University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

Page 28 text:

20 THE REDWOOD pest of emotions by the wreck and ruin that fill his eyes and his fancy will sicken at the awful spectacle and shrink from its harrowing task. But seated some night on a hilltop on the Marne, and lifting his gaze from the desolation about him to the myriad lights that still signal a living God on an unconquered throne; plunged into a reverie on the spiritual things that survive the ravages of time and the plunder of men; and catching the true conception of this conflict and of the victory that crowned it, he will carve a cross and plant it there, to symbolize the idea that civilization was cruci- fied but her soul redeemed.

Page 27 text:

THE REDWOOD 19 the world, to prove decisively, with all the finality of a demonstrated, scienti- fic fact of human life, the existence, the vigor, the invincibility of that faith and force ; to fix that primacy, estab- lish that supremacy, and settle that or- der of precedence forever as an axiom of the race. That is the adequate good that we have injected into this evil thing and that rescues the human fam- ily from the grave impeachment of be- ing engaged in a suicidal conflict. That is the all-sufficient outcome which forbids the thought that the higher law and its boasted principles are undermined by such conditions. There is not despair for the race in this agonizing conflict that was forced upon it ; there is faith ; there is glory ; there is vindication. That is the conception of this war that makes us prouder than ever of old human nature. That is the conception of this war that makes the khaki uni- form the livery of God and our sons and brothers soldiers of the Lord. That is the conception of this war that makes it inconceivable that Providence should be indifferent to the outcome. That is the conception of this war that makes us sure that, if the hour needs it, over the battlements of heaven will tumble the thunderbolts of God to put down this rebellion against His supre- macy. The Monument at the Marne. In another day — not distant we hope — some second Michael Angelo will journey over the hushed and abandoned battlefield of Belgium , Italy and France, to catch an inspiration for a monument to express the highest mean- ing of the conflict, and to find a spot at which to place it in commemoration of the victory. Footsore and weary he will make his way over that long and winding region that yesterday was studded with the classic creations of the genius of the race and today is a hideous and unbroken waste. He will brood over the ruins of temples of wor- ship that inspired art had fashioned and love of God had reared. He will sit and muse among the broken walls and battered roofs and empty shelves and deserted corridors of temples of learning that were as priceless in their splendid beauty as in the treasured lore that came in rare and wonderful books and went forth in rare and wonderful men. He will walk with a heavy hoart over fields that once were rich aud glad with all the fruits of bounteous nature and industrious man, but that now are barren of a living leaf. He will gaze with grief unutterable upon the crumbled heaps of villages where all was peace, contentment, love and home. He will pick his way through the obliterated streets of mangled ci- ties which centuries had reai ' ed as rich and gorgeous monuments to proud and thrifty peoples. His heart will sink amid the wilderness of graves that converted a continent into a city of the dead. His soul will be stirred to a tern-

Page 29 text:

0tr?0 WHISPERING stir is in tke trees, Of songs unsung ; Bidding me rise from dreams of ease, Tke vagrant, incense-laden breeze My quickened spirit seems to seize — For Life is young ! Passion but smolders in my breast ; Tke pipes of Pan Call faintly from tke glimmering West ; My work I see; — Aye God ' s bekest Hatk brougkt new ligkt, an aim, a quest — Lo ! I ' m a man ! Swiftly, but ok kow softly ! came Tke setting sun ; For wealtk I kave not craved, nor fame — A ricker, fuller life my aim — Jesu ! I lisp tke Holy Name, And Life is done ! JAMES ENRIGHT 21