Whether Belgium, As A Nation,
Is Self-Sacrificing And Brave May Safely Be Left To The Judgment
Of Posterity.
There is a passage in one of Mr. Lecky's books - I
cannot put my finger on the exact reference
- In which he
pronounces that the sins of France, which are many, are forgiven
her, because, like the woman in the Gospels, she has loved much.
It is not our business now, if indeed at any time, to appraise the
sins of Belgium; but surely her love, in anguish, is manifest and
supreme. When we contemplate these firstfruits of German "kultur"-
-this deluge of innocent blood, and this wreckage of ancient
monuments - who can hesitate for a moment to belaud this little
people, which has flung itself thus gallantly, in the spirit of
purest sacrifice, in front of the onward progress of this new and
frightful Juggernaut? Rather one recalls that old persistent
creed, exemplified perhaps in the mysteries, now of the Greek
Adonis, now of Persian Mithras, and now of the Roman priest of the
Nennian lake, that it is only through the gates of sacrifice and
death that the world moves on triumphant to rejuvenation and life.
Is it, in truth, through the blood of a bruised and prostrate
Belgium that the purple hyacinth of a rescued European
civilization will spring presently from the soaked and untilled
soil?
Yet even if German "kultur" in the end sweep wholly into ruin the
long accumulated treasures of Belgian architecture, sculpture, and
painting - if Bruges, which to-day stands still intact, shall to-
morrow be reckoned with Dinant and Louvain - yet it would still be
worth while to set before a few more people this record of
vanished splendour, that they may better appreciate what the world
has lost through lust of brutal ambition, and better be on guard
in the future to protect what wreckage is left.
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