; their sole solution, the teaching of
Jesus Christ."--(John Stuart Mill.)

CHAPTER XII.

BEYOND BERLIN[1]

_After-War Problems from a Catholic View-Point--Reconstruction, the
Duty of the Hour._

The heavy clouds of war and the bloody mist of battles are lifting;
once more the sun of peace bursts forth triumphant over a sad and weary
world. The storm has wasted its fury. The landscape is washed clear
and bright, the atmosphere is glowing and transparent; destruction and
ruins everywhere stand out in sharp and ghastly relief. On the distant
horizon, beyond the Rhine, the dark clouds drag their tattered shreds;
the angry lightning still flashes and thunder yet rumbles yonder--on
German and Russian soil.

The war is over. The muddy trench, the deadly shrapnel, the perfidious
gas, the roaring cannon, the forced marches on the slimy roads of
Flanders, the heroic dashes and agonizing retreats of struggling
armies, the lurking submarines, the treacherous, owlish zeppelins, the
long-protracted vigil on the deep--all these grim realities of four,
long, endless years have melted away in the blaze of a glorious
victory. Now the German Armada rides at anchor, prisoner, in British
waters, the armies of the Allies bivouac on the banks of the Rhine, and
our Canadian boys, flushed with victory, come marching home.

The day of the German surrender, Clemenceau, Premier of France, made
this significant statement: "Great have been the problems of the war,
but greater will be the problems of peace." Nations, indeed, now face
one of the most momentous periods of history. The world has struck its
tents and is once more on the march. Never, we believe, have such
tremendous responsibilities weighed upon a passing generation. The
future will be greatly imperilled if at this critical juncture great
questions are fought out between ignorant desire for change and
ignorant opposition to change. The handwriting is on the wall, and our
economic and social life, foreign to Christian morality, has been found
wanting. Will a new and better social order rise from the ashes of
this world-conflagration? There is the searching problem which presses
itself upon the mind of every thinking man. "On every side," writes
Father Plater, S.J., "there is talk of reconstruction, economic,
political, social, educational. Government departments are hard at
work gathering information, elaborating schemes. Numerous organized
bodies, such as