Above the Battle
peace among men knows that he risks his own peace, his reputation, his friends, for his belief. But of what value is a belief for which no risks are run?
Certainly it is put to the test in these days, when every day brings the echo of violence, injustice, and new cruelties. But was it not still more tried when it was entrusted to the fishermen of Judea by him whom humanity pretends to honour still—with its lips more than with its heart? The rivers of blood, the burnt towns, all the atrocities of thought and action, will never efface in our tortured souls the luminous track of the Galilean barque, nor the deep vibrations of the great voices which from across the centuries proclaim reason as man's true home. You choose to forget them, and to say (like many writers of to-day) that this war will begin a new era in the history of mankind, a reversal of former values, and that from it alone will future progress be dated. That is always the language of passion. Passion passes away. Reason remains—reason and love. Let us continue to search for their young shoots amidst the bloody ruins.
I feel the same joy when I find the fragile and valiant flowers of human pity piercing the icy crust of hatred that covers Europe, as we feel
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