Page:The Hope of the Great Community (1916).djvu/148



. . . But why should you give so kind an attention to me at a moment when the deepest, the most vital, and the most practical interest of the whole community of mankind are indeed imperilled, when the spirit of mankind is overwhelmed with a cruel and undeserved sorrow, when the enemies of mankind often seem as if they were about to triumph?

Let me simply say in closing, how deeply the crisis of this moment impresses me, and how keenly I feel the bitterness of being unable to do anything for the Great Community except to thank you for your great kindness, and to hope that we and the Community shall see better times together. Certainly unless the enemies of mankind are duly rebuked by the results of this war, I, for one, do not wish to survive the crisis. Let me then venture, as I close, to quote to you certain words of the poet Swinburne. You will find them in his Songs before Sunrise. Let the poet and prophet speak. He voices the spirit of that for which, in my poor way, I have always in my weakness been working.