Excerpt from The World War, Utterances Concerning Its Issues and Conduct
It may seem to some readers of the Study that we entertain too exalted expectations of the war and what is to come from it. The terms we have used in our expression of these have, perhaps, suggested to many a premature anticipation of the millennium as the inevitable epilogue of what is so conspicuously an Armageddon.
Frankly, we indulge in no such exaggerated optimism. When we use the phrase, "the salvation of all men, including our enemies," we have not meant to ignore its spiritual significance, believing, as we firmly do, that there is no real advance of humanity which does not include the whole man. But also we have not meant to identify salvation with sanctity, but rather with sanity both of vision and action. Nor do we look for the complete renovation of our human nature or even for the complete political emancipation of all the peoples of the earth as the immediate result of the present world conflict.
The great hope we entertain for humanity, fortunately, does not rest upon any brilliant and overwhelmingly decisive particular event, anticipated or unexpected, in the near future. Man, as mentally constituted and developed, is by necessity a planner; but the success of his most deeply laid plans is very far from being the realization of an evolutional purpose, while, on the other hand a fortuitous happening that seems most auspicious may prove his ruin - or, one of foreboding aspect may veil a happy issue. Visible actualities - events or careers - await their interpretation through what comes after them. So dramatic a career as Napoleon"s does not, within the compass of the spectacle, explain itself - its significance for the world is shown by the Europe he left behind him, become what it was by reaction to his ambitious adventure.
Only hidden spiritual characteristics have the power to show forth for what they really are, baleful or glorious, immediately and forever transparent and, so, indelibly fixed in human remembrance. As acts unworthy of humanity are never forgotten, so sublime sacrifice and heroic endurance for the right against the might that slays the body, but cannot slay the soul, are immortal. It is these things, not accidental or relative, but of our eternity, that count in the grand cycle of history and are glorified by the creative imagination. No terms can be too exalted for the expression of these or of the hope that rests upon them.
If the children of the world are wiser in their kind than the children of light, it is because they seize upon every visible means and let no opportunity escape them for the accomplishment of their worldly ends.
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