Towards the Great Peace

Towards the Great Peace

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Title: Towards the Great Peace
Author: Ralph Adams Cram
Release Date: January 8, 2004 [EBook #10642]
Language: English
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TOWARDS THE GREAT PEACE
BY
RALPH ADAMS CRAM, LITT.D., LL.D.

1922

INTRODUCTION
For the course of lectures I am privileged to deliver at this time, I desire
to take, in some sense as a text, a prayer that came to my attention at
the outset of my preparatory work. It is adapted from a prayer by

Bishop Hacket who flourished about the middle of the seventeenth
century, and is as follows:
_Lord, lift us out of Private-mindedness and give us Public souls to
work for Thy Kingdom by daily creating that Atmosphere of a happy
temper and generous heart which alone can bring the Great Peace._
Each thought in this noble aspiration is curiously applicable to each one
of us in the times in which we fall: the supersession of narrow and
selfish and egotistical "private-mindedness" by a vital passion for the
winning of a Kingdom of righteousness consonant with the revealed
will of God; the lifting of souls from nervous introspection to a height
where they become indeed "public souls"; the accomplishing of the
Kingdom not by great engines of mechanical power but by the daily
offices of every individual; the substitution in place of current hatred,
fear and jealous covetousness, of the unhappy temper and "generous
heart" which are the only fruitful agencies of accomplishment. Finally,
the "Great Peace" as the supreme object of thought and act and
aspiration for us, and for all the world, at this time of crisis which has
culminated through the antithesis of great peace, which is great war.
I have tried to keep this prayer of Bishop Hacket's before me during the
preparation of these lectures. I cannot claim that I have succeeded in
achieving a "happy temper" in all things, but I honestly claim that I
have striven earnestly for the "generous heart," even when forced, by
what seem to me the necessities of the case, to indulge in condemnation
or to bring forward subjects which can only be controversial. If the
"Great War," and the greater war which preceded, comprehended, and
followed it, were the result of many and varied errors, it matters little
whether these were the result of perversity, bad judgment or the most
generous impulses. As they resulted in the Great War, so they are a
detriment to the Great Peace that must follow, and therefore they must
be cast away. Consciousness of sin, repentance, and a will to do better,
must precede the act of amendment, and we must see where we have
erred if we are to forsake our ill ways and make an honest effort to
strive for something better.
For every failure I have made to achieve either a happy temper or a
generous heart, I hereby express my regret, and tender my apologies in
advance.

CONTENTS
LECTURE
INTRODUCTION
I. A WORLD AT THE CROSSROADS
II. A WORKING PHILOSOPHY
III. THE SOCIAL ORGANISM
IV. THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM
V. THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY
VI. THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION AND ART
VII. THE PROBLEM OF ORGANIC RELIGION
VIII. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B

TOWARDS THE GREAT PEACE

I
A WORLD AT THE CROSSROADS
For two thousand years Christianity has been an operative force in the
world; for more than a century democracy has been the controlling
influence in the public affairs of Europe and the Americas; for two
generations education, free, general and comprehensive, has been the
rule in the West. Wealth incomparable, scientific achievements
unexampled in their number and magnitude, facile means of swift
intercommunication between peoples, have all worked together towards
an earthly realization of the early nineteenth-century dream of
proximate and unescapable millennium. With the opening of the second
decade of the twentieth century it seemed that the stage was set for the
last act in an unquestioned evolutionary drama. Man was master of all
things, and the failures of the past were obliterated by the glory of the
imminent event.
The Great War was a progressive revelation and disillusionment.
Therein, everything so carefully built up during the preceding four
centuries was tried as by fire, and each failed--save the indestructible
qualities of personal honour, courage and fortitude.