Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-26
THE GREATEST OF ALL LAWS
HAD MERCER FOR SPOKESMAN
The Moral Sense Of Mankind Balances
the World, HumbIes Kings, Directs
Evolution and Makes Injustice
Increasingly PerIlous

Increasingly PerIIous
| CARDINAL MERCER was the gen
- tlest man in Belgium. And, in one of
the strangest revelations of human en-
perencc, he became, therefore, the man
who inspired in the Germans their great
est fears.
They were made aware of heights that
their big guns could never reach and
they had a first glimpse of the power
! that in the end destroyed them. They
conquered everything in Belgium but
! faith and honor and the moral law.
! Other gifted men made themselves
I heard above the tumult of the first inva-
sion. They were passionate, vcngeful or
| filled with bitter prophecy. Mercier
shared none of these moods. His pas
tora letters and his encounters with Won
Kissing had the dignity Of infinite peace
in the midst of fire and ashes and ma
ton in flight He became one Of the great
voices of the world.
In time a whole army. a king and
government shared the tranquil assur-
anco of this man, and millions Of people
knew that they were victorious even when
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dren in the night
Mercier believed in the invincibility of
the moral law and the moral sense Of
mankind What to others seemed like
the end of civilization was to him only
another incident and another martYrdom
destined to have its bright reward Bel
gium couldn't lose because vanity and
greed and injustice can proceed only to
defeat and ruin.
And so, at Malines, there was that
long procession of German generals who
found there one man prouder and more
assured than they and better able to
know how the war would end.
Here in this city, at Washington, at
Mount Vernon and at Gettysburg Amer-
cans have risen at intervals to do serv-
ice much like Mercier's, to utter words or
promises that had been awaited for ages
and to define the hopes that will remain
clearly understood to guide and inspire
nations and men till the world ends.
They, too, believed in things unseen. 1t
is as a member of this great company of
the worlds friends that the primate of
Belgium ought to be received in this city.
Men of his sort have not yet said the
last word about the rights of humanity.
But they willard they will be listened
to as the apostles of hate are not.
The whole world was frankly dazzled
and awed by the spectacle of the German
invasion of Belgium. AS spectacle that
adventure is without a parallel in his
tory. The German swarm advanced with
the apparent inevitableness of the tides.
1t seemed as certain as the descent of
darkness at the end of a day. There was
singular note of admiration even in the
commonplace expressions of horror. 1t
was then that people began to say,
you've got to hand it to the Germans"
1t was a few words of Cardinal Mer
cier's that struck into the popular con-
seriousness of people everywhere and re-
vealed the German advance for what it
was-a pageant of incredible vulgarity,
of vanity gone mad, of self-destructive
! barbarsm having its last fling on the eve
of the day of judgment. They said then
! that the cardinal was a wise man. But
if he was wise it was only because he
! knew the world, it's people and its his
tory. He had only to look backward
over the waste of the centuries, from
| Babylon to Liege, to understand how the
| German lunge would have to end. The
! thing had been tried thousand times
! before and it had always failed.
Maddened kings had always found
themselves at last confronted by the law
which is not administered in courts, but
through the collective purpose and the
common aspiration of mankind.
The moral sense lies deep in every man.
1t is revealed even in savages. 1t is in
eradicable. Whoever comes into conflict
with it will have to fight for his life
through all his days. The hand of the
majority will always be lifted against
him.
There is, indeed, no other permanent
law in existence. For whenever the hu-
manly constituted rules of life and So
cietv cease TO serve the common pur-
pose instinctively acknowledged in the
moral aspirations of civilization they are
DESTROYED. The destruction may be slow,
but it is certain and final.
The mind of the world has destroyed
more than armies and more than armies
have conquered. And MERCER knew that
it was the mind of the world that would
destroy Germany. The invasion was
wrong. Therefore it could end only in
disaster. So every other invasion must
always end, whether it be the invasion
of a country or the trampling down of
the rights of the most humble of men.
One needn't be wise to see that this is
true. One only needs to be courageous
and willing to face the inexorable truth
Won Kissing didn't believe it, but he
knows it now. There are kings, crowned
and uncrowned, who do not know it, but
they will learn it in the course of time.
The nature of the reception given Car.
dinal Mercier in America and the demon,