Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-09-25
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OtSm ana the spirit OF Sel1-Sacrlnce,
what was before only mass of self
centered, idle thoughted individuals.
Reports reach us from the other side
of nothing less than national regener-
alton now going on in England.
Whereas few months ago the nation
seemed plunged in terror, helpless amid
the screams of few silly women, I'M
able to settle domestic policies without
threats of civil strife, today we have
the noble and puissant nation, shaking
her war-dsheveled locks, shaming the
prophets who had acclaimed her deca-
dence, and rallying to the standard of
her honor without regard to birth, or
wealth, or station. No poet today can
call Englishmen "hanneled fools" in
the valleys of France they have wiped
OUT the stigma and in the fogs of the
North!Sea proved that they were sea-
men still.
We may be thankful that the like
necessity has been spared America.
Fervently.,shoud we pray that our
country may abide in peace and that
the awful carnage may soon cease in
the lands now devastated. But with
like fervor should we petition that some
substitute may be found, consonant
with Christian civilization, which will
supply the men of America with the
| incentive to courage and high endeavor
which war is now supplying to the men
across the sea. We do not want to be
"fanneled fools while Germans and
| Englshmen are men and heroes We
must find in the arts of peace some
cause, some motive, which will regen-
erateyus, purge us from our torpor,
and make us likewise noble and puts
SAINT
1t may be you will decide that no
substitute for the military incentive
can be found, that it is perfectly natural
for men to 60 to sleep in easy pros
perity and that it requires some great
crisis and awful tragedy to awaken
them to their best. Perhaps you have
said that nation needs great war
now and then to preserve its virility
and to pl event its becoming effete and
effeminate | am too much of an OPP
timist for that conclusion. If war is a
permanent institution of the earth
then civilization is mockery and
Christianity failure. We simply must
find, as men of intelligence and culture
as men who have been taught that one
God is the father of all nations, some
method, some ideal, which will preserve
the fundamental virtues of fortmde
and force, while every effort is bent to
the service of humanity and none to its
destruction. To translate into the arts
of peace the self-sacrifice. the verve,
the intensity, and the courage of the
soldier is the problem of the coming
civilization, and it is particularly the
problem of American youth at this
present in the face Of the terrible slim
illus to great MAJ hood which now stirs
the youth of Europe.
We may quickly admit that we shall
find nothing so dramatic, so ready to
the hand, so instantly compelling in its
summons to the heroic within us. as the
drums which beat to battle and the
bugles which summon to the charge.
1t is comparatively easy for the soldier
to play the man. His work and his
duty are clear He has only to take his
place in the line and obey orders. His
every movement is prescribed. He
feels the thrill of a thousand at his
side. The bullets which sing about him
only madden him to utmost effort.
The passions of thousand generations
of fighters awaken from deep places at
the sound of the battle. In such cir
cumstances the most ordinary men rise
to heroism and for the time at least
are brothers of the martyrs of the
ages.
But in the ways of lowly quiet there
is no flag, no bugle, no string drum
there are no clear, explicit orders,
moment by moment. Often there is no
necessity of accounting for ones work,
month after month, perhaps year after
year. In the dull workshops of peace a
man must often plod along almost alone,
scarcely able to discern whether he is
accomplishing anything or not.
But we We're told long ago that 'he
that ruleth his spirit is better than he
that taketh city,. To subdue the
brute within US, to develop a manhood
pure in heart, keen in mind, and strong
in soul, is more than to stand behind
greatiguns. To do constructive work
for ones country is as noble as to defend
the flag. The men who make the coun-
try.worth saving, for the beauty of its
common life and the nobility of its ideals,