The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-05-08

influence upon the world and its civiliza-
tion. He then took up the causes of the
present outbreak and graphically pictured
the position of the European Powers rep
resented in the concert of nations, and Sc
verely arraigned them for their passive
attitude both in the present war and at
the time of the Armenian atrocities. We
print the substance of the sermon from
the Worcester Spy of the following Mon
day morning -EDIToR
TEXT: ''And l looked, and there was
none to help; and wondered that there
was none to uphold; therefore mine own
arm. brought salvation unto me" Isaiah
xiii. 5.
INIVILlZATION moves to its tri-
" umphs by slow and cratic pro-
gress. The supremacy of reason is
overcome by the force of passion.
There are interregnums of lawless-
ness in the dynasties of law when
barbarism turns back the hands on
the dial of progress. We call our age
the age of peace. Private wrongs find
redress at the tribunals of public JUS
tice and the disputes of nations are
settled by the diplomacies of peace.
Huge ornaments are made and great
'squadrons are launched, but every
increase of armor and costlier projec
tile is an argument of peace. Com
merce is king and the flag of COM
merceis the flag of truce. 1t is the
peoples age and the people are be-
coming less willing to suffer wounds
for kings ambitions. A thousand
threads of interest and sympathy in
terbraid the nations trade and faith.
Human life has become sacred, and
out of the great forces of modern life
has come public conscience and
public intelligence which makes war
abhorrent.
And yet the echoes of great war,
that may yet involve half of Eu
rope, come to us from the east, and
the struggle of the Cross and the Cres
cent is renewed, History is being
made by every shot fired among the
mountains of Thessaly, and we must
stop our boastings of civilizations
advance that we may realize how
slowly the brute dies in man, and
with what costly sacrifices humanity
advances.
Who are the actors in the struggled
Greece and Turkey. What is Greece?
Alittle island kingdom, with popu
lation less than the available military
forces of her opponent. She is with
out area of resources. 1t is tiny
kingdom, but its past is peerless. The
mountains are barren, but in them
the gods and goddesses of the
worlds most fascinating mythology
had their homes. The skies have
looked down on the Homeric wars
and her seas have been sailed by the
argonaut Jason in his searching for
the golden fleece. Today's struggle
is only the repetition of that contest
between the Oriental and Greek civ
ilization, fought before the walls of
Troy, three thousand years ago.
Let the echoes of the guns of the
Greeks, fighting on this Sabbath day,
stir grateful memories as we think of
what civilization owes to Greece and
Athens. The world is debtor to
Greece as to no other nation save
Palestine, and America is double
debtor. Greece hurled back the Per-
sian invasion and saved Europe from
the spoliation of Asiatic hordes. She
gave the first and best model of a
republic. She first planted and nur-
tured into exquisite bloom the flowers
of literature and art. She made
faith noble by deifying beauty while
in the formative days of Christianity
she furnished, in her subtitle and flex-
ible language, the mould into which
the Gospels ran, preserving every del
icate filament of thought and express
sion. She imposed the Greek civiliza-
ton upon western Europe and the
renaissance which followed the con-
quest of Constantinople came through
the carrying the Greek classics to
Italy. The revival of learning fol-
lowed, out of which came the modern
life of Europe.
The modern Greek revels in the
past of his nation. The passion of
his life is knowledge. There are
thousand students in the University
of Athens and his education has won
for the Greek in the East, and through
the Turkish empire, places of instruc-
tors, officials, agents in every business
or profession that demands intelli-
aence. Greece, like Turkey, is finan-
pcially bankrupt; there is depreci-
ated currency and the interest on her
bonds has defaulted. The love of
country is a passion and the desire to