Newspapers full of the war are alone read.
A contract for war stores - too often a dishonest contract - is the
one path open for commercial enterprise.
The young man must go to
the war or he is disgraced. The war swallows everything, and as yet
has failed to produce even such bitter fruits as victory or glory.
Must it not be said that a curse has fallen upon the land?
And yet I still hope that it may ultimately be for good. Through
water and fire must a nation be cleansed of its faults. It has been
so with all nations, though the phases of their trials have been
different. It did not seem to be well with us in Cromwell's early
days; nor was it well with us afterward in those disgraceful years
of the later Stuarts. We know how France was bathed in blood in her
effort to rid herself of her painted sepulcher of an ancient throne;
how Germany was made desolate, in order that Prussia might become a
nation. Ireland was poor and wretched till her famine came. Men
said it was a curse, but that curse has been her greatest blessing.
And so will it be here in the West. I could not but weep in spirit
as I saw the wretchedness around me - the squalid misery of the
soldiers, the inefficiency of their officers, the bickerings of
their rulers, the noise and threats, the dirt and ruin, the terrible
dishonesty of those who were trusted!
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