National unity, as we here understand it, is more than a means to an end. National unity is an ever enlarging result. It is the loftier and worthier goal. In the full joy of its realization the individual soul is enriched and finally saved. Thus is patriotism made to share in the spiritual values of religion. So the individual losing self, shall again find himself in the service of his fellowmen. Looking back beyond the temporary issues of the War Between the States we can see, rising in clear outline against the times in which he lived, the tall spare form of "Old Hickory." There rung through his brave utterance both resolution of will and high purpose of policy. So were his faith and his hope maintained. To-day, amid the clamor and disunity of our times, his memory again urges upon the troubled hearts of our people this great word of a day that is done, that it may again be made flesh and dwell among us. CHAPTER XX Our Country's Part Among the Nations Preceding chapters have indicated our present national unfitness in so many things concerning our domestic public life. Yet, until recently, we were enabled to concentrate what public mind and spirit we had upon such problems as arose among ourselves from the conditions of our internal growth. Now, being weak, hesitant, and our wills quite unformed, we are suddenly hurled into the very center of the international whirlpool. In the preparation for and in the execution of our part in the Great War, we were, no doubt, quite magnificent. But no one ever doubted our ability to fight. It is in the execution of the greater tasks of peace that we falter and fail. With the close of the war there was presented to us, in the urge to world leadership, the most difficult and dangerous problem of all. Here, again, we were offered no alternative. We must go. We must help to "settle order once again." We drew back from Paris, only to reassemble the nations at Washington. Two opposite opinions have settled in the minds of the majority of Americans with reference to the subject matter of this chapter. One would have us move far out and lose ourselves in a mad mixing world. The other would withdraw us from the world utterly and hide us like a "hermit crab" in any rotting shell we find. I shall here show that one of these policies is impossible to execute. I shall prove, also, that the other, if fully carried out, would destroy us as a people. Between the two, surely, there lies a way in which our ship may move more safely towards its appointed haven.