Cathedral on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity by the Rev. W. H.
rice, jo one can have any doubts as to the patriotism of the Jew. Even in our own day, when he has no parti the Jew clings with brave tenacity to those national traditions and ideals which made the kingdom of David and Solomon great. Jewish patriotism at its best showed itself not in noisy boastfulness, or in selfish pride, but.in an exuberant gratitude to God, Who had brought them into that promised land, and Who had nurtured them and made them great. It is significant that the glory of their nation was focussed in Jerusalem where the Temple of Jehovah stood. In times of ational distress it was ever the Temple that was pointed out as symbol of hope.
Jerusalem was God's city; the Temple was their national Palladium. Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself." How the Jew longed for her welfare and prayed for her peace and prosperity! "O pray for the peace of Jer-salem; they shall prosper that love thee Peace be within thy walls and plenteousness within thy palaces!" When exiled from his native land, visions of Jerusalem perpetually haunted him, luring him back. "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O Zion." Nothing could make the good Jew forget his country: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." When Hanani brought to Nehemiah the reports of Jerusalem's distress, and the affliction and reproach of those who remained there, how anxious was Nehemiah to return to the city of his fathers' sepulchres. The zealous Jew had nothing but contempt for any of his fellow country men, who in their Eastern isolation, had so imbibed the spirit of Babylon as to lose love for their native land.
This patriotism of the Jew was no pride in the material greatness of his country. Babylon had taught him that Judaes was small and insignificant. But Babylon had taught him to reverence that for which Judaea stood. His patriotism was something spiritual and splendid, something that had its roots God. It was based upon the conviction that Israel had national vocation, had something to teach the world, something to offer not merely something to get.
The ideal of the Christian Church is that of a vast spiritual society in which all differences of race, colour or nation are swallowed up
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.