The progress already made is a distinct step in the direction of a higher civilization. It gives hope in the distant future of the end of militarism, with its stupendous, crushing burdens upon the working population of the leading countries of the Old World, and foreshadows a decisive check to the tendency toward tremendous expenditures for military purposes in the western hemisphere. It presages at least partial disarmament by governments that have been, and still are, piling up enormous debts for posterity to liquidate, and insures to multitudes of men now involuntarily doing service in armies and navies employment in peaceful, productive pursuits. Perhaps some wars have contributed to the uplift of organized society; more often the benefits were utterly eclipsed by the ruthless waste and slaughter and suffering that followed. The principle of justice to the weak as well as to the strong is prevailing to an extent heretofore unknown to history. Rules of conduct which govern men in their relations to one another are being applied in an ever-increasing degree to nations. The battle-field as a place of settlement of disputes is gradually yielding to arbitral courts of justice. The interests of the great masses are not being sacrificed, as in former times, to the selfishness, ambitions, and aggrandizement of sovereigns, or to the intrigues of statesmen unwilling to surrender their scepter of power. Religious wars happily are specters of a medieval or ancient past, and the Christian Church is laboring valiantly to fulfil its destiny of "Peace on earth." If the United States has a mission, besides developing the principles of the brotherhood of man into a living, palpable force, it seems to me that it is to blaze the way to universal arbitration among the nations, and bring them into more complete amity than ever before existed. It is known to the world that we do not covet the territory of our neighbors, or seek the acquisition of lands on other continents. We are free of such foreign entanglements as frequently conduce to embarrassing complications, and the efforts we make in behalf of international peace can not be regarded with a suspicion of ulterior motives. The spirit of justice governs our relations with other countries, and therefore we are specially qualified to set a pace for the rest of the world.