CHAPTER XXX MY MENTAL PROCESSES
Of course I did not know what was ahead of me, but I knew from the experiences which were back of me how I felt toward the Germans. I had gotten so that every time a German soldier passed me on the street with his arrogant and hardened attitude, I muttered the words, "The scourge," under my breath. I had seen the invariable results of his Kultur and they had in every case been sordid and degrading. Henceforth I could not look upon him with anything else than contempt and hatred. The vandalism which I had seen and the terrible crimes that I had learned of, aroused in me something that I had not realized before. An anger such as seldom comes to men and such as I had not suspected my pacifist nature capable of, now seized hold of me. I vowed in my secret self that if I ever got out alive I would throw the weight of my small influence against that inhuman machine.
The Good Book speaks of a "righteous indignation," and if ever there was such a thing in the heart of a human I believe it had possession of me then. Nor was it a momentary impulse. I had grimly and deliberately gone from place to place, day after day, for the purpose of collecting unbiased facts and impressions and these latter had taken their own course in my heart and brain. Of course I wrote nothing down. I made no attempt to get a single letter out of Belgium during all the time that I was there. I was afraid that it would get me into trouble when I came to leave. I kept no diary whatever. I needed none. All the things which I have related have been from memory, but these facts were so vividly burned into my soul that they will never be forgotten unless my faculty of memory be permanently destroyed. I did not write down the impressions which came to me, or the process of conversion which was constantly taking place within my being. I dared not commit these things to paper. I realized that I was in the hands of a powerful and terrible people who would show no mercy upon one who was not in sympathy with its aims and methods. Nevertheless, I swore that if I ever got free from them I would tell the world the facts and do everything within my power to thwart them and their purposes.
Before I had left the States I had not only been a pacifist, but I had been neutral as well. Any person in my former congregation could testify that I never spoke one word from the platform against the Germans, but now I have no hesitation in condemning them with vehemence and opposing them with violence. It might seem to some as though this was a strange attitude for a minister of Christ to take, but I was led on as inevitably to this position as the compass needle seeks the pole. I had no choice. I could not help myself, but today I am proud to state that I accepted this conclusion and that deliberately and boldly I will defend it.
In a Utopian world one can act in a Utopian manner. And a Utopian world is a beautiful theory. But it is a theory and a dream. You and I today are living in a world of stern, cruel fact; in this world of fact we find the stern, cruel German. We find him here in possession of a land which he has stolen by stern, cruel, and murderous methods. He intends to keep that land, perpetuate those methods, and steal more land by identical methods. These are the methods he knows and employs. These are the only methods he respects or that make any impression on him whatever. Then we must use stern methods against him in order to overcome and thwart him and restore the world to normal methods and life. Otherwise he will encroach and impose his system upon the whole world and his method will be the permanent and the universal fate.
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE BURNING OF A FRENCH FIELD HOSPITAL.