that the conscience of mankind does exist as something
more than a visionary abstraction, that the secrets of diplomacy have
been laid bare by most of the contending nations, and that there is an
earnest desire on the part of all of them to justify their conduct
respectively at the bar of the civilized world.

Even more impressive to the sincere friends of peace is the
significant fact that concurrently with the most amazing display of
physical force that the world has ever known has come a direct appeal
by the belligerent nations to the neutral States, and especially to
the United States, not for practical cooperation in the hostilities
but for moral sympathy.

All past wars are insignificant in dimensions in comparison with this.
The standing army of the Roman Empire, according to the estimate of
Gibbon, did not exceed 400,000, and guarded that mighty Empire from
the Euphrates to the Thames. The grand army of Napoleon, which was
supposed to mark the maximum of human effort in the art of war and
with which he crossed a century ago the Niemen, did not exceed
700,000. To-day at least fifteen millions of men are engaged in a
titanic struggle, with implements of destruction, to which all past
devices in the science of destruction are insignificant.

Apparently, therefore, the ideals of the pacificist are little better
than a rainbow, a rainbow of promise, perhaps, but still a rainbow,
formed by the rays of God's justice shining through the tears of human
pity.

But when, in contrast to this amazing display of physical power,
there is contrasted an equally unprecedented desire on the part of the
contending nations to justify their case at the bar of public opinion
and to gain the moral sympathy of the neutral States, then it is seen
that the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" is still a mighty
factor in human affairs, and the question as to the judgment of the
world, upon the moral issues raised by this great controversy, becomes
not merely of academic but of great practical interest.

What that judgment will be it is not difficult to determine, for the
evidence in the case can admit of but one conclusion. It may be, as
Mr. George Bernard Shaw says, that in the contending nations, the ears
are too greatly deafened by the roar of the cannon and the eyes too
blinded by the smoke of battle, to reach a dispassionate conclusion.
But in the neutral States of the world, and especially in that
greatest of all the ne