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commercial control of India and China,-all these are as the "bread and circuses" by which the Roman emperors held the mob from their thrones. They keep the people busy and put off the day of final reckoning. "Gild the dome of the Invalides," was Napoleon's cynical command, when he learned that the people of Paris were becoming desperate.

The people of England seek blindly for a higher justice, a loftier freedom, and so the ruling ministry crowns the good queen as "Empress of India." Meanwhile, the real problems of civilization develop and ripen. They care nothing for the greatness of empire nor the glitter of imperialism. They must be solved by men, and each man must help solve his own problems. The development of republican manhood is just now the most important matter that any nation in the world has on hand. We have been fairly successful thus far, but perhaps only fairly. Our government is careless, wasteful, and unjust, but our men are growing self-contained and wise. Despite the annual invasion of foreign illiteracy, the individual intelligence of men stands higher in America than in any other part of the world. The bearing of the people at large in these days is a lesson in itself. I watched the crowds around the bulletin boards the other night in San Francisco. These men were laborers, for the most part, loafers some of them, not as a whole belonging to the favored classes. But they did not form a mob. They were there as so many individuals. They did not lose their heads. They kept the bearing and the reserve of gentlemen. I saw no rowdyism, no disorder, no raw enthusiasm. The war news, false or true, placarded on the walls, was exciting in its nature, but the men were not excited; they were ready to act when the time came for action. They gave no vulgar display of sentiment when action was impossible. Compare the be

havior of the American people, in this and other trying times, with that of the masses of any other nation, and we see what democracy has done. And we shall see more of this as our history goes on. Free schools, free ballot, free thought, free religion,-all tend to enforce self-reliance, self-respect, and the sense of duty which are the surest foundation of national greatness.

An active foreign policy would slowly change much of this. The nation which deals with war and diplomacy must be quick to act and quick to change. It must, like the Oregon, be able to reverse itself within its own length. To this end, good government is a necessity, whether it be self-government or not. Democracy yields before diplomacy. Republicanism steps aside when war is declared. "An army," said Wellington, "can get along under a poor general. It can do nothing under a debating society." In war the strongest man must lead, and military discipline is the only training for an army. In a militant nation the same rules hold in peace as in war. We cannot try civic experiments with a foe at our gates. A foe is always at the gates of a nation with a vigorous foreign policy. The British nation is hated and feared of all nations except our own. Only her eternal vigilance keeps the vultures from her coasts. Eternal vigilance of this sort will strengthen governments, will build up nations; it will not in like degree make men. The day of the nations as nations is passing. National ambitions, national hopes, national aggrandizement,— all these may become public nuisances. Imperialism like feudalism belongs to the past. The men of the world as men, not as nations, are drawing closer and closer together. The needs of commerce are stronger than the will of nations, and the final guarantee of peace and good will among men will be not "the parliament of nations," but the self-control of men.

But whatever the outcome of the present war, whatever the fateful twentieth century may bring, the primal duty of Americans is never to forget that men are more than nations; that wisdom is more than glory, and virtue more than dominion of the sea. The kingdom of God is within us. The nation exists for its men, never the men for the nation. "The only government that I recognize," said Thoreau, "and it matters not how few are at the head of it or how small its army, is the power that established justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice." And the will of free men to be just one toward another, is our best guarantee that "government of the people, for the people, and by the people, shall not perish from the earth."

God of our fathers, known of old

Lord of our far-flung battle line-
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies

The captains and the kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away

On dune and headland sinks the fire

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

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