Page:The League of Nations and the democratic idea.djvu/34

 the most hateful as the most compelling. It is the common man and woman, the workman and peasant and teacher and civil servant and tradesman, who after this surfeit of hatred is wearying for a return to love, after this waste of bestial cruelty is searching the darkness for some dawn of divine mercy, after this horror of ill-doing and foulness unforgettable is crying out, each man in his loneliness, for the spirit that is called Christ.

These things are not fancies. They are real forces and full of power, which no wise statesman will overlook or forget to reckon with. The building of a League of Nations is not an affair of emotion; it is a work of reason, of patience, of skill in international law and statesmanship; but those who have faith in the work will be helped forward by these hopes and longings. And even those who have no faith left in any of the often-baffled, often-discredited, schemes of human brotherhood will yet hesitate to reject the attempt at a League. For if the way forward shows only a doubtful hope, the way backward is blocked by a fear that is not doubtful, a certainty more ghastly than our worst dreams.

Human scepticism and human inertia are powerful forces, but these things are surely stronger.