But there is another
side to the matter. The study of history may so expose the injustices of
the past and their intrenchments that the student reaches the conclusion
that nothing but an earthquake--an earthquake in men's ideas at the very
least--can avail to set things right; that the best thing that could
happen would be an explosion so terrible as to make it possible to break
completely with the past, and start anew on firmer principles and better
ways. After all, as a great Cambridge scholar once said, "History is the
best cordial for drooping spirits." For if on the one hand it exposes
the selfishnesses of men, on the other it displays an exhibition of
those Divine-human forces of justice and sacrifice and good will which
in the long run cannot be denied, and which encourage the brightest
hopes for the age which is upon us.
The fact is, we are in the midst of precisely such an explosion as I
have indicated. The immeasurable privilege has been given to us of being
alive at a time when, most literally, an epoch is being made.
Contemporary observers of events are not always the best judges of their
significance, yet we shall hardly be mistaken if we assert that without
doubt we stand at one of the turning points of the world's long story,
that the phrase used of another epoch-making moment is true of this one,
"Old things are passing away, all things are becoming new.
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