William III by Witherow (1873)

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since 1873, but it's often illuminating to go back and see what our predecessors thought and wrote down. Over the past year or so I've occasionally dipped into an excellent book by Thomas Witherow, who was Presbyterian moderator and also a Professor of Church History and Pastoral Theology (Wikipedia here).

In his 1873 book Derry and Enniskillen in the year 1689, there is a chapter entitled 'Reflections' (online here) where he goes beyond the chronological history and gets into what was for him present-day application. He says this:

Every admirer of King William should remember that, as that great monarch often said, he had come over "to deliver the Protestants, but not to persecute the Papists."* To tolerate honest difference of opinion, is the spirit that William always aimed to promote.

Under these circumstances, is it a duty which we owe to God and our country, to celebrate the victories of our ancestors in any form that is calculated to excite the prejudices and provoke the ill-will of neighbours, with whom, though we differ in religion, yet we come into contact on the everyday business of life, and to whom we are bound by ties of citizenship and of mutual service and obligation?

Is it not quite possible to cherish the remembrance of great actions, without doing anything that living men may justly regard as a provocation and an insult? Christianity positively enjoins us to love our neighbour as ourselves; but is the discharge of that obligation consistent with doing something else not commanded by God, but which, as we know for a fact, will hurt our neighbour's feelings, stir up in his heart evil passions, and thus tempt him to sin?

Is it generous to remind, without necessity, any section of our countrymen, that on one occasion our ancestors won a victory over theirs; and would not a noble adversary show more of true greatness and merit by disdaining to stoop to any such unworthy boast? A brave man fights if he must fight, and shakes hands with a gallant foe when the fight is over; but no truly brave man ever insults the vanquished, by reminding him and his, years afterwards, of the defeat. Were he in a thoughtless moment betrayed into such an act, he would, on reflection, feel no little ashamed; certainly he would not desire that the pen of history should record it of him. Is it wise to do an act, not required by the authority of God or of the law, which is known from repeated trial to stir up bitter feelings in our neighbours, which withdraws our own attention from our everyday business, which gives such an unfavourable picture of our own religion, and confirms others in the prejudices which they entertain against our faith?

If to taunt our neighbours with the defeats our ancestors inflicted on theirs, is therefore neither wise, nor manly, nor generous, nor Christian, how can we honestly in the sight of God do such an act, or encourage others to do it?

* Witherow quotes this from Walter Harris' 1745 The History of the Life and Reign of William-Henry, Prince of Nassau on page 175. Whatever the history, as Witherow understood, it's the present-day application which matters. Our generation could learn much from Witherow, even 152 years after he wrote those words.