This does not mean that the wrong-doing as regards any one of these matters has as yet been even approximately stopped or that the indignation against such wrong-doing is as yet anything like as effective as it should be. But we must not let our horror at the wrong that is still done blind us to the fact that there has been improvement. As late as the eighteenth century there were continual instances where small nations or provinces were overrun, just as Belgium has been overrun, without any feeling worth taking into account being thereby excited in the rest of mankind. In the seventeenth century affairs were worse. What has been done in Belgian cities has been very dreadful and the Belgian countryside has suffered in a way to wring our hearts; but our sympathy and indignation must not blind us to the fact that even in this case there has been a real advance during the last three hundred years and that such things as were done to Magdeburg and Wexford and Drogheda and the entire Palatinate in the seventeenth century are no longer possible. There is every reason to feel dissatisfied with the slow progress that has been made in putting a stop to wrong-doing; it is our bounden duty now to act so as to secure redress for wrong-doing; but nevertheless we must also recognize the fact that some progress has been made, and that there is now a good deal of real sentiment, and some efficient sentiment, against international wrong-doing. There has been a real growth toward international peace, justice, and fair dealing. We have still a long way to go before reaching the goal, but at least we have gone forward a little way toward the goal. This growth will continue. We must do everything that we can to make it continue. But we must not blind ourselves to the fact that as yet this growth is not such as in any shape or way to warrant us in relying for our ultimate safety in great national crises upon anything except the strong fibre of our national character, and upon such preparation in advance as will give that character adequate instruments wherewith to make proof of its strength. CHAPTER VI THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS “Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed For honor lost and dear ones wasted, But proud, to meet a people proud, With eyes that tell o’ triumph tasted! Come, with han’ gripping on the hilt, An’ step that proves ye Victory’s daughter! Longin’ for you, our sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men’s on raf’s for water. “Come, while our country feels the lift Of a great instinct shouting ‘Forwards!’ An’ knows that freedom ain’t a gift Thet tarries long in han’s of cowards! Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when They kissed their cross with lips that quivered, An’ bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered!”