Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-06-18
BRYAN'S CHALLENGE
TO CHRISTIANITY
Great Commoner Pleads That
NatiOnSubstitute Law of Love
Instead of That of Force, in
Dealing With Warning
Nations.

Text: But in vain they do worship
me, teaching for doctrines. the COM
mandments of men.-JesuS Christ.
Mir. Editor-The following extracts
are taken at random IRON Mr. Bryans
Statement to the American People,"
"The nations will learn that enduring
peace cannot be built upon-that
good will does not grow upon the
stalk of violence. Some nation
m ust lead the world out of the black
night of war. Why not make that
honor ours-why not now? Some
day the nations will place their trust
in love, the weapon for which there is
no shield; in love, that though des-
pissed as weakness by worshippers of
Mars, abideth when all else fails.
The real issue is not between persons;
it is between systems. Force speaks
with firmness and acts though the
ultimatum; persuasion employs argu-
ment, courts investigation and de-
pends upon negotiation. Force repre-
sents an old system-a system that
must pass away; persuasion repre-
sents the new systematic system
that has been growing, all too slowly,
it is true, but growing for nineteen
hundred years. In the old system war
is the chief cornerstone; the new sys-
tenn contemplates Il universal bro
therhood established through the up
lifting power of example. = *The
war in Europe is the ripened fruit
of the old system. This is what firm
ness, supported by force, has done in
the old world; shall we invite it to
cross the Atlantic?
"If | correctly interpret the note
to Germany, it conforms to the stan
dards of the old system rather than
to the rules of the new"
With these words William j. Bryan
has challenged Christian America and
thrown down the gauntlet to the in
dividual Christian.
In the midst of war unparalleled
in the history of the world in scope
and ferocity and which threatens to
draw this nation into the maelstrom,
MIR. Bryan, claiming no divine com
mission, ignores pagan precedent and
pleads that our government Substi-
tute the law of love and persuasion
for the law of force and hate. He has
interpreted the message of the her.
aid angels as divine offer of prac-
tical guidance in paths of peace and
good will. He says in effect that the
new Commandment is sane and prac-
tlcal; that the principles first enun-
ciated by Christ should rule in the
organized mass as in the individual
heart. The entire superstructure of
his argument in support of the course
which apparently has doomed him to
political exile and social and reli-
gious ostracism, rests upon founda-
ton that since the beginning of the |
Christian era by holy men has been
deemed unassailable and of divine ori- |
gin.
Are ministers of the GOSPEL willing
to concede that the tenets of the
Christian faith are too impracticable
to be effectively Incorporated in the |
laws of the nations as guide for
organized society-that they were
proclaimed by Christ solely for the
Improbable spiritual delectation of
theorists and mystics?
ror nlneIeen nunureu years men |
VINO nave answered " Ine nign cali
ing Oh Jne ministry, Iet,uers oI OnrIs-
Lii.il lnougnC, ana eAeAupiuIs VI CIflS- |
Liain conuucI, nave ueen ,eacnIng,
DIesseu are lIe peace-nianeIs Ivr
Lney snail De caiIeu the cniiuIvu OF
Hou. Wnosoever therefore Snaii
DIeaK one OF JneSe least command
inenLS ana Sn;iii Leacn men so, ne
snail De called Lne IeasC III the KING
NOii VI iiCeiHGll, DuI WuOSOCNcT
uo ana teach them, the same snail be
caiied The greatest IN the klnguom OF
neven.' Wnen Tor Tile nrsC Iime IN
history Il cIvllIan statesman who
cialnls TO be nolhmg more than an
numDIe 1oIower OF Lne Divine Law
giver, and turns to the anthem OF the
lSaulVlty and to the Sermon on the
MounC Tor vindlcatlon OF his course
IN Il great national crisis, what shall
be SAID OF those priests of God who
by their condemnation of that course
nave refused to endorse the applica-
ton OF the cardinal principe of
Chrlstlanity-the capstone OF the
Christian structure-Jo the body poll
tic? The scribes and Pharisees cruci-
tied Christ for inaugurating the very
system which Mr.. Bryan insists
snould take the place of the pagan
system which prevails in our govern
ment at the present time; and few,
II any, of the maligned and bedeviled
eX-Secretary'S MINISTERIAL traducerS
will be called on to suffer such per-
secution for righteousness sake as is
being heaped upon him by some of
these same rigidIy righteous forerun-
ners of the mliienium.
IL is not a matter for surprise that
trolled by the whiskey trust and the
great industries that profit directly
and largely by war should embrace
this oportunity to further abuse and
cheaper the man for whose scalp they
have been itching for twenty years;
scarcely less could be expected of the
unchristian rabble that has slipped
it's thin veneer of civilization in a
mad lust for the blood of a frenzied
militarism that has been unleashed in
a monstrous debauch of rapine
and murder; easily accounted for are
the outraged feelings Of professional
politicians and half-baked statesmen
whose thoughts were never raised
above the stale level of civil pre-
.cedent. But it is inconceivable that a
majority of the ministers of this
country, the accredited ENJOYS of
Jesus Christ, should denounce openly
and without qualification the one man
who has dared to lift the Cross of
the Master against the lurid brink of
war-denounce as a contemplate