Sermon Illustrations

ANIMOSITY (SLAVES TO)

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Slaves to Animosity
by George W. Ball

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ONE OF THE SAGEST admonitions in George Washington’s Farewell Address was that we Americans should beware of “inveterate antipathies against particular nations.”

“The nation,” he said, “that indulges toward another an habitual hatred ... is in some degrees a slave. It is a slave
to its animosity . . . which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests.” And he added: “Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions or disputes occur.”

That advice has particular relevance today, for our government is exhibiting toward the Soviet Union such an
“habitual hatred” as to make it, in Washington’s phrase, “to some degrees ... a slave to its animosity.”

 

-from Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, August/September 1984, page 5