79
Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow
Thereis a candy shop near where I live. On its sign it says, “Made Fresh Every Hour.” History is being made every day. It is being made fresh almost every hour. The newsboy even now is calling outside of my window, “Extra! Extra!” Is it a new war? Is it a new discovery? If you had clipped head-lines from the papers since the World War, here are some of the things you might have pasted in your scrapbook.
TREATY OF PEACESIGNED AT VERSAILLESNations Agree on Terms of PeaceThe Mohammedan Turks in the East AreAgain Threatening the ChristianNations of the WestTHE IRISH FREESTATE ESTABLISHEDAfter Centuries of Struggle to BecomeIndependent of England, Ireland atLast, with England’s Permission, HasSet Up a Government of Her OwnCOLUMBUS OF THE AIRRead, an American, Crosses AtlanticOcean for First Time in an Airplane;Lands at the Azores and Then inPortugal; Several Others Soon Follow,and the Ocean Is Crossed a Number ofTimesWOMEN CAN VOTE AT LASTAll Through the Ages Women Have HadLittle or No “Say” in the Government;Now, for the First Time, They CanVote in Our Country and in MostOther Civilized CountriesSTRONG DRINK PROHIBITEDThe Use of Wine and Strong Drink,Which Has Caused So Much Crime,Disease, Death and Unhappiness, HasBeen Forbidden in the United Statesand Limited in Many Other Countries;in the Generations to Come, Men WillProbably Marvel That There Was Oncea Time When People Drank Poison forPleasure
TREATY OF PEACESIGNED AT VERSAILLES
Nations Agree on Terms of Peace
The Mohammedan Turks in the East AreAgain Threatening the ChristianNations of the West
THE IRISH FREESTATE ESTABLISHED
After Centuries of Struggle to BecomeIndependent of England, Ireland atLast, with England’s Permission, HasSet Up a Government of Her Own
COLUMBUS OF THE AIR
Read, an American, Crosses AtlanticOcean for First Time in an Airplane;Lands at the Azores and Then inPortugal; Several Others Soon Follow,and the Ocean Is Crossed a Number ofTimes
WOMEN CAN VOTE AT LAST
All Through the Ages Women Have HadLittle or No “Say” in the Government;Now, for the First Time, They CanVote in Our Country and in MostOther Civilized Countries
STRONG DRINK PROHIBITED
The Use of Wine and Strong Drink,Which Has Caused So Much Crime,Disease, Death and Unhappiness, HasBeen Forbidden in the United Statesand Limited in Many Other Countries;in the Generations to Come, Men WillProbably Marvel That There Was Oncea Time When People Drank Poison forPleasure
From now on you will have to read your history in the daily papers.
Up to this time, history has been marked by the story of one war after another, some big, some small, some short, some long. Almost always a fight has been going on somewhere. It has been War, War, War; Fight, Fight, Fight. Children scratch, kick, and bite. But the olderwe get, the less do we use our fists and feet to settle quarrels. So fighting seems to be a sign of childhood—that we are “kids”—and our fights, that we call wars, a sign of how young the world really is and we really are; a sign that the world is still but a minute or two old.
Now, we admire and praise as heroes Horatius, Leonidas, Joan of Arc, and General Foch and those others who have defended their countries against the attacks of the enemy, as we would admire a man who shoots a burglar or a murderer that attacks his family in the night. But those, whether kings, generals, or princes, who do the attacking and take life with no other excuse than to add to their power or wealth or glory, are no better than burglars who go forth with a gun and a blackjack to waylay, rob, and murder for the same purpose. War kills, war destroys, war costs millions of lives and billions of dollars—money that could be used to make us happy, instead of causing bitterness, suffering, misery, and unhappiness; blind men and cripples, widows and orphans. No one is better off, not even the winner. It is a terrible game, in which even the winner loses. And yet in the long run who knows? It may be the only way the world can grow!
But this is certain: if wars do not end, they will be fought with something more deadly, moreterrible than shot and shell. Sooner or later, some man of science will invent a disease more catching than the terrible plague, more deadly than the Black Death with which to attack the enemy. But if such a disease is let loose, once started it will spread from one being to the next till every one has caught it and died and no one will escape. Or he will invent a poison to poison the air we breathe that will spread like the wind or like wildfire in dry grass, and there will be no stopping it. The air that wraps the globe will be a sea of poison gas. Every thing that breathes will take only one breath, and every man, woman, and child, every beast of the field, every bird and flying thing will drop dead. Or he will invent something a million times more powerful than gunpowder or dynamite—something so explosive that when discovered by some Mr. Swartz it will blow him, his house, his town, his country, and the whole world to kingdom come—and that will be the end of this little spark off the sun.
Perhaps you have looked through a microscope at what seem to be wars between germs. As germs might look up at the eye of the microscope through which we watch their life-and-death struggles, and wonder what is up above on the other side looking down at them, so we may look up at the blue eye of heaven above us and wonder what all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerfulbeing up there is watching our own life-and-death struggles here below.
Our little world, which seems so immense to us, is really only a tiny speck, only one of countless other specks floating in space; it is like one of the tiny motes which you may see any time in a sunbeam that shines in at the window. Who has an eye so keen that he can count the moving motes in such a beam of light? Who would miss one such grain of dust if it should disappear? So this grain of dust we call the World and all of us who live upon it could vanish without ever being noticed!
This story ends here, but only for the present, for history is a continued story and will never end.
If you were living in the Year 10,000A.D., as some boy will be, your history would only be just begun when you had reached where we are now. Even the World War would then seem as long ago as the fights of the Stone Age men seem to us. You might think of us and all the inventions we consider so wonderful as we think of the discovery of copper and bronze.
Will the history that is written in the Year 10,000 have any wars to tell about? If the wars on Earth cease, will there be wars with other worlds?
And if there are no more wars, what will historytell about? Will it be new inventions? What kinds? Will it be new discoveries? We know every corner of the world now. Will it be the inside of this world or other new worlds or a spiritual world?
Perhaps then people will no longer use trains, steamboats, automobiles, or even flying-machines, but go from place to place as on some magic carpet, simply by wishing. Perhaps then they will no longer use letters, telephones, or telegraphs, or even radio, but read each other’s thoughts at any distance.
And so on—World without end—Amen!