SPEECH liEFORE THi: I'EACE LEAGUE. 9 



tain pciice, and (liai tlicy may safely ent loose from this 

 snprenu* force — virtne. Onr honorable and learned 

 Cliairman has jnst exhibited the disordered passions of 

 the heart as a permanent principle of war. Permit nie 

 to remark that I had said this very thing on the sub- 

 ject of war in a lecture of mine, for which some of the 

 friends of peace have complained of me. I said " war is 

 the ideal of sin, the ideal of the brute and the devil.'' 

 \^A2^pIause.^ \\\\t it is just becanse it is the ideal of the 

 brute and the devil, that it is, in one aspect, the ideal 

 of man. There is something of the brute and of the 

 devil in man. The root of war is in pride, concupis- 

 cence, revenge — in all the bad passions that ferment 

 within us. It is our burden and our glory to struggle 

 against these ; but if we would conquer them, we must 

 not ignore their existence and energy. To banish war, 

 to say to it what the Lord says to death — " death, I 

 will be thy death" — we must make exterminating war 

 on sin — sin of society as well as of the individual — sin 

 of peoples as well as of kings. AVe must record and 

 expound to the world, which docs not understand them 

 as yet, those two great books of public and private 

 morality, the book of the synagogue, written by Moses 

 with the fires of Sinai, and transmitted by the prophets 

 to the Christian Church ; and our ovrn book, the book 

 of grace, which upholds and fulfils the law, the gos])el 

 of the Son of God. The decalogue of Moses, and the 

 gospel of Jesus Christ ! The decalogue which speaks 

 of righteousness, while showing at the height of right- 

 eousness the fruit of charity; the gospel which sjx'aks 

 of charity, while showing in the roots of charity the sap 

 of righteousness. This is what we need to afiirm h\ 

 word and by example, wluit we need to glorify before 

 peoples and kings alike ! [Prohj^jgrd appJausc.'] 



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