, 1891-12-21
/" PEACE ON EARTH =
And Good Will Among Men.
A Christmas Sermon.
No War Wanted-It is Not Chris IT,
anity to Slaughter Each
Other-Rev. Nr. Hoag-
lands Views.

Peace on earth, good will toward men,
was the subject text of Rev. Napoleon
Hoagland's sermon at the Unitarian SER
vices in Tacoma hall yesterday morning
He said the words of the familiar Christ
mas cards that are already sounding in the
churches were in striking contrast to the
days newspaper headlines of telegraphic
dispatches. To judge of the complacency
with which we look upou war, one would
suppose that we had never so much as
heard of a Prince of Peace If the essence
of Christianity is love, if its keynote SO far
as relations between man and man is con
concerned, is brotherhood, if its cardinal
principals are expressed in the Lords
prayer, the two great commandments and
the Golden Rule, then the spirit which re-
CARDS war as proper means of.avenging
insults and maintaining certain ideas of
honor is anti Christian. How many peo-
pie claiming the Christian name as disci-
pies of the Prince of Peace, think first of
the increased demand of what they will
have to sell when they hear that war is to
be declared between Russia and Germany !?
How many people who are not protesting
Christians, yet claim to be civilized beings,
are free from regarding prospective war in
much the same way? just stop and think
how anti Christian how ghoulish such a
way OF looking upon war really is. The
ghoul was supposed to be an animal that
subsisted on dead human bodies. Is the
term too severe to apply to that spirit
which leads a human being to rejoice in
the profits that will swell his purse as the
result of the slaughter of his own kind :?
How manly of US have paused long enough
w w or rrflna q nc o. txrp hov add
the Warllke dispatches that tell of probable
conflict between
THE UNITED D STATES AND CHILL
The dispatches for the most part speak of
it as lightly as if it were nothing more se-
rious than game of foot ball. And have
we not read the rumOrS very much in the
same spirit in which they have been ex-
pressed? Let us ask ourselves, then, what
war means. Let us not mistake tinsel and
dress parade for war. It means that the
youngest and ablest bodied men of two
nations or sections of country voluntarily
OF unwillingly withdraw themselves from
the civil army Of productive industry and
that they apply themselves to the work Of
destroying all that civilization calls good.
Houses are burned, villages destroyed, the
garden, orchard and cultivated field are
laid waste, bridges are broken, fences are
used to supply camp fires, treasures of art
and science are made to feed bonfires and
the clock of civilization is set back for gen
eratiOns.
But if war meant no more than that, it
would not be so much crime. Ii the Or
ganized bands Of hostile men confined
themselves to destroying each others prop
erty war would not be SO hideous or so hell
lSh. But the one constant central aim of
war is the destruction of human life. Two
large groups of able-bodied men, we'll
equipped with the most improved imple-
fesflf ,frr ak 1.
mortal conflict There is the sharp, quick
rattle Of musketry. the flash Of sabers
through clouds Of smoke, the roar Of can
non, the tram of infantry and cavalry, the
shouts of the officers, the agonized cries Of
the
WOUNDED AND DYING,
The mangled, the dying and the dead
fall like grass blades before the harvest
sickle. But it would be mercy if the hui
man slaughter were executed as orderly
and as quickly as the grass blades are cut
down by the mowers knife. 1t would be
mercy if the human slaughter were no
more revolving than the methods which
an enlightened humanity requires for the
slaughter of cattle and hogs. But the
slaughter of human beings by human be-
ings in war is conducted in such horrible
and revolving way that it would seem that
+ only monsters could sanction or tolerate
it. In we'll conducted slaughterhouses the
victim is killed at single blow Of the
hammer or at one stroke of the knife and
IT is not slain BY. the side Of the living or
IN plain sight of its-felloWs. But when hui
man beings engage in the business Of
slaughtering one another the living are be-
spattered with the life blood of their COM
rades on the right and on the left, while
mortally wounded or fearfully MANNED
companion may be writhing under his feet
from trampling crushing heels Of horses
nd + 10 n,.aIxy tI,oc a Y,I
CHASTITY deaths that occur in the mad rush
Of battle that constitutes the enormlty Of
wars horror. For one who is killed out
right three are only partially killed. that is
they are mutilated or wounded SO that
they are hours dying uncared for it may be
weary years of living death in hospital or
home with a wound that never quite
heals, or are mutilated and crippled for
life, a leg or an arm shot off, an eye lost.
ora
BULLET IMBEDDED IN THE BODY
constant case Of pain and weakness.
But the slaughter Of the murderous bullet
or the twofolds more destructive disease
and pestilence that follow in wars trains
horror. Many who never fired gun are
wounded or killed by the same bullet that
manned or slew the brother, husbands,
father or son. The croWning evil of war
is that man is slain BY man, and that the
methods of destruction deadens all his
finer, gentler, more humane feelings,
nourishing his malignity, hatred and
cruelty. sit is the concentration of all
crimes" says Charming. "It turns man
into beasts of prey. stIn the field of battle
the hell within the human breast blazes
out fiercely and without dssguise.'
s'There the friends hold their revels and
spread their fury" The taking Of human
life, except as punishment for heinous
crime and except by due process Of law,
has been held by all nations having any
claim to civilization, as the highest crime.
Is the indiscriminate killing of men in war
by due process of law? VIII any one ven
ture to say that the victims of battle are
deserving of
DEATH BY ANY LAW,
moral or civil, for anything that they have
done? Then is not such slaughter Of man
by man the crime Of crimes2 A man kills
another for insulting him and we call it
murder and hang the one who does the
killing. One nation kills fifty thousand
people because of an insult, and we call it
war, and sing praises to the ones who have
been most successful in killing.
Is national honor something different
from personal honor that it must be de-
Tended by shooting people down? Is that
Christianity May the Christmas season
speed the angels song of ssPeace on Earth
Good Will Among Men"
A Democratic Hustler.
Chillicothe (Ohio) Advertiser: Mr.. J. F.
Murphy formerly of Bainbridge, but now
of Olympia, Washington, was in the city
over Sunday on his way to Washington,
ID. G., where he will represent his state as
member of the Democratic National Com