The Song and the Singer 129 



though they tried to make us hear as well 

 Heaven's last trumpet shaking the world below, 

 what I really heard was "Whip-poor-will, Whip- 

 poor-will, Whip-poor-will." Dear kindly voice 

 that in my distressed childhood led me to Adolph 

 and the home pathway where the cows had come 

 of themselves, been milked, and were chewing 

 their cuds as unmindful of the fiery comet as 

 Adolph himself. How often in after years did the 

 memory of all this come to me on silent wings with 

 healing for spiritual ills and guidance to the green 

 pastures and still waters where souls are restored. 

 Woodrow Wilson has performed a stupendous 

 service for humanity, the greatest conceivable 

 service, when he liberated among selfish mankind 

 a devotion to principle for which men were glad 

 to give their substance and their lives. Among 

 the clangor of sordid aims, the snarls of defeated 

 profiteers, the vituperation of political enemies, 

 one clear voice has risen, saying over and over 

 again the same thing: the weak must be protected, 

 the world made safe for the individual. What 

 is to be the power to bring this to pass? The 

 greatest in the world spiritual force, the only 

 power that is adequate, on earth, to remove moun- 

 tains of ignorance and selfishness. If you will, a 

 dreamer is making a dream come true, preparing 

 the world to see beauty that it has never seen; 

 to hear music that it has never heard. Natural 



