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Show j PEACE CONFERENCE. J ut. Rev. Laurence Scanlan's Able and I Learned Discourse at Sunday's Peace Conference Christian Civilization Not a Failure Peace Will Come Barbarism Barbar-ism in War Commended by Pagan Na- tions Less Humane Than Those of f the Present Day. V 7 ' . ; a very great gratification for mc : tube lu Vn,t m Sundav afternoon, and. t!iuh i rs in prcclud?d from asistiig and taking j j.,,-; jn ;.' i;r deliberations, to help, so far as I may. hr 1;.U''; i purpose for which your meeting h:.'s , ;;( led. I deeply regret that the condition ffjrv h'. n!h bars me f:orn, in person, uniting with v.-u in the public appeal which your sympathetic k art? will make to the good sense of the civilized rn;inii? of the world, and to that of the American, pooplo in particular, in behalf of universal and per-nianesjt per-nianesjt peace. Your meeting, as I understand the c'hjfct fer which it has been called, assembles to add ;i!C expression of the good will and encouragement of the people of our city to the voice of Christian' civiliznt raised, in Europe and America, against the dreadful spectacle, enacted from time to .time, (f human beings slaughtering each other, and leaver leav-er the fair face of the earth, given to ns by our .mini 'Mi father in heaven, saturated with blood, ani with ihe tears of widows and orphans. It i- to protest against the unending repetition nf ibep w.eful tragedies, against the perpetuation Irf tV-e monstrous and unnatural manifestations rf iiiui 'iial ill-will which sporadically and mysterir nudy rxpro-e itself in a thirst for blood, that you met i"1ay in a temple of peace. There are ine vlio contend thaj war is inevitable;, that it is i dn ree of fate that men should slaughter each ' . iir-r in lieeatombs. to anticipate the overpopulation :;' tlir earth, and that, therefore, it is idle to dream f universal pcacef ' Vi'c au-ver that unless our dreams of peace ac-v;a!ip ac-v;a!ip themselves into facts. Christian civilization' ha? failed of its mission, and that our race will still I y -An mm -h of the shameful civilization of the I b-athfji. From a review of the past, from a study I if the history of our race before and at the time. of crucifixion, and from the extraordinary advance toward humaneness, to vhe recognition of a com-n-n father in heaven, and consequently our kinship st.a lirotherhoood. we are justified in expecting the ri;.;zi)tifiu of our dream. Under our Christian civ-ih?aieii civ-ih?aieii mankind has made, since the birth of our li'fnicr. a wonderful advance toward the time tld l,y the prophet Isais, when: "The wolf shall lie down with the lamb and the V-V'trd -hall dwell with the kid; they shall not :t!:r,r shaU they kill, for the earth is filled with v ktif.xrledge of the Lord, as the covering waters ''i'sea." 'T' contrast between the social and moral con-!i con-!i ef our race today and that of 1900 years ago Mrikinj: that even the fool of the psalmist, .who in heart, "There is no god," if he were now j - v: W'uiM lie constrained to admit that Christian-"' Christian-"' -y.- marvelously altered the heart of man, for "1. l..r decency and clean living. Nnr ii'(. -we. when studying this wonderful ''use K,r liotter inthe condition of our race I 'r-,p tli- time of the resurrection, resort to a com-i com-i lii-'ween the civilization of today and the "''iri-ru of many ancient people's. It would he 1;iitfcir to ,,nk for the enlightened views of anti-'N'"" anti-'N'"" .'unojiL' 'he tribes like the Xasamones. who set "'J' i:.to d.-ert on an expedition against the p'n that had dried up their wells, and were '''Ur-t. overwhelmed in the sands. It would he '''tier t., riviiizej heathenism to look for culture I-1"'5 Libyans, whose mansions were made of if' H-d. ),. irui( secured with rushes; nor among "'"f t,' (,r-. who built their houses of blocks of '- in a j; uy where, Herotodu! remarks, it uev-'f uev-'f raii.w;, fortunately. In all matters which 'i, :,,'rn ''ul. the morals and feelings of man-U! man-U! I -' hri-tian times, it would be unjust to 'ii'liido ti:;,' r-ivilized and enlightened mankind Y' ' ,1'' '' leaved and debased, simply because '' " ' 'rod ihat such wretched creatures as ,';'f I edones and other savage tribes men- 1 ; f-.vy .md Herodotus, and such madmen ' , I!" ' '' . - Xojo. Tiberius and others, wallowed v'.'"f'''''::'' ':;dits and acted in all matters more I r;;' :,r-ats than human beings. But from IV '"' ' '"r- from Assyria, Babylonia. Egypt, yr-a. ;:nd Carthage, we might well expect .'.'iiiie specimens of the civilization and "'l"1'' 7 flourished amorif the most cul- uliyhtened nations, before the coming " ";" (od and the establishment of Chris-I'f1''; Chris-I'f1''; -".ident of history may deny that The-'U" The-'U" 1 !' -' J1,( d the educated and enlightened "; ! " ' "'Mitry. Plutarch tells us that Thcmis-.j""- ' ' 1 his i,wn hand, cut the throats of the lv a r'' I" v' "," he Persian king. Xerxes, captured ()r"(n:;' . -nd offered them as a sacrifice in hon-: hon-: Omidious. These young men were u'tTh'r , r 1var- of r.val blood, and were immol-'Cr immol-'Cr ',':!"!U5 to invoke the help of the god for. ;'f ' ; v'in wrro nnout to' begin the naval bat-'ih'l bat-'ih'l i " '" This ar t of cruelty could not have t'.v --urr rie the Persian king when he heard. of y0r' :"' Soothsayers, who accompanied Xerxes ,,fdprlr'V-l'rr,ilion 'i'1 the Greeks, had by his foJ "r.!r'J ii'Vf' nine youths and as many virgins "Pitiate r,1(. j,0,js nf c countries the Persians (Continued on Page 5.) ,,v . : ! PEACE CONFERENCE. (Continued from page 1.) were passing through. Herodotus states that t". r custom of burying alive was common in Persia and that the queen of Persia ordered fourteen children of illustrious birth to be buried alive that the spirits spir-its i dwelling in the. earth might favor her husband's (Xerxes') enterprise. Can we believe Josephus, the Jewish historian, when he tells us that the king of tbc insolent and ..lascivious Moabites, when encompassed by his enemies, ene-mies, brought out his son and heir and, lifting him unto the walls of thc city, slew him in sacrifice-to the gods of the nation? Mut we credit the author of the Book of Judges when he records the boast of the captive King Adonibezec: "Seventy kings, whose fingers and toes I cut off. gathered up thc leavings of the meat under mv table." ta-ble." In tile golden age of Roman civilization lived Julius Caesar and Octavius Augustus, who. as lovers lov-ers and patrons of the tine arts, accomplished scholars, schol-ars, warriors and statesmen, are held up for our admiration in our high schools, colleges and academies. acade-mies. Of Julius Caesar tvc dare say little in plain language. His utter moral rottenness was loathsome loath-some and his depravity beggars description. Cato might ,well shake his head at Caesar's loose toga. His manhood was worthy of his youth. His letters to Anthony reveal a tjlthiness beyond all belief: yet so barefaced was crime and cruelty in the golden a"ge that he was lauded by Seut'onius for "his abhorrence ab-horrence of cruelty." because he cut the throats of the pirates he had taken when he might have crucified cru-cified them. Caesar was proclaimed a god, after his death, by Augustus, the Roman emperor. Thi . same Augustus, according to the calm and cautiou.--biographer of the Caesars, upon a mere suspicion and that. too. unfounded, plucked out with his owr hand the eyes of the Roman knight Quintus Gallus. and then cruelly put him to death by ignominioie j torture. And what of the fate of prisoners of war j After Mark Antony and his friends were -starved out in Perugia, and the army forced to surrender. iuj ii num -i s nun; uiouKin oui ami pin to oeaiii in batches. Three hundred of the Roman knights and nobles of Antony's army, selected by Octavius Au- gustus, were slaughtered around the altar erected to the Manes of Julius Caesar, as if the- had been 00 sheep or bulls or oxen. After every battle the prisoners of war were I either slaughtered on the field, sold into slavery or reserved for death at the gladiatorial combats. In the most refined periods of the Roman empire, at the latest and brightest epoch of heathen or classical classi-cal civilization, prisoners of war were compelled to destroy each other for the delectation of the citizens, citi-zens, not only in Rome, but wherever an amphitheatre amphithe-atre was raised, in Eirrope.-Africa, Asia Minor and Ask proper. -Even small country towns like Pompeii Pom-peii and Herculaneum had these gladiatorial shows where prisoners were publicly slaughtered for the amusement of the people. "As soon as the prisoners who were condemned to fight with each other, or with wild beasts." writes Seneca, "were brought out ui)on the arena, thc spectators spec-tators became enemies of the" human combatants and desired nothing so much as to sec them quickly slaughtered." ' Xiphilinus, in his life of the Kmperor Commo-1 (lus, relates that when the contest between thc prisoners pris-oners was too equally sustained the imperial monster mon-ster became so enraged at thc combatants for not dispatching one another more, quickly that he had the wretches tied together to make sure of their immediate im-mediate death. Lactantius adds: "So ferocious was the thirst of the spectators for blood that should one of each pair of combatants combat-ants not fall quickly thc whole crowd flics into a' rage against them and fresh men must be brought out to dispatch them." The same Lactantius. corroborating Pliny, writes "that as a part of the horrid performances, the warm bloood of the dying prisoners was handed ' around the amphitheatre and drunk by thc "spectators." "specta-tors." - , Such became, at last, thc games and pastimes of civilized society among the polite nations of an-tiquitv. an-tiquitv. that the mutual slaughter of prisoners was no more to th.fcm than play to us. so, completely had humanity become estranged from the human heart, j Mankind required all the-strength of the divine! example of the love of man given on the cross, and the new commandment of Jesus Christ, to love our neighbor; he required heroic examples of self-sacrifice, of self-denial, of martyrdom and death, before be-fore he could be persuaded to hope for even the possibility pos-sibility of a change to a higher -and a better life. In his critical and learned work on mythology, thc gifted and accurate Banier tells us that: "Among all the peoples of the earth before the j redemption man has slaughterc4 his fellow man and j tortured him with nameless cruelties, and there is 1 not a spot on earth on the globe of ancient civiH-j zation that has not been dyed with human blood' thus barbarouslv shed." Contrasted with the horrors of 'war in the golden age of Roman and Grecian 'civilization with the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children; chil-dren; with the unspeakablt torture inflictcd'on the defeated and the horrible violation of women and virgins, that followed the capture -of a city or town ; face to face with the historical facts of the savage atrocities inflicted on the conquered. War today i.s merciful. Will any sane man now venture to 'tell us, in .the-presence of thc .miraculous change wrought by Chrisitanity on the human heart since, those times, that the expectation of a universal and permanent peace is the dream of a visionary? I dare to hope that the same Christian influence which humanized the heart of man and taught him to be merciful to a conquered foe. will iu time prevail pre-vail upon him' to submit his grievances and his cause to the arbitrament of disnassioned judgment and abide by its deciison. It must be so. For peace must triumph at the last Though 'round and 'round we run; For. ever the right comes uppermost, And ecr is justice done. r For God is God and right is right. ' And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty. To falter would be sin. |
