To think of what we might have been if we had refused to bear our share—­to look back on the evils of luxury and selfishness that were creeping over us, makes us feel that we may have lost some things, but “what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”  And we have saved our soul.  The souls of the nations travail in a new birth through a night of agony and tears.  The purposes being worked out are so great, that it is difficult for us to see them with our limited human vision, but in great moments of insight we do see, and having seen, go back to our tasks in the light of that vision, knowing that though now we fight in dim shadows with monstrous and awful evils of mankind’s creation, the day is coming nearer and the light will come.

An age is dying and a new age comes, and what it shall be only the men and women of the world can answer.

RECONSTRUCTION

  “The tumult and the shouting dies—­
    The captains and the Kings depart—­
  Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
    An humble and a contrite heart. 
  Lord God of Hosts; be with us yet,
  Lest we forget, lest we forget.”

—­RUDYARD KIPLING.

  “We shall not cease from mental fight,
    Nor shall our sword sleep in our hand,
  Till we have built Jerusalem,
    In England’s green and pleasant land.”

—­W.  BLAKE.

CHAPTER XIV

RECONSTRUCTION

And what is to come after?  The first and the last and the greatest thing to do is to win the war and to get the right settlement.  Unless we finish this struggle with the nations free, there can be no real reconstruction.  The greatest work of reconstruction—­the fundamental work—­will be at the peace table.  Those who are giving everything and doing everything to gain victory for the Allies, are the true reconstructors of the world.

The first great task of reconstruction is victory and the second is right peace settlements.

We cannot say that anything we can do will make future peace certain, but we can see that just and righteous settlements are made, so that the foundations are laid that ought to ensure peace in the future.  There is no real peace possible while injustices exist.

There is no real peace possible while evil and good contend for mastery, and the spiritual conflicts of man are, and will be, as terrible as any physical conflicts.  While mankind stands where it does now, it is well that against corruption of spirit and thought, we can use our bodies as shields.

The fact that we have had to fight Germany physically, shows clearly that spiritually and mentally we were unable to make them see truth and honour, and the meaning of freedom, and that the ideal of peace made no real appeal to them.

They built up in their nation great thought forces of aggression, of belief in militarism, of worship of might, of belief that war paid, and was in itself good, that there was no conscience higher than the state.  They even worship God as a sort of tribal God whom they call upon to work with them—­not a question as to whether they are on God’s side—­no—­an assertion that God is on theirs.