THE MASTER WORD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 44, 16 November 1918, Page 5

THE MASTER WORD

' NOT PEACE BUT RIGHTEOUSNESS

THE DREAM OF WORLD.

CONQUEST

Dr. Norman Maclean made the following prophetic utteraiico in the "Scotsman'- in August last:— "There are sometimes heard voices summoning the nation lo repent of the fact that we are at war. These are, however, the voices of false prophets who do not seo deep Hiough tu realise that peace requires more irequentiy to be repeated ot than even war. Twenty years ago the Armenians were foully massacred, but wo kept the peace. That peace calls for u repentance deeper far than any war. In days of ease and prosperity the nation made an idol of peace. Thero were peace societies carrying on a ceaseless propaganda, and Peace .Sundays and Peace Congresses; but while our enemies spoke continuously of peace in public, in secret they were smilingly sharpening their swords. "The prophets of peace forgot that the master word in the ethical vocabulary of humanity is not peace, but righteousness. Pence is only the by-product of righteousness; and the peace that has not its roots in righteousness is only' tho scum' on the surface of the foul and stagnant pool. ."To keep the peace when the innocent are being massacred by brute force, when the weak are overwhelmed by greed and lust, that is damnation. "In the centuries to come, ivhen men will compute the greatest Christian deeds ever enacted by nations in their corporate capacity, they will doubtless place two in the foremost—the freeing of the world's slaves and tho taking of the foremost place in the battle front of this war by Britain in the defence of the right.

"The pacifists forget that there are wiid beasts yet loose in the world. The shepherd leads the flocks to the green pastures, a man of peace; but when the wolves come, he must seize his .weapons and fight. Let Heaven be praised that in these, last years we have proved ourselves shepherds and not hirelings. Today, the wolves snarl as does the pack, despoiled of its prey, turning to its lair. The Last of Many. ''If anything be certain, it is this, that tho world-dovastating war sprang from tho lust of world-dominion. There is no thought more encouraging to-day than the thought how the dream ot worldconquest has always ended in misery. The Kaiser is only the last of many. Tlireo hundred" years before the Christian era Alexander the Great swept through tho ancient world like a tornado, but at tho age of 32 he died at Bagdad, and 'his opalescent dream of world-dominion hurst like a bubble. Home built up a world empire so great that Cicero could write; 'Wherever yon are, remember you are equally within the power of tho I'lmperor'; -but the men who wielded that sceptre enme almost all to a violent end, and the Empire fell totlering to tho earth. "Napoleon dominated the world with the dynamic force of his personality, making Emperors and Kings the servants of his will. 'Wo are going to make an end of Europe/ he declared when ho set forth on tho Russian campaign. ' ... In threo years wo 6hall bo masters of tho universe.' But tho would-bo master of tho universe left his armies frozen on tho Russian pian..», .mid St. Helena was waiting for him even as ho spoke. *

"The Kaiser is the'last victim of tho intoxicating gas whenco that dream springs. The American Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, has recorded how the last of tho Hohenzollerns said, 'Alexander, Caesar, Theodoric, Frederick, and Napoleon aimed at world-dominion: they failed, I shall succeed.' But tho same unseen powers that brought his predecessors to ruin will doom him also. How Judrjment is Wrought. "It is not by cataclysmic acts that judgment is wrought, but by the regular working of the normal laws i;hat govern life. The ambition of world-conquest is doomed/because no human personality is equal to the strain of such a burden. Only colossal egotism can dream such a dream, and when success seems within tho grasp tho egotism develops into mania.

"These would-be conquerors of the world nil go tho same way. Alexander, convinced that no mere man could win such victories, proclaims himself a god, and kills 'his friend for doubting his divinity. Napoleon walks at last among men as if he were a god. 'You say man proposes and' God disposes! I propose and I. dispose/ declared the Corsican. The Kaiser has gone the same road. 'On me the spirit of God descended,' ho declared; 'I am His weapon, His sword, His vice-regent. AYoo to the disobedient. , Death to cowards and unbelievers.' On / the altar of this mad vanity judgment | and wisdom are sacrificed. To achieve tho end humanity is slain in hecatombs.

"In eleven years Napoleon 6lew four millions of tho youth and manhood of Europe that, liq might gratify his .negalomania; in four years the Kaiser nai slain twenty -millions. But tho fruit of that is isolation at last in tho midst of a horrified world. Napoleon found himself in the end without a friend; and the Kaiser has set the world ablaze against him. The end is inevitable. Tho mesmerised awake, and Then cometh judgment. Tho sword of tho Divine judgment is to-day suspended over Potsdam. Tho executioners of that judgment will be tho'people whom he made the'writhing tools and suffering victims to his colossal and mad ambition, Thanksgiving Day. "In the after years there will doubtless bo a Thanksgiving Day, in which tho nations will recall their deliverance from tho last effort to enslave them. Tho source of tho thankfulness will be the memory of tho awful fate from which the world has been saved. To this end tho memory must'be kept fresh of the crimes and "barbarities wherewith the Germans have horrified humanity. Doubtless some will say: forget them, tho church is not the place to recall them. But tho church is tho place to remember them, for tho duty of the Church is to convince tho world of iniquity.

1 "This is the measure of al) iniquity— the poison gas that damned lor ever the chivalry of war; the Houses of God churned' into tho tortured earth; the martyred nations in which no child is left alive; tho million Armenians massacred; tho women and children perishing on tho high seas; tho war waged not on to-day alone, but on tho centuries of piety'and faith. His Place in the Sun, "The Kaiser demanded a placo in the 6un. The nations must see that he gets it—that every crime and every murder that have mado men ashamed' of their humanity shall have a place in tho sun, illumined by the""rays of noonday. "It is not by paper treaties that the world is to be saved from another overflow of tho same diabolic lava. ■ That deliverance can only come by the wrath that worketh judgment and by the chango of heart that judgment brings. It is only by remembering the pit of hell they have escaped that the nations will steel their souls to be the ministers of judgment. Wo have escaped a fate that is appalling to contemplate. That wo have escaped it we owe to the heroic hearts of our 'sailors and soldiers. Through the watch and ward of our seamen no enemy boatload have landed on theso shores save as prisoners. "JFour years ngo the eighty thousand from Mons to the Jlarne gathered to their breast tho Prussian spears, and, dying, saved tho world. Europe. Asia, and Africa have drunk deep of the blood of the sons of freedom. They are not dead. From their sacrifice will come tho salvation of the world. Tho men of the British breed—Americans, Canadians, Australians, Scots, English, whatever their name—have died joyously, counting not their lives dear to them. They died not in vain. ' "tho horizon is aglow with the herald signs of victory. The men of Jlons and Gallipoli head the van of the conquering hosts, unseen. To-morrow the freeborn sons of tho Empire will solemnly vow to keep faith with their fallen sons and comrades unto tho end. And that end will bo tho fall aud ruin of tho last i

'ANSWER TQ COMESPONJIENT. Relumed Aiizac."—The Defence authorities airaiiging to smid returned Main' Body'hich to do garrison work at the Dardanelles. -The"Army Council is making tho arrangements, and it is presumed that-the garrison, which was to include Dominion .troops, is already >in i occupation. i