"_Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than War: new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw_."
In the third moon of the year 1276, Bayan, the conquering lieutenant of
Genghis Khan, captured Hangchow, received the jade rings of the Sungs,
and was taken out to the bank of the river Tsientang to see the spirit
of Tsze-sü pass by in the great bore of Hangchow--that tidal wave which
annually rolls in, and, dashing itself against the sea-wall of Hangchow,
rushes far up the river, bringing, for eighteen miles inland, a tide of
fresh, deep-sea splendor, and thrilling all who see or hear.
In the life of nations there are times and tides. Against the tide-wall
of history, beaten by many a storm, and battered by many a thundering
wave, there is about to sweep the incoming wave of a new life for the
race: there is about to pass a greater than the spirit of Tsze-sü,--even
the Spirit of God!
"_We are living,-we are dwelling,
In a grand and awful time,
Age on age to ages telling,
To be living is sublime_!"
We are moving out into a period of great statesmen, and of great
political standards and ideals. The days before us are days which will
make the Elizabethan era pale in history. Upon the head of our nation
are set responsibilities such as have never before rested on any
one man.
The day of the true statesman is here; the day of the demagogue is done!
The rule of the orator is over the ideals and hopes of men. The
demagogue prostitutes this power. His rule is over the passions,
prejudices, and resentments of men. He cries aloud in the market-place,
and rogues and ward-heelers, and evil-minded politicians, group
themselves around him. He waves his sceptre over the vulgar and the
rascals of the town.
The vital problem of municipal reform is not the shattering of the ring,
the overturning of the boss, the gagging of a few loud tongues. It is
the problem of the training of better bosses; the education of men and
women in social control; their enlightenment, from childhood up, in
civic duties, in national affairs, and the conduct of civil power.
Thereupon oratory turns to its higher ends. Through statesman, preacher,
and political teacher, it cries aloud of righteousness. I look for the
time when the typical politician shall be an honorable man; when to be
"in the ring" of municipal or national control shall mean to be an
integral and orderly part of the administration of God's great world;
when city life shall be purified; and when international law shall be
the interpretation of the will of the Almighty for the rule of nations.
We have honest doctors, lawyers, tradesmen; shall we not have an honest
politician and an upright ward-boss?
Public service is a god-like service! Our Presidents shall more and more
be chosen, not alone for ideas, experience, or for party affiliations:
the President shall be chosen because he is a moral hero! Something has
stirred in the heart of the American people, which shall not soon be
stilled: a spiritual outlook upon political preferment. In the White
House we long to have the great spiritual exemplars of our race. Not
alone in church shall we offer up a "Prayer before Election." The time
is coming when each true ballot-slip shall be a prayer.
Within the next fifty years shall be determined some of the greatest
questions of history. Among them shall be questions of industrial
adjustment and development, and of social progress. We must have in our
Cabinet not only the representatives of War and State, of Finance,
Trade, Labor, and Agriculture; but also of Education and of Social
Health. This is not a dream. You and I may live to see the results of
this religious awakening: it is elemental and epochal.
Back of all individual dominion there is rising a yet higher
dominion--the dominion of the English-speaking race. We, having been
called by the providence of God to stand at the head of the march of
progress, may well ask ourselves concerning our imperial powers. The
line of progress for a nation is to allow no spiritual ideal to stagnate
or to retrograde. The spiritual aspiration of a nation always dominates
what is called the Social Mind. We grow toward what we worship. It is
ours to plant the dominion of civilization in foreign lands, and to
supplant a waning culture by a richer, truer, and nobler way of life.
The first thought of each of us, entering these new lands, whether
merchant, soldier, educator, or missionary, should be to hold Christ
aloft, that all tribes may come to His light, and kings to the
brightness of His rising.
God leads us on. Said Lincoln: "I have been driven many times to my
knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My
own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day."
Like a vast Hand stretched against the sky of Time is the Hand of God--a
Hand writing, in these wondrous days, a destiny for generations yet to
be! Rising with us are all God-fearing nations--the Teutonic, Slav, and
Latin peoples. Sitting yet in darkness, and massed against us, crouch
sullenly the immemorial hordes of Asia, the wild blacks of the African
swamps and jungles, and the dwellers of Polynesian seas. Occident and
Orient, the world's battalions are forming for new encounters and new
dismays. Never since the strong-limbed Goths changed the face of Europe
has there been a period of such tense anticipation, nor so great a
possibility of volcanic change. We are entering an historic period of
reconstruction, when new maps of the world will be drawn. The sceptre is
passing into new hands: to-day the throne of civilization is being
arched above the seaway which joins London and New York. To-morrow, it
may be builded above Pacific tides, where our own shores look westward
to the ports of Asiatic Russia. For, rising on the world-horizon, are
these two World-empires, Russia and the United States. The dictators of
these two countries will soon become the dictators of the human race.
They are brave and virile nations, with untold reserves of power! As
these two giants gird themselves for World-dominion, who but God shall
gird the armor on, direct the onward course of change?
Much of the ancient wealth and beauty shall be done away. In a few
generations the shrines of thirty centuries will be no more. Fane and
temple and pagoda will disappear; carvings, images, and Sikh-guarded
courts. Long lines of yellow-robed priests will chant their last
processional hymn to Buddha, and the smoking incense to waning gods
shall be quenched forever. Where Tao rites were celebrated, silence
shall fall; where fakir and dervish tortured and immolated their lives,
happy children shall play. Instead of the lotos of the Ganges and the
Nile, there shall bloom the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Vale.
But as the empires of Buddha and Muhammad fall, a new Empire shall
prevail!
"_Kings shall bow down before Him,
And gold and incense bring;
All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all people sing.
To Him shall prayer unceasing
And dally vows ascend;
His kingdom still increasing,
A kingdom without end_."