s of the Capuchin
monastery, with the Colosseum, the Capitol and the Forum almost visible
to the right--what a theatre to speak in!

There were 5000 persons below, all "Romans of Rome," and the Queen
Mother was on her balcony. But the orator was worthy of his audience,
and his theme. He had the past for his prologue, and the future for his
epilogue. Caesar, Brutus, Cicero, the story of the old oppression from
which the world had freed itself after agelong tribulation, and then a
picture of the new tyranny that was sweeping down from across the Rhine.
What wonder if the warm-hearted Roman populace, to whom patriotism is
a religion, were carried away by an appeal which seemed to come to them
with the voice of Dante, Mazzini, Carducci, and Garibaldi from the very
earth beneath their feet!

So on May 20,1915, knowing well what the terrors of war were, and how
remote the prospects of early victory, Italy took her place in arms
by the side of the Allies. And now the heart of old Rome, so long
perturbed, is tranquil. With heroic confidence she relies on her brave
sons, led by her dauntless King, to justify her. And when she hears the
truculent boast of our enemy that after he has disposed of Russia, he
will destroy Italy as a power in Europe, she answers calmly, "Yes, when
the last Roman capable of bearing arms lies dead in Roman soil--perhaps
then, but not sooner."

THE PART PLAYED BY THE NEUTRAL NATIONS

And then the neutral countries--what is the part which they have played
in the drama of the past 365 days? I think I may fairly claim to have
had better opportunities than most people for studying one aspect of it,
its moral aspect, and therefore I trust I may be forgiven if I make
a personal reference. Seeing, in the earliest days of the war, that
Germany was doing her best to divert the eye of the world from the crime
she had committed in Belgium, and being convinced that Britain's hope
both now and in the future lay in keeping the world's eye fixed on
that outrage, I moved the proprietors of the _Daily Telegraph_ to the
publication of "King Albert's Book."

What that great book was it must be quite unnecessary to say, but it may
be permitted to the editor to claim that it constituted the first (as it
may well be the final) impeachment of the Kaiser before the bar of the
nations for a crime in Belgium as revolting as that of Frederick the
Great in Silesia and a thousandfold more fatal. After the publication
of