Part 2

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The voices from our sea! Like an unending processional stealing on the soul from the double blue afar, The eternal bass of nature's choir, A power-inspiring undertone from profundity.

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The laboring and heaving of her waves Like the toiling of all humanity at its task, Braces the will with the story Of our faithful ocean's endless day.

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O, great Pacific! Often calm as a sea of glass, Who durs't say that thou cans't not live And bestir thyself with boisterous life; That thou cans't not with growing fury hugely to thy defense arise, When rebuffed by wind, by rock and cliff. Thy deep is not an incessant, idle sleep! Thou cans't heave and leap and live with ponderous life, Until thy waves, up from the bottom turning, are all afoam with terrible rage, Their salty crests mounting on tangled spray And raining back to sea a million opals.

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We love our sea and thy reserve of strength, For thou art indeed the favorite of our God, For when the Son of Man spoke to the snarling waves, Thou of all waters didst best obey and heed the Master's mandate, "Peace be still." But He commanded not eternal quite and thou art somewhat falsely famed. For when necessity's hour arrives, Thou with all violent seas canst throb from deepest heart; With unrestrained power plunging to climb the skys, crushing against the rocks-- Sublimely tempestuous, majestic in rage, in fury glorious!

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And after the waters' landward assault, To-day we can better ascend to observe the ocean's peace. And here, great Sea!-- How naturally hovers infinity over that hemispheric calm, As from this rocky, shore-projecting cliff We behold thy endless expanse over meridians and the world, into and behind the sky--vast, serene, stupendous. And as we gaze and worship and pray, drenched with omnipotence, We dare with highest emotions declare That God, not once but always, walks the seas.

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O life giving fount, a resurrecting breeze, We cling to our sea, an army of men in cities and fields, on streams and on hills, Because thou dost live and let live. For daily thy breath kisses our shores with beauty and life, Thy varying moods are an unspeakable comfort to all manly souls. For thy grandeur holds an invisible gate of gold, Through which sails a celestial mariner, the spirit of our Father, God.

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O visitors to these enchanted shores, Join the brotherhood of the brothers of the sea-- Not dreamers, but heroic men, Who love our rock-ribbed, templed hills and gigantic trees, but better yet, our sea! Take the shoes from off thy feet, For here thou art on holy ground before nature's truest Angelus, To feel the awe of power, to think as deep as truth, And leave a noble soul to uplift the homes of friends.

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And deep-eyed patriots, On every shore and from every inland city, vale and hill, Look out and up, and live! In spirit journey abroad over latitudes and longitudes, the equator and the sphere, To mingle with the vision'd souls of men who gaze far out on our Pacific sea Toward the slowly rising essential Republic of the world.

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Fear not, move out in ship, in thought and plan-- Brave men, move out! For on the waters of the Earth's vast deeps brotherhood has faith in Fatherhood. And the God who bound together The colonies on our New England shores Will bind together the nations about the seas, Through fearless men of faith moving toward the best The alluring best that is still to be.

"The fact that man has discovered no celestial body which contains elements other than those of the earth is more than a hint of the unity of creation" and its movement towards a single purpose.--Adapted from Josiah Strong.

IV

The Mariners' New Inspiration

THE FIRST TRIP THROUGH THE CANAL

On August 18, 1914, the steamship Ancon made the first regular, continuous trip, with a complete cargo, through the canal, the steamer Cristobel making an experimental journey a few days previously.

The Ancon, with Colonel Goethals on the bridge, left Colon on scheduled time, passed through the locks and within ten hours entered the waters of the Pacific at Panama. And twenty-four hours after a small fleet of ships of commerce made the passage of the canal, the opening of which the world is now celebrating on the Pacific Coast.

The commendable spirit displayed by America in the opening of the canal is an indication of what may be expected in the future as far as the United States is concerned in perfecting equitable plans for international co-operation.

The New York World puts it clearly in these words: "Today the canal lies open to all the nations of the world upon equal terms. The United States has acted with entire good faith, and in the observance of its treaties discriminated against none and reserved no exclusive rights to itself. Beyond the collection of tolls, which are uniform to ships of all flags, it has assumed none of the privileges of national ownership at the expense of friends and rivals in trade. It has achieved a moral triumph no less impressive than the material victory won by its engineers over nature in the piercing of the isthmus."

THE ANCON

Sail through, Ancon, most prophetic ship Hastening from the heavy sobbing of blood-stained seas. For thou art more than keel and hull, Than armor bearer and a man freighted deck Thou shoulds't be the Mayflower of the coming democracy of the world.

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Looking through the vista Of this earth-rent canal--a telescope, Mirroring a city in the western skys-- Clearer, clearer, clearer, becomes the vision Of the alluring ideal halloed by a glowing sun. Nearer, nearer, nearer doest thou sail, Until now behold thou doest glide Out onto the Pacific, secure in peaceful freedom. Until the eastern war clouds being dispelled, On, on, on thou canst sail into the haven of the essential republic of the world.

THE ALTRUISM OF COL. GOETHALS

There is no more beautiful example in history of international altruism than that displayed by Col. G. W. Goethals, who will for all time be remembered as the one who successfully completed the Panama Canal. And if all men were like him in spirit the brotherhood of the nations would begin tomorrow.

For when the National Geographic Society honored Col. Goethals with the presentation of a medal, at its ninth annual banquet held at Washington, D.C., which was attended by the president of the United States, his cabinet and the diplomatic representatives of every great foreign nation, these are the words--entirely free from American provincialism--that the eminent engineer used in responding to the presentation of the medal by President Woodrow Wilson:

"Mr. President, it is an easier task to build the Panama Canal than it is for me to find words to express appreciation of the honor conferred upon me by the National Geographic Society and the distinguished manner in which the presentation of the medal has been made. This medal represents the satisfaction of the National Geographic Society at the practical completion of the canal and its approval of the services rendered.

"Those services are not only individual services but national services. The French were the pioneers in the undertaking. But for the work that they did on the isthmus we could not today regard the canal as practically completed. But for the English we probably would not have known the means of eradicating malaria; the death rate would have been great. Among individuals we have national representatives in the Spanish and the English in our laboring force.

"The canal has been the work of many, and it has been the pride of Americans who have visited the canal to find the spirit which animated the forces. * * * And so in accepting the medal and thanking the National Geographic Society for it, I accept it and thank them in the name of every member of the canal army."

Goethals is truly a world citizen. And The National Geographic Magazine well defines his spirit in these terse words describing the completion of the canal:

"Atlantic--Goethals--Pacific."

V

World Pioneers

LAND AND SEA BREEZES

The land is better for the sea, The ocean for the shore.

--Larcom.

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"The tide is rising, let the land be glad. The breathless, rollicking, happy tides, whose comings are in truth the gladness of the world!"--Quayle.

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How much earth's flowers, hills, valleys and human life owe to the sea breezes. And how indispensable are the clear mountain streams to the sea, in pouring fresh water into its salty heart.

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How joyful are the waters, when the earth yields up its hosts of travellers, merchants, ambassadors, missionaries, educators, homeseekers and international statesmen to relieve the lonesomeness of its wide-flowing deep. All hail to the many ships that pass by sea!

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"The earth is rude, silent and incomprehensive at first-- Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things well enveloped; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell."

--Walt Whitman.

THE PIONEERS OF THE WORLD

O far-seeing seers, Looking over the shoulders of empires and nations, unconsciously dwarfed with prejudice, Telescopic in vision, down the vista of the centuries, You know not how far and deep you thought, Nor what beginnings you wrought; For we hasten to crown you, the world pioneers.

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Call the roll of the men whose minds have companioned with the globe! Who were these staunch henchmen of a race, Getting their inspiration from a pillared cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, And negotiating with the continents and seas of an earth? Who were these world pioneers?

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Courageous Magellan, you were the first of the spheric heroes, Who with your fifteen braves looking out from an isthmian cliff, civilization's bleakest frontier, Out upon an untrailed, unsailed, trackless deep, Was the first to push away from an Astec--hugged shore, And send westward your creaking craft so mightily propelled by an explorer's tireless heart, That when at Maclan island the red man's arrow struck you to the earth, The mighty spirit of your immortal soul so fired your companion's wills, That they with invincible force encircled the globe-- Past the Celestial Empire, doubling Cape Good Hope And into Seville Roads, they came! The first to complete the voyage about the sphere! The first to exclaim, "the world, the world."

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And inconquerable Cyrus Field you were one; Who by linking Valentia and New Foundland, Awakening to mutual speech two continents that were mutually dumb,-- Was, in spite of repeated breakings and the cowardly desertion of avowed friends, The first, O indomitable knight of a world's progress, To successfully lay the Atlantic cable. The first to start a conversation between two hemispheres And with initial message to yonder shores proclaim: "Europe and America are now by telegraph united To God be glory, in the highest And on earth peace and good will toward men." Indispensable pioneer, you wedded the continents as Goethals united the seas. And now the voice of man is naturalized to a sphere. It can be heard through the nations, around the world. Whether Caucasian or Mongolian--he can talk about the globe.

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And distance-vanishing Fulton, you were one; Who--launching upon the waters the first steam-propelled ship, the Cleremont, From who's experimental hull leaped into existence The Savanah, the Great Eastern and Britannia, Each moving faster, faster than the one before-- Was the first to draw together the continents, like some Colossus with a shortening cord of time Until from coast range to distant shores And from distant shores to coast range Each new speeding steamer brings us closer, Making more certain the intermingling of the races preparing for the brotherhood of man.

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And great Augustine, dissolute as a youth But angelic as a man, you were one; Who--the humblest and the quickest to recognize That since the day of Christ all noble men were sent, And that constrained and resolute with Paul and with Peter they had gone-- Was the first--thank God you appeared--to marshal the good men for conquest, To organize into missionary ranks the vision'd souls of the church, Dispatching spirit-armored heroes from Rome to early England's soil And preventing the annihilation of Christian hope and truth.

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Noble prophet! Little did you know, O Augustine, what you had done. Unbrazened in the face, illuminated with the divine, With the crystal eye of goodness looking light and health into pagan nights, And cowering Lust's mountain hurling hosts, Followed by new recruits, since then the ranks have grown. Men have come one by one and year by year Until fifteen thousand heralded volunteers and ninety thousand native workers Now can be seen from glad heavens Missionary Ridge, offering light and character on heathen fields! Far-reaching, sea-exploring, colonizing England in its youth saved for enlightenment! Christ inspired it! But you achieved it! And today, as the oceans and the continents are united, So five hundred and sixty-five million followers are gradually demanding that the races and the peoples In essential Christianity--the good recognizing in other faiths--shall be one.

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And mind-emancipating Luther, thou art one-- Fearing only God and truth. Hating naught but sham and falsehood! For traveling back from our day into medieval darkness-- (The chains, hear them rattle! But also hear them snap in a true reformers clutch Causing multitudes to rise from superstition And stand upon their feet, erect in the freedom of a simple faith)-- We there behold the pioneer of intellectual freedom, A simple monk, commanding the low-browed ignorance of a whole dark continent to think, Awakening the western world to science, to true religion and to thought; Until the mind of the sullen masses of Europe now is brooding, And in America it is voting, While the public mind of the world is becoming more and more habituated to reason for international concourse. For the Bible, the rocks and the skys are unchained, Because Luther lived and honestly dared for the truth!

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These are the men--inspired by Him who altered times calendar and began an Easter day-- Who took epochal steps for the world's conquest. That directly achieved in encircling the globe. But there are others, a host of others, worthy, noble, world pioneers.

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O indispensable pioneers, see them moving out in history, Just as bravely, just as necessary, often giving inspiration to the first, Most of them impelled forward by Columbus and Copernicus-- The inspirers of explorers, the pioneers of the pioneers.

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Consecrated to humanity and the world, look backward and see the host of sphere-ward moving men; See the explorers--with Columbus, Balboa, Drake, Desoto opening up a new west. See the scientists--Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, daring to say that God is in life. See the philosophers--Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and Eucken. See the missionaries--Judson, Carey, Thomas, Livingstone, Moffat and Morrison. See the inventors--Stevenson, Watt, Marconi, Edison and Bell. See the patriots--Solon, Savonarola, Cromwell, Henry, Lincoln and Gladstone. Mighty huers through the forests,-- See them laboring for a nation in some special task or knowledge, But incidentally and emphatically for the world.

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And turn your eyes from the past to the present to observe your own world inspired sons! See them moving toward the international congress and the Hague, The greatest educators, ambassadors and financiers, See them increasing in their numbers, for they also will be counted with the world pioneers.

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O Copernicus, we hail thee for announcing to timid minds that the earth, "it is a globe." O Kepler and Newton, we celebrate you for asserting it is true. O Galileo, we honor and respect you for looking superstition squarely in the face and before highest potentates declaring: "But nevertheless it does move!" We commemorate you all master-minded men, Who have announced, and explored and unified the globe. Surely these are not pygmies nor dwarfs. But in achievement, they are Titans, they are giants, They are the immortal pioneers of the world.

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And these lives moving forward, have they all been lived for naught! No! A thousand times no, O far-sighted men, now enlisting for new world movements! Speak the message of the united seas with at least a prophetic international preamble And announce the coming of essential democracy for the world.

[C]THE OLIVE BRANCH AS AN EMBLEM OF WORLD PEACE

In history the olive has been nobly emblematic of three virtues--peace, purity and industry with its attendant prosperity. And I mention these three virtues for which the olive stands because we will never in the world establish peace unless it is preceded in community, state and nation by virile-mindedness, which is the very secret of industry and prosperity wherever they are found.

Whenever the Greek looked out at a foothill mantled with an olive orchard, gently waving in the distance, a sea of bluish-green leaves; or seized upon an olive branch, he was reminded of the fact that no man was worthy of a crown of olives unless he was right-minded, peace-loving, and industrious. For, the placing of a crown of olive twigs on the brow of a person was the highest distinction that could be bestowed on a citizen who had merited well of his country.

Not only were the noble-minded statesmen and poets thus honored, but also the athletes who, by scrupulous care and development of the body, gained physical victories at the Olympic games. The harmless and commendable victories of peace always result from well-developed manhood. And so on the last day of these games the victor received, in front of the temple, the crown of wild olives gathered from the sacred tree. For the olive was sacred to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and therefore of purity, peace and prosperity.

Among the Romans also it had a similar significance. The olive crown of the Roman conqueror at an ovation and those of the equites at the imperial review, alike typified the gifts of peace that, in a barbaric age, could be secured by victory only. I say all history has associated the olive with these three superb virtues, wherever the olive tree has grown. But if secular history has offered the olive branch to the conqueror in honor of a peace secured through contest or war, the surprising thing about the olive in Biblical history is that it represents peace as coming directly to an individual, community, or nation because of a Christian-mindedness--a type of mind that is controlled by reason, justice, love, intelligence, and purity of thought.

For, what do these striking verses in the Prophet Zechariah mean?--

"'What sees't thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps thereon.

"'And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereon'."

What do these beautiful verses mean? Simply this,--that the source of all peace, individual and international, is that type of mind which Christ and Christian statesmen have. The two olive trees, one on each side of the candlestick, stand for Christian character--one for the stern moral character of the prophet, the other for the mercy of the true religious teacher. And the candlestick stands for work, for service for mankind and the nations. And as both of the olive trees supply the light with oil, so we are not to seek for peace on earth with the sword, but by increasing the number of men whose service for humanity is controlled by Christian morality and justice, mercy, and kindness.

These are the men who will bring peace. God increase the number! These are the men that providence can use to correlate the nations into essential democracy. These are the men who are worthy of a crown of olives! These are the men that we must depend upon to correct the compass of the ship of the world, as it moves forward against the besetting fury of antagonistic waters, bearing its prow day by day and year by year against the unwearied enmity of hateful waves, until it reaches the haven of essential international peace.

[D]THE INEVITABLE DRIFT

For the earth-- The white enfolded, or green Easter world, Warmed by nature's heart into a new bursting life-- Like the universe, the earth is a perfect spherical creation, And because the world is a sphere, the most perfect of figures, Animated and endowed with purpose and reason, It is therefore much better than all other forms.

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And so man, with humanity-love and reason gifted, Feeling that he is a part of all that thrills in sod, sky or sea, Developed, demands the fullness of the globe's life as his home. And to look not beyond a continent or nation, Is barbaric, retrogressive and sinful; For He that said, to the child of every race, "be thou perfect," Thereby also commands to be naturalized to the sphere. And this, O armies and bigots is the inevitable drift!

ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY

It may be helpful to relate, in just a word, what is meant in this volume by essential democracy, essential united earth and similar expressions. Springing from the Christian idea that all men are created equal in the sight of God, in opportunity, it stands for that type of society in which the essential power of government is wielded by the mass of the people.

The one thing that it is important to remember is that a monarchy or an oligarchy is not necessarily an antithesis of democracy--only absolutism in the form of a monarchy or oligarchy or plutocracy is an antithesis to democratic principles.