outside ourselves that make for righteousness in this earth. We
in America, we in the everlasting Wichitas and Emporias, are prone
to feel that we can make for righteousness what or when we will
by calling an election, by holding a public meeting, by getting a
president, a secretary and a committee on ways and means, by voting
the bonds! But they who walk daily through groves like this, must
in very spite of themselves give some thought to the hand that
"reared these venerable columns and that thatched the verdant
roof!" Now in every French town, we did not find a grove like this.
But in every French town we did find something to take its place,
a historic spot marked with a beautiful stone or bronze; a gently
flowing river, whose beauty was sacredly guarded; a group of old,
old buildings that recalled the past, a cathedral that had grown
almost like the woods themselves, out of the visions of men into
the dreams of men. And these dumb teachers of men have put into the
soul of France a fine and exquisite spirit. It rose at the Marne
and made a miracle.

And ever since the Marne that spirit has ruled France. Essentially
it is altruistic. Men are not living for themselves. They are living
for something outside themselves; beyond themselves, even beyond
the objects of their personal affection. Men are living and dying
today not for any immediate hope of gain for their friends or
families, but for that organized political unit which is a spiritual
thing called France. We Americans who go to France are agreed that
we have never in our lives seen anything like the French in this
season of their anguish. They are treading the winepress as no
other modern nation has trodden it, pressing their hearts' blood
into the bitter wine of war. They grumble, of course, as they do
their hard stint. The French proverbially are a nation of grumblers.