Another gigantic educator was Bismarck. To have welded the squabbling principalities of Germany into an Empire within a lifetime is one of the achievements of history. But Bismarck held the trump card. He had a cause to serve. His early work must have been his strongest; for since the war with France, patriotism has become the curse of Germany. It is caked into fanaticism, and is being used by autocracy to ruin intellect. This is the mystical yet relentless punishment for the element which was not patriotism but thrift in their conduct. The Germans must be great and unified and recover Alsace for their honor. But what did they want with the French milliards? They mulcted France to spare their pockets, and fastened upon themselves the personal hatred of the French peasant, which gives them William II. for a ruler. They looked upon property as power. Had they seen clearly that power is nothing but sentiment, they would have sown peace. One reason why Holland lost her supremacy was because she came to regard money as power. She grasped the symbol. For a decline sets in as soon as selfishness has reached such a point that any of these symbols are worshipped. Witness Spain, where the gold of Peru ruined the Spaniards by making them individually selfish. In the long run virtue and vice contend over national wealth, the first collecting, the second dissipating. Witness Cuba. Witness Ireland. China is wrecked by private greed. In the last analysis it is a matter of personal virtue. The magnificent intellect and self-control epitomized in Roman Government, took centuries to perish. Is it a wonder these people conquered the world? The United States has been held together by English virtue, and there was so much of it in the race, that a few generations of money-changers could not ruin us. We had, not only the creed, but the beliefs of English liberty. The future of England depends upon her perception of this truth that power is sentiment. The Venezuela trouble showed her that her selfish conduct in 1861 made her empire in 1896 insecure. The spread of England’s empire has been due to a practice in dealing with the imagination of others. Establish by force, develop by the organized altruism of good government, protect by display of force. This system will not apply here. We are the youngest nation and the most naif. We are at the mercy of wise or unwise treatment. But we can no more be fooled than a child. No display of force could touch our imagination or do more than irritate us. Our feelings must be directly engaged by means not known to diplomacy or to international law. Let England take a high tone. She must not only seem but be unselfish towards us, and she will master the globe.