Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-08-31
AN HONORABLE PEACE
A Thing To Be Desired The Sin And
The Sinner.
fConnunicated.)

Of August 81. at to the desirability OF
an honorable peace as the outcome
of this ruthless war so suddenly
sprung upon a startled and unpre-
pared world by Germany in the sum
mer of 1914 The Holy Catholic
Church lof which the writer, like
Miss Carr, is also a member) hearth
~ agrees with the object sought by
the Bishop of Rome. popularity known
as the Pope In this he is joined by
the other branches of the Holy Catho-
Ii Church. the Anglican represent
ed in America by the now out-worn
and never appropriate title OF the
Protestant Episcopal church,, the
Greek Catholic, the Syrian, the Cop
tic, and the other churches having the
Apostolic succession, as did the Church
of Briton several hundred of years be-
fore ST Augustine landed in England.
These several Communions claim the
same authority as did St Peter him
self: that OF equality among peers. no
more. no less. These statements are
so fully proved by the early history
Of the Catholic Church, by the
archives of early monasteries, the
writings of S. S. Polycarp, Augustine,
Chrysostom, ct al, that it is not seri-
ously disputed by any one who has
studied the records So Miss Carr is
mistaken, as she will be glad to learn.
in her fears. that the motives of
Benedict XIV are generally misun-
derstood and misrepresented.r That
great fellow-Catholic. James Cardinal
Gibbons, expresses the mind of all
Catholics when he says that the let
ter of the Pope in its application
recognizes that no peace can be pos
sible without a spirit of Cancellation
and mutual willingness TO make con-
cessions and Combinations; but that
he believes such rule applied only
to matters of detail and of secondary
Importance"
He does not believe that anybody
will be disposed to consider the rights
OF Belgium as a question of that kind,
but as one Of the first Importance,
entering into the very heart and es-
sence of the whole conflict, wherein,
III OIutI W IuGiitg AiG AOhoNAShAC VA
humanity, every claim of justice must
be fully met and satisfied. He thinks
also that the insistence on the right
of every people to choose freely its
own form of government-the very
cornerstone of civilization-will give
new impetus to civil liberty
throughout the world.
never make a right-that the COM
mandments "Thou shalt do no MUIR
der" and Thou shall not covet' your
neighbours property, mean exactly
what they say That forgiveness"
of sin does not mean that the sin for
given is no longer a sin and is not as
black and wicked as it ever was
The sin is hated but the sinner is for
given Therefore, he has nothing but
condemnation for the sin against Bel
GUM. her wives, daughters, men and
murdered, orphaned and starved lit
tie children He would. therefore,
condemn as he would the slaughter
this proclamation posted on the walls
of Belgium cities as far back as Octo-
Der. 1914 1t was signed by Field
Marshal Won der Goltz, dated October
l. 1914, and says:
"The localities nearest to the spot
where railways have been destroyed
or telegraph lines cut--it does not
matter whether they were accom-
plices or not-will be punished with
out mercy"
The second proclamation was post
ed on the walls of Wavre on the 22nd
of August and is signed by General
Won Bulow, commanding the second
army. it imposed war contribution
of three million francs on the town
of Wavre, and concluded with these
words:
The town of Wavre will be burned
and destroyed if the payment is not
made at the proper time. and then no
consideration will be shown for any
body; the innocent will have TO suf-
fer with the guilty"
l submit the above without COM
ment for obvious reasons.
The writer has no prejudice against
the German people. His ancestors
numbered natives of Weimar, among
them, by tradition, the immortal
Goethe. and sons of snow-peaked
Switzerland. He has been train
ed from childhood to regard the typi-
cal German as a God-fearing, kindly,
domestic man. Honest, devout. clean
in his life, loving his home, his fam
lily and. like Abou ben Hassan, his
fellow-man. Celebrating his Christ
mas by the lighted tree-the Tanner
baum" surmounted by the figure of
the gentle "Christchild" So it is
doubly hard to have these early inn
pressions erased and the picture of a
cruel, bloody, murderous Junker sub
stituted in its stead. But the events
of the last few years, supplemented
by what we now know has been plot
ted and designed for a half century
or more, seem to tell us that we did
not know our once-believed kind and
gentle neighbor The ohsession, the
yeritable insanity. has taken the form
of self-exaltation, illusions of gran
deur, so well known TO alienists in
the persons of patients with demen-
tia praecox. Thus. under the hypnotic
influence of Wilhelm Hohenzollern,
they really believe that they are the
chosen people," the dominating race
foreordained TO dominate the world.
Under this delusion their capacity for
orientation has become fatally warp