MILITARISM, 
 
 OR 
 
 Military Feve 
 
 TS CAUSES, DANGERS 
 
 By 
 
 RICHARD H. T 
 
 OF BALTXM 
 
 CURE. 
 
 PHILADELP 
 THE AMERICAN FRIEND 
 1899. 
 
 
 
-fSv 
 
 MILITARISM, OR MILITARY FEVER: 
 ITS CAUSES, DANGERS 
 AND CURE. 
 
 BY RICHARD H. THOMAS, M.D., OF BALTIMORE, MD. 
 
 Militarism, or military fever, is a condition which pro- 
 foundly affects both individuals and nations. It and its 
 allied states were for centuries held to be evidences of 
 sound health; but long since certain careful observers 
 showed that so far from this being the case, they are 
 diseased conditions accompanying malnutrition and want 
 of development of the higher powers of man. 
 
 The disease in one or other of its many forms is en- 
 demic in all latitudes, and is liable at any time to become 
 locally epidemic. 
 
 In its acute form it is characterized by a high degree 
 of febrile excitement, with great unrest, and often with 
 violence of thought and language, in which symptoms of 
 pride and arrogance are generally, though not invariably, 
 mingled. Nearly always there is a distortion of vision, 
 with an utter inability to see any side of a question but 
 one, and even this only in the light of what the patients 
 call glory and renown. In such cases the disorder often 
 culminates in an eruption, known as war, which, to use 
 a well-known expression, is the sum of all cruelties, and 
 in which thousands may be wounded or killed, an enor- 
 mous amount of property be destroyed, homes rendered 
 desolate, a grievous burden of debt left behind, and the 
 
2 
 
 whole moral tone of a people lowered, with an alarming 
 increase of crime against person and property. 
 
 In certain cases, the more prominent feeling before 
 the outbreak appears to be a stern sense of duty, but 
 even in such instances the result is very much the same. 
 
 In its sub-acute and chronic form, the condition in 
 modern times -shows itself in the expenditure of great 
 sums in armaments, forts, implements of warfare, the 
 training of large bodies of men as soldiers, in standing- 
 armies, etc., all of which are a severe burden to the peo- 
 ple, a serious and constant injury to their moral life, and 
 a menace to their liberties, while a condition of chronic 
 nervous irritability in national governments is produced, 
 in which every unintentional slight and every misun- 
 derstanding becomes a possible cause for a fresh eruption 
 of war. 
 
 The disease is probably the most contagious known to 
 man. Perhaps no nation has wholly escaped it, and 
 probably no individuals exposed to the infection have 
 failed' to be attacked, unless they had been previously 
 well protected. 
 
 As I have said, even acute attacks were for a long time 
 universally regarded as evidences of health, and, speak- 
 ing broadly, very many still so regard them. Down to the 
 present day, great teachers of mankind, poets, artists, 
 historians, instructors — yes, sometimes even the profess- 
 ing Church of Christ in its organized capacity — exalt the 
 military hero as a true pattern for our youth, and extol 
 military glory as a very high attainment of vigorous 
 manhood. The number of these is, however, steadily 
 diminishing, and the ranks of advanced and truly scien- 
 tific observers are continually beiiur recruited. Among 
 
3 
 
 these last are many who, while they have come to ad- 
 mit that the war spirit is a diseased condition, or, at best, 
 a condition denoting incomplete development, and while 
 they honestly endeavor to guard against acute attacks, 
 still regard the chronic form of the malady with com- 
 placency, supposing it to act as a prophylactic against 
 the acute. Their attitude in this respect has recently 
 been strongly assailed by so unprejudiced an observer as 
 the Czar of Russia, who has pointed out that in the end 
 the increasing armaments must bring about the very 
 condition of active war which they are designed to pre- 
 vent. 
 
 Before proceeding further, let us consider the grounds 
 upon which we arrive at the conclusion that the war 
 spirit is really an abnormal condition. The question is 
 to be settled by determining the true standard of health. 
 Those who draw their deductions from analogies between 
 man and the lower animals, superficially considered, or 
 even from a rough survey of the history of mankind, 
 find much that seems to prove that the war spirit is 
 after all inherent and normal. If, on the other hand, we 
 note the gradual upward tendency of man, and look upon 
 the character of Jesus of Nazareth as the true type of 
 manhood, as a prophecy of what mankind is to be, we 
 have no alternative but to pronounce war and the spirit 
 that leads to it inconsistent with the true health of hu- 
 man character. For my own part I believe that the time 
 is more than come when the continuance of the war 
 spirit is no longer merely an evidence of incomplete de- 
 velopment. It now denotes arrested development and 
 disease. Many conditions of life and thought that were 
 * normal for our ancestors would be abnormal and un- 
 
 ^ lO 
 
4 
 
 healthy for us, just as there are conditions in healthy 
 childhood, which, if continued into adult life, would be 
 evidences of serious physical and mental disturbance. 
 
 The question as to whether the spirit that underlies 
 war is normal or abnormal has far more than a theoret- 
 ical value. Upon our answer will depend very largely 
 our personal attitude and our influence. It is there- 
 fore of great importance that we should have the ques- 
 tion definitely settled. Surely, apart from the glare and 
 poetry of war, and inherited ideas in regard to it, no 
 one who accepts Jesus of Nazareth as our ideal can hesi- 
 tate to admit that the carnage and the unholy passions 
 engendered by war are not the true attributes of man- 
 hood, but that they belong to the past. In so far as 
 they may still be regarded as in any sense natural, they 
 are so because of the remains of our inheritance from the 
 beasts that perish, and are not worthy of the man that 
 is to be, or that is. We are called to be the prophets of 
 good things to come, to prepare for and embrace them 
 — yes, suffer for them, undazzled by appearances. 
 
 The future is our home. Not what we are, 
 
 But what we are becoming; this can mar 
 Or make our blessedness. The faintest light 
 In eastern skies brings day; the western radiance, 
 night. 
 
 The real difficulty, however, lies not in the general 
 theory, but in the working of it out. Men say: Yes, 
 war is hateful, and we hate it; but how can it be avoided? 
 They regard the disease as incurable, and the cause of it 
 too deep to be discovered and removed. But many 
 diseases formerly supposed to be ineradicable and in- 
 
5 
 
 * curable are in reality neither. The same is, as I be- 
 lieve, the case with war. Let us approach the problem 
 with hope; for in treating this disease of militarism, the 
 attitude of hopelessness takes much of the force out of 
 
 * our influence. 
 
 Again, with many the conviction that war and the 
 war spirit are abnormal is weak, and they feel unable 
 to take a really strong position on the question because 
 of the underlying thought that, after all, wars have pro- 
 duced good results. Can they then be wholly evil? 
 May not the objection to war be in reality a fad rather 
 than a principle — a fad of people who overlook under- 
 lying evils? It was probably with something of this in 
 his mind that we find the hero in Tennyson’s “Maud” 
 saying: 
 
 “ Last week there came to the country town, 
 
 To preach our poor little army down, 
 
 And play the game of the despot kings — 
 
 Though the state had done it and thrice as well — 
 This broad-brimmed hawker of holy things, 
 
 Whose ear is crammed with cotton and rings, 
 
 Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. 
 
 This huckster put down war! Can he tell 
 Whether war be a cause or a consequence? 
 
 Put down the passions that make earth hell; 
 
 Down with ambition, avarice, pride. 
 
 Jealousy down. Cut off from the mind 
 
 * The bitter springs of anger and fear. 
 
 Down, too, down, from your own fireside 
 With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
 
 For each is at war with mankind.” 
 
6 
 
 This is quite right in its positive position, wrong in 
 what it denounces. It unconsciously gives strong support 
 to the effort to banish war; for if war he the consequence 
 of the passions that make earth hell, then there is little 
 more to be said for it. As I have pointed out, war is 
 the eruptive stage of an acute fever. It is therefore 
 manifestly unwise for us to direct all our attention to 
 combating the eruption. The underlying condition of 
 the whole system must be studied, and we must do what 
 we may to limit the contagion and to eradicate it. The 
 comparison to an eruptive fever in the human body does, 
 however, not altogether hold; for in the latter case, with 
 very few exceptions, the eruption is bound to come and 
 is generally to be encouraged rather than otherwise. 
 But with military fever, even when it seems to be at its 
 acute stage, the eruption may at times be averted, and 
 the attack pass off without it, as was the case in the 
 Alabama and the Venezuelan difficulties with England. 
 It is therefore always worth while to make the effort. 
 At the same time it is too true that when the disease 
 has reached a certain stage the eruption of war nearly 
 always follows. The passions of men are aroused, they 
 are afflicted with a form of delirium — for it is a delirium, 
 even when apparently coherent and sober — and this pre- 
 vents wiser counsels from being even understood. But 
 at such times, as in other epidemics, the most useful 
 persons are those who are not prostrated with the disease. 
 Never are the healthy more needed than in an epidemic, 
 and even though it become so general that the nation as 
 a whole is affected and a general eruption of war breaks 
 out, yet the members of a body politic are not wholly 
 like the members of the human body. All the mem- 
 
7 
 
 bers indeed suffer, but all need not become diseased. 
 The larger the number that remain in health, the sooner 
 will health be restored to the whole body, and the less 
 " liable will the nation be to be affected in like manner 
 again. For the disease of war is, of course, largely a 
 disease which primarily affects the mind and character. 
 The stronger the number, therefore, of men and women 
 who are known to be really immune, capable under all 
 circumstances of resisting the contagion of war, the more 
 careful will the leaders of the people be to avoid the ex- 
 citing causes of war. This shows the true patriotism 
 that there is in a conscientious maintenance of sound 
 health during periods of excitement, and in the stal- 
 wart refusal in any way to help or encourage that which 
 is recognized as morally diseased. Even though it may 
 be impossible for a given individual, with the limited 
 knowledge that most individuals have of all the circum- 
 stances of the case, and still more limited experience of 
 public affairs, to say how, under certain special condi- 
 tions that seem to prevail, his nation can avoid war; yet, 
 if he recognize war and the war spirit to be a moral dis- 
 ease, and therefore in its essence sin, he is a true patriot, 
 a true conserver of national health, in maintaining his 
 integrity and refusing to become in any way one who 
 countenances the evil. If, in addition to this, strong 
 in his position that to do evil is always unwise, he main- 
 tain in the case of a fresh excitement that the true solu- 
 * tion is a peaceful one, he may rest easy under present 
 misunderstanding in the conviction that history will jus- 
 tify his faith. 
 
 But we have not yet met the objection that wars have 
 accomplished good. The feeling that they have often 
 
8 
 
 makes the instructors of young people, who may be con- 
 sidered among the moral physicians of society, hesitate in 
 impressing the importance of the teachings of peace. But 
 of what evils could not the same be said? Plagues and 
 poverty have been the means of great good. Think of 
 the personal heroism displayed in plagues. Think of 
 the magnificent instances where the richer have helped 
 the poorer. Think of the increased cleanliness of our 
 cities, which has been largely brought about through 
 diseases engendered by filth. To come more directly 
 to the point, lying, murder, stealing, and other forms 
 of immorality have produced good results. Do we, 
 therefore, justify them? What sin ever committed 
 equals that of those who crucified Christ? Yet what 
 an untold blessing has come to us through it. Shall 
 we, therefore, encourage the execution of good men? 
 Because a part of our country was acquired unjustly 
 from the Indians, do we, therefore, justify the evil ? 
 Do we approve of immorality because Erasmus and 
 Alexander Hamilton were illegitimate children? 
 
 We believe in God. It would be a terrible strain upon 
 the faith of thoughtful persons in a righteous God if 
 all the results of evil were evil. There is no sin, I imag- 
 ine, which has not seemed to produce, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, some good, and which, therefore, on the plea 
 of immediate expediency, might not be justified. But 
 we must look deeper than the mere appearances of 
 things. Other evils than war are usually of a more pri- 
 vate character and the results are therefore more limited. 
 But war and its results are seen on a large scale, and 
 more especially those results which are dazzling in their 
 character and extent. But while sin is made to serve 
 
9 
 
 good ends, it is also punished. It is an entire mistake 
 to say that war purifies the life of a nation, or that 
 morals are elevated by that which necessitates the de- 
 ^ fiance of morality. I heard a gospel minister recently 
 quote approvingly Sherman’s well-known phrase, “ War 
 is hell,” and then add, “ But there are things worse than 
 hell.” No, brother minister, not if we give the true defi- 
 nition to hell, which is not simply the acme of suffering, 
 but the acme of moral disease — that is, the acme of sin. 
 War not only leaves a nation poorer, but it leaves it im- 
 poverished in righteousness, morally diseased, with a 
 false ambition and pride on one side and a rankling of 
 hate and 'desire for revenge on the other. The excep- 
 tions to these statements are so inconsiderable, especially 
 in regard to influence upon national morality, as to de- 
 serve nothing more than a passing notice. 
 
 Let us take, for example, the influence of the civil war 
 in the United States upon temperance reform. It put 
 that movement back more than a generation. Who can 
 imagine a great New York daily at this time undertaking 
 the cause of temperance legislation, and urging it on, as 
 the “ Tribune” did before 1860. This is but a small 
 phase of the question. The enormous increase in crime 
 in this country is directly traceable to the war. Turning 
 from our own nation to the wars of the world, apart from 
 its moral evils, think of the priceless monuments of an- 
 tiquity that war has destroyed, from the first sack of 
 Babylon, the destruction of Nineveh, of the treasures of 
 Greece and Borne, the burning of the library of Alexan- 
 dria, to the devastations of modern times. War is vandal- 
 ism. If it has won liberty, it has also destroyed liberty. 
 * The large standing army is at once the right hand and 
 
ID 
 
 the terror of tyrants. It is sometimes the child of re- 
 publics, hut is always fatal to republicanism. 
 
 Yet is not the sword needed to open in heathen 
 lands the way for the gospel. What gospel needs it? 
 Certainly not the gospel of Jesus Christ. When was 
 this more pressed and in greater danger than in the 
 earlier centuries, when Eome proscribed it and sought 
 to crush it? and when was it, so far as outward weapons 
 went, so utterly defenceless? Yet when were its tri- 
 umphs greater? Because ceAain modern countries have 
 been opened to missionaries through war does not prove 
 that they might not have been opened by other means. 
 Take Japan, for example, as a modern instance of a 
 country opened by force. Centuries ago she was open 
 to Christianity without the sword, and became closed 
 to it through the unchristian behaviour of the professing 
 Christians. The countries that are opened by the sword 
 are opened by it more effectually to other things than 
 the gospel. Christianity has suffered far more than it 
 has been helped through war, and, if deprived to-mor- 
 row of armed help, would be free to resume in all their 
 force and effectiveness the weapons of God. 
 
 Again, we constantly hear it said that force is the only 
 argument that barbarous and semi-barbarous people can 
 comprehend. But no one acquainted with history can 
 honestly maintain this position. The classical illustra- 
 tion of the course pursued by William Penn and his 
 friends shows how justice and good faith are stronger 
 guarantees of peace than the sword. The unarmed col- 
 ony of Pennsylvania was safer with savages around it and 
 in it than were the fortified colonies to the north and 
 the south. Compare the results of the uneven, often dis- 
 
11 
 
 ^ honorable, and military methods practiced in regard to 
 the Indians in the United States with the generally 
 mild and just methods pursued towards them in the great 
 north, first by the Hudson Bay Company and then by 
 the Dominion of Canada, and you have another effectual 
 answer to the statement that savages understand nothing 
 but an appeal to physical force. The recent success of 
 Sir Andrew Clarke in the Straits Settlements is a 
 . case in point. With no attempt at subjugation, he has 
 been able to transform the little warring states there into 
 peaceful, law-abiding and prosperous communities. 
 Previously, each, governed by its own semi-barbarous 
 Sultan, was continually warring on its neighbors. 
 The feudal lords were constantly engaged in piracy and 
 in petty strife, so that the condition of the settlements 
 was one of poverty and continual distraction. How 
 was this accomplished? First, by winning the 
 confidence of the people that there was no thought of 
 conquest or of interference with their liberty, and af- 
 terwards by inducing them to refer their disputes to him- 
 self, and to substitute honest labor for piracy. The Fiji 
 Islands have been brought to a state of peace by means 
 of the British resident, who carefully studied the 
 thoughts and habits of the people, and allowed them to 
 retain their own customs in respect to property, etc., 
 and who treated them with the most even-handed jus- 
 tice. The amount of force used was extremely slight. 
 
 The experience of many missionaries in Africa and 
 + elsewhere who have proceeded wholly on a basis of jus- 
 tice and peace, point to the same conclusion, while the 
 history of the Doukhobors is particularly impressive. 
 About fifty years ago large numbers of this peace-loving 
 
12 
 
 community were sent off to the Trans-Caucasus by the 
 Russian government to a place where to all human ap- 
 pearance they would be forced to fight or be extermi- 
 nated. The tribes among whom they were thrown were 
 of the same character as those who recently committed 
 such atrocities against the Armenians. When the 
 Doukhobors came, these commenced their depredations, 
 but the settlers made no resistance, and did not even ap- 
 peal to the civil magistrate. The wild tribesmen were 
 amazed. u Who can these he?” they said. “ Certainly 
 they cannot be Christians, or they would retaliate; they 
 must be the original Mohammedans. We have degen- 
 erated. They have kept their purity.” And so their 
 enemies became their friends and even protectors. It 
 may be said, Why did not the same rule work out in the 
 same way in the case of the Armenians, who were also 
 non-combatants, for they were not allowed to possess 
 weapons? But there are other methods of warfare than 
 that with swords and guns: and many Armenians, as I 
 believe, had been fighting the Kurds in this; that they,, 
 having the more acute intellects, were able constantly to 
 gain the advantage of the mountain people in trade. 
 For this reason, with all our sympathy for them, we can- 
 not regard them as martyrs to peace principles. 
 
 v In all these examples, and they could be largely in- 
 creased, we have abundant evidence that even savage 
 peoples are open to the effect of kind and fair treat- 
 ment. If they be approached in this spirit and their 
 habits and methods of thought be honestly studied, and 
 they treated as far as possible in accordance with their 
 own ideas, they will become our friends and helpers, and 
 not our enemies. It is also of great importance to re- 
 
13 
 
 member that they learn the vices of civilization more 
 readily than they do its virtues, and that therefore, we 
 should carefully guard them against the introduction of 
 * liquor and fire-arms. How different from this has been 
 our nation^ attitude, first toward the Indians and now 
 toward the Cubans, where one of the first effects of our 
 occupation has been the establishment of thousands of 
 saloons for the sale of strong drink. What a golden op- 
 portunity our government has missed in failing to follow 
 in our treatment of the Filipinos the methods followed 
 so successfully in the Straits Settlements by Sir An- 
 drew Clarke. 
 
 In dwelling largely upon the asserted necessity for 
 war, I have not wandered from my subject, for there are 
 few conditions of mind that lay us more open to the 
 contagion of the war spirit than that in which we have 
 an underlying conviction that because war has at times 
 produced good results it is therefore to be justified. 
 
 The causes of military fever may be divided into the 
 predisposing and the exciting. The strongest among 
 the first is the inherited tendency, which may be de- 
 scribed as practically universal. This tendency must, 
 however, be carefully distinguished from the disease it- 
 self. As children with strong inherited tendency to 
 tuberculosis may, if guarded against infection and placed 
 under hygienic conditions, entirely escape the disease, so 
 A with proper care we may ourselves escape the contagion 
 of the war spirit and guard those under our influence 
 from it. 
 
 The teachings of the evolutionist may here come to 
 our aid. If we can get the thought firmly fixed in the 
 
 -4 
 
14 
 
 minds of our children that the tendency in man to ani- 
 mal combativeness is an inheritance from onr ancestors 
 according to the flesh, the remains of the brute nature 
 within us, and that it is our high privilege to 
 
 “ Move upward, working out the beast, 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die,” 
 
 we shall have done much to enlist their best powers 
 of mind and character in behalf of a noble struggle and 
 heroic effort, that will bring into play a right warfaring 
 spirit on behalf of normal manhood. This gives us a 
 vantage ground far greater than the mere teaching of 
 tame non-resistance. It is on these lines also that we find 
 a solution to the question so often raised as to whether 
 if our teaching on w r ar be true, we do not cast an unde- 
 served slur upon the military leaders of ancient and mod- 
 ern times. On the theory of development these men, 
 in this respect, were, to use Robert Barclay’s expression, 
 “in the mixture.” Each age is to have a higher and 
 higher standard as time goes on. The frightfully cruel 
 wars of the Israelites are to be judged, not from the 
 point of view of modern thought, but with a remem- 
 brance of the stage of development that they had then 
 attained. We can honor the warriors of old, and seek 
 to be as faithful to our light as they were to theirs. 
 Thermopylae and Marathon are ours. The tales of chiv- 
 alry do not make us wish to return to the lower stand- 
 ards of the Middle Ages, but they rightly stir our blood 
 with high resolve. Even in the present day we need not 
 be blind to the good that is in the military leader, or 
 claim that all who have not seen war and the war 
 spirit to be disease and sin, are wholly evil and to be de- 
 
15 
 
 claimed against. We know that many of them engage in 
 war with good motives and an unsullied conscience. We 
 must ourselves remember, and teach others, that the pro- 
 gress upward is slow, difficult and uneven, and that these 
 ^ very men who fail to see what we believe to he the truth 
 in regard to war may well he in advance of us in many 
 respects, and be able to teach us on matters where we 
 have failed to see the true ideal. But all this should 
 not cause us to be unfaithful to that which we have 
 seen — that war and the spirt that leads to it are incon- 
 sistent with the true ideal of manhood. It is our place 
 in all humility and teachableness to maintain and teach 
 that which we know. Only in so doing can we contrib- 
 ute our share to the general work of uplifting men. 
 The very fact that our position is still a largely misun- 
 derstood one, and that it lays us open to undeserved 
 charges of cowardice and want of patriotism, so far from 
 discouraging us, should arouse us to a sense of the need 
 of our teaching, and to an heroic endurance of hardness 
 and reproach for the sake of a noble cause. To say that 
 we are simply believers in non-resistance is to state the 
 question not only negatively, but untruly. We believe 
 in resistance — yes, and in the use of force; but the force 
 we believe in, whether it be physical or moral, is always 
 to be under the control of love and justice, extended as 
 truly toward the transgressor as toward anyone else. 
 Under these restrictions the force manifested through 
 physical means very soon comes to an end. 
 
 * An important means, therefore, to counteract the in- 
 herited tendency to animal combativeness is to show the 
 child whence it arises, and to instill into him the true 
 ideal of manliness from the standpoint of the ideal man, 
 
16 
 
 as shown in Jesus of Nazareth, and to show him that this 
 is to be actually attained, and turn his energies into that 
 direction where he will find legitimate scope for the 
 higher warfare and struggle. 
 
 In considering the exciting causes of war fever, we 
 must remember that the disease is both contagious and 
 infectious, and we may best treat the subject under the 
 head of how the infection is carried. There is, however, 
 considerable difference in its activity at different times. 
 The infection is carried from person to person directly; 
 by clothing (in the shape of military ornaments and uni- 
 form), by books and pictures of a certain kind, often by 
 words, and by music (when of a martial character). Foci 
 of infection are discovered in public gatherings, especially 
 on occasions of national importance, in armories, boys’ 
 brigades, schools, colleges, and even at times churches. 
 In fact, speaking broadly, the infection is very widely 
 diffused. Almost every newspaper is a vehicle for it, and 
 it has even been found in peace associations, and at times 
 in Quaker meeting houses and homes, which are gen- 
 erally supposed to be thoroughly aseptic. 
 
 We cannot go out of the world, and therefore we can- 
 not escape exposure to the infection. The only safety 
 consists in becoming immune to the poison. While 
 there is no form of vaccination that will once for all 
 protect us, there is a very great deal that can be done 
 that will render us practically immune. I am not one 
 who would recommend sterilizing our lives in order to 
 escape infection. I would not, for instance, approve of 
 the tabooing of all literature that endorses and glorifies 
 war. This would rule out the Old Testament and very 
 many writings of the greatest value. Neither would I 
 
17 
 
 distort history to defend peace. Truth is never aided by 
 untruth. For a man to live in an atmosphere of disin- 
 fectants and antiseptics, and to eat his meals with all 
 the precautions required in a modern surgical operation, 
 would be intolerable. Vigorous life is the great pro- 
 tector against the onslaughts of disease, and this is more 
 true in the moral than it is in the physical realm, al- 
 though in both the strongest person, as well as the 
 weakest, requires to be rendered immune. At the same 
 time, while I would not bar out books of the character 
 I have mentioned, or distort history, I should have the 
 greatest pains taken to have history, philosophy and 
 ethics taught from the true scientific point of view. Our 
 knowledge of the past now gives us a vista long enough 
 to enable us to see in what direction mankind is tend- 
 ing, and to behold the hand of God in the rise and fall 
 of nations. Such study shows us that the goal is justice 
 and peace. We can impress this. We can in many cases 
 — I should say in all where we have full knowledge of the 
 facts — clearly show how calm judgment might have 
 avoided the catastrophe of war, and we can enforce the 
 lesson to be drawn from the progress in arbitration, 
 through the hundred successful arbitrations in the past 
 century, to the present concerted effort to establish it as 
 a method for the civilized world. We can give right 
 prominence to the burden of debt, of suffering, of dis- 
 ease, and sin that wars have entailed. We can explain 
 ^ the burden of great armaments, and their attendant 
 evils. We can encourage our young people to prepare 
 essays as to how wars may be avoided, and how nobler 
 methods may be encouraged. We can draw before them 
 a picture of war as it is — pictures in words comparable 
 
18 
 
 to Verestchagin’s pictures on canvas — which called forth 
 the enthusiastic commendation of the old soldier, Count 
 Yon Moltke. But that general was too wise to he sat- 
 isfied with praise. He issued an order that no soldier 
 should be allowed to look upon those pictures. He 
 feared that, should they do so in cold blood, and see 
 what war really is, they would be unwilling to continue 
 to be soldiers. We can impress upon our young people 
 that the primary duty of a soldier is not, as is so often 
 said, to die for his country, but, to quote General Wolse- 
 ley, to kill the enemy. To counteract the contagion of 
 false ideas, let us substitute correct ones. When young 
 people are impressed with the thought that war is the 
 school for all manly virtues, let us remind them of what 
 true manliness is. I think we shall have little difficulty 
 in getting them to assent to the proposition that manli- 
 ness involves strength and a right independence of char- 
 acter, that while obedience is manly, he is more manly 
 who disobeys a command to do evil than he who obeys 
 it, and that the manly man will do right at all hazards. 
 Then tell them what the Emperor William said some 
 years since to his troops, that they were to obey him as 
 if he were God, and that he would be personally re- 
 sponsible to God for his commands. Show them that, 
 in a blunt way, he truly enforced the military idea. A 
 soldier has no right to a conscience, except as it pleases 
 his commander for him to have it. If he be commanded 
 to steal, as in foraging, he does it; if to lie, as spies must, 
 he does it; if to kill and destroy property, he does it. In 
 our recent war there were Christian temperance men 
 detailed, against their conscience, to serve out liquor in 
 the army canteens. They did it. Is this manliness? 
 
19 
 
 ^ We need to have it impressed upon ourselves and upon 
 the young, that even a sovereign nation is still lower 
 ! than God, and that however strong it may be, its man- 
 date cannot change good into evil, or evil into good. 
 ^ Murder, robbery and lying are still murder, robbery and 
 lying, whether done in an apparently good cause or in a 
 bad one, whether committed against an individual or a 
 people, whether done for private reasons or at the com- 
 mand of the state. A nation by commanding me to do an 
 unrighteous act does not thereby make that act right- 
 eous. It has no more power of absolution than the Pope. 
 
 A very subtle way in which the contagion of the war 
 spirit comes is under the cloak of patriotism. The pa- 
 triotism whose motto is “My country: may she ever be 
 in the right, but my country right or wrong,” is at first 
 sight exceedingly attractive. On analysis we find that 
 the sentiment entirely sacrifices the principle of indi- 
 vidual righteousness. It is pagan and not Christian. 
 True patriotism is that which seeks the best for its coun- 
 try, and recognizes that nothing is best that is not right- 
 eous. A nation can advance in righteousness only as 
 those whose standards are higher than the average in- 
 sist at all risks upon maintaining their integrity. A 
 government is no more required to do wrong than an in- 
 dividual. It has been well said that if a government 
 were only a mere trustee for the national material wealth 
 and honor, then there would be times when it might be 
 forced to engage in war. But if the government is to 
 4 serve the truest interests of its people, then there are 
 higher things than these, and the highest are not to be 
 P* sacrificed to the lower. If the government will not 
 see this, then let the true light bearers see it and act. 
 
20 
 
 Let them testify that war is now a moral anachronism, 
 and that, therefore, it has become sinful. Let them re- 
 fuse to join in any way with the obscurantists of the 
 present age, who seek to maintain it. A nation is strong 
 in proportion to its righteousness. Even allowing that 
 a case might arise where righteousness meant organic 
 dissolution, still it is for a nation, as for an individual, 
 better to die than to sin. 
 
 Without going further into particulars, let us now 
 come to the underlying cause of war. This consists in 
 a false attitude towards God and man. Christ Jesus 
 proclaimed not only peace between God and man, but 
 between man and man. God is not to be approached by 
 his children as the God of the Americans, or the Eng- 
 lish, the French, or the Spaniards; but as the God of 
 men. Have we not all one Father? Did not Christ die 
 for all? Paul tells us (E. V.) that in Christ Jesus there 
 can be neither bond nor free, neither Greek nor Jew, 
 for we are all one in Christ. Nationalities are, as it 
 were, different households, different families, each under 
 its own management, but all living in the same city or 
 county. Every war is necessarily a civil war. Injury 
 that one side inflicts upon its enemy is a loss to both. 
 Every man slain cripples both. The property destroyed 
 by the victorious party impoverishes itself. Whether we 
 will it or no, the whole world is a vast mutual life and 
 property insurance company, wherein all help to pay for 
 the loss of one. True patriotism recognizes human 
 brotherhood. 
 
 “ Man is more than constitutions. Better rot beneath 
 the sod, 
 
 Than be true to church and state, while we’re doubly 
 false to God. 
 
21 
 
 y He’s true to God who’s true to man. Wherever wrong 
 is done^ 
 
 " To the humblest and the vilest ’neath the all beholding 
 ^ sun, 
 
 That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most 
 base. 
 
 Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all the 
 ✓ race.” 
 
 It is true that the world is still “ in the mixture,” and 
 so long as this is the case there is at least danger that 
 wars will continue. But the tendency is upward. Let 
 us not be seduced by the specious plea, or allow others 
 to be seduced by it, that we must accept the inevitable. 
 Still less let us use Bible texts to show that wars are to 
 continue to the end. Such teaching is the enthrone- 
 ment of pessimism so far as the present age is concerned, 
 and means that the kingdom of righteousness, the king- 
 dom of Christ, is never to be triumphant by virtue of 
 the intrinsic power of its king. With all respect for 
 those who hold this view, I believe that it is essentially 
 dishonoring to God, and that it tends to take all the en- 
 thusiasm and hope out of our work for the betterment of 
 men. This of itself would be sufficient to show that it 
 is not in accord with the teachings of Christ, the “ High 
 Priest of good things to come.” As I believe, only an 
 undue literalism in the interpretation of certain pas- 
 sages in the Bible could lead to such a theory. Christ 
 *never gave us the true standard of living only to take 
 away our hope of attaining it. 
 
 ~ One God, one Saviour, one brotherhood. The truth 
 conveyed in these words will, if accepted, enable us to 
 
22 
 
 get into the true position for observation. Here we * 
 shall see how the highest patriotism calls upon us to re- 
 fuse to participate in anything that tends to maintain ^ 
 false barriers between man and man. The time is ripe 
 for showing forth these truths. The brotherhood of* 
 man, arbitration, the idea of fellowship, — all these and 
 kindred thoughts are in the air. The teachers of peace, 
 because they have proclaimed truth, have been backed 
 up by facts that are undeniable, facts of commerce, of 
 political economy, religion, till even the war lords of the 
 earth have been compelled to help in promoting peace. 
 Let us take courage. 
 
 Teaching on the lines I have suggested should be 
 given both explicitly and implicitly. Special lectures, 
 presenting clearly one or other of the many sides of the 
 question, will be very helpful. But this should never 
 be done in a way that would give the impression of its 
 being a fad. Healthy minds mistrust fads as unworthy 
 of true manliness. We are to teach the true unity of 
 man, and not simply make a protest against the one 
 feature of war, great as that feature is. There is no 
 peace apart from justice. It is righteousness and peace 
 that have kissed each other. Ho nation as it now exists 
 could at once disband its armies, because no nation is as 
 yet prepared to be just in all things. Each puts a false 
 honor and outward gain above justice, and trusts to force 
 to support it in its injustice. No nation will submit to 
 an insult such as a Christian man would bear with meek- 
 ness and dignity. But we are individually to be strong** 
 enough ourselves and to train others to be strong enough 
 to refrain from participation, not only in war, but in * 
 that which sustains war — that is, in injustice. We are to^ 
 have no hand in that which is unjust, whether it be in 
 
23 
 
 commercial, political or social life; nor can we condone 
 ~ any unchristian attitude on the part of our party* or our 
 Country. But a country cannot rise much above the 
 ^average conscience of its citizens. Therefore it follows 
 that, if we are to live up to the standard here given, we 
 must necessarily often be in the minority, and there 
 must be many avenues of public life closed to us. This 
 fact should be clearly faced, and we should teach our 
 young people that this very abstinence is part of our 
 service, and we are to use it to enforce the need of a 
 manful effort to raise the general standard. Let us 
 teach them that every act of selfishness and injustice 
 makes for war, but that even hidden virtue makes for 
 peace. 
 
 Young people love power and admire it. That is right. 
 Let us utilize this very characteristic, and divert their 
 natural desire for combat from its lower manifestations, 
 which are so easy, to the noble effort and struggle for 
 the pure and true. Instead of Boys* Brigades, we may 
 organize peaceful brigades or associations in which they 
 could be taught how to administer first aid to the 
 injured, how to resuscitate the apparently drowned, 
 various methods of life saving, and the way to assist at 
 fires. The advantages claimed for the drill can be bet- 
 ter secured by Swedish movements. 
 
 In some localities young people have successfully been 
 shown how to settle their own personal disputes by ar- 
 bitration, which is a most valuable suggestion. Younger 
 children especially can acquire the idea of helpfulness 
 * and of chivalrous thought for the weak by being taught 
 kindness to animals. 
 
 ^ These suggestions might be greatly multiplied, but 
 after all, valuable as they are, the greatest impression 
 
24 
 
 will be made by implicit teaching; that which a teacher 
 or parent gives unconsciously, because it is a part of him- * 
 eslf. The child will also learn it unconsciously, and will * 
 not forget it. Therefore it is of the first importance^ 
 that we become saturated with the principles of living 
 that underlie the doctrine of peace, and in the fear of 
 God have it settled in our minds that these shall be, in 
 spite of wordy war and misunderstandings, the guiding 
 principles of our lives. 
 
 The text books chosen in our schools merit much con- 
 sideration. Each teacher must choose what seem to be 
 the best. But in our choice, surely a primary question 
 must be, whether the writer is abreast of the best 
 thought of the present day, or whether he lives merely 
 in the show of things. 
 
 The most practical thing in the whole world is a great 
 and true ideal. To follow this is, so far as it goes, to 
 follow Christ. No one can truly be His follower with- 
 out some frank acknowledgement of His ideal and an 
 adoption of His methods. This is to be His disciple. 
 Faith in Him implies unswerving devotion to His ideals, 
 so far as we know them. This brings us into an atmos- 
 phere wholly removed from that of the world, and here 
 we find the true and effectual protection against the 
 contagion of the war spirit. It is by being inoculated 
 with the divine life of Christ, and then by understanding 
 that His teachings are to be applied in this present life 
 under our present conditions. He, the Prince of Love, 
 Justice and Peace, is the Great Physician who can per- 
 form this. It is His healing we need. It is His methods 
 of treatment we are to adopt in our work to influence * 
 others, that the fever of selfishness and of war may^ 
 cease, and true, manly health take its place. 
 
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