The lie is accepted as her first diplomatic weapon; “frightfulness” is developed as an invaluable ally of conquest; cruelty and treachery are praised by the scholar and pastor, practised as a matter of course by the soldier and politician. None sees what dishonor is thus heaped upon his country and how her history has been defiled by this generation on the precepts of the last. Ignoring, as she always does, every contact with other cultures, Germany, out of a congenital megalomania, has evolved her own; and in her eyes it is no doubt as beautiful and precious as the ugly treasure of the child in the perambulator, who discards the most delightful modern toys for its own battered and hideous doll. In this regard she is indeed still a child; but a study of comparative cultures, following upon the destruction of her present rulers and their doctrine of force, should create a larger-minded nation wherein the civilized concepts of older States shall find recognition. “Until that final consummation,” as Francis Stopford has well said, “Europe dare not rest secure, and the horrors of Belgium and Serbia will be repeated for the next generation if Germany be left the freedom to reëstablish her might and to reorganize the life of her peoples with the sole object of crushing her neighbors at the first favorable opportunity.” EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration] _The “Lusitania” Nightmare_ Though a year and more has passed since the great tragedy of the _Lusitania_, and many evil things have been done since that day by the enemy who strikes at rooted principles of civilization, yet by reason of its magnitude and its utter disregard of the elementary principles of humanity the memory of this deed is still alive in the minds of men. This “nightmare” that Raemaekers pictures was no dream fancy, but a reality; men and women walked along the rows of corpses laid out in the sheds, searching for that which they dreaded to find.... “There is no right but might,” said Germany in that act, “and there is no law in the exercise of might.” Men, women, and children alike of this perverted nation were bidden to rejoice over the sinking of the vessel--the fact cannot be too often stated or too fully kept in mind, more especially now that the fabric whence that doctrine of unguided force has emanated is crumbling under the blows of the Allied armies. For in the day of peace will be found many who will merit Achan’s fate through following Achan’s way, careless of the rows of little corpses that lay out for indentification after the sinking of the _Lusitania_--careless of all but the material aspect of the settlement that must be made when the military power of this present Germany is crushed.