It has been said by one who has presided over the destinies of the American Republic, as the chief of State, that peace must be dictated from Berlin. Can we really hope to behold the dawn of such a glorious day? It is hardly to be supposed that Germany would wait this last extremity to realize that she must abandon for ever her dream of universal domination, relieve the world from the enervating menace of her military terrorism, and redeem her past diabolical course by the repentant determination to join with her former enemies to deserve for Mankind long years of perpetual peace with all the Providential blessings of order, freedom, truly intellectual, moral and material progress.
When the Kaiser ordered his hordes to violate Belgium's territory, to overrun France in order to crush her out of existence as a military and political Power, preparatory to their triumphant march to St. Petersburg, in his wild ambition, which he made blasphemous by pretending that it was divinely inspired, he felt sure that his really wonderful army, which he believed was, and would remain, matchless, would in a few weeks enter Paris.
What a reverse of fortune, what a downfall from extravagant expectations, would be a return of the tide which, after flowing to the very gates of Paris, spreading devastation and crimes all over the fair lands it submerged, would ebb, broken and powerless, to Berlin, bringing the haughty tyrant to his knees before his victors!
If such a day of deliverance is Providentially granted the world, having deserved it by an indomitable courage in resisting oppression, history would again repeat itself but with a different result. The French "TRICOLORE" would once more enter proud Berlin, but this time it would not be alone to be hoisted over the conquered capital of the modern Huns, scarcely less savage than their forefathers. It would be entwined with the "Union Jack" of Great Britain and Ireland, the "Stars And Stripes" of the United States, the Colours of Italy, and, I add with an inexpressible feeling of loyal and national pride, with the Dominion Colours so brilliantly glorified by the heroism of our Canadian soldiers who have proved themselves the equals of the bravest through the protracted but ever glorious campaign, unfolded with those of Australia and South Africa into the glorious flag of the British Empire.
When after the glorious battle of Iena, the great Napoleon, who could have ruined for ever the rising Prussian monarchy, entered Berlin at the head of his victorious legions, the new Cæsar, then already the victim of his unlimited ambition, represented, though issued from a powerful popular movement, triumphant absolutism.
In our days, on entering Berlin, as the final act of this wonderful drama, the entwined Colours of the Allies would symbolize Human Freedom, delivering Germany herself and the whole world from autocratic rule.
Such a memorable event taking place, and rank with the most remarkable in the world's history, the great satisfaction of all those who would have contributed to its achievement, would be that the joint Colours of the Allies would not be raised over Germany's capital to crush the defeated nation under despotic cæsarism, but to deliver her from autocratic tyrannical rule. Waving with dignity over the great Empire they would have freed from the thraldom of absolutist militarism, they could be welcomed as the promise of the renewal, for her as well as for her victorious rivals, of the reign of Justice, of Christian precepts, of Right, Order and Peace, of honest and productive Labour, of science applied to works creative of human happiness instead of diverting the marvellous resources of the great modern discoveries to criminal uses for the calamitous misfortune of the peoples.
I will close this work with the expression of two of the wishes I have most at heart, cherishing the confident hope that they will be realized.
England, France and the United States, fighting as they do for the triumph of such a sacred cause, should emerge indissolubly united from the great struggle they have pledged themselves to carry to a successful issue. I cannot conceive that so many millions of their heroic defenders will have given their lives only for a temporary achievement, soon to be forgotten. They will be gone for ever. Their sacrifices will be eternal. They must bear permanent fruits. United in death, buried together in the soil of France flooded with their blood, from their glorious graves they will implore their surviving countrymen to remain shoulder to shoulder in peace as they are in war. Their holocaust should be the holy seed from which loyal amity ought to grow ever stronger between the future generations of their countrymen who could not testify in a more eloquent and noble way their everlasting gratitude for the glorious heritage of permanent freedom they will have derived from their heroism.
A most enthusiastic daily witness of the immortal deeds of the millions of our brothers, sons and friends, fighting with such splendid courage in the land of my forefathers for our common cause, how often have I, for the last four years, ardently vowed to God from the very bottom of my heart, deeply moved by the reports of their noble achievements, that those who will rest for ever in the ground over which they fell heroically, may enjoy from above the inspiring spectacle of the union for the permanent triumph of Liberty and Christian Civilization, of the great nations for whose grand future they gave their lives!