Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1919-06-27

Tie MlDDLEBOKY KE(
not alone shortage of material that
delaying restoration of industry, but
certain WEAKNESS and depression tina
seems to have rested down on tn
spirits of men The old sanctions seen
to have lost their power of control, tn
old ambitions no longer move t.
effort
"Of conditions in Germany investiga
tors for the American Relief Admins
tration report The men who hav,
returned from the army do not wisl
to work, They have lost their sense o
responsibility to society and to thei
families There is lost instinct to in
dustry, there is no prompting to thrift
In part they regard themselves as the
+ guests of society, in part as objects Of
, commiseration; and they have NJ
aversion to being pauperized. This il
not the result of undertaking, because
the soldiers were not underfed. 1t is
not merely the result of war fatigue
1t is not merely the. result of absence
from work for four years OF seems to
be a fundamental state, sui generis
After a man has been for a certain
length of time under absolute discipline
engaged in the destruction of property
and in the killing of men, the psyche
logical change becomes a veritable per-
version, out Of which the man is not
to be promptly extricated on demobili-
cation and the return to civilian society,
and especially after defeat
That like conditions prevail to some
extent among the victorious nations we
have abundant evidence Even our
own country is not altogether escaping
the same influences. We entered the
war with an abandon of courage and
enthusiasm, we fought it with the
intense energy and reckless zeal always
characteristic of American valor, and
after a burst of enthusiasm over our
triumph we seem to be settling down to
respondent inquiry as to what we have
really gained.
! The greatest need of the world today
is faith. And we should be ashamed of
our manhood that our hearts are not
exuberant and buoyant with the strong
est and intensest faith that ever stirred
mems lives Faith in Cod Think
what God has wrought before our eyes!
The mightiest power ever known on the
earth, after four years of almost steady
victory, its territory intact and whole
provinces of its enemies secure in its
possession, holding under its heel the
entire empire Of its dreaded eastern
in CHI 1. L.
pieces and accepted the most drastic
terms of armistice ever signed. There
were once men on the earth who became
teachers of faith to all the world be-
cause God brought their people out of
the house of bondage Has God done
less for us? There have been prophets
who have proclaimed the majesty of
God in accents that will live forever
because they saw Gods hand in the
delivery of a single city And nations
have been delivered in our time, almost
by the score, whole peoples that had
been kept under foreign oppression until
hope had almost died from their hearts
and they had well nigh forgotten that
they ever were.
Shall history record that a genera
ton that delivered the earth from the
direst threat Of tyranny that ever lifted
its hand against liberty, yielded in the
very hour OF WEAKNESS and plunged into
doubt and despair; Reaction may
have been natural after the supreme
effort but it is time now to stir our
resolution afresh. Let us believe in
God, the author Of peace and the lover
of concord. BY His mighty hand and
His stretched out arm He has wrought
salvation for us Ask the men who
stood by the guns and thrust the steel,
and they will tell you it was He. We
shall be false to the men who gave their
lives in surest trust that their sacrifice
would bring a new day of hope to the
world if we yield now to the defeat of
our spirits.
This generation ought to witness a
great new birth of faith in God. We
have seen His hand as QUE fathers were
not privileged. We have been delivered
through our prayers from an awful
fear We have suffered as no generation
has suffered for centuries, and suffering,
the way of the cross, is always the way
to God. Let us have faith.
Let us have faith that God has
fixed a worthy goal for His creation
Things have not been administered by
chance these recent years. The creed of
the jungle has been discredited. The
way to power and honor is not by the
force of engines of destruction and
ruthless cruelty in their use Never was
it more clear that the way of the wicked
shall perish, not merely the wicked man,
but his method and counsel
And conversely, the way of the
righteous must triumph. Our vision
OF bettering world, of resistless pro-
gress toward a worthy goal of all
things, has not been an idle dream.
The hopes of humanity must have been
worth saving, or they would not have
been preserved at such tremendous cost.
We must now believe that good shall be
the final goal of i'll There has been too
much providence looking in that direc-
ton to allow us ever again to question |
the one far-off divine event toward |
which the whole creation moves. Let
us have faith in the kingdom of God |
Let us have faith also in man. Let