"NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD."

Horowhenua Chronicle, 26 June 1916, Page 3

"NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD."

(To the Editor.) Sir, - Mr. lvead Jiius stated his attitude in regard: to war, and he beiltieves that his stand is fccnptural. In the Oki i'estanio.it the most awful butcheries wore narried out by the lsHicSßbos "by the word <rf the Lord.' T T&« Trihuibi bants of Caiman wore living to themselves in peace, Out "tho Lord comma ndod Moses" to exterminate them. i« tlioie any justification. in eoiiipturo for tho killing of t)he "male , in/toabitents and jgiving the women >md j young girls over to the lust of ttio Israeliti'iih soldiory 1 Again, in the Book of Ilevekiitions, we are toil that tho patient, long-suffering Christ ia going to change hie character from a lamb into a lion; that he will bo

"aLothed" in a vesture dipped an blood" and come fort/h to slay bis enemies. Wiill Mr. JLleail pleaso explain how such n ohango could; be? Yet, wa must not fomget that the great teacher said "Think not 1 am come w> send peaoo the earth; 1 came not to send pence, but a sword." And, really, looking back through the pages of history, we must believe His words. The sacking of Jerusalem, 37 vea.rs afterwards, was an awful calamity: frorr. the Third Centuiry ,when Rome became a Christian nation under Co i-st-uiitine, for hundreds of years t l . e Roman legions devastated Europo with bloodnchirisitjy wans in thy name ji religion; tut the time of the reformation what nameless cruelties were :n----flicted, culminating m the massacre of St. Bartholomew ? W!ho has mot read of tho wars of tho orusades, which lasted 200 years, to obtain possession of the sepulchre in which irt is believed Christ was buried'< Ait tho {■••tose rxf the first crusad« 70,000 Tur.'cs perished; even tlbe Jews welre burned in thtnr synagogues. The letter :,till exists in which the princes who led this expedition wrote to his Holiness the Pope: "If you wouid know what we did to the enemies we found in ■the city, understand that in iho I'otrdh of Solomon, and in the Temple, our , horses walked up to their .knees in thei unclean blood of the infidel."

"I came not to send peace, but « sword." These are words of tetrrib'e significance. And now the land of Martin, I<uther, and tihe birbhplaice of the Reformation, after 360 years, is rulnd by a monstter who d/cclares that 1m? is fighting with God at fiis right hand. Taking the whole scope ct «oripture, and the iroitfe spoken by Christ, ran we wonder ait the slaughter of to-dayP Friend Bead, here is what happened in Belgium: A German officer entered a house, shot 'an old mam and woman who were in ctoairge, deliberately maimed for life a young lady, 'find then violated before iihem mil a. jzlrown-np girl. Would fit have been a Christian act to have looked i-n in silence? It would hare fieen more Ghristliike to have saved the household* by ghooting such a fiend.—-Yours, etc.. PUZZLED'