He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.

Fosdick contrasts narrow, self-congratulatory nationalism with a more mature patriotism grounded in empathy. The “poor patriot” is not someone who lacks love of country, but someone whose love is so parochial that it cannot recognize the same attachments—home, worship, symbols, and homeland—that animate other peoples. By invoking “altars and hearthstones” alongside “flag and fatherland,” he links religious and domestic loyalties to civic ones, suggesting that national feeling is a universal human experience rather than a unique moral credential. The line implicitly critiques chauvinism and supports an internationalist ethic: genuine devotion to one’s nation should enlarge, not shrink, one’s capacity to understand others.