Unless all signs fail, the world is on the eve of a war such
as was never known in all the mighty cycles of human
history. Lucky indeed will it be if the twentieth century is
not born amid the shock of universal battle.
Is our boasted civilization breaking down beneath its own
ponderous weight--the rotting props and pillars unable to
sustain the gilded roof? Are the prophecies of
Scripture about to be fulfilled--the world rushing
headlong to the final catastrophe?
A murderous mania hath everywhere seized upon the
minds of men. The pulse of the race is beating the reveille;
the soul of the world is sounding "boots and saddles."
Savagery is reasserting itself--the Christian nations are
further than ever before from that age of gold,
"When the war-drum throbs no longer,
And the battle-flags are furled
In the parliament of man,
The federation of the world."
Peace? "There is no peace war is inevitable." The ostrich
may avoid seeing the approach of the fierce simoon by
hiding his head in the sand, but cannot stay its onward
march. The craze for slaughter, the lust for blood, is
abroad in the land. The stars are evil, and Ate, ranging hot
from Hell, plants her burning feet on every brow.
For years the brute passions of man have had no outlet--a
prolonged peace hath become that good custom which doth
corrupt the world. A new generation hath arisen in Europe
and America which knows naught of the horrors of war, but
is intoxicated by its glory. Its superfluous energy must find
expression, its pent-up passions are ready for explosion. It
is all aweary of these piping times of peace--wildly eager for
the glorious pomp and circumstance of war--the bullet's
mad hiss and the crash of steel. Civilized man is but an
educated savage sooner or later his natural ferocity will
demand its pound of flesh.
. . . . . .
I know not whether Deity or Devil be the author of war. All
human advancement is born of strife. Only warlike
nations march in the van of the world's progress--prolonged
peace has ever meant putrefaction. The civilizations of
Greece and Rome were brightest when their blades were
keenest. When the sword was sheathed there followed
social degradation and intellectual decay. When all Europe
trembled at the haughty tread of her matchless infantry,
Spain was empress in the realm of mind. The Elizabethan
age in England was shaped by the sword. America's
intellectual preeminence followed the long agony of the
Revolution, and blazed like a banner of glory in the wake of
the Civil War. The Reign of Terror gave forth flashes of
true Promethean fire--the crash of steel in the Napoleonic
war studded the heavens with stars. It required an eruption
of warlike barbarians to awaken Italy from her lethargy,
while Celt and Saxon struck sacred fire from the shields of
the intrepid Caesars. The Israelites were humble and
civilized slaves in Egypt, cowering beneath the lash and
finding a sweet savor in the fleshpots of the Pharaohs.
Thrust forth into the wilderness, they became the fiercest of
all barbarians before giving us the Psalms of David and the
Song of Solomon. They had to become conquering
warriors--had to be heroized--before they could breed
inspired poets.
The age of "blood offering" has not yet passed. Is it
possible that these awful rites are necessary to foster that
spirit of self-sacrifice which marks the highest reach of
humanity? to feed the golden lamp of love? to inculcate the
virtue of valor? Can heroes be forged only with the
hammer of Thor? Is genius the child of blood and tears?
Are wars the tidal waves in the mighty social sea, ordained
by the Deity to prevent putrefaction? Was the Phoenix of
the ancients but an old civilization, enervated by luxury and
corrupted by peace, that could only be purified of its foul
dross and infused with new energy by fire? Was that
poet inspired who declared that, "Whatever is, is right?" I
do not know.
. . . . . .
The trend of events points to a war that will involve the
world--will align the Old against the New. I will be told the
idea that Europe will combine against America is sheer
madness. Is it even so? Has the time arrived when young
men dream idle dreams and old men see lying visions?
Scan the European press for six months past, and you will
find such an event foreshadowed by the ablest editors and
most distinguished diplomats. The probable necessity of
such a coalition has been seriously discussed by various
European cabinets.
Great Britain is the pariah of nations, feared by most,
detested by all. Continental Europe would gladly see her
humbled in the very dust. Had war resulted from the
Venezuelan complication, England would, in all probability,
have been left without allies, albeit the president's
ultimatum was not relished by other transatlantic powers.
Realizing his inability to cope with the Giant of the
Occident, the world's bully stopped blustering and began
sniffling about his beloved cousin across the sea and the
beatitude of arbitration. The American Congress passed
resolutions of sympathy with the Cuban insurgents, and
from so slight a spark the Spanish people took fire. Instead
of acting as peace-makers, the official organs of most
European governments proceeded to fan the flames--
encouraged Spain to resent the fancied affront by assuring
her that she would not lack powerful allies. There was no
recognition by this government of Cuban independence; no
recommendation that we wrest the island from the
moribund nation that has so long misgoverned it; but a
semi-official expression of concern for men striving to
achieve their liberty afforded Europe a pretext to "get
together" and work off on a distant people that war
spirit, so long suppressed at home, lest it disturb the
balance of power. The British journals, which had warbled
so sweetly anent their American cousins and "the
indissoluble bond of Anglo-Saxon brotherhood," when there
was a fair prospect that John Bull would have to toe the
scratch alone, at once forgot the blessed ties of
consanguinity and assured the bombastic Spaniard that he
would have "plenty of help should he decide to humble
American impudence." The press of France and Germany
discoursed in much the same manner, while the diplomats
of those countries agreed that "Europe would yet find it
necessary to materially modify the Monroe Doctrine." But
the Spaniard, believing discretion to be the better part of
valor, had apologized for the acts of his undiapered babes
and the excesses of his hungry beggars before his
neighbors could stiffen his backbone with their ostentatious
insolence.
The Monroe Doctrine, literally interpreted, is simply a
warning to transatlantic powers to keep off the American
grass--an official notice that they will not be permitted to
overrun and parcel out this continent regardless of human
rights as they have done in Asia and are doing in Africa.
The "Doctrine" is ridiculous, in that it establishes a quasi-
protectorate over a number of petty powers that have no
valid excuse for existing; still it works no injury to any
European government not bent on international
buccaneering. Uncle Sam's promulgation of the Monroe
Doctrine proves him a fool; Europe's frantic objection to it
demonstrates that she is a knave.
The Spanish incident served to show that the war spirit is
rife throughout Europe, and that her mighty armaments
cannot much longer be kept inactive. It proved conclusively
that Europe is feverishly eager to set limits to the growing
power of this government while such limitation is yet
possible--that she cannot view with composure the slightest
inclination on the part of America to take a hand in the
world's politics. With wealth aggregating seventy-five
billions, and as many millions of warlike Americans back of
it, the Monroe Doctrine becomes something more than an
iridescent dream. When such a nation decides upon "a
vigorous foreign policy," the balance of power problem
cannot be long confined to the European continent--a fact
which explains the pernicious activity of transatlantic
governments during our late unpleasantness.
But all the danger of an international complication does not
come from across the sea. The war spirit is well-nigh as
rife in this country as at Barcelona and Cadiz. The great
mass of the American people would welcome a controversy
with any country, with or without good cause. "The glory
of the young man is in his strength," and Uncle Sam is
young and strong. He longs to grapple with his
contemporaries, to demonstrate his physical superiority. He
has a cypress shingle on either shoulder and is trailing his
star-spangled cutaway down the plank turnpike. While a
few mugwumps, like Josef Phewlitzer and Apollyon
Halicarnassus Below, and tearful Miss Nancys of the Anglo-
maniacal school, are protesting that this country wants
peace, Congress, that faithful mirror of public opinion, if not
always the repository of wisdom, proves that it is eager for
war. And just so sure as the Cleveland interpretation of the
Monroe Doctrine is insisted upon, we are going to get it,
and that before babes now nursing wear beards. And the
"Doctrine," as applied by the administration, will not only be
insisted upon, but public opinion will force the hands of our
public servants and compel them to push it further. The
fact that it is distasteful to our transatlantic brethren makes
it ridiculously popular with a people determined to burn
gunpowder. Aside from the epidemic of murder which
seems to have girdled the globe, the spirit of petty jealousy
and assumed superiority with which Americans are treated
in many European countries, has imbued this people with
the idea that the quickest way to win the respect of their
supercilious neighbors is to slaughter them. Uncle Sam is
in an ugly humor and will suffer no legitimate casus belli
to be side-tracked by arbitration. He is "dead tired" of
having the European ants get on him--of being harried by
petty powers whom he knows full well he could wipe from
the map of the world. He is just a little inclined to do the
Roman Empire act--to take charge of this planet and run it
in accordance with his own good pleasure. Some of these
days he's going to drive his box-toed boot under John Bull's
coat-tails so far that the impudent old tub of tallow can taste
leather all the rest of his life.
We may deplore this spirit of contention, but to deny its
existence were to write one's self down an irremediable
ass. It is in evidence everywhere, from the American
senate to the country clown. To argue against the war
spirit were like whistling in the teeth of a north wind. You
cannot alter a psychological condition with a made-to-order
editorial. It is urged that we should sing small, as we are
"not prepared for war." We are always prepared.
Hercules did not need a Krupp cannon--he was capable of
doing terrible execution with a club. Samson did not wait to
forge a Toledo blade--he waltzed into his enemies with an
old bone and scattered their shields of iron and helmets of
brass to the four winds of Heaven. The mighty armaments
of Europe are costly trifles; whenever America has been
called to fight she has revolutionized the science of
destruction. It hath been said, "In time of peace prepare
for war." Europe bankrupts herself to build steel cruisers
and maintain gigantic standing armies; America
prepares by strengthening her bank account and
developing her natural resources. When the crisis comes
she has "the sinews of war," and brains and industry
quickly do the rest. It was not necessary for Gulliver to
sleep in the land of the Lilliputs with a gun at his side.
Vast armies and costly fleets of battleships in time of peace
are indication of conscious weakness. The Western Giant
goes unarmed; but let the embattled world tread upon his
coat-tails if it dares! The American does not have to be
educated to soldiership--he's to the manner born. Those
who can build are competent to destroy. Our Civil War was
fought by volunteers; yet before nor since in all the
struggles of mankind were such terrible engines of
destruction launched upon land or sea. Never did so many
bullets find their billets. Never did men set their breasts
against the bayonet with such reckless abandon. Never
were the seas incarnadined with such stubborn blood. The
"Charge of the Six Hundred" was repeated a thousand
times. The Pass of Thermopylae was emulated by
plowboys. The Macedonian Phalanx was as nothing to the
Rock of Chickamauga. The Bridge of Lodi was duplicated
at every stream. The spirit of the Old Guard animated raw
recruits. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand became but a
holiday excursion. Sailors fought their guns below the
water line and went down with flying colors and ringing
cheers.
We have been more than once dangerously near a rupture
with European powers because of the ridiculous Monroe
Doctrine, which assumes for Uncle Sam a quasi-
protectorate over a horde of Latin-American oligarchies
masquerading as Republics. We have now been fairly
warned that should such a catastrophe occur, we would
have to contend with more than one European power. We
must either recede from the position we have assumed or
prepare to do battle for the very existence of this
government. Such a war would draw all nations of the
earth into the bloody vortex. If Russia held aloof from the
anti-American coalition, she would seize the opportunity to
push her fortunes in the Orient, making a collision with the
Moslem inevitable. At such a time the latter would be intent
upon the extension of territory. Occupy Western Europe
with an American war, and the Mohammedan would rise
against their oppressors. Unfurl the sacred banner of the
Prophet, and millions of murderous fanatics would erase
the raids of Goth and Visigoth from the memory of
mankind. Turkey, jeered at even by Spain, flouted even by
Italy , yet potentially the most powerful nation for evil upon
the earth, would spread as by magic over Roumania and
Austro-Hungary, and pour through the Alpine passes like a
torrent of fire upon Germany and France. Back of the
much contemned "Sick Man of the East"--whom combined
Christendom has failed to frighten--are nearly two hundred
million people, scattered from the Pillars of Hercules to the
Yellow Sea, all eager to conquer the earth for Islam. They
are warriors to a man; their only fear is that they will not
find death while battling with "the infidel dog" and be
translated bodily to the realm of bliss. Within the memory
of living men Christian nations have turned their eyes with
fear and trembling to the Bosphorus. Islam is the political
Vesuvius of Europe, and is once again casting its lurid light
athwart the troubled sky. For years the Moslem has been
robbed without mercy and persecuted without remorse.
The bayonet has been held at his throat while strangers
reviled his religion. It is no part of his creed to love his
enemies and pray for those who despitefully use him. The
Koran does not adjure him to turn the other cheek to the
smiter. He has nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and
prayed for an opportunity to wreak barbaric vengeance
upon his oppressors. When Christian Europe marches
forth to do battle with America she will need to wear armor
upon her back as well as upon her breast, for while terror
stalks before, Hell will lurk behind.
* * *
A STORY OF THE SEA.
There have been mortals, favorites of the gods, to whom it
was given to understand the language of the lower animals,
and such I have ever envied, for
"Beast and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not."
Never could I get beyond an imperfect knowledge of their
alphabet, enabling me to spell out here and there a word of
little meaning; but the great ocean's never-ceasing speech
was ever plain to me, and many a midnight hour I have
paced the cool sands that girt my island home, and listened
with reverential awe to the secrets it whispered to the
sensuous southern breeze that kissed its bosom--strange
stories of wreck and wraith, wild wars and desperate deeds,
mingled with those of love and honor, shame and sacrifice,
crowding upon each other like spectres in a dream.
One night when the new moon hung like a silver crescent
pendent from Venus' flaming orb, in a summer sky thick
inlaid with patines of pure gold, I heard the lazy waves
breaking like slumb'rous thunder upon the long, low beach,
and said, "The sea is calling me!" and I went. Far out
upon the long pier, where the waves could dash their spray
like a shower of cool pearls in my face, I lingered long
and listened to a story, sad and strange as a sweet-voiced
woman telling in a foreign tongue, and punctuating with
tears and sighs, a tale of true love turned awry.
Upon the beach they walked in days that seem to man
long, long ago. How brief and strange the little lives of
men, and so beset with customs framed to cramp the heart
and curse the soul before its time! To me,--here since
Time began to build that bridge of sighs and tears that link
the two eternities--it seems but yesternight that, hand in
hand they wandered here, so wrapt in happiness born of
equal love that they heeded not my glories spread forth to
tempt their praise. I curled my snowy spray about their
feet; flashed back the silver beams of harvest moon in one
long, shimmering sheet of mellow light; rolled waves of
brilliant phosphorescence, that seemed like silver billows,
diamond-studded, breaking on a beach of gold, and sang
the sweetest odes of the poets of ten thousand years; but
they heard nor saw aught but the beating of their hearts in
holy rhythm and the love-light flaming like fires celestial in
each other's eyes.
Anon, bare-armed, bare-limbed, shamed yet happy, they
sought the wave, and I cradled them on my bosom and
heard them whisper of laws defied and cruel customs set at
naught, and the higher law of love; but fearful she spoke
and sighed, yet clung the closer to him, as though the earth
and sea contained hut one perfect model of a man and that
were he.
Hour by hour they hovered near me, and a thousand times
she swore to him that their lives were so entwined that
separation were death to her, and kissed his lips, his eyes,
his hands, and wished she were his wife that they might
blazon to the great round world the love they fain would
hide from Heaven.
One little year went by and they came again, not walking
hand in hand. He spoke to her and she answered with
bitter scorn. He touched with trembling lips upon the old
days when love was lord of their two lives, but she mocked
at love and him and bade him leave her. Then he that was
wont to rule first learned to sue, and vainly, for her heart
was cold as the ashes of long-forgotten kings, cruel as
wintry winds blown across icy northern seas. "It is a guilty
love," she said, and he looked at her as if doubting that he
heard, then turned and went like one that dreamed; for
thought of wrong to her had dwelt not with him; he had but
worshiped her as devout Sabaean might the sun and
host of Heaven.
Again he came, but he was all alone. Long and lonely he
paced the dreary beach beneath a wintry sky, until the cold
mists seemed changed to mellow light, the stormy sky to
one of summer, gemmed by myriad stars and queened by
harvest moon; the cool wind sweeping o'er the barren
waste to music and the merry laughter of men and maids;
and she was by his side, her love-lit eyes making the blood
dance through every vein. He put forth his hand to her, but
the sky changed from gold to lead, the driftweed blew about
his feet, the cold mist settled down upon him and crept with
icy fingers into his heart, and he cursed the lying vision, the
shrieking wind, the cold mist and the leaden sky; cursed the
day that he first saw her, and said to the waves that
tumbled at his feet: "I must be mad. The curse of my
race hath fallen upon me; else why do I see that which is
not, hear voices that are far away? Why do I cherish the
image of a fickle woman, who, swept along by a gust of
passion or sickly sentiment, thought for a day she loved
me, but did not, nor ever loved aught in life but her own
selfish self?"
And he called her name to the wind and waves but
coupled with it a curse, deep and bitter, as those that
burst in sulphur-breath from the parched lips of the
damned; and a voice came back from out the gloom that
seemed to mock him. Furious as a demon disturbed at
some hellish rite, he turned and shrieked to the mocking
voice and bade it come to him that he might wreak upon its
owner such vengeance as would appall the world.
The far lights shone like pale ghosts of lights through the
driving mist, and in them loomed two weird forms that
seemed an hundred cubits high. Furious he rushed upon
and smote them down upon the wet sand and trampled
them, and strove with feet and hands to kill; but they cried
out for mercy on their lives,--that they were honest
fishermen who, hearing a cry but faintly above the roaring
waves, had answered it, thinking some boatman might have
met mishap and called for aid. The flood of anger spent in
blows, he helped them up, wiped the blood and sand from
their bronzed faces, gave them his scant purse, and bidding
them drink a bumper that hell-fiends might drag him from
the world before the morn sent them on their way.
The gray dawn found him sleeping with his face upon the
wet sand, once trodden by the feet that now trampled on
his heart. Then I sent waves, cool and sweet, to kiss his
cheek, and he awoke, and waking, said:
"Kisses for me? They are cold, great Mother Ocean; but
not so cold as love burned out, leaving but the bitter ashes
of contemptuous pity. I dreamed that I was afloat upon thy
bosom with her I did so dearly love, and thou wast bearing
us beneath a sunset sky to a fair island, fringed with palms
and musical with songs of birds and rippling springs, where
we two should live forever; that as we floated thus Love's
goddess descended from a golden cloud and opening the
white bosom of my bride, yet not my bride, took
thence her heart and pressed from it a black drop that fell
upon the molten sea, and taking form became a hideous
monster that cried, 'My name is Selfishness,' and vanished
in the wave. Then breathing upon the cold heart ethereal
flame that made it throb like a hero's pulse when trumpets
are blown for war, she replaced it, healed the snowy globe
with a touch, and, smiling upon me, was caught into the
golden cloud that seemed framed of music and the perfume
of a thousand flowers. A round arm stole about my neck
and we floated heart to heart on to the haven that was to
be our Heaven.
"A curse upon your briny waters that seem a world of bitter
tears, rank with dead men's bones and the rotting hulls of
ships! They have called me back to thy dreary, ever-
moaning verge to mock myself for loving one who scorns;
for wasting my hot heart upon a block of frozen stone,
hoping by foolish prayers and unmanly tears to move the
gods to breathe into it the breath of human life,--to prevail,
even as did that old Greek, who became enamored of a
statue, less divinely formed, but with the self-same heart.
"'Tis madness leads me to this folly,--the old, old curse that
hath hung about our house, like a baleful shadow, for thrice
a hundred years, bursting at times into bloody feuds without
apparent cause, and dreadful mutinies against the laws of
man and will of God. 'Tis vain to further fight with fate!
'Twill drag me down, even as it did my great-grandsire, who
climbed fame's dizzy heights and stood, poised in mid-
Heaven, the master mind of Britain's mighty world; then,
like a tall mountain pine blasted at the top by the writhen
bolts of God, plunged, a falling star, to the depths of
everlasting darkness, and died a decade before his death.
Nor iron will descended through my sire from a score of
barbarous kings; nor mother's prayerful amulets,
woven like golden threads through every low, sweet lullaby
that soothed my infancy, can avail me aught. I can but
fight and fall. She might have helped me beat back the
shadows; but would not--and 'tis well."
Then taking from a case a withered rose, he kissed it, cast
it far out upon the wave, watched it dance there, and said
with a bitter smile:
"The last link that binds me to other days, and it is broken.
'The wage of sin is death,' and I am dead these long
months past and fathoms deep in Hell, yet walk the earth
because nor land nor sea will yield a resting-place among
its honored dead to one so ignobly slain."
* * *
APOSTLE VS. PAGAN.