'The downfall of Napoleon in 1815 left Britain in unchallenged dominion over a large portion of the globe. France and indeed the whole continent of Europe was exhausted. A United Germany had not yet arisen and Italy still lay in fragments. Russia was withdrawing from Western Europe. The Spanish and Portuguese peoples were busy in their peninsula and in their tropical possessions overseas. In the following decades revolution and civil commotion smote many of the Powers of Europe, and new nations were born. Britain alone escaped almost unscathed from these years of unrest.'
(From the Preface to Winston S Churchill's, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 4, “The Great Democracies”; Cassel & Company Ltd, 1958, 1974).
What follows is extracted from Chapter VI of, The Approaching War Among the Powers of Europe (1864):
CHAPTER VI
THE POSITION OF BRITAIN
'Whatever be Britain's shortcomings and defections, surely she is a nation in which lives the genius of the gospel of Jesus. Liberty, benevolence, public charity, progress, enlightenment, have all had a starting-point in the land. If there is error, sin, and backsliding, let it be remembered that humanity is in a state of imperfection; and let this also never be forgotten, that Britain has only to be true to the religious foundation on which she rests, to reach national purity and righteousness. The foundation is laid, and needs not to be changed. What she requires to do is to build in harmony with the foundation, and to sweep away her false erections; and when “the time of trouble” comes . . . the day of fiery trial shall purge this land, but shall not destroy it . . . . [T]he trial to which Britain is to be subjected shall be in proportion to her failure to build aright on her true foundation. . . .
'This is the test to which Britain shall be put in the day of European judgment. Her highest wisdom now is to cultivate that righteousness which exalteth a nation; to rid herself more and more of her connexion with Antichrist; and to understand, better than she yet does, the relation of antagonism which she occupies to the despotic powers of Europe, so that she may clearly know the work that has been given her to do, and do it, not from the promptings of instinct and feeling and interest alone, but from a regard for truth and justice, from a conviction of duty, and from a deeper spiritual insight. She is like a great giant, working with half-opened eyes, and in the main she takes the right path, but it is less through judgment than through instinct. What she much wants is a clearer knowledge of her position, and of her high mission in the interests of humanity. Let but her statesmen govern and her people obey, under a knowledge of the truth, and she shall proceed on her high course with immensely increased intelligence and power.
'Britain is the natural antagonist of the despotisms of Europe, and she and they are equally conscious that she is so. She is openly disliked by the whole of them; her liberal laws, her free institutions, her popular government, her protest against oppression, and her unfettered advocacy of human rights, make her hated by those powers whose thrones are based on tyranny and maintained by iron rule — while her physical power makes her feared as much as she is hated. . . .
'Britain proves incontestable that popular government is no vain theory, and that free thought and action lead not to anarchy, but to the safest and securest order. Nowhere in Europe is the majesty of the law so manifest as in this country, where the law-makers are the law-obeyers, and where the highest freedom is found to spring directly out of the strongest necessity. Accordingly, Britain has ever been a stimulative to patriots and peoples who have struggled to be free: to this land of ours all true hearts and panting nationalities turn for sympathy and guidance; Britain is to them the land of the morning, the land of light and hope, the bright beaming star in the darkness of their sky: and likewise, by a correspondence of feeling, the despots and oppressors regard Britain with a common hatred, and view her as the nursery of European revolution. There can possibly be no cordial friendship between her and them; they belong to the doomed past, she belongs to the promised future; they are the offspring of darkness, she is the child of light; they are an incarnate and developed lie, she is the embryo of undying truth. In all things she stands as their antipodes, and though political expediency may cause them to maintain with her an external correspondence, they would gladly hail a safe opportunity to crush and overthrow her.
'She is, however, a divinely-reserved power to work against them. Her place and influence in fulfilled prediction have been prominent within the last fifty years, and her whole history for more than three hundred years back has been a preparation for her grand mission on the earth. She was made the great centre of truth, and she has been a centre of influence for the whole world. Her ideas are not those ideas of conquest or of military glory, which have ever animated heathen and antichristian powers; but they are ideas of peace, of industry, of commerce, and moral and intellectual progress. Thus she has colonised the earth, and planted her race and her principles on distant continents. Her language is spoken, and her institutions flourish, in all parts of the globe; while her power is so far spread as to induce the remark, that on the British Empire the sun never sets. In prosecuting this work, she has by no means kept her garments spotless. She has sometimes been unjust and oppressive towards the tribes whose territories she entered upon; and one serious blot upon her conduct was the introduction of negro slavery into America. But see how the gospel principles she rested on ultimately brought her right on that matter, and caused her, at the cost of an immense sum of money, to emancipate the slaves in her West Indian possessions, and to decree that the moment the foot of a slave rested on British soil, that slave was free! It is the noble characteristic of our country, and one which makes amends for many faults, that she is open to the ingress of truth; and that when she comes to see her duty, she will do it, at whatever sacrifice.
'It was for a very important purpose that Britain rose to supremacy, and extended herself over the globe. The territory occupied by the Babylonian empire was given up to Antichrist There he was to establish his seat — to set up his banner of rebellion; and there he was to reign and triumph in his wickedness, till the time determined should be accomplished. But the world at large was not to be given him for a prey. Christ was to have the heathen for His inheritance, and the uppermost parts of the earth for His possession; and it was necessary that a diffusive and evangelising power should be raised up to spread His truth and maintain His cause, and to prepare the way for His kingdom that was to come. At the very borders of the antichristian territory, therefore, — and so near that Antichrist cast its shadow over it, yet so separated by insular position as to remain distinct and apart, — the Anglo-Saxon people grew into a strong and independent power. Keeping Continental despotism in check, and sending its God-received life and truth into unpeopled wastes and heathen wilds, Britain has shadowed with its wings the very ends of the earth. . . . It has sent its people to occupy the far West, and the still far more distant South. It has sent its missionaries and spread the Bible among the regions of the shadow of death. It is easy enough to sermonise on the sins of our land; but let her be judged by the wide charity of the gospel of Christ, and let justice be done to the efforts she has made, and the achievements she has accomplished, on behalf of human freedom. Fix the thoughts not on particular flaws and blots, but on general tendencies and characteristics, and these will be found to be on the side of truth and for the sake of that Christian truth which she holds, and on which she rests . . .
'Britain is, we say, a divinely-reserved power, and her mission is twofold, — to spread the truth, and take a stand against despotism. This latter work she has most obviously been doing for the past half century. . . . (pp. 84-92)
No comments:
Post a Comment