s will
confirm their greatness or mark the beginning of their fatal
decline.

"To Avenge"

Stern is the denunciation of W.S. Lilly, in the same issue of The
Nineteenth Century and After, upon the atrocities recounted in an
article on German atrocities in France by Professor Morgan, appearing
in the next preceding number. Mr. Lilly quotes Thomas Carlyle's
sarcastic words about the "blind loquacious prurience of
indiscriminate Philanthropism" that commands no revenge for great
injustice. He says:

Apart from the "fierce and monstrous gladness," with which
the German people have welcomed the hellish cruelty of their
soldiery, they must be held responsible for its crimes.
General von Bernhardi, indeed, assures them that "political
morality differs from individual morality because there is
no power above the State." And they have been given over to
a strong delusion to believe this lie. Above the State is
the Eternal Rule of Right and Wrong: above the State is the
Supreme Moral Governor of the Universe; yes, above the State
is God. Let us proclaim this august verity though in France
Atheism has been triumphant; in England Agnosticism is
fashionable; in Lutheran Germany--worst of all--evil has
been enthroned in the place of good, and "devils to adore
for deities" is the proper cult.

The resolution of the old Roman patriot that "Carthage must be
destroyed" is quoted by this writer. He adds:

As stern a resolution is in the minds and on the lips of all
true lovers of their country and of mankind, be they English
or French, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and I do not hesitate
to add American. German militarism must be utterly destroyed
and the monstrous creation of blood and iron overthrown.
Such is the plainest dictate of the instinct of
self-preservation. It is also the plainest dictate of
justice. Germany must be paid that she has deserved. When
the triumphant Allies shall have made good their footing on
her soil, they will not indeed rival her exploits or
violating women and butchering children, of murdering
prisoners and wounded, of slaying unoffending and peaceful
peasants, of destroying shrines of religion and learning.
But they will assuredly shoot or hang such of the chief
perpetrators of these and the like atrocities as may fall
into their hands. They