The Kaiser found Europe in a similar condition in 1914. England, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy had emperors by divine right, with royal families, lords and nobles, most of whom were either moral or physical and mental degenerates. The later George is so imbecile as not to require a straight-jacket, as did his predecessor, and the Kaiser, a moral degenerate, sought only to play the rôle of Napoleon. When all Europe seemed in a peaceful and prosperous condition, he, by his foolish cablegrams, sought to distract George's and Nicholas' attention from his planning, while the secretive diplomats of England, France, and Russia on one side, and Germany, Austria and Italy on the other, blindfolded their people by many vari-colored state papers, and backed them over night into war, of which they knew nothing until armies were moving. Had proper publicity been given by any interested nation, war would not have ensued. Our government, too, was somewhat responsible, in that we placed before our war college a statue of that greatest of moral degenerate rulers (not excepting Nero) miscalled "Frederick the Great," thus giving his successor, the Kaiser, to understand we approved his militarism. Strange that our people permit this statue to remain. What the war is about the world's people have no intelligent conception. Yet unless the American people educate themselves to an intelligent understanding of the hazard of their liberties, we may become too entangled to extricate ourselves. Every American should ponder these things and ask whether our citizenship has not become so diluted as to endanger the perpetuity of the great republic, and whether it is not now necessary to return to the high schools and colleges the careful study of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Another great law-giver of three generations past, Dr. Lyman Beecher, evidently had in his sunset of life "mystical lore" to see these present shadows. I submit his words here for the people who may read this to ponder, and for study in the schools. "We must educate! We must educate! Or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we do not, short will be our race from the cradle to the grave. If in our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will never overtake us; or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage. "We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the analogy of His providence, and abandon His work.