We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a
guaranty of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported
by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German
people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be
justified in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of
settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up
arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments,
reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government,
no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new
evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers.
God grant it may be given soon, and in a way to restore the
confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the
possibility of a covenanted peace.