Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1914-09-07
INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

gence staggered and silenced before
this mighty theatre of war. We have
traced man from the rudest and most
abject conditions of so-called savage
life, to the highest refinement of civ
ilized society-marveled at the rec
ords of antiquity, and concluded that
we of this Christian world and this
Christian age had left behind us the
instincts of barbarity and murder
Wealth seems to be the only thing
that has exalted us, and by its en-
ployment we do things that suggest
to us that they are civilization. But,
after ALL the tent of the miner in the
west or the Arab shiek in the east
differ but little from that which
Abraham pitched on the plains of
Mamre-the Tartar tribes and the
Bulgarian brigands of today are SINH
lar to those who roamed over the
wide sweeps of Scythia-and when
civilization was in its dawn the splen-
did courts of Persepolis and Babylon
were as much the glory of the world
as if they had been fashioned in this
year of grace. The Mesopotamian
plains over which the sons of Terah
drove unmolested their flocks and
herds were more inviting than our
border lands on the south today.
The colossal grandeur of the pow
erful empires; the opulence and mag
nificence OF the cities of the east,
from Tyre to Liege, have been as
chaff before the whirlwind-destruc
tion and decay-and it seems to be
still as it was of old, ITO stain the
pride of all glory, and to bring into
contempt all the honorable of the
earth"
We cannot grasp the astounding
spectacle-milions of men arrayed
in battle line two hundred and
siXty-siX miles long-innocent human
beings arrayed and marshaled before
the machinery of death-reapers and
mowers of men-guns belching forth
tons of lead and shell-proud mans
inventive genius fashioning imple-
ments of war that will kill by the
tens of thousands-andr rich and pow
erful nations purchasing them-and
| lining up the flower of their man.
hood to be moved down as wheat
before the sickle!
Not one nation, but seven nations
of the world-all standing ready and
all in action, within the twinkling of
an eye-with no excuse in Gods
bright world for the fearful slaugh-
| ter.
Human comprehension eclipsed and
blinded. Faculties of reason palsied
and impotent to give a reason why.
, Dazed, demented, bewildered, we
stand appalled, We look-we won.
der-in mute surprise.
But our vision has been limited
We have looked to earth for a reply
to our wondering thoughts. We
should have looked to heaven. It is
not an imperious czar; not strut
ting kaiser; not an emperor, not a
president, that brings on this awful
scourge-but it is God,
Too long anG far too lonG has hu-
manity played it's brutal part. Too
long and far too long have kings
boasted OF divine power which they
did not possess. Too long and far too
long has the commonality been
ground down by the heel OF aristoc-
racy and billions OF dollars levied to
sustain the armies to defend them in
their idleness and luxury. Victor
Hugo claimed that on the field OF
/ Waterloo it was not Wellington, but
1t was God, who saw that the equilib-
rum OF the world were lost il the
bloody hand OF the Corsiean was not
stayed. And those who look and those
who read-those who stand reverent-
ly uncovered before the Creator oi
this world know that He still takes a
hand in its affairs.
And for us to attempt to realize
what it means to see five million men
in battle arraw-and then wonder
why they are thus arrayed-all ma
tionalities end all races standing W
to take their medicine-impelled by
a power that they cannot resist tc
walk to the open slaughter pen-wert
as though we were to attempt to solve
the miracle OF the seed. Maybe after
this is over-the greatest war in the
whole worlds history-"He shall
judge among the nations. and shall
rebuke many people; and they sha:
beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hoods,
nations shall not lift mp sword agains
nation, neither shall they learn wal
any more.'
Let us hope!
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