Page:The future of Africa.djvu/170

164 flows in from the individual, personal contributions of this, and that, and the other man, and of all our fellow-citizens; who, either by industry, enterprise, skill, talent, statesmanship, learning, or, far above all, by character and goodness, give the country a name, and add to its greatness and renown. For you should remember that no one man can make a country. We say that Peter the Great made Russia, that William Pitt saved England. But these expressions are only figurative. Vhat we mean by them is, that these master minds directed the spirit of their respective nations; and, by their talent and character, led the people to do those things which, in the one case, raised Pussia from barbarism, and in the other kept England out of the greedy grasp of Napoleon. For any one can see that neither the monarch nor the statesman could do these things alone. There is every probability, moreover, that there were as great men in Pussia and in England as these men, only that they were not in the position to lead the national mind; and, still further, that these other great men, in their several positions, were large contributors to the whole mighty mass of virtue, enterprise, and character, which swelled up the honor and the fame of their respective countries. And herein we have our individual teachings, each and every one of us, as Christian patriots of Liberia. Whatever Liberia be now, or may become in the future, depends upon the aggregate character of her citizens. No one man can make Liberia a great nation. Her greatness, which is all in the distant future, if, indeed, she ever attain it, can never come from any single individual,