With Church and school lined up on the side of peace, the home teaching will soon fall in line; and Church, school, and home combined can develop so strong a conviction concerning war, can make so forceful an appeal to man's moral nature, that the war spirit will take its leave and be gone forever.
We always look to history for a confirmation of our beliefs, and let us glance now to the records of the past and learn her teachings.
First of all, look at the duel as the mode of settling a personal difficulty if peaceful settlement appeared impossible. First, it was heartily accepted as a gentlemanly, honorable, and brave mode of settlement. Then, tolerated and simply suffered to exist. Finally, condemned by conscience as an immorality and a sin, it was banished from civilized nations.
Look also at slavery. At first heartily accepted as a divine arrangement. Then tolerated by the world as undesirable, yet not necessarily wrong. Next its overthrowal attempted on grounds of pity and of reason; until finally, recognized as an immorality and a sin, it too was blotted from the pages of civilization.
No great uplift of humanity, no great movement in civilization, but has found its path to success in the developed moral sense of man. No great change in civilized institutions but has found itself produced by the dynamic, moving forces of morality.
War must be abolished. Only the great powers of morality are vital enough, are dynamic and powerful enough, to carry out our peace program. These forces lie dormant, and simply need stimulation and development. Recognizing the impotency of appeals to economy and to reason, what are we going to do?
In the name of humanity let us impeach war and the war spirit. It is a traitor to every ideal of civilization and of justice. It is the instrument of hatred and of pride, the agent of jealousy and of avarice. In the name of the dead and dying, in the name of justice, which it dethrones, in the name of those whose loved ones it demands, we impeach war as a traitor, guilty of all high crimes and misdemeanors. What else shall we do? Stir up from its greatest depths the heart of man. Educate his conscience till he is unwilling to suffer war to exist. Begin early in Church, school, and home to instil in the minds of young and old continually the true conception of war, that it is an immorality, contrary to every principle of Christianity and to every teaching of our Christ.
Let us bring into the conflict against war the great, dynamic, motive force—the Moral Nature of Man. And when we shall have thus developed the consciences of men, there will henceforth be laid up for us a crown of victory, as there will then be a fuller realization that in man's moral nature is the Hope of Universal Peace.