O VER and over again we have been told that the
present war will alter the map of Europe. This, no doubt, it will do ; but, what is perhaps even more important, it will alter not only the map of Europe, but the map of man's mind.
Germany has called the war a war of culture. So be it. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings—." It is in truth a war of culture, but not as Germany understands culture, nor even, perhaps, as we understand it. We remember, when war broke upon an astonished world, how great, in every quarter, was its unrest. Everywhere men were flying at each other's throats—aye, and women too. It was class against class, sect against sect, faction against faction, party against party, sei against sex, till finally it became nation against nation, nations drowning their differences in each other's blood. The world was not altogether unprepared. It was not prepared, perhaps, for the clash of arms, for the roar of cannon, for the moans of dead and dying ; but the clash of sentiment, the roar of divergency, the moans of a dying age, of moribund formulae, had long since rent the air, and on man's bewildered senses there had slowly dawned the consciousness of the inevitability of some great upheaval. "Something must happen," was the general conviction ; but of the nature of that something few had an inkling And something did happen. Already, before the great declaration, there had been a vast mental and moral upheavaL Every emotion by which man is stirred was in a state of flux, every passion by which he is possessed was roused. Man's finger was upon the trigger of all his emotions. He was possessed by the Devil of Unrest, and he knew him not. It was a war of ideas. Every man had his own culture—the Churchman, the Nonconformist, the Socialist, the Labour Man, the Liberal, the Unionist, the Ulsterman, the Suffingist. Every man had downed tools and was fighting for his own idea, his own point of view, his own peculiar culture. The world teemed with ideas. In every man's soul a potential Christ had risen to save the world, to restore lost humanity, to give life, and to give it abundantly : unto each a Child was born—a Son was given. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand : such was the universal battle-cry expressed in varying terms. And every man had his own kingdom ; and kingdom fought against kingdom. And to each man it fell, of course, to defend the neutrality of his own kingdom—of his own idea, since every man that was not with him was against him, infringing his neutrality. For an idea is far-reaching. It cannot really be neutral; it embraces the whole world, or would embrace it; and when it does not, or may not, embrace it, it strives with it. As the beast With young, so is man in the birth-throes of an idea. He is beside himself, casting to the four winds all established civilization for the civilization which is bone of his bone. So he fights, in the civil warfare of ideas, bitterly, cruelly, brutally, with all the animal's fierce elementary instinct of protection. To-day men group thena- selves and strive in nations, not because the old ideas have ceased to grip, not because those great ideals, the children of their imaginings, are superseded, but because, in his supreme conceit, a man's country represents this great Idea, under the pains of which he has so strenuously laboured. Its banner is the banner of his own soul's aspiration. His nation represents his great Idea, otherwise he would not strive for it ; his nation represents his own particular culture—in no other could it flourish. And if hitherto his country has not seen entirely eye to eye with him, nevertheless it will do so when it has roused itself from the lethargy of a dull acquiescence in the things as they are, to a proper appreciation of the things as they should be. It has been a little wilful, perhaps, a little cussed, but it will wake up to the great Idea in time. This is the faith that is in every man, whether he is aware of it or no. This is what brings Churchman, Nonconformist, Liberal, Unionist, Socialist, Labour Man, Ulsterman, Suffragist, into the same trench, under the ,same line of fire, nations fighting against nations ; each man defending with sword and with blood the child of his adoption.
The reason why this gigantic conflict will, like many another, mark a tide in the civilization of the world, and why the geography of man's mind will be drastically altered, is due to the fact that the world is now experiencing, with a poignancy hitherto undreamed of, the heights and depths of emotion. It is being swept along by the floods of the swollen rivers of woe ; it is descending by circuitous paths into the Valleys of the Shadow of Death and of Despair ; it is stumbling blindly through the utter wilderness of loss ; the red blood of a mortal anguish is staining the flagstones of the caverns echoing its groans. Over crag and fen, over gully, across precipice and ford, it yet has reached that pleasant land and tasted the milk and honey of rapture in mighty deeds, great attain- ments. It has witnessed the glorious sun rising on the horizon of sublime sacrifice ; from the giddy peak of lost endeavour it has watched the paling of its tremulous afterglow.
A world movement is ever emotional in its earliest manifestation. Now in this strife of nations we are recruiting not men only but emotions—love, hate, fear, comradeship, sacrifice. We are experiencing the very quick of emotions—all that is good, much too that is bad, all indeed that is vital. Mankind is being whirled to-day in a veritable vortex of emotions embracing the myriad passions of all the ages, whether bad or whether good. In the Providence of God from that which is bad issues—as the stars issue, slowly, solemnly, silently, from the blackened heavens— that also which is good.
From the rights of nations we shall learn to appreciate the rights of. man, to which, alas ! too often are we blind. In the greater freedom we shall learn to see the lesser freedom—the freedom of the unit .that goes to make up the greater whole. The rights of man have been too frequently ignored by man—not wilfully, rather from ignorance. His perceptions have been blurred, his senses dulled, his understanding blunted. For him there has hitherto
been little that was vital in the vast mass of mankind ; but now— at this moment, thrilling as it is with the accumulated passions of ages, he has his finger upon the pulse of humanity. He feels beneath -his ownenetrtio sensitive, fingers the life-blood -coursine like some
mad thing—aye, oven challenging his own. He knows at last bone for bone, blood for blood, heart for heart, yea, soul for soul—a. brother like unto himself, potentially free, a man.
Civilization, strange paradox, raises barriers, establishes class, creates divisions ; compels man to don impenetrable garments of disguise that none may know him but himself. For these things we are in mortal combat to-day. We call it a struggle for culture, for civilization. At worst and at best it is superficial. Strip man of the wrappings of civilization, and all at once he sees his brother naked as himself—his joys, his pains, his fears, his hopes his own. Civilization chokes the life out of man ; he becomes a thing inert, pulseless. It paralyses his emotions, enfeebles his constitution. Yet civilization is in truth but a mirage, a condition which we imagine to exist rather than one which exists. A little step and it is gone ; rub our eyes as we will—it lact.s disappeared. Man is a savage again, acting upon the impulsolkr the moment; impulses the most elementary, now of love, now of hate—under those two categories every impulse is summed up—not altogether without law, but it is the unwritten law.
When men die on the battlefield, Civilization, unseen, spectral. formed, raises her hands in horror, for she is powerless to hinder the duke's son from giving his last cup of cold water to the trooper, erstwhile scavenger, who once had cleared the ashbin of the bottles from the ducal banquets. To the rights of scavengers to the water of life, Civilization has not made a point of stirring ducal imagina- tions. Even more spectral becomes Civilization when he who not long since brushed the crumbs from off the ducal table now forces his own last biscuit between the anhungered ducal lips. Below stairs Civilization has omitted to mention to gentlemen's gentlemen that dukes, unbeknown even to themselves, are nevertheless often hungry for the bread of life. Civilization smiles when the fast young man of doubtful reputation gives his life to protect the women of an invested city. Civilization shakes her sides in mirth when great ladies stand unabashed in their nakedness while the children of their handmaidens are arrayed in the garments of their late...splen- dour ; and Civilization, fleeing in affected horror, cries : "This is no place for me 1 I will return when Society is clothed and in her right mind."
Civilization says : "Sheathe your swords" ; but long before Civilization spoke it was said : "The blood is the Life thereof." And the cup of fellowship that man was bidden drink, was it not the cup of blood shed ? Is it not when men drink the same cup of suffering—of blood—of life given—that they awake to their brother- hood ? They have thrown aside the barriers of class, of creed, of sex, even of race. In their own suffering they know the suffering of others ; in their own joy, the others' joy ; in their weaknese, another's weakness ; in their own strength, the strength which is not theirs ; in their need, the world need. And so the great idea of the one merges itself imperceptibly in the great idea of the other. In the point of contact there is the new point of view, the point of view not of the other but of the same. Thus shall the map of man's mind be altered even as the frontier lines of those grim warring nations.
Progress is a leap forward in the illumination of the moment, in the light of a sudden flash. It is at once the slow work of centuries, and the actual accomplishment of a mere second of time. It comes of an interchange of ideas. It comes of insight into the mind of another man. It is the result always of greater love, of greeter sacrifice, of greater hope. Without sacrifice there is no understanding. This great sacrifice of nations in due course will give to each the greater understanding ; it will begin in individuals and finish inevitably in nations. But the end is not yet. Men must understand each other before nations. Mankind has been too apathetic, luxurious, selfish, sluggish, careless, spiritually blind. It must be touched to the quick before it can adequately feel, see, compre- hend. Man understands only to the extent that he gives himself for another. This is the nucleus of the idea, differently expressed and developed, in all the best forms of what we call religion.
Thus, in the midst of the hideous carnage of war, when our brains reel at the thought of these three million maimed or dead, and of armies yet marching to their graves, let us not forget the immeasurable good in the great facts of the fellowship of sorrow and pain, of failure and of sacrifice, of joy and of victory. The confusion of ideas, the arrest of progress, is due to man's tardiness in recog- nizing that the whole principle of the rights of man is based upon this common heritage. In theory, it may be accepted; in practice, it is usually denied. The unrest preceding this strife of nations, which had its place in the succession of ideas which caused it, was due to the omission on all sides to track the warring issues to their source—to some part or lot in this common heritage of mankind.
Peace ! But is it good to be at peace if you forget to give your life for your friend-7--•
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