Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-10-19

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1892. God may take us out VI the bar
vest field before that, but let it b
known throughout C~hristendom tina
that year, between May and November
will be the mountain of Christian ad
vantage, tho Alpine and Himalayal
height of>opportunity overlapping al
others for salvation. Instead of thu
slow process of having to send the gos
pei TO other lands by our own American
missionaries, who have difficult toll il
acquiring the foreign language and ther
must contend with foreign prejudices
what a grand thing to have able and in
fluential foreigners converted during
their visit in America and then have
them return to their native lands with
the glorious tidings. Oh, for an over
whelming work of grace for the year
1892, that work beginning in the autumn
of 1889!
Another opportunity, If our public
men SEQ it, and it is the duty of pulpit
and printing press TO help them to see
it, will be the calling at that time and
place of a great peace congress for all
nations. The convention of represent
atives from the governments of North
and South America, now at Washington,
Is only a type of what we may have on
a vast and a world wide scale at the in
ternational exposition of 1899. BY one
stroke the gorgon Of war might be slain
and buried so deep that neither trumpet
of human dispute or Of arch
angels blowing could resurrect it.
When the last Napoleon called such a
congress of nations many did not re-
spond, and those that did respond gath
cred wondering what trap that willy
destroyer Of the French republic and the
builder of a French monarchy might
spring on them. But what IL the most
popular government on sirth-I mean
the United States goverEalent-should
practically say to all nations: On the
American continent, in 1892, we will
hold a worlds fair, and all nations will
send to it specimens of their products,
their manufactures and their arts, and
we invite all the governments of Europe,
Asia and Africa to send representatives
TO a peace contention that shall be held
at the same time and place, and that
shall establish IN international arbitra-
ton commission to whom shall be re-
ferred all controversies between nation
and nation, their decision to be- final,
and SO all nations would be relieved
from the expense of standing armies
and naval equipment, war having been
made an everlasting impossibility.
All the nations Of the earth worth
consideration would come to it, mighty
men of England and Germany and
France and Russia and all the other
great nationalities, Bismarck, who wor.
ships the Lord Of Hosts, and Gladstone
- .~..aAs-a 49, nAl % Da @-J
Boulanger, who worships himself. The
fact is that the nations are sick of drink
ing out of chalices made out of human
skulls and filed with blood The
United States government is the only
government in the whole world that
could successfully call such a con
gress. Suppose France should call
it, Germany weuld not come; or Ger
many should call it, France would not
come; or Russia should call it, Turkey
would not come; or Englasd should call
it, nations long jealous OF her over
shadowing power in Europe would not
come. America, in favor with all
nationalities, standing out Independent
and alone, is the spot and 1892 will be
the time. May it please the president
of the United States, may t.please the
secretary of state, may it please h cab
met, may il please the senate and house
of representatives, may it please the
printing presses and the churches and
the people who lift up and put down
our American rulers!
To them / make this timely and sol.
emn and Christian appeal. DO you not
think people die fast enough without
this wholesale butchery OF war? Dc
you not think that we can trust to
pneumonias and consumptions and
apoplexies and palsies and yellow
fevers and Asiatic choleras the work OF
killing them fast enough? Do you not
think that the greedy, wide-open jaws
of the grave ought to be satisfied il filled
by natural causes with hundreds OF
thousands of corpses a year? Do you
not think we can do something better
with men than to dash their life out
against easements or blow them into
fragments by torpedoes or send them
out into the world, where they need all
their faculties, footless, armless, eye
less? Do you not think that women
might be appointed to an easier place
than the edge of q grave trench to wiring
their pale hands and weep out their
eyesight in widowhood and cnildless.
ness? Why, the last glory has gone out
Of war.
There was a time when 1t demanded
that quality which we all admire
namely, courage-for a man had tc
stand at the hilt Of his sword when the
point pierced the foe, and while he was
Staying another the other might slay
him; or it was bayonet charge. But
now it Is cool and deliberate murder,
and clear out at sea q bombshell q be
hurled miles away into a city, or while
thousands of private soldiers, who have
no interest in the contest, for they were
conscripted, are losing their lives, their
general may sit smoking one Of the best
Havana cigars after q dinner of quail on
teast. 1t may be we'll enough for grad
uating students OF colleges ON com
menccment day to crate about the poetry
Of war, but do not talk about the poetry
! of war to the men of the federal or con-
federate armies who were at the front,
or to some Of US, who as members OF
the Christian commission, saw the
CHASTITY hospitals at Antistam and
Hagcrstown. All! you may worship the
Lord Of Hosts, / worship the God OF
Peace, brought again from the dead oul
Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd
of the sheep."
War is an accursed monster and II
was born in the lowest tavern az per
dition, and I pray that it may speedily
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