“What were the fruits of this home method in old New England? I would remind these European Americans who provide our amusements for us that the world has never seen a civilization like that of old New England. I am not saying that it had no faults, but its human product has justly excited the wonder and admiration of the world. There was not much of it. You could pick up those six little states and set them down within the boundaries of Minnesota and have 19,200 square miles to spare. Yet they gave to the world in the space of forty years, men of the stamp of Daniel Webster, Silas Wright, Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, William M. Evarts, George F. Edmunds, James G. Blaine, E. J. Phelps, Rufus Choate, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Channing, Lyman Abbott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Edmund C. Stedman, the Dwights, the Washburns. “Wouldn't that seem to be doing fairly well? “Now the fact is, men and women long for inspiration to a nobler life. There are those who will tell you that the crowds who go to hear Billy Sunday, do it simply to be amused. It is not true. It is a deeper thing. They go, driven by soul hunger. They long for wholesome food for the spirit. They wish to be stirred to nobler action and feel the inspiration of better ideals. They come by tens of thousands. “There never was a clean, uplifting, noble work of fiction that did not number its readers by the million. There never was a strong inspiring play--like _Peter Pan_ or _Shore Acres_--that failed to play to the full capacity of the house in which it was presented for years. “Why then, ask us to wallow in all uncleanness--in the swine-yard of humanity? “It is because uncleanness is cheaper and easier to get and is sure of an audience equally large and less discriminating; it is because these Huns care only for their own pockets and not a fig for the public good. “Now, here is a work for the women of America. Here is a battle front on which they can fight the Huns. Men can help and will help, but they are busy with the more obvious and commonplace problems. This is a job of housecleaning. It is primarily a woman's job--that of setting in order the great house of America and looking after the welfare of its children. There is no greater work to be done than that of regenerating the theater. They can do it if they will.” CHAPTER VI.--WHICH IS MOSTLY FOR THE BOYS OF OUR ARMY The Honorable Socrates Potter hung up the old rifle and washed his hands. There was a very gentle look in his eyes as he began pacing the floor. I saw: that another mood was coming.