The record-union., 1898-06-09
WAR AND ARBITRATION.
AN ADDRESS BY GENERAL O. O.
HOWARD
At the Annual Meeting Of the Con-
gregational Home Mission
It, ary Society.

CLEVELAND, June Sat the sec
ond session of the seventy-second an
nual meeting of the Congregational
Home Missionary Society to-day the
President, General o. o. Howard, de-
livered his annual address. His sub
ject was War, Arbitration and the
New Demand for American Home
Missions" He said:
Our Lord has His own ways of
leading men. He has led our people
and our President in a way that they
did not dream of, step by step. to face
new difficulties and new problems. He
is requiring us, as he did in the days
of slavery, to remove obstacles out Of
His path The obstacles that have now
come to the front are centuries Of ex-
tortion, murder, assassination, the
Staying of hundreds of thousands of
innocent people by slow starvation and
avarice, and tyranny prolonged which
no pen can describe.
1--WE wanted to do all things by
peaceful methods. We wanted to ex-
tend our influence from men to men,
and from nation to nation by forcing
every element of peace and goodwill.
We seemed to- think that the gospel
properly and sufficiently proclaimed
would accomplish not only the redemp
ton Of our own society, but the refor-
nation of nations.
1--WE strongly believed that If we
could have a national tribunal like that
of our Supreme Court somehow estab-
lished, no possible contingency would
arise to make war possible necessity,
and yet. thoroughly Christian, con-
scientious to the last degree, loving
peace and peaceful methods, we have
come into the midst of another war
between this nation and Spain. Ma
tions have not yet progressed far
enough, nor have peoples been yet
thoroughly instructed In regard to the
principles of humanity and righteous
law to warrant a reasonable expectancy
of universal arbitration. The level of
the international law is the highest
which nations can attain and hold at
the beginning of the twentieth century.
IT beg Of you at this epoch, which
appears to me to be the beginning Of
convulsions and revolutions in human
society, to put yourselves. you who are
leaders in missionary work, in the at
titude of diligent hearers ready to re-
ceive such revelation as the Lord, our
Savior, may give you directly or out
of His holy word
The sixteenth annual meeting Of the
Woman's Department was held to-day,
Mrs. H. S. Caswell of New York pre-
siding. She said that the woman's or
ganizations now cover the entire ter
ritory Of the United States, with the
exception of Alaska. The woman's or
ganizations have added to the treas
uries of the national societies this year
500, 600. Before another annual meet
ing plan may be evolved by which
men, women and children of each
church may belong, as united company,
to a prosperous church missionary So
ciety, lavishly pouring their offerings
into the church treasury to be for
warded from that treasury to the ma
tional missionary societies for the gen.
eral work by each.
Mrs. Lydia Tichener Bailey Of Seat
tie. Wash, delivered an address, en-
titled "A New Vision"
The concluding address was by Mrs.
Alice Freeman Palmer of Cambridge,
Mass, ex-President Of Wellesley Col
lege, in answer to the question, How
Can Woman Save Our Country"