Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1911-05-26
WARS DAY
IS GONE
Duty of Church to Lead in
Teaching Peace to Masses
of People
s4oo,0o0,ooo, ARMAMENTs
Europe Spends That Much Year.
ly Because of Cowardice
of Nations.

(By Special Leased Wire to New Mexican
Mohonk Lake, N. Y. May 26.-"The
Duty of the Church with Regard to
Peace" was the subject of an address
delivered before the Lake Mohonk
Conference on International Arbitra-
ton today at its 18th annual meeting,
by the Rev. John Clifford, d. D., pres
ident of the Baptist World Alliance.
DR.. Clifford said in part:
"Mr. Asquith declares that Peace is
the special care of the churches;
Count Won Buelow has said the same.
Surely it is so. The churches are the
creation of the Prince of Peace. They
ought, therefore, to plan, organize and
work for the speedy extinction of war
all over the earth.
mo doubt the task is one of incal-
culable difficulty, and it does not help
us to treat it as though it were other
wise. We should face the difficult
ties, and remembering them, it is the
first duty OF the churches to master
the facts, to sift them carefully, to
show what is true and what false re-
garding them; to deal with all the fac
tors making for war or peace whether
material or moral, national or interna-
tional, local or universal--and then to
educate the people in right appre-
hension of their meaning and value.
Standing right across the pathway
OF peace is the idea that human ma
ture' does not change, and that as men
have been killing one another from
the beginning, so the murderous bust
ness must be kept up from age to age
But Darwin and Browning have both
taught us that man is made to grow
and not stop; and history shows that
he has grown. Men do not think and
act as they did in the Thirty Years
War. War itself has altered since Ma
poleon and Wellington. The churches
must get rid of this despair of mer
and the ears it begets. 1t is as mis-
chievous as it is false, and as destruc
tive as it is unhistoric.
THE churches must also set them
selves to the task of getting rid of tn.
fear of war, and of the burden of pre-
paration for war which that fear en-
tails. 1t is the fear that keeps up ant
extends the military system, blocks
! the way of social progress and con
fuses the thinking of the disciples o
i Christ. 1t is the fear which cost.
!: Europe four hundred millions yea
for armies and navies. Yet it is Ger
| tain that the fear springs from falls.
assumptions and is mostly nourishet
| Ey false alarms 1t IS the duty of tht
! churches to expose all tactics tina
foment war, and by echoing appeal o
history and reason to 'ingerminatt
peace
Another duty the churches mus
discharge is that of teaching the yount
that war is not now Gods schoo
for shaping and fashioning ideal men
We rejoice in the chivalry and honol
the glory of brave soldiers who have
risked their lives for freedom and JUS
tice. But wars day is gone. Life
today, is from first to last an instruc
tion in and training for all the quail
ties of fine manhood. In short, wa
cannot be regarded as SO excellent
school as the businesses and profes
sions which confessedly help and er
rich the world.
Again the churches must teach an
practice the doctrine that not onl
hath God made men of one blood, bu
that all nations are Independent. M
tions cannot do without one another
The world is a cooperative common
wealth. 1t is on this internationa
spirit that we must rely for tn
achievement Of the peace ideal"