many ways resembling the last mentioned group, only richer
and more varied in their culture and racial characteristics! Or the
Dutch, so well-based and broad-seated both in body and mind, with their
ample bowels of compassion and their well-equipped brains, so full of
tenderness and of sturdy commonsense, what a gift has been theirs to
Europe, what a legacy of artistic treasure and of heroic record! Or the
Spanish with their beautiful and dignified women, or the French with
their fine logical and artistic sense, or the Hungarians, Greeks, and
Italians!

Have we nothing to do but to prepare engines of death and of slaughter
against all these peoples? Is our main idea of relation to them one of
domination and profit? Have we no use for them but to gain their riches,
and in exchange to lose our own souls? Or shall we, like the Prussians,
seek to "impose" our own standards of so-called culture on them, and
trim their infinite variety and grace to one sorry pattern? These are
all in their diverse glory and beauty as leaves of the one great Tree
whose branches spread over the earth. Whoever understands this, and
penetrating to the great heart beneath, recognizes the same original
life in them all, will possess the secret of salvation; whatever nation
first casts aside the filthy rags of its own self-righteousness and the
defiling and sordid garment of mercenary gain, and accepts the others
frankly as its brother and sister nations, all of one family--that
nation will become the Healer and Redeemer of the World.

It is interesting to find that, according to the Book of Revelation, the
tree of which we have been speaking grows with its roots "in the pure
river of the water of Life, which proceeds from the throne of God and
the Lamb." What exactly the author of the book meant by this passage has
been much debated. It is clear that there is here a veiled allusion to
the Zodiac--that mysterious belt of constellations which runs like a
river round the whole starry heavens, and rises in the constellation of
the Ram or He-lamb--but to debate _that_ question now would be
unprofitable, even were one fully competent to do so. More to the point
is it to see that this remarkable simile has an inner sense applicable
to mankind, and so far independent of any allusion to the Zodiac. This
Tree that is for the healing of the nations has its roots in the pure
water of Life which flows from the great Throne. We have seen in an
early chapter wh