Peanut Patriotism and Pure Patriotism

Our subject this morning is “Peanut Patriotism and Pure Patriotism: Our Duty to God and our Country in this Time of Crisis.” You will find the text in Judges 5 :23, “Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.” The speaker is the angel of Jehovah. It could be proven, if there were time to go into it, that the angel of Jehovah was the second person of the trinity before His incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. So this declaration of a curse upon slackers is an utterance of Jesus Christ. The whole chapter from which our text is taken. Judges 5, is an inspired hymn. It is God’s hymn. The sentiments of the hymn are God’s sentiments, and it is Jehovah God who pronounces the curse of the text. God had called Israel to battle, to literal war, to bloody war against His enemies and theirs. Sisera was the Kaiser Wilhelm II of that day. Some had heard the call of God and rallied to His war. These had conquered the enemies of God and their enemies, and won a glorious victory. God had fought for them and with them. It was Jehovah who had “discomfited Sisera and all his chariots, and all his hosts, with the edge of the sword before Barak” (Judges 4:15). But in that time of God’s war for liberty and righteousness, Meroz had shirked its duty. They had proven shirkers and slackers and brought the curse of the Almighty upon their heads. It is clear that there are times when God calls His people to war, when a war is God’s war. If there was ever a time in the history of this country when our side in the war was God’s side, and our war was

GocPs war, it is in this present war. It is to my mind far easier to justify the part of the United States in this war than to justify our part even in the War of the Revolution, or to justify the part of the North in the Civil War. Indeed, this present war ’ was forced upon us. We had to fight or else to leave our citizens and our women and children to be murdered by a government and a nation that knew no law, no truth, no honor, no regard for the most sacred rights of other nations, or even of women and children. Because I believe in justice, because I believe in the rights of the weak, both of individuals and nations, because I believe in veracity and in keeping of treaties and covenants, because I believe in the protection of the honor of women and girls, because I believe in everything that is high and holy and pure and true, I believe in this war, and in the destruction of the power of the Hohenzollerns and the punishment and humiliation of the people that support and follow William the Second in his villainies and deviltries. And every man, woman and child in the land has a duty to our government and nation at this time, and those who fail to perform their whole duty at this time, who fail to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, will bring a curse upon their heads.

There is a most cheering display of pure patriotism throughout our land. I have spoken, since the war began, throughout our land from Boston on the Atlantic to Los Angeles on the Pacific, and from Vermont on the north to Texas on the south, and I have seen everywhere an enthusiasm for our righteous cause that has cheered my heart. But along with this pure patriotism I have also seen a cheap and tawdry patriotism, a peanut patriotism, a patriotism that in no sense deserves the name of patriotism, a patriotism that has cost nothing, but has often brought profit to the alleged patriot, a patriotism that has proved profitable in money or in applause to the alleged patriot, a patriotism for example, that has tried to fatten the purse of flag manufacturers by fostering an over-use of our beautiful and glorious flag, and by uses of the flag that were not honoring, but dishonoring, using the flag, for example, as a mere decoration, or thrown over chairs to sit on, or placed on platforms to trample on, or even used as a handkerchief to blow your nose on or spit on, or that has sought to play to the galleries by attacking people who were falsely alleged not to properly display the flag, or not to display the flag sufiiciently, while the man who was courting applause by his lying attack upon others was making no personal sacrifices by going to the war himself nor by sending any one who was dear to him to the war, nor giving any considerable sum to Red Cross, or Y. M. C. A., or buying Liberty Bonds, or by any other of the thousand and one ways of sacrifice that have been open to the one who is not seeking applause for himself, but holds what he has and is at his country’s and his God’s disposal. I believe in our flag; I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is the most beautiful national emblem that floats. I have taken my hat off to it as I have passed beneath it on German soil. I have carried it, not only from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Labrador to Georgia over our continent, but in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, India, Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, and Belgium, and even Germany, but I do not take any stock in that form of patriotism that exhausts itself in seeing how many flags it can tuck on to an automobile, or in putting out a service flag that has as many stars upon it as you have distant relatives that are mere camp hangers-on. I have seen a large and beautiful flag displayed in a home and many flags fluttering from automobiles where I had good reason to suspect that our glorious flag was simply used as a camouflage for lurking pro-Germanism and I have seen a service flag fluttering from a house with five stars upon it when there was only one man in the whole household old enough to enlist.

What does real patriotism, pure patriotism demand of us at the present time?

I. JOINING THE ARMY.

First of all, pure patriotism demands that when we are drafted we should go to the war, unless there is something else we can do that will be more for our nation’s welfare, and for the honor of God, and for which, therefore, we may be properly exempted.

1. Why do I say, when we are drafted? Because I believe that a selective draft is the only fair way of securing soldiers for the war. We cannot all go, some must stay at home to back those who do go. If we depend upon voluntary enlistment then only the best go and the worthless and comparatively worthless stay at home to enjoy the fruit of the sacrifices of the brave and true. A draft is the fair, and the only fair way of securing soldiers, and while our own draft law may not be perfect, it is certainly as good as could be expected. It is a remarkably good law. In fact, taken as a whole it is a thoroughly wise law.

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