For the third time in history it has fallen to the lot of France to stem the Barbarian tide. Once before upon the Marne, Aetius with a Gallic Army stopped the Hun under Attila. Three hundred years later Charles Martel at Tours saved Europe from becoming Saracen, just as in September, 1914, more than eleven centuries later, General Joffre with the citizen soldiery of France upon that same Marne saved Europe from the heel of the Prussianized Teuton, the reign of brute force and the religion of the Moloch State. These were among the world's "check battles." Yet the flood of barbarism was only checked at the Marne, not broken; again the flood arose and pressed on to be stopped once more at Verdun--the Gateway of France--in the greatest of human conflicts yet seen. America was a spectator, but not an indifferent one. Once again mere momentary material interest counseled abstention; precedent was invoked to justify isolation and indifference. The timid, the ignorant, the disloyal, those to whom physical life was more precious than the dictates of conscience, counseled "peace and prosperity." Many began to wonder if America had a soul and was indeed worth saving as the policy of "Terrorism" on land followed that of "Terrorism" on the high seas seemed to leave us indifferent. Yet the same spirit, as of yore, dominated the nation. The people of America at last understood that it was not any particular rule of law, but the existence of law itself, divine and human, that was involved in the Fate of France. The task confronting this nation is a stupendous one. Let there be no illusion. The war may well be long and painful, beyond expression, but the past few weeks have taught us that the nation will bear the strain with that same courage and enduring perseverance as in the past, following the example of the Fathers and inspired by the traditions of the American Revolution, this people will stand like a stone wall with our splendid Ally of old and of to-day--France--and from Great Britain from whence came our institutions, to end forever the Hohenzollern system of blood and iron so that a better future may come to Europe and America, one in which peace may be builded upon a guaranty of justice and law--a world order in which fundamental moral postulates and human rights may never again be set at defiance at the behest of mere material force, however scientifically organized. To France has fallen the honor of checking, to Britain the burden of containing by sea and land, to America now comes the duty of finally overthrowing that common enemy of democratic institutions and ordered liberty, the foe whose morality knows no truth, whose philosophy admits no check upon the "will to power."