The Patriotism of the Soul
“Our citizenship is in Heaven.” — Punt. iii. 20.
Anp that is our true country. And our relationship to it constitutes our highest patriotism. All other forms of patriotism must bow to this, and from this they must borrow their spirit and their aims. When the earthly citizenship is out of harmony with the heavenly citizenship it becomes a minister of moral discord and disaster. Indeed, patriotism which is harshly divorced from the heavenly citizenship is only a deadly form of selfishness, and it is creative of unlimited bitterness and strife. But the local patriotism which is pervaded by the large inspiration of the heavens is as beautiful as some local rose bush which has breathed in the wider air of Devonshire or in the golden climate of California. In these matters everything depends upon relationship. Our patriotism can be of the earth earthy; or it can be nourished by the atmosphere of Heaven.
The patriotism of the soul finds its spirit in Heaven. Its temperament and temper are pure and warm and genial. It is like unto ‘‘a sea of glass mingled with fire.” There is nothing dark about it, nothing harsh and exclusive. Its sense of the individual welfare is governed by the larger interests of the family. Its service of man is done in the spirit of humanity. Its citizenship is of the world, and it seeks the blessedness of the world for which Christ died. ‘* God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”’ Our patriotism is a minister of divine health when it is infused with the sacrificial spirit of the Lord.
The patriotism of the soul finds its ideals in Heaven. Our Master approached everything from the loftiest standpoint. ‘“‘ I am from above.’ And therefore He brought the things from above to the things that are below. He brought the heavenly type to the earthly commonplace. And that is the counsel which is given to His followers in His Word. “See that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the Mount.” The ideal of the upper world is to determine the movement of the lower world. That is an essential part of all healthy patriotism. Our eyes are to be filled with the light of the heavenly vision when we set ourselves to an earthly task. When we are beginning to reconstruct society, or to build a wall that is in ruins, we are to have before our minds “the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God.” That is the governing standard of the heavenly citizenship. So long as that vision fills our minds and hearts, we cannot possibly build into our structures anything that is hay or wood or stubble, and still less anything that is rotten or unclean.
And the patriotism of the soul finds its noblest franchises in Heaven. No book more fervently exults in freedom than the New Testament. It proclaims the essential freedom without which all other professed freedoms are only clever forms of bondage. We may sing about freedom when the only thing which has happened has been that the shackles have been taken from our limbs. But a man may lose the outer chains and yet remain in most debasing bonds. It is possible that a man who is singing songs of liberty may be feasting upon the husks of freedom. But when we have the heavenly franchise the soul rejoices in the real thing, in the glory of the liberty of the children of God. When we are free with the freedom of the heavenly citizenship our soul has found her wings. She has been made free in Truth. Nay, she has been freed by Him who is the Truth. She has the liberty of the divine Sonship and rejoices in the sacred intimacy of the Father’s house.