the land, scorching up hypocrisy, deceit, meanness, and lighting all
brave hearts to high hope and achievement--for, the whimperers
notwithstanding, it was always achievement to challenge the enemy and
stagger his power, though yet his expulsion is delayed. Between the
glorious years of the living flame there intervened pallid times of
depression, where every disease of soul and body crept into the open.
True hearts lived, scattered here and there, believing still but
disorganised and bewildered--the leaders were stricken down and in their
place, obscuring the beauty of life, the grandeur of the past, and our
future destiny, came time-servers, flatterers, hypocrites, open
traffickers in honour and public decency, fastening their mean authority
on the land. These are the two great resting-places in our historic
survey: the generation of the living flame and the generation of
despair; and it is for us to decide--for the decision rests with
us--whether we shall in our time merely mark time or write another
luminous chapter in the splendid history of our race.


III


Let us consider these two generations apart, to understand their
distinctive features more clearly for our own guidance. Take first the
years of vision and the general effort to replant the old flag on our
walls. With the first enthusiasts breathing the living flame abroad,
the kindling hope, the widening fires, the deepening dream, there grows
a consciousness of the greatness of the goal, of the general duty, of
the individual responsibility for higher character, steadier work, and
purer motive; and gradually meanness, trickeries, and treacheries are
weeded out of the individual and national consciousness: there is a