The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-25

rent events in Europe and elsewhere A should stumble upon the too frequent proofs that with multitude of people, great and small. the virtue of patriotism has become A chief substitute for re- ligion. Once more, as in the Rome of the Empire, the soul of the nation has been made an object of worship and sac rifice To this Moloch millions of young men are taught to offer themselves. Bleating songs in honor of this new but ancient anti-C Christ, once more the armies march to break every law in the Deca- logue, and especially the supreme law of love.
 Now let no one suppose that these words apply to any single nation. They apply measurably to popular patriotism every whore What is new is the frank con fession. at least in one exalted place, that that country had put herself in the wrong. but was justified because her life was at stake This means that a countrys conscience has no fnality, but only her interests are the court of last appeal.
 What we are dealing with in Europe, therefore. is a world whose gods are two or many, the first, the God they pro- fess to believe in, the second, their coun- try, her interests her pride, her genius, her "culture," whatever that may be. her civilization. her ideals. And so once more We hark back to the primitive cults of the Mediterranean. the cults of Troy and Tyre and the valleys and hills of Pales- tine, pitting of the German god against the French god, or against Britannia, god dess of England.
 l am led to these remarks by the pro- posal of well-known American Athen- Ian, one stanton Colt. to establish on reg ular lines of worship and ritual the new religion of American patriotism. In n review-for l pretend not to personal study of the book-I read that MT Colts principle Is that the higher patriotism of country is it's religion. Internationalism he loathes, whether it be of the sociaistic or of the ecclesiastical sort He regards tho task of American churches as the deifcation of the moral genius of the United States. The soul of America is that which finds expression in our art. invention, morals and social interest.
 It would be most highly interesting to learn what particular brand of American moral he would regard a9 peculiarly American and divine.
 This Is humanism come home to roost We have humanized religion that we might naturalize 1t. as older and the eldest nations did and MT. or Dr. Stan ton Colt does well to exhibit to us whither and whence we have come
 According to him, it is both bane- ful and blundering for us Americans to seek communion with a superhuman power or to seek help from any super human source. He teaches that society alone is the source of redemptive en- ergy, to it should prayers be said, to it all sacrifices offered: and we are to be our own God and Providence, our own Lord and Savior. We are not to hope for heaven. we are not to seek other than humanistic meanings in all expressions of religious worship.
 All this is completed and rounded out wit. manual of appropriate prayers, genuflexcious, songs to hocus-pocus. a sort Of "Om Mani Padme hum" befit- ting nation that looks at it's own idcalized reflection in the glass and falls down in wonder and adoration thereat
 I am not specially concerned with Mr.-or is it Dr.-Coit's new religion, ex- cept as it is a cis-Atlantic expression of the world-old cult of national gods tulelary genii and guardian deities. In a certain passage of the wars of Is- rael it is recorded that their enemy reasoned that Hebrew successes were due to the fact that their gods were gods of the mountains or hill country, but could not fight in the plain. Hence they proposed new tactics to allure the Hebrews to come down and fight on the level I would respectfully com mend the passage to the prayerful con sideration of MT. Colt. promising the t.| the prayer should invoke the genius of America in the person, for example. of Mark Twain. or better. our old friend. Holmes, who would. I am sure, put n valuable guffaw into those too serious b.usphemies.
 Let it be said that country that wor- ships it's own genius is in the high way leading to an international madhouse. All the alienists in the world would be