Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1905-07-01

When Gen Kuropatkin left ST.
Petersburg for the seat of war, he
was presented with a sacred icon
guaranteed to give him victory and
in a speech outlining his policy he
declared that he would soon be send
ing his messages from Toxic. But
when he struck that little brown line
of Japs, he revised his itinerary and
spent the most of his time thereafter
In mastery retreats.
1t was very much that way with
Gen. Sennacherib, the Assyrian king,
who besieged Jerusalem in the days
of Hezekiah. He had such an exalted
opinion of himself that he claimed TO
be irresistible. He had overwhelmed
every army he had met in battle. and
the gods of the nations had been
powerless before him. He made the
mistake of his life when he attacked
Jerusalem, the Gibraltar and Port Ar
thur of ancient times, and he exposed
his ignorance when he classed the
God of the Hebrews with the idols
of men.
dnnCA AACulN anu DAoS-
phemy to his conceit. He strutted
out before the city and loudly boosted
of what he would do to the inhabi
tants If they didn't surrender He
made fun of their feeble defences, their
weak king and their powerless God
And the people inside merely laughed
him to scorn. And when the great
braggart had swelled and strutted,
threatened and clustered long enough
the angel of wrath drew his sword
II flashed but once and $4,000 AS
syrian soldiers bit the dust. The
general of the army fed with the
feeble remnant of his army back to
Ninevah, and was assassinated in an
idol te~ple by his own son.
AS Lord Byron graphically puts it:
''The Assyrian came down like the
wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were cleaning In
purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was
like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on
deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when
summer is green,
That host with their banners at sun
set were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when
Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered
and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his
wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe
as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd
deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heayed,
and power grew still.
And that was not the only time
a supernatural power has interposed
and changed the destinies of men.
What is all history but the annals of
war between men, war by sheer and
satire, war by SANDER and curse, war
BY fist and dagger, by sword and
spear, up to Waterloos and Gettys-
burgs deluging nations with blood.
War. not peace, is the law OF life.
Civilization does travel as Napo-
leon said, lin a powder cask." But
it is apparent TO every reader of his
tory that God is not always on the
side of the heaviest battalions, but is
on the side of the right and il is His
arm which often turns the scale. An
invisible but almighty captain is on
the field, and He is there when He
is most invisible.
Roll up the map of the world Tor
the next twenty years, said Pitt,
when he heard of the battle of Aus
terlitz; yet in less than that time
Napoleon and his empire had perish
ed like a dream. The presence u
the great Captain is the sole and SUI
ficient explanation of all events down
to date. All conflicting hearts and
heads and hands are overruled toward
one result. from Charlemagne to the
car of Russia, from Sennacherlb TO
Kuropatkin.
One wind blows, ceases to blow
blows again. and the ocean rolls In
upon Leyden, and Professionalism is
saved. Another wind rises to a tenn