The United Seas Part 6

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. For the ethics of true religion is to be sifted from the chaff of superst.i.tion, and righteousness is to cover the whole earth as the waters cover the seas.

Blessed are the merciful nations. For they shall obtain mercy in return from other nations, and learn that impulsive retaliation is too costly and that patient and honorable conciliation makes for world peace and national prosperity.

Blessed are the peacemakers. For now that the nations have entered through the united seas into a neighborhood; they--by encouraging disarmament and teaching the gospel of contact as well as good will--will hasten the day when the nations can live together without war in the spirit of council and peace.

Blessed is he who is persecuted by people whose minds are filled with race prejudice, national pride and selfishness; for he has discovered the secret of seeing good in all nationalities, of detecting the soul behind the color, and shall be honored by humanity as a pioneer of international brotherhood.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for so persecuted they Him who said "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven and in the councils of the world.

Blessed are the pure in heart. For they shall see G.o.d as transcendant and immanent in the resurrected Christ. They shall find His spirit in all life and behold His glory wherever they journey throughout the wide world.

Blessed is this n.o.ble brotherhood of manly souls. For ye are not only the salt of the school, the city, the state and nation; but also of the earth. Yours is not the light of bigoted patriotism. But ye are the light of the world. And your city placed upon a hill cannot be hid.

Blessed are these pathfinders who do not fear the seas, for they have discovered that the very waters are resolutely moving toward freedom; and they are being led forward by a pillar of light into the promised land of the essentially unified races.

THE WORLD'S NEIGHBORHOOD

Remember that a new world neighborhood has been created, bringing important points on the globe into closer proximity by one-half to two-thirds of the former distance, through the short route of the Panama Ca.n.a.l.

Therefore, a new commandment is given to each nation, namely, "to love thy neighbor as thyself," by entering by thought and co-operation into such policies as will make for the best interest of the entire new world neighborhood.

Do not think that other nations are unapproachable. But remember that North and South America, with all Europe, "are more closely related in point of time and common interests than were the original Thirteen States when the necessities of commerce forced them to form the compact of the Union; that the two geographical extremes of the colonies were as far separated as Berlin and the Barbary States or as London and the Black Sea."

Do not think that the short route through the ca.n.a.l is merely a path for commerce's ships, or only a highway for navies or state dignitaries; but remember also that it is a short route to the Hague and international congresses.

And do not fail to recall that brave men opened up this international highway--not through forests or smoking prairies, but through mountains, swamps, rocks and hills--in order to hasten the day of essential world democracy.

So think clearly enough and you will surely see that the completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l is virtually the discovery of a basis of essential world unity. He who walks by land or sails by sea can now read the will of G.o.d.

With increasing numbers we are now arriving at the day that Whitman speaks of in the following words:

"The main shapes arise!

Shapes of democracy total, result of centuries Shapes ever projecting other shapes, Shapes of turbulent manly cities, Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, Shapes bracing the earth and braced by the whole earth."

The key that is in tune with all other keys of its own instrument is in tune with all harmony on the earth. And the man that has attuned his life to justice and liberty in the community in which he lives is in accord with freemen in every land, loves the vision of world-wide liberty and prays for its realization.

Tagore, the Hindu poet, says: "I have learned though our tongues are different and our habits dissimilar, at the bottom our hearts are one. The monsoon clouds, generated on the banks of the Nile, fertilize the far distant sh.o.r.es of the Ganges; ideas may have to cross from east to western sh.o.r.es to find a welcome in men's hearts.

East is east and west is west--G.o.d forbid that it should be otherwise--but the twain must meet in amity, peace and mutual understanding; and their meeting will be all the more fruitful because of their differences; it must lead to holy wedlock before the common altar of humanity."

FOOTNOTE:

[E] I am indebted to Josiah Strong for some of the suggestions in these precepts.

VII

The Sea's Highest Decree

WHAT ARE THE SEAS ABOUT?

The deeper one goes into the subject of world democracy the more one is convinced of the necessity of calling to one's aid the help of true religion in formulating a world consciousness.

Walt Whitman, whom many may regard as somewhat unwise in some of his utterances, was absolutely right when he intimated that world democracy could not be formulated without religion.

And today there is nothing that is going to help people so effectively to grasp and feel at home with the ideal of an essential union of the nations, as the modern teaching of the immanence of G.o.d. If we are a part of the whole world, and if G.o.d is in the seas as well as the flowers and hills then we will not dread them, for they are our inspiration and helpers.

Not only does the teaching of the immanence of G.o.d in the seas help the nations into closer fellowship. But what is more than that, it helps the soul of man to find in the waters a purpose. The seas themselves seem to be up to something.

No man felt this secret of nature with keener appreciation than the late Prof. J. J. Blaisdell of Beloit College, Wis. For in one of his lectures, the notes of which, I still have, he says:

"Nature is expressive of a purpose. And no one has gotten the good of nature until he has got the momentum of the mighty work that it is working. Its face is steadily set forward. It is not static. It is not a current running down. It is an achievement. When you stop and think of it you are led to reflect that its onward movement is so stupendous toward the working out of a far off divine event that if you should throw yourself across its track you would be annihilated in a moment.

"I have stood on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan on a stormy day in December and the rhythm of that lake seemed to be the echo of the march of the universe treading its victorious way into the future. It is about something--its face is steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem. The firmness of great souls is but its child and copy; and responded to, it is the breeder of great souls.

"Now until we become alive to the expressiveness of purpose in nature, a purpose expressed in feeling and ready to lackey man in his pilgrimage, we fail to understand nature and lose much of the blessedness of living in this world.