Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/19

Cost of Modern Sentiment defences at home. It is a force to be reckoned with, and to be controlled. It is capable of raising us to a better and clearer vision, or of weakening our judgment and shattering our common sense. If we value our safety, we must forever bear in mind that sentiment is subjective, and a personal thing. However exalted and however ardent, it cannot be accepted as a scale for justice, or as a test for truth.

The issues with which our modern sentiment chiefly concerns itself are the conditions of labour, the progress of women, the social evil, and—for the past two years—the overwhelming question of peace and war. Sometimes these issues are commingled. Always they have a bearing upon one another. There is also a distinct and perilous tendency toward sentiment in matters political and judicial; while an excess of emotionalism is the stumbling-block of those noble associations which work for the protection of 3