ey are monuments to righteousness.

This is the age-old story. Men are reading it again to-day--written in
blood. The Prussian military despotism has abandoned the law of
civilization for the law of barbarism. We could approve and join in the
scramble to the jungle, or we could resist and sacrifice ourselves to
save an erring nation. Not being beasts, but men, we choose the
sacrifice.

This brings us to the part that America is taking at the end of its
second hundred and fifty years of existence. Is it not a part of that
increasing purpose which the poet, the seer, tells us runs through the
ages? Has not our Nation been raised up and strengthened, trained and
prepared, to meet the great sacrifice that must be made now to save the
world from despotism? We have heard much of our lack of preparation. We
have been altogether lacking in preparation in a strict military sense.
We had no vast forces of artillery or infantry, no large stores of
munitions, few trained men. But let us not forget to pay proper respect
to the preparation we did have, which was the result of long training
and careful teaching. We had a mental, a moral, a spiritual training
that fitted us equally with any other people to engage in this great
contest which after all is a contest of ideas as well as of arms. We
must never neglect the military preparation again, but we may as well
recognize that we have had a preparation without which arms in our hands
would very much resemble in purpose those now arrayed against us.

Are we not realizing a noble destiny? The great Admiral who discovered
America bore the significant name of Christopher. It has been pointed
out that this name means Christ-bearer. Were not the men who stood at
Bunker Hill bearing light to the world by their sacrifices? Are not the
men of to-day, the entire Nation of to-day, living in accordance with
the significance of that name, and by their service and sacrifice
redeeming mankind from the forces that make for everlasting destruction?
We seek no territory and no rewards. We give but do not take. We seek
for a victory of our ideas. Our arms are but the means. America follows
no such delusion as a place in the sun for the strong by the destruction
of the weak. America seeks rather, by giving of her strength for the
service of the weak, a place in eternity.

XVIII

FAIRHAVEN

JULY 4, 1918

We have met on this anniversary of American independence to assess the
dimensions of