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Show REV. BRABD'S PEACEJERlOli At the Congregational Church Sunday Sun-day evening, Rev. Frank Bralncrd, In speaking on tho theme of "The Call to Peace," said In part as follows: The Hash of sabres, the rattle of musketry, the shriek of shells, and tho i oar of cannon have so died away on -the distance of time that we of this day would have little remembrance of them savo for the historic page and the battlc-scnrrcd veterans who are pusslng In slow procession Into shadows of the night What Is to us of necessity but an oft told history continue to those heroic souls to he a terrible reality. Tho days of their bovhood are far removed; re-moved; the parting at the end of tho lane or nt the village station seems to belong to nnothor life The first bivouac fires have long ago burned out, but the bullets whistling about them, the shells bursting amongst them, tho' pitiful crumbling of men at their sides, the agonies of the wounded, wound-ed, tho moans' of the dying must be always in tholr"cars. the drenching rains, tho terrible cold, the hunger nnd thirst, the weary marches, and the dreary camp where privation and disease Btole Into their flesh and where death lurked in the dark shadows beyond their camp-fires must ever bo Ineradical memories This inheritance which has fastened fast-ened Itself upon old age, togothor with the losses of wives who were made widows, of children made fatherless, father-less, and of mothers bereft of (thelr sons, should set us all to working for tho coming among men of that peace which shall abide for ever. A student of this problem has called In our attontion the fact that the normal tax Income of a nutlon Is about equal to Its civil expenses, Wnr means unprovlded-for expense and therefore debt. He gives as nn Illustration the early history of England. Eng-land. In 1CS9 her debt was 1,051,000 pounds. In 1713 It hod boon Increased In-creased by wars to 53.680,000 pounds. Twentv-slx years of peace reduced this debt to 39,000.000 pounds Only ahutll 10,000.000 pounds of this had been paid when our Americnn wnr for independence brought the amount up to 238,000.000 pounds Ten jears of pence aguin reduced the debt only 1 about 10,000,000 pounds when thu wars with France brought up the floating and funded debt to the nnormoufi amount of S67.000.000 pounds, or an equivalent In round numbers to $1,380,000,000 with an intorcst charge of $102,250,000. In our own country In 1901 tho ro.t of our standing 'army was $92,500,000, our nay, $102,000,000; pensions, $142.-000,000. $142.-000,000. interest, $21,000,000, a total tax for wars nnd for prevention of wars of J362.000.000. For that same ienr our rivll expenses wero only $219,000,000. In other words, or thc-J annual tax of $7.12 per capita, but I $2.09 wefe spent for civil expenses, while $1,43 were spenj for Intorcst. and urmoulents. We cannot expect'to sue ccssfuliy hear this ever increasing burden of taxation, nor to 'have continued con-tinued prosperity and contentment should this ruinous V'nlc'bo perpetuated. perpetu-ated. - ' ; War Igr essontinlly a relic of the dnys of the beast and the barbarian, In the animal kingdom the primary need Is tbat of sustenance. Creatures llyed. upon; the Inferior kingdom or ,upoq the inferior of their kind. All Ignorant life Is bounded by geographic lines. The lack of sustenance in Bight sufficient for all load, from the very beginning, to ono or more of four coursos of action. First, the departure de-parture of the adventurous. They became be-came the rovers amongst animals, tho nomads amongst barbarians, the adventurers ad-venturers of medieval man, and the explorers, discoverers, and inventors of the moderns Second, there followed with those who remained the extinction of the weak. It was vastly easier to eliminate elimin-ate than to appropriate their share of the sustenance In sight than to go Into tho unknown to search for more, This markB the beginning of war. Its trail Is found In the Jungle and in the camps of the barbarians; It has turned cities Into ash heaps and armies of human beings into rivers of blood In humanity's slow march to civilization. The spirit of war once aroused, there almost necessarily follows Jealous Jeal-ous warfare amongst the survivors. The young grow strong and avengo themselves upon tho old. only in turn to bo exterminated by oncoming youth; tho barbarian wins his way through blood to lose his life in some later battle; Caeser conquers Rome but to fnll by the dagger of Brutus. Tills, debauching warfare brings Inevitably In-evitably the- fourth condition. In the study of specle6 It Is called the survival sur-vival of the fittest; in the study of barbarism we call It the rule of the strong; In medieval times li wns tho rule of despotism, and amongst moderns It takes the form of plundering plunder-ing of material resources and the exploitation' ex-ploitation' of the helpless. War, whether between beaBts or barbarians, medieval men or moderns, mod-erns, differs 'In spirit not at all, and shows variation only In methods Tho beast sprang upon his victim and rent him with fang and claw; the barbarian barbar-ian attacked with crude knife, poisoned poison-ed arrow, and flying torch; the medieval medie-val man with lance and sword, and the moderns with bullet and shell, money and political favor And nil this war breeds not courage, cour-age, but fear; not love, but distrust. The medieval man were hidden coat of mail In fear of dagger, and modern spoilers hire body attendants nnd secret police. Instead of believing believ-ing in each other the spoiler takes slight account of the poor, surrounds his rivals with hidden traps and binds his associates with oaths and conventions. conven-tions. Tho beast's way of retrent was supplanted by the barbarian watch-tower, watch-tower, which in turu became the walled city of the medieval man and the Gibraltar of tho moderns. The call to the pack became tho call to the clan, then tho conscription of the vanquished, and now the standing nnnles composed of citizens hired to threnten, nnd. If necessary, to kill The barbnrlnn s canoe which was elaborated Into the galley, has become tho modern man-of-war encased In armor of steel and threatening destruction de-struction with torpedo and shell. We are afraid We lock our doors, we police our streets, wo fortify our seaports, and patrol tho high seas; we establish churches to tench men of God and schools and colleges to educate edu-cate our youth, and many arc afraid to " trust life until they can learn how to live", we pass laws to protect society against the vicious and the spo.lors and are too afraid or too indifferent in-different to enforce them. But In the midst of all this strife comes the recurring call to peace N'ever before was it so dominant as now Peoples oppressed by the agonies and burdens of war are seeking relief, re-lief, patriots, concerned for the perfecting per-fecting of national life and the readjustment read-justment or social relations, are teaching the development of tho ideal, philanthropists, striving to alleviate the conditions of the weak and the suffering, are forwarding the day of general beneficence. In an united effort to bring about the day of peace a definite basis of procedure may well bo proposed. We muBt recognise the fact that the world is largo enough Tor all and that it contains, and ran continue to produce, ndequate sustenance for all. it is perfectly foasiblo to so readjust our methods of production and procurement procure-ment as to meet growing needs, by a higher and more intensive cultivation of our resources and by extending our lines of search and invention. The settlement of new land, the development develop-ment of new IndiiBtrles. the upward breeding of grains, fruits, and live stock make for this end. This effort must be accompanied by an equally serious purposo to ntop tho waste of sustenance once obtained. ob-tained. The spoilers who take more than they can use must be deterred and the Ignorant who waste their days in inefficiency, their land In partial cultivation, their harvest In partial gathering aud ill-housing must be taught how to toil and save. We should also seek to increase the individual acquirements. The parasites para-sites who prey upon the strong are particularly vicious, not alono that they subtract from the public good while nddlng nothing, but tuoro particularly par-ticularly in that they are one of the chief pauses In the creation of tho spoilers. The fact that certain dependents depen-dents g'othoT about any one places at commnnd to do his bidding, a weapon for the spoliation of tho weak, a moans for the dobauchlng of civic life, the degradation of tho ballot and tho perversion of government Wo have an exceedingly hopeful sign or the times In the present improved im-proved methods of caring for defective defec-tive and delinquent persons and in tho increasingly Intelligent nnd humano efforts to restore them, bo far as is pobslble. to lles of relative usefulness nnd safety In contrast to the old method of extermination Jt marks the -, growing appreciation ont iho part of society of jts obligation to'caro for tho weak andunfortuiiatc. ThiR hrJTugV'mlttp an important step. lz , fhp siabllshjnent, of tho mutual rights "of human "brotherhood Wc find that "In most disputes, that 'oo often lead to quarrels, neither of two pnrtlcs Is usually elthor wholly right or wholly wrong. Once recognize this as true, a slncero effort should be put forth to seek some basis of mutual good. Such concessions as wise and dispassionate advice may suggest ought to be made by either party. Long ago courts of law and equity havo undertaken to furnish such a basis of adjustment when appealed to and, however the Justness of their dp-cisions dp-cisions inny be sometimes questioned, the very fact that they must be dell-ered dell-ered and that they carry consequences conse-quences by which the courts themselves them-selves are also Judged has been a moat potent factor in the elevation of the ability, honesty, and moral character of tne judiciary. It remains now to adapt and elaborate elabor-ate this system of court settlement, of Individual disputes into nn acceptable method of arbitration of national differences. dif-ferences. A few years ago, when-two foreign nations were locked In desperate desper-ate Btrugglo it was America that, as a non-combatant and an observer of disaster, made certain suggestions to the nntlonB of the world, suggestions so reasonable, so humane, and so practical that they were received In giatitudc and made a basis of action When the two nations were ready to consider terms of poace it was to America, tne rrlend of peoce, that they turned, and their commissioners camo from across the seas to our shores to determine from within the bouuds of our hospitality their articles of agreement agree-ment A writer has well said that " The peaco of Portsmouth marked the transfer of tho world's political capital from Europe to America." And now, upon the anniversary of that day set aside as a memorial to the Burvivors of war as wclj as raoro particularly to those who were slain, wc hear the most thrilling call to peace in the history of nations. America has again taken the initiative. initia-tive. An arbitration treaty with our mother country, England, has been proposed. . There Is little likelihood that our two nations will ever again turn cannon and shells against each other and the time is ripe for a splendid splen-did achievement in tho seeking of universal peace. But life is full of surprises, and the supremacy of right Is coming to its own more rapidly an we easily realise. real-ise. Hardly had .e read about the repeated expressions of goodwill between be-tween America and England and the proposed arbitration treaty than our newspapers told us that France, that generous and loyal friend to Amorlca in hor earliest noed, that most warlike war-like of all countries, that most excitable excit-able of peoples, would like the opportunity oppor-tunity to Join in the consideration of such a treaty .This possibility brought such added joy to the lnVrs of peace that the following report that Germany might become a party to its adoption was overwhelmingly good news. Whether all this comes now or oven soon, come some time It must. The extinction of the weak, the plundering plunder-ing of the defenseless, the exploitation exploita-tion of the poor, the debauching of citizens, the wrecking of homes, the slaughter of human beings. Is coming to be recognized as unjustifiable and criminal, nnd tho watchword of our leaders is coming to be supported by the tremendous chorus of tax-burdened and conscience-stricken peoples In this reverberating call to poace May we in this generation and or this dav teo its glorious and beneficent bene-ficent coming and may our voices and our actions Join In bringing about its realization. |