Part 2 (1/2)

”The following facts are significant. The European war is said to cost over _one hundred million dollars_ a day in money, stoppage of industry, and destruction of property.

”The United States has spent in preparedness for war during the past ten years a sum six times the cost of the Panama Ca.n.a.l.”

[Footnote: New York Peace Society Leaflet.]

The European war says:

”That a world that prepares for war will get it sooner or later.

That militarism has revealed itself as an enemy to civilization and must be destroyed.

That autocrat rulers with power to make war have no rightful place in the modern world. That no more attempts at world domination are wanted, no matter by what nation or race.

That nationality and national boundaries must be respected, territories being enlarged only by the free consent of the population to be annexed, and colonization taking place only by peaceable commercial and industrial methods.

That, while military preparedness cannot preserve peace, _preparedness against attack_ is essential.

That a league or federation of the peaceably inclined nations for mutual protection and for the preservation of international law and order has become a necessity of the immediate future.

That lasting peace may be secured through the development of international law, the extension of democracy, and the cultivation of the spirit of international justice and good will.”

Home Missionary women must a.s.sume their full share in all efforts to spread illuminating information on this subject, and through their personal att.i.tude, thinking, and praying, strive for the establishment of world relations that will make for peace.

The destruction of homes, hunger, sickness, poverty, degradation, all fall heavily upon women and their helpless little ones.

When the guns have ceased their work of death and the ruined land turns to rebuild its broken commerce and industry, it is the children who must grow up under the privations and the stunting burdens of fearful taxation. From the cradle to the grave, they must pay the billions of treasure eaten up by devastating, destroying war.

Let every Home Missionary woman, to whom this land is dear, who cherishes father, husband, son or brother, who clings to loved home and precious children, use all her influence to bring in the day when the Christ standard shall be the standard for all our national and international relations.

O bells, to-day let warfare cease!

Christ came to be a Prince of Peace.

No longer let the sound of drum Or trumpet, campward calling, come To vex the earth with dread, and make The hearts of wives and mothers ache.

Leave battle flags to moths and dust-- Let sword and gun grow red with rust!

Earth groaned with carnage--let it cease-- Ring in the thousand years of Peace!

Ring out the littleness of things, Ring in the broader thought that brings Swift end to all ign.o.ble creeds.

Ring in an age of n.o.ble deeds For all things pure, and high, and good-- The era of true brotherhood.

Ring out the l.u.s.t for gold and gain-- The greed that cripples soul and brain, And open eyes, long blind, to see What grander, better things there be!

[Footnote: Eben Rexford.]

Home Missions is one of the greatest contributors to national righteousness. Through it the higher life of the community is developed in the formative period; through it belated peoples receive the spiritual transforming dynamic that makes them reach up to the higher and better in their surroundings and gives them a developing effectiveness and efficiency.