“‘Gentlemen, our armies will do this if we ask it of them. To do it will give this people who have held as a religion the destructive notion of progress and power which has encircled the earth with woe, an exhibit of what free men really are. It will show them as no other act could do that in our interpretation of progress and power, there is no element of compulsion of others or of injury to others. If we can take these hundreds of thousands of men of ours into Berlin and leave no trace of destruction, no story of injustice behind us, we will give the world the greatest exhibit of the control that free men can exercise over themselves that it has ever seen or conceived. We shall prove the Biblical saying that “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he who taketh a city.”
“‘I ask, then, that when Germany yields—as she soon will—we say, “We receive your sword in Berlin.” And that we march our armies there for that great ceremony. You will say that this is too much to ask of armies. Gentlemen, I am willing to pledge the American army to that great act of self-control.’
“The General sat down. For a long time there was silence at the table, and then the oldest, the least smiling, the longest in arms of the English staff, arose and said: ‘I pledge the English Tommies to march to Berlin without injury to man or woman or child.’ A white haired Italian sprang to his feet: ‘You may count on us,’ he cried. Then slowly the great French general, to whose genius the campaign soon to finish was due, arose. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you all realize what it would mean to the French poilus who have seen their country so obliterated that many of them cannot even trace the lines of the little farms on which they were born, who know that when they go back to the villages in which they and their families once lived, they will not be able to find the spot where their homes stood, you must know what it would mean to these men to march into Germany as conquerors, to see her fields still peaceful and fertile, her villages still untouched, and with this bitter contrast before their eyes, neither by look or act to show hate or insult. Yet, if this conception of our American friend ever becomes possible, I pledge the French poilu to that majestic undertaking.’
“There was but one to hear from—a king—a king who knew that scores of his fairest towns and cities, with all their treasured work of centuries of labor and skill and love, were in hopeless, blood-stained ruins—who knew that thousands of his brave and honest countrymen and countrywomen had been dragged from the remnants of homes left them, to do the bidding of the enemy in his own land; who knew that, scattered in foreign lands were little children of his realm who never would know even the names to which they had been born.
“And the conference was still, and the hearts of all were big with pity, looking on this king who sat with bowed head. Long minutes passed before, rising proudly, he lifted to them a face which bore the look of one who comes fresh from a great struggle and a great victory, and in the quiet voice they had learned to know, the king said: ‘Gentlemen, I pledge you that the Belgian army will march to Berlin and leave behind it no shattered wall, no mutilated old man, no outraged woman, no orphaned child.’”
The rhapsody was over. Dick stopped, a little breathless. Never before in all his experience as a speaker had he so lost himself. He blinked a little, then suddenly was conscious of a curious change in his audience—disapproval—almost hostility. What was the matter? It threw him off his balance a bit, and he finished his sermon haltingly. They went out stiff, disapproving backbones. What in the world had he done?
He went into the vestry room, saying to himself, “What is the matter?” It was very common for the vestrymen to come around and say, “That was fine, Ingraham. Just what ought to be said,” but to-day the only person that waited on him at the door as he came out was Miss Sarah Kenton, a lady of sixty or so, whom he and Ralph were accustomed to call, “Our Intellectual.” Miss Sarah had had a literary experience, she had written books. There was no subject which ever came up on which she did not have a pronounced opinion. It must be confessed that she held most of Sabinsport in awe. With Dick, she had always been as nearly humble as was possible for her, for Dick was a man who had seen most of the world which Miss Sarah had not. Besides, his reading and thinking, even she admitted, was much broader and mellower than hers. Almost invariably Miss Sarah approved of Dick, but this morning when he came out she was waiting for him very rigid and very stern, and what she said was to the point.
“You have made a great mistake, Mr. Ingraham, in your sermon this morning. You have outraged us and you have injured yourself. No matter what we would do if we were given the direct alternative of sparing Germany or injuring her—an alternative which can only be hypothetical, and therefore should not be discussed now even as a ‘mere dream’—no matter, I say, what we would do if face to face with such an alternative, we don’t want people to talk to us now about sparing the smiling fields and cheerful little happy homes of Germany! It isn’t that we are bloodthirsty, but we are nauseated, Richard Ingraham, at talking about the blessed state of Germany compared with the desolation she has made in other countries. We don’t want to hear about it.”
And Miss Sarah turned on her heel and walked down the street, indignation and disgust in every tap of her shoe on the pavement.