152 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



State may be safer than one that is well protected* But 

 the defenceless condition of Luxemburg was, in 

 a sense, accidental, and therefore the illustration may 

 seem to some unconvincing* Far more striking is the 

 case of the frontier between Canada and the United 

 States* 



One hundred years ago the British Government gave 

 orders for the increase of their naval force on the Great 

 Lakes, and there was every prospect of a competition 

 in armaments between the two Governments* But 

 the American Government suggested that instead of 

 pursuing this dangerous policy, the frontier should 

 be left undefended, and, after some hesitation, the 

 British Government agreed* The arrangement was 

 ratified in the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, and 

 the consequence has been a century of unbroken 

 peace* 



Whilst the tragedy of the great war may well 

 suffice to expose the folly of the oft-repeated statement 

 ** if you want peace, prepare for war,** this almost 

 forgotten story of our Canadian frontier may equally 

 well serve to illustrate the obvious fact that if we want 

 peace, we must seek peace and ensue it* 



Do not imagine that I bring these cases forward as 

 examples of miraculous protection* There is nothing 

 supernatural in the fact that evil can be overcome by 

 good* Love is the strongest moral and spiritual force 

 in the universe* That love should succeed where 

 hatred failed, was no more supernatural, than it was 

 supernatural in -^sop^s fable that the sun should succeed 

 in causing the traveller to take off his coat, whilst the 

 chilling blast of winter only caused him to wrap it the 

 more closely round him* 



There is in every man, however degraded, a spark 

 of divinity ; a best which cannot fail to respond to that 

 which is best in others* 



