NATIONAL SUFFERINGS AND NATIONAL MORALITY.
No remark is commoner just now in the English Press than that the French nation will probably emerge from its present sufferings with a higher and purer tone of character. And yet nothing is more uncertain than that this will be the result of any specified period of national suffering. There is a general impression abroad that it is the teaching of the Bible that nations are purified in that way. But, as a matter of fact, we doubt very much that this is the teaching of the Bible. It is quite certain that the generation which left Egypt was, according to all tradition, extinct, before a generation worthy of the national history and de- velopment intended for the religious teachers of the world, could be found to undertake the conquest of Canaan. It was not the sufferings • of the fathers which reformed the people, but the hardier and manlier life of the children which disciplined them for the life of war and the labours of founders. Again, there is very little sign that the repeated national calamities of later times did much for the real elevation and purification of the race. One of the greatest of the prophets clearly despaired of this beneficial result. "Why should ye be stricken any more?" he said ; "ye will revolt more and more, for the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint." Stronger language it is hardly possible to use. And it is quite certain that the unparalleled sufferings of the Jews between the time of our Lord and the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, brutalized far more than they elevated the character of the people. The testimony of ancient and modern, history is pretty nearly the same. Athens certainly gained no moral strength by- the suffer- ings of the Peloponnesian war. When the genius of her poets and historians reached its highest point, the political genius of Athens was also at its highest ; and from the moment when the decline of prosperity began, there seems every reason to think a moral decline also began ; which never ceased till 'Athenian' was a name of as little moral dignity as it is at the present moment. Shall we say that the Romans gained anything in moral tone by adversity,—say by the conquests of the Goths? or that the Thirty Years' War left Germany refined as gold is refined in the furnace? or that the Wars of the Roses imbued England with any new national heroism ? or even that our national character gained ground by that one of all her wars which educed the deepest religious feeling,—the civil war between Cromwell and Charles L, between the Puritans and Cavaliers? Did the political tone of England rise after the comparatively light sufferings of the Crimean War, as was at the time confidently hoped ? As far as we know anything for certain, can we not say that the noble war made by the North against the slaveholders of the South in America has left the average morality of the North laxer, and, on the whole, less refined and lofty than before? To all these questions we believe that the only impartial answer must be that there is no clear evidence of any necessary connection be- tween national sufferings,—sufferings at least of this kind,—and national purification. Wars and the calamities that come with them are often the results of profound selfishness and corruption, without proving immediately purgatorial or in any degree elevating.
And the reason seems to be very obvious. There can be no doubt at all that severe suffering is one of the most exalting of all the influences that act upon human character, if the suffering is borne with the patience and fortitude of men who see in it a spiritual purpose to which they humbly submit,—nay, that it may even be so, though this is less frequent, if it be borne with patience and fortitude solely from the manly conviction that it is kinder to others and nobler in itself to bear suffering thus, than to whimper and wail over the inevitable. But suffering that strikes men down without finding either the spiritual motive or the social motive for willing submission or disinterested endurance, constantly fails of any ennobling result at all. Just as a heavy weight indurates the muscles of a man who has the strength and will to bear it, but only crushes the man who has neither,—just as physical exercise trains and disciplines the physical powers of the healthy, but only exhausts the physical powers of the invalid, so suffering is not salutary for the moral constitution that does not in some shape grapple with it, and, so to say, adapt itself to understand and overcome it. And there is this pecu- liarity about the special calamities which accompany war, —they are apt to strike most heavily on those who are already the noblest in the nation, and least heavily on those who are the ignoblest. This is, we suspect, the true rationale of the failure of the civil war in America to give a higher tone to the political world. It did give an indefinitely higher tone to the many thousands of pure patriots who were incorruptible and high-minded, but perhaps a little exclusive and
a little too much disposed to stand aloof from common life, before. But, on the other hand, it opened out innumerable sources of fresh temptation to those who were before the least wholesome elements of the political community. In other words, the war raised the highest level of character to one more hopeful, ardent, and unselfish; but it depressed the lower levels of character to levels lower still, be- cause still more familiar with positive evil. And as the average tone of the political world is apt to depend far more on the low levels of character than on the highest, the political morale of the whole community seemed, on the whole, worse after the war than before it.
We fear the same thing may happen in relation to the expected purification of the French people through the demand • that is now making on their disinterested patriotism, their courage, and their self-denial. To those who have it in them to meet calamity in a noble spirit, the war will be a tonic and refining pain. But is there sufficient of this spirit to infect the social atmosphere with it? Is there enough of it to leaven the whole lump of society? If not, then the scope for cowardice, corruption, and selfishness, which the great horrors of war open out, may really end in lowering the average tone of society instead of raising it. No doubt persecutions have raised the tone of the various Christian Churches which have gone through the fire, in all ages. But then the reason of this is obvious. By the necessity of the case, a Christian Church willing to suffer intensely for its faith, has usually already that general preparation of mind which is needful to reap the purest fruits of suffering. But where this condition is not present, suffering frequently seems to harden and degrade. Suppose it true that the peasantry in France generally should be driven into the paroxysm of rage and suspicion which seems to have animated the peasantry of Picardy, when, on the news of the great French reverses, they rose and began to burn the chateaux, saying that the nation had been betrayed by the rich ? Would calamity raise the moral tone of such a people as that ? Would it not rather stimulate their worst passions, and give a tinge even of moral insanity to the general tenor of their lives ? Doubtless the finer characters which are tried by contact with these evil passions, will be deeply refined as well as strengthened by the demands upon their spiritual resources. But the question does not affect them so much as the ordinary constituents of French society, and is it possible to say that these will be ennobled by griefs which sow the spirit of deep revenge,—by losses which entail a drearier mono- tony of toil,—by wounds to the national pride which abase without softening the heart,—by tales of treachery which sow mutual distrust,—by evidences of corruption in high places which will aggravate the anarchy of French society? Of course, all these calamities,—griefs, poverty, humiliation, grounds for mutual distrust, grounds for distrust of the national government,—may all become in minds already noble, sources of the highest spiritual discipline and elevation. But we see no moral, no historical, no common-sense reason for supposing that national calamities, as such, raise the tone of a nation. The national heroism which sometimes—though rarely—animates even a whole people to struggle nobly as one unit against the pressure of such calami- ties, does raise the tone of a people. But the very gist of the question lies in the doubt whether national calamities will be grappled with by the mass of a nation in this spirit. If not,—and assuredly there are but too many his- torical instances to show how often it is not so, — national calamities are just as likely to make a nation sour and sullen as individual calamities are likely to make an individual sour and sullen. You can no more say of a particular nation than of a particular man that it will be purified by passing through the fire of adversity. It may be that it will be hardened, and not purified. It may be that prosperity would bring out a nobler type of character than adversity. Why, then, it will be said, should adversity come ? One might as well ask why men should suffer for their sins, if suffering hap- pens not to improve them,—or why men should enjoy wealth and happiness which only makes their selfishness narrower than before? These are questions which go far too deep into the principles of the Divine government for us to answer them. But it is at least as well to know that the common talk about the purifying fire of adversity has very little basis of truth. Adversity purifies those who are taught from within how to meet adversity ; but then prosperity also purifies those who are taught from within how to use prosperity. Beyond this, we know no more how either the one influence or the other will affect the masses of a great nation, than we know how the next Atlantic storm or calm will affect the fortunes of the various travellers whom it finds sailing upon the ocean.
Previous page
