear the sound of the church-bell in the neighboring village without emotion.” He knew that the hearts of the people were stirred by the same deep yearnings after God which filled his own, and so he proposed to restore the worship of God to infidel France. The savants of Paris ridiculed the proposal, laughed it to scorn, declared it was weakness in him to yield to a superstition that had forever passed, and that he needed no such aid to government, and that he could do what he pleased. “Yes,” said he, “but I act only with regard to the real and sensibly-felt wants of France.” Negotiations were opened with the Pope, and the Romish worship was set up, amid the enthusiasm of the nation. The historian utters this reflection: “Whether true or false, sublime or ridiculous, men must have a religion.” Later, and with deeper meaning, Perrier, successor to Lafayette as Prime minister to Louis Philippe, said, on his death-bed: “France must have religion.” So I say to-day concerning that better faith, which overthrows what Romanism sets up; which breaks the shackles Romanism binds on; which is the only security of national permanence—America must have religion. In order to be the model Republic, she must be the great evangelizer.

The two evangels of civil and religious liberty are ours. There are two great methods by which God indicates his will concerning a nation—by the providential training he bestows upon it, and by the resources he puts within its reach. Now, in the light of these two criteria, let us look at this country and see if God does not proclaim his will as plainly as though he had written it in letters of fire on the sky over every American sunset, or deeply graven it in rocky characters on the crest of every American mountain: “My will is, that on this new continent, the nation I plant here shall be the model Republic and the great evangelizer of the world.” I have already indicated in general outline this train of argument; but let us now look first behind us at our history, and then around us at our resources, and see what are their teachings. While we do not believe in “manifest destiny,” in the sense of blind fate, or of results absolutely certain without regard to national character and endeavor, we do believe that the breath of God has inspired the heart of America with a sublime idea, and that the hand of God has marvelously led her along toward its realization, and has gifted her with munificent resources for the completion of this great work.

Glance backward at our history, and keep in mind the question what it all meant. This country was discovered by a religious navigator, sent out by a religious queen, and the ruling motive in the minds of both of them was a religious one. Isabella and Columbus both intended to give the gospel to the natives of any lands that might be discovered. America was discovered just after the art of printing had begun its marvelous quickening of the human mind. Now, who shall settle it? Papists? They found it. Spaniards? Frenchmen? Both wanted it. No; God's plan will be imperilled unless colonists of a certain language, and of a certain religious faith, shall be the first settlers of the land. The settlers must have the truest religious faith there is on earth, and must speak only that language which, more than any other language, is full of the inspirations of liberty. They came—and for what? With the noblest motives that ever inspired the bosom of an emigrant, see them land from the Mayflower upon the frozen beach, amid

the storms of winter, dropping tears which freeze as they fall, and yet tears of gratitude.

“What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine. Aye, call it holy ground, The spot where first they trod; They left unstained what there they found— Freedom to worship God.”

They had trouble enough from the aborigines to drive them together, and to drive them to God. They had the utmost simplicity of manners, the utmost reverence for the Bible, and the utmost detestation of tyranny, whether in the church or State. They had not for the love of freedom left their homes in the Old World to become slaves in the New. The God who instituted the Colonies moulded their history. He kept them connected with the mother country until they were strong enough to stand alone among the nations, and then he overruled the manner of their breaking away so as to inspire them with a perpetual hatred of all oppression. Why the British parliament should have passed the Stamp Act, and why, in repealing it, it should have re-asserted the false principles underlying it; why it should have so long persisted in treating Englishmen here as Englishmen there would never have submitted to be treated at all, no man can explain on any other hypothesis than this: that England was judicially blinded, in order that America might be free.

And this is not merely the opinion of Americans spoken a century after. It was the opinion of British statesmen at the time. The halls of Parliament, the whole realm, rang with notes of warning at that hour. Lord Chatham said: “The gentleman tells us that America is obstinate, America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.” This was said in Parliament ten years before the Declaration of Independence. Wesley, who is usually represented as having been the foe of our independence, and to whom history has at length done tardy justice, on the very first day after the reception of the news of Lexington and Concord, sat down and wrote to Lord North and the Earl of Dartmouth, each an emphatic letter: “I am a High-churchman, the son of a High-churchman, brought up from my childhood in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance, and yet, in spite of all my long-rooted prejudices, I cannot avoid thinking these, an oppressed people, asked for nothing more than their legal rights, and that in the most modest and inoffensive manner that the nature of the thing would allow.” “And if arms were to be resorted to, how could it happen that Great Britain should fail in the contest? How could it be that she should not be able, after overpowering the fleets and armies of the first nations of Europe (and this is an Englishman's question), immediately to discomfit the farmers and merchants of America?” There is but one explanation: “We got not the land in possession by our own sword, neither did our own arm save us; but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto us.” God released the young giant from the swaddling-bands of Colonial dependence. And why should it not be so? Why should a country like this, the most magnificent of any country on the earth, a country in whose lakes England might have been thrown and buried, whose descending seas made her greatest rivers appear, in comparison, like brooks and rivulets, whose cataracts might have drowned out her cities—why should this magnificent country be shackled by the chains put on it by the selfishness of its parent? It was not according to the will of God. He chose that here, in an independent career of unparalleled freedom to man, that country should go forth on its path of progress, and hold its place among the nations, unsurpassed by any until human happiness and grandeur this side the grave should be no more.

The ideal of government is popular government. The divine right of kings is an exploded fancy. The best ends of government can never be realized by the rule of one or of a few. God gave to Israel a king in his wrath. The rights of man, the dignity of man, the direct relation and responsibility of man to God—these ideas stand forth most clearly where there is no king, no noble nor ignoble pedigree, no bar between the poorest boy in the land and the highest post of honor. Many an experiment of republican government had failed for the lack of general intelligence and of a pure religion. Absolutists pointed to Rome, to Sparta, to France, and sneered at the democratic idea. For the grandest and final experiment of self-government, God reserved this peerless continent. Such a new work, politically, can be best accomplished on virgin soil, where no old castles, no effete conservatism should bind men subserviently to a blundering past—where all things summon them to hold communion, not with dead men's bones, but with nature, with freedom, and with God.

A rapid glance at the resources of this country will deepen our conviction of the grandeur of its mission. We shall see that it has ample resources, material and moral, for the great work to which it is summoned. We have the heart of the continent, the north temperate zone. If you will study history, you will find that no great nation has ever existed on the earth except in that zone. There must be the hardening of the muscles and the fibre, and the quickening of the mind, which can be only where summer's heat gives place to winter's frost.

We have also a coast-line greater than that of any other nation. The relation of this fact to the theme will quickly appear. Arnot counsels fearful Englishmen to turn for comfort from the newspaper to the map. He bids them notice that the coast-line of Great Britain is three times greater than that of France, and thence argues that the commercial and naval supremacy of Great Britain is forever assured. The argument is sound. Now, our coast-line is several times greater than that of any other nation. We have two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the great lakes; and rivers piercing the land bring all the country right down to the sea. The commercial and the naval greatness of America can easily be all that they need it to be for the accomplishment of those things which we believe God has assigned for this nation to accomplish in the world. Our agricultural and mineral resources, and the rapidly increasing population which is developing them, must have a few words.

Sir Morton Peto, the great railroad manager, whose travels in our own country excited so much attention in financial circles, went back to his own country amazed at our resources, and wrote a book which you ought to read. It would astound you by its revelations of the greatness of our country, which we ourselves do not begin to understand. Let me give you two or three facts concerning our resources. In 1850 the ten Western States produced 46,000,000 bushels of wheat; in 1860, 102,000,000. The mines of gold and silver are nearly all on public lands, and Governor Walker says: “They are the property of the Federal Government, and their intrinsic value exceeds our public debt.” It wants only the Pacific railroad to make them yield $150,000,000 annually. In Missouri there is an iron mountain 228 feet high, covering an area of 500 acres, and containing 230,000,000 tons of pure ore, and every foot of descent below the surface will give 3,000,000 tons. The upper seam of the coal-field about Pittsburgh contains over 53½ thousand million tons of coal—that is, 2,000 tons for every dollar of our national debt; and the Keystone State, which in other ways contributed so nobly to the national cause, came forward in the hour of our sorest need, and poured into our finances an element of marvelous quickening and strength—oil, which lubricated the machinery of the government, and helped to illuminate the night of our trial. In 1862, 42,000,000 gallons of petroleum were exported, and its benefits extended far beyond its cash value. It employed labor and rewarded capital; it stimulated internal industry and external commerce. But all our people are employed; how, then, can these immense resources ever be developed? By the rapidly multiplying millions. In 1800, there were in Indiana 4,875 inhabitants; in 1860, 1,350,428. In 1849, in Minnesota, 4,000 inhabitants; 1864, 350,000. In 1850, there were 1,900 acres of land ploughed in Minnesota; in 1860, 483,276 acres.

Now, what is the bearing of these startling facts upon our argument? A great nation must be materially great. It must have room to stand on and a field to work in, for only work can make a man or nation great. These amazing resources are to furnish us the machinery for a splendid career of civil, moral, and religious progress.