N O R 
H He OF he 
BREEZE 17 
‘‘Education is an appeal to rea- 
son, war is a dethronement of reason 
and an appeal to force. The edu- 
eated man knows that might cannot 
make right. He best understands 
arguments for peace, and it is a sig- 
nificant fact that the great educa- 
tors are leaders of the peace move- 
ment. It appeals to them that ques- 
tions of international justice should 
be determined by international 
courts. 
““The waste of war is a force that 
makes for its abolishment—the cost 
is incomprehensible. <A battleship 
costs $18,000,000, more than _ the 
combined cost of all the lands and 
buildings of all of our New England 
colleges. In a dozen years this 
battleship goes to the junk heap. A 
single shot costs $1,700, as much as 
the education of a boy. In 1910 our 
government spent $409,040,714 for 
the army and navy and for pensions, 
while all the other expenses for the 
legislative, judicial and executive 
branches cost $32,000,000. That is 
twelve times as much for war as for 
all other things in time of peace. 
‘We spend 72 per cent of our rev- 
enue for war and 28 per cent for the 
commonwealth. This is a war tax 
of $60 per family. We lead the 
world in the expenditure for arma- 
ments, which is a race to bank- 
ruptey. There are over 4,000,000 
idle men in the barracks of the 
world to be supported by the toilers. 
The nations of Europe in the past 
37 years spent $111,000,000,000 for 
war, an unthinkable sum, nearly 
equal to the aggregate wealth of the 
United States, the richest nation in 
the world. 
*““Our Civil War, which has been 
characterized as the one justifiable 
war—but concerning which General 
Grant himself said that in his judg- 
ment there never was a time when 
the drawing of the sword might not 
have been avoided—cost one and 
one-half billions of dollars per year, 
and the debt is not yet paid. 
“But the cost in blood is more 
_ appalling than the cost in dollars. 
The Civil War destroyed a million 
men, the European wars in the last 
century destroyed fourteen million 
men. Since recorded history, war 
has destroyed one billion, five hun- 
dred million men—a number equal 
to the present population on the 
globe. Surely it has been well said, 
‘Peace is the supreme object of goy- 
ernment.’ 
““You would tire if I should go on 
giving the figures deseribing this 
monumental waste. 
‘““The lives thus needlessly sacri- 
ficed to the god of War were the 
flower of the nation, Think of the 
loss to the world through a system 
which selects the stronger for des- 
truction and the weaker tor survival 
and propogation. What genius, 
what talent, what leaders for the 
world have thus been swept away 
by cannon. Had the billions of dol- 
lars spent in the Civil War been 
spent on the South it would have 
made it a Garden of Eden; and 
who ean estimate what contribution 
that million of lives, if spared, 
might have made to the progress of 
the nation? What could we not do 
if we had the whole one hundred 
per cent of our revenue instead of 
the twenty-eight per cent to spend 
on the commonwealth? Think what 
forests we might reclaim, what 
lands we might irrigate, what canals 
we might dig, what highways we 
might build! What diseases like 
tuberculosis, hookworm and cancer 
might be destroyed! What im- 
provements in the living of the toil- 
ers, what pension for old age to 
brighten life might be provided for! 
What training in arts and = indus- 
tries might be given to his children, 
through the founding of new 
schools! All these things wait for 
money, and the money is spent for 
wars and the preparation for wars. 
We are in bondage to the army and 
navy. 
“But, than God, the key to the 
prison is on the inside. None can 
compute the cost of war in the 
broken hearts, in the wrecked 
homes, in the orphaned children, in 
the loss of production, in characters 
wrecked by idleness and dissipation 
and the bitternesses that surely sow 
seed for future wars. 
‘Were half the power that fills the world 
with terror, 
Were half the wealth that’s spent on 
camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from 
error 
were no 
forts!’ 
There need of arsenals or 
‘‘Someway I feel that you are 
waiting for this argument. It is the 
supreme one. What is God’s pur- 
pose in this matter? What saith the 
Lord? He puts His message into 
two chapters, a prophecy and a his- 
tory. In the prophecy we read of a 
radical transformation; ‘and _ he 
shall judge among the nations and 
shall rebuke many people, and they 
shall beat their swords into plough- 
shares and their spears into pruning 
hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more.’ And in 
the history we read that He, this 
Prince of Peace, has come, and that 
at His coming a multitude of the 
heavenly host sang ‘Glory to God in 
the Highest, on earth peace, good 
will to men.’ The world has never 
lost that vision or forgotten that 
music. This history further says 
that God made of one blood all na- 
tions of the earth, and that He also 
redeemed them by the one blood of 
this Prince of Peace, overarching us 
with the Fatherhood of God, and 
binding us into an_ indissoluble 
brotherhood—that He is thus a God 
of love and that our religion is 
nothing less than the life of God in 
our souls, so we will love God and 
love man. Let love work no evil to 
his neighbor but as ye would that 
men should do to you, do you also 
to them likewise.’ 
““This Prince of Peace sends his 
disciples to all nations with this 
transforming message of love. For 
wherever it goes, it changes their 
lives. It:reforms the soul, which is 
the soul of reform, it obliterates ge- 
ographical boundaries, it breaks 
down the walls of partition between 
peoples, it cares not under what flag 
a man is born nor for the color of 
his skin. ‘A man’s a man for ’a 
that.’ There is neither Jew nor 
Gentile. He bids us to put up the 
sword, for ye are brethren, and 
sends us forth to all nations, to win 
them to the kingdom of peace. 
‘‘But has the church actually been 
doing this? No; too often, she has 
been tithing mint and anise and 
cummin, and neglecting the weight- 
ier matters of righteousness, peace 
and joy. Sometimes she has given 
her attention to creeds instead of to 
deeds. Sometimes she has been 
taken up with the millinery of wor- 
ship. Sometimes she has not only 
forgotten that she was here to serve, 
but she has forgotten her example 
and mission that she strode forth 
with boots of war instead of with 
sandals of peace, and, like the first 
murderer, made the blood of her 
brothers ery to God. 
‘““What shall we say to these 
things? Let us return to God. Our 
mission is to bear His image and to 
earry His message. That image, 
that message, is love. Its banner is 
the cross. Let us not repeat the mis- 
take of Contantine who before a 
great battle saw a cross in the heay- 
ens with the words ‘In _ this sign, 
conquer,’ and went forth to destroy 
with those words on his banner but 
not on his heart. The only way to 
kill your enemies is by love. 
‘In yonder park there is a cannon 
blazoned with the words ‘The last 
argument of kings.’ What is the 
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