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النشر الإلكتروني

S

VERDUN

HE is a wall of brass;

You shall not pass! You shall not pass !

Spring up like summer grass,

Surge at her, mass on mass,

Still shall you break like glass,

Splinter and break like shivered glass,
But pass?

You shall not pass!

Germans, you shall not, shall not pass!
God's hand has written on the wall of brass
You shall not pass! You shall not pass!

The valleys are quaking,

The torn hills are shaking,

The earth and the sky seem breaking.

But unbroken, undoubting, a wonder and sign,
She stands, France stands, and still holds to the line.
She counts her wounded and her dead;

You shall not pass!

She sets her teeth, she bows her head;
You shall not pass!

Till the last soul in the fierce line has fled,
You shall not pass!

Help France? Help France?

Who would not, thanking God for this great chance,

Stretch out his hands and run to succor France?

HAROLD Begbie.

A

THE BEAST IN MAN

GERMAN leader once said, "The oldest right

in the world is the right of the strongest." This is true and will always continue to be true as long as the world is made up only of inanimate matter and lifeless forces and of living, thinking beings who consider "the strongest" as meaning the powers or things that can cause the greatest destruction and the most terrible evil. The beasts recognize these as the strongest, and without question admit that the oldest right in the world is the chief right in the world.

But as men have become civilized, they have come to fear destruction, and even the loss of life, less and less, and have learned to feel the strength of beauty, truth, justice, mercy, purity, and innocence. So it comes to pass that Robert Burns mourns when his plow turns under a mountain daisy or destroys the home of a field mouse. Because he feels the influence of the innocent and the helpless, the "wee, modest, crimsontippèd flower" and the "wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie," he gives us two of the most beautiful poems in the English language, poems that, by the power of their tenderness, truth, and beauty, have brought

tears to the eyes of many a strong, brave man who feared no enemy.

Such was the power of Joan of Arc when she led the French soldiers to battle and to victory, simply the power of her belief and her faith, for she was a simple, untrained peasant girl, knowing nothing of how battles are to be won.

Such is the power of the English nurse, Edith Cavell, executed by the Germans as a spy, because she helped English and Belgians to escape from the German horrors in Belgium by crossing the line into Holland.

Such is the power of the murdered mothers and children on the Lusitania, the memory of whose wrongs cause English and American soldiers to go "over the top," crying "Lusitania! Lusitania!"

Such is the power of undaunted Cardinal Mercier, who in the very midst of German officers and troops, denounces German atrocities in Belgium, and yet is himself untouched.

The exercise of the right of the strongest, the right which comes through might, brings about war. General Sherman, who knew the terrors of war from what he saw in our Civil War, said, "War is hell." He could not describe its horrors and so he used the one word that means to most people the most horrible state and place in which human beings can suffer. For many years most men have realized that war is the most dreadful scourge of the human race, and

that it should be abolished. But as is always the case, men cannot agree, which is, of course, the chief reason why there are wars. In the face of terrible calamities, disasters, and great crises, men will agree. Perhaps the World War will prove the great disaster that will lead men to do away forever with

war.

For twenty-five years before the world's peace was rudely broken by the ambitions of Germany, the people of other countries had been urgently seeking some means of doing away with war. Peace societies had been organized and wealthy men had donated money to be used in efforts to secure the permanent peace of the world. A Peace Palace had been erected at The Hague from funds donated by the American multi-millionaire, Andrew Carnegie, who had also set aside a fund of $10,000,000 for the purpose of keeping the world at peace. The Nobel prize of $40,000 was awarded annually to the person anywhere in the world who had done the most for peace. Theodore Roosevelt, while President, won this by settling the Russian-Japanese War. The Tsar of Russia had proposed at one of the conferences of nations held at the Peace Palace that the nations should gradually do away with military preparations. We can see now why all these efforts failed. Germany had her mind and heart set on war and on conquering the world.

Most men agree that war is unnecessary, and before the German attack upon Belgium and upon the liberty of the world, many leaders of thought in other countries were sure a great war could never occur in modern times. One group argued that its cost in money would be so great that no nation could meet it for more than a few months. But the United States is, in 1918, spending nearly $50,000,000 a day for war, and she can continue to do so for some years, if necessary. The cost in dollars will never prevent war nor make a great war a very brief one.

But think of what the cost of the war for one year would accomplish if spent for the purposes of peace, for construction instead of destruction. Ten billion dollars, the approximate cost of the war for the United States for the year 1918, if put at interest at four per cent, would earn $400,000,000, or about the cost of the Panama Canal. This interest would send 500,000 young men and women to college each year, and pay all their necessary expenses. It would do away with all the slums and poverty of our great cities. If the cost to one nation for one year would, as a permanent fund, accomplish this, it is easy to realize that the world could almost be made an ideal one in which to live, if the money that all the nations spend upon the World War could have been saved and made a permanent fund for the betterment of world conditions.

Another group said, "Modern science has made war

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