The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-06-21
THE NATIONS ARE MIssAMED.

NdtlonS nave Deen guilty ali tnrOuSn
the years. the very natural inquiry
arose. as there a Christian Nation"
or was there ever a Christian Nation"
and the answer came at once, there
was never one in the history of nine
teen centuries. II you will read Pro-
fessor Fishers excellent. scholarly
Universal History" you will learn
how cruel, prosecuting, destructive
have been h different peoples in their
warfare upon each other. 1t is a
bloody record throughout, and you will
find but little of the principles Of the
Prince OF Peace observed Dr. inculcated.
1t is what old Sherman called it, hell
throughout. Take the last half of
this century and what do you e
Behold England in India in h Sepoy
war. Behold Spain in Cuba See the
northern tates in their destructive
war upon the south. Look at Great
Britain in South Africa, and then be-
hold the great nations in China, and
see what impression the pure merci-
full. subduing, uplifting religion of the
Son of God has made upon the barbaric
nations so boastful of their civilization.
Look at results in Africa. What do
eminent men Of letters and scholars say
and think OF occurrences in that re-
mote region?
Hon. John Morley is not only one Of
the most famous and ablest of living
men of letters, but he is also a distin-
guished statesman and held a high
place in the very able Gladstone cabi-
net. Recently in the British house of
he strongly ~reprobated the
conduct of Great Britain in the Boer
war, and denounced it unreservedly as
"a hateful war, a war insensate and
infatuated, a war of uncompensated
mischief and i~rreparable wrong"
And so think thousands of able, Gull
tivated men and women of that great
country. The late Robert Buchanan,
but just dead, and of whom the Mes
senger wrote in Sundays ISSUE, poured
out the walls of his i%ntensest wrath
with eXcoriating power upon his country
for the internal outrages perpetrated
against the Beers. Mr.. Frederic Har-
! lSOA. OAIC VI iS IIIOSl dCCOllDllSIleu VI
English living authors and a critic and
~biographer of distinguished rank, in a
letter in the London Daily News at
tacks the British Tory ministry and
says that the conflict had not only
Inundated England, but made her
odious as a nation, and left her
the laughing stock of Europe" MI.
Harrison also reminded the govern
ment that the blatant BardoIphs in
their c~arouses' might prate about the
wars being over, but one thing was
certain, the nation was not over the
deadly blow all this has struck at the
empire, the ruin and chaos it has
blo~od-poison it has infused into public
opinion. nor the stain on English hon
or in the sight OF the civilized world
Such opinions come from men Of high
gifts and repute. Professor Goodwin
Smith declares that the Boer wal will
forever remain the greatest stain upon
the e~scutcheon of England next to it's
burning the pure and patriotic and no
BILE Joan OF Arc as she is known gen.
orally. Writing of the conduct of the
war the Richmond Dispatch in a late
issue said:
Furthermore the devastation of the
Boer country under Kitchener's orders
has. in some of it's features-though
not in all by a vast deal-been hardly
less ruthless than the infamous work
of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley,
and hence the Kitchener policy is a re-
proach to British civilization.
80 we can understand tina the crit
icisms of Mr.. Morley and Mr.. Harrison
are not unmerited, and that at bottom
they do not greatly exaggerate the case.
AS to many points involved we consid-
er that the Beers are entitled to the
deepest sympathy"
It might have pointed t the wal I'M
der Sherman in Georgia and the Car
olinas. with the forty-miles ravage, as
given by Sherman in his Infamous let
ter to General Grant. telling Of his bar
barrie exploits and devastations in
Georgia. and hen have recalled his
burning Of Atlanta and Columbia, two
monuments of his degradation and
cruelty and savagery.
So we are ready to conclude that the
idea of there being sue a possibili-
ty as a real christian Nation" is a
gross absurdity and never yet seen
on his globe of ours. Where not one
mar in fifty is a BONA fide believer in
the Son of God, and shows forth his
faith by mis- works, it is a solicism, a
simple misnomer to characterize it as
Christian" in any proper, pure
sense. The most Christian Ma
tons" have been the most remorseless,
the most deviiish, the most prosecuting
and savage. a Christian Nation in
deed,