The bells that something more than
half a century ago rang forth to welcome peace in America have been from
that day to this jangled out of tune and harsh with the sounding of war's
alarms in every other part of the world. We flatter ourselves with the
thought that our tragedy lies behind us. Whether this be true or not, the
tragedy of Europe is at hand and ahead. The miracles of modern invention,
surpassing those of old, have made for strife, not for peace. Civilization
has gone backward, not forward. Rulers, intoxicated by the lust of power
and conquest, have lost their reason, and nations, following after, like
cattle led to slaughter, seem as the bereft of Heaven "that knew not God."
We read the story of our yesterdays as it unfolds itself in the current
chronicle; the ascent to the bank-house, the descent to the mad-house, and,
over the glittering paraphernalia that follows to the tomb, we reflect upon
the money-zealot's progress; the dizzy height, the dazzling array, the
craze for more and more and more; then the temptation and fall, millions
gone, honor gone, reason gone--the innocent and the gentle, with the
guilty, dragged through the mire of the prison, and the court--and we draw
back aghast. Yet, if we speak of these things we are called pessimists.
I have always counted myself an optimist. I know that I do not lie awake
nights musing on the ingratitude either of my stars or my countrymen. I
pity the man who does. Looking backward, I have sincere compassion for
Webster and for Clay! What boots it to them, now that they lie beneath the
mold, and that the drums and tramplings of nearly seventy years of the
world's strifes and follies and sordid ambitions and mean repinings, and
longings, and laughter, and tears, have passed over their graves, what
boots it to them, now, that they failed to get all they wanted? There is
indeed snug lying in the churchyard; but the flowers smell as sweet and
the birds sing as merry, and the stars look down as loving upon the
God-hallowed mounds of the lowly and the poor, as upon the man-bedecked
monuments of the Kings of men.
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