Morning Star

PATRIOTISM A DUTY.

Solicitude for our country's weal is justified, (if not by the tears which Christ shed over Jerusalem,) by the moans and heavenly breathings of those who were embalmed with his spirit. Moses says, "Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." Though Nehemiah had attained an eligible situation in the court of Artaxerxes, and was lifted above all personal interest in the destinies of his country; when he heard that the land which gave him birth was in affliction, that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and the gates thereof burnt with fire, he sat down and wept. To say nothing of many touching passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and other prophets, let us advert to the apostle Paul. His case is more striking, because the Holy Ghost had said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them." As he had been deputed to labor among the heathen, the world, rather than a section of it, seemed to be his country. And yet, to say the least, how forcibly does he express his love of country and kindred, when he says, "I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Whose sympathies have not mingled with those of the inspired penman, when he depicts the captives sitting beside the rivers of Babylon, with their harps hanging on the willows, and puts into their mouths the touching words of our text, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."—Rev. T. A. Merrill.