But Washington, skilled in the European complications of his times, never imagined that the same European nations, or any of them, would select the extreme East as the arena from which to replenish wasted home resources by force; and then convert the continent of Europe into one vast magazine of dynamite, until all chief agencies which belong to domestic prosperity and happiness should be drawn into the wild whirl of Colonial adventure, for plunder. And as the reader recalls Washington’s earnest appeals for unity of spirit in all national affairs, and is reminded of his Farewell Address to the American People, wherein he deprecated all political combinations abroad which might qualify or compromise our absolute independence as a Free Republic, he will be more profoundly impressed with the great fact, that in the present attitude of these United States before the world, the sublime anticipations of the “Father of his Country” are maturing to a resplendent and complete fulfilment. The only natural alliance, in the event of monarchical combinations to stay the advancing triumph of true liberty, would be a concerted action of the United States and the mother country, through the inheritance of like bequests under Magna Charta. The pregnant future may yet give birth to that fruition. There is an awful grandeur, more densely charged with ills than the fiercest spasms of Nature’s fury, in the visible armaments which are costing peoples, not thrones, _annually_, more than enough to _feed and clothe every suffering member of the human race_. The alleged object is, “to preserve the peace,” as if every nation naturally antagonized all others. The peace of the silent grave, which would turn one’s neighbor’s soil into a vast cemetery, seems to supplant that peace “which passeth understanding,” when every heart and mind shall enter a condition of happy repose and prosperous industry. The inquiry propounded nearly nineteen hundred years ago—“From whence come wars and fightings among you?” can be in like manner answered, with solemn emphasis, to-day. No uninspired pen can match the imagery of prophetic vision which predicted the outcome of such conditions as now threaten mankind—“Woe to him that calleth Peace, Peace, when there is no peace!” But greater woe shall befall those that “call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” As with the man who wrongeth his neighbor, and taketh that which is not his, to his own profit; so shall it be with nations. Only those nations which love righteousness and do justice shall rise above the wreck of all oppressors, and take part in the enjoyment of that destined era of righteousness and peace, when nations shall not “learn war any more.” That nation alone will be truly great, whose supreme purpose through every armament and armed expression shall be in behalf of humanity, and to punish or repress the destroyers of peace.