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Religion still the Eey to History 223 tion and a wider knowledge? Alay it be a key to the life of a tribe of savages, but only as an incident of immaturity and ignorance? Does the key grow rusty, as time goes on? Or is the religious motive one of the inherent, universal, and eternal forces that must, in all ages, deeply affect, if not vitally control, the doings of men, as massed in nations, in matters of national concern? Perhaps the answer hangs on what the religious motive is. If it be to secure some personal good, whether here or hereafter, for oneself or one's family, it will be inevitably weakened bv advances in civilization. All those advances are towards altruism, .ltruism proceeds from the spirit of self-sacrifice, and that is the highest spring of religion. " Selfish and interested individualism '", says John Morley, " has been truly called non-historic. Sacrifice has been the law — sacrifice for creeds, for churches, for dynasties, for kings, for adored teachers, for native land."' It is this spirit which gives all its nobility to the story of our race. As it brought all Christendom together in the Crusades, so it brought the civilized world together in the Conference of Peace at the Hague in 18Q9. In each of these great movements it was distinctly associated with religion — blindly in the one, truly in the other. That the ancient distinction between Christian and infidel found no place in the rescript of the Czar, which led to the Hague Conference, was of itself some jiroof of its essentially religious motive.^ '"Democracy ami Reaction", Sinclecnih Century. .April, igo, (vol. 57, P- 547)- ' At a critical moment in the proceedings of the Hague Conference of 1899, there came into the hands of the president of the American delegation a letter sent out by the Protestant Kpiscopal bishop of Texas to the clergy of his diocese with a form of prayer to be used in all the churches, asking the blessing of God on the work of the Conference in the interests of peace. The Emperor of Ger- many had instructed his representatives to oppose the institution of any court of arbitration. Mr. White was at the time preparing a despatch to the German prime minister urging him to use his influence to secure a reconsideration of the question. He referred to the letter of the bishop as an important utterance of a widely prevailing Christian sentiment, which could not be disregarded, and also handed it to the bearer of the despatch, his associate, th^ late Dr. Holls. to use as he might think best. Dr. Holls showed it to the chancellor. Prince Hohenlohe, who — a strong religionist — was evidently affected by it. Not long afterwards, the German delegation took a position favorable to the treaty of arbitration, and Mr. White refers to the incident as " perhaps an interesting example of an indirect 'answer to prayer.'" Autobiography f Andrc-w D. White. II. 311, 322. We have his authority also for the statement that religion in a curious way dictated the original call for the Hague Conference. The Czar acted in the matter on the advice of Pobedonostseff. Pobedonostseff desired a reduction of armaments as the only means which he could see to give Russia the means to increase her grants for the benefit of the State church. Ibid.. 269-270.