DKOKMBER 15. 1915 



1043 



utts of their soil will feed. Therefore they must 

 depend foi- their existence »ii>on the importation of 

 foodstuffs. England knows that this is tJ"ue of Ger- 

 many, therefor? England established a blockade 

 around Gerninny to keep foodstuffs from reaching 

 her enemy. Germany knows that this is true of 

 England, therefore Germany conducts a submarine 

 warfare of destruction asainst vessels carrying food- 

 stuffs to England. This makes it necessary that 

 every ounce of grain raised in Ivoth countries be 

 cartfully conserved. Now, in spite of the alluring 

 advertisements of brewers and distillers, the food 

 \aliie of beer and whisky might just as well be 

 burned or buried. In order to protect themselves 

 from sheer starvation, it is becoming necessary for 

 the belligerent nation to prohibit the destruction of 

 grain by forbidding or limiting the manufacture of 

 alcoholic liquors. 



So intemperance is proving itself a terrible liabil- 

 ity in warfare. It makes the soldier incompetent 

 and inefficient, it impoverishes the people so that 

 they cannot bear the financial strain of the war tax, 

 it destroys the products of the soil so that the 

 people are in danger of starvation. No wonder that 

 the great belligerent nations of Europe have latterly 

 become ardent prohibitionists! God grant that 

 America may learn the lesson before it has to be 

 beaten into her with the sword 1 



II. The war is also teaching the world the folly 

 of armaments. The world is learning the truth of 

 the statement long ago made in th« 33d Psalm, 

 verses 16 and 17: 



There is no king saved by the multitude of a host: 

 a mighty man is not dtlivered by great strength. A 

 horse is a vain thing for safety; neither doth he 

 deliver any by his great power. 



A horse is a vain thing for safety, so is a trench, 

 80 is a Krujip gun, so is a battleship, so is a zeppe- 

 lin. 



It is not in the province of the pulpit to take one 

 side or the other in the present discussion of pre- 

 paredness in our country. That is rather a political 

 question, and must be fought out by the politicians. 

 It behooves every American, however, to consider 

 how much of the present agitation is jingoism and 

 Low much of it is inspired by the big interests who 

 have cuns and uniforms and battlehips for sale. 

 But there is a deep philosophy of this whole ques- 

 tion of preparedness which is truly in the province 

 of the pulpit, and it is the philosophy of the text 

 that I have just quoted: 



There is no king saved by the multitude of a 

 host : a mighty man is not delivered by great 

 strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety, neither 

 doth he deliver any by his great power. 



Why is a horse a vain thing for safety ? Simply 

 bocanse the other fellow will get a horse too, and 

 then you will have to get two horses; then he will 

 get two; then you'll get three horses; and he'll get 

 three also. Then you will get a chariot to hitch to 

 your horses; and he will hitch his horses tw chariots. 

 You will build a battleship, then the enemy builds a 

 battleship just a little bigger than yours. Then you 

 must throw your battleship upon the scrap-heap and 

 tuild one bigger than his. Then he will throw his 

 battleship upon the junk-pile and build one bigger 

 than yours. Verily, a battleship is a vain thing for 

 safety. 



Why is no kin;j saved by the multitude of a host? 

 Because the other kins will also get a bigger multi- 

 tude of a hoet, then the first king must draft more 

 rren into service; and the second king, discovering 

 that his host is now comparatively a handful, drafts 

 still more nicn into service. And thus the process 

 goes on and on. 



The present European War is surely going to 

 teach the world the lesson that every armament is 

 a vain thine for safety. 



Universal disarmament is coming, not by the 



efforts of those who do not believe in war, but by 

 the machinations and manipulations and maneuver- 

 ing of Uie warriors. "Surely thou makest the wrath 

 of man to praise thee," and disarmament is coming 

 by the very efforts of those who advocate armament I 



This is the waj the process will work itself out: 

 r.attle.ship after battleship must be thrown upon the 

 scrap-heap as eacli nation in turn builds a bigger or 

 lucre effective ship; cannon iifter cannon must be 

 tonsigned to the junk-pilo as each nation designs a 

 more effective instrument of slaughter. Tlie process 

 will go on draining the treasury of the nation and 

 caipiying the purses of the people until there will 

 be no men left to cultivate the fields and do the 

 nation's work, and in slieer self-defense the nation 

 v\ill have to send its soldiers home. 



But this disarmament will not take place next 

 week, nor yet next year. For some time to come, 

 at least, the nations now engaged in warfare will 

 ni.inufacture more and more armaments and draft 

 more and more men into service. Inevitably the 

 upntral nations will feel, in self-defense, that they 

 must do likewise, and doubtless this is the part of 

 wisdom. If a bunch of hoodlums were clubbing 

 each other on the street, the innocent by-stander 

 would be foolish not to supply himself with a club 

 for self-defeiiie should the hoodlums attack him — 

 though perhaps he ought not be an innocent by- 

 .stauder. Ke'd better be a by-walker and leave the 

 lioodlums to club it out among themselves. But it 

 would be folly for America not to make some pro- 

 vision for self-defense should the maniacs across the 

 waters get after us. So it will inevitably come 

 about that there will be an increase of militarism, 

 nut only in America but in all the neutral nations 

 of the world. Bat all this will be but transient and 

 temporary. When the war is over, and the tumult 

 and the shouting shall have died, and the hatred 

 and the heat shall have cooled, then the nations will 

 settle down and calmly consider the whole matter, 

 and it will inevitably "follow that there will result 

 international disarmament, because the nations will 

 have learned by bitter experience the truth, long ago 

 spoken by divine inspiration, that armaments are 

 vain for safety. 



III. Of fhief importance, however, is the third 

 lesson that will surely be learned, the lesson of the 

 folly of theoretical religion. 



This war has been called the " collapse of Chris- 

 tianity." It is not the collapse of Christianity, but 

 it is the collapse of a false Christianity. It is not 

 the collapse of the Christianity that Jesus taught, 

 but it is the collapse of the Christianity that the 

 church has taught. 



It is a significant fact that in all of the belliger- 

 ent countries the progress of the war has been 

 marked by great religious revivals. Superficial ob- 

 servers clap their hands at this and say, " Behold, 

 there is at least some good coming out of this war. 

 Behold the revivals that are taking place." Bat 

 before they clap their hands too vigorously it might 

 be well to investigate just what is being revived. 

 In Germany there is a great revival of prayer. So 

 far so good! But what is the burden of the prayer? 

 •• Gr.tt strafe England! " "God punish England 1 

 God punish England! " In England there is a great 

 revival of religion, and the squabbles which have 

 disturbed the theological circles over there are quite 

 forgotten in the unity of consecration; but, alas! it 

 is a consecration to hatred! There is a revival of 

 religion in the belligerent countries, to be sure, but 

 it is not the revival of the religion of Jesus Christ, 

 but of Joshua; not of Calvary, but of Canaan I 



This revival of traditional religion is as inevitable 

 as the revivnl of armamentation which we have just 

 noted. But when the frenzy of hatred is cooled 

 down, and the Christians of the various countries 

 come together again in council, t.hey will begin to 

 ask themselves, " Why was it that our Christianity 

 did not have power enough to keep us from fighting 

 each other' " And, as surely as there is a God in 



