Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 56:224 (Oct 1899)
Article: The Philippine Question
Author: Z. Swift Holbrook

BSac 56:224 (Oct 1899) p. 741

The Philippine Question

Z. Swift Holbrook

Among the great forces that have ever moved man to activity we must hasten to record the love of country. Like ocean currents or trade-winds that hasten a boat onward to its destination or drive it from its course, so life’s great motives urge man on to duty, to adventure, to peril, and even to death. Said Hamlet: —

“Do you think that I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.”1

Yet, at that moment Hamlet was played upon by a motive of action that was greater than any physical force. The forces within him moved him. The love of home, the desire to acquire, the longing for a good name, the desire for knowledge, the hope of immortality,—all these and more are placed in man to lure him forth from a condition of ignorance and sloth, from a savage life into the paths of virtue and industry and wisdom. In his efforts to satisfy the wants that are aroused within him by these life motives the wild savage in the jungle becomes civilized man, clothed and in his right mind. Into this golden urn,— the love of country,—the poet, the orator, and the artist have flung all of pathos and eloquence. The national hymns of every land are its language, for music has poured forth its grandest notes in homage to this passion. In defense of fireside and native land, the noble Gaul went forth to death when the legions of Rome and the cruel Caesar

BSac 56:224 (Oct 1899) p. 742

were coming; while the more timid cast their jewels, and then themselves, into the flames, preferring death to subjugation and slavery.

The love of country is the racial instinct of self-preservation, and is divinely implanted in man for a wise and noble end. The savage boy that accompanied Stanley, cried with joy when he saw again the jungles that he called “home” and some tattooed savages that answered to those words, “father” and “mother” and “brother.” About this sentiment, more powerful than argument or logic, because it is a native instinct that leads man forth to victory, have clustered the choicest of man’s affections, the noblest of his ambitions.

Hence, conquest by the sword, from any desire for territorial acquisition, for selfish purposes, to exact tribute, or to satisfy a false notion of national glory, whether in the name of religion or civilization, is a warfare against the best instincts of human nature; and the voice that instinctively cries out in protest is nothing but the echo from a far-off and divine shore. The waves that break in ripples at our feet are the spent forces of a boundless deep, fo...