There is no preventive of disease so effectual as
death itself,--no place so impregnable to pestilence as the grave. So,
had the vitality gone out of the nation's heart, had that lamp of love
for freedom and justice and of homage to the being of man, which once
burned in its bosom so brightly, already sunk into death-flicker and
extinction, then in the sordid and icy dark that would remain there
could be no war of like nature with this that to-day gives the land
its woful baptism of blood and tears. Oh, no! there would have been
peace--_and_ putrefaction: peace, but without its sweetness, and
death, but without its hopes.
In one important sense, however, this war--hateful and horrible though
it be--is the price which the nation must pay for its ideas and its
magnanimity. If you take a clear initial step toward any great end,
you thereby assume as a debt to destiny the pursuit and completion of
your action; and should you fail to meet this debt, it will not fail
to meet you, though now in the shape of retribution and with a biting
edge. The seaman who has signed shipping-papers owes a voyage, and
must either sail or suffer. The nation which has recognized absolute
rights of man, and in their name assumed to shed blood, has taken
upon itself the burden of a high destination, and must bear it, if
not willingly, reluctantly, if not in joy and honor, then in shame and
weeping.
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