PEACE AND DEFENCE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 690, 15 December 1909, Page 8

PEACE AND DEFENCE.

PRESBYTERIAN VIEWS. PEACE -SEEMONS UNSEASONABLE. Loaders of Presbyterianism this district regard;the.-moment'of tho' introduction of a system of compulsory military training as inopportune for. any special insistence upon the desirability of international peace... Such was the effect of a brief disoassion at yesterday's meeting of the Wellington Presbytery. A suggestion that "peace sermons" should be preached had been, made by : tho Women's Christian lemperance Union and transmitted on behalf of that organisation by the Eev. W. J. .Williams, to the Eev. J. Kenendy Elliott, chairman of tho Ministers' Association. This was tho origin of the discussion at the Presbytery. , .... Tho Mv. J. Kennedy Elliott said the letter strongly urged that ministers should, at an early date, preach sermons in support of peace principles Personally, he was pleased to seb the growth of a patriotic spirit in the coniniumty at the present time, and:he was quito in sympathy'with-the -proposal to train the young men for defence. ■ At tho samo time he recognised that there might be a danger of ministers not dealing sufficiently with the ««f war and tho desirability of peace. The. Gibb said lie .thought a suggestion of the kind under notice would be inopportune at tho present time. He was for peaco with all his soul, and so, he was sure, was Jlr. Elliott, but if the proposal sent on by Mr. Williams were, adopted at tho present time, it would be taken to bo as against the present ■proposals for compulsory training. Now, he thought compulsory training would not be at all--* a.-bad thing for somo of our young men-<hear,' hear, from several' Presbyters) —especially ..sinco it was decided that; there iverotobe no canteens in tho camps. ' Prom the porat of view of the benefits of discipline, the training would bo a very good thing ffii 1, ™ott: I quite agree with that. ~r !lc. Kov. E. Inglis (Khandallah) said ho thought ministers ought to preach on behalf of peace. If Christianity stood for" one thing more than another, that thing was peace. They ought to inculcate strongly among tho young people that-they-had-not como into'the world to blow somebody's , brains out; ■•It would come well from the Church, to give, such teaching, and the ministers:had no need to becomo advocates of militarism.. There irore plenty of other people to do that. ■ It would not como badly-from the Church to'point in a different direction from the newspapers and everybody else and to teach, nut that life should bo destroyed, but that life should bo saved; iso motion having been moved, the matter then dropped. .". ■■■-.• ■ :