Nation that thinks wrongly cannot act rightly. If the spirit of a people is clouded by wrong ideals, if the minds of its children are distorted by false teaching and wrong beliefs, naught but the heated irons of national disaster can destroy the canker or cauterize its wounds.

Europe is dying of a spiritual rottenness, poisoned by the bitter fruitage of wrong thinking. From the degeneration of ideals has arisen a falsification of values, so that life, from whatever point we may view it, seems out of focus. Competition is the breath of modern existence—a struggle to wrest the prize from others. The statesman, the merchant, the schoolchild: all must be proficient in the art of gaining by another’s loss.

To despoil a weaker nation is “legitimate expansion.” Concessions and “spheres of influence” are the prizes of a crooked diplomacy. Of all professions, that of arms is the most honourable, and wholesale murder is sanctioned by a flag. These are the foundations upon which the civilizations of Europe have been raised: in their essence they are destructive, and because of them the superstructure shall be destroyed. “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”

The crying need is for drastic reconstruction upon a basis of sound moral values. Before this can proceed the existing slums and cesspools of national intrigue and iniquity must be swept away. The barriers which politicians and “patriots” have erected between men and nations have to be demolished, and until this is accomplished no outstanding figure will come to the rescue—the days of tinkering and patching are numbered. That is now preparing which shall stamp the earth flat and existing institutions will be swept before it as dead leaves before a winter gale.

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