What Peace Means | Page 4

Saviour, if our faith is honest, we must feel

the desire and the duty of helping to make peace prevail on earth.
But here we are, in a world of confusion and conflict. Darkness and
ignorance strive against light. Evil hates and assaults good. Wrong
takes up arms against right. Greed and pride and passion call on
violence to defeat justice and enthrone blind force. So has it been since
Cain killed Abel, since Christ was crucified on Calvary, and so it is
to-day wherever men uphold the false doctrine that "might makes
right."
The Bible teaches us that there is no foundation for enduring peace on
earth except in righteousness: that it is our duty to suffer for that cause
if need be: that we are bound to fight for it if we have the power: and
that if God gives us the victory we must use it for the perpetuation of
righteous peace.
In these words I sum up what seems to me the Christian doctrine of war
and peace,--the truth that in time of war we must stand for the right,
and that when peace comes in sight, we must do our best to found it
upon justice. These two truths cannot be separated. If we forget the
meaning of the Christian duty to which God called us in the late war,
all our sacrifice of blood and treasure will have been in vain. If we
forget the watchword which called our boys to the colours, our victory
will be fruitless. We have fought in this twentieth century against the
pagan German doctrine of war as the supreme arbiter between the tribes
of mankind. They that took the sword must perish by the sword. But in
the hour of victory we must uphold the end for which we have fought
and suffered,--the advance of the world towards a peaceful life founded
on reason and justice and fair-play for every man.
So there are two heads to this sermon. First, the indelible remembrance
of a righteous acceptance of war. Second, the reasonable hope of a
righteous foundation of peace.
I. First of all, then, it must never be forgotten that the Allies and
America were forced to enter this war as a work of righteousness in
order to make the world safe for peace.

Peace means something more than the mere absence of hostilities. It
means justice, honour, fair-play, order, security, and the well-protected
right of every man and nation to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. It was the German contempt for these Christian ideals, it
was the German idolatry of the pagan Odin, naked, cruel, bloody, god
of war, it was the German will to power and dream of world-dominion,
that made the world unsafe for real peace in 1914.
Never could that safety be secured until that enemy of mankind was
overcome. Not only for democracy, but also for human peace, it was
necessary, as President Wilson said, that "the German power, a thing
without honour, conscience, or capacity for covenanted faith, must be
crushed."
I saw, from my post of observation in Holland, the hosts of heathen
Germany massing for their attack on the world's peace in the spring of
1914. Long before the pretext of war was provided by the murder of the
Austrian Crown-Prince in Serajevo, I saw the troops, the artillery, the
mountains of ammunition, assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle and Trier,
ready for the invasion of neutral Belgium and Luxembourg, and the
foul stroke at France.
Every civilized nation in Europe desired peace and pleaded for it. Little
Servia offered to go before the Court of Arbitration at The Hague and
be tried for the offense of which she was accused. Russia, Italy, France
and England entreated Germany not to make war, but to submit the
dispute to judicial settlement, to a righteous decision by a conference of
powers. But Germany said no. She had prepared for war, she wanted
war, she got war. And now she must abide by the result of her choice.
I have seen also with my own eyes the horrors wrought by Germany in
her conduct of the war in Belgium and Northern France. Words fail me
to describe them. Childhood has been crucified, womanhood outraged,
civilization trampled in the dust. The nations and the men who took
arms against these deviltries were the servants of the righteous God and
the followers of the merciful Christ.
He told us, "If any man smite thee on the right cheek, turn unto him the

left also." But never did He tell us to abandon the bodies and the lives
of our women and children to the outrage of beasts in human form. On
the contrary, He said to His disciples, in His parting discourse, "He that
hath no sword let him