Of course it would never do to ask an indignant and outraged world to forgive a Germany that has tried to destroy the hope of man. Very well. It does not matter whether you forgive or whether you punish. Though you forgive her, she will not be forgiven. Forgiveness will not save her from the disaster she has brought on herself no less than on others. And you cannot punish her without danger of further disasters. The whole matter--the Kaiser as well as the nations--has passed out of our hands to be dealt with by the awful compensations of higher laws than those that man can administer. And as for us--for all of us--we must face the future as individuals rather than as nations. In the terrible words of General Smuts, "Humanity has struck its tents and is once more on the march." And when humanity marched in the past it always marched for food--for lands of promise flowing with milk and honey. But the lands of promise have all been discovered. They have been mapped and are occupied. So the only thing left for humanity to do is to pitch its tents again--or lapse into anarchy. While I would not pretend to defend the United States for its present isolation and apparent indifference when so many of my compatriots--and those the ones supposed to speak with authority--are pointing the finger of scorn, I have a feeling that under this apparent indifference there is a blind, instinctive groping for the true solution of humanity's problem. I found the best people perplexed rather than defiant. They were raging at their own futility--futile because they could not yet see through the battle-smoke that still envelops the world. And I am hopeful that before long they will fulfil Kipling's estimate: "While reproof around him rings He turns a keen untroubled face Home, to the instant need of things."