"'What sees't thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick
all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps thereon.
"'And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and
the other upon the left side thereon'."
What do these beautiful verses mean? Simply this,--that the source of
all peace, individual and international, is that type of mind which
Christ and Christian statesmen have. The two olive trees, one on each
side of the candlestick, stand for Christian character--one for the
stern moral character of the prophet, the other for the mercy of the
true religious teacher. And the candlestick stands for work, for service
for mankind and the nations. And as both of the olive trees supply the
light with oil, so we are not to seek for peace on earth with the sword,
but by increasing the number of men whose service for humanity is
controlled by Christian morality and justice, mercy, and kindness.
These are the men who will bring peace. God increase the number! These
are the men that providence can use to correlate the nations into
essential democracy. These are the men who are worthy of a crown of
olives! These are the men that we must depend upon to correct the
compass of the ship of the world, as it moves forward against the
besetting fury of antagonistic waters, bearing its prow day by day and
year by year against the unwearied enmity of hateful waves, until it
reaches the haven of essential international peace.
[D]THE INEVITABLE DRIFT
For the earth--
The white enfolded, or green Easter world,
Warmed by nature's heart into a new bursting life--
Like the universe, the earth is a perfect spherical
creation,
And because the world is a sphere, the most perfect
of figures,
Animated and endowed with purpose and reason,
It is therefore much better than all other forms.
* * * * *
And so man, with humanity-love and reason gifted,
Feeling that he is a part of all that thrills in sod, sky
or sea,
Developed, demands the fullness of the globe's life as his
home.
And to look not beyond a continent or nation,
Is barbaric, retrogressive and sinful;
For He that said, to the child of every race, "be thou
perfect,"
Thereby also commands to be naturalized to the sphere.
And this, O armies and bigots is the inevitable drift!