What does this noble scholar mean? History makes that meaning plain! No
wine until the purple clusters are crushed. No linen until the flax is
bleeding and broken. No redemption without shedding of blood. No rich
soil for men's bread until the rocks are ploughed with ice glaciers
and subdued with fire billows. Four forms of liberty achieved by our
fathers, for which they paid over three thousand battle-fields, blood
down. This war was not brought by God, but having come, let us believe
that His providence can overrule it for the destruction of all war.
When Germany is beaten to her knees, becomes repentant, offers to make
restitution for her crimes, then and not till then can this war stop.
Autocracy too must go. There is no room left in the world for a kaiser
or a sultan. The hangman's noose awaits the peasant murderer, and
already the hemp is grown to twist into the noose for the royal neck.
At all costs and hazards we must fight this war through to a successful
issue. Our children must not be made to walk through all this blood and
muck. The burden of militarism must be lifted from the shoulders of
God's poor. Any state that will not forever give up war must be shut
out of the world's clearing houses and markets through finance and
trade. Geologists tell us that the harbour of Naples, protected by
islands, was once the crater of a volcano like unto Vesuvius, but that
God depressed that smoking basin until the life-giving waters of the
Mediterranean streamed in and put out that fire. Oh! beautiful emblem
of a new era, when God will depress every battle-field, and every
dreadnought, and bring in the life-giving waters of peace.
When we have so carried on this war as to end all wars, a golden age
will come, and with it the Parliament of Mankind, the Federation of
the World, a little international army policing the land, a little
international navy policing the seas, an international supreme court
deciding disputes between peoples. To this high end let our sons
dedicate themselves. To this goal let all of us as parents, looking
towards our best beloved, say, "My son he is! God's soldier let him
be! I could not wish him to a fairer death." Let all our people say to
the Kaiser and his War Staff, "You shall not skewer babes upon your
bayonets; you shall not crucify officers upon the trees; you shall
not nail young nuns to the doors of the schoolhouses; you shall not
violate the sanctities of infancy and old age; you shall not mutilate
the bodies of little girls and noble women; you shall not call that
unspeakable butcher, the Sultan, a dear friend, and organize his
soldiers for the assassination of the whole Armenian race; you shall
not play fast and loose with your solemn treaties; you shall not
transfix mankind with German bayonets; you shall not crush the hopes of
Gladstone, Lafayette and Lincoln. You shall not grind God's children
beneath the iron heel of despotism. And so help us God, despite all
your atrocities, government of the people, by the people, and for the
people shall not perish from God's earth!"