Despotism if it be wielded by men who are unworthy of democracy. Those who have cast off autocratic shackles must enjoin that the voluntary shackles they impose upon themselves are true and

taut.

Liberty is not license. Forgive this platitude. In these years of upheaval we turn for relief to the trite wisdom of the copybook. Who, reading day by day the unutterable horrors into which License, masquerading as Liberty, has plunged Russia, has not repeated to himself that cry of Madame Roland's-the ghastly, naked truth— "O Liberty, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Nevertheless the River of Freedom broadens; but the flow will not be stabilized until the individual, having molded the State into a perfect vehicle of Freedom, proceeds to the second, greater and much more difficult enterprise of fashioning himself into a similar vehicle. Not until man realizes that there is a service which is perfect freedom, that "duty is the common collective Faith," will the River of Freedom flow on unimpeded, swift and shining. Not until then shall we be able to erase from the record of the struggle that groan of Turgot's, "Liberty! I say it with a sigh, men are perhaps not worthy of thee."

Man, glimmering this, knowing in his heart that his goal is to be worthy of Freedom, and that nothing but his own selfishness can frustrate its attainment, has set up certain symbols for guidance-symbols which hide and reveal what he is unable or too shy to express. Those symbols are many or few, according to the insight of the individual! Some hold one or two strongly, others hold many weakly.

Project your mind over the past. A train of Symbols moves before the eyes, different in kind and in degree-Eden, Nirvana, Eleusis, The Thyrsus, The Vine, The Cross, The Lamb, the Grail, the Crusading Knight, the Shield of Chivalry, The Hair Shirt, The Crown, The Anthem, The Flag, The Salute. All express an ideal towards which the world spasmodically and sporadically reaches out, an incorruptible perfection poised above the muddy commerce of life, an ideal of happiness without alloy-Eden. So the wheel of symbolism becomes a full circle. The Eden of the remote past meets the Eden of the remote future.

What is this state of Eden, over whose towers float the symbols of freedom, love, sympathy, understanding, oblivion, renunciation, sacrifice, courage, endurance, patriotism and other abstrac

tions which cannot be bought in a shop? What is behind them? What is the indivisible element, the unchanging Principle, holding all and expressing all? Had Nurse Cavell the answer in her mind when, with her last breath, she cried "There is something higher than Patriotism"?

Permit me to dwell for a moment on two of these symbols-the Anthem and the Flag.

Consider the Anthem and its synonyms-the ballad and the song. The German is taught his anthem whole-heartedly: he is ordered to sing "Germany Over All" when advancing: he does it with the regularity of the goose-step. The American and the Englishman are taught their National Anthems half-heartedly. They honor them, but they rarely take the trouble to learn the words. They honor their National Anthem, yet no Briton ever went into battle singing "God Save the King," and no American ever dashed forward singing "The Star Spangled Banner." The Teuton is forced to sing "Germany Over All." The Anglo-Saxon, being a free man, sings the songs of his choice. He picks out from the thousand and one trivialities of Leicester Square and Broadway, picks out, with unerring instinct, such doggerel songs as express the heart of the Symbol;

that give, in poorer words, but with a similar call, the spiritual essence which has made the old ballads immortal.

In the first year of the war "Tipperary" was the marching song of the British-"It's a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart's right there." When America "came in" the marching song of her soldiers and civilians was "Over There"-"The Yanks are coming. And we won't come back till it's over-over there." And when the Americans went "over the top" at San Mihiel they sang "O joy, O boy, where do we go from here?"

The Anglo-Saxon, being a child of Freedom, selects his laws, his religion and his songs.

British and American civilians, shy when any expression of emotion is demanded, are slowly learning to raise their hats to the flag; and the American soldier is quickly learning, what the British soldier did not have to learn, that there is no sacrifice of personal dignity in saluting an officer. He has been told that when a private salutes an officer it means "I will obey," and that when the officer returns the salute it means "I will lead you to victory."

The Symbol of the salute is the Flag. It is a symbol of reverence and gratitude to the Choir

Invisible, to the great army of the dead who have shaped the land over which the Flag flies, who have given to it their dust, their devotion, and their ideals. The Flag is the Symbol of that solidarity which, in Renan's words, "is constituted by sacrifices actually made and by readiness to make others." We, momentary custodians of the Flag, salute it in their honor. The King Dies. The crowd cries, "Long live the King." They salute the Symbol borne by the new King: they do not salute the man.

The torn flag is hung in Capitol or Cathedral -at rest. But the Flag still goes with the regiment. It is the Symbol that continues: it is under this Symbol that the youth of the world is offering its life for Freedom.

I see in a vision the symbol of the Lamb washing away the sins of the world. For it is the blood of our youth that is saving the world for Freedom the Lamb slain yet living, and ever young, as in the crest of the Knights Templars.

The Redcoat, once a sad sign of division, has gone; it has passed with all the world's false apotheosis of war. Khaki is the symbol of this war which must end war-Khaki, so quiet, so implacable; Khaki the reconciler.