“We know,” an American woman said, “that war depends on economic conditions beyond our control. But we know, too, that there is something potent to change even these, and it is this potency which we dream to liberate.”
And, beside the Inger, the man said again:
“Peace is only a thought,—yet. But even economic conditions were only thought, once!”
Gradually in the voice of one and another, the word took shape—so simply that the enormity of the import was pathetically lacking: That representatives of the women of the world, united in a demand for international righteousness, shall petition the men and women of the world to turn to the new knowledge that war is an outworn way to settle difficulties; that with one voice we shall all refuse any longer to let the traditions of a past age be put upon us; that the old phrases and catch-words shall not stand for one moment before the naked question of the race: “Is this the best that life can do with life?” That we shall learn from one another that there is no such thing as preparing against war, but that to prepare for war breeds war—twin-born are the slayer and the slain; that we shall teach one another that “Thou shalt not kill” is not only moral law, but sound economic policy, for always these two are one. And that from the constructive plans devised in anguish and in hope by men and women of to-day, there be selected and inaugurated a world programme for permanent peace without armistice and a council of the nations looking toward the federation of the world.
“We have talked long enough of treaties and of arbitration,” they said. “Let us have done with such play. Let us speak the phrase quite simply: The federation of the world.”
And the message concluded:
“For we, the women of the world, have banded ourselves together to demand that war be abolished.”
Last, he remembered a Voice. Afterward, he could not have told what woman spoke, or of what nation they said that she had come. But what she said was like the weaving of what the others had spun.
“Remember,” said her Voice, “that all this is nothing. It is only the body, made for the spirit. And the spirit is that new dominant mind which shall be born in the world—the mind of love.
“You’ll not get this by going to governments. You’ll not get this by the meeting of groups of representative people. You’ll not get this by International Police. These things must be—will be, as a matter of course. But they will not be the mind of love.