provocation of the faithful few. Their forbearance will be sorely tried,
and this is the final test of men. By those who cling to prejudice and
abandon self-restraint, extol enmity, and always proceed to the further
step--the plea to wipe the enemy out: the counter plea for forbearance
is always scorned as the enervating gospel of weakness and despair.
Though we like to call ourselves Christian, we have no desire for--nay
even make a jest of--that outstanding Christian virtue; yet men not held
by Christian dogma have joyously surrendered to the sublimity of that
divine idea. Hear Shelley speak: "What nation has the example of the
desolation of Attica by Mardonius and Xerxes, or the extinction of the
Persian Empire by Alexander of Macedon restrained from outrage? Was not
the pretext for this latter system of spoliation derived immediately
from the former? Had revenge in this instance any other effect than to
increase, instead of diminishing, the mass of malice and evil already
existing in the world? The emptiness and folly of retaliation are
apparent from every example which can be brought forward." Shelley
writes much further on retaliation, which he denounces as "futile
superstition." Simple violence repels every high and generous thinker.
Hear one other, Mazzini: "What we have to do is not to establish a new
order of things by violence. An order of things so established is always
tyrannical even when it is better than the old." Let us bear this in
mind when there is an act of aggression on either side of the Boyne.
There will not be wanting on the other side a cry for retaliation and
"a lesson." We shall receive every provocation to give up and
acknowledge ancient bitterness, but then is the time to stand firm, then
we shall need to practise the divine forbearance that is the secret of
strength.


IV