Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1907-11-22
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THE PEACEMAKER.
By Rev. Henry F. Cope

they shall be called the children of
God."-Matt. 5:9.
How simple are the gateways that
open into the most sublime moral and
spiritual privileges. The great teacher
says that If any would be known as
the children of the Eternal they have
but to learn to be peacemakers among
their fellows. The ordinary virtues
commonly are the conditions Of the ex-
traordinary beatitudes.
If the teacher meant by peace quiet
ness, indifference, ease and sleep there
was time when the people of the
church might well lay claim to being
called the children Of God they were
at peace with their own selves and
willing to be at peace with the world
If only they might continue to sleep
undisturbed.
There are those who conceive of no
other peacemakers than those who ar
bitrate between warning nations. If
these are the only children of God the
family Is small and by no means a
homogeneous one. You may have little
10 do with the good work of disarma-
nent and still be true peacemaker
as you bring to human conditions and
relations great calm and more perfect
harmony.
They are peacemakers who have the
spirit Of the family Of the greater
Father in their hearts, who bring men
together in these divine family ties.
There never will be harmony amongst
men by means of laws or agreements;
one thing only will bring 1.-THE
spread Of the spirit Of brotherhood.
When man begins to order his life
for the helping Of other lives, when he
no longer plans to beat his fellows,
but to bless the race, he becomes the
servant of divine peace; he catches the
spirit of the coming kingdom based on
the universal brotherhood.
There are people whose lives breathe
out calm, whose presence is always like
oil on troubled waters There are 9TH
ers who never fail to stir up strife, who
have faculty for accentuating antag-
onlsms and for setting folks by the
ears. The one looks out on life with
eyes Of love, with a desire to help and
promote good feeling; the other with
cupidity and enmity.
We need men and women who by
their bearing and conduct will promote
good feeling and friendliness a good
deal more than we need laws for the
banishing of weapons and plans of war
The finest peacemakers In this world
are the plain men and women who help
us to like other folk and live with
them.
Whoever, in any way, succeeds in
taking any Of the friction and unrest
out of life is peacemaker. The king
dom of heaven that is coming will be
the kingdom of perfect harmony; it
will come when humanity learns the
great lesson that all this experience of
pain ard Joy should be teaching us,
the lesson of living at peace and in love
with our brothers.
Fair words about fraternity easily
are spoken and soon forgotten; 1t is a
good deal easier to preach peace than
1t is to practice it. Its day never will
come so long as the chief concern of
each life is to get ahead Of every other
life. 1t never will come until we fully
see that Jesus meant something more
than pretty figure Of speech when he
talked OF, the divine fatherhood and the
human brotherhood.
Why should there not be the same
harmony amongst all men that there Is
In family? Homes are enriched and
the chief joys Of our lives found by the
process of ceasing to live for our indi-
vidual selves and living for the social
group.
some day we will open our eyes to
see the waste, the loss and pain and
discord caused by our individualism.
We shall see fully what we now but
dimly apprehend- the real riches,
the lasting joys, the enduring prosperi-
ty Of life spring from the things we
have done for others without thought
Of ourselves.
So long as each is wholly for himself
there Will be conflict, discord, and
pain; when each shall live for all, then
all Will be working for one common
end, the race rather than the man,
then all will move in harmony, peace
VIII have her perfect work and all will
be known as one family, the children
Of God.