While the Czech priest adopted a subjective attitude towards his own people and only an objective attitude towards the Church, the German parish priest showed a subjective devotion to his Church and remained objective in regard to his nation. It is a phenomenon which, unfortunately for us, can be observed occurring in exactly the same way in thousands of other cases.

It is by no means a peculiar inheritance from Catholicism; but it is something in us which does not take long to gnaw the vitals of almost every institution, especially institutions of State and those which have ideal aims. Take, for example, the attitude of our State officials in regard to the efforts made for bringing about a national resurgence and compare that attitude with the stand which the public officials of any other nation would have taken in such a case. Or is it to be believed that the military officers of any other country in the world would refuse to come forward on behalf of the national aspirations, but would rather hide behind the phrase 'Authority of the State', as has been the case in our country during the last five years and has even been deemed a meritorious attitude? Or let us take another example. In regard to the

Jewish problem, do not the two Christian denominations take up a standpoint to-day which does not respond to the national exigencies or even the interests of religion? Consider the attitude of a Jewish Rabbi towards any question, even one of quite insignificant importance, concerning the Jews as a race, and compare his attitude with that of the majority of our clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant.

We observe the same phenomenon wherever it is a matter of standing up for some abstract idea.

'Authority of the State', 'Democracy', 'Pacifism', 'International Solidarity', etc., all such notions become rigid, dogmatic concepts with us; and the more vital the general necessities of the nation, the more will they be judged exclusively in the light of those concepts.

This unfortunate habit of looking at all national demands from the viewpoint of a pre-conceived notion makes it impossible for us to see the subjective side of a thing which objectively contradicts one's own doctrine. It finally leads to a complete reversion in the relation of means to an end. Any attempt at a national revival will be opposed if the preliminary condition of such a revival be that a bad and pernicious regime must first of all be overthrown; because such an action will be considered as a violation of the 'Authority of the State'. In the eyes of those who take that standpoint, the 'Authority of the State' is not a means which is there to serve an end but rather, to the mind of the dogmatic believer in objectivity, it is an end in itself; and he looks upon that as sufficient apology for his own miserable existence. Such

people would raise an outcry, if, for instance, anyone should attempt to set up a dictatorship, even though the man responsible for it were Frederick the Great and even though the politicians for the time being, who constituted the parliamentary majority, were small and incompetent men or maybe even on a lower grade of inferiority; because to such sticklers for abstract principles the law of democracy is more sacred than the welfare of the nation. In accordance with his principles, one of these gentry will defend the worst kind of tyranny, though it may be leading a people to ruin, because it is the fleeting embodiment of the 'Authority of the State', and another will reject even a highly beneficent government if it should happen not to be in accord with his notion of 'democracy'.