To-day, we, true children of those senior wranglers, have inescapably, in our blood, the passion for moral research; “the invisible masters that reign in our innermost cells” have predetermined our choice. The names of all the protagonists have changed; the battleground has shifted from skyey metaphysics to the slum street; from Infant Damnation to Certified Milk for Babies; but we, too, are doing battle for our realities. In the hospitals and the settlement houses are the children and grandchildren of our old circuit-riders and militant bishops. The children of those who warred for righteousness still seek and serve.
Your quarrel is not with our little group of noisy talkers; your quarrel, Madam, is with the leaven of the world, that froths and foams and stirs because it is working. In the stormy schools of religious controversy—in that old, warm talk on morals, when the souls of men were the stake—we learned that we are our brothers’ keepers, and that idea, once generated, will be conserved, generation by generation, and the force of it will not be lost. As they strove to insure to men eternal life, their children strive that men may inherit the earth.
Our contention, yours and mine, is the old Hellenic-Hebraic clash of ideals.
“Beauty and Light!” you cry.
“Justice and Right!” comes the response.
We are both right, but my right is deeper and more elemental than yours. Yours exists for a few, happy, chosen spirits; mine for the whole, wide travailing world. Yours rests upon mine; mine does not rest upon yours.
“Rest!” you jeer. “You people never rest, and you let no one else rest.”
“‘Restfulness,’” I cry, with inky vivacity, “Stevenson told us long ago that ‘restfulness is a quality for cattle.’”
“Ah, Chantecler! Chantecler!” I hear you murmur, “when will you learn the secret of the dawn.”
Well, you see I have given you the last word, at least.