. The trouble has been that, while the nations were
abundantly provided with machinery for conducting war, they possessed
no machinery for the promotion of peace. A year's time allows passion
to subside and reason to resume its sway. It allows man to act when he
is calm instead of having to act when he is angry. When a man is angry
he swaggers around and talks about what he can do, and he often
overestimates his strength; when he is calm he considers what he ought
to do. When he is angry he hears the rumbling of earthquakes and the
sweep of the hurricane; when he is calm he listens to the still small
voice of conscience.

Third--While the period of investigation provided for in our treaties
will go far toward preventing war, still even a year's deliberation
does not give complete protection. In order to secure the
investigation of all questions without exception it was necessary to
reserve to the contracting parties liberty of action at the conclusion
of the investigation. War is thus reduced from a probability to a mere
possibility, and this is an immeasurable advance; but the assurance of
permanent peace cannot be given until the desire for war is
eradicated from the human heart. Compulsory periods of investigation
supply the machinery by which nations can maintain peace with honor if
they so desire; but the final work of the advocates of peace is
educational--it is the cultivation of the spirit of brotherhood
condensed into the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." Is it impossible to imagine a civilization in which
greatness will be measured by service and in which the rivalry will be
a rivalry in doing good? No one doubts that the lot of each member of
society would be infinitely better under such conditions; why not
strive to bring about such conditions? Is it visionary to hope and
labor for this end? "Where there is no vision the people perish." It
is a "death grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word."
The old system has broken down; it can let loose the furies, but it
cannot bind them; it is impotent to save. The question is not whether
the Word will triumph--that is certain--but when? And after what
sufferings?

Thomas Carlyle, his voice rising clear and strong above the babble of
Mammon, asked, in the closing chapters of his French Revolution:

"Hast thou considered how Thought is stronger than Artillery Parks,
and (were it fifty years after death and martyrdom, or were it tw