Page:The drama of three hundred and sixty-five days.djvu/113

 THE PART PLAYED BY THE UNITED STATES P the most tragic of these vistas of the sufferings of great souls in neutral countries came from the United States. Profoundly affecting were nearly all President Wilson's public utterances, even when, as sometimes occurred, our sympathy could not follow them. And certainly one of the most vivid of the flashes as of lightning, whereby we have seen the war in its moral aspect, was that which showed us the United States, at his proclamation, arresting for a whole day, on October 4, 1914, the immense and tumultuous activities of her vast continent in order to intercede with the Almighty to vouchsafe healing peace to His striving children.

It was a great and impressive spectacle. As I think of it I seem to feel the quieting of the headlong thoroughfares of Chicago, the hushing of the thud and drum of the overhead railways in New York, and then the slow ringing of the bells in the square tower of that old Puritan Church in Boston—all calm and peaceful now as a New England village on Sunday morning.

But truth to tell we of the belligerent countries were not deeply moved or comforted by America's prayers. We thought our cause was that of humanity, and the sure way to establish it was Rh