The Republican., 1919-07-24

warn that curiosity might be too
costly for continuance.
Beyond that-beyond the bursting
shells, the rattle of machine guns,
the irregular pop of snipers, the snow
white clouds of "cotton-tails" that
marked the burst of our shells and
the jet-black smoke that marked the
enemy's reply by day; and the fly
ing rockets, the festal brilliance of
gorgeous color and the Tightening flash
of the guns by night-beyond that all
was wrapped in the mystery of the
stern and storied years of severed
commerce and communication. And
now, in this good year of peace, we
are privileged to peer beyond the ban
ished barrier and beyond the romantic
Rhine, and there in humility stands
the once proud Prussian, with droop-
ing spirits of defeat and battered and
broken lance. Last year it was the
damp, dreary, soggy trenches and a
desultory cannonading of give and
take by day. And always the watch
ing and waiting and wounds and
worse. But atnight! All, atnightit was
different. For then, with the de-
cline of day, the guns barked with a
new lease of life and in a continuous
roll of thunderous din the skies blazed
with the rare beauty of indescribable
pyrotechniques Then could one
stealthily steal from the narrow
trench, out over the parapet on patrol
and out beyond the tangled wire-out
in the romantic ruin pregnant with the
unknown-pass wonderful, thrilling
hours with the darkness and the dread
and the dead, and in little fiirtations
with flimsy fortune, get on close and
chubby comradship with the venera-
BILE old man with the sythe. From
these little night excursions couId be
gained more real, red-blooded excite
ment that has been possible to extract
from any subsequent visits elsewhere
since.
And now it is all over. A calm cur
tain of months of tranquility has de-
scended upon the disturbing drama,
and serene silence reigns where rang
the crashing anthem of the guns. His
tory will face the fatigue of fixing the
facts. Philosophy will grapple with
the complex problem of cause and
effect. Statescraft will endeavor to
obliterate Yesterday, reconstruct To-
day and tranquilize Tomorrow. Re-
hgion will voice again the unheeded
command: Thou shalt not KILL"
and gather the scattered fragments
of her broken temples, both spiritual
and physical. Justice will plead for
the removal of the bandage that binds
and blinds her that she might see
Right rule. Reason, as ever, will
vainly try to raise her voice, while
the pigmy twins of Passion and Pre-
judice will plot and plan and will sow
the seeds of human discomfort that
shall find fruition when they blossom
in bitterness again in another garden
of Gethsemane of Tomorrow.
In the Long Night.
Over a wide, woeful desert of desc
lation the handiwork of Mars reveals
itself in torn and tattered fields, and
battered and broken cities. These
hurts can be practically healed. Over
a wide, wasted world there are mil
lions of weeping women with broken
hearts. These hurts can not be
healed. Over a wide, war worn camp
ing ground, out under the stars, mil
lions of tiny crosses-symbols of hu-
manity's hope here in a happy here
after-mark where youth and vigor,
and valor and vitality, vanished into
the Vale for the INSTALLATION of Vic
tory. These will not come back. But
if their splendid spirits could speak
today-and it is my conviction they
do speak in the blossoms that bloom
above thenl-they would whisper the
one word of a message thus typified
and that those flowers so fragrantly
watt all over the fields of France
Peace.
Something over year ago the
red ruin ragged at its height. Thoughts
90 back to England as she was then
sturdy, staunch, steady, tenacious in
the very midst of her tears. How
wonderful, how magnificent, how
splendid in stern and serious sacri-
fice-unfailing, unquailing! Always
through the trials and the toll and
the tears there was that unalterable
determination that did a mad ambi-
tion to death. On the wonderful gem
of unsurpassed beauty-on the Fright
little tight little ISLE" there was ev-
erywhere evident the sublime sacri-
flee that knew war in all of its hun
ger and horror and heroism, and
amidst the four years anguish of
Veritable torrent of tears there res