The second of the lessons we have to learn from the services of Friday is that, having made war in defense of the right, America will make peace the moment the wrong has been righted. No national bargains will weigh with her, no questions of territory, no problems of the balance of power, no calculations of profit and loss, no ancient treaties, no material covenants, no pledges that are the legacy of past European conflicts. Has justice been done? Is the safety of civilization assured? Has reparation been made, as far as reparation is possible, for the outrages that have disgraced the name of man, and for the sufferings that have knocked at the door of every heart in Christendom? These will be her only questions. Let us take heart and hope from them. They bring peace nearer.
It was not for nothing that the flags of Great Britain and America hung side by side under the chancel arch on Friday morning. At one moment the sun shot through the windows of the dome and lit them up with heavenly radiance. Was it only the exaltation of the moment that made us think invisible powers were giving us a sign that in the union of the nations, which those emblems stood for, lay the surest hope of the day when men will beat their swords into plowshares and know war no more? The United States of Great Britain and America! God grant the union celebrated in our old sanctuary may never be dissolved until that great day has dawned.
Sinners are said sometimes to repent and change their ways at the eleventh hour; and on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year of 1918, the Kaiser, and other German war lords, if they did not repent, at least changed their ways, for at that hour the armistice went into effect and the war was over, with Germany and her allies humbled and defeated.
November 11 has become one of the great dates in world history, but it was already great in the history of the nation whose entrance into the World War determined beyond question its final result.
In the State House Library in Boston, there lies in a glass case a very precious manuscript. It is the _History of the Plymouth Plantation_ written by Governor William Bradford. It is often called _The Log of the Mayflower_, for it records the journey of the _Mayflower_ carrying the Pilgrims to a land of freedom. It tells the story of the forming of an independent government by members of this little band, strong only in their faith and in their desire for liberty.