very
loyal German in the country can make answer: "These soldiers were drunk
with wine and blood. Such an atrocity misrepresents Germany and her
soldiers. The breaking of Germany's treaty with Belgium represents the
dishonor of a military ring, and not the perfidy of 68,000,000 of
people. We ask that judgment be postponed until all the facts are in."
But, meanwhile, the man who loves his fellows, at midnight in his dreams
walks across the fields of broken Belgium. All through the night air
there comes the sob of Rachel, weeping for her children, because they
are not. In moods of bitterness, of doubt and despair the heart cries
out, "How could a just God permit such cruelty upon innocent Belgium?"
No man knows. "Clouds and darkness are round about God's throne." The
spirit of evil caused this war, but the Spirit of God may bring good out
of it, just as the summer can repair the ravages of winter. Meanwhile
the heart bleeds for Belgium. For Brussels, the third most beautiful
city in Europe! For Louvain, once rich with its libraries, cathedrals,
statues, paintings, missals, manuscripts--now a ruin. Alas! for the
ruined harvests and the smoking villages! Alas, for the Cathedral that
is a heap, and the library that is a ruin. Where the angel of happiness
was there stalk Famine and Death. Gone, the Land of Grotius! Perished
the paintings of Rubens! Ruined is Louvain. Where the wheat waved, now
the hillsides are billowy with graves. But let us believe that God
reigns. Perchance Belgium is slain like the Saviour, that militarism may
die like Satan. Without shedding of innocent blood there is no remission
of sins through tyranny and greed. There is no wine without the crushing
of the grapes from the tree of life. Soon Liberty, God's dear child,
will stand within the scene and comfort the desolate. Falling upon the
great world's altar stairs, in this hour when wisdom is ignorance, and
the strongest man clutches at dust and straw, let us believe with faith
victorious over tears, that some time God will gather broken-hearted
little Belgium into His arms and comfort her as a Father comforteth his
well-beloved child.

_HENRY WATTERSON_

THE NEW AMERICANISM

(Abridged)

Eight years ago tonight, there stood where I am standing now a young
Georgian, who, not without reason, recognized the "significance" of his
presence here, and, in words whose eloquence I cannot hope to recall,
appealed from the New South to New England for a un