pire. For one of England's great parties to propose a radical change like that of the free coinage of silver would produce a panic like that of the swallowing of London by an earthquake. The British nation is hated and feared of all nations except our own, and we love her only in our lucid intervals. Only her eternal vigilance keeps the vultures from her coasts. Eternal vigilance of this sort will strengthen governments, will build up nations; it will not in like degree make men. The day of the nations as nations is passing. National ambitions, national hopes, national aggrandizement—all these may become public nuisances. Imperialism, like feudalism, belongs to the past. The men of the world as men, not as nations, are drawing closer and closer together. The needs of commerce are stronger than the will of nations, and the final guarantee of peace and good will among men will be not "the parliament of nations," but the self-control of men. But whatever the outcome of the present war, whatever the fateful twentieth century may bring, the primal duty of Americans is never to forget that men are more than nations; that wisdom is more than glory, and virtue more than dominion of the sea. The kingdom of God is within us. The nation exists for its men, never the men for the nation. "The only government that I recognize," said Thoreau," and it matters not how few are at the head of it or how small its army, is the power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice." And the will of free men to be. just one toward another, is our best guarantee that "government of the people, for the people, and by the people, shall not perish from the earth." "God of our fathers, known of old Lord of our far-flung battle lineBeneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pineLord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget-lest we forget. "The tumult and the shouting dies The captains and the kings departStill stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget! "Far-called our navies melt away On dune and headland sinks the fire Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the nations spare us yet, Lest we forget-lest we forget! |