Near the close of your speech is the remark:  “I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people.”

Another distinguished American statesman uttered the applauded sentiment:  “My country—­my whole country—­and nothing but my country;”—­and a scarcely less distinguished countryman of ours commanded the public praise, by saying:  “My country right—­but my country, right or wrong.”  Such are the expressions of patriotism of that idolized compound of selfish and base affections!

Were I writing for the favor, instead of the welfare of my fellow-men, I should praise rather than denounce patriotism.  Were I writing in accordance with the maxims of a corrupt world, instead of the truth of Jesus Christ, I should defend and extol, rather than rebuke the doctrine, that we may prefer the interests of one section of the human family to those of another.  If patriotism, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, be right, then the Bible is wrong—­for that blessed book requires us to love all men, even as we love ourselves.  How contrary to its spirit and precepts, that,

  “Lands intersected by a narrow frith,
  Abhor each other, Mountains interposed
  Make enemies of nations, who had else,
  Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.”

There are many, who consider that the doctrine of loving all our fellow men as ourselves, belongs, to use your words, “to a sublime but impracticable philosophy.”  Let them, however, but devoutly ask Him, who enjoins it, to warm and expand their selfish and contracted hearts with its influences; and they will know, by sweet experience, that under the grace of God, the doctrine is no less “practicable” than “sublime.”  Not a few seem to suppose, that he, who has come to regard the whole world as his country, and all mankind as his countrymen, will have less love of home and country than the patriot has, who makes his own nation, and no other, the cherished object of his affections.  But did the Saviour, when on earth, love any individual the less, because the love of His great heart was poured out, in equal tides, over the whole human family?  And would He not, even in the eyes of the patriot himself, be stamped with imperfection, were it, to appear, that one nation shares less than another in His “loving-kindness” and that “His tender mercies are (not) over all his works?” Blessed be His holy name, that He was cast down the “middle wall of partition” between the Jew and Gentile!—­that there is no respect of persons with Him!—­that “Greek” and “Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond” and “free,” are equal before Him!

Having said, “I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people,” you add—­“and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race."