moving columns on the long roads, the pulsing arteries of traffic, and the moving troop trains on the rails.  Behind these in turn are the plying ships, the millions of toiling workers, and the suffering hearts of the nations in arms.  Whole nations—­yes, almost the whole of humanity—­are organized for war and dragged into deadly conflict as by some devil’s behest, instead of being organized for brotherhood and the building of a better world.  Oh, not for this devil’s work were men made.  Surely mankind must come to its own in these birth pangs of a new era.  Never, never again must a whole humanity of the free-born sons of God be dragged into the hell of war to sate the pride or pomp of kings, or to glut the ambition of scheming secret groups who have taught men that they are created as obedient slaves.

Far behind us, marking the slow advance up this ridge of death, are the sheltered cemeteries of white crosses that tell the price that has already been paid.  There are five thousand crowded graves in yonder acre alone.  Great is the price, awful in its solid weight of agony.  This is no longer a war between two peoples, but between two principles; it is as much to free the German people as to protect ourselves.  It is not for this narrow strip of hard-won soil, but for every foot of a world that from henceforth must be free.  The men who are fighting on grounds of moral principle would rather pay any price than lie at ease under the false shadow of militarism, materialism, and grasping greed.  These men are fighting, and many of them know that they are fighting, for a new world.  Not only military oppression, but industrial oppression, must go.  Not only German militarism, and Russian autocracy, and Turkish cruelty must be done away; but American materialism must be purged in the fiery furnace of this war.  Its purposes will reach far beyond our ken, and though man’s sin alone has caused the war, its issues are in the hands of God.  The whole war has been a demonstration of the result of leaving God out of His world.  The world with God left out leaves war; and life with God left out leaves hell.

There must be a turning to God in our own national life.  We speak of the menace of German militarism, but what is militarism but armed and aggressive materialism, the deeper principle which lies behind it?  And what is materialism but organized selfishness?  Materialism and selfishness are the dangers of our own land as well as of Germany.  And the war is a call to set our own house in order.

America can no longer live to herself alone.  She is fighting for the freedom of humanity.  Here on the very field of battle, at the throbbing heart of the conflict, we ask ourselves, What is the real issue of the war?  What are they fighting for?