The rattles of this preeminent child of Murder were heard in deafening clatter over all Europe for twenty years; there is a singular dearth of the acts that have honest fame or that conduce to self-approbation. A steely selfishness from first to last marks the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Nearly a hundred years have passed away since Nap’s dread Waterloo. There have been wars since then and much blood has flowed, tho’ perhaps of no one battle since Waterloo may it decisively be said that had victory gone other than it did go, all subsequent history would be essentially different from what it is. Perhaps in our Civil War the three days’ battle of Gettysburg may seem to hold a determinant place. The continuance of slavery and the break up of the young Republic of the West would surely have made a momentous page of history--but one with which we are happily unfamiliar. Nor would the import of that page affect only us and our Republic; both continents are now more or less favorably influenced by what we now are, so may they have been unfavorably influenced by what we might have been. But Gettysburg is too near for perfect vision. Then, too, the personal element, favorable or unfavorable, is conducive to myopia. So with Waterloo, secure in a hundred years’ perspective, the Battles of Destiny end. In a hasty glance over the historic field from Memphis, 5000 B. C. to Mexico, 1914 A. D.--the great conflicts of nations loom sullenly as blood red peaks daubing the darkness. There is no sequence; they lead nowhere; they just sullenly, luridly bleed. Memphis; Nineveh; Babylon; Marathon, Salamis, Syracuse, Ægospotami, Leuctra, Mantinea, Chæronea; Granicus, Issus, Arbela; Ipsus; Cannæ, Zama, Cynoscephalæ, Magnesia, Pharsalia, Philippi, Actium; Teutobergerwald; Chalons; Tours; Hastings; Orleans; Lepanto; Blenheim; Naseby; Pultova; Saratoga; Valmy; Waterloo; Gettysburg; Mukden; Adrianople; Mexico--as blood red peaks dot the darkness. Is warfare and concomitant hate the natural state of man? The peaks ooze blood in answer. Some pessimistic glimmerings of the Epicurean philosophy seem to scintillate out from the past. And that philosophy, crystallized in Lucretius’ cynic saying, _Homo homini lupus_ (One man is a wolf to another man) glitters in icicle harshness and coldness down in the darkness. And yet amidst this general censure of the heart of man I hear a shrill true cry of self exculpation. I am not a wolf to man or beast or bird. My hands are clean; my heart is kind. Am I unique in the human nature plan? No. May I affirm of self that which I deny of others? No. My own light illumines the darkness and leads upward and on.