The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1916-03-23
>w,oRLD---voLuMk vi. NUMBER II
A RE-. Ply"

~ AAu IL
Starkweather, N. D., Mar. 18, 1916.
Editor Devils Lake Inter-Ocean and
World, Devils Lake, N. D.
Dear Editor: read with much in
terest the article in your late issue re-
lative to my sermon a week ago last
Sunday evening at the court house.
Inasmuch as it was signed, Post No.
SO, G. A. R., assume that the article
was sanctioned by that body. I there
fore beg leave by your courtesy to an
swer thru your honored columns.
I am accused by the author of this
article of characterizing every soldier
who fought in the late Civil War as
murderer and a devil" The author
even intimates that I would and did
place even those who sleep beneath the
sod in the same category of murder
ers and devils". The indictment is
hardly worth an answer to anyone who
heard the sermon. suppose the au-
thor drew the inference, and it is only
an inference, from my statement that
the Quakers believe that the shooting
of a fellow man upon the field of bat
tie is legalized murder and a direct
disobedience Of the specific command
of God, "thou shalt mot kill" My
critic may also have drawn his infer
ence from my statement, that the war
across the seas was wholesale murder
With all due respect to my critic and
to the G. A. R., Post, whom sincerely
respect, l must insist that this cause
less war does so appeal to me. But
to call every soldier in this war, many
of whom are Christian men, by the
ugly name of "murderers and devils"
is manifest peversion of the truth.
Many of them are actuated by the
same lofty conception of Christian
duty as actuated the boys in blue who
back in 81 left Office, and shop, and
plow and marched away to the south,
many of them never to march north
again.
Even tho the war across the seas is
Wholesale murder as it must appeal to
every Christian man, yet no one would
be justified in characterizing either
the soldiers across the seas or those
in the late Civil War as nurderers.
Murder is condition and motive of
the soul. Jesus said: "He that ha-
teth his brother in his heart is mur-
derer." If my critic has ever felt in
his heart hatred toward brother then
at that time, according to the Christ
he was a murderer, just as would be
a murderer if I felt the slightest re-
sentiment toward the one who penned
the article in severe criticism of my
peace sermon.
AS long as am a disciple of Jesus
Christ I shall believe that war IS
wrong - inherently, fundamentally
wrong, as wrong as slavery, piracy, OF
the dueling system. Indeed war is the
duelling system with nations instead
of individuals as the principles. And
farther with the light that have now
I am still fartehr convinced that the
world will never do away with war b.
preparing for war, any more than the
world will ever do away with theft
by preparing people to commit theft
or do away with murder by very care
fully and with the most scientific
methods, teaching men how to commit
murder, or do away with drinking
whiskey by teaching them to drink
whiskey. We do the things that we
prepare ourselves to do. 200 years
ago many good people believed and
practiced duelling. In deed in those
days man who would not fight a due
when challenged was stigmatized as d
coward and ostracised from society
But individual duelling is a thing o1
the past and I am convinced that in q
years from now international duelline
WILL NC q eAlAAlE VI VIC 11oCs 1! C4A1cS
fourths Of the people of every natior
refused to bear arms every interna
tional difficulty would be amicably set.
tied, just as we settle our individus
difficulties by resorting to the courts
instead of borrowing horse-pistols arc
counting off Is PAGES and commencing
to pump lead into each other.
Just word now in regard to wha,
the critic of my sermon is pleased tc
call in one place "my nonsensical rap.
sodies" and in another place "my i'd.
lotto twaddle." Those who heard my
Sunday evening sermon will remembe,
that the entire discourse which my
critic calls "nonsensical rapsodies and
twaddle' was an exposition and appli-
cation of the teachings of Jesus Christ
found in the latter part of the 5th
chapter Of the book of Mathew. Those
teachings of the Christ are as follows.