At the call of the love of country men instantly volunteered. Congress passed the Conscription Act, and young men who had dreamed of peaceful occupations went to be trained as soldiers. Ceaselessly, tirelessly the great work went on. Americans landed in France to reinforce the volunteers who were already there as engineers, as motor-drivers, as aviators. Railroads had to be built, and docks and factories; the most skilled men in every line of work hurried to be in the vanguard. Then General Pershing reached France as commander-in-chief of the vast American army that was to come. As we had received Joffre so France now welcomed Pershing. And he went to Lafayette’s tomb and laid a wreath upon it, declaring that America had come to the aid of France. Great armies are not built in a day, nor are gigantic fleets of merchant ships. Mistakes must always be made, and there are always critics. But in spite of critics and mistakes the American government, and under it the people, went on with the work in hand. Men became skilled soldiers and ships were launched, and at the end of the first year after our entrance into the war our troops were in the trenches, fighting side by side with their allies, and a steady stream of more troops flowed day by day from west to east. America had already thrown the first part of her power into the conflict and given earnest of the greater power to come. Americans have already given their lives for freedom. First there were the eager, intrepid young spirits who volunteered as flying-men, in the French Foreign Legion, in the regiments of England, in the driving of ambulances at the call of mercy. How gloriously their sacrifices will live in the pages of history and in the hearts of their countrymen! And then there have been men of the first American army, such men as the private soldiers Hay, Enright, and Gresham, above whose graves in France is the inscription “Here lie the first soldiers of the Illustrious Republic of the United States who fell on French soil for Justice and Liberty November 3, 1917.” Truly have they proved the truth of the Latin motto, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” What is the lesson of Lafayette, of Washington, of Lincoln, of all men who have put the ideal of justice and liberty above their material wants, of the men who have fought in France and in all parts of the world for the cause of freedom? The lesson is simply this, that service and self-sacrifice for others is the noblest goal of man, that life is given us not to keep but to spend, and that to follow the teachings of Christ is the only road to happiness for men or nations.