Page:Chinese Speaker (E. Morgan, 1916).djvu/25

Rh Egotistic love, selfish love, illicit love seek only private ends and private gain; they only know the self, and not the public. The injury done by this kind of love is very great, and cannot be outlined in detail now. To-day let us treat of disinterested love， public love, true love. These three loves imply love operating to the very utmost, regardless of life and wealth； for the reason that there is a certain object still more precious than life, and more exalted than riches. Ability to love this object, will ensure immortality of life, and perpetuity of wealth. What then can this something be? It is comprehended in two words, The State.

Ever since the opening of intercourse between East and West the acclamation of these words, love of country, has reverberated on the drum of the ear; newspapers constantly contain them, and preachers often and often expound them. Once more as we come again to speak of it, we remember that you are surfeited with it; still I can't but speak of it, though you are surfeited with it. But simply to speak is not enough. To take a little part in practical patriotism alone will do. Just consider what good can there be in speaking to-day of patriotism, and also to-morrow, and speaking so that people are delighted, but without doing the least thing practically for patriotism. To-day China has already reached its most critical times, which means that the lives and property of you gentlemen have come to points of great danger. Therefore you gentlemen must first love country if you want to love (effectively) your lives and property. But empty talk is useless. What is wanted is that something practical be done for patriotism and that quickly. There is a sentence of a Western scholar; 'The State is the public father and the public mother of the people.' The State and the People！ What deep affection, what profound meaning the words suggest！ From my ancestors down to me, we were all born here, have eaten here. Joy and sorrow have intermingled here, and in ten thousand years they cannot fade. Since I was born in this country, the matter of patriotism is a natural duty which ought to be discharged, and an obligation enjoined by law. They who are unlucky enough to be born in the savage regions of Africa, or amongst the aborigines where headaches and fevers rage, have also to maintain it and cherish it; how much more should we who are born in China, where the air is pure and cordial, and where the earth is fertile. Our civilization is earlier than that of others; we have territories wider than other nations; our population is more numerous; and our products more abundant than those of other people. In the wide hemispheres, of all countries there is not one comparable to it. That we luckily were born in this bit of land is a matter of supremest glory, of the greatest happiness. Possessing then this so goodly a country would it not be passing strange were we not to know how to protect and cherish it?

Some one may say, where shall we begin to love such a great country? If I want to love it, how shall I go about it? Allow me to tell you, it is not a difficult