make their part of the earth
ugly with acts of tyranny and baseness, they threaten the security of
all; if unconscious of it, a people always high-spirited are plunged
into war with a neighbour, now a foe, and yet fight, as their nature
compels them, bravely and magnanimously, they but drive their enemy back
to the field of a purer life, and, perhaps, to the realisation of a more
beautiful existence, a dream to which his stagnant soul steeped in
ugliness could never rise.

II

On the road to freedom every alliance will be sternly tried. Internal
friendship will not be made in a day, nor external friendship for many a
day, and there will be how many temptations to hold it all a delusion
and scatter the few still standing loyally to the flag. We must
understand, then, the bond that holds us together on the line of march,
and in the teeth of every opposition. Nothing but a genuine bond of
brotherhood can so unite men, but we hardly seem to realise its truth.
When a deep and ardent patriotism requires men of different creeds to
come together frankly and in a spirit of comradeship, and when the most
earnest of all the creeds do so, others who are colder and less earnest
regard this union as a somewhat suspicious alliance; and, if they join
in, do so reluctantly. Others come not at all; these think our friends
labour in a delusion, that it needs but an occasion to start an old fear
and drive them apart, to attack one another with ancient bitterness
fired with fresh venom. We must combat that idea. Let us consider the
attitude to one another of three units of the band, who represent the
best of the company and should be typical of the whole; one who is a
Catholic, one who is a Protestant, and one who may happen to be neither.
The complete philosophy of any one of the three may not be accepted by
the other two; the horizon of his hopes may be more or less distant, but
that complete philosophy stretches beyond the limit of the sphere,
within which they are drawn together to mutual understanding and
comradeship, moved by a common hope, a brave purpose and a beautiful
dream. The significance of their work may be deeper for one than for
another, the origin of the dream and its ultimate aim may be points not
held in common; but the beautiful tangible thing that they all now fight
for, the purer public and private life, the more honourable dealings
between men, the higher ideals for the community and the nation, the
grander fo