work in mighty throes
toward an end hidden to our knowledge if not to our faith and hope. We
have none of us passed through this experience without receiving its
mark. Life can never be altogether what it was before for any of us. New
generations will spring forth innocent of the memories which are ours
and the unexpressible lessons of our day. But for us it has been,
with all its tragedy and vast destruction, a day of illumination and
inspiration.

Standing on the threshold of a peace restored, we must pray that out of
the epic experience of the great conflict something more than the
stern negative of our victory shall be preserved for the time to come,
something positive of good, something of that divine light of men's
heroic sacrifice which shone out in the darkest hour, something of new
strength and understanding of life and of human potentialities.

We have before us now a tremendous task of restoration. America is in a
more fortunate situation than the nations of Europe; yet to return our
resources to the channels of peace, to free our institutions from the
hasty improvisations of war emergency, and to protect them from the
effects of forced and abnormal application, is a task which will test
the wisdom and character of our leaders and our people.

If our war experience has proved anything of America, it has been the
soundness and beneficence of American institutions and the life they
make possible. Let us realize that truth, and resolve that these
institutions shall be strengthened in peace and not weakened, and that
the life which has grown up and flowered under their influence shall be
jealously preserved for our children and our children's children, and
for the sake of our heroic dead."

THE CROWNING HUMILIATION

The Crowning Humiliation, or Before and After Seeing Foch, might be the
appropriate title for the latest story now added to the pages of world
history.

Four years and four months ago the German leadership, fully confident
of its strength, assured of its weapons, arrogant beyond anything in
recorded history, challenged the organized and unorganized forces of the
civilized world to mortal combat. They thrust the Imperial German sword
through all the covenants and commands of civilization and of justice.
Bursting out upon an unprepared and unsuspecting world, they were,
despite their incredible strength, checked by France on the battlefield
of the Marne, encircled by the British fleets, and like