Once more, if the kingdom come upon earth were all of the message, we might halt here; for here forgiveness and gentle charity performed their perfect work, and learning was present with wise counsel to guide willing feet in the way.  Yet this is not all; nor, if we rightly understand that darkest yet brightest message, are we or is mankind destined for such an earthly paradise; our kingdom is not of this world.  Here was another happiness, another success; yet not in that happiness nor in that success was hid the secret; it lay far deeper.  Therefore we find that morning with its sunshine rudely clouded over, its promise swept away in the black darkness of storms.  Something more than holy living remained to be learned; there remained the mystery of failure and death—­that death which is the doorway to our real life.  Therefore upon our shores broke wave after wave of invasion, storm after storm of cruelest oppression and degradation.  In the very dust was our race ground down, destitute, afflicted, tormented, according to prophecy and promise.  Nor was that the end.  Every bitterness that the heart of man can conceive, that the heart of man can inflict, that the heart of man can endure, was poured into our cup, and we drained it to the dregs.  Of that saddest yet most potent time we shall record enough to show not only what befell through our age of darkness, but also, so far as may be, what miraculous intent underlay it, what promise the darkness covered, of our future light; what golden rays of dawn were hidden in our gloom.

Finally, from all our fiery trials we shall see the genius of our land emerge, tried indeed by fire, yet having gained fire’s purity; we shall see that genius beginning, as yet with halting speech, to utter its most marvelous secret of the soul of man.  We shall try at least to gain clear sight of our great destiny, and thereby of the like destiny of universal man.

For we cannot doubt that what we have passed through, all men and all nations either have passed through already, or are to pass through in the time to come.  There is but one divine law, one everlasting purpose and destiny for us all.  And if we see other nations now entering that time of triumph which passed for us so long ago, that perfecting of the natural man, with his valor and his song, we shall with fear and reverence remember that before them also lie the dark centuries of fiery trial; the long night of affliction, the vigils of humiliation and suffering.  The one Divine has not yet laid aside the cup that holds the bitter draught,—­the drinking of which comes ever before the final gift of the waters of life.  What we passed through, they shall pass through also; what we suffered, they too shall suffer.  Well will it be with them if, like us, they survive the fierce trial, and rise from the fire immortal, born again through sacrifice.