The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-18
CONVERSATIONS OF WAR
REV. JOSEPH A. MILBURN SETS
FORTH SOME OF THESE.
Will Unity an American Type-Ser-
mons by Rev. j. Cumming Smith
and other Ministers.


cred last night by the Rev. Joseph \. Mil
burn in his sermon at the Second Presby-
terrain Church. His text was from Psalms
lxxyi, 10: Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee In opening he spoke of the
dual makeup of the world-one side so fair
and beaut full, the other so tempestuous.
This same duality, he said, is in man, with
one side of his being so imperial and like
God, the other so weak, so frail, so intern
Derate and so full of the spirit of wrath.
The Bible characterizes man as a child of
wrath, and man has earned his right to
the unhappy title. His history has been all
along the path beligerent. DR.. Milburn pro-
ceeded as follows:
The history of England has been his
tory Of war; so has that of Russia, France
and Germany. Thus what is true of man in
his physical life is true of his natural life.
We should think that in the sphere of intel
lect we should find a spirit of placidity,
calm, serenity and repose, but the history of
mind has in it's evolutions shown little of
this serenity. Its cost. too, has been a war
fare. Every truth has cost a great price
has had to battle for its deed. The history
of letters is a history of strife; so also the
history Of spiritual man. Two of the three
great religions of the world have been mill
tant. Islamism is entirely militant, and
Christianity largely Christianity is es-
sentially religion of peace, but practically
it's way has been one of war, storm, strife
and persecution. Mercifully, God has over
ruled this wrath of the human spirit toward
great ends.
War has been the precursor of civIiza-
ton, wrath the avant courier of peace. Eng
lands career has been a career of militancy
which is everywhere carried to civilization.
The higher light morality, life and beauty,
have fructified in the throes and agones of
the human spirit There is comfort for us
of COD in our p Of se sr
inevitable and war is very deplorabe. 1t
IS deplorable because 1t means great bur-
denS, tremendous expressions resting upon
the toll of many generations. War involves
vast expenditure, and that expenditure
m pasts be met by the strong arm arm Of toll
which war is paid is ultimately human
sweat and laborers industry.
War Is further deplorable in that it
means sorrows. If we should get into war
with Spain-and war seems likely-it would
involve this Nation in abyssmal grief. If
fathers and mothers, bereaved sisters and
brothers, bereaved homes everywhere
throughout the land. And, further, war is
deplorable when We remember it will dimin-
ish the prestige of democracy. Democracy
has a great mission to the world, and that
is to teach the nation the lesson and the
most difficult of all arts, the art of peace.
Let monarchies mangle, aristocracies con-
tend; it is our mission as a nation to show
yet entirely peaceful. However, IL war
comes, believe that then, too, this OverruI-
ing Providence of the infinite will manifest
itself, and that in any warfare with Spain
the wrath of man will imprint the praise of
God.
CONVERSATIONS OF WAR.
"War has its eompensations. One of them
is that it will work beneficially in fortifying
national virility. 1t will make our people
stronger and more robust. This Nation was
founded by great men, by stalwart heroes
endowed with leonine consciences, but in
the past forty or fifty years there has been
an unquestionable deterioration in our ma
tional type. Peace has tended to luxury,
luxury to Incidence and effeminacy toward
laxity and irreligion, and these are more
deadly foes to empire than war. Should war
come, deplorable as it is. it will at least
vertebrate our moral sense, teach us TO look
higher; it will eventuate in masculinity; 1t
will exalt our ideals as a nation and make
us more valiant people.
1.-The second compensation is that it will
tend towards social stability. The social
stability of this country is menaced in three
different ways: First. by isolation; second,
by social differentiation in the fact that
men envy the superiority and progress of
other men; third, by the heterogeneity Of
counterfeit these tendencies to national dis
Indignation. 1t will give outlet to that mill
lduI spirit that SSeIIlS 10 DS dLl lIleIdQlCdDl6
property of human utterance against an
external foe Man is naturally militant,
martial, restless and quarrelsome, and If
he can't give expression to his militancy to-
wards external foe it will manifest it
self in internecine strife The presence of an
external foe is the guaranty of social sta
hility of European nations, and should we
contend with Spain it will give release to
that spirit of unrest which has for the last
ten years menaced seriously the perpetuity
of American institutions.
War will do much to eradicate the spirit
of class antipathy that has grown up
through inevitable social differences which
different social talents always bring about.
We have already a manifestation of this
beneficent side to the war spirit when we
see that rich and poor are alike patriotic
and that the man of vast fortune is just
as loyal to the government as the man
Gould, Astor, Vanderbilt, John Wanamaker,
all Offering their fortunes and their serv
ices to the country in it's time of need
shows clearly that social unity in this coun-
try is, after all, greater than social diff
ference
FUSION OF AN AMERICAN TYPE
''War would be a further offset to the
forces that menace our national life in that
it tends to national homogeneity. This coun-
try contains within itself almost every ma
tionality, each with its pecuIiarites and
antipathies. One of the benefcent conse-
quences of war would be fusion of all
these into one American type. 1t would dis
Slpale the foreign spirit ana leave as Its re-
suit spirit purely American.
A third compensation OF a war with
Spain is that it will impress upon us the
duty of adequate preparation for future
emergencies. great army, a great navy
is one of the surest guarantees of peace.
This Nation does not need a great army
but with its vast and sweeping shore lines
and the complications that will eventuate
from the reassertion of the Monroe doctrine
it is necessary chat it have u large navy,
not for war purposes, but for peace pur-
poses This Is not theory. IL is fact
England's navy is greater than the COM
bined navies of her two nearest competitors
and England has not fought a great naval
battle since the battle of Trafalgar. Rus
STA has the largest standing army in the
world, and yet she has not been engaged
in Il great war since 1858. Who can question
that If this country had had a. navy ade-
quate to its resources and responsibilities
that the Cuban question would have been
settled long ago? The smalness of our
navy gave Spain a fighting chance, so that
she would run the risk OF being whipped