Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/80

Counter-Currents simple of issue, the abatement of which would mean people getting better, the cure of which would mean people getting well. The possibility of a peace shameful to justice and disastrous to civilization was carefully ignored. The truth that death is better than a surrender of all that makes life morally worth the living, was never spoken. This may be what neutrality implies. We addressed the Almighty in guarded language lest He should misunderstand our position. We listened respectfully when Secretary Bryan told us that our first duty was to use what influence we might have to hasten the return of peace, without asking him to be more explicit, to say what on earth he would have had us do, and how—without moving hand or foot—he would have had us do it.

Since then, men of little faith have kept dinning in our ears that religion is eclipsed, that Gospel law lacks the 64