Men who were undergraduates at Oxford in the
'seventies learned the interpretation, in words of unsurpassable beauty,
from John Ruskin:--
"There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
nation, to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
temper, but still have the firmness to govern and the grace to obey. We
have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
finally betray or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
should be the most offending souls alive.
"Within the last few years we have had the laws of natural science
opened to us with a rapidity which has been blinded by its brightness,
and means of transit and communication given to us which have made but
one kingdom of the habitable globe. One kingdom--but who is to be its
King? Is there to be no King in it, think you, and every man to do that
which is right in his own eyes? Or only kings of terror, and the obscene
Empires of Mammon and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make your
country again a royal throne of Kings, a sceptred isle, for all the
world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of learning and of
the arts; faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent
and ephemeral visions; faithful servant of time-tried principles, under
temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst the
cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange
valour of good will towards men?"
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Sunday, June 20, 1897.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253