North America-2 [53]
and expansion which has been given to them. But the curse of fighting has come upon them, and they are showing themselves to be as eager in the works of war as they have shown themselves capable in the works of peace. Men and angels must weep as they behold the things that are being done, as they watch the ruin that has come and is still coming, as they look on commerce killed and agriculture suspended. No sight so sad has come upon the earth in our days. They were a great people; feeding the world, adding daily to the mechanical appliances of mankind, increasing in population beyond all measures of such increase hitherto known, and extending education as fast as they extended their numbers. Poverty had as yet found no place among them, and hunger was an evil of which they had read but were themselves ignorant. Each man among their crowds had a right to be proud of his manhood. To read and write--I am speaking here of the North--was as common as to eat and drink. To work was no disgrace, and the wages of work were plentiful. To live without work was the lot of none. What blessing above these blessings was needed to make a people great and happy? And now a stranger visiting them would declare that they are wallowing in a very slough of despond. The only trade open is the trade of war. The axe of the woodsman is at rest; the plow is idle; the artificer has closed his shop. The roar of the foundery is still heard because cannon are needed, and the river of molten iron comes out as an implement of death. The stone- cutter's hammer and the mason's trowel are never heard. The gold of the country is hiding itself as though it had returned to its mother earth, and the infancy of a paper currency has been commenced. Sick soldiers, who have never seen a battle-field, are dying by hundreds in the squalid dirt of their unaccustomed camps. Men and women talk of war, and of war only. 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! These are things which made a man wish that he were anywhere but there. But I do believe that God is still over all, and that everything is working for good. These things are the fire and water through which this nation must pass. The course of this people had been too straight, and their way had been too pleasant. That which to others had been ever difficult had been made easy for them. Bread and meat had come to them as things of course, and they hardly remembered to be thankful. "We, ourselves, have done it," they declared aloud. "We are not as other men. We are gods upon the earth. Whose arm shall be long enough to stay us, or whose bolt shall be strong enough to strike us?" Now they are stricken sore, and the bolt is from their own bow. Their own hands have raised the barrier that has stayed them. They