us political "negligibles." For my own part I have thought of the idea
of God as the banner of human unity and justice, and I have made some
tentatives in that direction, but men, I perceive, have argued
themselves mean and petty about religion. At the word "God" passions
bristle. The word "God" does not unite men, it angers them. But I doubt
if God cares greatly whether we call Him God or no. His service is the
service of man. This double idea of the League of Free Nations, linked
with the idea of democracy as universal justice, is free from the
jealousy of the theologians and great enough for men to unite upon
everywhere. I know how warily one must reckon with the spite of the
priest, but surely these ideas may call upon the teachers of all the
great world religions for their support. The world is full now of
confused propaganda, propaganda of national ideas, of traditions of
hate, of sentimental and degrading loyalties, of every sort of error
that divides and tortures and slays mankind. All human institutions are
made of propaganda, are sustained by propaganda and perish when it
ceases; they must be continually explained and re-explained to the young
and the negligent. And for this new world of democracy and the League of
Free Nations to which all reasonable men are looking, there must needs
be the greatest of all propagandas. For that cause every one must
become a teacher and a missionary. "Persuade to it and make the idea of
it and the necessity for it plain," that is the duty of every school
teacher, every tutor, every religious teacher, every writer, every
lecturer, every parent, every trusted friend throughout the world. For
it, too, every one must become a student, must go on with the task of
making vague intentions into definite intentions, of analyzing and
destroying obstacles, of mastering the ten thousand difficulties of
detail....

I am a man who looks now towards the end of life; fifty-one years have I