No true social order can be erected upon a false foundation. Autocracy is false, pernicious, and rotten from top to bottom. Therefore it must be annihilated root and branch before the peoples of the earth can find freedom and happiness. The old structure must be entirely torn down and the social order built on a new foundation.
The United States has consecrated herself to this task. Stupendous as it is, she can accomplish it. France has done her part, Britain has performed her duty, but France and Britain today are calling to us. Not in any spirit of boastfulness therefore, but in a spirit of deep humility coupled with a determined confidence must we respond to their urgent plea. We must go, we must give, we must sacrifice. If America is to save the situation, as I believe she is, she must know beforehand that it will be at a price such as she has never paid before. Widows will pine and daughters will mourn. Rachel will weep in the midnight for her sons because they are not and orphans will cry themselves to sleep. But out of the blackness the consolation which comes to me is that through it all we will find our soul and we will obey the summons of a just and righteous God. To do less were craven.
America, like other nations, may sometime go down. When we have accomplished our mission we too may pass off the stage of action. But, please God, when the names shall be called from the great Book of Life and the records of the nations now gone, shall be read, lack of vision and failure in duty shall not be charged against America; and, in the new and better world, America's part in making possible the higher order of things shall be recognized and acknowledged.
Every man has his duty. Every woman her sphere. There is nothing worth living for in the present hour but to assist in defeating Germany. And let me sound a warning here and now, loud and clear, that the person who is found unwilling or inactive in the accomplishment of this one goal will sooner or later feel the bitterness of what it is to be "a man without a country." He will come to hate himself.
On the other hand, he who does his part, who gives himself unstintedly in this hour of the world's woe, and who does not calculate the personal cost, will have the boundless and undying gratitude of future ages. These will have a part in the greatest humanizing and redemptive work since earth began and "the generations shall rise up and call them blessed." They also will be able to boast the honor of having been true Americans.
As for myself, I know not what the future holds. My personal fortunes are in the hands of God and my country. The pastorate which I resigned has been filled by another.
But I do know this: that I have been used in the great cause of democracy in a hundred times larger way than I ever was before or ever could have been, had I not gone to the war and been converted to militant justice. I am hoping to go back again, but in the meantime the government has been using my humble services in a way which is most gratifying to me. I have traveled from one end of the continent to the other delivering lectures to American citizens and trying to rouse them to their duty. I have probably spoken to a million people, and I hope this book, with the same object in view, may reach as many more. And the people have been most kind to me. In places like Tremont Temple, Boston; Carnegie Hall, New York; and Orchestra Hall, Chicago, audiences of thousands have given me memorable ovations. And when I spoke for Dr. Hillis, in Henry Ward Beecher's old church, the congregation applauded to the echo, even though it was the Sabbath day. And all I ask for the future is that my life may be worn out for God and my country. Au Revoir!