His words were “Love your enemies!”
And never a hostile act
To friend or foe should Christians show,
By whomsoever attacked;
But they are really the best prepared
To attack and to resist;
And the Kaiser who prays is the Kaiser who says,—­
“Go!  Strike with the mailed fist!”

We look abroad, and everywhere
The spirit of Christ is dead;
Men call Him Lord, but they draw the sword
In defiance of what He said;
And the haughty, white-skinned Christian race
Hates men of a different hue,
And robs and slays in a thousand ways,
With excuses ever new.

In the North and South, in the East and West
In vain do the natives plead;
By the Congo’s waves are countless graves,
Where the Paleface gluts his greed;
And China’s fate looms dark and grim,
As its people note the means
That Christians take, when gold’s at stake,
From the Rand to the Philippines.

We have had to choose between the rule
Of the Sermon on the Mount
And the brutal fact that nations act
With an eye to their bank-account! 
And we see that the only way to shun
The clutch of the Western Powers
Is to learn to kill with Christian skill,
And to make their weapons ours.

For we will not, like the others, bend
Our necks to the white man’s yoke;
And poor Japan, to her latest man,
Will answer stroke with stroke;
So I watch to-night a solemn sight
On the breast of the moonlit bay,
As our gallant host for a hostile coast
Prepares to sail away.

It is life or death for my native land,
And I fear I may never see
Those ships again, with their noble men,
Return from victory;
And well I know in my heart of hearts,
As the past I sadly scan,
That we are worse, and it was a curse
That foreigners brought Japan.

1904.

THE UNFORGOTTEN HEROES

[The great temple at Miyagi in Japan was recently the scene of grand funeral observances for the horses slain in the late war with Russia, the Buddhist priests reading prayers and conducting services of a most solemn character.]

Hark! how the Orient’s bells are proclaiming
  Obsequies strange to the shrines of the west—­
Services Christendom’s cruelties shaming—­
  Taught by the merciful, Buddha the blest.

Peace on Manchuria’s plains has descended;
  Tall waves the grass where the chivalrous bled;
Murder and massacre finally ended,
  Sadly the living remember their dead.

Requiem masses and prayers without number
  Plead for the souls of the Muscovite brave,
While of the Japanese, wrapt in death’s slumber,
  Tender memorials honor each grave.

But in Gautama’s compassionate teaching
  Love is not limited merely to man;
Kindness to animals formed in his preaching
  No less a part of his merciful plan.