The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1919. THE PEACE CONGRESS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVI, Issue 18, 1 May 1919, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1919. THE PEACE CONGRESS

D am ' nus aedificaverit domum in vanum c IkSSSI ? Ictboraverunt qui aedificant earn: of old >H\w3 it was written that unless the Lord build the house they that build it shall labor in vain. During the past four years the Tjf«*i3p\ statesmen of the Allied nations-have set themselves to erect a Temple of Peace on earth the like of which mortal eyes never yet saw since the beginning of history. We who have read the newspapers have not forgotten with what pontifical authority/ and with what assumed airs of infallibility the plans of the building and the schemes of the builders were laid before us for our admiration. The echoes of the sounding periods in which our leaders ' told of the great things they were going to achieve have not all died away. * "Chiv-

airy, unselfishness, far-reaching and far-seeing benevolence, for all men J were the dominant notes of the war aims and the .war cries, which invited the flower of our manhood to go forth to fight in order to make the-Mineriium possible. The war is over. ' The day has come for the fulfilment of the high promises and the solemn pledges. The statesmen '• who promised and pledged their souls are seated together intent on the building of ' ; which 1 they foretold so magniloquently. What are our' hopes What is the strength and ; the depth of our faith in them Do we not shake our heads doubtfully, more than fearful as we remember how on another occasion far back in the dim twilight of the years other men set themselves to build in commemoration of < their preservation from universal destruction and how because they left God out of their councils they built but Babel as a monument of their own confusion. V ; f :. * Grave men warned the world four years ago and more that the war was a scourge sent upon us for our sins. Preachers called on the people to do penance in sack-cloth and ashes; soldiers were no less earnest in pointing out the need of a general conversion of heart; the Pope from his lonely watch-tower by the Tiber reiterated the warning in vibrant messages ; and men and women of good-will humbled themselves under the powerful Hand of God and accepted his chastisements unto greater purity and sweetness of soul. In this supernatural light Christian sorrow became a purification and a revelation, and separation from husband, lover, brother, or son served to draw the mourners closer to God. In prayer and tribulation a goodly company of the elect of the world awaited the time when, God's wrath appeased, 'the -scourge should be removed, and if none others profited in the only way that matters the Christian faithful drew untold good out of the immeasurable evil of the World War. But they were a little band apart. The war was not their war : they had nothing to say to the making of it, and unless by their prayers nothing to do with the ending of it. Heedless of them the profiteers and the jugglers and the gamblers in human blood plotted and schemed and lied and blundered. For four years hate took the place of charity on earth —an organised, fostered hate into the production of which the Government put millions of money to be spent on the manufacture of lies and on the suppression of the truth. Scraps of paper were torn up. Secret treaties were framed, so shameful that the men who made them lied brazenly to hide them. Murders and crimes openly committed gave the lie frankly to -the hypocritical professions of the political leaders. Politicians and their friends became wealthy through jobbery and waxed fat on the hunger of the poor. Immorality stalked abroad in the streets, adding a graver danger than death on the battle-field to the perils of our soldiers. Justice, honor, truth were violated by the Governments, Even men who traded with the enemy were—for a considerationgiven places in our councils. Insincerity, chicanery, jobbery became the notes of public life and slowly and surely among the lower classes the determination grew to make an end of the hated Plutocracy to which we owe this war and other wars. The plutocrats still hold the reins. They sit round the table in Paris with fear in their hearts while far away upon the Russian frontier grows apace the threatening noise that foretells the coming of an angry and deluded people. And even with that warning thunder in the atmosphere they are still intent on profiteering.: The farce is over now ; there is little talkexcept from the cleareyed . President of the United States who talks of honor arid .justice and truth, to men who do not understand what, the terms meanof unselfish aims, of mutual sacrifice, of restoration of. plunder, of . atonement for past murders and robberies and rapines., Mr'. Massey is given a pencil and a sheet of paper to amuse him and told to hide himself in sonle' obscure office where he tries to catalogue German crimes which he might well compare, with those of his Orange ■ friends in Ireland.

■ \ - - -. . Mr. Hughes arouses the languid interest ~ of some French ? journalists ; who perhaps pity i the little ; man's eager anxiety to find out what the speakers'are saying in a language he knows not. The Japanese sit there silent and 1 j mysterious, •« like-cool gamblers watching- the sordid game. Italy, 1 France, England too, squabble and fight for what they; can v grab ; out of the spoils; for the mask is off and the secret is out. There, then, be the builders of the Temple of Peace! God is forgotten. His Law is not before them. The Golden Calf is in their • midst. One lonely voice alone is heard pleading for the old, old ideals of Truth, Justice, and Charitya voice, indeed, crying in the wilderness. Is it wonderful that we are reminded forcibly of that solemn passage of the Psalms :•- Nisi Dominiis aedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant earn ?' *ls is' wonderful that we are unable to hope against hope that the men who have forgotten God will build aught else but a new Tower of Babel