selfishness or the ambition of men, but the will, and the wisdom,
and providence of God.

Let us see how God led Abraham on to understand this--to look for a
city which had foundations; in short, to understand what a State and
a nation means and ought to be. First, God taught him that he was
not to cling coward-like to the place where he was born, but to go
out boldly to colonise and subdue the earth, for the great God of
heaven would protect and guide him. "Get thee out of thy country
and from thy father's house unto a land which I will shew thee. And
I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee."
Again; God taught him what a nation was: "_I_ will make of thee a
great nation." As much as to say, 'Never fancy, as those fools at
Babel did, that a nation only means a great crowd of people--never
fancy that men can make themselves into a nation just by feeding
altogether, and breeding altogether, and fighting altogether, as the
herds of wild cattle and sheep do, while there is no real union
between them.' For what brought those Babel men together? Just
what keeps a herd of cattle together--selfishness and fear. Each
man thought he would be SAFER, forsooth, in company. Each man
thought that if he was in company, he could use his neighbours' wits
as well as his own, and have the benefit of his neighbours' strength
as well as his own. And that is all true enough; but that does not
make a nation. Selfishness can join nothing; it may join a set of
men for a time, each for his own ends, just as a joint-stock company
is made up; but it will soon split them up again. Each man, in a
merely selfish community, will begin, after a time, to play on his
own account as well as work on his own account--to oppress and
overreach for his own ends as well as to be honest and benevolent
for his own ends, for he will find ill-doing far easier, and more