m- F ft Class_jl52/t Book Copyright N° COWRIGHT DEPOSIT. Blue Stars and Gold Blue Stars and Gold For Every Home That Flies a Service Flag By WILLIAM E. BARTON, D.D., LL.D. The reilly & britton Co. Chicago 1* Copyright, 19 18 by The Reilly & Britton Co. Made in U. S. A. NOV k3 !bi3 Blue Stars and Oold g>Cl.A508260 PUBLISHER'S PREFACE The author of this book has four sons. The eldest of them — until recently the editor of a New York magazine — is devoting his entire time to the work of the Y. M. C. A. The other three have enlisted and are now serving in the fighting forces of their country. He is pastor of a church whose Roll of Honor bears more than a hundred names, and its service flag more than a hundred stars. He is, therefore, unusually qualified to inspire and comfort the fath- ers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts and wives of men at the front. He has visited camps where soldiers and sailors are assembled, and his messages to them have been most welcome. Part of the material in this volume is taken from addresses delivered by him to soldiers, sailors and their relatives, but most of it was written especially for this volume. It has been the purpose of the author, as also the wish of the publishers, that this should be less a book than a series of heart-to-heart talks with the readers, by a man whose own heart is deeply concerned in the present issues, and whose 5 6 Publisher's Preface clear conviction of right as well as his uncompro- mising patriotism are inspiring and reassuring. Dr. Barton is descended from a race of soldiers. His relations fought bravely in the Civil War, and his own memories go back to the closing events of that mighty struggle. His father's father carried his regiment's flag in the war of 1 8 1 2 ; his father's father's father was an officer in the Revolution, and Dr. Barton has his sword and his name. The father of this gallant Revolutionary soldier fell at Fort Du Quesne in 1755, fighting under George Washington. Dr. Barton has visited the countries now at war, having traveled extensively in Europe, including Greece, Turkey and the Balkans, and in Egypt, Palestine, and other lands where the war is now in progress. What he writes has behind it not only wide experience and many years of careful study, but also constant contact with the life of men and women who meet all the conditions which this war involves. The publishers commend this book to all homes that fly the service flag. CONTENTS PAGE The Flag in Our Window 1 1 The Day He Marched Away 15 Our Glorious Sons 2 4 The Father and the Son 29 Mothers of Men 3 1 The Girl Who Will Never Have a Lover 37 " The Kid Has Gone to the Colors " 41 Why Must My Boy Go? 44 Our Boys at Sea 49 The Man Who Had Lost a Son 59 The Stars in Our Flag 64 New Stars 7° Is My Boy a Murderer? 75 Will My Boy Return to Me? 82 Our War Against War 87 Can We Fight Without Hatred? 94 The Religion of the Good Shepherd. . . 98 The Health of Our Boys 103 The Soul of a Soldier 107 7 8 Contents PAGE Things That Abide 113 The Battle of Life 117 Not Too Cheap a Peace 119 God Is Love 123 Spiritual Preparedness 127 The Hazard of Faith 134 Does God Care? 138 Can God Share Our Sorrows? 143 God Is Marching On 147 The Trajectory of Our Prayers 153 When the Ship Goes Down 158 The Value and Significance of Life ... 164 Making Death Significant 170 " Somewhere " 176 The Wayside Inns of Heaven 184 Do You Believe in Immortality? 190 A Collection of Prayers and Prayer Poems 197 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Most of the poems quoted in this volume were clipped month by month from the magazines in which they appeared. In many cases they have already paid their compliment to the discernment of the editors by achieving a national popularity, and are now included either in volumes of poems published by their respective authors, or in col- lections of the poetry of the Great War. Some of the best poems in this volume have been taken from Over Here, a collection of his own war verse, by Edgar A. Guest. The Author wishes to acknowledge his indebt- edness for prose and verse selections included in this volume to The American Magazine, The Century, The Independent, The Survey, The New York Sun, The New York Times and The Boston Transcript. He also desires to thank the follow- ing authors, publishers and periodicals for their generosity in permitting him to use the copyrighted poems indicated: George H. Doran Company: — "Prayer of a Soldier in France," by Joyce Kilmer ; "A Prayer in War Time" and "Face to Face With Reality," by John Oxenham. 10 Acknowledgments .^ j E. P. Dutton & Company: — "Soldiers of Freedom," by Katharine Lee Bates; "The Spires of Oxford," by Wini- fred M. Letts. The International Magazine Company: — "A Prayer," by Katharine Janeway Conger ; "A Prayer for Those Who Watch," by Theodosia Garrison; "Somehow," by Mar- garet E. Sangster; "Prayer for a World Hurt Sore" and "A Father's Prayer," by Margaret Widdemer. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard: — "Two Gods," by Sam Walter Foss, from Songs of the Average Man. The prayers are partly original and partly quoted. The Book of Common Prayer has been drawn upon, and also the Book of Common Wor- ship, prepared by a committee of which Henry Van Dyke was the principal editor. Most of these prayers have attained such standing that I have preferred not to alter them, but in a few cases they have been edited to adapt them more directly to present conditions. A considerable number of the prayers are original and have been written for this volume. I prefer to make this general acknowledgment rather than to give credit for particular prayers, for a prayer should be the personal possession of all those who are able to use it. W. E. B. THE FLAG IN OUR WINDOW I saw the service flag in your window, and that is why I have called on you. We need no other introduction, you and I, for we have great interests in common. There is a service flag in my window. It bears more than one star, for God has been good to me, and has given me more sons than one. "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier." So runs a song that had brief popularity, and which still is quoted now and then. But we did rear our boys to be soldiers. We did not know that we were rearing them for this. But we reared them that they might con- tribute their best to the life of the world in their own generation, and this is the best they have to give. It is a solemn hour when the Son says, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world." Your sons and my sons have been saying that to us, and our hearts glow with solemn pride because ll 12 Blue Stars and Gold they have discovered by what service and sacrifice they may serve their generation. So I have called upon you that we may talk together about our boys, yours and mine. You know that rather apt definition of an egotist. He is a man who is always talking about himself when you want to talk about yourself. But neither you nor I want to talk about ourselves just now. We are more interested in talking about our boys. We are not jealous, you and I. We are proud of our boys, you of yours and I of mine, and each of us of the other's. I have called that I might talk with the women to whom this war means so much of love and prayer and anxious waiting. The mothers, of course. They are always eager to hear some one talk about their sons, even more than they are to talk about them. I should like a quiet and earnest and cheerful lit- tle chat with the young wives of soldiers and sail- ors, and the sisters and the sweethearts of the boys who have gone away. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" is never long absent from the mind of the soldier or sailor, and she has a right to a share in the comfort and the glory of the present hour. And I want to talk with the fathers, for I also am a father. I have not called to lament the absence of your The Flag in Our Window 13 boys. There are aspects of the situation that are lamentable. It is lamentable that there should be a war. But if there is to be a war, it is not lamenta- ble but glorious that there should be men willing to fight in it, on land and sea and in the air, who go forth with the noble spirit of our American young men. So I have called at your home where the service flag flies — the home that flies the blue star, that I may speak a little word of our mutual pride and hope — the home that flies the gold star, that I may say a word of comfort. Let my first word be this: You and I have entered into that deep and solemn and glorious experience of sacrifice which from the dawn of human history, and long before, has been eternal in the heart of God. Do you know what I mean by that? It is one of the most exalted experiences that can come to human life. A few months ago when Venus, the evening star, was making the western sky glorious just after the sun went down, a little boy was walking with his father. "See, Daddy," said the little fellow, "God has hung out His service flag!" And then the boy added reverently : "I think God must have a Son in the war." I think so, too. 14 Blue Stars and Gold In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, For God is marching on. God has a Son in this war, and so have you and I. The finest thing in this life is to have our great- est interests in common with God. THE DAY HE MARCHED AWAY What is a brass band for, if not to make a noise when we all feel that something ought to be said and no one knows just how to say it? Blessings rest upon the band for playing while we waited for the train that was so slow in coming, yet which came so soon and so inevitably! We saw the boys as they lined up in front of the town hall, and received their parting instructions from the chairman of the local committee. Our eyes followed them as they took up their baggage and fell in. Those suit cases looked very unmili- tary. They are presumably the "old kit bags" about which they sang. The boys were going to pack all their troubles in them and ship them home when they received their military outfits. Meantime, we were to "smile, smile, smile." It is said that a man can "smile and smile and be a villain." You and I know that a father and mother can smile and smile while their hearts throb. And the boys smiled and smiled. 15 16 Blue Stars and Gold Their kid brothers and the boy scouts ran along beside them, and violently took away their luggage and carried it for them. And we parents followed behind, or walked on the sidewalk, each of us try- ing to keep opposite our own boys. We'll be o-ver, we're coming o-ver, And we wont come back till it's o-ver, o-ver there. That was what the band played as the boys marched in the middle of the street and we walked abreast of them to the station. What manly fellows they were ! And among them all, there was none so fine as the boy who was our very own. Of course it was natural enough that other people should be interested in the other young men. We had no desire, you and I, that our boys, our very own boys, should receive a monopoly of the glory. But every one must have seen that there were no others really quite so fine as ours ! They lined up again in the open space in front of the station, and for five minutes we greeted them. They were kissed and admonished and charged to write home often. We said the few things that were left to say, and still the five minutes lagged. "Now, mother, wipe away your tears," said one young fellow of three-and-twenty. "There isn't a The Day He Marched Away 17 thing to cry for, not a thing! We're all coming back, every one of us ! You take it from me, we're all coming back!" There is nothing more beautiful or indeed more pathetic than the way in which a mother of forty- six looks up at her boy of twenty-three who has already shown his ability to conquer the world by going out and earning eighteen dollars a week, and tries to make herself believe that he knows more than she does. "There isn't a thing to worry about, mother; not a thing! They feed us well. We have nice, dry places to sleep — there isn't a thing to worry about !" With such words youth has gone forth to war since the world was young. Katharine Lee Bates, whose great hymn, "O beautiful, far, spacious skies," has already been recognized as one of our noblest national songs, has written worthily of the care-free pose of these boys of ours on the day when they marched away from us. They veiled their souls with laughter And many a mocking pose, These lads who follow after Wherever Freedom goes; These lads we used to censure For levity and ease, On Freedom's high adventure Go shining overseas. 18 Blue Stars and Gold Our springing tears adore them, These boys at school and play, Fair-fortuned years before them, Alas! but yesterday; Divine with sudden splendor — Oh, how our eyes were blind ! — In careless self-surrender They battle for mankind. Soldiers of Freedom ! Gleaming And golden they depart, Transfigured by the dreaming Of boyhood's hidden heart. Her lovers they confess them And, rushing on her foes, Toss her their youth — God bless them ! — As lightly as a rose. SOLDIERS OF FREEDOM by Katharine Lee Bates. The five minutes are up, and the chairman of the local board calls on the boys to fall in. "Parents and friends will be admitted to the south platform. No one will be admitted to the north platform except the enlisted men, and those wearing badges." We climb the steps to the north platform — the boys, the band, a little group of Grand Army men with their flag, the local board, the local Y. M. C. A. secretary, and I. No matter how I got in with them; I was there, and I intend to be there, when- The Day He Marched Away 19 ever a group of the boys go from my town. I shall be one of the last to greet them. "God bless you, boys ! We have great faith in you ! Be brave ; be clean ; be true to your country and your homes and your God! We trust you!" The words are commonplace enough, but the privilege of speaking them is priceless. The two platforms face each other like two lines of trenches, with a No Man's Land of rail- road tracks between, and I can see the faces on both sides. If only some one could invent a trench mortar that would carry across those tracks the messages that are in the hearts of those on either side ! Already the great gulf is fixed between us and our boys. Now it is only the width of the inter- vening tracks, but it will widen to the breadth of the ocean. Thank God we can send our good wishes and our prayers across ! The heart knows how to bridge the widest gulf. How long that train is coming! Here it comes ! Good-bye ! Good-bye ! No, it is not our train. It is an express, and does not stop. Thank God for a few minutes more ! A girl makes her way to the front of the op- posite platform and starts a song, "Keep the home fires burning." We sing, not because we feel like it, but it gives us something to do. 20 Blue Stars and Gold Then another song, but we do not get far with it. Here comes the train ! Another series of good-byes are shot across No Man's Land. Another false alarm. Who could have imagined there were so many trains? The strain is growing on both platforms. We try to sing, and give it up. A few jokes are hurled back and forth, but they are what the boys in the trenches call "duds." They do not explode. Thank God for the band ! When the band plays, we have an excuse to keep still. And yet, we have so much to say, if only we could say it ! Here comes the train, at last. More good-byes ! This time we are off ! But no, it is Section One of our train, already filled at stations farther up the road. The boys in these cars have just been through what we are going through. They crowd to the windows and wave and yell at us, and we wave and yell back. But the next train is really ours. The boys go aboard, and rush to the other side of the train, that they may wave their last good-byes from the win- dows on that side where their loved ones are. The band plays again. The train starts slowly. It has gone. The Day He Marched Away 21 From the opposite platform the whole crowd passes down. Not one is missing of the hundreds who climbed the stairs to the platform. But on our side, just the local board, and the band, and the Grand Army men with the flag, come down, and the Y. M. C. A. man and I. The boys have gone. And they won't come back till it's over, over there. The Little Star in the Window By John Jerome Rooney There's a little star in the window of the house across the way, A little star, red bordered, on a ground of pearly white ; I can see its gleam at evening ; it is bright at dawn of day, And I know it has been shining through the long and dismal night. The folks who pass the window on the busy city street, I often notice, turn a glance before they hurry by, And one, a gray-haired woman, made curtsey low and sweet, While something like a teardrop was glistening in her eye. And yesterday an aged man, by life's stern battle spent, His empty coat sleeve hanging down, a witness sadly mute, Gave one swift look and halted — his form full height, unbent — And ere he passed his hand came up in soldierly salute. The little star in the window is aflame with living fire, For it was lit at the hearthstone where a lonely mother waits ; 22 The Little Star in the Window 23 And she has stained its crimson with the glow of her heart's desire, And brightened its pearl white heaven beyond the world's dark hates. The star shall shine through the battle when the shafts of death are hurled ; It shall shine through the long night watches in the fore- most trenches' line; Over the waste of waters, and beyond the verge of the world, Like the guiding Star of the Magi its blessed rays shall shine. The little star in the window shall beacon your boy's return As his eyes are set to the homeland, when the call of the guns shall cease ; In the Flag's high constellation through the ages it shall burn, A pledge of his heart's devotion, a sign of his people's peace. OUR GLORIOUS SONS Some verses in the Bible come to us now with new meanings. There is one prayer of Jesus to His Father which I should never have thought of using to express the desire of a boy of to-day and addressed to his earthly father, but it comes to me now that this is one of the real uses of the Bible. The words are those which Jesus uttered when He was preparing for the Cross and the Crown, "Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify Thee." Thousands of American boys are saying that to their fathers now. They are not asking for glory in any tawdry sense; they are uncomfortable if very much fuss is made over them; but they are asking that they may receive from their fathers not only military equipment but a patriotic preparation for what they have felt called to undertake. Jesus was preparing himself for His supreme sacrifice. He wanted God's approbation, a sense of his Fatherly support, that He might to the full- 24 Our Glorious Sons 25 est degree promote the honor of His Father. He was asking God for a glory greater than ever had been given to the Carpenter of Nazareth. He did not want to go to His crucifixion with no other glory than that of His own noble manhood; He wanted a sense of the divine companionship. Shall we doubt our right to apply the text to our own situation? Our boys are asking the glory of confidence, of affection and of sacrificial patriotism, that they may glorify their fathers, and their father's God. All over the land boys are coming to their fathers, and saying, in the most common- place way possible, "Father, I'm going." And the fathers are saying, "Go, my boy. If I were your age, I would go." They do not talk much about it. They talk of everything except what they feel most; but in their silence and their talk of other things is the prayer of the son, "Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy son that thy son may glorify thee." What had we ever given to these boys to prepare them for this supreme sacrifice? We had trained them for business. They were not apparently over- idealistic. Their ideals had been apparently commercial, and we had given them these ideals. We sometimes asked whether our schools were a failure, our churches a failure, our whole system of preparing men for life a failure, and now our sys- tem and its product have come to the test. We 26 Blue Stars and Gold wonder that these boys should now display the qualities which we find in them. We had taught them "Safety First," and they have answered, 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die. We have taught them not to be altogether negli- gent of prudential considerations, and they have answered in terms that remind us of the words of Emerson: So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, "Thou must," The youth replies, "I can." We say to them, "Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup which the soldiers and the martyrs drink?" And they answer, "We are able." Many a father now knows how Abraham felt when he took his beloved son, Isaac, and offered him on the altar of sacrifice. Many a father before this war is over will sob the lament of David, "Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son." But out of the cloud of sorrow will sound forth the words of chastened pride, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Our Glorious Sons 27 Some of us wear with pardonable pride the but- ton of the Sons of the American Revolution and all of us honor the brave old men who as boys risked their lives for their country fifty years ago. To this honor, which we gladly bestow upon our fathers, we now add this, that we glorify our sons. Harry Lauder still sings his merry Scotch songs. But to them he now adds one of his own composi- tion: The days are long, the nights are drear, The anguish breaks my heart, But, Oh, I'm proud my one and only Laddie did his part! For God knows best; His will be done; His grace does me employ; I do believe I'll meet again My one and only boy. We must glorify the sons of the immigrant with a new sense of the value of American citizenship. We can no longer have two kinds of citizenship in America. The plea that we must have Sabbath desecration and open saloons to win the German vote is not going to be popular. If foreigners want what they left in Europe, there are ways back; but so long as they remain here, there are to be no German- Americans. And how are our sons to glorify us ? They will give to us a new definition of patriot- 28 Blue Stars and Gold ism, a new conception of the worth of sacrifice. When they come back, there will be more men ready for spiritual as over against material ends in life. The fatherhood of America will be glori- fied in its sonship. THE FATHER AND THE SON Fathers are shy in the presence of their sons. Mothers get nearer to the boys as a rule than fath- ers do. It is not that fathers love their sons less than mothers, but they feel a certain sense of shy- ness in the presence of their big boys. They have that strange awe that is hinted at in the book of Genesis when it is said, "The man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil." What does the average father say to his boy just before he goes off to war? Very little of what he really thinks or means to say. Fathers are almost as laconic as the old man of whom James Whit- comb Riley wrote, who was "all wrapped up" in his boy Jim, but whose whole series of partings were expressed in a single sentence: "Good-bye, Jim; take keer of yourse'f I" Old man never had much to say — 'Ceptin' to Jim ; And Jim was the wildest boy he had, And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! 29 30 Blue Stars and Gold Never heerd him speak but once Er twice in my life — and first time was When the army broke out, and Jim he went, The old man backin' him, fer three months; And all 'at I heerd the old man say Was, jes' as we turned to start way: "Well, good-bye, Jim; Take keer of yourse'f 1" Some of us fathers who have better developed powers of expression than the old man of whom Riley writes, really do in our way just about what he did in his. We have great messages that we feel like uttering to our boys, but for the most part we leave them unspoken. And now that they have gone from us, we go about our work and do not say very much about them. We are more reticent than women, and whether we ought to be proud of it or ashamed of it, we need not now discuss. But we fathers feel. Not everybody understands us; we do not always understand ourselves. But not even their mothers love our boys more than we fathers do. MOTHERS OF MEN It is said that sons inherit the traits that most distinguish them more through their mothers, and daughters through their fathers. I believe there is no recognized scientific data on which this impres- sion can be said to rest. But there is something wonderfully beautiful about the mutual love of father and daughter, and the reciprocal affection of mother and son. The mother of James and John came to Jesus and asked of Him that her two sons might sit, the one on His right hand and the other on His left, in his kingdom. That was just like a mother. A foolish mother, do you say? Let it go at that. All mothers are foolish in that way. They say, with Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, "These are my jewels." They desire no greater thing for themselves than this, that they may see their sons honorable and honored. 31 32 Blue Stars and Gold These arc they who in time of war say with the Spartan mother, "Come home bearing thy shield, or upon it." Joaquin Miller knew who were the real soldiers when he wrote his poem about the bravest battle : The bravest battle that was ever fought, Shall I tell you where and when ? On the maps of the world you will find it not ; 'Twas fought by the mothers of men. Nay, not with cannon, or battle-shot, With sword, or nobler pen ; Nay, not with eloquent word or thought, From mouths of wonderful men. But deep in a walled-up woman's heart, Of woman that would not yield, But bravely, silently bore her part — Lo — there is that battlefield. No marshaling troop, no bivouac song ; No banners to gleam and wave ! But oh ! these battles they last so long — From boyhood to the grave! Oh ! ye with banners and battle-shot, And soldier to shout and praise, I tell you the kingliest victories fought, Are fought in these silent ways. Mothers of Men 33 Stephen Phillips has recently written of that soldier quality in women which was never more truly manifest than in this present war: Splendid the onrush and the charging cheer, Yet glorious, too, to check the coming tear. The doubt by night to stifle, through the day The deep alarm not outwardly betray. Heroes are ye, who but the sob repress ; Your victory dumb is victory no less. We trace in St. Augustine the influence of his mother Monica, who reclaimed him from heathen philosophy and an immoral youth, and made him one of the greatest fathers of the Latin Church. We see in Susannah Wesley the determining fac- tors in the life of her two great sons, who preached and sang the Gospel around the world. That same influence, with childhood teaching and with prayer that daily follows over ocean and "over the top," inspires and enobles the life of our soldiers and sailors and aviators. And when the battle has been fought, and the news comes back that the victory has been won, but at terrible cost — ah, then we shall know what they meant who told us that no bullet ever kills a man upon the battlefield but it speeds on and finds some- where the heart of a woman. When Victor Immanuel was fighting to free Italy in 1861, Laura Savio, a patriot and a poetess, 34 Blue Stars and Gold was writing her noblest lines to aid the cause, and beside her poems, those children of her brain, she gave her two sons. One of them was killed at Ancona and one at Gaeta. Who could interpret to the world what that mother felt in her mingled sorrow for her sons and joy in free Italia? An English woman living in Italy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, did it as no man could have done it: Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea ! Dead ! Both my boys ! When you sit at the feast, And are wanting a great song for Italy free, Let none look at me! Then she pours out her mother's sorrow and her mother's memories, and thinks of the national joy in its awful contrast with her incurable sorrow, and how she prepared that sorrow for herself by teach- ing her boys to expel the tyrants and bring in free- dom: When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green and red, When you have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head (And / have my dead) — Mothers of Men 35 What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, And burn your lights faintly! My country is there. Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow: My Italy's there, with my brave civic Pair, To disfranchise despair. Mary, the mother of Jesus, knew the pride and joy and sorrow which together spell motherhood. The angel told her that a sword was to pierce her own heart in the fulfilment of the promise of her maternity. If motherhood eost less, it would be worth less. I doubt if the world ever saw a nobler body of mothers than those who just now are sending their sons to the front from America. In intelligence and patriotic fervor they stand foremost among the mothers of the world; and this is the supreme test of their motherhood, that they have given to the world, for this hour, such sons. The Mother Faith By Edgar A. Guest Little mother, life's adventure calls your boy away, Yet he will return to you on some brighter day ; Dry your tears and cease to sigh, keep your mother smile, Brave and strong he will come back in a little while. Little mother, heed them not — they who preach despair — You shall have your boy again, brave and oh, so fair! Life has need of him to-day, but with victory won, Safely life shall bring to you once again your son. Little mother, keep the faith : not to death he goes ; Share with him the joy of worth that your soldier knows. He is giving to the Flag all that man can give, And if you believe he will, surely he will live. Little mother, through the night of his absence long, Never cease to think of him — brave and well and strong ; You shall know his kiss again, you shall see his smile, For your boy shall come to you in a little while. 36 THE GIRL WHO WILL NEVER HAVE A LOVER Every one else is receiving sympathy, but no one knows that she also deserves it. Other women have sent to the war a son, a brother, a husband, a lover. So far as she knows, she has sent no one. Yet her lover is among those who have gone to the front, and he is never coming back. They will call her an old maid, and if that is the proper name, then that is what she will be. But in her heart she is a wife and mother. She knows that she has in her the capacity to be both. Her heart yearns for the lover whom she never had. Her arms are empty of the children that were never born. Among the many thousands of brave young fel- lows who went to France and will not return, was one who would have loved her had he lived. And she never met him. 37 38 Blue Stars and Gold Or if she did, his love was latent and not yet confessed. She waved her handkerchief at all the boys who left her town, for she knew them all, and they all knew her, and respected her. But among them there was no one of whom she could say that she loved him, or that he had spoken love to her. So she will go on in life alone. In a way she will be more lonely than the mother whose son lies buried in France, for the mother had her son, and has her memories, and she has his grave to think of, even if she never sees it. She will be more lonely than the woman who gave her husband, for that other woman has her rosary of happy hours that were spent with him, and perhaps she has her children. But this other war-widow has only her solitude. If among the tens of thousands of graves in Flanders and Picardy, there were only one that she might claim, it would be worth the crossing of the ocean just to drop a flower upon it. But no one grave belongs to her. Hers is the sorrow of having lost without know- ing when and how she lost. Other women can say, "My son laid down his life for his country;" "My husband died for the flag ;" "My lover was killed, bravely fighting." She can say nothing, because he said nothing to her. Of course she has not known the actual sorrow The Girl Who Will Never Have a Lover 39 of parting, or the personal anxiety that comes from having loved and watched for a particular brother or husband or lover. Some of the keenness of per- sonal grief is spared to her. But she also is among the ones who have given all they had to give. Though she wear no widow's veil, she is among the war-widows. The man whom she would have married, the man who would have come back and claimed her as his wife, died before he knew that he loved her, before she knew that she loved him. And no one can console her, for no one knows. Even she does not know, and that is part of the tragedy of it. But she is among those who have made the greatest sacrifice that war demands of loyal and loving hearts. She has surrendered the hope she might have had of having a lover and a husband and children of her own. Let reverent place be made for her among those who have broken the alabaster box and given of their best. We had a letter recently from a dear friend, a young woman we have known for many years. She was sixteen years of age when we first knew her, thirty years ago. I do not know how old she is now. It is none of my business, and I am too much a 40 Blue Stars and Gold gentleman to attempt to learn by process of arith- metic or otherwise. To us she is the same dear girl whom we have known and loved, and whose sorrows and joys we have shared. She wrote of the war, and of the neighbors who were sending their loved ones. Then she added, "I do not know which is harder — sending a son, or having no son to send." Somehow I had never thought of her as a mother. She has always been to us just what she was at the beginning, a dear friend, a fine and lova- ble girl. It comes to me suddenly that she is old enough now to have been the mother of a soldier. She does not know which is harder, sending a son, or having no son to send. There are thousands of girls who are sending their lovers and who do not know it. In after years, when people break their hearts by calling them old maids, they will not be able to say, "My husband, or my lover, was killed in the war." But that is where he is to-day. So among those who are giving, in these days of generous sacrifice, I place near the front the girls who are giving the men who would have loved them if they had stayed at home; the girls who now will live and die unloved. They are among the war's heroines. 'THE KID HAS GONE TO THE COLORS" The little group of old men marched ahead; then the boys; then a few of us middle-aged men who were there in more or less official capacities. We accompanied the boys — the old men in front and we middle-aged men in the rear — and stayed with them till the train took them away. The old men all wore the insignia of the Grand Army of the Republic. Any one of them was old enough to have been the grandfather of any of the soldiers, as we in the rear were old enough to have been their fathers. "They're just kids," said one Grand Army man to another. "They're older than we were," said another. The American Civil War has often been called the "War of Youth," on account of the age of the soldiers upon enlistment. An interesting table is given in The American Army, Maj. Gen. William H. Carter's recent book. Of a total of 2,778,304 men enlisted in the Union army during the war, he 41 42 Blue Stars and Gold says that less than one-fourth were over 2 1 years of age. The table of ages at enlistment follows : Those 10 years and younger 25 Those 1 1 years and under 38 Those 12 years and under 225 Those 13 years and under 300 Those 14 years and under 1,523 Those 15 years and under 104,987 Those 16 years and under 231,051 Those 17 years and under 844,891 Those 18 years and under 1,151,438 Between 18 and 22 years 2,159,798 Between 22 and 26 years 618,511 Between 26 and 45 years 46,462 More than 45 years old 16,071 The statistics relating to very young boys, Gen- eral Carter says, have often been questioned, but, he adds, it must be remembered that the enlistment of mere children as drummers and fifers formerly was authorized in our army. General Carter him- self was only 12^ years old when he enlisted as a mounted dispatch messenger in 1864. Almost all of the men in the last two classes of the table were officers, making the general rank and file of the army almost all beardless boys when they enlisted. The War Department uniformly refuses to ex- "The Kid Has Gone to the Colors" 43 press an opinion as to the correctness of tables like this. It affirms that there are no reliable statistics on which to base such a classification of soldiers by age. So, even with the authority of General Carter standing behind the figures, we accept them with some reservation. No one knows just how many men of a given age fought in the Civil War. But they were boys, a large proportion of them. A majority of them, probably, could not vote. Young as the boys are who go forth to the pres- ent struggle, they are not younger than their grand- fathers were when they fought at Shiloh or Antietam or Gettysburg. It seems impossible that the boy whom we are hardly accustomed to seeing in long trousers should be carrying a gun in his country's service. But he is in the army. "The kid has gone to the colors." WHY MUST MY BOY GO? We all have asked that question in our hearts. Whether we admit it or not, that thought has come to us. We knew the war had to be won, and that the winning of the war meant that there must be soldiers, but why must our boys, yours and mine, be among them? There were others who could so much better be spared for the world's rough work! There is an old poem of the Civil War which I vaguely remember and know not who wrote it, which tells of a widow whose only son, barely eighteen, had been drafted: What, drafted? My boy? My Harry? Why, man, 'tis a boy at his books, No taller, I'm sure, than your Annie, As delicate, too, in his looks! Five stalwart sons has my neighbor, And never the lot upon one; Is this one of Fortune's caprices, Or is it God's will that is done? 44 Why Must My Boy Go ? 45 That was part of the bitterness of it, that she did not know whether to think it the will of God and to submit, or to charge it to the whim of fate and resist. But supposing it to be the will of God, even then submission was not easy: O what have I done, a weak woman, In what have I meddled with harm, Troubling only my God for the sunshine And rain on my rough little farm, That my plowshares are beaten to swords And welded before my eyes — That my tears must cleanse a foul nation, My lamb be a sacrifice? Mothers have cried out in that fashion through long generations; and then have given their boys with sorrowing pride. And you and I felt the protest in our hearts, but we have parted with them, and we would not have them back till they come back in victory and in honor. War-brides are celebrating their lonely honey- moon, and reflecting on the contrast between what they had hoped and what has really occurred. It did not seem possible that he could go ! Of course there must be soldiers if there was to be a war, but it did not seem quite possible that he was to be 46 Blue Stars and Gold one of them! Margaret E. Sangster has caught the feeling of the lonely bride : Somehow I never thought that you would go, Not even when red war swept through the land — I somehow thought, because I loved you so, That you would stay. I did not understand That something stronger than my love could come, To draw you, half-reluctant, from my heart ; I never thought the call of fife and drum Would rend our cloak of happiness apart ! And yet, you went. . . And I — I did not weep — I smiled, instead, and brushed the tears aside. And yet, when night-time comes, I can not sleep But silent lie, while longing fights with pride — You are my man, the foe you fight my foe, And yet — / never thought that you would go! SOMEHOW by Margaret E. Sangster. Let me tell you something which perhaps you do not know. There is a love that is love of posses- sion, and there is a nobler love that loves truly enough to include the love of renunciation. This war is going to teach America and all her sons and all her daughters that nobler love. The time has come when you have your opportunity to leaiv. your share of it. Mothers and Wives By Edgar A. Guest Mothers and wives, 'tis the call to arms That the bugler yonder prepares to sound ; We stand on the brink of war's alarms And your men may lie on a bloodstained ground. The drums may play and the flags may fly, And our boys may don the brown and blue, And the call that summons brave men to die Is the call for glorious women, too. Mothers and wives, if the summons comes, You, as ever since war has been, Must hear with courage the rolling drums And dry your tears when the flags are seen. For never has hero fought and died Who has braver been than the mother, who Buckled his saber at his side, And sent him forward to dare and do. Mothers and wives, should the call ring out, It is you must answer your country's cry ; You must furnish brave hearts and stout For the firing line where the heroes die. And never a corpse on the field of strife Should be honored more in his country's sight Than the noble mother or noble wife Who sent him forth in the cause of right. 47 48 Blue Stars and Gold Mothers and wives, 'tis the call for men To give their strength and to give their lives; But well we know, such a summons then Is the call for mothers and loyal wives. For you must give us the strength we need, You must give us the boys in blue, For never a boy or a man shall bleed But a mother or wife shall suffer, too. OUR BOYS AT SEA I was born inland, yet my heart has ever been upon the ocean. When I have sailed it, it has come to me as my own. And now that my sons go forth to war, I find them preferring the sea. I do not wonder. This war is to make many changes. Among the rest, it will give us a new relation to the sea. Admiral Mahan, an American naval comman- der, changed the destiny of the world by writing a few years ago his great book on the sea power of nations. Europe read that book, and at once understood its meaning. America read it, and was not greatly concerned at the time; but we know its meaning now. We shall never again surrender our right to the sea, nor allow it to be possible for any man to say that he had sailed around the world and had not seen the American flag on a single ocean-going vessel. 4$ 50 Blue Stars and Gold What a miracle this war has wrought with our ships ! I was in New York a few days ago, and saw the "Leviathan" — once the "Vaterland," and the greatest ship afloat — loaded with soldiers for France. But she did not look like the "Vaterland." She was camouflaged. She was painted after a cubist fashion in great patches of blue and white and neutral color so that at a distance she did not look like a ship. And so were the other vessels on which we are sending men across. The face of Helen, it was said "launched a thou- sand ships, and burned the topless towers of Ilium." But who shall sing the Iliad of this present cru- sade? The war came to us and found us unprepared — criminally unprepared some men say, but I am not sure of that. And here we are, a twelvemonth later, with almost two millions of our men in France, and other millions soon to go ! An American college president, Dr. Carl G. Doney, serving the Y. M. C. A. in France, stood on the dock in a French port where American sol- diers were unloading by the tens of thousands. With patriotic pride he describes the inspiring Our Boys at Sea 51 spectacle that was unfolded to him as our trans- ports deposited their precious cargo on French shores. It was a harbor and city which the conservative French rated as having a capacity to receive and care for twenty thousand troops a month, a quarter of a million a year. Yet America touched it and in a single day more than forty thousand soldiers were landed and placed in comfortable quarters, with injury to none. I asked the American in command what the capacity of the port really was and he re- plied that it had no limit, that all who came would be landed and cared for as rapidly as ships could steam into the bay. On this great day the air was electric. Boats in the roadstead hoisted anchor and moved to the side of the channel or to the inner harbor. A tug plowed a drunken course before the harbor en- trance, trailing a sausage balloon which swung a thousand feet above it. A dirigible buzzed from its hangar and glided like a monster chrysalis toward the open sea. I stood enraptured, mystified, wondering what plan or purpose lay behind, wondering whose was the mind directing all this movement. Even as I mused a cloud of smoke stained the sky between the headlands of the narrow entrance to the harbor. The cloud increased until through my glasses I made out the outlines of a fleet. It steered straight on, but in half an hour I marked the zigzag dashes 52 Blue Stars and Gold of the nimble destroyers as they darted around the mighty vessels they protected. Then I understood : America was soon to add yet another evidence that her just demand for a safe world to live in is to be pursued until it is attained. I saw the ships come in, each like a king bearing a royal gift, each humbly proud to have a part in that thing which is to make the world anew. I saw the ships come in, each swinging to its berth like a well-drilled soldier, each dropping anchor and haw- ser in the spot directed by the admiral. The dirigible buzzed back to its bed. The tug and its great eye in the sky plied back and forth before the harbor's mouth. The destroyers, like tired hounds, found their place of rest behind the mole. No whistles blew, no bells sounded, no flags were hoisted to bid welcome to the priceless argosy of souls from overseas. But they were wel- come ! O, they were welcome ! A flash went un- der the seas, a message reached Paris and London and Rome, the word touched hamlet and city and farm, and a world in the throes of a new birth thanked God and was encouraged. I saw the surging masses on the ships, heard the sound of voices like the noise of falling waters, caught the marching song of farewell to America and greeting to France. Chains rattled, the gang- way descended and khaki-colored streams of life poured itself upon the soil of France. Every ship yielded its precious cargo, either directly upon the quay or into the waiting barges, and as the sons of Our Boys at Sea 53 the great republic felt the firm touch of the old world beneath their feet, they cheered, shouted, sang, making varied and marvelous sounds of joy. I saw the boys march by. They were boys from my own sweet home-land and a great pride moved me to tears. I was proud of my country, proud of those valiant sons, infinitely proud of the cause which made them proud to do the thing that they were doing. I saw the French folk crowd the parapet to see my country-men — women and children and a few old men. Tears which they hid when their own sons died flowed unrebuked from thankful eyes. I do not know why they did so, but under the im- pulse many joined hands and in a silence that was reverent they beheld the invasion of their land by armed men of whom they had no fear, by fighting men whose word they trusted as they would the promises of Holy Writ. That was the way it looked to an American, standing there and seeing the first of the American troops disembark. And how did it seem to the French? It thrilled them to hear Pershing at the tomb of our noble French friend, — u La Fayette, we are here I" It thrilled the people of France who had watched for us with sad eyes. I have read somewhere that as the stars and stripes passed down the street on the arrival of our 54 Blue Stars and Gold boys in France, little children kneeled in the street and offered prayer at the sight. (Why so patient, standing there, Edouard, and small Pierre, Georges, Yvette, and Marie-Claire?) "When the troops come marching by," (Quoth the small Pierre) "Mother, wilt thou lift me high, That we may see them, thou and I?" "Mother, are they fair to see?" (A busy tongue — Pierre) "Have they little boys like me, Left at home across the sea?" (Alas! Alas! Pierre.) "Mother, we have waited long;" (Long indeed, Pierre!) "The sun has grown so hot and strong — Surely none has done them wrong?" (God forbid! Pierre.) "Mother, who did send them here?" (The gift of GOD, Pierre.) "But then there is no need of fear, And on thy cheek I see a tear." (The tears of hope, Pierre.) Our Boys at Sea 55 Down the boulevard a cry — A bugle note is flung on high — The Stars and Stripes are passing by! "The gift of GOD," quoth small Pierre; His hat on breast, his curls all bare, He knelt upon the pavement there. (Five young children kneeling there — Georges, Yvette, and Marie-Claire, Edouard and small Pierre.) Fairest flag of Liberty, Carrying hope across the sea — A little child has hallowed thee, And made of thee a prayer! IN THE MIDST OF THEM by Margaret Bell Merrill They will receive honor those boys of ours in France, and they will deserve it. But let us not forget to honor those who take them thither in the transports, and those in the destroyers who guard them, and those who sweep the sea of its murderous mines, facing the maximum of peril with the minimum of glory. Our boys at sea are doing more than conquer the murderous submarine. They are making safe for future generations the highways of the world. Moreover, they are winning back for America her 56 Blue Stars and Gold proud heritage of mastery of the waves. Well may we pray for our boys : From rock and tempest, fire and foe, Protect them wheresoe'er they go. They are carrying the flag at the masthead and over the stern of vessels from which it will never be hauled down. We are conquering the sea again for America and humanity. The Call of the Sea By John Jerome Rooney We shall go down to the sea in ships, We shall retake the salt waves' wage; After the moil of the sleepless shops, We shall reclaim our heritage. Long, too long, have our eyes been set On the restless marts and the toil of the fields; Long, too long, have our hearts forgot The harvest the wild fume yields. Our viking fathers dared the deeps Where the fabled monsters lay in wait — Followed the star to the dim world's verge And charted the utmost strait. Over the pathless waves they fared, Down thro' the fierce Barbados' wrack; Up where the frozen mountains tower And bar the sailor's track. They trusted well their ships of oak To match the hurricane's toss and reel — Hearts of oak more stout than their ships. And we trust our hearts of steel ! 57 58 Blue Stars and Gold Our ocean mother we run to greet — Return again to her wide, sweet arms, To cradle our heads on her heaving breast And cure our fever harms. For it is not good to forget the sea, Mother of strong, undaunted men, Mother of bounty, mother of health, We shall come back again ! We shall go down to the sea in ships, We shall retake the salt waves' wage; After the moil of the shops and fields We shall reclaim our heritage. The starry flag that lit the deeps, When the greyhound clipper roamed the world, Shall light again the Seven Seas And never shall be furl'd ! THE MAN WHO HAD LOST A SON My friend of many years came back on business to the city where he had formerly lived, and re- mained for several days. He did not call on me. He never has failed before. Even when his visits were shorter and his busi- ness more urgent than I suppose to have been the case this time, he has always come to see me, or if that was impossible, he has telephoned. This time he did neither. Nor did he call on any of his other old friends. I know the reason. He is heart-broken. He has lost a son in the war. I have known the young man since he was a prattling little lad. He was a boy of promise, and his father had great pride in him. He has gone ; he is lost. His father dared not face his friends and answer their questions about his family. He came to the city, did his business, kept in his hotel when he was not otherwise engaged, and left on a night train. 59 60 Blue Stars and Gold He has lost his boy in the war. The young man is not dead. He is alive in South America. He escaped into Mexico, was smuggled aboard a coasting steamer, and is alive and well in South America. He ran away to escape the draft. He lives to-day, a man without a country. And his father has lost his son. Other fathers wear little rectangular pins with blue stars displayed on them. They love their sons as this man loves his son, and they miss their sons as he misses his. Their blue stars may turn to gold. Their boys may be shot on the battlefield or be lost at sea. My friend's son is safe, and the father is shamed. When the war is over, other men will have heads whitened with anxiety and perhaps with sorrow, but they will hold them high in holy pride. But my friend will have no share in their pride and his sorrow will be incurable. Your son has gone to the colors? He is serv- ing his country "over there"? You have not lost him. You cannot lose him. If he dies, he will be- long to you, and to the immortality of good. But my friend with his living son safe in South America will have a bitter grief which has nothing in common with yours. You have not lost your son. Kipling has a poem entitled "The Mary Glos- The Man Who Had Lost a Son 61 ter" which tells of that saddest of all sorrows, the sorrow of a father who had lost a son, and lost him hopelessly. Sir Anthony Gloster was dying. He had begun life as a common sailor, and had risen till he was a millionaire, the owner of thirty-eight merchant ships, and a worthless son. Sir Anthony wanted to be buried in his own way. He had a marble tomb, a fine family vault, but what was a family vault to a man who had no family, or worse than none? He wanted to be buried at sea beside his wife; and he feared that if he left it to his son, it would not be done. So he made a plan by which it was certain that his wishes were to be carried out. He made it to his son's interest to do as he was told. There were to be $25,000 for him if he did it, over and above what the will provided. He was to take one of his father's ships, the "Mary Gloster," named for his mother, Sir An- thony's dead wife, and sail her to the very spot where Mary Gloster herself was buried, and there sink her. The old chief engineer McAndrews was in the secret, and would help carry out the plan : He'll take the Mary in ballast — you'll find her a lively ship; And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 'is wedding trip, 62 Blue Stars and Gold Lashed in our old deck-cabin, with all three portholes wide, The kick o' the screw beneath him, and the round blue seas outside! He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleet- in' show, And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom, the same as he ought to go. It was to be an extravagant coffin, a perfectly good ship; but that was the ship that his dead wife helped to earn, the ship that was named for her, the ship on which she died. That was the ship that was to be sunk where her body was slid off the grating in far-off Macassar Strait. Sir Anthony knew that his son Dick would chafe under the necessity of carrying out his father's wishes, but that he would do it for the cash : "And Mac'll pay you the money, as soon as the bubbles break." Sir Anthony had pictured it all in his mind. McAndrews would be sure of the place, near the heel of the Little Paternoster Islands, at Longi- tude 118 East and Latitude just 3 South. He would slow up, and stop the engines, and draw the fires, and open the bilge-cocks: Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold, And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty hold— The Man Who Had Lost a Son 63 Churning and choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and dark — Full to her lower hatches, and rising steady — Hark! That was her after bulkhead! She's flooded from stem to stern! Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn! Sir Anthony Gloster was no saint, as the poem shows plainly, but he was a man. And now the sting of death to him was that his son was worthless. The things I knew was proper, you wouldn't thank me to give ; And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live. For my son 'e was never a credit ; he muddled with books and art; And 'e lived on Sir Anthony's money, and 'e broke Sir An- thony's heart. There isn't even a grandchild, and the Gloster family's done — The only one you left me, O mother, the only one ! Harrer and Trinity College, me slavin' early and late, An' he thinks I'm dying crazy, and you're in Macassar Strait! It is men like this who have really lost their sons. You and I, whose boys have lived clean and worthy lives, and now are risking them for the service of God and humanity — we have not lost them. And whatever happens, we shall not lose them. THE STARS IN OUR FLAG The use of flags is very ancient. In the Song of Solomon we find the question, "Who is she that cometh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with ban- ners?" In the splendid wars of the Maccabees, the Hebrews who were fighting for liberty and righteousness carried banners bearing the initial letters of the words, "Who is like unto Thee, O Jehovah, among the gods?" Down through the ages of warfare the flag has been a picturesque feature of the battle. It seemed, however, as if this might not have continued indefinitely. Thirty years ago an Eng- lishman, writing in the Cornhill Magazine, spoke of the disappearance of the flag from the battle- field: Nowadays we have no flag to speak of in any other than the decorative shape. If to-morrow we were to fight with France, we doubt if throughout the whole campaign one solitary union would be visible. Soon there will be no more colors hanging in 64 The Stars in Our Flag 65 cathedral aisles, for, nowadays, they are never ven- tured near the fight, are indeed stored at home long before the fighting begins, and war, which has so fast been losing its pomp and pageantry, loses in its colors one feature the more. During the whole of the fighting in the Sudan, the only touch of bunt- ing visible was the small red flag carried by a mili- tary policeman after the general, to let the staff know his whereabouts. The flag has largely disappeared from the bat- tlefield, but it would not be safe to infer that it has no future in fighting. There is little danger that Americans will cease to carry their flag with all their armies. It will go wherever the American army and navy go, and it will go victoriously. Splendid and strong as the call of the mountain, Brilliant and fresh as the song of the sea; High on the ramparts of morning she's floating, Emblem of Liberty! Glorious! Free! Over broad fields of grain she is flying, Snowy-starred peaks and the grand canon's roar; Over the languorous palm and the pine tree, Flag of the Nation! Long, long, may she soar! Dazzling in color, rare vision of beauty, Matchless her bars as the high crimsoned East, Purest the field of her blue whence her starlings Sing to the breeze of the rights of the least! 66 Blue Stars and Gold Wonderful markings of ivory unsullied Echo triumphantly Man stands for Man, Throughout the breadth of our entire dominion! Honor alone is the test of the Man! Radiant symbol of Love universal, Down through the ages with majesty wave! Bearing aloft on thy beautiful pinions Ideals undimmed to the souls of the brave! Torch to the minds of the men of the Nation! Lamp to the hearts of the mothers of men! Wave! That the vision of Justice may never Fade from the vision of women and men! Born of much travail, behold her resplendent! Kissing the breeze where the Cavalier trod ; Treading the winds where the bold Dutchman traded, And the stanch Puritan bent but to God. Gracefully waving over Huguenot, Quaker, Negro and Peasant and Indian brave; Over the land of the Humane! The Mighty! America's Beauty! Long, long may she wave! THE FLAG by Elaine Darling. We do not know certainly who first proposed the use of the star in our flag. It was a new idea in heraldry. It is thought to have been suggested by the stars on the Washington coat of arms, but this is uncertain. There were stars on the model which George The Stars in Our Flag 67 Washington took to Betsy Ross in 1776. She knew how to cut out a five-pointed star with a single cut of the shears, which is one reason why our flag has stars of five points instead of six. The first official flag displayed over Washing- ton's headquarters on January 1, 1776, had stripes but no stars. This little union jack had the tradi- tional crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, and was allowed to hold its place for some weeks or months. But by the time George Washington and Betsy Ross had their memorable meeting, there was no talk of a cross in the field of blue; Betsy was instructed to cut out thirteen of her five- pointed stars. Those are noble lines of Joseph Rodman Drake : When Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her banner to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there ! The star was a new thing in a flag. But how wonderfully appropriate ! What a constellation that little group of thirteen stars made when it first sought fellowship with the stars above and the nations of the earth ! And how far more glorious now, when the number is more than trebled ! In the national banner every star represents a sovereign State. But in the service flag, every star is a Son. Our Service Flag Arthur M. Corwin With field of white, with stars of blue, With binding band of ruddy hue, Fair emblem of a nation's pride, "Old Glory's" symbols sanctified, Our loyalty that shall not lag We pledge to thee, our Service Flag. From windows of the rich and poor, The spirit streaming warm and pure, The spirit of great Washington, Speaks through a thousand stars or one Of loyalty that shall not lag, Our pledge to thee, oh, Service Flag. Enmeshed within thy field of white, The righteous cause for which we fight, Of justice, honor, liberty The whole world round o'er land and sea; The loyalty that shall not lag We pledge to thee, our Service Flag. 68 Our Service Flag 69 The stars! The blue of cloudless skies, The blue of love, of sacrifice, Of love for country, home and friend, That soldier-sailor boys defend With loyalty that shall not lag, The "true blues" of our Service Flag. Red runs the border of thy scroll, The flaming passion of the soul, The will, the courage and the might Of those who live and die for right, The loyalty that shall not lag To back thy boys, oh, Service Flag. NEW STARS Now and then new stars appear in the heavens. It is not known how they occur, but the prevalent theory is that they rise out of the collision of two solar systems. Out of the crash a new solar system springs into being. Such a star appeared early in June, 191 8, in the eastern sky and, if Americans are interested in the fact, it was in the constellation of the Eagle. It attained a brilliance equal to that of the planet Jupiter, but it faded rapidly, and the astronomers are watching its gradual disappearance. Keppler discovered such a star in 1604, and the most carefully studied of these new stars was Nova Persei, which ap- peared in 1901. The thing which astronomers are sure about is that these new stars occur at such distance from us that what we see of their sudden flare-up really occurred a hundred, or two hundred, or ten hun- dred years ago, and it has taken all that time for the light to reach us. 70 New Stars 71 Some people think that the Star of Bethlehem was a Nova of this character, and that its lighting up of the sky in the year when Jesus was born, was the birth of a new solar system somewhere in the sky, as it was of new hope in our own world. We do not know very much about that. But this present war has given birth to a new star, the star of the Service Flag. That is the most brilliant of the Novae. Every one wants to know about the status of the service flag. Is it official? Has any one decided just who may display it, and for whom ? Should the star of a dead soldier be black or gold? What should be the use of the star for wounded and invalid soldiers? The service flag is not official. Official adop- tion of such an emblem has been discussed in Con- gress, but no action has ever been taken. The Adjutant General of the United States Army, how- ever, has indorsed as correct a memorandum by Lieut. Col. Nathan William MacChesney, Judge Advocate, N. A., Central Department, which gives the status, so to speak, of the service flag and tells its proper use. It has therefore, to quote Lieut. Col. MacChesney, a "semi-official place. It was Lieut. Col. MacChesney who recommended the 72 Blue Stars and Gold use of gold and silver stars on the flag. He says: It has been decided that, on these flags, a blue star shall represent those in the military or naval service of the United States, a silver star those wounded or invalided home from overseas, with a gold star superimposed for those who die as the re- sult of such wounds or disease, and a gold star alone for those killed in action. A short time ago Lieut. Col. MacChesney re- ceived a letter suggesting that a service flag pin with a gold star for a member of one's family killed in action be worn in lieu of mourning. He replied: Considerable thought has been given to this mat- ter. In England the wearing of mourning has been discouraged on the ground that it has a depressing effect, though it is generally seen on the Continent. It has been finally decided, after conference with those interested in the subject, to have those who have been killed in action represented on the serv- ice flag with a gold star, and to use a silver star to represent those who have been wounded or in- valided home, superimposing a gold star in the event of death resulting from such wound or dis- ability. Your suggestion, therefore, is in accord- ance with the above and would seem to be an ap- propriate one. When the recommendation of a gold star was made for men killed in action and of a silver star New Stars 73 for men wounded, the question of those disabled by disease remained to be settled. Early in May Colonel MacChesney was asked whether a man who had been discharged from the service because of heart trouble brought on by the intensive train- ing of the military camp was entitled to be repre- sented in the service flag by a silver star. He re- plied: There has been some talk also of recognizing with a silver star those who have been invalided home, as well as those wounded. This, however, has not been definitely determined as yet. The Gov- ernment provides a special chevron for those who have been wounded in action, but does not provide any such special distinction for those who become unfit because of disease. Some feel that the silver star on the flag should be limited to cases entitled to official recognition by the Government through the wound chevron. Others feel that those who have been invalided home, if they are to be repre- sented by the silver star, should at least have un- dergone some of the hazards of war, in addition to the mere training at home. It would seem, there- fore, that until a further ruling is made on the subject the particular case inquired about should not be represented by a silver star, but that, if per- sons who are invalided home are to be represented, they should only be those who are invalided home from overseas or from wounds. 74 Blue Stars and Gold The silver star for men invalided home from overseas, as well as those actually wounded, has now been generally recognized. Lieut. Col. MacChesney's first memorandum on the use of service flags was published in The Offi- cial Bulletin, Jan. 21. After stating that the flag was authorized and its use encouraged, though not officially adopted, the memorandum continued: The idea of the service flag is that there shall be a star to represent each person from the family, place of business, club or other entity, serving with the colors. There recently has been some indica- tion that this is being abused. Where the service flag is hung in the window of a home it should rep- resent only members of the family from such im- mediate household, and not employes, domestic or otherwise. Where it is hung from a place of busi- ness it should represent employes going from such place of business, and where presumably, some con- tinuous relation exists and there is an expectation of return to the employment. . . . In the case of a flag flown by a household, repre- sentation by a star of a husband, son, father or brother may properly be allowed even though such person did not actually leave from that household directly to go into the service, but in case of any more distant relatives, they should actually be mem- bers of the household where the flag is displayed and should have left for the service directly from such household. IS MY BOY A MURDERER? You may resent this question, but it is one that you have asked yourself, and so I am going to answer it. A people nurtured through successive genera- tions in the ideals, and deeply immersed in the arts and industries, of peace, finding itself in the midst of a war that taxes all its resources and monopolizes its interests, may go unthinkingly into the conflict, shouting such battle cries as have been taught to it, and asking no questions of right or wrong. But that is not the way America has been taught. A nation such as this, founded on the right and duty of the people to think, must reckon at every step with the people's conscience. To you and me the supreme question is a moral one. It is not even the question whether these boys of ours are coming back, though God knows we ask that question, too. The supreme question for us, as it affects our homes, is the influence of 75 76 Blue Stars and Gold this war upon the moral character of those who are dearer to us than life. Of its relation to their chastity and sobriety, I speak elsewhere. It is good to know that our Government is concerned with this problem. A few days ago I heard the Secretary of the Navy say, "This Government believes that men who are to shoot straight must live straight; and we count it one of our first duties to protect the boys of our army and our navy from demoralizing influences." They are as well protected as our Government knows how to protect them. But this is not what I mean just now. I am not thinking about the temptations incident to camp life. I am thinking of the influence of war itself on the moral character of our American boys. They were nurtured amid the ideals of peace. Suddenly as if they had gone to sleep on earth and wakened in hell, they are placed where it is their daily duty to think of killing men. How can this make them other than murderers at heart? I have visited these boys in their camps, and to me it has been an intolerable thought that these boys should go forth with only the ideals of hate and bloodshed. I have wished to assure myself that they were something else than shedders of blood. It was not the motive of murder that carried Is My Boy a Murderer ? 77 us into the war. But will the war make murderers out of us all? If it makes murderers out of our boys, it will make murderers of us all. That is sure. If it is wicked to point a gun toward the German trenches and pull the trigger, it is just as wrong to buy a Liberty Bond. Whatever the moral aspect of the war, it is not confined to our boys. We are accessories before the fact and after. The moral responsibility is not theirs alone. There come to men and nations, and that by divine appointment, crises in which it becomes nec- essary to choose among courses of conduct no one of which is in itself desirable. Of such choices there is always one that ought to be made, and but one; and because it ought to be made, that course in these circumstances is right. Not to choose that course is sin, and to choose it is meri- torious. However undesirable that course might be in itself, chosen in its relation to other possible courses of conduct it is right, and the only right course. The time came to America when it had to choose whether to go to war, which it did not desire to do, and which selfishly speaking it had good reason not to do, or whether it should become by its inertia, its love of wealth, and its moral detach- ment from the rest of the world in the day of its 78 Blue Stars and Gold desolation, an accessory in the perpetration of shameful wrongs that threatened the very founda- tions of our civilization. Confronted by that alternative, America made her choice. Not lightly or boastfully, not in the heat of passion, but with a terrible deliberation, with an awe-inspiring calmness of soul, America decided to cast herself into the hands of God rather than into the hands of men, and to suffer affliction with the bleeding world rather than enjoy the profits of the great refusal. There are those to whom this course appeals only as a choice of evils; but a sound ethical phil- osophy cannot rest there. If it was our duty to do it, then the thing which it was our duty to do was not evil. It is never evil to do one's duty. If the thing ought to be done, then not to do it is a sin, and to do it is not only not sin, but is meri- torious. More than that, it is imperative duty. To hold to anything short of this is to confess one's inability to think through a problem of practical conduct to a moral solution. I dwell on this because it goes to the very core of the question of right and wrong in the course we have chosen. We cannot rest till we have as- sured ourselves that we are acting in accordance with sound ethical principles. We must fight with our consciences speaking their word of approval, or we cannot fight at all. If we are sure we are Is My Boy a Murderer f 79 right, then, and not otherwise, we can go straight forward. For myself, I have tried to think this matter through, as sanely and calmly as I knew how. Hating war as I do, I believe that in the situation that confronted us in April, 19 17, we had no moral right not to go to war. I believe, furthermore, that having gone to war when we did, and as we did, we have an imperative duty now to press the war to a completely successful issue. The laws of the land in which we live hold every man responsible, not only for the acts which he performs, but for those which he might prevent and does not. Every man in a republic is a moral guardian of the public peace. If a man sees a murder or a theft or an arson, and sees it in time to have prevented it, and does not do so, the law says that that man is an accessory before the fact. In the family of nations every nation is re- sponsible for the use it makes or fails to make of its power. The principle is precisely that which Jesus set forth in the matter of the healing of the man on the Sabbath, namely, that to fail to do good when good needs to be done and there is power to do it, is to do evil, and that to neglect to save life is to destroy it. Not even the Sabbath was too sacred for the saving of life. America is responsible, not only for the good she may do, but for the evil she may prevent. 80 Blue Stars and Gold Edgar A. Guest has well interpreted this sense of responsibility which America feels in the pre- vention of wrong: This is the thing we fight: A cry of terror in the night; A ship on work of mercy bent — A carrier of the sick and maimed — Beneath the cruel waters sent, And those that did it, unashamed. A woman who had tried to fill A mother's place; had nursed the ill And soothed the troubled brows of pain And earned the dying's grateful prayers, Before a wall by soldiers slain! And such a poor pretext was theirs! All this we fight — that some day when Good sense shall come again to men, Our children's children may not read This age's history thus defamed And find we served a selfish creed And ever be of us ashamed! WHY WE FIGHT by Edgar A. Guest. If I see a murderer, armed and mad with liquor, trying to kill his wife, the law does not say to me that it is my duty to stop him if I can do it without Is My Boy a Murderer 1 81 hurting him. Under such conditions it is my duty to stop his effort to murder his wife, even if I hurt him very badly — even if I endanger my own life. The law says that if I stand by and let him murder his wife for fear I might hurt him, I am partly guilty of the murder he commits. The laws of God and man hold me responsible for the good that I am able to do and the evil which I am able to prevent. As between the drunken murderer and his victim, the law will not give ear to my plea of neutrality. America was at that point where, not to prevent murder and atrocity, was to assume a share of the guilt of it. And if it was America's duty to stop that iniquity, then it was your boy's duty and my boy's duty to risk life and limb in the effort to stop it. And it is your duty and mine to uphold the effort of America and her allies with our strong sympa- thies and our prayers and to believe that we are in the right. No ; your boy is not a murderer. He is a knight errant, set out on a holy adventure for the sake of righteousness and true chivalry. God send him good success 1 WILL MY BOY RETURN TO ME? I wish I could tell you, dear friend, whether your boy who has gone to serve his country will return to you alive and well. I earnestly hope so. But if you knew and he knew that he was to return safely, it would materially reduce the heroism of the sacrifice. It is the element of uncertainty that makes the venture heroic. But there are some words of comfort to be said, among them this, that the big guns are lifesavers, and that war with all its desolation steadily grows safer. Captain Johnson, in his book, "Arms and the Race," which is based on statistics prior to the present war, shows that fighting is less dangerous as weapons grow more powerful and precise. The loss per thousand men per fighting hour has stead- ily diminished since the invention of gunpowder and the improved methods of using it. If two men are armed with knives, and set to fight to a de- cision, it is likely that one will be dead and the other badly wounded in less than i\ve minutes. But if 82 Will My Boy Return to Me? 83 those two men are armed with accurate rifles and placed in trenches facing each other, they may shoot at each other all winter and both be alive in the spring. But the losses in this present war, are they not more appalling than in any previous war? Yes, because more men are actively engaged. In a re- cent article in Leslie's, Mr. Conklin Mann said: The vast number of men under arms in Europe and the mighty proportions of the military opera- tions are responsible for a widespread belief that the battle casualties of the war are far greater than those of any other war. The total number killed unquestionably staggers the imagination and far surpasses the number in previous wars, but the best available information points to a lower proportion- ate death rate than in any previous struggle. Far fewer English, French and Russian soldiers, in pro- portion to the number under arms, are falling than fell when Napoleon turned Europe into a camp over a hundred years ago. So, too, are the proportionate losses smaller than when the North and South fought it out for four bitter years. It is not con- ceivable that America's losses in Europe will come anywhere near equaling those in the War Between the States. M. Andre Tardieu, French High Commissioner to the United States, recently showed that the armies of to-day are suffering smaller losses in pro- 84 Blue Stars and Gold portion to their size than the armies of other wars, and among the armies of the Allies the losses are steadily decreasing. He gave these figures concerning the French army: PER CENT OF CASUALTIES IN PROPORTION TO MOBILIZED STRENGTH Battles of Charleroi and of the Marne 5.41 First 6 months of 1915 2.39 Second 6 months of 19 15 1.68 First 6 months of 1 9 1 6 1 .47 Second 6 months of 19 16 1.28 Mr. Roger Babson, the statistician, said recently after an exhaustive investigation of the statistics of the first three years of the war : Fourteen men out of every fifteen have been safe so far. Under present conditions, where man power is being saved, not more than one in thirty is killed. Only one man in five hundred loses a limb, a chance no greater than in hazardous con- ditions at home. If we are to give the devil his due, this may be said in justice to war — that some of the young men who die in battle would have died at home. This proportion must in fairness be deducted from the gross losses of war. Mr. Luther B. Little, presi- Will My Boy Eeturn to Me? 85 dent of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- pany, says : The war registration showed that there are in round numbers 10,000,000 men between the ages of 21 and 31 in the United States, and the average death rate among these in time of peace is 8 per 1,000. It sounds like a calamity to say that among the young men of America between 21 and 31, 80,000 will die in a year. It is a terrible thing, but it is the condition that prevails in time of peace. If the entire 10,000,000 men who are regis- tered went to the war, the list of deaths during the first year would be sickening when decorated with headlines in the newspapers. The actuaries' table shows that 80,000 of them would drop out one by one if they remained at home. "War is hell" in its casualties, but less than four in a hundred, on the average, die for their country. Mr. Walter R. Malone, president of the Postal Life Insurance Company, says : American soldiers go to the battle-front under the most advantageous circumstances. They are being taught all that the Allies have learned in their years of war, and they are equipped with the latest weapons and devices for offensive and defensive fighting. If preparation counts, casualties will fall even lower than the figures for the French army. 86 Blue Stars and Gold In an article published in the Economic World, of August 4, 19 1 7, Miles M. Dawson gives as the total death rate among the 2,000,000 men insured by the London Prudential who have been in the present war, as 30 per 1,000, per annum. And he estimates that the ordinary death rate among those policyholders in time of peace was at least 10 per 1,000, per annum. There is, therefore, very much more than an even chance that your boy will come back to you. God send him back well and clean and victorious. It would appear that while war has terrible hazards, they are not more than three times as great as the hazards of normal life in peace. War is not a safe game; neither is football; neither is farming; neither is running an automobile. Being alive is dangerous, and being in war is more danger- ous, but not so much more dangerous as some people suppose. OUR WAR AGAINST WAR Let us keep this steadily before our minds all the while we are fighting — that we are not fighting for war, but for peace. We hate war, and that is why we went to war. We love peace, and that is why we are fighting. Thomas Carlyle wrote a paragraph about war in his "Sartor Resartus" which embodies not only the fine sarcasm of that crabbed old Scotchman, but the kernel of good common sense : What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and upshot of war ? To my own knowl- edge, for example, there dwell and toil in the British village of Dumdrudge usually some five hun- dred souls. From these, by certain "Natural Ene- mies" of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood and even trained 87 88 Blue Stars and Gold them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected, all dressed in red, and shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or, say, only to the south of Spain, and thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending : till, at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition, and thirty stands fronting thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word "Fire!" is given; and they blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty brisk, use- ful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were en- tire strangers ; nay, in so wide a Universe there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then ? Simpleton ! Their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, they had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. Alas! so it is in the Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; still as of old, what deviltry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper! In that fiction of the English Smollet, it is true, the final cessation of war is per- haps prophetically shadowed forth ; where the two "Natural Enemies" in person take each a tobacco- Our War Against War 89 pipe filled with brimstone, light the same, and smoke in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in ; but from such predicted Peace Era, what blood-filled trenches, and contentious centuries, may still divide us! John Ruskin also had something to say about war, and although he said it less trenchantly than Carlyle, he expressed himself quite as truly. He could be as crabbed as his Scotch neighbor and was often as one-sided and dogmatic, but in this quota- tion from "Unto This Last," he has gone to the heart of that which lifts the soldier to honor in the eyes of the world. It is this that he brings out — that the soldier offers himself not only to kill, but to be killed : Philosophically, it does not at first sight appear reasonable (many writers have endeavored to prove it unreasonable) that a peaceable and rational per- son, whose trade is buying and selling, should be held in less honor than an unpeaceable and often irrational person, w T hose trade is slaying. Neverthe- less, the consent of mankind has always, in spite of the philosophers, given precedence to the soldier. And this is right. For the soldier's trade, verily and essentially, is not slaying, but being slain. This, without well knowing its own meaning, the world honors it for. A bravo's trade is slaying ; but the world has never 90 Blue Stars and Gold respected bravos more than merchants : the reason it honors the soldier is because he holds his life at the service of the state. Reckless he may be — fond of pleasure or of adventure — all kinds of by-motives and mean impulses may have determined the choice of his profession, and may affect (to all appear- ance, exclusively) his daily conduct in it; but our estimate of him is based on this ultimate fact — of which we are well assured — that, put him in a fortress breach, with all the pleasures of the world behind him, and only death and his duty in front of him, he will keep his face to the front; and he knows that this choice may be put to him at any moment, and has beforehand taken his part — virtually takes such part continually — does, in reality, die daily. But when we take Ruskin's word of just praise for the soldier and put it over against Carlyle's irony and scorn of his incredible folly, have we made war any the less terrible? Not if we have any sense. War is just that much more terrible in that it utilizes this noblest quality of sacrificial devotion, and knows no better form of utilization than to shoot it down on the battlefield. No, no. War is wicked. It is foolish. Let no pride of our soldiers ever make us proud of war. We are ashamed before God and humanity that Our War Against War 91 we had to go to war. We are proud only of this one thing — that when the time came that we had to go to war, the manhood of our nation did not flinch from the test. Let us fight this war through to victory. And let it be the world's last great war. We cannot afford to fight gently. The most wicked thing we now could do would be to enter this war feebly. The hour has come to strike, and the hour has come to strike hard. To go into this war cautiously, with small forces and a purpose to strike mild blows, would be bloody murder. If we want a short war, we must prepare for a long one. If we want to save life, we must strike hard. We must fight this war to a finish if we love peace. And because we are fighting, not merely to win this war but to end all war, let us not cease till we see it through. See It Through By Edgar A. Guest There are many to cheer when the battle begins, There are many to shout for the right ; There are many to rail at the world and its sin, But few have the grit for the fight. There are thousands to start with a rush for the fray When the fighting seems easy to do, But when danger is present and rough is the way, The few have to see the job through. It is easy to quit with a battle unwon, It is hard to press on to success; It is easy to stop with a purpose undone, It is hard to encounter distress. And many will march when the roadway is clear And the glorious goal is in view, But the many, too often, when dangers appear, Aren't willing to see the fight through. They weaken in spirit when trials grow great, They flinch at the clashing of steel; They talk of the strength of the foe at the gate And whine at the hurts that they feel. 92 See It Through 93 They begin to regret having ventured for right, They sigh that they dared to be true, They haven't the heart they once had for the fight, They don't want to see the job through. We have set out to battle for justice and truth, We have fearful disasters to meet; We shall weep for the best of our manliest youth, We shall suffer the pangs of defeat. But let us stand firm for the cause that we plead, Let the many be brave with the few ; The cry of the quitter let none of us heed Till we've done what we started to do. CAN WE FIGHT WITHOUT HATRED? Some of the graces of personal and national life are best promoted under the inspiration of peace. It will be a glad day for the world when wars cease and nations beat their swords into plowshares. But that day has not yet come. It belongs to us to cultivate now those strong elements in character which grow out of the conditions of conflict. Life is a soldier's battle. Courage and patriotism call for a devotion for which men must sometimes die. It belongs to us to find those qualities of soul which can be cultivated in the conditions which our nation is facing. Can we fight effectively without hatred? Can we go to war and still obey the royal law of love? It will be difficult. War thrives on hatred, and that is one of the worst facts about it. Nations have fought largely because of their lust for ter- ritory, or their hatred of each other. Can America go to war and keep her heart free from the corro- sion of hate? 94 Can We Fight Without Hatred! 95 If we are to fight without hatred and yet fight effectively it will need to be because we hold clearly in mind some high and altruistic ideal, which our conflict is waged to strengthen. We must find a substitute for hatred in a larger love. We must seek a nobler motive than that of territorial con- quest in our conviction that we are fighting the bat- tle of humanity. Not solely or even chiefly for the protection of our commerce, nor even solely for the upholding of our national honor, do we fight, but that human rights may be secure and the liber- ties of all men made larger. So long as small na- tions are in peril of invasion by large ones under plea of military necessity; so long as citizens of neutral nations are liable to destruction without warning by the deliberate act of nations at war; so long as humanity is compelled to struggle on its upward path, weighed down by the heavy cross of militarism and autocratic despotism, there will be something which humanity may and ought to fight for. For two and a half years America kept out of the conflict and hoped and prayed that she might continue to keep out, but the battle now is on. We are fighting not for greed or hatred but for the heritage of humanity. There are times when the plowshare must be beaten back into a sword again, and this is one of the times. We are fighting not alone for our country and 96 Blue Stars and Gold our flag; we are fighting also for the rights of all the children of men. Can we fight without hatred ? Can we wage suc- cessful warfare and at the same time love our enemies? It will not be easy to do so, but it is not impossible. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant did not hate the men against whom they fought; and out of that war, which no foreign nation forced upon us, we emerged a free and united nation. When we went into Cuba, we did not hate the Spaniards. William McKinley loved his enemies, and Captain Jack Philip restrained his men in the moment of victory out of sympathy for his conquered and dying foes. Our marines marched with those of the European nations from the coast to Peking to rescue our ambassador and our missionaries at the time of the Boxer outbreak. We did not hate the Chinese but gave them back the indemnity to which we were entitled. We have learned, measurably, how to fight without hatred. This present war will put a far greater strain upon us in that regard. Let us pray God not only for a victory over those whom we must fight, but for that greater conquest which is the mastery of our own spirit. God has lessons to teach us as well as other nations. Let us be ready to learn those lessons. And let us be sure what we are fighting for. Not for territory. Germany does not own a foot of soil that we covet. Not for indemnity. Germany is Can We Fight Without Hatred? 97 an impoverished nation, and we do not need her money, and if she could pay it, we would much pre- fer that she should pay it to Belgium. Not for revenge, and not for glory. I do not believe either of these have entered into our motives as a nation. We are fighting for nothing less than the in- herent rights of mankind. We are fighting to re- buke the affirmation that treaties are to be regarded as scraps of paper. We are fighting to disprove the alleged right of large nations to gain their place in the sun at the expense of small nations' place on the map. We are fighting for the freedom of the seas. We are fighting for the sanctity of the soil. We are fighting that the world may rise above the wicked and cruel despotism that now crushes it, from the load of armament and wasteful taxation that now overburdens it, to the enjoyment of an abiding peace that is based upon righteousness and international justice. We have a righteous cause, an unselfish cause, a cause worth sacrifice and de- votion. We are fighting for the heritage of humanity. THE RELIGION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD I have friends who cannot make themselves be- lieve that war is ever right. I honor these good people, and I could almost be one of them. Almost, but not quite. Difficult as it for me to bring myself to favor war, I believe that there are times when a nation has no moral right to shirk that duty. Some of these good people have been telling me that they believe in the religion of Jesus, the religion of the Good Shepherd. I also believe in that re- ligion, and I think I know better than some of my friends appear to know, what that religion is. No figure in the New Testament took earlier or firmer hold on the imagination of the church than that of the Good Shepherd. It has been said that for the first three centuries, before creeds had reached the point of fixed definition, the religion of the church was the religion of the Good Shepherd. He was all that was good. But the Good Shepherd was something more than a gentle bearer of lambs. He was a vigorous The Religion of the Good Shepherd 99 fighter of dogs. The good shepherd, as now seen in Palestine (and I have seen him there) carries no crook, but a club. He never carried a crook. He always had a weapon. One end of it he used for such gentle prodding as he found necessary, and the other for serious business. The rod and the staff are not two articles, but one, and it is primarily a club. It was so in Jesus' day; it is so now in Palestine. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep, if necessary, not by lying down and let- ting the wolves eat him, but by defending the sheep so vigorously that if, at last, he is conquered, he leaves a dozen dead or badly bruised wolves around him, the sheep meanwhile having had time to run away and hide. The Good Shepherd is very gentle with the sheep, and a stern disciplinarian as well, but he is not in the least gentle toward wolves and dogs. Jesus did not call this to the mind of those who heard Him speak of Himself as the Good Shep- herd, because He was speaking about the shep- herd's attitude toward the flock. But He could not be a good and gentle shepherd toward the flock if He did not carry a big stick with heavy nails in its business-end, available for dogs and wolves and sheep thieves. The Good Shepherd, as Jesus and those who heard Him had the figure in mind, was not a person to trifle with. 100 Blue Stars and Gold One-half of the religion of the Good Shepherd is the religion of the big stick. Those who like a pleasing picture may think of the Good Shepherd as carrying a crook; but there is not a shepherd's crook between Dan and Beersheba, and there never was. But there are, and from the days of the patriarchs there have been, thousands of good shepherds, including Moses and David, sufficiently armed so that David could kill the lion and the bear, and Moses could fight off a half dozen ruffians that were bullying the daughters of Jethro. How can disciples of the meek and gentle Jesus engage in armed conflict? It is indeed a distress- ing question, and it shames us that it should need to be asked. But who told you that Jesus was gentle and meek? Where did you get that impression? Was it the manner in which He addressed the scribes and Pharisees? Was it the way in which He sent the swine of Gadara down hill, heels over head into the water? Was it the stern word of malediction addressed to the fruitless fig-trees? The farther back we carry our critical study of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the clearer it becomes that the original picture of Jesus preserved in apostolic tradition and the earliest Christian literature was that of a much sterner per- son than our mild modern imagination has pictured. The Religion of the Good Shepherd 101 But, it is remembered, Jesus suffered without resistance, when He could have had ten legions of angels sent out in wrath against the cruel city and its apostatized hierarchy. He had them. The ten legions came, and more than ten. That generation did not pass till all the terrible things came to pass, and they were the very things He had declared would come, and for the reason He declared. The destruction of Jerusalem stands, not as an isolated event, but as an integral part of the messianic plan; it was the type and essential feature of His coming. Jesus was a belligerent. The triumphal entry was a war measure. It was an act of invasion. As Scipio carried the war into Africa, so did Jesus, at the zenith of His campaign of preparedness, carry the war into the temple. He went armed. He car- ried a whip. It was made of "small cords," that is, cords smaller than tent-ropes, but cords that had been used in fastening up bales of merchandise for transportation on the backs of camels and mules, cords that had a sting in them. "But He did not strike anybody." How do you know that He did not ? "Because He was too gentle to have struck any- one." He was not too gentle to have done it if He did it. It is not definitely stated that He struck anyone, 102 Blue Stars and Gold nor is it denied that He did. The whip was no bluff, no lie. It was a weapon, a thing to be feared. If He did not strike anyone, it was not because He was either physically or morally incapable of hav- ing done so. It was because offenders recognized their danger and got out of the way. Jesus came as the Prince of Peace. But He came to bring both peace and a sword. Pray God the time may come when all the swords of earth shall be sheathed forever. But be not too sure that Jesus was too gentle to oppose the wrong. A part of His gentleness was tremendously militant. THE HEALTH OF OUR BOYS One of the things we fathers and mothers are most anxious about is the health of our boys in military and naval service. Beside the perils of the battlefield, is there not grave peril from disease? Yes, there is. In the past it has been a greater peril than the battlefield itself. As the vast army of Sennacherib was defeated not by battle but by pestilence, so in every war men die in large numbers as the result of disease. In our Civil War the number who died as the result of bullets was small as compared with those who died of disease. But there never has been a war in which the health of the men at arms was so well guarded as in this one. As for the Navy, it has conditions of cleanliness which almost defy disease. Admiral Braisted, Surgeon-General of the Navy, in an address before 103 104 Blue Stars and Gold the American Medical Association in Chicago, said: So far as the health of the personnel of the Navy- is concerned, of nearly half a million men, it is run- ning about as it does in peace times. At the end of the first week of June, our casualties, deaths, for all diseases in the navy was only 2.8 per cent, a very excellent showing for the whole length of the war. From casualties due to disease in every quarter of the globe, casualties due to accidents, casualties due to military activities, etc., we have lost out of the half a million men which we now have about four men a day on an average. When I first figured that up, it seemed to me that it must be impossible that the mortality should have been so small as that. Of course the conditions that exist in the naval service are far better than you find them in civil conditions in every way. Nowhere can you find sanitation that compares with that we have in the navy. In the matter of the health of the army, it is re- assuring to have an article from France by Major Richard C. Cabot of the Army Medical Corps, which the censor permitted to pass absolutely un- altered. This article appeared in the July number of the American Magazine: Just now the American army both in France and in America has been very considerably afflicted with contagious diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, scarlet fever, mumps and measles. These are The Health of Our Boys 105 diseases from which every new army suffers during the earlier stages of its development. To have them and to get through with them may be said to be a part of the process by which troops are "seasoned" for their work. When these diseases have occurred among Ameri- can troops in France, they have been treated, so far as I have been able to ascertain and so far as my own observation goes, far more skillfully than the same diseases are usually treated in civil life at home. The diagnosis has been made earlier and the most effective weapons for combating disease, anti- meningitis serum for instance, have been applied more promptly and more skillfully in France than is usually the case in civil life in America. In sharp contrast with the conditions which ex- isted in the Spanish War of 1898, the amount of typhoid fever among American troops in France has been reduced almost to zero by the constant and thorough application of anti-typhoid vaccination and by the greatly improved sanitation of military camps. In another of the great armies now fighting in Europe, the neglect of anti-typhoid vaccination during the early years of the war resulted in thou- sands of cases of typhoid. That we have been spared. Not only by means of anti-typhoid vaccina- tion, but by careful provision for pure drinking water in the regions occupied by our troops, we are doing everything that can be done to prevent the disease which caused more deaths in the Spanish War than all the wounds received in the field ! The 106 Blue Stars and Gold same precautions will go far to minimize, if not absolutely to prevent, the dysenteries for which we must be on the lookout in our armies during the summer of 1918. . . . In the eight months that I have been in France, I have seen fair samples of all the types of English, French and American hospitals, and I can say without any hesitation that our own hospitals are better supplied with doctors, nurses, beds, food, and with the paraphernalia of medical and surgical treatment, than any others that I have seen. Our surgeons are keenly alive to all that experience has taught us during this war regarding the best treat- ment of wounds and burns. American surgeons have enjoyed abundant opportunity to visit both English and French hospitals, and to study their methods. They have been given ample facilities for carrying out these or any other methods that they may prefer in the hospitals erected or adapted for the use of American troops in France. THE SOUL OF THE SOLDIER I think other fathers and mothers must have felt as I did when we saw our sons go forth to war — that the worst things that might possibly happen to them were not the things that could be done to them by the Germans and the Austrians. We felt, all of us parents, that the worst foes of our sons were those who might kill their character. We have reason for this fear. Kipling has told us that "single men in barracks don't turn into plaster saints." The associations of war are ab- normal. They uproot young men from home en- vironment and home restraints, and surrounds them with influences not all of which can possibly be helpful. Life in the army is a great leveler. The tendency to level down is greater than the tendency to level up. But we have cheering words from both sides of the water. The President of the United States and his sec- retaries of War and of the Navy were not unmoved 107 108 Blue Stars and Gold by the prospect that our American boys might be more injured by sexual vice and strong drink than by bayonet and shell. They set themselves to the task of protecting our boys from these over- mastering temptations. Recently Dr. John R. Mott delivered an ad- dress in which he spoke unreservedly of what he had seen of life among our soldiers : Right here let me pause to say that I support to the full what has been said as to the character of the American army. I know that army. More- over, since this war began I have seen every other great army on both sides of this struggle and have seen them intimately, with the exception of the Turkish army and certain armies of the Balkan States; and I am free to say that with the possible exception of the Canadian army — and I am not sure I should make that exception — there has gone forth to those European shores, or risen up in those European islands and on the European continent, no body of men averaging as high, as judged by every test, as this army of American young men — the flower of the manhood and the boyhood of this republic. I was talking with the provost marshal at one of the leading ports before I sailed, and he said, "That last lot of 8,000 American soldiers that landed here and crossed through the city — I gathered only four or five bottles from the whole crowd. " I was talk- ing with one of our leading generals at the front one The Soul of the Soldier 109 day, and he told me of an interview that he had with one of the Roman Catholic chaplains. He said that this Roman Catholic chaplain told him that the week before he had had 2,000 confessions, and only three of those confessions told of having stained their garments. I was having luncheon two or three days later with General Pershing, and with great eagerness he ventured to say that in his judgment not in the history of mankind has there been a body of men averaging higher in personality and character going forward on a more important errand and animated by purer motives or higher principles. I wish the whole American people could have looked into his eyes and have heard his vibrating voice as he spoke with such intimate knowledge and conviction. . . . I was talking with General Edwards, one of our generals overseas, and I was asking him to explain why it was that our young soldiers, not acquainted with war, had conducted themselves so splendidly as they had. Just the hour while we were in his office I had heard the report how they had been caught between the barrage of the enemy and our own, through some mistake, and they had been punished for hours without being caused to waver. I said, "General, how do you explain it all?" He reflected a moment and gave this answer, which I shall ever treasure: "Mr. Mott, I trace it to the tradition of the American mother." What a splendid answer! Who can measure the anchoring, the conserving, the inspiring power 110 Blue Stars and Gold of American mothers as now being evidenced under the impossible strain of this war? Again I say a colossal burden of responsibility rests upon us to be true to these mothers, to per- petuate and carry forward their ministry. William T. Ellis sent an important article from Europe to the Boston Transcript in which he said: Here in France among the soldiers a new and elemental conception of religion has developed. It has little creed, and certainly no sectarianism. Ecclesiastics back home might be startled into some- thing like awakeness could they but realize how lit- tle the things that bulk so large in their life mean to the soldier. These soldiers care nothing for the differences that divide Episcopalians and Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists. They are inter- ested in God, whether or not he answers prayers, and the relation between him and the great consid- erations of righteousness for which the Allies stand. As for the shop-talk of the churches, over here they confess that they never were in the habit of »paying any attention to that. Three words characterize the religion of the American soldier — simplicity, brotherhood, and service. These men are convinced that the essen- tial righteousness of our cause makes it God's cause. If we have much at stake in this war, God has more. Therefore, they are serving Him when they go ahead in uncomplaining loyalty to do their The Soul of the Soldier 111 part in winning the war. Fidelity to the task is the first expression of worship. One unexpected by-product of the rigid censor- ship that is maintained over all mail leaving the American Army is that it is now possible to know what the soldiers are thinking about and saying in the intimacy of communications home concerning the war and things in general On this point I have talked with many officers. All agree with the one who said : "I have been sur- prised to find how full the men's letters are of allusions to home, love, and God. They are think- ing a lot more about religion than I had ever sup- posed." There is not much talk of things religious among the men ; and anybody who comes over here looking for a "revival" of the conventional sort will strain his eyesight seriously before he finds it. In one of the Salvation Army huts a sweet-faced lassie, whom the men adored as a mother or sister, com- plained to me that the soldiers are not as keen for her meetings as they are for her pies and doughnuts, and that those who do "come under conviction" quickly backslide. She is looking for the sort of religiosity that she found in her street-meetings back home, and fails to realize that her noble personality and beautiful service are far more religious than her stereotyped phraseology. Reports from the camps and the front shows a revival of the spirit of Christianity. The carnage and brutality has developed love of country and a 112 Blue Stars and Gold deeper sense of obligation to God. Many have expressed a willingness to give their lives, if neces- sary, to establish world democracy, with universal liberty and equal rights for all. This is most beautifully expressed by words found in the note book of an Australian soldier, who was killed at Gallipoli : Ye who have faith to look with fearless eyes Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife, And know that out of death and night shall rise The dawn of ampler life, Rejoice, whatever anguish rend the heart, That God has given you a priceless dower, To live in these great times and have your part In freedom's crowning hour, That ye may tell your sons, who see the light High in the heavens, their heritage to take: "I saw the powers of darkness put to flight, I saw the morning break." THINGS THAT ABIDE There is this about war, that it cannot last for- ever. Take comfort in that fact. War is not the abiding heritage of the coming humanity. Peace must some day come back. In his strong war poem, calling the British people to arms, Rudyard Kipling says : Our world has passed away, In wantonness o'erthrown; There's nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone. Once more we hear the word That sickened earth of old, No law except the sword, Unsheathed and uncontrolled. Sad is the world on a day when such lines can be written. They are not without their tragic element of truth. The world has passed away. We have witnessed 113 114 Blue Stars and Gold the end of one of the grand divisions of human history. Not since the French Revolution has any man seen the earth on the edge of such an abyss as now opens beneath the feet of the human race. The old world, the world into which we were born, has passed. We are back again in chaos. The world has passed away. We shall need a new geography when it is over. Not only shall we need a new map of Europe, with new boundary lines of nations, and ominous blank spaces where there were populous cities, but we shall need a new map of Africa and a new atlas of the oceans. The world will need a new gazetteer, a new political economy, a new series of books of history. We shall have a new vocabulary, a new heaven and a new earth. But to-day is there nothing left but "steel and fire and stone"? Is there no law save "the sword, unsheathed and uncontrolled?" The Word of God has its answer : "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three." These three ! And not the other three — "steel and fire and sword"? Yes, these three, faith, hope, love. They abide now. They will abide after the sword has drunk its fill and been sheathed in glutted weariness, after the fire has blazed high and burned out, after the stone has crumbled under the bombardment of man and the frosts of the winters of God. Still will abide faith, hope, love, these three. Things That Abide 115 i t> They abide now. The men who are killing each other love their wives and babies more than they hate each other. They do not really hate each other. They will be kind to each other on the bat- tlefield when they can. There will be lucid moments in their war-madness when their real manhood will assert itself. Spite of the murder, rape, arson and blind fury that go with war, love and hope and faith are the abiding realties. Let us not make the mistake of calling faith, hope and love the three graces. A pagan poet called them that and we have fallen into his way of speaking of them. Graces are mere ornaments of life, elements of beauty put on afterward like stuc- co bas-reliefs' on walls that stand alone. Faith, hope, love are the length, breadth and height of life itself. They are the three inevitables. Inevitables? Yes, for to them we must come back. After the fury of war we must have peace. The world can not fight forever. But when the tumult and the shouting have died, then what? Then men must go back to their desolated homes, and their impoverished farms, and their burned' workshops, and take up life again. And why take it up again? Why not let the world go to smash, and give up the whole problem ? Because we still have unconquerable hopes. Be- cause we still have faith in God and man and gov- 116 Blue Stars and Gold ernment. Because men still love, and labor, and sacrifice. That is the very thing Paul said. After the thunder of the guns has died down, and the dead have been buried, and the tears of the women and children have been wiped away, still there are God and life and duty. Still abide these three, not stone and fire and steel, but the other three, which are much more enduring. "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three." THE BATTLE OF LIFE There might have been a world without strife or struggle, but it would have been a very different world from this. The Bible is a book of peace, but it rings with the clash of arms. Its best promise is peace with God, and peace with man, and peace with our own consciences. But the way to that peace is the way of battle. Man's first battle was with the beasts. He came into a world already inhabited. If Nature owes any form of life a living, she has not acknowledged the debt. All forms of life must fight for a place to stand, while they fight to live. And man fought with the life about him. That battle is won. We capture timid specimens of the few surviving beasts and keep them behind bars that our children may know what sort of things they were that kept our fathers in terror. And not alone by extermination has man won the battle with the beasts ; he has won by subjugation and domestication. He who first caught a wild dog 117 118 Blue Stars and Gold and tamed the wolf-like creature conquered at the same time the wolf in his own soul and learned self- mastery, kindness, patience and other human graces. That was the best conquest of all. Civiliza- tion rests more than we have commonly thought on the traits that grew in the lives of men in the mas- tery of life about them. And that battle is fought, and the double victory is won. Then comes the battle with savage tribes. As civilization advanced this clash was inevitable, and it is irrepressible. There is no corner of this earth from the glacial north to the torrid zone where a savage has any other ultimate alternative than civ- ilization or extermination. The battle is not quite over, but the habitable earth is in possession of civilization and we may record another victory. Then there is the long battle for manhood's rights, for the extension of the frontiers of human- ity itself. It has been a long, hard fight; it is not finished. That battle is still on. We are far enough along in the fight to see where the flags must be planted in the recognition of freedom and the prin- ciple of government for the common good. And that is one long march toward victory. NOT TOO CHEAP A PEACE We must not hope for a premature peace. The roots of this war go deep, and they must be pulled up from the depths. The prophet Jeremiah knew something about surgery, and of the danger of superficial healing of deep wounds, for he denounced those who would "heal lightly the hurt of my people, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace." All common good hath common price, Exceeding good, exceeding; Christ bought the keys of Paradise With cruel bleeding. There come times when men must be willing to die for their principles. The foundations of our liberties are cemented with the blood of those who have suffered for us in other days. We must fight this war through till we are as- sured that its issue will prevent other wars, and evils worse than war. 119 120 Blue Stars and Gold There are four outstanding reasons why we must win this war: First, there is a military reason. If Germany wins this war, or if it ends otherwise than in a de- cision against her, the armies of the world will be reorganized on the German plan, and Clausewitz will be undisputed master of the world. The army will be, as Emperor William says it is, "the one pillar of the State." The army will have, as Emperor William says, a single will and that the will of a despot. The army will have one article in its creed, and that will be the creed of Clause- witz — that no moral considerations can be recog- nized in war, which is the application of force un- checked by any ethical or humanitarian considera- tions. Make no mistake about this. Whether other armies acknowledge it or not, that is the way they will be trained to fight if Germany wins this war. Second, there is a diplomatic reason. We must win this war; if we should fail, Germany's hateful and immoral spy system will become accepted in the diplomacy of the world. No nation will accept the plighted word of any other nation. Every nation will believe and have reason to believe that every other nation is its secret enemy, and by means of bribery, perjury, and every possible form of intrigue, it will carry its system of deceit and hos- tility into every nation with which it has diplomatic Not Too Cheap a Peace 121 dealings, and will do it all under the camouflage of peace and international good will. Our hired foes will exist all the way from the offices of the State Department to our own kitchens, and the same will be true all over the earth. Third, there is an industrial reason. If Ger- many wins, all industry will be put on a war basis. The competition for the markets of the world, already so keen that it has been unjustly denomi- nated "cut-throat competition,' , will be carried farther, as Germany has carried it in her cartel system, which is a system of trusts, protected and stimulated by government differentials. Govern- ment-controlled railroads and government-subsi- dized steamship lines will carry the products of government-fostered industries into the ports of the world, not simply to gain markets for the years of peace, but to establish relationships that can be utilized in the certain event of war. Not only so, but every new factory erected in our own country will be erected with a view to its possible utilization in the manufacture of muni- tions. Not only will the armies and navies of all nations be maintained on a basis of preparedness never before dreamed of, but every man who un- dertakes to erect a factory for the manufacture of sewing machines or typewriters, or gas stoves, will be required to submit his blue prints to a Govern- ment inspector; who will consider before the per- 122 Blue Stars and Gold mit is issued whether the building will require essential modifications in case the Government should take it over at an hour's notice for the manufacture of shrapnel. Not in our own land only, but in all the world, the plowshares of hu- manity will be hammered out with primary refer- ence to their easy convertability into swords. Even in the midst of peace, war will continually be the mainspring of our industrial life. Fourth, there is an educational reason. If Ger- many should win, our whole educational system would be transformed. Our schools and colleges would no longed focus their curriculum upon the humanities. The natural sciences, especially physics and chemistry, would be the end and aim of a liberal education. Every college laboratory would become an experiment station in the manufacture of poison gas. Every high school student would be taught new processes that might be utilized in the manufacture of high explosives. Our whole system of education from the grammar school to the university would crystallize around the ability to discover methods of murder. These are the reasons why we must not heed the cry for premature peace. We are fighting for the children's children of coming days, to save them from all that now threatens the welfare of the world. And we must see it through. GOD IS LOVE Let us not wait for the war to be over before we say it to ourselves and convince ourselves that it is true. u God is love." God is power; God is justice; God is stern retri- bution. God is all of these and more. But all of these are transformable into that ultimate verity, that ultimate hope of humanity, which is love. Believe it, though the guns deny it. Believe it, though the powers of darkness hoot at it in blind defiance. But is it true? Is God really love? There are aspects of life so stern, so sad, that Tennyson may rightly oppose the faith in God's goodness to a superficial view of nature, and speak with some admiration of the man, — Who trusts that God is love indeed, And love creation's final law, Though Nature red in tooth and claw With ravin shrieks against the creed. 123 124 Blue Stars and Gold But nature is not always red in tooth and claw. We have heard for a generation about the struggle for existence. We are hearing now of the struggle for the existence of others. Did you ever start a quail from her nest, and follow her as she flew low and with one wing, almost within your reach? Did you follow her until you were well away from the nest, and then see the helpless wing come into play, and the mother bird fly cheerfully away? Some mother quails have lost their lives in that way, no doubt, but they have saved the nest. What has made the quail a persistent type? Strength? Yes. Ability to fly? Yes. Color like the turf and dead grass? Yes. But these are not all. Your list of forces will not be complete till you reckon in love, love that can imperil its life for love's sake. Did you ever see a little mother hen spread her feathers and give defensive battle to a hawk? Sometimes by the courage that love gives she actually drove the hawk away; sometimes she laid down her life for her brood; in either case it was love that saved the little ones. The love of the mother was stronger than the hunger of the hawk. So Nature gives eloquent witness to the power of the law of love. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within ; I hear, with groans and travail cries, The world confess its sin. God Is Love 125 Yet in the maddening maze of things And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings, I know that God is good. I know not what the future hath Of wonder or surprise ; I only know that life and death His mercy underlies. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. Hold to the truth, this little truth. Never mind just now the rest of the creed; this is creed enough for the present. Believe it, and let your heart rest in the eternal verity, so simply uttered — just these three words, u God is love." "God is love," and love is therefore the fun- damental law of the universe. But that is not all. It is the law of individual life. What God is, might be of little importance to us if His life and ours had no points of contact; it is our vital re- lation that makes it a thing of eternal moment. God has wrought His law of love into the fabric of the universe, into the moral constitution of the world. The ultimate law of God's life is therefore the final law of our lives. He who is unloving 126 Blue Stars and Gold wars against the ages, but the man whose heart is warm with God's love is in league with the stones in the field. Because love is of God, love must triumph. It seems weak and puny now amid the gigantic forces of the world's evil. But the future is assured, be- cause "God is love." What God is, that will the universe be. He then who chooses love as his ruling passion is in league with the ages. "Let us love one another, for love is of God." The reason is adequate, for God's will must triumph. Believe it spite of the apparent discord of nature, life preying on life, and carnage on every hand; believe it in the midst of political strife and cor- ruption; believe it in the midst of international strife and discord. "God is love" ; love is the bed rock of the moral universe; love is the eternal law of human life ; love is mighty and will prevail. SPIRITUAL PREPAREDNESS I am not of those who mourn that this war found us unprepared. I would rather suffer the extra loss, even of life, and know that in our hearts we were guilt- less of any lurking intent to go to war, such as the accumulation of arms might have stimulated, than to feel that in spite of our protestations that we loved peace, we were secretly preparing for war. We are prepared now, and what is more, we are preparing more and more. And we shall stay in till it is over. But there are some kinds of spiritual prepared- ness which we have need to cultivate. One is, a preparedness against those who, how- ever conscientiously, misguidedly endeavor to use the war as the occasion of false spiritual teach- ing. Another is to be ready for whatever hard les- sons we have to learn. 127 128 Blue Stars and Gold There is a promise of God that those who trust in Him "shall not be afraid of evil tidings." This is not a promise that there shall be no evil tidings, but that we shall not be in terror of them before they come, nor be crushed by them when they ar- rive. It is a time to live normally. We are exhorted to practice economy, and we ought to do it. We are an extravagant nation, and this is a good time for us to learn the wholesome lesson of thrift. But that does not mean that we should starve ourselves, or fail to buy needed clothing for our family, or that we should cease buying good books. We do not want to drive the tailors or the publishers into bankruptcy, or bring financial ruin to any class of men who are doing a useful kind of work in the community. As a nation we are subject to ex- tremes but we have at bottom a solid stratum of good sense. It is a time when our religion ought to help us to a sane kind of living. Potatoes are expensive just now, but if every farmer should plant all his farm in potatoes we should suffer for lack of wheat and corn, and po- tatoes would go to waste. There is a proper pro- portion in all things. Our religion ought to save us from foolish, petty and wicked spite. We are at war with Germany, but that does not mean that we should refuse to lend a hoe to a neighbor, who happens to have Spiritual Preparedness 129 been born in Germany, or that our children should quarrel with his children. That does not mean that we should cease to play German music, or show in any other unreasonable way hatred for things German. We must prosecute the war with our whole strength and unswerving resolution, but we must fight without the wasteful folly of petty hatred. We should exercise good sense in our charity. We ought to support the Red Cross, and the In- ternational Y. M. C. A. But to withhold a dollar from the missionary contribution, or from the poor of our own town to give to the Red Cross is not philanthropy nor Christian charity. The dollar we give to the Red Cross should be an ex- tra dollar. We ought to buy a Liberty Bond, but we ought not to sell a railroad bond or good farm mortgage to do it, nor do anything to lessen the value of any needed public utility, or home indus- try. We must keep the farms going, and the workshops busy, or we shall have nothing to fight with. Let us not be subject to panics at any time. Let us school ourselves to endure hardness as good soldiers of the Lord. Let us prepare ourselves for some disappointments and defeats and not be panic-stricken when they occur. In the long run the thing that is morally right is commercially profitable. Year by year and cen- 130 Blue Stars and Gold tury by century righteousness justifies itself. Truth may seem to be Forever on the scaffold; Wrong forever on the throne, but righteousness and good sense have a common measure, and the gospel which is the power and wisdom of God justifies itself also in terms of hu- man prudence and good common sense. It is well to expect the best, but it is well also to be steeled in faith and fortitude for the worst that may yet come. Thus far America has not suffered very much in the world war. We have given a certain number of billions of dollars, and we have weighed out our coal with a little more of economy, and we have gone with a little less of sugar and pork. Cheer up ! We may have to face really stern conditions before very long. If the spring opens with a great drive, we may see casualty lists that fill pages of the papers, and have much beside to break our hearts. We have gone into this war because we believe that a righteous God will aid a righteous cause and give the world peace established in righteousness. If, as a step toward this, we go through the pride of Jordan, let us do it bravely. Robert Browning, comfortable in an Italian villa, with nothing worse to worry him than an irate father-in-law back in England whom he was Spiritual Preparedness 131 not likely to meet, and with cash enough on hand to pay his expenses, and a mild sky overhead and genial warmth in the atmosphere, could write in a jingle as easy as a rocking-chair, — Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be, — The last of life for which the first was made. That is good doctrine. It ought to be preached often. But not every one can have this comforting assurance that "the best is yet to be." Jeremiah was warned in advance that the worst was yet coming, and it grew worse all the time. It never got any better, so far as he was concerned. Life was just one unhappy thing after another. When Jeremiah poured out his complaint to God on this account, he received this answer : "If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, how shalt thou contend with the horses? And though in a land of peace thou art secure, yet what wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan?" In other words, "Cheer up; the worst is yet to come !" It is only a brave and a great man whom God can safely address in this fashion. God knew that Jeremiah would not collapse under that crushing information, but would nerve himself for what was impending. Jeremiah did it. 132 Blue Stars and Gold There still are a few shallow people who think Jeremiah weak because he wept. All intelligent readers of the Bible know that Jeremiah was the most heroic soul in all the Old Testament. There ought to be some penalty for those who attempt to describe any man, and especially any Bible char- acter, in terms of a single adjective. When this is done the first man to be stood against the wall in the gray dawn to await the action of the firing squad will be the man who named Jeremiah "the weeping prophet." He wept but he did not falter. He was like the soldier who said to his shaking knees, "You tremble with fear, and if you knew where I am going to make you take me, you would tremble worse!" That is the kind of weeping Jeremiah did, His were the tears of a hero. The Inevitable By Sarah Knowles Bolton I like the man who faces what he must With step triumphant and a heart of cheer, Who fights the daily battle without fear, Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust That God is God — that somehow, true and just, His plans work out for mortals; not a tear Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, Falls from his grasp; better with love a crust, Than living in dishonor; envies' not Nor loses faith in man, but does his best, Nor even murmurs at his humbler lot, But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler. He alone is great Who, by a life heroic, conquers fate. 133 THE HAZARD OF FAITH Some one has written most interestingly of the moment of supreme peril in the life of the mos- quito. It is when, having passed through several changes to adapt its life to the water in which it is born, it leaves the water behind. It finds itself possessed of wings and an instinct to use them, and it makes its way out of the water. It has never been on land, and no mosquito has returned from the shore to assure its companions in the water- world. Its wings are wet and untried; there is no one to teach it how to use them; there is no one to help it up the bank; it faces a most appalling peril, one that is fatal to millions of mosquitoes. But all the mosquitoes that survive are those who make the venture. Now that is an analogy for faith. For here I am, an inhabitant of the world in which I was born, with wings that have never been spread, and impelled by an inward impulse toward a life which faith alone reveals, and I make that venture of 134 The Hazard of Faith 135 faith. I dare declare myself a child of the Gad I have never seen, and a citizen of the heaven where I have never been. And I choose to climb the banks, and leave the lower level for that of faith. The choice is not without its perils, but it is that which gives my soul companionship with God. It is the mightiest moment in the evolu- tion of the soul — the moment in which it accepts its high-born destiny by an act of faith in the un- seen. Some men have faltered and fallen back, but the career of those who have succeeded is the history of the spiritual progress of the human race. There is no known process by which the soul can reach its spiritual heritage by passivity. We may not sit idly and await our transformation into the divine image by processes external to ourselves. If we are saved into our spiritual heritage, it will be first because God has appointed us heirs of salvation, and ordained the means for our evolu- tion into the liberty of the glory of the children of God; and secondly, because we respond to the act of God by a mighty effort of faith, by which we know and appropriate our divine heritage. The earlier theories of evolution assumed that the progress of the world is by exceedingly slow and painfully laborious processes. This still is partly true. But the advancement of life is also by opportune and decisive leaps and bounds. There 136 Blue Stars and Gold are sudden and immediate transitions by which a form of life rises instantaneously to claim a higher sphere as its own. The experience of the mosquito is repeated in varying forms in the metamorphosis of other types. And it is analogous to spiritual transformation, in which faith faces its problems and its privileges. The evolution of the human soul is an appeal to faith in an unseen God, a haz- ardous, pilgrimage toward an unrealized destiny. All about us are the evidences of our relations with the world of matter, but within us is the impulse of the indwelling God, who made us in his own image. The triumph of faith in human life causing men to assert their divine heritage, is the supreme fact in evolution, and is analogous to a thousand facts which have marked the progress of life from its beginnings. It is the determination of a being made in the image of God to declare himself related not alone to the dust but also and supremely to the Deity. The Haven of Faith By Eleanor Baldwin Ah, love, if death were death and nothing more, And hell of war and thrust of sabre gave Only thy length within thy narrow grave, Cross-marked and bare, upon a foreign shore, Earth's bitter dust and inward-swinging door, Then had I bound thy strength and scorned to brave The sacrifice that sent thee forth to save The land which heard our cry in years of yore. If this were all, this heavy hour of pain, And Heaven were but a fabled Paradise, (Whence came the soul, and whither should it go?) If Hope were barren, and I ne'er again Should know that wondrous light within thine eyes, I had not dared, dear heart, to love thee so! 137 DOES GOD CARE? If we knew the answer to this question, we could bear anything. If we really could feel sure that it mattered to God what happens to us, we could suffer and not be heartbroken. I have had a long hunt for a poem, and have just found it. I do not know who wrote it, but it utters the cry of many a heart, — "My heart cries out for a God who cares." What can it mean? Is it aught to Him That the nights are long and the days are dim? Can He be touched by the grief I bear, Which saddens the heart and whitens the hair? About His throne are eternal calms, And the strong, glad music of happy psalms, And bliss unruffled by any strife. How can He care for my little life? And yet I want Him to care for me While I live in this world where sorrows be ! 138 Does God Care? 139 When the lights die down from the path I take, When strength is feeble and friends forsake, When love and music that once did bless Have left me to silence and loneliness, And my life-song changes to sobbing prayers, Then my heart cries out for a God who cares. When shadows hang over the whole day long, And my spirit is bowed with shame and wrong, When I am not good, and the deeper shade Of conscious sin makes my heart afraid, And this busy world has too much to do To stay in its course to help me through, And I long for a Saviour — can it be That the God of the universe cares for me? O wonderful story of deathless love ! Each child is dear to that heart above. He fights for me when I cannot fight; He comforts me in the gloom of night; He lifts the burden, for He is strong; He stills the sigh and awakes the song; The sorrow that bows me down He bears, And loves and pardons because He cares! Let all who are sad take heart again; We are not alone in our hours of pain ; Our Father stoops from His throne above, To soothe and quiet us with His love; 140 Blue Stars and Gold He leaves us not when the storm is high, And we have safety, for He is nigh; Can it be trouble, which He doth share? Oh, rest in peace, for the Lord will care! It is a precious word with which the Word of God answers this cry of the human heart, — "Cast- ing all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." "He careth!" God cares. Yes, and if the story of Jesus means anything, He not only cares, but He comes. He is not far away when we need Him. "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you." He cares, and He comes. Victor Hugo once said: "He who has seen the sorrows of men has seen nothing; he must see the sorrows of women. He who sees the sorrows of women has seen nothing; he must see the sorrows of children." Might we not add to this: "He who has seen the sorrows of women, men and chil- dren has seen nothing; he must see the sorrows of Christ. And yet again, he who has seen the sor- rows of Christ has had only a suggestion of the infinite sorrows of God." God is the ultimate reality. Our thought of God is our uppermost and outermost mental possi- bility. Our experience of God is the largest and Does God Care? 141 deepest of all human experiences. In our thought of God and in our experience of God, God him- self participates. There was a time when men thought of God as a monarch ruling a rebellious world. He was not only a king, but the king of an empire in re- volt. Indeed, it is no caricature of some concep- tions of the relation of God to the world to say that God was almost like the warden of a peniten- tiary, ruling rigorously over an unwilling body of criminals each one of whom deserved to hang and toward whom even the utmost severity short of eternal damnation was to be considered large and unmerited mercy. We have come to see clearly that this is not an adequate conception of God. God is a Father and the Father of all His children good and bad. Whatever He does by way of discipline, He does as a father might do. Not only so, as the father's life is the life of the child, so God's life is in- wrought into the life of the world. The sorrows of human life are His sorrows. God is working out His own diversified experience in the experi- ences of humanity. What we work out with fear and trembling, God works in us to will and to do His good pleasure. This conception of God forever does away with the possibility of divine heartlessness. If wicked men go to war and murder one another, God looks 142 Blue Stars and Gold upon it not as a thing of no concern to himself, nor yet simply in the light of a just retribution in- flicted upon the ill-deserving. God's own life is in the struggle. The life of God is being born again through agony and pain. God suffers to redeem. Not only is He afflicted in the afflictions of His people, but the Angel of His presence saves them. God is no passive suf- ferer. God is no hopeless, misanthropic invalid. God has not settled down into a condition of meek, acceptance of inevitable sorrow. God suffers that He may save. The world is to be saved. The sorrows of hu- man life are not hopeless. He who has given us the cross as the triumphant expression of an ade- quate faith has not left us to suffer hopelessly in the world for which Christ died. God suffers with His people that He may redeem them. CAN GOD SHARE OUR SORROWS? Sam Walter Foss, who died a few years ago, wrote a poem with the title, "Two Gods." It said: A boy was born 'mid little things, Between a little world and sky, And dreamed not of the cosmic rings Round which the circling planets fly. He lived in little works and thoughts, Where little ventures grow and plod, And paced and plowed his little plots, And prayed unto his little God. But as the mighty system grew, His faith grew faint with many scars; The cosmos widened in his view — But God was lost among the stars. Another boy in lowly days, As he, to little things was born, But gathered lore in woodland ways, And from the glory of the morn. As wider skies broke on his view, 143 144 Blue Stars and Gold God greatencd in his growing mind ; Each year he dreamed his God anew, And left his older God behind. He saw the boundless scheme dilate, In star and blossom, sky and clod; And as the universe grew great, He dreamed for it a greater God. The poem and its title are not entirely accurate. God did not change : it was merely the mind of man that grew. That growth was not only necessary; it was desirable. Why should our thought of other things grow larger and not our thought of God? As our measure of the universe grows, we must think of God in terms of greater power, wisdom and love. Beside this, however, we must think of God in relation to all the moral problems of life. And that must give us not only a higher, but a deeper thought of God. Among other things it raises the question whether God can be perfectly happy, in view of the sorrows of the world. For myself, I cannot see how we are to retain the idea of a static God. God is everlastingly active, not as mere power but as sympathy. He can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. This is a very sweet and wonderfully comfort- ing thought. It is priceless; it is worth half of heaven to souls in sorrow and present need. Good men have been afraid to admit this quality Can God Share Our Sorrows? 145 in God. They have feared it would detract some- thing from His infinity if they admitted that He could feel pain. They have felt that He must be utterly immutable; totally beyond any experience of sorrow; wholly and unchangeably happy; com- pletely imperturbable. I do not know that I need an imperturbable God, but I know I need a God who cares. And how can He care unless He feels ? And how can He feel, and not suffer? I find my answer in Calvary. God can suffer, and suffer gladly, that He may help. But there is another thought involved in the idea. Not only does God help us, but He needs our help. The stern words of the Old Testament ring down the ages, cursing those who "come not up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." God is not only He that was and is ; God is He who ever is becoming. God is living, not merely the infinite life of heaven, but is living with men the finite life of earth. This experience of God requires as its expres- sion the experience of men and women. The com- pleteness of the love of the Divine Father needed the mother love of the Virgin Mary, and needs mother love now, and father love now, and child love now, and every other sweet and holy love. George Bernard Shaw has lately been asking, "Is God in trouble?" and has been replying in the affirmative, and saying a great many things which 146 Blue Stars and Gold I do not at all accept. But some things this bril- liant and erratic author says are true; and I feel a certain thrill of approval when he represents God as saying, "Stop flattering me; help me." Yes; God needs help. He needs us, our hands, our feet, our ability to talk to people who do not know any of the languages of heaven, but are able to understand English. He needs our help. I should be glad if I knew that God stood ready to help me. But when I understand not only this, but that I can do a few small things for a few short years that help Him to make his goodness and love more real to men, and to bring the king- dom of heaven closer to earth, then I feel the glory of living, and hope of living forever. I shall not live a life of eternal uselessness: I expect in some very little but very real way that I shall be helping God. GOD IS MARCHING ON Let us make it plain to ourselves that it matters to God who wins or loses in the battle of life. Humanity's interests cannot go to wreck with- out concern to God. The fall of the sparrow is of concern to Him; and the life of your boy or of mine is of more value than many sparrows. Man is very small. He is a mere grain of sand on the surface of the earth, and the earth is a mote in the universe. If our solar system were represented by a finger ring, in which our sun was a diamond smaller than a pin-head and the planets were seven tiny non-luminous stones, that whole solar system would be as easily lost in the visible universe as that ring would be if thrown out of the car window somewhere on a journey from Chicago to Minneapolis, thence to Kansas City, thence to Memphis, and then back again. It is well our little system stays in place, for if it got mislaid, it never could be found. Think of 147 148 Blue Stars and Gold that finger ring, and the earth a mere grain of dust on it, and one man an infinitesimal molecule of that dust. Can that man be profitable to God? What can it matter whether he is righteous or not? So Tennyson asked in his poem "Vastness" : He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing it, flesh without mind ; He that has nailed his flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love of his kind ; Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of earth; All new-old revolutions of empire — change of the tide — what is all of it worth? What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer? All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair? What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-cofHns at last, Swallowed in Vastness, lost in Silence, drowned in the depths of a meaningless Past? What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom of a moment's anger of bees in their hive? Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and loved him forever; the dead are not dead, but alive. This is the answer that love gives — that life is profitable; that love will have its will, that love makes life immortal. But this is the cry of the God Is Marching On 149 heart of man: have we any assurance that these values are real with God? The universe is big. If Columbus had been sailing to the moon he could have reached it in a dozen years, sailing at the same rate of speed that brought him from Spain to America; but if he had sailed toward the sun he would not yet have arrived, not even if he had sailed the Lusitania and had never stopped for coal. Had he started for one of the outer planets of our own solar system and kept going until now, he would need to have taken an express train. Indeed, that would have arrived too late, for a cannonball fired on the morning of July 4, 1776, would just about now be reaching Neptune, and Neptune, you will re- member, is one of the other six little stones in our finger ring. But even the mote may have importance. It can clog the wheels of a watch. It can carry a disease germ. It can contain the potency of an electric spark. It can do damage or good quite out of proportion to its bulk. It is not in mere bulk that we count with God. There are times when one man is more than an army. There are occasions when a very humble man rises to almost infinite importance. Jesus never treated human life as if it were neg- ligible. He taught us that as the one lost coin is valuable to the woman who still has nine, and as 150 Blue Stars and Gold the one lost sheep counts with the shepherd who lacks only that one of having a hundred, so we count with God. There is a literal translation of a sweet verse in Peter's epistle, "Casting all your care upon Him, for it matters to Him about you." It matters to God ! The Incarnation says so. The whole Gospel story says so. What is the world for? It is the divine labora- tory in which the academic formulae of heaven are tested in the real stuff of human character. It is the divine experiment station in which the theories of God are wrought out in actual experi- ence. It is the theater in which the divine Word ceases to be merely literary and becomes flesh — the flesh of Jesus, the flesh of righteous manhood and womanhood. It is the place where God makes real his principles; where righteousness ceases to be a mere law and becomes a life; where God can test his own patience, kindness, gentleness, long- suffering and forgiveness — where even God can build up his consciousness in objective relations, and do as well as know. The final interests of God and man are identical. I protest against the assumption that in the trial and resurrection of Jesus, God and man stand rep- resenting eternally opposite interests. If the cross were humanity's final verdict of Jesus, then God would be equally responsible with man for the fate of goodness in the world. And if, Jesus having God Is Marching On 151 been slain by men, God were to reverse the decree in the supreme court of heaven, thereby over- whelming men with condemnation, still it would be a failure of the program of Jesus whom God sent not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Here on this very earth which Jesus trod, Jesus is to be proclaimed Lord and king, and that by the free and sovereign choice of men. God and man are at one in the hazard and in the glory of the achievement. The question with the father seeking a lost child is not whether it is a large child or a small child, nor even whether it is a good child or bad child. He seeks the child because it is his own. We are of worth to God. But we can do things that really count. God needs us. He has work which depends on our doing; the world will lack something if we do not do it. Something will be added if we do it. We are of value to God. The conviction that God is marking progress through our present sacrifices is strong in the hearts of the men at the front. This is the thought that underlies the charming poem, "In Flanders' Fields," by the late Lieut. Col. John McCrae of the Canadian Army: In Flanders' Fields the poppies grow- Between the crosses, row on row, 152 Blue Stars and Gold That mark our place, and in the sky The larks still bravely singing fly, Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders' Fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe ; To you from falling hands we throw The Torch — be yours to hold it high; If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep though poppies grow In Flanders' Fields, THE TRAJECTORY OF OUR PRAYERS The long range gun with which the Germans bombarded Paris added shame to a nation that already has guilt enough upon its soul. They chose Good Friday as the day on which to train the new gun upon that city. That was the day of all days when people were likely to be at church, and when, if any public building con- taining many people was struck, it was likely to be a church, with worshipping women and children present in large proportion. And that was where they did their largest execu- tion, among women and children, kneeling before the altar of God, commemorating the Passion of their Lord. On that day was Christ crucified afresh in their wanton murder before the altar of their faith. But how were they able to make a shot carry so far? Partly by means of a gun that could carry a heavy charge, a shell skillfully and accurately de- 153 154 Blue Stars and Gold signed, and partly by the high elevation of the long gun's muzzle. I have seen a drawing of the course of that shell, as it would need to rise in order to fly so far, and it was higher than the Alps and the Andes and the Pyrenees and the Rocky Mountains, all piled on top of each other. The highest mountain in all those ranges might have been taken, and one from the Himalayas placed on top, and the shell would have gone over the crest of them all. Long range artillery requires a high curved trajectory. So do long range prayers. God is no farther away from our boys than when they were at home, and He is no farther away from us. A three cent postage stamp will take a letter to them as cheaply as though they were living in the next town, and a prayer will go to them as swiftly. Our measures of distance mean nothing to God. But they mean much to our mind and limited vision. We need to pray, not more loudly, not with more spiritual strain upon the vocal cords of faith, but with more spiritual elevation. It is harder to conceive of God as relating Him- self to our loved ones and ourselves amid such conditions as we now for the first time experience. But it can be done, and daily is done. The Trajectory of Our Prayers 155 Only let not our prayers be adjusted to a too flat trajectory. It is not a question of what God can do, but what God can do through us. If God is to use our prayers for the spiritual welfare of our loved ones, we shall need to cul- tivate the habit of a prayer that has in it more faith than we have sometimes employed. We shall do well if we learn that the shortest line between us and our boys across the sea, is by way of heaven. Our boys are some of them forgetting to pray, perhaps. But others are learning it, and they are praying more deeply and earnestly than ever be- fore. Deep are the experiences through which they must pass, and their eyes will have seen won- derful and terrible things in heaven and earth ere they come back to us. It is for us to be ready to interpret their experiences in terms of living truth. Face to Face With Reality By John Oxenham What did you see out there, my lad, That has set that look in your eyes? You went out a boy, you have come back a man, With strange new depths underneath your tan ; What was it you saw out there, my lad, That has set such deeps in your eyes? "Strange things, and sad, and wonderful — Things that I scarce can tell; I have been in the sweep of the Reaper's scythe, With God, and Christ, and hell. "I have seen Christ doing Christly deeds; I have seen the devil at play; I have gripped to the sod in the hand of God, I have seen the godless pray. "I have seen Death blast out suddenly From a clear blue summer sky; I have slain like Cain with a blazing brain, I have heard the wounded cry. 156 Face to Face with Reality 157 "I have lain alone among the dead, With no hope but to die; I have seen them killing the wounded ones, I have seen them crucify. "I have seen the devil in petticoats Wiling the souls of men; I have seen great sinners do great deeds, And turn to their sins again. "I have sped through hells of fiery hail, With fell red-fury shod; I have heard the whisper of a voice, I have looked in the face of God." You've a right to your deep, high look, my lad. You have met God in the ways, And no man looks into His face But he feels it all his days. You've a right to your deep, high look, my lad, And we thank Him for his grace. WHEN THE SHIP GOES DOWN In former wars, the Navy was largely recruited from the coast. Now it finds a large proportion of its men in the states that are distant from salt water. In earlier days we had a fleet of fishing vessels manned by the boys of Maine and Massachusetts, and another fleet of clipper ships whose white wings wafted our cargoes to the farthest markets of the world. In time of war, the American sea- men on these ships became our sailors in the Navy. But now we go inland for a very large part of our naval fighters. Hence it comes about that the ocean has sud- denly become a grim reality to many thousands of homes to which hitherto it has seemed very re- mote. In hundreds of churches they now sing, where they did not formerly sing, — Eternal Father! strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave, 158 When the Ship Goes Down 159 Who bidst the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep: Oh, hear us when we cry to thee For those in peril on the sea. As yet there have been no great naval battles. The fighting has largely been done by that assassin of the ocean, the cowardly submarine. But there will be battles, and there are already perils. What is to become of our faith when the ship goes down on which our loved ones sail? The sinking of the "Titanic" stopped the beat- ing of the world's heart for a minute of awful agony in realization of man's helplessness in com- petition with the resistless power of nature. The sinking of the "Lusitania" pierced the world's heart with a pain like that of a stab of a knife in a human hand. There is one thing more terrible than the remorseless power of nature, and that is the wrath of man. Humanity's hopes have suf- fered an awful shipwreck, nor do we see any im- mediate prospect that the war will end and the world return to a recognition of sane leadership. We have had a sad disillusionment; we are not nearly so civilized as we thought we were. Civili- zation has come perilously near to pulling down its ensign and hoisting the black flag with sk'ili and crossbones at its mast-head. 160 Blue Stars and Gold I want to say a few words to the people whose faith has suffered shipwreck; to the people who once believed things which now they doubt; to the men who are not strong enough to cast themselves into the freezing and wind-tossed ocean and swim ashore in the strength of their own personal faith. At the time of Paul's shipwreck, those who could not swim escaped on planks and broken pieces of the ship; there still are such men. It is to them I want to say a word. I want to give them some planks of what seems to me great elemental truth, then some broken spars saved out of the wreckage of their faith. There are some planks, some great fundamental assumptions on the basis of which we must face our life problems. The first of these is the eternal value of the right. I start with that because it is the nearest plank to hand when the ship goes down. If God were dead and the world were bad, it still would be better for every right-minded man to live righteously with his neighbor and reverently to- ward the good. If all that we have hoped for is a delusion, it still is better to hold to the right on the sheer basis of its value in human life. There is a second plank which I think every one of us may lay hold upon, and that is the imperative of personal obligation. There is some- thing I ought to do, and I shall stand forever con- demned before my own conscience if I do not do When the Ship Goes Down 161 my best. If I could know that there were no God, or that there were a God and He was either wicked or indifferent, that fact could never justify me in defrauding my neighbor or seeking his harm. I have my own duty to perform and must do it, though the heavens fall. I find another plank in the personal influence of Jesus Christ. I am not speaking now of any theory about Him. Whether He represents God's long- est reach manward, or man's highest aspiration Godward, we will not now discuss. He is a fact to be reckoned with in the time of moral ship- wreck. He lived in such a time, a time when the church was recreant and government had become corrupt; in a time when the most favored nation in the world denied its Lord, and the laws of the greatest of existing governments were perverted to procure His crucifixion. In such a time Jesus lived. The destruction of Jerusalem was near. The utter collapse of the Old Testament ideals of righteousness was imminent, yet He maintained His faith in God. and man and gave to the world a new saving element of hope. I am not now speaking of Him in terms of any man's theology; I am merely saying that in the day of moral ship- wreck the thoughtful man may well reckon with Jesus Christ, for He lived in such a time and guided the world's ship through foaming seas to a sure harbor of hope. 162 Blue Stars and Gold I take these three planks of righteousness and duty and the character of Jesus Christ, and to them I add one more — faith in an overruling Good- ness. Bad as things are, there is always goodness somewhere. It must be a very persistent kind of goodness, too, or it would have been drowned long ago. It is a goodness that floats; you can never quite submerge it and keep it down. Indeed, I think we shall agree in calling it Eternal Good- ness. It is a goodness that inheres in the heart of things. You may call it what you like; we will not quarrel about names, but I call it the goodness of God. "I had fainted unless I had believed to behold the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." I will add one other broken piece of the ship, and that is hope for the life to come. Perhaps you will tell me that you have lost that article out of your creed. I am not asking you to put it into your creed as something you feel sure about. I am assuming, however, that you still cherish the hope that the loved ones you have lost are safe somewhere in the love of God, and that you want to live so that if they are living in any heaven any- where, they are not lost to you. Now, I believe that if worst came to worst, a man might cling to any one of these great funda- mental truths, to any one of these broken pieces of his former faith, and ultimately come ashore. When the Ship Goes Down 163 But If you hold to any two of them, or three, or four, or half a dozen of such truths, you can lash them together and make a raft, and even though the proud waters go over your soul, you can never quite be overwhelmed. THE VALUE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE In the same home where Jesus lived when He was a lad, lived James, His brother, and the two played together. They must have been very unlike in many ways, for the letter that James has left to us exhibits few of the traits of mind that we discover in Jesus. Still, there are points of simi- larity. James was called "the just." He left be- hind him a record of rectitude which holds his name in high honor always. This man James was writing about the brevity of life, and he said: "What is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishethaway." Very well, but what is a vapor, and when it van- ishes, what becomes of it? We hardly need to be reminded of the brevity of life. It is the universal testimony of old men that to them life has seemed short. Even a life of 164 The Value and Significance of Life 165 threescore years and ten is a restricted life, and if, by reason of strength, the years be fourscore, yet life is soon cut off. All of our plans are made with the knowledge that we may not live to carry them out. We press through the world with a feverish haste as those who are not to be here long. The Apostle James was speaking well within bounds when he compared life to vapor. Meas- ured in the proportion of its length to the bound- less extent of time, the life of any one man is too brief to be represented by a vapor; measured by the proportion of his bulk to the mass of the uni- verse he is altogether too insignificant to be thought of even as the tiniest speck in a vapor. If the man of science be asked concerning human life in its relation either to the stretch of time or the bulk of the universe, he would say what James said, and say it more emphatically. What is our world, and what is man? In an issue of The Independent, Harry H. Kemp has answered this question. God made a million atoms, each by mortals called a "world;" Like dust-motes in a beam of light, they darted, circled, whirled ; Yet all these million worlds, compared to all His might did rule, Were in the Universal Whole one tiny molecule. 166 Blue Stars and Gold The mortals on these shining specks spake of God's space as "far," And every bright companion-mote they hailed as "world" or "star." (They should have known the Eternal Mind no need for measures hath; God looketh down the Milky Way as down a garden path; The distance from our outmost sun unto His throne, no doubt, Is a hand's-breadth in His seeing, or too small to measure out.) These manikins then fought and died on many a shining mote — For what they dubbed as "empires," sworded one another's throat ; Each nation on its ant-hill swarmed and sang a patriot song, And stormed another ant-hill to avenge an emmet wrong; And thus they hated, loved and lived until the end of time, While up the weary rounds of life a million worlds did climb. Then flash ! Two molecules collide and worlds exhale in mist, And back into a fiery ring do melted empires twist, And cities in solution hang and drop in fiery rain, And the sinew of the tiger fuses with the poet's brain ; The Value and Significance of Life 167 All back into one element, trees, mountains, oceans, glide, And not one life is left to strut and swell in pompous pride — Then some far-worlded telescope which chance did thither turn Beholds this starry funeral pyre minutely flame and burn, "Lo!" thinks the awed astronomer, his star-map at his side, "Upon yon utmost verge of night a star was born and died." And so they numbered eons there, and cherished histories gray ! Oh, but they battled, loved and dreamed for a clock-tick in God's day ! Life is a vapor. But what is a vapor? It is all that it ever has been. It was a pearly raindrop that fell down from the skies; and as it fell, it brightened and made beautiful the flower in whose golden heart it lay, and then, dropping to the earth, watered the root that there might be other flowers; and then, by subterranean channels breaking forth into a spring, it flowed singing to the sea, turning the wheels of industry as it went, and laughing in the sunlight as it bore great ships upon its blue bosom. The sun caught it up and it vanished into heaven, smiling as it rose. All this the vapor was and is; all this it did and does. It appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away. 168 Blue Stars and Gold But when it vanishes, it rises fragrant with the odor of the flowers it has refreshed, radiant with the honor of thirst it has quenched, and jubilant in the memories of service it has rendered. It vanishes away, but as it vanishes, the sun catches it up into heaven, pours through it the sev- enfold glory of its prismatic splendor, and imparts to it a radiance fit for the diadem of God. It vanishes away, but as it vanishes, it smiles in the glow of promise of joyful service still to -be, and its rainbow gladdens the eyes of men. There are lives like that. They app-ear for a lit- tle time and then vanish away. But they come to earth trailing clouds of glory, and they vanish fra- grant with the memories of a beautiful and varied ministry to their fellow men. They flow through the channel of their years, leave behind them holy and sacred memorials, and when they vanish they overarch the two worlds; at this end are glorious memories, and the gold at the other end of their rainbow is the pavement of the city of God. And the vapor is not lost. It is one of the cer- tainties of modern science that every particle of the vapor abides. It disappears, but it is inde- structible. We see it, Like the snowdrop in the river, A moment white, then fades forever. Value and Significance of Life 169 Forever? No! It has fallen, faded, risen and blessed the world a million times; and unborn gen- erations will see it, taste it, and be refeshed by it. There are lives like that. They come to earth, live, love and pass away. But they are not lost. The sweet influences by which they made life bet- ter are added to the invisible cords that bind the world to the throne of God. They are not lost. They live, and live forever. MAKING DEATH SIGNIFICANT Death is an event which every man must face as a certain experience of his own. It is the great leveler. It is like the flood of Noah's day; there is no man tall enough to rise above it. For the vast majority of mankind death has no especial significance. For very many it is a very stupid and common- place event. They simply lie down and stop breath- ing. They may be longer about it, or less long; they may groan or lie quiet; but they die, and that is virtually all that is to be said about it. But here and there is a man who makes death significant. Some do it one way and some in another. Abner died as the fool dieth. Others have done likewise. In that fashion they wrenched death from the commonplace and flung life away to the accom- paniment of folly. 170 Making Death Significant 171 But other people have succeeded in dying nobly, immortally. It is not wholly the manner of their death. Je- sus and the two robbers had an identical experi- ence so far as the crucifixion went; but His Cross was not like theirs. In some way Jesus was able to meet death in a way that robbed that great enemy of his victory. Jesus made death significant. It is the glory of the soldier who fights for a great cause, that he is able to utilize an experience which he must share with all sorts and conditions of men from Adam down, and even with the brute creation, and make it significant. Some men have said that if Jesus Christ had lived the life He lived, and taught the truths He taught, and died a natural death, it would have meant as much to the world. They talked nonsense. If Jesus had lived as He lived, his life would have been unspeakably precious. If He had taught as He taught, the truths He uttered would have been among the best heritages of mankind. But his life and his teachings take on a dignity and spiritual significance with His death which the great teachers from the apostles down have rightly evaluated. Death may be a very significant event. 172 Blue Stars and Gold It is easy to die ; men have died for a wish or a whim, For bravado, passion or pride. Yes, that is true. Some deaths have been inconsequential. Some might as well have occurred years before they did, and the world would have been, if any- thing, better off. Some deaths have been wasteful and some have been shameful. But some have been noble, and have inspired later generations as lives alone could never have inspired them. A short time ago The Atlantic Monthly con- tained an article by Winifred Kirkland, entitled "The New Death." It was much discussed, but hardly deserved all the attention that was given it. There is no "new death." All the ways of dying have been tried out long ago. But the article, if not great, was timely, and much of it was true, including this — that the issues of the war are certain to make death more real to us, and the other life more significant. We shall no longer ignore death, or assume that our friends once dead are gone out of our life and experience. The author of the article to which I refer speaks her best words in her closing paragraphs: As the new intimacy with death frees us from the fear of our own dissolution, transmuting dread into the stimulus of hope, so the New Death provides Making Death Significant 173 that adaptation of love to loss which transmutes bereavement into energy. Four years ago the activ- ity of the world was conditioned on our power to forget death. Our dead lay coffined in our hearts. We hesitated to speak of them, as we should have hesitated to ask our friends to go with us to a grave — a visit that for ourselves was either a duty or a solace, but might have hurt the sensibilities of others. Such conduct was to shun death, not to accept it. It was not death that killed our loved ones, it was our manner of concealing grief, as if it were a thing unclean and painful, abnormal as disease. To-day brave grief is a sign of the soul's health. We used to hide away our loved ones from our conversation, denying them that earthly influence which is one branch of their bourgeoning. To-day, when millions of mothers grieve, it would be trav- esty to pretend that their lost sons are not their fore- most thought. We cannot hide away so many dead. Their presence must enter our daily talk, must min- gle with our daily tasks. At last we no longer con- demn our dead to graves in a past that we keep pri- vate, but allow them their rightful place in our present If our faith is to lead us where our dead boys have gone, it must be a faith built, like theirs, of spirit-values. On the mere guess that death is a portal is founded the resilience of the hell-rocked . world to-day. It is a new illumination, a New Death, when dying can be the greatest inspiration of our everyday energy, the strongest impulse toward 174 Blue Stars and Gold daily joy. If only the beauty of the vision the trag- edy has revealed can be retained a little while ! For this little while has death come into its own as the great enhancer and enricher of life. This is the lesson that the slain splendor of youth has taught to a moribund world. To construct a new world on the faith that their words and their sacrifice attest is the sole expression permitted to our mourning; it is the sole monument beautiful enough to be their memorial. Our boys who have gone to their death have not gone whining nor in a craven spirit. They have gone with the abandon of which Alan Seeger wrote : I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When spring comes round again this year And the first meadow flowers appear, And I to my pledged word am true — I shall not fail that rendezvous. They have gone with the solemn gaiety of which Winifred M. Letts wrote in describing the de- parture of the Oxford boys: I saw the spires of Oxford As I was passing by, The gray spires of Oxford Against a pearl-gray sky. Making Death Significant 175 My heart was with the Oxford men Who went abroad to die. The years go fast in Oxford, The golden years and gay. The hoary colleges look down On careless boys at play. But when the bugle sounded war They put their games away. They left the peaceful river, The cricket-field, the quad, The shaven lawns of Oxford To seek a bloody sod — They gave their merry youth away For country and for God. God rest you, happy gentlemen, Who laid your good lives down, Who took the khaki and the gun Instead of cap and gown. God bring you to a fairer place Than even Oxford town. "SOMEWHERE" I was at Camp Grant a few months after it opened, giving a series of addresses to the soldier boys in training there. The boys were singing songs new and old. The piano played one that was new to us all. "Now, fellows," said the leader, "this new song is a corker. Let's learn it, and sing it with pep !" So they started the song, which began, I think, somewhat flippantly, "Johnny, get your gun" — a line neither very dignified nor original — and in due time they swung into the chorus and were singing, "Over there, Over there !" I was familiar with those words in a Gospel hymn, and, I thought, to quite as good a tune, — O think of the home over there, By the side of the river of light, Where the saints all immortal and fair, Are clad in their garments of white. Over there ! Over there ! O think of the home over there ! 176 "Somewhere" 177 But it was not this song which the boys sang at Camp Grant and which I have heard so often since. The "Over There" of which they sing is over in France : We'll be over, we're coming over, And we won't come back till it's over, over there. It is interesting to notice how quickly "Over There" has become accepted as a geographical des- ignation. Everybody now talks about "Over There," and everybody understands it. There is another new place charted and named in the geography of the soul of America, and that is "Somewhere." Sentimental young women used to sing: I am for one and there's one for me, Somewhere, somewhere; Whisper, ye breezes, o'er land or sea, And tell him I love him where'er he be, Oh, tell him I'm waiting for him alone, Somewhere, somewhere! Sensible people used to smile at songs like these ; they were for those who sang them, but not for us. Now and then at a funeral would be sung, "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere," and always, after- ward, some one would comment on it as cheap sen- timent and poor verse. 178 Blue Stars and Gold The verse was not so poor ; it could not be called great, but it was better both in form and sentiment than some of its critics gave it credit for being. Somewhere the sun is shining, Somewhere the songbirds dwell; Cease, then, thy sad repining, God lives, and all is well! Somewhere, Somewhere! Beautiful Isle of Somewhere! Land of the true, where we live anew, Beautiful Isle of Somewhere! As poetry, it certainly might have been either better or worse, and as sentiment, it was not very extravagant. Yet in the very sensible and stupid days before the war, such songs were frowned upon by apostles of the commonplace. But now ! Every one of us has received letters "Passed by the Censor." Where from? From "Somewhere." "Somewhere in France." Not very definite, is it ? But as definite as, under the circumstances, is advisable. Yes, and very satisfactory. To know that our boys are "somewhere," well cared for, happy and useful, is real satisfaction. "Somewhere" 179 I have a long shelf of red-bound books edited and published by Karl Baedeker. I have carried them in satchel and in pocket through many lands. They are all out of date now, and after the war some one else will publish them for Americans and Frenchmen and Englishmen. We shall not be con- tent with guide books made in Germany. The editors of the new guide books that are to be published after the war may not name that place in their index, but it is the most important place in Europe to-day — that vague, but very real place, Somewhere: To-night my boy is over the sea, Somewhere, somewhere ; Up in the firing-line is he, Somewhere, somewhere : But I have a hand, the hand of prayer, That can reach across and touch him there, And set him within God's loving care, Somewhere, somewhere. Over the sea is the mother's boy, Somewhere, somewhere; Over the seas is the father's joy, Somewhere, somewhere: And with the morning's dawning light, Over the top, and into the fight, My boy will go with the Christ in white, Somewhere, somewhere. 180 Blue Stars and Gold My boy has gone with the khaki men, Somewhere, somewhere ; He is clearing out the Bodies' den, Somewhere, somewhere ; With a soul that knows no hate nor fear, He fights for a sacred cause, and dear — And yet I think that his heart is here, Somewhere, somewhere. SOMEWHERE by Henry Burton. And if to us sensible and unsentimental people, who have managed to make ourselves so common- place and are so proud of it, can come experiences that make it possible for us to sing with fervor of earthly places which we designate as "Over There" and "Somewhere," why may we not with good reason do the same in that realm of spiritual geog- raphy where our souls are at home ? As our loved ones beyond the seas are not lost to us, but are "Somewhere," and are doing their duty "Over There," so are those not lost whom God hath taken on a longer journey. I am nearing the end of this book. I shall finish it to-night, for I write in a quiet place, my summer study in the woods, beside a little lake in Eastern Massachusetts, where for twenty summers I have worked. I can work rapidly here, for I am free from the ceaseless interruptions that hinder my labor in Chi- "Somewhere" 181 cago. Here I hardly ever have a telephone call. There is a telephone, to be sure, in the house, some distance away, and once or twice a week I am called there. The village printer tells me that the envelopes which I ordered will be ready to-mor- row, or the tailor informs me that the coat which he is repairing is ready. Their voices come to me clear and distinct from the village a mile away. I had a call this morning. It took the operator a little longer than usual to make connections, but when that was done, it was no different from any call. A lady who lived in Chicago and whom I know well spoke to me, and said, "Mother died this morning. Can you attend the funeral in Chicago on Tuesday?" I consider a moment my engagements for to- morrow ; I am to preach in Providence in the morn- ing, and in another place in the evening. From there I can get either to Boston or New York; yes, I can go. "And where are you ?" I ask her. She might have been in Boston, twenty-five miles away, or in Chicago, a thousand miles away. She told me that she was visiting in Pennsyl- vania, and her mother died in Chicago; she had just learned of it by telegraph, and she and her sisters were arranging for the funeral by wire, for they were widely separated. 182 Blue Stars and Gold She told me the name of the town in Pennsyl- vania from which she was speaking, but I did not get it. It might have been Philadelphia, or Pitts- burgh, or any of the other cities; it was not im- portant that I should know the place, and toll rates are high, so I did not ask her again. I am gathering up the sheets of this book to take with me to the publishers, for I am starting on a journey of a thousand miles in response to a voice from "somewhere in Pennsylvania." It might seem a very foolish thing to do, but it is not. I shall find her in Chicago when I arrive there, and I shall stand with her and her sisters and speak the words of comfort and hope. And as for the dear old mother, who had lived past her four score years, and died rich in love and honor, where is she? She also is "somewhere." If the voice of her daughter can come to me from somewhere in Penn- sylvania, and I can hear it as plainly as if she called to me from the next room, I will not deny that her mother, who also is out of my sight, can still be an influence, a living influence, in the lives of all who loved her. She is no farther away than her daughter, with whom I have been speaking from the telephone in my own cottage in Massachusetts to somewhere in Pennsylvania. So after the services of the Sabbath are over, I "Somewhere" 183 shall take up my journey of a thousand miles in response to a voice from somewhere. But I know the voice, and I know whither I go. We go through life following voices that speak to us from somewhere beyond our sight. The voices of the poets and the prophets and the singers of sweet melodies reverberate in our own souls; the messages and memories of our beloved dead still are audible and articulate to the ear of love. We follow those voices from "somewhere," And nightly pitch our moving tent A day's march nearer home. THE WAYSIDE INNS OF HEAVEN There are several references in the Gospels which throw some light on the conception which Jesus held of heaven. Jesus had just been visiting the Temple of Jerusalem, and He was sitting near it with his disciples when He said to them, "In my Father's house are many mansions." The use of the word "mansions" here is very interesting. Where this word is used in the New Testament, it invariably refers not to what we term mansions, but to lodging places, and suggests a degree of privacy belonging to heaven not em- phasized in the popular conception of what that place may be. In such references as these there is an incidental but fairly clear indication of one of the conditions of heaven. So far as this text gives us any light at all, its suggestion is that of progress. When we get to heaven, we shall not settle down in ever- lasting stagnation; we shall move on. 184 The Wayside Inns of Heaven 185 We shall move on in knowledge. These minds of ours are not constructed for a sudden and ex- plosive expansion, either on earth or in heaven. The soul itself is not a physical entity; it is our capacity for development. We struggle through this world with painfully little knowledge, but nor- mal life never loses its capacity for growth and its eagerness to grow. We shall grow in knowledge in heaven, and that normally, as Jesus on earth grew in wisdom while He grew in stature. We shall move on in our capacity for mutual helpfulness. We shall grow in goodness. People sometimes assume that the instant we get to heaven every fault we have will be miraculously eradicated. I do not know how anybody can know this to be true. It seems to be the plan of God that we shall be permitted to make a good many blunders here on earth in order that we shall learn by our mis- takes. I know no reason why we should suppose that God will instantly and violently abrogate that method. I have heard people say that if the high- est archangel in glory should commit one slightest sin, that single violation of God's law would cast him instantly down to hell. Nobody knows that, and I do not believe it. I think that God who is so patient with us here can afford to be, and will be, patient with us while we slowly but surely learn bet- ter. I know a good many people who are not going 186 Blue Stars and Gold to be comfortable companions for anybody to live with in heaven until they have been there two or three thousand years. They are good people, but so far as I can judge, it will take them at least that length of time spent in rather industrious effort to get to be as good as saints ought to be on earth. Jesus uses the same word where he says that He and the Father will make their abode with those who love God. That is a very precious promise, the beginning of which is now and the end of which stretches to the farther side of eternity. In heaven we shall be moving on, but we shall always have companionship. The golden streets have other traffic than the celestial moving vans. We move on, but our Heavenly Father and our gracious Saviour move on with us. It is a satisfaction thus to be assured that in the next world, as in this, "Our God goes march- ing on." Progress does not halt either on God's part or ours. This urge in the blood of normal human life is not wholly a manifestation of our human restlessness; it is a manifestation of something in the heart of God that, from the days of Israel's wanderings in the wilderness on through the triumphal progress of heaven, keeps God and us forever moving. The homing instinct of the soul that drives us Godward is no more a normal part of our nature than the adventurous push within us, The Wayside Inns of Heaven 187 spurring us ever on to catch the rhythm of the Divine music and keep step with God. A good many years ago I had a visit by the road- side with an unlettered preacher in the Kentucky mountains. It was a hot day, and we stopped to water our horses where we crossed a stream, and then dismounted and sat for a little while upon the bank. He first tried to interest me in a horse trade, and then proceeded to tell me of an illness which he had experienced seven years before, which pro- duced a remarkable change in him. It was typhoid fever, and for several weeks he was in delirium. He told me that as a result of that sickness he found himself able for the first time in his life to read the Bible. He had attended school but a few weeks in his childhood, and learned a small num- ber of words out of Webster's blue-backed spelling book according to the method of instruction then in vogue in the mountain schools. But he never had put words together until after his sickness, when, to his delight, he found himself able to read the Bible. He did not pretend to have become very efficient at it, but by spelling out some words and skipping the hardest ones, he had the indescribable joy of being able to read his Bible. I do not doubt the truth of what he told me, and his case is not without parallel in the records of psychology. But he also told me that he died. He was con- scious all the time while his friends gathered about 188 Blue Stars and Gold him and prepared his body for burial. He heard what they said, and knew what they were doing, and could see his body and knew that it was no longer his, and it was a sorrow to him when finally he had to re-inhabit it and make those involuntary manifestations of life which caused his friends to desist from their preparations for his burial. The doctor called it by some name he did not know and insisted that he never really had been dead, but he knew better. People said he was crazy when he told them about it, but he knew that he was per- fectly sane and was describing his actual experience. He went to heaven, so he said, and to his great surprise, was not immediately ushered into the presence of all its joys; indeed, he never got very far in. He was just in the first room, which was more beautiful than any he had ever seen. It was ceiled with planed lumber and painted a dove color, and around him were beauties indescribable, but on the farther side was an unglazed window at a height where those in the first room could see through, and the next room was as much more beautiful than the first as the first room was than anything he had ever seen on earth. But even this was not the end, for he could see a similar window in the farther partition of the second room, and had a suggestion of others in the rooms that were still beyond. He said, "They call me crazy and say the fever turned my head, but I know what I seen and it's The Wayside Inns of Heaven 189 so. You stay in the first room a thousand years and think it's only a day, for a thousand years are as a day with the Lord, and it takes you that long to see all there is to see and learn all there is to learn in that first room. And it takes you longer in the next one, for it's more beautiful than the first. And you never can get tired of it, for you are always learning something you didn't know and seeing something more beautiful than you have ever dreamed. And so you go on and on, room after room, and room after room, always learning, always finding out something, always increasing in your power to enjoy more beautiful things, and you never get to the last one, for it's worlds without end. Amen." That the old man's mind had been affected by his illness, I have no doubt. That he was mistaken as to his having been dead, I am very confident. That his sickness, which had quickened some of his fac- ulties, had injured others, was plain enough. But in his main contention the old man was not crazy. Heaven is not a place of monotonous and static goodness. Heaven is a place of new experiences, new knowledge, new goodness, new service. DO YOU BELIEVE IN IMMORTALITY? I believe in the immortality of the soul. I can- not prove it, but I cherish the hope. I have two principal reasons. The first is the goodness of God, and the other is the worth of character. There are other reasons, but these stand first. There is no adventure so thrilling and hazardous as that of the soul in its quest of truth. The quest lies along no royal highway, straight and plain; it lies through regions as trackless as the path to the poles, and marked with the tragedies of men who have become bewildered, lost their way, and died in the wilderness. It is almost a wonder that man- kind has not agreed to write "No Thoroughfare" at the beginning, and give up the quest. It would seem so much easier to take the world at its face value, its present cash value, and cease to bother about the meaning of things. But the soul of man rises to the challenge of the universe, and goes forth to find the meaning of things, and at the heart of that meaning, an eternal goodness. 190 Do You Believe in Immortality? 191 We are mistaken about so many things related to the making and government of the world, it is well for us not to be too dogmatic concerning mat- ters on which we merely speculate; but it is a sig- nificant fact that our faith in immortality is bound up with our belief in the divine benevolence. Men who do not believe that God is good deny the im- mortality of the soul. It would not be true to affirm that all men who believe in the goodness of God believe in immortality, but it is true that the hope of immortality, where it exists, is inseparably bound up with the faith that goodness is at the heart of things. It is our faith in goodness that gives us faith in immortality. It is that same good- ness that alone could make immortality worth hav- ing. We dare not affirm that life would be a fail- ure if it had no continuance beyond the grave, but we are fully justified in declaring that life after death is a precious corollary of our faith in the goodness of God and of the value of life. Life might be good, and not continue forever. God might be good, and have larger plans than that any one man should live eternally. But our hopes of life after death are inseparably related to our faith that God is good. Men will not believe in im- mortality, and in the face of the contradictions of life, cannot well believe in immortality, unless they first believe in the goodness of God. Not only so, but immortality on any other foundation would be 192 Blue Stars and Gold not a blessing but a curse. If God be not good, we dare not risk another life if we can avoid it. And if God is good, it is not easy for us to imagine how that goodness can be compatible with the wasteful and reckless destruction of that which has cost Him most, and has in it such large possibilities of worth to Him. Goodness and immortality stand or fall together. And they stand. The blossom is not censurable for not being fruit; yet it would be a rash blossom that would deny its own capacity of growth into fruit. The worm is not at fault for not yet being a butterfly. But the worm is justly censurable if it denies itself whatever luxury and nobility of spirit may be pos- sible to it in the contemplation and hope of becom- ing a butterfly some time. Whether any such pro- phetic premonition can come to a worm, we may not know. If into the mean little soul of the worm there can enter now any suggestion of what it is to be, the most foolish and utterly stupid thing the worm could do would be to deny itself the assur- ance that one day it should take to itself a form of beauty and the power of flight. We can imagine it a mirth-provoking experience for the worm to pro- claim such an astounding faith. All the testimony of the senses would be present to deny it. The owl in his wisdom might well be expected to hoot at it. There would be no worm present to testify that it had ever seen a worm evolve into a butter- Do You Believe in Immortality? 193 fly. Yet if the worm with the aspiring soul were a truly wise worm, it would trust its intuitions, its inspirations, its faith. It would say, "I intend to be just as good a worm as a worm can be, but I am more than a worm; I possess the promise and potency of becoming a butterfly. Nay, even now, in my soul, I am a butterfly." We know another thing, namely, that the worm that denies to itself the validity of this impulse of immortality is forever and hopelessly lost. That is to say, the worm that refuses to enter the chrysalis gets killed by the frost. The worm that thinks it not worth while to bury itself in a dark little place of its own spinning, but to live on in its wormhood, remains forever a creature of the dust, a thing to be trodden on and finally to perish in the cold. It is his trust in this matter, which may be called his instinct of immortality, that preserves his life at all, and preserves it to the coming glory of his later and more beautiful existence. But there is still a further thought, and that is this : The worm that hath this hope in him is not wholly a worm. He has in himself the capacity to be something greater. The instinct that is to drive the worm into the chrysalis must be reckoned with in even a scientific study of the worm; it compels his classification already with the winged and beautiful forms of life. He that believeth hath the glorified life. 194 Blue Stars and Gold Let us make it as plain to ourselves as we can that this prophetic instinct in the worm that im- pels it to weave and enter the chrysalis does more than relieve the monotony of wormhood with a pleasant illusion of something that the worm does not know very much about. It is the thing that makes continuous and glorified life attainable, and it already makes the worm necessarily classifiable as something above a worm. It would be the most irrational thing possible for a worm to deny the authority and validity of that dim but potent hope. And if that would be folly for the worm, how much more so for us! By the grace of God, we are not worms. We are more than creatures that grovel in dust. And one of the things that make us so is the compelling power of this blessed hope. The hopes that elevate us above the dust, that lift up our heads and give wings to our most en- nobling and God-like aspirations, these are the hopes which we have good right to possess. We need not be too economical of them. We cannot bankrupt the treasury of God. We cannot exhaust the eternal riches which are ours in Jesus Christ. Jesus lives, and we have eternal life in Him. A Collection of PRAYERS AND PRAYER POEMS For Readers of This Book PRAYERS AND PRAYER POEMS For Him I Love O God, Thou lovest all men, and I would seek to share thy love for all mankind. I pray for all sorts and con- ditions of men, for they are all thy children. But Father, I cannot love them all alike, nor pray for all alike. I pray especially for my own dear one who has gone to fight for his Country and his conscience. The Lord watch between me and him while we are absent one from the other. Keep him in his hours of loneliness and peril. Bring him safe home if it be thy will. But whatever sacrifice shall be his and mine, make us brave and true. Through thy grace, manifest to men in Christ our Lord, Amen. For All Our Soldiers, Sailors and Aviators God of every righteous cause, we commend to Thee the soldiers, sailors and aviators of our great and noble Nation, that Thou mayest have them in thy keeping and grant them thy blessing. We have sent them forth to fight, as we believe, for a great and righteous cause. Thou who didst give thy Son to suffer to redeem the world, grant thy grace to these the sons of America in this hour of the world's crucifixion. Strengthen about them the agencies that help them to do right, and rebuke for the sake of righteousness all that would diminish our pride in them and love for them. God make them brave ; God arm them with every manly virtue, and give them victory and peace. For the sake of Christ our Lord. Amen. 198 Blue Stars and Gold For Our Country and Our President O God, who art the Hope of all the ends of the earth, remember the whole creation, pity our race, and save the world from sin. Protect our land from whatever threatens her welfare, so that religion and virtue may flourish more and more. Give the spirit of wisdom and godly fear to thy servant, the President of the United States, and all who are in authority over us. Give humility to the rich and grace to use their riches to thy glory; bless the people in their callings and families, and be thou a refuge to the poor in their distress. Make every home a shelter from temptation and a nursery of noble youth; take also the homeless beneath thy protection. Cleanse and sanctify the Church which thou hast loved ; and reveal the Spirit of thy Son through the life and service of thy people. Enlighten all who are perplexed in faith, support those who are tempted, awaken those who sleep, comfort the afflicted, and encourage such as are ready to faint. Encompass with thy favor all whose lives Thou has bound up with our own, and, if there be any who do us wrong, remove all bitterness from our hearts while we pray for thy blessing upon them. Give peace, O Lord, in our time, and unite all hearts in the love of thy dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Prayers and Prayer Poems 199 For Victory Almighty God, thou art the God not of this nation alone but of all nations. We dare not pray to Thee as if thou didst love us alone among the tribes of mankind, nor pray to Thee as if we had been sinless and other nations wholly corrupt. But we pray for a victory upon our na- tional arms. We pray that the armies and navies and those who fight in the air for this nation and the nations allied with ours may have victory on land and sea. We pray this, not because we deserve it, but because we believe that we are fighting for a holy cause, for the welfare of all nations, and the establishment of justice and peace. Grant this, O Lord, our God, not for our sake alone, but for the sake of all that is dear to the heart of God. Amen. For the Wounded Almighty God, we pray Thee for the wounded and the sick, especially for those who are near and dear to us. God make their bed in sickness, and bless the hands of those who minister to them. Bless all agencies which seek to bring to wounded men the comfort and the care of loved ones at home. Be with those who fight, not under the flag of war, but under the banner of the Red Cross. Give them the compassion and the courage of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant thy skill to the surgeons and physicians, and bless the means used to the recovery of many who are sore hurt. Be near to those appointed to die, and grant them a quiet ending of their sufferings, and peace with Thee forever- more. Amen. 200 Blue Stars and Gold For Our Nation Most high and mighty Ruler of the universe, by whom our Nation hath been established in freedom and preserved in union, we praise thee for thy favor shown unto our fathers, and thy faithfulness continued unto their children : for the rich land given us for an inheritance, and the great power entrusted to the people ; for the fidelity of men set in authority, and the peace maintained by righteous laws; for protection against our enemies, and deliverance from inward strife; for an honorable place among the nations, and the promise of increasing strength. Lord, Thou has not dealt so with any people ; keep Thou the commonwealth beneath thy care, and guide the State according to thy will ; and thine shall be the glory and the praise and the thanks- giving, from generation to generation. Amen. For Our Allies O Lord, the God of all nations, we pray for our armies and navies, and for such as ride upon the wings of the wind. We pray Thee also for the nations allied with us in a great and holy cause. Already have they suffered much of bloodshed and sorrow. God grant to them that they may be strengthened by our comradeship and by the power of thy Spirit, that they may fight with manliness and vigor and attain a righteous victory. Bring peace to all nations, with righteousness and justice manifest to all tribes and peoples. For the sake of thy great name. Amen. Prayers and Prayer Poems 201 For Sailors O eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heav- ens and rulest the raging of the sea; who hast compassed the waters with bounds, until day and night come to an end; be pleased to receive into thy almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us thy servants, our loved ones now at sea, and the ships in which they serve. Preserve them from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that they may be a safeguard unto the United States of America, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the in- habitants of our land may in peace and quietness serve thee our God; and that they may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labor; and, with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies, to praise and glorify thy holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. For the Y. M. C. A. and for Chaplains Almighty God, we pray Thee for all who in thy name and in ours are ministering to our boys at the front. We pray for the chaplains, for the Young Men's Christian Association, for the Salvation Army, and for every agency which is endeavoring to preserve the normalities of life and to emphasize the valid claims of the spiritual life. God strengthen these men and women, and all the agencies of mercy and compassion. God make our boys strong and keep them clean and upright. We ask through thy love for us and them. Amen. 202 Blue Stars and Gold For the Persecuted and Afflicted O God, who art mindful of thy children everywhere, reveal thy mercy unto all men, and remember, in thy great good-will, those for whom we now make intercession. Remember our Nation which Thou hast established, and bind together the whole body of the Commonwealth in the unity of brotherhood. Remember all the persecuted and afflicted; speak peace to the nations that are vexed with war and weary of blood- shed, and give victory to the right. Moreover, because the reins of government are in thy hands we beseech Thee to direct and bless all who are in lawful authority, especially thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others to whom the people have entrusted power, together with the whole body of the Com- monwealth: let thy fatherly favor so preserve them, and thy holy Spirit so govern their hearts, that religion may be purely maintained, and our land may abide in righteous- ness and peace, through Him who is the Prince of Peace. Amen. For Comfort O Thou who dwellest in heaven, mercifully regard all thy sorrowful and afflicted children upon earth, we beseech Thee. Draw near to them with the comfort of thy love, and sustain them by the right hand of thy power. Grant us a heart to sympathize with them in their distress, and give us both the opportunity and the will to help those who are in any trouble, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Prayers and Prayer Poems 203 For Desolate Lands and Stricken Peoples O God, we pray Thee for all lands that lie desolate, for Belgium and Poland and Armenia, and for all peoples upon whom have come the horrors of war, the violence of massacre, and the pain of famine and pestilence. Stay thou the enemy and the avenger, and bring to these and all nations the blessings of peace. Meantime, stir up the hearts of thy people in this land that they may make these calamities an occasion of mercy and benevolence, in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. For Penitence O God, we humble ourselves before thy throne, asking Thee to pardon and forgive us for our many sins. Grant to our nation and to the people of our land repentance for our pride, our love of money, our political corruption, our every private sin and national shame. Thou hast made us a light-bearer to the nations. Let not the light that is in us be darkness. Cleanse our own land from every form of injustice and from greed and dishonor, that we may be a light to others. Make us worthy of our heritage, of the great names of our history, of the brave men who in the past have bled for us, and of those who in the present are bleeding for us. As the nations turn from the tyranny of kings, may they find in this nation new assurance of the purity and the safety of government by the people. May the voice of the people be the voice of God expressed in a clean ballot, in just laws, and in social justice. Amen. 204 Blue Stars and Gold For the Destitute and Sorrowful O God, most merciful, who healest those that are broken in heart, and turnest the sadness of the sorrowful to joy, let thy Fatherly goodness be upon all that Thou hast made. Especially we beseech Thee to remember in pity such as are this day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fel- low-men. Bless the congregation of the poor. Uplift those who are cast down, mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and unhappy people, and by thy heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose penury tempteth them to sin. Though they be troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they be perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of Him who for our sakes became poor, thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. For Our Enemies O God, Thou hast taught us to love our enemies, yet Thou hast made it our duty to fight them. It is hard for us to do either of these things, and harder to do them both at once. We pray Thee for those with whom we are at war, that Thou wilt bring them through chastisement to a better mind, and we pray that while we fight, we may be kept from the corrosion of hatred. We pray that such blessings as we seek for our own nation may come to all nations. We pray Thee for the wounded, the suffering, the orphans, the widows of all nations. Bring peace to all lands, our Father, and restore to the earth the blessings of international good will. Through Christ our Lord, Amen. Prayers and Prayer Poems 205 For Forgiveness Most merciful God, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and hast promised forgiveness to all those who confess and forsake their sins, we come before Thee in an humble sense of our own unworthiness, acknowledging our manifold transgressions of thy righteous laws. But, O gracious Father, who desirest not the deaths of a sinner, look upon us, we beseech Thee, in mercy, and forgive us all our transgressions. Make us deeply sensible of the great evil of them; and work in us an hearty contrition; that we may obtain forgiveness at thy hands, who are ever ready to receive humble and penitent sinners ; for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen* Before a Naval Engagement O most powerful and glorious Lord God, the Lord of hosts, that rulest and commandest all things ; Thou sittest in the throne judging right, and therefore we make our address to thy Divine Majesty in this our necessity, that Thou wouldest take the cause into thine own hand, and judge between us and our enemies. Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us; for Thou givest not alway the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or by few. O let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance; but hear us, thy poor servants, begging mercy and imploring thy help, and that Thou wouldst be a defense unto us against the face of the enemy. Make it appear that Thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 206 Blue Stars and Gold A Morning Supplication We praise Thee, O God, with the morning light, and in the brightness of a new day we bless thy holy Name. For all thou hast bestowed upon us with the gift of life, mak- ing us in thine own image, and granting us to share aa children in thy knowledge and thy love, in thy work and thy joy; we thank Thee, heavenly Father. For all good things in the world, for food and raiment, for home and friendship, for useful tasks and pure pleasures, we thank Thee, heavenly Father. For all spiritual blessings, for thy holy Word, for the Christian fellowship, for the good example and blessed memory of thy saints, for the secret influence of thy Spirit; we thank Thee, heavenly Father. And above all we praise and bless Thee for the life and death of thy dear Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. For Protection O God, the Protector of all that trust in Thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; increase and multiply upon us thy mercy, that Thou, being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we may finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O Lord, most merciful, for the sake of thy dear Son, our Saviour. Amen, Prayers and Prayer Poems 207 An Evening Supplication Almighty God, we beseech thee to continue thy gracious protection to us this night. Defend us from all dangers and mischiefs, and from the fear of them, that we may enjoy such refreshing sleep as may fit us for the duties of the following day. Make us ever mindful of the time when we shall lie down in the dust, and grant us grace always to live in such a state that we may never be afraid to die ; so that, living and dying, we may be thine, through the merits and satisfaction of thy Son Christ Jesus, in whose Name we offer up these our imperfect prayers. Amen. For Victory and Peace O God, the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing. Look in pity on the nations now at war, and for- give them for their hatred and their strife. Grant us peace in our time, O Lord. But bring peace only when it can come with the establishment of righteousness, the sanctity of treaties, and international honor and good will. Until then, give us patience and courage to sacrifice and to strive, till Thou shalt visit the earth with peace, and thy blessings shall be manifest to all nations. Amen, 208 Blue Stars and Gold A Morning Thanksgiving Almighty and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we, thy needy creatures, render Thee our humble praises, for thy preservation of us from the beginning of our lives to this day, and especially for having delivered us from the dangers of the past night. To thy watchful providence we owe it that no disturbance hath come nigh us or our dwelling ; but that we are brought in safety to the beginning of this day. For these thy mercies, we bless and magnify thy glorious Name, humbly beseeching thee to accept this our morning sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, for His sake who lay down in the grave, and rose again for us, thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen, An Evening Petition O thou, who art the true Sun of the world, evermore rising, and never going down; who, by thy most whole- some appearing and light dost nourish and make joyful all things, as well that are in heaven, as also that are on earth : We beseech Thee mercifully and favorably to shine into our hearts, that the night and darkness of sin, and the mists of error on every side, being driven away. Thou, brightly shining within our hearts, we may all our life long go without any stumbling or offense, and may walk as in the daytime, being pure and clean from the works of darkness, and abounding in all good works which Thou hast prepared for us to walk in. Amen. Prayers and Prayer Poems 209 Prayer for a World Hurt Sore By Margaret Widdemer Lord God, we lift to Thee A world hurt sore, Look down, and let it be Wounded no more! Lord, when this year is done That wakes to-day, Many shall pray to Thee Who do not pray ; Let all lips comfort them, All hearts be kind, They who this year shall leave Their joys behind; Give them Thy comforting, Help them to know That though their hopes are gone Thou dost not go ; They who shall give for Thee Lover and son, Show them Thy world set free, Thy battles done! Lord God, we lift to Thee A world in pain, Look down and let it be Made whole again! 210 Blue Stars and Gold A Prayer in Wartime By John Oxenham Lord God of hosts, whose mighty hand Dominion holds on sea and land, In peace and war thy will we see Shaping the larger liberty. Nations may rise and nations fall, Thy changeless purpose rules them all. When death flies swift on wave or field, Be thou a sure defense and shield ; Console and succor those who fall, And help and hearten each and all. Oh, hear a people's prayers for those Who fearless face their country's foes : For those who weak and broken lie, In weariness and agony — Great Healer, to their beds of pain Come, touch and make them whole again. Oh, hear a people's prayers, and bless Thy servants in their hour of stress : For those to whom the call shall come We pray thy tender welcome home : The toil, the bitterness, all past, We trust them to thy love at last. Oh, hear a people's prayer for all Who, nobly striving, nobly fall : Prayers and Prayer Poems 211 For those who minister and heal, And spend themselves, their ski 1 1, their zeal — Renew their hearts with Christlike faith, And guard them from disease and death, And in thine own good time, Lord, send Thy peace on earth till time shall end. Prayer of a Soldier in France By Joyce Kilmer Sergeant Joyce Kilmer was killed in action in France, August 1, 1918, while this book was in preparation. My shoulders ache beneath my pack. (Lie easier, Cross, upon His back.) I march with feet that burn and smart. (Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart.) Men shout at me who may not speak. (They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek.) I may not lift a hand to clear My eyes of salty drops that sear. (Then shall my fickle soul forget Thy agony of Bloody Sweat?) My rifle hand is stiff and numb. (From Thy pierced palm red rivers come.) Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me Than all the hosts of land and sea, So let me render back again This millionth of Thy gift. Amen. 212 Blue Stars and Gold O God, Forgive ! By Madge E. Anderson God, forgive me that I fail to see The heroism now surrounding me, Nor count that hero great whose spirits fail Because his body poorly fed does quail Beneath a task which he is set to do — A task too hard for him — that we the few In idle ease on luxuries may live : My God, that we forget him, O, forgive. All day my brother labors in the field — Labors that the brown earth may richly yield Its strength of substance, that my life may live. 1 do not think of him — O God, forgive. And this my sister in the sweat-shop stands, Her heart so human, struggling with weak hands, 'Till death, more kind than life, says: "Cease to live.' O God, I thought not of her — O, forgive Within the heated depth of darkest mines, Ten thousand slaves of poverty one finds — They never see the sunshine. In the dark They labor on 'till death does stiffen stark Our brothers' forms. Let their starved spirits rise To life in light, in homes beyond the skies. We thought not of them, laboring to live — Remembering now, we pray: O God, forgive. Upon our streets the clubs our watchmen wield They wield for us, our safety, nor do yield ; Prayers and Prayer Poems 213 No matter how their weary arms may ache Nor feel for needed rest, can they forsake A duty tedious, stale of interest, In care for you, for me, that none molest. Ah, thus from year to year we see them live, Yet never think of them : O God, forgive. The fireman rushing to the burning home, The seamen who o'er angry oceans roam, The builders of the iron-trails which link This world of men, from ocean's brink to brink, The men who swing great bridges high in air, And those whom pestilence can never scare — These all are heroes, and among us live. We seldom think of them — O God, forgive. A Battle Prayer By Edgar A. Guest God of battles, be with us now: Guard our sons from the lead of shame, Watch our sons when the cannons flame, Let them not to a tyrant bow. God of battles, to Thee we pray : Be with each loyal son who fights In the cause of justice and human rights, Grant him strength and lead the way. God of battles, our youth we give To the battle line on a foreign soil, To conquer hatred and lust and spoil ; Grant that they and their cause shall live. 214 Blue Stars and Gold A Prayer for Those Who Watch By Theodosia Garrison We can not see beyond the flame, the black smoke's smother ; We only know they strive there, each beside the other, Our son and soldier, lover, husband, brother. We can not hear the battle-clash, the roaring of the guns ; We only know among them are the well-beloved ones, Those who made the world for us, lovers, husbands, sons. "Ours!" the heart within us cries. Nay, but these are more Even — men-at-arms of God who wage a holy war In the cause His soldier-saints fought and conquered for! Lord, for us, the waiting ones, watchers in the night, Change our selfish fears to pride, let us see aright The honor of the Service, the glory of the Fight ! Give us faith to know Thy sword was never bared in vain, Give us vision to behold, above the fields of pain, The splendor of the sacrifice that saves a world again ! Prayers and Prayer Poems 215 A Father's Prayer By Margaret JViddemer Lord God, Who let Your Baby Son Pass earthward where the joys were few, To a hard death when all was done, And very far away from You, My little lad must go one day Roads where I cannot guide his feet, Through dangers that I cannot stay, To griefs I cannot help him meet. He must hear voices calling him — When youth is wild and life is warm And right seems far away and dim — To evil things and battle storm. Lord God, Whose Son went steadily Down the hard road He had to tread, Guard my son, too, that he may be Strong through his hours of doubt and dread ! 216 Blue Stars and Gold A Prayer By Katharine Janeway Conger Is it too much to ask, that he I love Shall come back safe to me, That his young limbs be still as straight and strong, His brave young eyes still see? Is it too much, when countless women's hearts Mourn the beloved dead Or break to see torn bodies, crippled limbs, Eyes whence the light has fled ? Is it too much ; then, God, I would ask more ; That he come safe to Thee, His white young soul, unblemished and unscarred, March homeward strong and free. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: y^. 2081 PreservationTechnologk A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATI 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 i I * ■'; II ■■■I