TRAGEDY OF WAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 443, 27 August 1928, Page 14

TRAGEDY OF WAR

CHRISTIANS WELCOME PACT LESSONS FROM HISTORY Among Christians war was unnecessary and should be impossible, said the Rev. S. Wilson, speaking at the Grange Road Baptist Church. After reading some of the provisions of the Kellogg Pact, Mr. Wilson spoke on the text, “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” Matthew v., 9, “In this world,” said the speaker, “we have to bring to bear the mind of Christ on all that is happening around us.” Christians welcomed the peace pact because they were followers of the Prince of Peace. There was much they all could do to bring Christ’s example into the littleness of daily life. As Dr. Maclaren had said, “Any fool could stick a lucifer match into a haystack and make a blaze.” Many in various ways were promoting strife and there was no nobler office for Christians than to damp down all these devil’s flames of envy and jealousy and mutual animosity. They welcomed the anti-war pact because war was such an awful thing. Yet war v/as so rich in stories of heroism and chivalry and devotion even to death. There were so many occasions of patient endurance and splendid heroism that war thereby seemed to. lose something of its offence. Such things witnessed to the majesty of the human spirit, yet the glamour must not hide from us the simple truth that war is still an awful thing. The Iron Duke on the day after Waterloo wrote: “The losses we have sustained have quite broken me down.” Such was the tragedy of war. Let them remember the wounds of the last war, and pause to say to themselves, “Remember, all acts of cruelty and lust and violence and wrong will be judged by God.” Nothing, said the speaker, could justify or condone them, and they should not acquiesce in the state of things brought about by war. Christians welcomed the pact because through it the star of brotherhood shone through the dark clouds that obscured it. It emphasised the Christian view that in an ideal state war was unnecessary and should be impossible. Christian people had seemed obliged to accept war as a temporary evil and tried to bring out its best side. Yet the spirit of Christ led them to work for its final disappearance from human life. Really and ideally when Christ was born war, like slavery, was doomed by hristian principle. Church people Lnanked God for the peace pact because it seemed to be some good thing that had come out of the tragedy of the greatest world war. The wars of the commonwealth cleansed the fields of England for the reception of the seeds of liberty whose harvests we enjoy to-day. The war of independence was a factor of immense value in delivering the people of the United States from bureaucratic despotism of that day, and establishing for them freedom and self-government. The civil war of America not only saved the Union, but made it possible to give all men, including the negro, a start to economic independence, education and full citizenship. So with the Great War. It had given a marvellous impetus to the peace movement, and set the whole world organising to maintain universal peace. Hundreds of years, and the brains of generations, had built up war to its present diabolical effectiveness. Let them not wonder if the experts and masters took a long time to solve the problem of international relationship. But men were gaining a clearer conception of the end and aim of life —of the life of the individual and of humanity. History shows no record of a nation that has made war its object which has not been destroyed by war. It was against such wrong ideals that the new faith of Jesus was launched. What chance had it? Apparently none. Its principles seemed visionary —faith in the unseen: love for all mankind; hope in the triumph of spiritual good. But it prevailed till even the apostate Emperor Julian, having failed in his desperate effort to uproot Christianity, when dying cried, “O, Galilean, Thou hast conquered!” What had been done against such odds could be done again if Christians manifested the same heroic spirit. The speaker urged all to pray for the great event in Paris on the following day.