The San Francisco call., 1895-12-23

taking for his text, 'Be Ye KIND one 10
Another" said:
"Again talk of possible war Is III the
air, There are times and causes III ana
for which the Christian man must not
shrink from war. To-day our unques-
tionable du ty as followers of the Prlnce OF
Peace and as Ioyal Americans, IS to ask
ourselves il we have a righteous cause,
now. for going to war. Remember this
the war spirit is like fire in dry forest land.
The war craze may seize on England-n
has not Vetoed forbid it doing so.
"What is the trouble? A dispute be-
tween Eng land and a petty, unclvlllzed
South American republic, where we are
only represented by an occasional visiting
American; dispute IN regard TO WhIch
the majority of the best lawyers IN TINS
city seem to think the case made by the
President, and with awfully rash preclpl-
fancy accepted by Congress, is weak one
"War on doubtful dispute, IN which
we may be wrong, means without any
doubt whatever the perpetration OF
wrong so awful, unprovoKed ana mon
strous that in modern times history affords
no parallel. War means the deluglng with
blood of 5000 miles OF Canadian frontiers;
the invasion by 65,Oo0,000 of people OF
land occupied by 1900, ,0004, ,000, 600 who are
your neighbors, our brothers, dwelling Sc
curelv by US. War cannot come, for An
qlo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic
are pre-eminently sane. But the men who
have talked up the war spirit for months
and years are like men fooling with fire IN
dry woodland and in autumn weather.
Il am very sure that when common
sense and thoughtfulness have their way
and sane hour strikes, jingolsm Will dis
appear and our people will awake as men
who arouse themselves from an unthlnka-
Bile, monstrous and unholy dream"
At the Bloomingdale Reform Church,
Rev. DR.. Madison c. Peters preached on
"Civilization's Debt to Christianity" In
the course of his sermon he made this
reference to the Venezuelan trouble:
"War is cruel hateful. wrong. War is
hell. The political demagogues who at
this Christmastlde are shouting for war
will be branded by the second sober
thought of the American people as the
criminals of the nineteenth century.
When these men had an opportunity to
fight for their own land, when the stars
sent substitutes. A war between England
and America could never be terminated
until one or the other went into bank
ruptcy, or had no more men to fill the
ranks. When the time comes that we are
encroached upon or attacked. then there
VIII be a prompt response from the Ameri-
can people to defend the flag. What sane
man believes that such a necessity exists
at the present time? If we are to have
war let it be on one condition-that the
men who are now shouting for it be the
first ones compelled to go to the front"
DR.. Parkhurst, in his sermon to-day at
the Madison-square Presbyterian Church,
touched on the Venezuelan question, and
denounced the idea of war between the
United States and Great Britain. The
doctor said:
Christianity, both here and in Eng
land, is too thoroughly part of the Ma
tional life for armies and navies to clash
in warfare at the same moment that the
churches of both countries are laundering
for peace"
Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr., at the Academy
of Music, mentioned the present situation
as follows, in the way of a prelude to his
sermon:
at is improbable, in my opinion, for
any hostilities between Great Britain and
America. OF all nations on Gods world
Great Britain and the United States
should be the two that should lead to the
ways of peace and liberty and happiness.
A war between Great Britain and the
United States would be wrong because we
are the same people, the same blood and
the same tongue. Our fathers the same
fathers and our ideals are the same ideals
and our home principles are the same"
Rev. DR.. Charles Eaton of the Church of
the Divine Paternity preached on "Chrls-
tianity and War" He said;
II desire to enter my earnest protest
against war being the way of settling the
momentous question now being discussed,
and 1 speak according to the grand princi-
pies that govern alike the English and
American people. l believe there have
been certain wars in the history of this
country that were inevitable and unavoida-
BILE. l hold that the war of the Revolution
and the Civil War were justified Every
act by which nation is precipitated into
practical slaughter, where declaration
of war is made without exhausting every
other possible measure of adjusting the
difference is contrary to the teaching oi
Christianity"