In Times Like These

by Nellie L. McClung

THE WAR THAT ENDS IN EXHAUSTION SOMETIMES MISTAKEN FOR PEACE

When a skirl of pipes came down the street,
And the blare of bands, and the march of feet,
I could not keep from marching, too;
For the pipes cried "Come!" and the bands said "Do,"
And when I heard the pealing fife,
I cared no more for human life!

Away back in the cave-dwelling days, there was a simple and definite distribution of labor. Men fought and women worked. Men fought because they liked it; and women worked because it had to be done. Of course the fighting had to be done too, there was always a warring tribe out looking for trouble, while their womenfolk stayed at home and worked. They were never threatened with a long peace. Somebody was always willing to go "It." The young bloods could always be sure of good fighting somewhere, and no questions asked. The masculine attitude toward life was: "I feel good today; I'll go out and kill something." Tribes fought for their existence, and so the work of the warrior was held to be the most glorious of all; indeed, it was the only work that counted. The woman's part consisted of tilling the soil, gathering the food, tanning the skins and fashioning garments, brewing the herbs, raising the children, dressing the warrior's wounds, looking after the herds, and any other light and airy trifle which might come to her notice. But all this was in the background. Plain useful work has always been considered dull and drab.

Everything depended on the warrior. When "the boys" came home there was much festivity, music, and feasting, and tales of the chase and fight. The women provided the feast and washed the dishes. The soldier has always been the hero of our civilization, and yet almost any man makes a good soldier. Nearly every man makes a good soldier, but not every man, or nearly every man makes a good citizen: the tests of war are not so searching as the tests of peace, but still the soldier is the hero.

Very early in the lives of our children we begin to inculcate the love of battle and sieges and invasions, for we put the miniature weapons of warfare into their little hands. We buy them boxes of tin soldiers at Christmas, and help them to build forts and blow them up. We have military training in our schools; and little fellows are taught to shoot at targets, seeing in each an imaginary foe, who must be destroyed because he is "not on our side." There is a song which runs like this:

If a lad a maid would marry
He must learn a gun to carry.

thereby putting love and love-making on a military basis—but it goes! Military music is in our ears, and even in our churches. "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war" is a Sunday-school favorite. We pray to the God of Battles, never by any chance to the God of Workshops!

Once a year, of course, we hold a Peace Sunday and on that day we pray mightily that God will give us peace in our time and that war shall be no more, and the spear shall be beaten into the pruning hook. But the next day we show God that he need not take us too literally, for we go on with the military training, and the building of the battleships, and our orators say that in time of peace we must prepare for war.

War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men. Why, then, does war continue? Why do men go so easily to war—for we may as well admit that they do go easily? There is one explanation. They like it!

When the first contingent of soldiers went to the war from Manitoba, there stood on the station platform a woman crying bitterly. (She was not the only one.) She had in her arms an infant, and three small children stood beside her wondering.