Page:Studies in socialism 1906.djvu/220



me too it is a great pleasure to welcome our guests this evening, and I hail with delight this latest sign, which has been preceded by many others, of the coming together of two great nations.

One hundred and twenty years ago, in the revolutionary crisis that hurried forward the movement of the modern world, they met in a long and violent conflict. But this formidable encounter did not compromise the future. England might have feared the growing and expanding Revolution. She feared that her free commerce and her legitimate influence would be imperilled by a coalition of all the European nations, united by the revolutionary Idea and the revolutionary Sword. And she feared that a violent propaganda would disturb the balance of her own constitution and would substitute the régime of crises for the strong and continuous evolution that marked her own greatness.