Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-12-12
Times of Prosperity Breed
Vice, Not Virtue; Overflow
ing Wealth Is Peril of Our
Republic
BY Bishop w. A.Candler

In proclaiming the national Thanks
giving President wiIson@ca upon all
the people to give thanks to God for
the peace and prosperity prevalent in
our land. Such blessings should evoke
the deepest gratitude to our heavenly
Father; but in taking account of them
we should not lose sight of the fact
that they bring very great perils to
our moral and spiritual life. Peace
and prosperity may be curses as well
as blessing; and curses they will be,
If they are misused.
Rev. Newell Dwight Hills recently
said, in an address at the Old John
Street Methodist church in New York
that the war was a blessing to Europe.
He insisted that France, England, Ger
many are all being purified by the
mighty conflagration. He read a let
ter he had received from a surgeon in
France in which it was said: war is
of God it is peace that is hell"
This view of war and peace will
shock many people. and the harsh words
in which it is expressed will be still
more offensive; but there is truth I'M
derlying these words. which we should
not overlook.
Many years ago John Ruskin said
that war is the foundation of all the
high virtues and faculties of men," Aft
er making this declaration he continued
in the following striking paragraph.
ut is very strange to me to discover
this: and very dreadful-but 1 see it TO
be quite an undeniable fact. The COM
mon notion that peace and the virtues OF
civil life have flourished together; 1
have found to be wholly untenable.
Peace and the vices of civil life only
flourish together. We talk of peace
and learning, and of peace and plenty,
and of peace and civilization; but find
that those were not the words which the
muse of history coupled together: that
on her lips, the words were-peace and
sensuality. peace and selfishness, peace
and corruption, peace and death. 1
find in brief. that all great nations
learned their truth in WORD, and strength
of thought. in war; that they were nour-
ished in war, and wasted by peace;
taught by war, and deceived by peace
in a word, that they were born in war
and expired in peace"
q Neither DR.. Hills nor John Rusk-
in meant to glorify the cruelties
and bloodshed of war. These things
are repulsive to all thoughtful and
good people. But it is fact that
times of peace and prosperity breed
vices rather than virtues. During
\ gent, and in an atmosphere of self
indulgence high virtues cannot sur
vive The desire to escape pain and
find pleasuer overrides every nobler
sentiment of the soul. Every heroic
impulse is suffocated in the heavy
atmosphere. The convictions OF
conscience are hushed while the
voices of personal comfort cry for
qualification.
At such times men forget God and
trample the divine law under their feet.
And when they forget God and desplse
law, they practice injustice upon their
fellowmen and disregard the rights of
others in pursuing their own interests.
Very significant is the warning which
Moses gave the children of Israel, when
they were about to end their wandering
in the wilderness and enter the Land of
Promise After telling the Israelites
that God would bring them into "a good
land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and depths that's spring out
of valleys and hills; a land of wheat
and barley, vines and fig trees and pome-
granates land of oil, olive and honey"
a land wherein they would eat bread
without scarceness, nor lack and good
thing, the great law-giver warned them
against the dangers 'of the prosperity
which would come to them in such a
country. He said:
when thou hast eaten and art
full. then thou shalt bless the Lord
thy God for the good land which he
hath given thee.
Beware that thou forget not the
Lord thy God, in not keeping his
commandments, and his judgments,
and his statutes, which I command
thee this day:
Lest when thou hast eaten. and
are full and hast built goodly
houses, and dwelt therein;
And when thy herds and thy f1ocks