CHRIST AND THE SWORD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9503, 28 May 1913, Page 7

CHRIST AND THE SWORD.

"PASSION FOR MILITARISM." At the Congregational Church on Sunday evening the Rev. David Hird, M.A., preached ' a si>eeiai -sermon suggested by the celebration of Empire Day, basing bis remarks, upon two sayings of Christ's, "Think, not that I am come to send peace on earth.: I came not to send peace but a sword" (Matt. 10.32), and "Put up again thy sword into its place; for all they that taKo the sword shall perish with the 1 sword" (Mat. 26.52). The preacher said the former verse wa6 often looked upon as a declaration in which Christ Himself expressed approval of war. Yet the Truth 1 I was, a 6 the context showed, that our ] Lord was not thinking of war at all when he made that state men I. He was dealing with the cleavage that Ho and His message would inevitably introduce into the world. Men would be compelled to take sides either for Him or against Him. There could be no escape from the challenge that he; himself \va;,. Christ was insisting upon the inevitability of decision and consequent division. It, would show itself in the home where there would b; ,those who would range themselves on His side and those who would be against Him. The varying response that men made to llis claims would mean that a man wouldbe "set at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." It wat evident that Christ was not thinking oi war, but of the dividing line that He Himself would create bv its claims and challenge; and to use the words in support oi war was to introduce a totally unwarrantee meaning into them. In the second vera of the text, our Lord definitely and cha- , raeteristically repudiated the use of physical force ill defence of His person oi furtherance of His Kingdom. The word: were a rebuke to mere physical violence and were thassertion of the supremacy of the spiritual. It was by spiritual me ' thods and principles that He was to estab lish His rule, and it was by means of thesf that early Christianity achieved its amazing • influence. To-day amid our temptation , to the glorification of physical strength and military power, we needed nothing triors than a return to the ideals and methods of Christ. What ought to be the attitude or the Christian pulpit and of members of the Christian Church to all this glorification of the physical and the material ! What protest was being made by the Christian Church against the love of mili- ' tarism that seemed to be taking possession of the people of this Dominion? How' subtly we in New Zealand had been caught ' in tho meshes of the net in which the civil- j ised world was' to-day fast, entangled! Before they realised what had happened the people of this Dominion, whether they liked it or not, found themselves committed to what was going to prove a most costly scheme of compulsory military training_ We had joined in the mad race for armies and navies, and one sometimes wondered whether all this militarism might not yet prove in bitter experience the truth of Christ's words, "They that use the sword shall perish with the sword." There might be times when war was inevitable, but what, were we doing to make it less likely and possible? Instead of our cant cry "If you want to secure peace prepare for war. ' we should recognise, thai if we wanted to secure peace we ought to prepare for peace, and to emphasise the methods . and principals of peace that Christ and His message implied. If we were to bo more concerned about building up an empire by means of physical force and military power than about building it up on the "righteousness" that "cxaltet-h a nation." and by those spiritual methods for which Christ laid down his lit"'', let, us not be surprised if the method? we were content to use recoiled upon our own head to our own undoing. Amid our militarism the Christian church must not allow itself to become a mere timid and feeble echo of the voice of the world —tin. world that made no pretence of applying Christ's principles and standards. Woe betide the Church, when she suffered her r witness to the Lordship of Christ and to the supremacy of the spiritual to be stifled by the noisy clamour of man's lowei passions. Y\ hat kind of lead was being given by the representatives of Christ ant' Christ's gospel of broiheihoocl amid the tumultuous voice I hat clamoured for more and more in the way of military expendi- j I ture and preparation It was appalling i the way in which the so-called Christian I and civilised powers were spending monev 1 like water on armies and armaments. We were always ready to plead that we were 1 doing it for defence, But "the other fel- ' [.low" for aggression.- Yet "the other fel- 1 I low" hael jusjb a.s much reason to suspect j us of aggression, and P> plead that ho was | acting in self-defence. The preacher said he was well aware that to criticise or condemn the growing spirit of militarism was | to invite disapproval and rebuke from the i "Rule Britannia" type of patriot. There I were those' who see'nr-1 to imagine that I the only man who loved his country and j was prepared to defend it was the man j who was loud-voiced in his patriotism and I Who was ever ready to shout his patriotic j songs. There was the cheap and noisy article that claimed to be the only real thine. Yet, a man could be a trim lover of his country even thoucrh he failed to l -co the necessity or wisdom of our present compulsory system. One of the lessons of history was that very often tile man who had' been brave enough to stand alone had been his country's best friend. It was easv to go with the crowd and to shout, with the crowd. But it, took a good deal more real moral courage to -protest against what might be merely popular than to march with the multitude. We in New Z- nland seemed to l>e doing our best to fall into line with the universal passion for militarism, and there was room and need for those who would raise their voices in protest and seek to remind men of the ideas and ideals of Jesus Christ. Had He believed in the use of force for the extension of His Kingdom, that Kingdom would have gone the way of every Kingdom that has_ been founded on physical force and military power, but he believed in the enduring power of the moral and spiritual. and to these Ho made His appeal and by these he was content to abide. Let our Empire Day thanksgiving be no mere glorification of militarism and the power of the sword, but let it mean a greater insistence upon those things of the moral and spiritual life that, could alone exalt a nation and make its influence beneficent and its power and place enduring.