1. ARE we bound to believe that war will never come to an end? Bernhardi says we are. He says that war is, and always will be, a necessity, and that it is our duty and wisdom to recognize this, and give it its due place and honour in all our thoughts.
But we are not bound to believe Bernhardi. For in all his calculations, and they are clever enough, he has forgotten one fact. He has forgotten God. If there exist “One whom we describe least imperfectly when we call Him Personal,” we cannot but ascribe to Him the noblest marks of Personality, Justice, Mercy, and Truth; and if this be true of Him who is the only enduring Reality and Power, He must have something to say in this debate. The acknowledgment of God of itself at once universalizes human rights. He must deal righteously with all men, so there must be a moral order of the world; and if there be such an order, then the whole of Bernhardi’s book is a madman’s dream, from which soon or late there must be an appalling awakening, an awakening to the reality of the Righteous God.
Dr. J. Llewellyn Davies was one of the most uncompromising believers in the virtue of war for the strengthening of national and individual life. So strongly did he state the case for war that he felt compelled to say: “Some of my hearers may think that I am making myself an apologist for war; but I am conscious of no other desire than to do justice to the good I have known.” Yet Dr. Davies held that we may look forward to the end of war, and said: “I would echo the doctrine of the Quakers, that where duty is clear, the results of doing it are to be left in God’s hands. God knows better than we do how His world is to be governed. He must have ways, whether we can imagine them or not, of governing the world without war.” [Note: J. Ll. Davies, Spiritual Apprehension, 284.]
During a three months’ trip, in the summer of 1918, made especially to ascertain the morale and opinions of the people of England, France, Belgium and Italy, the writer found that out of all the welter and confusion of thought that is always present in vast multitudes of human beings there was one common idea, one least common denominator of all the varieties of minds. He talked with soldiers upon the transports, in the hospitals, restaurants, trains, Y.M.C.A. huts and up to the very fighting line. He inquired of all sorts of people who had a special opportunity to learn the mind of the soldiers—with officers, surgeons, chaplains, “Y” men, Salvation Army workers and Red Cross officials. From all these diverse sources a mass of apparently conflicting opinions was received. But one statement was included in nearly every answer. All declared that this war must end war. The soldiers of the Allies fought that peace might come. [Note: A. M. Simons, The Vision for which we Fought, 14.]
2. There are those, however, who hold that war will go on for ever. De Quincey is a good representative. “Fighting will go on,” he says, “for millions of years yet to come; and, in pure sympathy with the grander interests of human nature, every person who reads what lies written a little below the surface, will say (as I say), God forbid that it should not. In that day when war should be prohibited, or made nearly impossible, man will commence his degeneration.”
But De Quincey was a rhetorical writer and not always consistent. In another essay he limits the duration of war to “several centuries” and looks forward to the end of it. “The final step,” he says, “for its extinction will be taken by a new and Christian code of international law. This cannot be consummated until Christian philosophy shall have traversed the earth and reorganized the structure of society.” [Note: De Quincey’s Works (Masson’s ed.), ix, 409, viii. 230.]
At the Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849 Victor Hugo, its President, said: “A day will come when a cannon-ball will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be amazed that such a thing could ever have been. A day will come when these two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, will be seen placed in the presence of each other, extending the hand of fellowship across the ocean, exchanging their produce, their industries, their arts, their genius, clearing the earth, peopling the desert, improving creation under the eye of the Creator, and uniting, for the good of all, these two irresistible and infinite powers, the fraternity of men and the power of God.” [Note: F. Lynch, The Peace Problem, 51.]
For this small hand in mine I take
Shall never grow to grasp a sword;
But build the house we could not make
Fit for the living Lord.
And where we dared not follow Truth
But paltered with the word and pen,
The sudden lightning of your youth
Shall blaze a path for men.
O heart of hope, O little child,
Fulfilment of the grace we lack,
Lift up the trust we have defiled,
Give us our glory back. [Note: R. Hagel, in The Peace Training of our Children, 5.]
3. That war will end is the testimony of Prophecy. Among the blessings to which Israel looks forward in the Messianic time none is more emphasized than peace. The covenant which God made with the fathers at the first, and for the fulfilment of which the prophets confidently look, is a covenant of peace. The messenger who brings tidings of the coming salvation is one who publishes peace. The Messiah Himself is the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. In His days the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon be no more. Psalmist and prophet alike are full of pictures of the time when Jahweh shall bless His people with peace; when the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in the abundance of peace; when peace shall be within the walls of Jerusalem; in the temple; when men shall go in with joy and be led forth with peace; when the very officers shall be peace and the exactors righteousness; when peace shall extend to Jerusalem like a river and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; nay, when God shall speak peace to the very Gentiles. Even Jeremiah, bitter in his denunciations of those who cry peace when there is no peace, and prophesy before the time, is firm in his belief that a time is coming when God will reveal to His people abundance of peace and truth.
The prophets recognized a divine purpose in the wars of the nations but they also believed that when God should truly reign wars will cease, that “the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence for ever” (Isa_32:17). Dominated by faith in the final triumph of God’s justice, the desire for peace, not only in Israel but also among the nations, became the dream of their life and created a passion for bringing about peaceful relations among men. The vision of universal peace was ever before them, even in days of darkest despair. While they looked forward to it as something to be fully consummated in the future, yet this ideal also had a practical bearing upon their mission and gave to it aim and direction.
The prophets are full of compassion for the suffering masses, upon whom the crushing weight of war always falls heaviest. The misery, distress, and ruin left in the path of the invading hordes are often the theme of their bitter lament (Jer_9:20). They denounce vehemently the atrocities of war and the horrors attending a siege or an invasion (Amo_1:2). They burn with righteous indignation as they reflect upon the social evils, the petty oppressions, the selfish, sordid ambitions, that stir human hatred and beget the spirit of strife. Where moral rottenness has eaten into the inner core of society there can be no true brotherhood, and without fraternal relations there can be no peace. A licentious court, a corrupt government, a reign of brutal force in the place of right, the reckless greed for gain, sensuality in religion—these inevitably breed war. Because of their passion for peace the prophets had such a keen eye for the evils of their time and opposed them with such unsparing severity. Their passion for social righteousness was inseparable from their intense yearning for the establishment of God’s Kingdom of Peace.
It was Isaiah, the prophet of faith, that gave to the world the lofty vision of universal peace, a vision which was repeated by Micah and was destined never to die. It is a vision clothed in the language of an agricultural and pastoral people, but its meaning is clear.
And it shall come to pass in the end of days,
That the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow unto it.
And many peoples shall go and say:
“Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
And He will teach us of His ways,
And we will walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And He shall judge between the nations,
And shall decide for many peoples;
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning-hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war any more.
This ideal of peace never died out of the hearts of Israel. It deepened in meaning with the years. It expanded with the events of the centuries. Echoes of it we find in all subsequent Jewish writings. It finally took the form of the great messianic hope of the Jewish people—of the golden age—a hope which has had a tremendous influence on human life.
But one is wholly mistaken if one thinks that this radiant ideal cherished by the Prophets blinded them to the difficulties of its attainment or to the conditions which must precede its ultimate realization. On the contrary, it was they who knew how much the world would have to fight and how much it would have to learn before peace became a possibility.
Is peace so easy? Nay, the names
That are most dear and most divine
To men, are like the heavenly flames
That farthest from possession shine.
Peace, love, truth, freedom, unto these
The way is through the storming seas.
At the very dawn of its history, Israel had to pass through the storming sea for the sake of freedom. The Prophets dreamed of peace, but they ceaselessly emphasized the conditions essential to its attainment.
(1) Among these conditions we might name, first of all, the recognition of the law of Righteousness and its application in the conduct of human affairs. The Prophets leave no doubt on this point. There can be no peace in the world as long as righteousness does not rule. Iniquity is the enemy of peace. Violence destroys it. There is no peace for the wicked, nor for a world dominated by wickedness.
For wickedness burneth as the fire;
It devoureth the briers and thorns;
Yea, it kindleth in the thickets of the forest,
And they roll upward in thick clouds of smoke.
Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land burnt up,
The people also are as the fuel of fire;
No man spareth his brother.
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees,
And to the writers that write iniquity;
To turn aside the needy from judgment,
And to take away the right of the poor of my people,
That widows may be their spoil,
And that they may make the fatherless their prey.
And what will ye do in the day of visitation,
And in the ruin which shall come from far?
To whom will ye flee for help?
And where will ye leave your glory?
They can do nought except crouch under the captives,
And fall under the slain.
(2) Moreover, the Prophets believe that peace will result from a growing sense of the unity of mankind and the unity of God. This belief is expressed by them in different ways, and put forth in the language of their times. But the underlying thought is unmistakable. When the Prophets speak of many nations going up to the house of the God of Jacob, when they speak of God’s house becoming a house of prayer for all peoples, when they speak of the day when the Lord shall be one and His name one—this is what they have in mind. The full significance of such utterances we can grasp only if we judge them by the standards of those days. They belong to a time when most people believed in national gods and national sanctuaries. That was the normal religion of the times, the general outlook. Every people had its own God, and every God cared for his own people only. When the Prophets wiped out national boundaries in religious conceptions—in prayer and worship—when they opened the possibility of diverse peoples praying to One and the same God—that in itself was a wonderful expansion of existent spiritual limitations. It inaugurated the idea of human brotherhood as a preliminary to perpetual peace. “Many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying: ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you!’ ” (Zec_8:22-23). In this regard, nothing in the Bible surpasses the nineteenth chapter of Isaiah, where the Prophet forecasts the union—fraternal and religious—of Egypt, Assyria, and Israel.
“In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and He will send them a Saviour, and a Defender who will deliver them. And the Lord shall make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day; yea, they shall worship with sacrifice and offering, and shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and shall perform it. And the Lord will smite Egypt, smiting and healing; and they shall return unto the Lord, and He will be entreated of them, and will heal them.
“In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians.
“In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for that the Lord of hosts hath blessed him, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.’ ”
Here are the two mightiest and most iniquitous conquerors of the ancient Orient; here is one of them whom the Prophet has just denounced for lust and violence; and here is Israel, the traditional victim of both, repeatedly crushed between the upper and the nether millstone of their military ambitions: yet all three some day are to form one brotherhood through the recognition of the same God.
“In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for that the Lord of hosts hath blessed him, saying: ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance’ ” (Isa_19:1-25).
Such a growing sense of human brotherhood, the Prophets felt, would increase the likelihood of universal peace.
(3) And, finally, the Prophets depended on the increasing spiritual ennoblement of humanity. The time would come when the Spirit of God shall be poured forth on all alike, when the Divine Law shall be put into human hearts, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, when princes shall rule in righteousness and faithfulness, when men shall learn God’s ways—when genuine spiritual nobility shall have become universal. Then peace also will become a universal reality. “The effect of righteousness shall be peace, quietness, and security for ever” (Isa_32:17).
Rise up, ye women that are at ease, and hear my voice;
Ye confident daughters, give ear unto my speech.
After a year and days shall ye be troubled, ye confident women;
For the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come.
Tremble, ye women that are at ease;
Be troubled, ye confident ones;
Strip you, and make you bare,
And gird sackcloth upon your loins,
Smiting upon the breasts
For the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine;
For the land of my people
Whereon thorns and briers come up;
Yea, for all the houses of joy
And the joyous city.
For the palace shall be forsaken;
The city with its stir shall be deserted;
The mound and the tower shall be for dens for ever,
A joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;
Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high,
And the wilderness become a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field be counted for a forest.
Then justice shall dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field.
And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
And the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever.
And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation,
And in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places. [Note: H. G. Enelow, The War and the Bible, 108.]
The Prince of the latter days, whose second name is Hero of Superhuman Might, bears as His final name The Prince of Peace. The true patriot longs for the day when no more war-horses and chariots will be seen in the land he loves, but when from end to end it will be filled with the knowledge of Jahweh as the waters cover the seas. One of the dearest wishes of his heart is to see the cruel and bloody accoutrements of war flung once and for ever into the devouring flames. He looks for and believingly works for the day when
Every boot of the warrior that thundered along,
And every garment rolled in blood,
Shall be doomed to the burning,
And fuel for the fire. [Note: J. E. McFadyen, in The Expositor, March 1916, p. 174.]
4. There is much more about war in the Old Testament than in the New. The whole atmosphere of the Psalms is a warlike atmosphere. It is full of the terror of the enemy’s onslaught, of the anticipations of victory, of mourning over defeat, of exultation in success. But when we turn to the New Testament we are in another world. Setting aside the Book of Revelation, and an allusion here and there to soldiers and their profession, often by way of metaphor, there is nothing that speaks of war. The life of Christ and His Apostles was a life of struggle and sorrow; all around there is cruelty, persecution, martyrdom; but there is not war. The call to fight for one’s country is not heard. Force is all on one side; the people of God resist not evil; they obey the constituted authorities where their conscience permits obedience; where they do not, they patiently suffer the consequences and rejoice that they are counted worthy so to do. The functions of the soldier, so far as he comes into the story at all, are what we should call police functions; he keeps order, he secures unpopular persons from the mob that would tear them in pieces, he acts guard over persons under sentence of law. We know that he is a soldier, and so personally ready to fight when called upon; but for the present he is not, as we should say, on active service. The question of soldiering or not scarcely arises for the New Testament Christian; it lies outside his horizon; his weapons are of a different order, and it is hard to conceive the soldier’s weapons as compatible with his position as a citizen of the kingdom whose laws were laid down in the Sermon on the Mount.
In his book—DasEwige Licht—the poet Rosegger relates a dream. He dreamed that he saw the Almighty upon His throne and the rulers of the earth passing by. He addressed Moses: “What did you bring to your people? “He answered: “The Law.” “And what did they make of it?” “Sin!” Then He asked Charlemagne: “And what did you give to your people?” “The Altar.” “And what did they make of it?” “The stake!” Thus He asked one after another, and always the sad reply was that men perverted God’s gifts. Then the Eternal One turned to His only-begotten Son: “My Son, what did you bring to men?” “Peace!” “And what did they make of it?” Jesus covered His face with His pierced hands and sobbed: “War!”
When we come to consider by what means war is to be brought to an end, we see, first of all, that it is not to be by progress in civilization alone. The only method is the method of Christ. But the method of Christ must be applied. Christianity must get a chance.
