A SHEAF OF NATURE NOTES 



Germany lifted the law to the human realm and 

 staked her all upon it, and failed. The moral 

 sense of the world — the sense of justice, of fair 

 play — was against her, and inevitably she went 

 down. Her leaders were morally blind. When 

 the rest of the world talked of moral standards, 

 the German leaders said, "We think you are fools." 

 But these standards brought England into the 

 war — the sacredness of treaties. They brought the 

 United States in. We saw a common enemy in 

 Germany, an enemy of mankind. We sent mil- 

 lions of men to France for an ideal — for justice 

 and fair play. To see our standards of right and 

 justice ignored and trampled upon in this way 

 was intolerable. The thought of the world being 

 swayed by Prussianism was unbearable. I said 

 to myself from the first, *'The Allies have got to 

 win; there is no alternative.'* And what as- 

 tonishes me is that certain prominent English- 

 men, such as Lord Morley, and others, did not see 

 it. Would they have sat still and watched Germany 

 destroy France arid plant herself upon the Channel 

 and make ready to destroy England? The very 

 framework of our moral civilization would have 

 been destroyed. Darwin little dreamed to what his 

 natural selection theory was to lead. 



VIII. THE ROBIN 



Of all our birds the robin has life in the fullest 



175 



