Page:Tolstoy - Christianity and Patriotism.djvu/82

 over, for the most part connected with him either by the interests of common labour and trade, or by spiritual interests, or by both together. So that very often the men of one state are nearer and more essential to the men of another state than their own countrymen, as is the case with workmen connected with employers of other nationalities, with commercial people, and above all with learned men and artists.

Moreover, the very conditions of life have so changed now that what we call our country, what we are supposed to distinguish in some way from everything else, has ceased to be clearly defined, as it was among the ancients where the men making up one nation belonged to one race, one state, and one religion. It is easy to understand the patriotism of the Egyptian, of the Jew, of the Greek, who in defending their fatherland were defending at once their religion and their nationality, and their native land and their state.

But in what form is the patriotism of an Irishman to be expressed in our day when he lives in the United States, and belongs through his religion to Rome, through his nationality to Ireland, and through his political position to the United States? This is the position of the Czech in Austria, of the Pole in Russia, Prussia, and Austria, of the Hindu in the British Empire, of the Tartar and the Armenian in Russia and