SEPTEMBER 15, 1914 



7;!7 



I 



idhi!' 



Thou Shalt not kill. — Ex. 20:13. 



Love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, 

 hoi)ing for nothing again. — Luke 6:35. 



They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, 

 and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall 

 not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 

 learn war any more. — ISA. 2: 4. 



For some time back I have been expecting, 

 and I do not know but predicting, here on 

 these pages, that the affairs of this worhl 

 are approaching a crisis of some sort. I 

 felt impressed by tliis in viewing the im- 

 jorovements and progress that humanity has 

 been making during the last fifty or sixty 

 years. It was my privilege to see steam 

 begin to make its way, not only in 2:)lowing 

 the seas, but in traversing the land. With a 

 boyish home-made apparatus I went around 

 to schoolhouses exhibiting a little home- 

 made motor run by an electric battery, and 

 predicting that this new force would out- 

 rank steam itself in just a few years. I 

 watched and waited, and saw it take tJiirty 

 or forty years, instead of three or four. I 

 saw the electric wires for almost the first 

 time, strung on poles throughout Ohio. I 

 was also permitted to experiment with the 

 telephone about as soon as its invention was 

 announced. I have also lived to see messages 

 sent by electricity without any Avire; and 

 within the last ten days a friend showed me 

 an aerial tower in our neighboring city of 

 Akron that he said had already received 

 wireless messages from Washington. I have 

 also lived to see radium upset scientific 

 theories, and rejoice to have had a tiny 

 spark of the wonderful agent in my pos- 

 session, where it continues to be a veritahle 

 perpetual motion, sending out a bombard- 

 ment of stars or meteors day and night, 

 summer and winter, without any diminution 

 or cessation. I have asked through these 

 columns what is coming next. Perhaps I 

 should mention, also, that it has rejoiced 

 my heart to see the wonderful progress 

 being made in conserving and saving human 

 life. A " sane and safe Fourth of July " 

 has just been inaugurated. I believe it 

 started in Cleveland, a great city close to my 

 Medina home. 



Although our great physicians and sur- 

 geons have been criticised sometimes rather 

 severely, I believe all reasonable people 

 must admit that there has been a great 

 saving of life in this direction. The ancient 

 practice of blood-letting has been proved to 

 be a foolish fad if not a fraud, and true 

 science has, at least as a rule, taken the 

 ]daee of humbug science and teachings of 

 quack doctors. I have lived to see God's 

 iu'ecious word spread to the uttermost points 



of the earth, in nearly all the languages 

 spoken in the world, and sent out by the 

 millions. Cannibalism has almost if not 

 quite disappeared, and I might almost say 

 the same of human slavery. To bring it 

 about cost a terrible war, it is true, and a 

 fearful shedding of innocent blood. Some 

 lieoi)le tell us, and, in fact, have been telling 

 us, that the matter could have been settled 

 without bloodshed away back fifty years 

 ago, but Ave did not know any better. 



Now, friends, the fearful question now is, 

 do Ave knoAv any better nowf We are all 

 hoping that here in the United States we 

 do knotc better; but right here in Ohio a 

 fierce Avar is going on just noAv. There has 

 been a little bloodshed already, and there 

 may be more of it before intoxicants are 

 banished. While schools and churches are 

 taking the place of savagery everywhere, 

 and giving protection to the honest Avage- 

 earners, Satan is already at Avork, and some- 

 times he startles us Avith the conviction that 

 lie too is making neiv discoveries and short 

 cuts. We become careless and indifferent, 

 and lull our consciences to sleep, and try to 

 persuade ourselves we are safe liere in our 

 quiet and peaceful homes. I have neither 

 time nor space here to mention dynamiting 

 that is continuallj^ cropping out.* Noav for 

 this terrible European Avar. 



On this 3d day of September the latest 

 iieAA's day after day is — more bloodsJied. I. 

 have just caught a glimpse in a daily paper 

 of the news that after one single conflict 

 tliey buried 6400 bodies — bodies of young 

 men, the floAver of the nation ; and we have 

 been told at different times that probably 

 many of these poor victims did not know 

 Avhat they were fighting for. In fact, does 

 any one really know Avhy almost half the 

 population of the world is engaged in kill- 

 ing each other? Their farms and crops are 

 neglected, and even burned by their own 

 hands if not ruined by the Aveather, and star- 

 vation may kill more than the SAvord and 

 cannon if these i^eople do not soon come to 

 their senses. By the way, I read somewhere 

 that just eight men, possibly nine, over in 

 Europe, brought on tbe Avar, and that these 

 nine men, if they had a mind to, could stop 

 it in an instant. 



I told you a little time back of the text I 



* Little did I think when I was ask'ng what 

 " great event " would stir the world next that it 

 would be some of Satan's inventions and planning — 

 a scheme that will not only not conserve human life 

 iinii health, but result in a wholesale murder unprec- 

 edented in the history of the world, and a murder, 

 too, of the best youth and manhood (physically) that 

 the whole world can produce. 



