If the tragic condition of the world leaves us unstirred, if we draw no lessons from it, if there is no fiery stirring of will in Ireland to make it a better place to live in, then indeed we may lose hope for our country. Let us remember the most scornful condemnation in Scripture was not given to the evil but to the indifferent: "Because thou art neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth." Let us not be the Laodiceans of Europe, listless and indifferent to human needs, swallowing our whisky and our porter, stupefying our souls, while our poor are sweated; letting the children of our cities die with more carelessness about life than the people of any other European country, with sectarian organization's crawling in secrecy like poisonous serpents through the undergrowth of swamps and forests. The co-operative movement is at least open and ideal in its aims and objects. It is national and not sectional. It seeks the triumph of no section but the unity of our people, where unity alone is possible. Our intransigents and extremists of all parties are not hurt or wounded by their adhesion to the co-operative ideal. We may make up our minds that the stubborn Irish temperament will never be overcome, but it may be won, and the movement which invites all parties and creeds into its ranks and gives them the largest opportunities of working together and understanding each other, gives also the largest hope of the gradual melting of old bitterness into a common tolerance where what is best essentially wins; for all true triumphs are triumphs not of force, but the conquest by a superior beauty of what is less beautiful. We should aim at a society where people will be at harmony in their economic life, will readily listen to different opinions from their own, will not turn sour faces on those who do not think as they do, but will, by reason and sympathy, comprehend each other and come at last, through sympathy and affection, to a balancing of their diversities, as in that multitudinous diversity, which is the universe, powers and dominions and elements are balanced, and are guided harmoniously by the Shepherd of the Ages.
THE END