OF LOYALTY

O God, who causes us to rejoice in recalling the joys of the conception, the nativity, the annunciation, the visitation, the purification, and the assumption of the blessed and glorious virgin Mary; grant to us so worthily to devote ourselves to her praise and service, that we may be conscious of her presence and assistance in all our necessities and straits, and especially in the hour of death, and that after death we may be found worthy, through her and in her, to rejoice in heaven with thee.  Through &c.

Sarum Missal.

The dream of the Middle Ages was of one Christian society of which the Church should be the embodiment of the spiritual, and the State of the temporal interests.  As there is one humanity united to God in Incarnate God, all its interests should be capable of unification in institutions which should be based on that which is essential in humanity, and not on that which is accidental:  men should be united because they are human and Christian, and not divided because of diversity of blood or color or language.  The dream proved impossible of realization, and the struggle for human unity went to pieces on the rocks of the rapidly developing nationalism of the later Middle Ages.

The Reformation was the triumph of nationalism and the defeat of Catholic idealism.  It resulted in a shattered Christendom in which the interests of local and homogeneous groups became supreme over the purely human interests.  In state and Church alike patriotism has tended more and more to become dominant over the interests that are supralocal and universal.  The last few years have seen an intensification of localism.  We have seen bitter scorn heaped on the few who have labored for internationalism in thought and feeling.  We have seen the attempt of labor at internationalism utterly break down under the pressure of patriotic motive.  We are finding that the same concentration on immediate and local interests is an insuperable bar to the realization of an ideal of internationalism which would effectively deal with questions arising between nations and put an end to war.  The Church failed to establish a spiritual internationalism; the indications are that it will be long before humanitarian idealists will be able to effect a union among nations still infected with patriotic motive, such as shall bring about a subordination of local and immediate interests to the interests of humanity as such.  That the general interests are also in the end the local interests is still far from the vision of the patriot.