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The Ascending Scale of Loyalties

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The Ascending Scale of Loyalties Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Illinois THE ASCENDING SCALE OF LOYALTIES By EDMUND D. SOPER Josiah Royce, in his Philosophy of Loyalty, personality within which has certain rights, 111- declares that loyalty is the fundamental virtue of violable even to the Highest himself. them all. Without it individual life is barren and social life chaotic. It is the cement which holds Every loyalty, except the highest, has its limits, society together, it is the quality which unifies frontiers where it comes into contact with other individual character. It scarcely needs definition; loyalties which also carry obligations. There is in life we all know what it means to be loyal. It pre- an ascending scale, or hierarchy, of loyalties, and it is supposes society, for we must be loyal to some- as necessary to keep our perspective right with re- body, but it does something for the individual him- spect to loyalties as it is to be loyal to anyone of the self which is the foundation of all that he is and objects of loyalty. No loyalty is absolute. Within does, and so, paradoxically, I begin with a loyalty the scale each must keep its appropriate place. which is turned in on itself but without which Loyalty to wife and home. The possibility of hav- there can be little or no significance in the other ing a home at all lies in loyalty; without it men loyalties. and women may live in houses but they do not have a home, based on the loyalty of one man and Loyalty to self, which expresses itself in self- one woman to each other and to their children and respect, is the first quality of manhood wherever to those who are dependent on them. The family it is found. The second of the fundamental laws is the primal form of social organization and it Jesus quoted from the Old Testament and made remains primary today. On it every other form his own is very familiar, "Thou shalt love thy of social organization depends. Here is where the neighbor as thyself." "As thyself," catch the sig- lessons of loyalty, loyalty to one's self among them. nificance of that; the standard of reference by are learned if they are ever learned at all. Here which we are to judge our humanitarianism is the is where the discipline of life takes place. Friend- quality and depth of regard, may I say reverence, ship and love are made up partly of pleasure and for ourselves. Self-respect involves certain rights. joy, but without discipline, the give-and-take of There is the right to privacy, that is, to physical every-day life, the bearing and forbearing which self-respect; the right to one's own opinions, in- are always to be found when two people live to- tellectual self-respect; the right to follow the dic- gether successfully, life fails of its purpose. Disci- tates of one's own conscience, moral self-respect, pline is always necessary, but underlying this disci- the right to call God one's own Father, religious pline and making it possible must be a deep and self-respect. Self-respect involves not only certain abiding loyalty. It is a matter of the will as well rights and privileges; it has obligations. Loyalty as of the emotions. We cannot depend, in so far- to myself demands that I shall really respect my- reaching and deep a relation as marriage, on feel- self and have regard for the things which concern ings alone. And yet without love, yes romantic my best interests. It involves the obligation to love, one is not likely to choose to take upon him- treat my body, mind, conscience and my spiritual self a loyalty. This loyalty is different from the nature as values which I must cherish, as some- others in that it is entered upon voluntarily. That thing even sacred. "Behold, J stand at the door very fact makes it significant, calling out all the and knock; if any man hear my voice and open nobility in man and woman in a union which is the door, I will come in to him and will sup with recognized by a society and the state as binding him and he with me." He does not force his way and yet one which is freely chosen and which in, but stands on the outside out of respect to the might have been avoided. But once entered into, 2 THE GARRETT TOWEP January. 1939 it demands all the loyal love and consideration Frances Atchinson Terry which human nature can command and which lasts "until death us do part." A hundred years ago a young man. leaving the more settled section of N ew York state where his When all has been said which should be said on forbears had lived, went to hew for himself a the virtue of loyalty to wife, to children, to the farm out of the lands which that great state still old folks at home, a danger begins to show its head had to give to her sons. He took his young bride which becomes very real and menacing as its true to the log cabin which he had built for use until lineaments show themselves. Whenever loyalty to such time as he might rear a better house. Before home crowds out other loyalties in the ascending that house was built his first born came. Frances scale, it loses its luster. One of Jesus' hardest say- Atchinson. On that farm in Delaware County she ings is, "If any man come to me, and hate not his lived until, as a young woman of 23, she married father, and mother, and wife, and children, and the Reverend Milton S. Terry, little older than brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, she but already beginning to attract attention be- he cannot be my disciple." There is more than a cause of his gifts, and able now to take his bride hint coming out of the seventeenth century from to the important church at Delhi, the Delaware Richard Lovelace, "I could not love thee, dear, County seat. so much, Lov'd I not honour more." Pride in The little lady of slight body but eager, active, family, blood, race, have ravaged human life and and indomitable spirit was quite equal to the new spoiled the relations of men as few things have. responsibilities, even when they brought her in time to the larger churches in the towns along the With all that we look for in years to come in Hudson and in New York City to which Milton internationalism, it would be in my mind a calamity Terry was sent. Her life. falls into four fairly if the distinctions and differences between nations equal parts: 23 years at home, twenty years as a did not continue to exist. Each people and nation pastor's wife, thirty years in Evanston while her must be allowed to preserve its individuality both husband taught at Garrett, and nearly 25 years for its own sake and for the sake of the world. more in Evanston after Dr. Terry's death. For it Its life must continue to express its own traditions was on a second honeymoon in California after and attitudes and customs and even its odd little their golden wedding anniversary that Dr. Terry ways. It must also be allowed to make its own quietly passed away, having preached his last unique contribution to the life of the other nations. sermon only the day before. An arid uniformity would be intolerable. Unique- ness demands a certain amount of separation; it Mrs. Terry slipped away just as quietly. Her ninety-seventh birthday was on October first. Until undoubtedly demands freedom and independence, ten days before her death she was just as ready for only a free people can come to its own best in any feature of its life. We have our American for church or social gatherings as ever. Then a dream-we are incorrigible dreamers despite what slight cold came, graver conditions developed, and people say of our materialism and preoccupation the body could no more respond to the eager, with money. Yes, the dream that every man and active spirit that had ruled it so long. Even so, woman, every boy and girl, should be given an when a night nurse had to be called in a couple equal chance to develop all there is in him. We of days before the end, she was surprised and have neglected it, we have run counter to it, we entertained to find this frail patient ready for have at times, as James Truslow Adams has said, acquaintance and conversation, offering some re- almost forgotten it, but there it is. mark about the British situation and conditions in Sweden. But, my friends, look at the world today. It is So, fittingly, early on Christmas morning- she suffering more from over-emphasis on nationalism fell asleep. Her devoted daughter, Miss Minnie than from any other of its ailments. As Lord Terry, a son, Professor Arthur Guy Terry of Lothian puts it, "The root cause of these disorders Northwestern University, and two grandchildren has been the anarchy of national sovereignties." survive her. H. F. R. And national sovereignty has taken the form of the Totalitarian State. It sets itself up as an abso- lute and usurps the place of God in human life. Alice Belt Soper And men and women are giving themselves to When I was pastor at First Church, Baltimore, these pseudo-absolutes, these man-made absolutes I knew Alice Belt Soper as a student at Goucher in nation after nation today.
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