In Memory of the Founder of the Red Cross

The splendid word sent by the noble lady, the Marquise de Freige, president of the Lebanese Red Cross, in memory of "Henry Dunant," founder of this noble world movement.

A seed from the tree of goodness was planted one day in the earth, in the town of Geneva in Switzerland. It grew marvelously, then spread marvelously, then cast its shade over the world, leafy and fruitful, as though it were a thousand seeds, in a thousand trees, in a thousand thickets upon thickets. A bountiful hand wipes the wounds of mankind with the balm of love and the salve of medicine; the wounds heal, and mankind feels that the bonds of world brotherhood created by Henry Dunant, this great human being, are bonds that do not weaken in calamities nor slacken in disasters.

Millions of people—men and women, young and old, from the various corners of the earth, of various races, colors, and religions—gather today in this dear commemoration, reviving in the depths of their hearts the memory of the immortal man: the memory of one hundred years since the death of the creator of this immortal humanitarian institution. A hundred years, like springs of light that Henry Dunant caused to burst forth in the conscience of the world, teaching it a brotherhood that knows no faltering, and a cooperative fellowship that knows no fear, no avarice, no hesitation.

A ray that spread through the land of Switzerland, lighting a thousand horizons upon horizons in every region and beyond every border.

A ray kindled anew each day, glittering and never extinguished, glowing and never dying down. A humane, universal ray, springing from the conscience of an honorable, noble man in whom the spirit of succor was hallowed, and in the vaults of whose soul the spirit of continuous, generous sacrifice rose high.

Amid the moans of the wounded and the sighs of the sick; amid the anguish of the suffering and the torment of the homeless; amid the frailty of the weak and the calamities of the weary—in the depths of bleeding wounds the soul of Henry Dunant fluttered, and he reflected that he was a man of good. And behold, he planted in the earth this green tree whose shade has covered the world, gathering under its wing the institutions of goodness and charity. It is as though he wished, I think, to make of mankind a single family, working and honorable.

If one member of it suffers, the other members, its brethren, bend over it tenderly, wiping its wound with the balm of love and healing its heart with the juice of hearts.

The Red Cross is a world institution whose cornerstone was laid a hundred years ago by a man of the whole world. It is the cornerstone in the edifices of goodness. He thought of his own soul, and so thought of the souls of men; he healed his own wound, and so healed the wounds of men—a supreme example of fellowship and love.

Men are brothers: he who does not feel the wounds of others is a man who is an enemy to himself and to the souls of others.

A world commemoration: it has a clear image in every eye, a living memory in every soul, a welcome mention on every tongue. And what a difference between two works: the work of him who devotes his life to deepening the wounds of humanity and inventing the instruments of destruction and death, and the work of him who keeps vigil all his life to bind up bleeding wounds and to discover the balm of healing and life.