"I myself have learned one great lesson over here," I said. "I have learned that in order to find happiness one must lose himself. He must give up himself in a worthy cause."
"I understand," replied the nurse. "I can see that you have become imbued with the spirit of sacrifice which seems contagious here in this land. Everybody has it."
"Well, I don't know about that," I said, "but whatever you may say, I do know this: I know that those poor fellows out there in the mud have given all they've got to make the world safe from Germany, and we ought to do the same. The one who is a pacifist now, is a slacker, a traitor, and in reality, a murderer. He is prolonging the war and thus sacrificing additional lives. I know that the Man who gave His life on the cruel cross, two thousand years ago, gave it for liberty, the same as these soldiers are doing today, and when I read in the American papers now and then of some of the obstructionists in our own country, who are railing at the President and scoffing at what is being done to prepare our army, I can't express myself."
"You must be patient though," she said, "for such men will come to their deserts, and I am so glad that I have had the pleasure of knowing you, and as you take your departure, I want you to know that I shall always remember you in the first capacity in which I knew you, as an ambulance worker, and because of your activity in saving lives—for that above all is the one thing I am interested in."
CHAPTER XLII THE HERITAGE OF HATE
The blackest aspect of the sin which Germany has committed in this war is not to be found in the ruined churches and the devastated homes. The vandalistic crime which asserted itself in destroying school-houses and libraries and works of art, in desolating the fields and laying low the country, sinks into the background when compared with the wickedness of sowing that heritage of hate in untold millions of hearts—a hate which will endure and bear fruit against her long after the present conflict has passed into history.
Ernest Lissauer, in his well-known "hymn" expressed the venom and hatred of Germany for those of other nations who do not concede her the right of world conquest, and was decorated for it by the Emperor. And although an attempt was made to suppress the hymn after the Germans realized its detriment to themselves the seed had been sown far and wide and could not be recalled. Germany had spread race hatred in the world, and that is the greatest barrier there is to human progress.