The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People — Inside the Classic

he did not seek the rank of an international power; it was evolved out of a confluence of natural conditions. She can no more cast it off than can our bodies the food of which we have partaken after it has entered into our organisms. If history teaches any lesson, it is that nations, like individuals, follow the law of their being; that in their growth and in their decline they are creatures of conditions, in which even their own volition plays but a part, and that often the smallest part.

II.--THE EFFECT OF THE WAR IN AFRICA UPON THE RELATIONS AND POWER OF ENGLAND

It has been boastingly said by her enemies, and reluctantly acknowledged by some of her friends, that England has entered upon her decline, and that a decay has set in which will destroy her power and prestige. There is nothing more absurd than this assertion. The same statements were circulated in reference to her at various periods of her past history--notably at the close of the Revolutionary War. Look into her history at that time; consult the contemporaneous writers, and we shall find them replete with gloomy and direful predictions. And yet how she gathered herself together; and in a few years how resplendent she was in military and civic glory! Her political edifice cannot be destroyed so long as reason holds its sway, because it is built upon the solid foundations of true civil liberty, which it is the aim of all people to establish and conserve. Show me anyone, not actuated by pure bigotry, who would deliberately and maliciously wish to demolish such a government!

When men band themselves together in a revolutionary purpose, it is to destroy tyranny and oppression. They do not begin revolutions with edicts against liberty and free government.

England will decline, if ever she declines, when men assail order and law, and seek to erect in their stead, as a basis of government, chaos and confusion. Her literature can never be destroyed; it will enlighten the world long after her government {6} ceases to be. It will be the basis of a new civilisation long, long after her people cease to act together. I will not weary the reader with statistics of her material growth. They show no real, permanent decline; but they do reveal that she has fierce commercial competitors in the United States and Germany. They show that she must arouse herself to a real struggle to support her people. But no matter how this war for commercial supremacy may end, we must remember that the real greatness of a nation, or people, does not wholly consist in mere material wealth. We of North America are overlooking this important fact in our sudden and marvellous development. We are to-day, and not without some truth, called a purely "dollar nation." Our people are struggling for money, as if that were the only desideratum of life. We forget that religion, in its broad sense, liberty, justice, equality, and virtue are more important than money; they are the chains of steel which bind a free people together; mere wealth without these qualities has no preserving power: and if we lose our institutions, in their form or in their spirit, of what use will money be to us, or how will it be protected? The acquisition of wealth is legitimate, but it must not be the sole aim of the people, else they will forget their duties as citizens; and should that time come, and chaos and revolution ensue, of what use will material advantages be, even if they should survive the loss of freedom?

Remember that a government based upon gold, {7} wealth, sordidness, must end unhappily. We must have other and higher ideals for our people.