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Show When The War Shall Be Over M '"THE great war will close after a while. We H wonder if in the breasts of the rulers of those M countries there is not an unspoken fear of what H will come then. M When those who remain make lists of their ' H dead, of those so maimed that they will be a H perpetual tax upon the strong while their broken H frames last; of the debts which they are mort- H gaged to pay interest on all their lives, what will ' H the summing up of the unspeakable wrongs which H have come to those people be? H One would think that evangels would spring H up in every land to paint the picture of those H wrongs and to demand a new deal. H A deal in which never more could kings ob- H sessed by a love of power, of conquest, of un- H earned loot and lands, of glory reeking with H blood; of fame red with blood and shadowed by JM broken hearts; would be squelched forever. ; What a year ago did the peasant in his shed iH by the Don hold in enmity against the peasant ,H in his shed by the Danube? tH What enmity did the Frenchman with his little three-acre vineyard on the Loire or the Italian 11 on the Po hold against the German peasant "with jH his cows and goats oh the Elbe? 'H What was there in all the contentions that dis- tH tracted the rulers of Europe that a commission H of business men could not have settled justly a H year ago? (H Is it not true that justice was not what was jH sought? And was not the impelling cause behind all, H the belief that what was desired could be won H through possessing more and more effective H means of killing the simple dupes who do the H fighting and dying than the other side possessed? H That is a game as old as the world. It start- M ed in the stone age and the principle then in- M voked was that might made right. H Has that been changed with the rolling cen- M turies? Have increased learning and enlighten- M ment done aught except to teach men the art H of scientific war and create new and more ter- M midable engines of destruction M Has Christianity done aught except to give m zealots new excuses for wholesale murder that M the domains of the Prince of Peace might be en- H tangled? M We hope it has; we hope that when this war is H finally closed, it will inspire evangels in every H land to cry out for a change of the ancient pol- H icy of barbarism and murder and to demand that H a reign of justice shall be ushered in. That under the new adjustment if thrones remain those who sit upon them shall, like the humblest peas- ant, be forced to obey the new dispensation; they H and their counsellors. H When that time comes we hope that our coun- try will come to the fore in demanding it, and in so potential a way that when the new code shall be framed and accepted by the nations, H those who have long waited, May fcol assured H that the reign of peace on earth may bo looked B forward to with a hope of fulfillment. |