“O God, our hearts Thou knowest,
      Our minds Thou readest clear;
    Where we go, there Thou goest—­
      With Thee we have no fear.

    “The folk that harm and hate us—­
      Thy enemies, O Lord—­
    Thou knowest how they bait us: 
      Make brittle their strong sword!

    “Against the foe that goaded
      We heed Thy call to fight: 
    Our guns are primed and loaded,
      Our swords, how keen and bright!

    “Make strong our hearts to serve Thee,
      Uphold our lifted hands;
    Let no petition swerve Thee
      To succor alien bands.

    “So shall we burn and slaughter,
      Spread desolation wide,
    If still, by land and water,
      Thou fightest on our side.”

    The Lord of Hosts had listened—­
      Had heard the rivals’ prayer,
    Upraised where bayonets glistened
      And banners dyed the air;

    And as His people waited
      An answer to their cry,
    Two bolts with lightning freighted
      Flashed from the angry sky.

    To left, to right they darted,
      Impartially they fell: 
    The hosts in terror started
      As they envisaged hell.

    For wide their ranks were riven,
      Night blotted out the sky,
    As prostrate, dazed or driven,
      They caught their God’s reply.

    Then, as the blinding levin’s
      Twin bolts were buried deep,
    Who dwelleth in the heavens
      Was heard to laugh—­and weep!

A War of Dishonor

By David Starr Jordan.

     Late President of Leland Stanford Junior University, now its
     Chancellor; Chief Director of the World Peace Foundation since
     1910.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

In this war what of right and what of wrong?  Not much of right, perhaps, and very much of wrong.  But there are degrees in wrong, and sometimes, by comparison, wrong becomes almost right.

The armed peace, the peace of guns and dreadnoughts and sabre rattlers, has come to its predestined end.  Its armaments were made for war.  Its war makers and war traders, the Pan-Germanists in the lead, have done their worst for the last nine years.  They have been foiled time after time, but they have their way at last.  Their last and most fatal weapon was the ultimatum.  If Servia had not given them their chance they would have found their pretext somewhere else.  When a nation or a continent prepares for war it will get it soon or later.  To prepare for war is to breed a host of men who have no other business, and another host who find their profits in blood.

When the war began it had very little meaning.  It was the third Balkan war, brought on, as the others were, by intrigues of rival despotisms.  The peoples of Europe do not hate each other.  The springs of war come from a few men impelled by greed and glory.  Diplomacy in Europe has been for years the cover for robbery in Asia or Africa.  Of all the nations concerned not one had any wish to fight, and Belgium alone could fight with clean hands.