For our Country, in these days, to go to war is a very significant event. In former times, for other nations, it meant not so much; the provocation needed not to involve such high and general interests. To be on the warpath, to plunder and be plundered, to kill and be killed is with the barbarian the usual thing. Of our own Teutonic ancestors this was true less, much less, than ten centuries ago; and it is very slow indeed that we have outgrown their barbaric, warlike propensity. Still, warfare, with the advance of civilization and the increasing power of peaceful arts, with the spread and the strengthening of the sentiments of humanity, and with the deepening of the sense of universal human brotherhood, has gradually grown more and more to be deprecated, condemned and avoided.

Therefore, in the Nineteenth Century of Christ, the Prince of Peace, to take up arms and go to war against a sister nation and slay our brother man is a remarkable event, well worth the while of American citizens to reflect upon the causes—they must needs be unique, extraordinary, characteristic of the enlightened time and country in which we live. Could the provocation be other than of a moral and humanitarian nature? Must it not needs be addressed to Conscience and to the sense of all those high and Christian principles for which America stands? Surely, else, in this day, such sacrifice of life and treasure would never be made. And so it was in our recent war. The very sentiments which the Prince of Peace, the preacher of brotherhood, kindled in our hearts, were quickened into a flame of noble hostility against the barbarous oppressor of another people. Our very enlightenment of Conscience, our moral culture, our Christian spirit itself impelled us to war. Could we prate of fellow-sympathy, of brotherhood, of humanitarianism, and yet not make even the last effort, by a resort to arms, to deliver a people down-trodden, plundered, enslaved? Never may our hearts be so hardened, never may our souls be so dead to generous impulse, never may our thoughts be so abjectly selfish, that we will not sacrifice all for human rights, for freedom, for justice, for the happiness and ultimate peace of the world.

I thank God for this war—it means so much for us, and through us for mankind. Look at its vast significance. Our nation has experienced a deep awakening such as this generation never felt before, and such as it needed. Its conscience has been cultivated; all the nobler sentiments of life have been given a wondrous new strength. These rose to dominion in our lives, new impulses moved us, new ideals passed before us—we have entered upon a new career of moral life, upon a higher plane, for we undertook a great work for humanity and counted not the cost. We became free from our habitual indifference, we despised our very lives, offering them a ransom for the oppressed. Such a six-months of self-forgetting morally enthusiastic life and oblation of peace, comfort, treasure, and blood, were worth more to us than any score of slothful years lived only for material gain. A nation may indeed be "beastly prosperous." America, thank God, is not; though prosperous, she is beyond example. Never did there live a people who made such worthy, such philanthropic uses of their prosperity. Never did rich and poor, the monarch of millions, and the possessor of a bare competence, make in any land or time so noble a use of his material means. Witness our colleges and universities, our churches and charitable institutions, our libraries and museums; witness this war for an oppressed people.

Thank God we are not insensible of high demands upon us! Thank God we are not wholly mercenary and materialistic! Thank God we are responsive, disinterestedly, but with wealth and life itself, to other claims than those of self and selfish getting and sending! We, who are called pig-stickers, are capable of generous action—we have given ourselves for the deliverance of the oppressed, thank God!

Who complains now that this generation is degenerate? Who now is pessimistic? Who now taunts the youth of the land with being unworthy sons of worthy sires? Who that knows of San Juan and El Caney, of Santiago Harbor and Manila Bay, sighs for the heroic days of old and the braver men?

The events of the last six months should give us confidence in the better possibilities of ourselves. Europeans taunt us with having everything "big" but nothing "great;" big cities, big rivers, big lakes, big mountains, big crops, but no great works of art, no great achievements in science and literature, no great men. False to begin with. This generation is destined to prove it more glaringly so. There is nothing too great to be achieved by those who felt and responded to the high motive of this war.

What is the national result of the conflict? New impulses, new motives, new interests, new ideals, new duties, broader views, vaster undertakings, a richer national life. Put the oak that has planted his roots deep and far out into the nurturing soil and lifted his storm-defying brow toward heaven; put the lordly oak tree back into the acorn hull; or seize the strong-pinioned eagle after he has soared above the mountain peaks and challenged the tempests of the sea, seize and cage him again in his broken shell, and then you may hope to diminish our country to what it was, confining its expanded members by the old bonds and subjecting its enlarged activities to the old ideals.

When were the great days of Greece? After the stormy period of the Persian wars. It was struggle that made her great. It was Philip of Macedon that crowned Demosthenes prince of orators; it was Xerxes and Darius of Persia that laureled so many poets of the city they sought to destroy. It was the shock of the tumultuous waves of an invading host, it was the tempest of war that roused the life-forces of classic Helena, and after the days of heroic struggle came the period of great achievement in the pursuits of peace. It was then that art, sculpture, music, poetry, and eloquence flourished as never in secure days of slothful ease.

No argument this for wanton insolence, provoking war; far be it ever from us to be aught else than a peace-loving, peace-preserving nation; but, before God, realizing our great strength and high mission, let us ever hold some things inviolable and dearer than our own comfort, wealth and life. Still to be ready to fight and to die for justice and freedom to mankind marks a people as courageous and noble. Let such courage, such nobleness be forever the possession of the American people!