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Show I ZSr JFE FORGET I r Si T EST we forget the lessons which have enlarged our vision during k 1 the years the world has been in agony we should pause some- I times amid the petty issues of politics, amid the battle of the dollars, to wash our souls anew in living waters of idealism. If our citizen- ship is so little awake to the new times that we can drop back inertly and uristrivingly to the old levels we shall find the great world passing I us by in pity and scorn. After all, it was American idealism, the hope for better things and the determination to attain them, which broke the German spirit and finally wrecked the German military machine. We entered the war, not as materialists, but as idealists. True, we had back of us a 1 material wealth and power unparalleled in history, but our soldiers took with them something which did more execution than the titanic cannon or the onrushing bayonets. It was our spirit of idealism ; the spirit of 76 and '61, the spirit that freed Cuba and lifted up the slaves of the Philippines and gave them new hope, new dignity, new ambition. ambi-tion. It was that spirit which first made the arrogant Huns doubt their power, and once that doubt had taken possession of them it produced pro-duced dismay and terror and finally defeat. The world never can be the same spiritually as it was before. Two millions of our men gazed into. the hell of war on the fields of France and saw through it to a heaven beyond the heaven of human understanding which is the first and surest step toward human brotherhood. broth-erhood. They come back to us with their vision enlarged to demand of us higher aspirations. In their souls is the League of Nations. They are in harmtmy with the genuine spirit of humanity. Let us, therefore, attune our heartbeats to the pulse of humanity. If we utter these truths in a mere spirit of rhetoric we shall not be loyal to the new world spirit. We must take this spirit home to ourselves and, as well as our frail humanity will permit, live in the H new time and according to its loftier standards. Naturally we can so live only there where we inhabit. It is true that we have become M citizens of the world in a spiritual sense, but the home soil is where the old and the new citizenships meet. M There are those among us who, blind to the changing order, have M swiftly reverted to the things of the past, to the old religious and M political prejudices, and who would revive the ancient feuds with no M higher motive than to vent their spites and exploit their bigotries. It M is a bad mood. It is bad because it is blinding. We say rightly that prejudice blinds us and that is true because prejudice becomes of our M very lives. Oftentimes nothing is so sincere as prejudice. But just fl because prejudice is often sincere, just because it blind us, let us M strive to remain awake to the new and glorious order. Tennyson M tells us that M The old order changeth, giving place to new M And God fulfills Himself in many ways. M The world has moved swiftly in these last few years from the H old darknesses into something of millennial light. f Let us keep our H faces toward the light in Utah and thus be one in spirit with men H everywhere. M There is genuine peril in returning to the old hearths and being H satisfied with the settled order of other days. Old hearths sometimes H mean old hatreds, outworn prejudices. H Let us, therefore, exchange old lamps for new and keep the new H lamps burning. H This is no impossible doctrine for angels. If we accept the spirit ; H soon we shall have something of the actuality. But if we spurn the H spirit and place our personal gains, in politics, in business and in H every-day life, above the welfare of our fellowmen and above their jH good will we shall have committed ourselves to a narrowness of life H which the world is seeking to throw off forever. H |
