Statesmanship.
It is sometimes assumed that moral qualities are unimportant in relation to political affairs. If a king be brave in his warlike expeditions, splendid in his court, and affable in his demeanor; if a statesman be sagacious in counsel and determined in action, it is too generally assumed that nothing further is wanting to secure national greatness and prosperity. The writer of Ecclesiastes looked far deeper, and saw the necessity of a self-denying and laborious character in order to true kingly and statesmanlike service.
I. INCOMPETENCE AND SELF-INDULGENCE IN THOSE WHO OCCUPY HIGH PLACES ARE A CURSE TO A NATION. Men who are flung into power by the wave of royal favoritism, or by popular caprice and applause, are apt to use their exalted station as a means to personal enjoyment and to the gratification of vanity. Statesmen who pass their time in luxury and social ostentation will certainly neglect the public interests. They account their power and rank as their possession, and not as a sacred trust. Their example tends to debase the national morals, and to lower the standard of public life. They surround themselves with flatterers, and they neglect their proper duty, until they awake to find their country plunged into calamity or threatened with enslavement.
II. SELF-DENIAL, EXPERIENCE, AND DILIGENCE ARE QUALITIES WHICH ENSURE TRUE STATESMANSHIP. In despotic governments it is obvious that the national prosperity depends very largely upon the patriotism and justice, the assiduity and unwearied devotion to duty, of those in high station. The conditions of national life under a constitutional government are different. Yet there is no political community in which unselfishness, temperance, and diligent application to the public service are not valuable qualities on the part of these who deliberate and decide upon great public questions, and of those who administer a nation's affairs.
APPLICATION. In modern states, where the representative principle so largely obtains, great power is placed in the hands of the citizens and subjects. With them accordingly rests much of the responsibility for the righteous government and the true prosperity of the nation. It behooves Christian men to beware of being misled by party spirit, and so of overlooking the grave moral faults of those who solicit their confidence. It is in the power of the people to raise to positions of eminence and authority men whose aim is not personal aggrandizement and enjoyment, but the public good. If this power be wisely and firmly exercised, vice and crime will be repressed, order and liberty will be maintained, and the nation will maintain a high position and exercise a noble influence among the nations of the earth. Then the spectator will be inspired to utter the exclamation, "Happy art thou, O land!"—T.