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Show RELIGION AND WARS. There is nothing like religious zeal to hold men in the crisis of a war. To the faithful Russian Rus-sian the Czar stands in God's stead. He is not only emperor by divine right, but Is the Pope of the Greek church. He has been brought up from the cradle to believe that to flght for the Czar when called upon must be a matter of course. With the Japanese the zeal is ever more intense. in-tense. Their emperor is not in any way subordinate, sub-ordinate, he is divine and of his forty millions of subjects probably thirty millions would hold it as the very highest honor that could come to them to die for their mikado. When the armies of these sovereigns are set in array against each other there will be such a slaughter as will make the world shudder. We expect the Russians will win. From the first the Caucassians have been the dominant race. Under Arctic snows and tropic suns it has always been the same. They are the world's conquering race. Other races become be-come discouraged by defeat; the Caucassian accepts ac-cepts defeat as an incident merely and gathers his strength for another trial, but it is curious to note that the battle cry of the world from the first has been a religious cry. At the first pitched battle recorded in history, when the great Cyrus sent his Medes and Persians in array to meet the swarming, (and much superior in numbers), enemy; in the lull preceeding the opening of the battle the opposing Egyptians first took up the march, chanting hymns to their gods as they advanced. ad-vanced. The ciy of the Moslems as they go into a battle is "Allah il Allah," and the thought that holds them up to the flght is that they are serving serv-ing God and that if overtaken by death they will at once be transported to the joys of a paradise of sensual delights. Cortez led his army to Mexico and Pizarro to Peru, and both committed their murders and robberies rob-beries by the sign of the cross. The Christian and the Pagan world are alike in this; there is no zeal that equals a religious zeal; under no other incentive are so many cruelties cruel-ties perpetrated. The statesmen of the world should consider that such cruelties ought to stop and enter into a league for the express purpose of stopping them. Religious fanaticism and the government of nations cannot be safely joined. There is be-' be-' low the religious plane a business zone and this should be governed by business methods. Our thought is that Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States should join and Insist that both Russia and Japan should settle their differences dif-ferences and no longer continue a menace to the world's peace. |
