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 A SERMON 
 
 "And I rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the 
 rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid 
 of them; remember the Lord, which is great and ter- 
 rible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your 
 daughters, your wives and your houses." 
 
 — Nehemiah IV, 14. 
 
 THE function of the ancient Jewish prophet was by 
 no means limited to moral and religious instruc- 
 tion Both the national and international interests ot 
 his people claimed his attention and were made the 
 subject of his counsel. He did not hesitate to criticize 
 the public policy of the government. He would some- 
 times denounce a proposed alliance with some other 
 nation. On the other hand, he would advocate an al- 
 liance which he deemed wise and safe. Scanning the 
 horizon from his prophetic watch-tower, he would warn 
 the king and people of approaching danger to the 
 nation, and when a foreign enemy threatened invasion 
 of the land, he would lift up his voice m the name ot 
 the Lord God as a divine messenger to rouse the people 
 to prepare for war and to resist oppression. The two 
 great principles which informed and inspired his 
 prophetic utterances were liberty and justice— political 
 liberty and social justice. Moses on the mountain top, 
 lifting up his hands in prayer to the Lord of Hosts, 
 while Joshua and the Hebrew warriors fought with 
 Amalek in the plain below, presents a picture typical 
 of the function of the Israelitish prophet. 
 
 Our text gives us a striking example of the place 
 which the Prophet held among the people of God. 
 Nehemiah, engaged with his people in rebuilding of 
 the walls of Jerusalem, having received intelligence of 
 the approach of hostile bands designing to attack 
 them, addresses himself to the nobles and rulers and 
 the rest of the people, as follows: "Be not ye afraid 
 
of them; remember the Lord, which is great and ter- 
 rible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your 
 daughters, your wives and your houses." 
 
 The circumstances under which we meet today, my 
 brethren, are not dissimilar to those which confronted 
 the Jewish leader and his people on this occasion. A 
 powerful and unscrupulous foe beyond the seas is levy- 
 ing war upon the TJnited States, sinking our ships, 
 murdering our citizens without mercy, forbidding our 
 merchantmen the freedom of the seas, secretly plotting 
 an alliance with Mexico and Japan against our national 
 integrity. 
 
 What now is the duty of the Christian minister to 
 his people and to the public in this crisis ? The answer 
 in my opinion cannot be doubtful. He should say to 
 them as Nehemiah said, "Be not ye afraid of them; 
 remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and 
 fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, 
 your wives and your houses." Yes, I hold that he who 
 speaks for God should not be dumb at such a moment, 
 that he should not avoid discussing the national crisis 
 as if it lay outside his vocation as a minister of Christ. 
 Equally do I repudiate the counsel of the pacifists who 
 falsely invoke the Christian religion on behalf of the 
 policy of non-resistance, who maintain indeed that war 
 is never justifiable and that no Christian man can con- 
 sistently take any part in war, even in repelling the 
 invasion of his country. No, there is no basis in the 
 Bible for cowardly submission to tyranny or invasion. 
 On the contrary, the Bible everywhere exhorts us to 
 stand for righteousness and justice and liberty, and 
 to resist tyranny and wrong. Listen to the words of 
 another of the ancient prophets : ' ' He that dasheth in 
 pieces has come up before thy face ; keep the munition, 
 watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power 
 mightily. ' ' Nahum II, 1. 
 
 The ancient worthies whose examples are set before 
 us in Holy Writ, the heroes and martyrs of the Chris- 
 tian Church, have ever displayed a firm resolve to re- 
 sist the invader and the oppressor, and to stand bravely 
 for human rights and for national safety. 
 
These pacifists have as little of the spirit of manly 
 religion as they have of trne patriotism. They would 
 have taken the sword from the hands of Jndas Mac- 
 cabeus when he drew it in defence of his country 
 against the unspeakable tyranny of Antiochus Epiph- 
 anes ! They would have snatched the pen from Thomas 
 Jefferson and John Hancock and George "Washington 
 when they came forward to sign the Declaration of 
 Independence! They would have sent the embattled 
 farmers home from Concord and Bunker Hill! They 
 would have preached submission at Valley Forge ! 
 
 Let me say then, as plainly and as strongly as I can, 
 speaking as a minister of Christ, speaking as a mes- 
 senger of God, speaking with a solemn sense of the 
 obligations of my sacred office, speaking in the sanc- 
 tuary of Christ, and with a full sense of my accounta- 
 bility for every word I utter in this holy place, — that 
 it is the high and sacred duty of the American people 
 to take up the gage of battle which Germany has 
 thrown down to us and to prosecute the war against 
 her with all our energy and with every resource at our 
 command — not hesitatingly, not half-heartedly, but 
 with all our hearts and with every pound of energy at 
 our command, realizing the vest interests at stake, the 
 tremendous consequences for weal or woe dependent 
 upon its issue. 
 
 The Christ who smote with the sword of his mouth 
 the hypocrites who oppressed the widows and orphans 
 in his day would not rebuke the United States for 
 drawing the sword in defence of innocent, helpless 
 women and girls from the outrages of a brutal soldiery. 
 The Christ who before Pontius Pilate declared that if 
 His kingdom were of this world His soldiers would 
 fight, would not condemn the United States which is a 
 government of this world for sending forth her armies 
 to defend the cause of justice and humanity. The 
 Christ who used physical violence to cleanse the temple 
 will not rebuke the United States for using the vio- 
 lence of war to cleanse the earth of the foul domination 
 of this ruthless nation which stops at no outrage in its 
 vast attempt to establish dominion over the whole 
 earth. The Christ who is the King of Righteousness 
 
will not condemn this Republic for taking her place in 
 the ranks of the peoples who are so nobly battling for 
 right and justice in the earth. The Christ who is 
 "first King of Righteousness and then King of Peace" 
 will surely approve of our resolve to recognize no 
 peace which is not founded on justice and equity. 
 -<" There are several considerations of great moment to 
 which I desire to invite your attention. I beg of you 
 in the first place to realize the colossal proportions and 
 the ultimate aim of this tremendous war. It is not 
 merely an European War — it is not merely a strife 
 against England and France and Russia and Italy. It 
 is the culmination of a long prepared effort to establish 
 a Pan-German Empire, with no less an object than the 
 Prussianization of the world. With all the formidable 
 tenacity and methodical thoroughness which charac- 
 terize the Prussian people, this gigantic plot has been 
 steadily pushed for more than twenty years past. The 
 plan is clearly mapped out in a book by Otto Tannen- 
 berg, called "The Greater Germany, the Work of the 
 Twentieth Century", which appeared at Leipsic in the 
 year 1911. In this book we have an exact program of 
 the seizures to be effected in Europe and Turkey with 
 the purpose of establishing an empire extending from 
 Hamburg through Constantinople and Bagdad to the 
 Persian Gulf. 
 
 This stupendous project to which the German leaders 
 long ago committed themselves, plans to make Ger- 
 many master of Austria, of the Balkans, of Turkey in 
 Europe, of Turkey in Asia, and to extend its power 
 to the very Persian Gulf itself. But even this is not 
 the full extent of the boundless ambition of the Em- 
 peror and his . satellites. Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopo- 
 tamia, Palestine, Western Asia and the greater part of 
 Arabia would pass under the absolute protectorate of 
 the German Empire. 
 
 Tannenberg further advocates territorial acquisi- 
 tions in Africa, in Oceania and in America, as the per- 
 fectly logical consequence of the accomplishment of the 
 Hamburg to the Persian Gulf project. In America his 
 plan embraced the seizure of Brazil, Paraguay, Uru- 
 guay, Argentina and Chili. These are his words: 
 
"German South America will provide for us in the 
 temperate zone a colonial region where our immigrants 
 will be able to settle as farmers. Chili and Argentina 
 will preserve their language and their autonomy, but 
 we shall require that in the schools German shall be 
 taught as a second language. Southern Brazil, Para- 
 guay and Uruguay are countries of German culture; 
 German will there be the National tongue. ' ' ( See i ( The 
 Pan-German Plot Unmasked," p. 105, by Andre 
 Cheradame.) 
 
 This book of Tannenberg's is only one of a group, 
 which reveal the boundless ambition of the Emperor 
 and his counsellors. It makes it very plain that this 
 immense war, the most tremendous that the world has 
 ever known, concerns us in the United States in a very 
 real and direct fashion. 
 
 But it is not only the vast schemes of Pan-German- 
 ism that bring the United States into relation with this 
 immense war. It is not only that the conquest of 
 Europe and of Asia Minor would be preliminary to 
 conquests in the Western Hemisphere which Germany 
 has in view, but it is the great principles which are 
 really involved in this conflict that chiefly concern us. 
 It might be said, "Why should not the German Empire 
 become so vast as to realize this dream of Pan-Ger- 
 manism? might it not be better for the world to be 
 under the government of such a power as Germany? 
 might not her immense efficiency in every sphere of 
 life and activity be a great advantage to the nations 
 brought under her sway ? But, my friends, as you well 
 know, there is another aspect to this question. The na- 
 tions engaged in this great conflict represent certain 
 principles of immense importance, — fundamental prin- 
 ciples mutually antagonistic, great ideals of a totally 
 opposite character. It is not merely a struggle for 
 territory, for power, for economic and commercial ad- 
 vantage, for the markets of the world, for the nerves of 
 commerce and business. No, beyond all this, it is a 
 conflict between irresponsible autocracy on the one 
 hand and ordered liberty on the other. Germany 
 stands for the autocrat, for the suppression of in- 
 dividuality, for the repression of liberty, for the re- 
 
8 
 
 fusal of really representative government. England 
 and France, and now Eussia herself, stand for the 
 great principles of democracy, of liberty and justice 
 and representative government, for freedom of speech 
 and of the press, for freedom of conscience, for the 
 real freedom of the seas. These are the chief prin- 
 ciples at stake. This is the real significance of this 
 vast and tremendous conflict. This is, above all, the 
 reason why the great Republic of America and every 
 patriotic citizen within her vast borders, is vitally in- 
 terested in the issue of this war. This is why, even if 
 we were not challenged to war by Germany as we are 
 today, it would be at once our highest interest and our 
 most sacred duty to take our part, with all the force 
 that we can exert, with all the resources at our com- 
 mand, on the side of these liberty-loving peoples who 
 have drawn the sword in the defence of human rights, 
 yes, of humanity itself. 
 
 I tell you, my friends, our liberties are involved in 
 the issue of this struggle; our freedom as a nation, 
 our existence as a democratic representative govern- 
 ment. If Germany triumphs, woe to American inde- 
 pendence, woe to American ideals, woe to American 
 peace and happiness ! 
 
 But I take higher ground. I call upon America 
 to recognize the S. 0. S. call of our brothers in 
 France and England and Eussia and Italy, to save 
 them from the peril of Prussianism, to take our 
 stand at their side in the defence of liberty and civili- 
 zation and humanity, not for anything that we can gain, 
 not even to protect anything that we might lose, but 
 for the love of those great principles which we have 
 received as a heritage from our fathers, and which it 
 is our solemn and sacred duty to defend, if need be, 
 „with the last drop of our blood. For I beg you to 
 realize that the responsibility of this awful war rests 
 upon the military leaders of Prussia. The attempts to 
 make England or France or Eussia responsible for 
 it have absolutely failed. The pretexts upon which 
 these attempts were built up, have been torn to tatters, 
 not a shred of fact remains at this day. It has passed 
 into history beyond the possibility of revision, that the 
 
Prussian power has been preparing for this war for 
 many years, that it has been precipitated in the fulfil- 
 ment of a vast and ambitious scheme which has no 
 parallel in history. It is now seen that for more than 
 twenty years Germany has been spinning her webs in 
 all neutral countries. She had set on foot a world- 
 wide propaganda which is without precedent in its im- 
 mensity. The whole ambitious scheme presents a 
 phenomenon without a parallel in the records of time. 
 She chose the means and the moment for precipitating 
 a war upon Europe, and so well were her schemes laid 
 that they almost succeeded. It is also now an indis- 
 putable fact that England, France, and Russia have 
 been dragged into this war against their will, and they 
 are fighting not for territorial aggrandizement but for 
 liberty and international justice. 
 
 Furthermore, I beg you to remember that those 
 heroic soldiers of France and England and Eussia are 
 really fighting our battles. They are shedding their 
 blood for the great principles upon which our Republic 
 rests. They are fighting with such magnificent self- 
 sacrifice for democracy and liberty and international 
 justice. Those blood-soaked trenches across the whole 
 breadth of Europe, are the breakwater that is keeping 
 back the flood of tyranny that would otherwise sweep 
 away the foundations upon which the fabric of our in- 
 dependence and of our rights and liberties, rests. Yes, 
 the Armies of the Allies are really safeguarding the 
 future of this great Republic. This is not a rash state- 
 ment or an ill-considered opinion. It is the firm con- 
 viction of many of our best thinkers, who clearly 
 understand that the victory of Germany would un- 
 questionably mean serious peril to the independence of 
 the United States. Listen to these words of ex-Presi- 
 dent Eliot of Harvard University: "The quickest, 
 the best, the surest means for Americans to defend 
 themselves against a German invasion is to conclude 
 with France and England a permanent alliance, of- 
 fensive and defensive, having for its aim the mainte- 
 nance of the freedom of the seas for the Allies and re- 
 sistance to any maritime attack. It is time for all 
 Americans to take sides openly with the European 
 
10 
 
 peoples that for so many long months have been stand- 
 ing up against the military despotism of Prussia." 
 
 It would be easy to quote the utterances of prominent 
 Germans, to the same effect ; for instance, this : ' ' Some 
 months after we have done our business in Europe, 
 we shall take New York and probably Washington"; 
 and this: "We shall extract one or two billions of 
 dollars from New York and other points. ' ' (Admiral 
 von Goetzen.) 
 
 I offer a third consideration which should have a 
 powerful influence in deciding our duty at this critical 
 moment. Let me say to you, my friends, that if the 
 Congress of the United States, which assembles to- 
 morrow, shall recognize the fact that Germany has 
 long been committing acts of war against this country, 
 and is in fact at war with us at this hour, sinking our 
 ships and murdering our citizens and plotting against 
 the integrity of our national domain, and shall there- 
 fore declare war against Germany in self-defence, it 
 will not only be a justifiable war, a war which we have 
 not provoked, a war which we have not desired and 
 do not desire, a war having in it no ulterior purpose of 
 aggression or aggrandizement, — solely and purely a 
 war to vindicate our national honor and to protect the 
 rights and liberties of our people — but beyond and 
 above all this, it will be in the highest sense of the 
 word a Holy war, a war to save all that is best and 
 holiest in civilization, a war to save mankind from the 
 dominance of an evil and malign power which has 
 shown itself during more than two years of conflict, to 
 be destitute not only of all sense of honor and truth 
 and loyalty to its plighted faith, but destitute also of 
 humanity and mercy and of all regard for the prin- 
 ciples of morality recognized among civilized nations. 
 
 I am glad to make my own the editorial utterance of 
 one of our great dailies: "We favor therefore a flat- 
 footed declaration of war upon Germany, rather than 
 a semi-evasive recognition that a state of war exists. 
 Germany should be arraigned before the world for high 
 crimes and misdemeanors and war denounced against 
 her for the purpose of punishing her past offences and 
 restraining her in the future. ' ' 
 
11 
 
 I cannot undertake a recapitulation of the infamous 
 crimes that the Government of Germany has committed 
 against mankind — the violation of treaties, the burning 
 and looting of cities, the poisoning of wells, the whole- 
 sale murder of inoffensive civilians, both men and 
 women, the atrocious Zeppelin raids upon undefended 
 cities, the atrocious and heartless cruelties connected 
 with her submarine warfare, the sinking of hospital 
 ships, the robbery and spoliation of inoffensive citi- 
 zens, the deportation of thousands of women and girls 
 into atrocious slavery, her connivance at the immense 
 Armenian massacres. To all this she has now added 
 the immeasurable atrocities which have accompanied 
 the evacuation of territory in Northern France. She 
 has been guilty of a vandalism that has scarcely a 
 parallel in all history, and the devastations that her 
 soldiers have committed under orders of her officers, 
 have to a large extent had no relation to military ne- 
 cessity or military advantage. They have fulfilled the 
 description which the Prophet gave of old of the in- 
 vasion of a ruthless army : ' ' The land was as the Gar- 
 den of Eden before them and behind them a desolate 
 wilderness." (Joel.) The human savagery exhibited 
 by the German Armies in this retreat reveals the black- 
 ness of the German soul. All their frightfulness in 
 Belgium and Servia was a minor thing compared to the 
 unspeakable frightfulness of their devastation, liter- 
 ally their destruction, of the fair fields of France, in 
 their recent retreat. No wonder an editor in our sec- 
 ular press has exclaimed, ' * Our duty to God and man is 
 to aid in the chastisement of the war monster. Let us 
 join in punishing the guilty and securing such compen- 
 sation as can be wrested from Germany for her 
 victims." 
 
 I have no hesitation then in saying that the voice of a 
 just God summons us to this War and that it is in the 
 highest sense of the word a Holy War. The people of 
 the Middle Ages flocked to the standard of the Cross 
 for what seemed to them a holy purpose — the rescue of 
 the Holy Sepulchre from the defiling touch of the un- 
 believer. But, my friends, those Crusades shrink into 
 insignificance compared with the crusade to which we 
 
12 
 
 are summoned at the present moment. It is not to 
 rescue a sepulchre from the hands of the Mohammed- 
 ans to which we are called, but to rescue brave and 
 noble peoples from the unspeakable cruelty and brutal- 
 ity of a powerful confederation of nations marshalled 
 under the Prussian Eagle — nay, to rescue the civilized 
 world itself from the talons of a monster more merci- 
 less than the eagle towards his prey. The cruelty, the 
 rapacity, the savagery of Prussianism is not a matter 
 of opinion, or the indictment of prejudice, but a hideous 
 fact which we have seen with our own eyes during the 
 last two years or more. No words can tell its abomi- 
 nation. Indeed, the principle is avowed in so many 
 words by eminent representatives of the German Em- 
 pire — thus Maximilian Harden has declared : ' ' Every 
 means will be enthusiastically employed against her 
 enemies by the German people. We will go back to the 
 times of savagery when man was a wolf for his fellow- 
 man." (Quoted by Le Temps, Feb. 9, 1916.) 
 
 Will America halt and hesitate in the presence of 
 such an issue as this 1 Will she listen to the siren song 
 of the pacifists who have flocked to Washington in such 
 numbers at this present moment, with the purpose of 
 weakening the resolve of our legislators to vindicate 
 the honor of the United States, — nay, to defend our 
 rights and liberties against insolent aggression and 
 outrageous invasion? Will she not have discernment 
 to perceive that this pacifist movement is inspired 
 partly by disloyalty to the Republic and organized by 
 the spies and plotters who are paid to do the bidding of 
 Germany in our midst? I do not deny that some of 
 these preachers of "peace at any price", some of these 
 advocates of national dishonor, are well meaning en- 
 thusiasts, misguided theorists, whose judgment has 
 gone astray and whose brains are so bewildered that 
 they can no longer recognize the path of national duty 
 and national honor, though it stretches out plainly be- 
 fore them — but I tell you, my friends, the great body 
 of these pacifists are the secret agents of Prussianism, 
 and that procession of pacifists which was to march the 
 streets of Washington tomorrow, should have been 
 marshalled under the flag of Prussia. 
 
13 
 
 They are flooding the press with advertisements ap- 
 pealing to the women of the country to save their sons, 
 their husbands and their sweethearts from the carnage 
 of the battlefield,— seeking to blind them to the real 
 issue, which is brave resistance to tyranny, or cowardly 
 submission to foreign dictation — courageous battle 
 side by side with the conquering legions of the Allies 
 against the forces of tyranny and barbarism, or craven 
 submission now at the cost of a far more terrible con- 
 flict with little hope of success in the years to come ! 
 
 I, for my part, do not believe that the spirit of 
 patriotism and liberty is dead in this land of our love. 
 No, the American people will demand of their legis- 
 lators that they take up the gage of battle which has 
 been insolently thrown down to us by this arrogant 
 power that seeks to dominate the earth, and that we 
 will hasten to place ourselves by the side of those 
 gallant peoples who have now for more than two years 
 been fighting our battles in Europe and Asia,— resolved 
 that all the immense resources of our great Republic 
 shall be employed to turn the scale of this world war, 
 so that complete victory shall crown the efforts of the 
 Allies, and Prussian militarism shall be crushed, and 
 the German people, as well as the other peoples of 
 Europe, delivered from the yoke of the Hohenzollern 
 dynasty. 
 
t2252 Y ° F INGRESS 
 
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