the Nations who are leagued together to resist such a claim, and the union must be a union of all who joined in the struggle with that common purpose, united when peace comes in the prayer and the determination that there shall be war no more.  Yet the prospect opens for a union wider even than that.  Those who took no part in the conflict, some perhaps because the peril was too deadly, their opportunity of defence too weak, may also join the League.  Some, like the Swiss, have served the cause of humanity by their generous reception of sick and wounded.  Some, like the Norwegians, have themselves suffered cruel wrongs by the ruthlessness of our foes.

Lastly, we must look forward to the possibility of a real peace with Germany, a readmission of Germany to the commonwealth of Nations, a restoration in the future of friendly intercourse with the German people.

Never again shall we of the older generation cross the German frontier save in answer to some clear call of imperative duty.  We should be more—­or perhaps less—­than human to wish it.  Day after day we have read or our eyes have seen the reiterated and continued acts of infamy done under the direction of those whom the majority of the German people not only submit to as their rulers, but follow willingly as their guides.

Nor for years to come will many of the men of younger age risk the chance of contact with those who were responsible for or committed such crimes as they have witnessed from the day when German troops first entered Belgium four years ago to the sinking of the last hospital ship or last murder of wounded men and of nurses under the shadow of the Red Cross.

But a new generation will follow us who may find and may accept a welcome from a younger German race who had no part in the sins against humanity committed by the Germans of to-day.  Some, indeed, of that younger race will have learned from their own fathers who suffered for them, to detest those crimes.

For another generation of Englishmen it may be possible once again to find even in Germany something to enjoy and to admire.  They may watch from the Schlossgarten at Heidelberg the sun go down beyond the Rhine over Alsace, then again united to France; they may wander again in friendly talk with some forester under the pines of the Schwarzwald and listen to the singing of the familiar Volkslieder—­Tannenbaum or Haiden Roeslein—­by a people who have a natural gift for song; they may in Nuremberg again look with delight on the marvels in stone wrought by its craftsmen or seek out the hidden meanings in the mystic art of Albrecht Duerer; perhaps be whirled along in the Isar “rolling rapidly” through the baths of Munich or plunge in the crystal depths of the Koenig See; from the highlands of Bavaria they may lift up their eyes to the long ranges of the snowy Alps of Tyrol, and, as the decennial cycle comes round and the reverent peasants re-enact the sacred drama, may make their pilgrimage to Ammergau and share the thrill passing along the crowded benches when the children’s voices are heard, and they enter, waving their palm branches, that those who watch their beautiful counterfeit may recall, with imagination vivid like a child’s, another procession of joyous children, nineteen hundred years ago.