Despite the trite and oft-repeated slogan of “Make America Great Again” and the hoopla that attends our national political life every four years or so, it seems to me that there is a distinct lack of true patriotism (as opposed to jingoism) among a great Americans today. In fact, I find that many people in my generation and especially in my children’s generation are disdainful of and cynical about the United States of America. Love of one’s native country is something to be ashamed of, something to suppress if it is present in oneself, and something to criticize if it is found in others.
I wonder how many people have ever read Edward Everett Hale’s short story, The Man Without a Country. The version I re-read recently, a “first book edition” with illustrations by Leonard Fisher, is a reminder to those who are open to its message that love of country does not have to manifest as rabid nationalism, but rather, rightly ordered, a a deep but subordinate love of home, community, and family.
In the story Philip Nolan, a callow young army officer, is seduced into traitorous activities by none other than Alexander Hamilton’s famous nemesis, Aaron Burr. Burr comes to an Army post out west where young Philip is stationed and dazzles Nolan with his fascinating talk of a western Empire. Hale calls Burr a “gay deceiver” and his plans “the grand catastrophe.” Philip Nolan is caught up in the aftermath of that catastrophe and tried for treason. When asked at the end of his trial whether he wishes to say anything to show his loyalty to the United States, Philip Nolan makes the rash and fateful statement: “D–n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!”
The premise of the entire story is that the judge then sentences Philip Nolan to have his wish fulfilled. Nolan is made a prisoner to travel the world on U.S. Navy vessels, in comfort, but never to see or hear of the United States again. He becomes “The Man Without a Country.”
Of course, Nolan comes to regret his rash and thoughtless disavowal of his native land. And over the many years that Nolan spends on one ship after another, forgotten by his own country, but held in a sort of ongoing limbo, his caretakers come to pity Philip Nolan. He is treated kindly, lives a comfortable life, but the sentence of never having a home, never even hearing news of his former country, is a cruel and unusual punishment.
Surely our love of country is an intimation of the joy prepared for us in heaven someday. And as such, that love is to be cherished while never made into an idol. Philip Nolan on his deathbed tells a friend that he has a prayer marked in the Presbyterian prayer book, a prayer that he has prayed every day for the fifty-five years that he served his country-less sentence:
“For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that notwithstanding our manifest transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thous hast continued to us Thy marvelous kindness. . . Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority.”
And may God give us all a proper and appropriate love for our nation and for our community, and may we remember to pray a similar prayer to that of the fictional Man Without a Country, on this Independence Day and every day.