PEACE OR CHAOS?

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 175, 19 April 1919, Page 10

PEACE OR CHAOS?

DEAN INGE'S PEAKS, Will the war be followed by real peace? Dean Inge put the question in his Christmas morning sermon nt >St. Paul's Cathedral. "We should be very happy,' Jio said, "it' we were confident that it will. It is not another war that wo have to dread, 'but social chaos and disintegration. Tho outlook for the near future, unless we bring a new heart and a new spirit into public life, is far removed from the Christmas message of peace and good will. And yet we all hate strife and discord." What, ho asked, was the explanation of these recurring disappointments? Why must humanity say, "The good that I would I do not; the evil that I would not that I do?" AVhy did we call in vain on the God who maketli men to be of one mind in every house? The main reason he thought was that we had sought our motive force, our driving power, from beJow and not from above. Books were written to prove that it was to nobody's interest to light, that (tic victors lost more in blood and treasure than they could ever recover as tho prize of victory. And yet, although these arguments were perfectly sou.nd, the structure built upon them proved no inoro stable than a house of cards. So long as individuals, and classes and nations were devoting all their energies to gelling possessions and advantages which other, individuals and classes wanted for themselves and which both could, not have, so long would,a state of war, open or disguised, continue to exist, and the larger the combination which co-opera-tive greed and selfishness formed, tho more bitter and disastrous would the consequences be.