"BACK FROM HELL"
My fists are now clinched! I am fighting now. My experience as I have
here given it, drives me to this inevitable conclusion. Germany, as she
now is organized, cannot be tolerated in a modern world. She must be
vanquished! Bloodshed is not the worst thing in life. The slaughter of
the men who are enslaving and killing millions is today a Christian
duty, so help me God!
To me has come the Great Awakening. I have surrendered myself to Him.
America, the strongest democracy of history, has undertaken to fight and
defeat the Kaiser. Every man, woman, and child in this nation must be
mobilized in order to guarantee this outcome. In this supreme, vital
hour, the pacifist and the slacker shall suffer the damnation of hell!
Fighters are patriots--pacifists are traitors. The whole nation must
undergo a rigid system of preparedness to accomplish this great task of
safe-guarding our own and the world's liberties, and further than that,
to make a more stalwart citizenship than we now possess. We need a more
robust young manhood than we have. We are living in the greatest
Republic the world ever saw. We have more liberty than any land on
earth--more than some people know how to use sensibly. But "eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty," therefore, my people, arouse! I
plead, and get behind the government with every ounce of energy and
support that you can muster. Buy Liberty Bonds, give to the Red Cross,
conserve the food, encourage the drafted men, enlist yourself in some
branch of the Service and Help to Win This War! If you can't go,
remember this: You must equip the brave fellows who do go. As my friend
said to me, "None of us must think his part insignificant."
Out there, it is a fact that the spirit of sacrifice is contagious. No
man counts his life dear to himself. It must become so here. Every
shoulder is required at the wheel, as our foe is a monstrous one.
I labor under no delusions as to the weakness of the enemy. Germany is
still powerful and will fight with the desperation of an animal that is
cornered, and we must prepare for a long, hard battle. Universal Service
today is the one thing which is saving America and civilization. Always
remember that. And our youths need it to make men of them mentally and
physically. Our boys need it for their own good and the good of the
future. It is a preparation for life that we need in America and with it
we will be prepared for anything.
We have had perhaps too much liberty in our land, and it has often made
boys a lawless, careless, disrespectful, slouchy crowd, thinking only of
what they can get out of life and not of what they can give in the way
of service. These are not my personal opinions. They are well-known
facts and the highest army officers have bitterly complained of them.
Even the father who is against Universal Service will admit their truth.
The boys of America need to learn courtesy, obedience, respect,
efficiency. Their hearts are right and the present fault is not entirely
their own. They have not been disciplined. Let us now be wise.
I am closing up my little book. I'm back from hell. Back from the hell
made by the Kaiser and his German hordes in Europe. But also, and more
significantly, back from the hell of pacifism, when God is crying,
"Militancy, my son!" Back from the hell which says, "Sleep on, thou
sluggard, in thy peace and cowardice, while God, and the other nations
are awake and doing, against the wicked adversary." Back from the hell
which whispers, "Lose thy soul, but save thy skin." Back from the hell
in which men like David Starr Jordan and Mr. Bryan and my humble self
have been. Pacifism is hell, when heaven challenges the soul to fight.
So I am going to fight. I have found my soul through war. I'm a saved
man. I'm happy at last and I am going to preach it now. I am going to
speak and write as long as I have power, to help America win the war
primarily, and then to help make America a better country by making her
people better citizens, and thus help to make this place we live in a
better world.
We must fear God and down the Kaiser. And I do not know of any more
fitting words that could be used in closing up this little war message
to the American people, from a common, humble helper, than those of our
great National Anthem:
_Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto:--"In God Is Our Trust."
The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave._
[Illustration: _Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
AMERICAN HOSPITAL AT NEUILLY TRANSFERRED TO GENERAL PERSHING.
The ceremony at the transfer of the American Hospital at Neuilly to
General Pershing. The hospital was the first American monument of
sympathy for the French Republic.]
And may the ideals of that flag and the flags of our noble Allies guide
the destinies of the world, and Christ again become the guide of human
life and Prussianistic Militarism be speedily ground to powder.
No true social order can be erected upon a false foundation. Autocracy
is false, pernicious, and rotten from top to bottom. Therefore it must
be annihilated root and branch before the peoples of the earth can find
freedom and happiness. The old structure must be entirely torn down and
the social order built on a new foundation.
The United States has consecrated herself to this task. Stupendous as it
is, she can accomplish it. France has done her part, Britain has
performed her duty, but France and Britain today are calling to us. Not
in any spirit of boastfulness therefore, but in a spirit of deep
humility coupled with a determined confidence must we respond to their
urgent plea. We must go, we must give, we must sacrifice. If America is
to save the situation, as I believe she is, she must know beforehand
that it will be at a price such as she has never paid before. Widows
will pine and daughters will mourn. Rachel will weep in the midnight
for her sons because they are not and orphans will cry themselves to
sleep. But out of the blackness the consolation which comes to me is
that through it all we will find our soul and we will obey the summons
of a just and righteous God. To do less were craven.
America, like other nations, may sometime go down. When we have
accomplished our mission we too may pass off the stage of action. But,
please God, when the names shall be called from the great Book of Life
and the records of the nations now gone, shall be read, lack of vision
and failure in duty shall not be charged against America; and, in the
new and better world, America's part in making possible the higher order
of things shall be recognized and acknowledged.
Every man has his duty. Every woman her sphere. There is nothing worth
living for in the present hour but to assist in defeating Germany. And
let me sound a warning here and now, loud and clear, that the person who
is found unwilling or inactive in the accomplishment of this one goal
will sooner or later feel the bitterness of what it is to be "a man
without a country." He will come to hate himself.
On the other hand, he who does his part, who gives himself unstintedly
in this hour of the world's woe, and who does not calculate the personal
cost, will have the boundless and undying gratitude of future ages.
These will have a part in the greatest humanizing and redemptive work
since earth began and "the generations shall rise up and call them
blessed." They also will be able to boast the honor of having been true
Americans.
As for myself, I know not what the future holds. My personal fortunes
are in the hands of God and my country. The pastorate which I resigned
has been filled by another.
But I do know this: that I have been used in the great cause of
democracy in a hundred times larger way than I ever was before or ever
could have been, had I not gone to the war and been converted to
militant justice. I am hoping to go back again, but in the meantime the
government has been using my humble services in a way which is most
gratifying to me. I have traveled from one end of the continent to the
other delivering lectures to American citizens and trying to rouse them
to their duty. I have probably spoken to a million people, and I hope
this book, with the same object in view, may reach as many more. And the
people have been most kind to me. In places like Tremont Temple,
Boston; Carnegie Hall, New York; and Orchestra Hall, Chicago, audiences
of thousands have given me memorable ovations. And when I spoke for Dr.
Hillis, in Henry Ward Beecher's old church, the congregation applauded
to the echo, even though it was the Sabbath day. And all I ask for the
future is that my life may be worn out for God and my country. _Au
Revoir!_