I wait and long
  For the sway of justice, the rule of right;
  For the glad diffusion of wisdom’s light;
  For the triumph of liberty over might;
      For the day when the weak shall be free from the strong.

      I work and sing
  To welcome the dawn of the fairer day,
  When crime and sin shall have passed away,
  When men shall live as well as they pray,
      And earth with the gladness of heaven shall ring.

      I trust and hope
  In the tide of God’s love that unceasingly rolls,
  In the dear words of promise that bear up our souls,
  In the tender compassion that sweetly consoles,
      When in death’s darkened valley we tremblingly grope.

      I toil and pray
  For the beauty excelling all forms of art;
  For the blessing that comes to the holy heart;
  For the hope that foretells, and seems a part
      Of the life and joy of the heavenly day.

* * * * *

THE TRUE INTEREST OF NATIONS.

For a litigious, quarrelsome, fighting animal, man is very fond of peace.  He began to shed blood almost as soon as he began to go alone in company with his nearest relatives; and when Abel asked of Cain, ’Am I not a man and a brother?’ the latter, instead of giving him the hug fraternal, did beat him to death.  Cain’s only object, it should seem, was a quiet life, and Abel had disturbed his repose by setting up a higher standard of excellence than the elder brother could afford to maintain.  It was only to ‘conquer a peace’ that Cain thus acted.  He desired ‘indemnity for the past and security for the future,’ and so he took up arms against his brother and ended him.  He loved peace, but he did not fear war, because he was the stronger party of the two, his weapons being as ready for action as the British navy is ready for it to-day; and Abel was as defenceless as we were a twelvemonth ago.  Cain is the type of all mankind, who know that peace is better than war, but who rush into war under the pressure of envy and pride.  Ancient as violence is, it is not so old as peace; and it is for peace that all wars are made, at least by organized communities.  All peoples have in their minds the idea of a golden age, not unlike to that time so vividly described by Hesiod, when men were absolutely good, and therefore happy; living in perfect accord on what the earth abundantly gave them, suffering neither illness nor old age, and dying as calmly as they had lived.  Historical inquiry has so far shaken belief in the existence of any such time as that painted by the poet, that men have agreed to place it in the future.  It has never been, but it is to be.  It will come with that ‘coming man,’ who travels so slowly, and will be by him inaugurated, a boundless millennial time.  In the mean time contention prevails; ‘war’s unequal game’ is played with transcendent vigor, and at a cost that would frighten the whole human