A LEAGUE OF PEACE 399 



Homer, about eight hundred and fifty years before Christ, tells us 

 it is by no means lit for a man stained with blood and gore to pray 

 to the gods, and that " Religious, social and domestic ties alike he 

 violates, who willingly would court the honors of internal strife." 

 ('Iliad,' IX., 63.) 



He makes Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, look sternly at Ares, the God 

 of War, saying : " Nay, thou renegade, sit not by me and whine. 

 Most hateful art thou to me of all the Gods that dwell in Olympus; 

 thou ever lovest strife, and wars and battles." (' Iliad/ V., line 891.) 



Euripides, -180-406 B. C, cries, " Hapless mortals, why do ye get 

 your spears and deal out death to fellow-men ? Stay ! from such work 

 forbear !"..." Oh fools all ye who try to win the meed of valor 

 through war, seeking thus to still this mortal coil, for if bloody con- 

 tests are to decide, strife will never cease ! " 



Thucydides, who wrote his great work sometime between 423 B. C. 

 and 403 B. C., asserts that " Wars spring from unseen and generally 

 insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of 

 anger." And he gives us the needed lesson for our day which should 

 be accepted as an axiom : " It is wicked to proceed against him as a 

 wrong-doer who is ready to refer the question to arbitration." Aris- 

 tides praised Pericles, because, to avoid war, ' he is willing to accept 

 arbitration.' 



Andocides, about 440-388 B. C, says : " This then is the distinc- 

 tion, Athenians, which I draw between the two : peace means security 

 for the people, war inevitable downfall." 



Isocrates, 436-338 B. C., teaches that " Peace should be made with 

 all mankind. It should be our care not only to make peace, but to 

 maintain it. But this will never be until we are persuaded that quiet 

 is better than disturbance, justice than injustice, the care of our own 

 than grasping at what belongs to others." (' Oration on Peace.') 



The sacred books of the east make peace their chief concern. 

 " Thus does he (Buddha) live as a binder together of those who are 

 divided, an encourager of those who are friends, a peacemaker, a lover 

 of peace, impassioned for peace, a speaker of words that make for 

 peace." (' Buddhist Suttas/ oth century B. C.) "Now, wherein is 

 his conduct good? Herein, that putting away the murder of that 

 which lives, he abstains from destroying life. The cudgel and the 

 sword he lays aside, and, full of modesty and pity, he is compassionate 

 and kind to all creatures that have life." (' Buddhist Suttas.') 



" Truly is the king our sovereign Lord ! He has regulated the 

 position of the princes ; he has called in shields and spears ; he has 

 returned to their cases bows and arrows." (' The Shik King,' Decade 

 I., Ode 10.) 



Many hundred years before Christ, the Zendavesta pronounces 

 ' Opposition to peace is a sin.' 



