New Britain herald., 1918-01-14


 we shall have to bear the penalty.
 Certainly if we allow them to be ruined or lost in any other prevent able way we shall be held account
 able.
 'fNoW war is but murder on a large | scale. If not one bully, but a million. try to enter your homeland and de- fame it and it's people, and will not
 be restrained by reason, it becomes not a, quest'oa of whether we have a
 righ. to resist; it becomes a question
 of whether God will not hold us ac-
 countable if we do not resist.
 Our Duty to Enter War.
 When human nature becomes ut
 terly depraved, but remains powerful,
 there is but one way to meet it and
 that is with greater power. We have
 long since recognized this in the case of the individual, but it is equally true in that larger social order we call the state. Have you no duty to your
 neighbor when he is drowning; have you no duty to your neighbOr when
 his house is on fire; have you no
 duty to your neighbor when a passion
 ate brute would destroy his family? Indeed you have and you will feel it if there is a, spark of manhood in you. For the same reason America
 had a duty to our European neigh
 bors. If America had stayed out of
 this war when her neighbors across
 the sea were being burned out and
 driven to death and disgrace, she would have been a moral coward and culpable sinner She might have protected herself and grown fat upon the blood of her kin over ther, but
 she would have lost her soul in the most damnable hell known on earth, that of the selfish uncOncern for weak
 humanity when it is oppressed and down trodden by brute force because
 of it's stand for the right. She would
 have ultimately lost her national hon.
 or, if not her national existence.
 America entered this war because of
 the. danger to those free institutions
 upon which this country was builded
 and has ever lived. She entered this
 war because liberty and justice and
 humanity here and abroad were not
 only attacked but were in danger of
 defeat, and America will remain in
 the war until the forces which seek
 the death of democracy shall be de- throned and shackled and brought to the bar Of justice.
 Poison Vs. Poison.
 Sometimes the only thing that will kill poison is poison, and a man is a fool who refuses to use poison under such conditions. More crime and misery can be laid at the feet of alcohol than most any modern demon, but if a doctor in whom I have con- fidence tells me that alcohol is the only thing that will save my life, or that of my friend or loved one, I in- tend to use alcohol I know some would not, but l would consider my self not only injudicious but wicked not to do it. So when the statesmen in whom I have confidence tell me that military force is necessary to the life of the state and of democracy. I think I am foolish and wicked if I I oppose it's use, though I know it's
 limitations. I take it as a stimulant and at the same time denounce it as a food. Physical force has fallen into the hands of mad men and that force must be wrested from them by sane men who have no alternative now but to use a stronger physical force. (And it seems to me that those who do not stand for this are either weak minded, weak kneed or weak con scienced, and they ought to be sent, every one of them, where they will not be heard from till the war is over.)
 But this must not be done in the spirit of retaliation if it is to be Christian. I think we have here the secret of Jesus meaning in these oft discussed passa ges about turning the other cheek and giving the second cloak Jesus utterances must be o:,7Io given rather than after a literal in terpretation. There are those literal ists who look to the Bible for spe- cific precept to suit every human ill. The Bible to them is sort of a What To Do Till the Doctor Comes book. There has never been crisis in history but that they have sought and found a definite teaching with which to SubStanti1te their claims. This was true in the days of the Civil War and has ever been so. But Jesus was not a iteraliSt. He was an 1 oriental and much of His teaching was given as figuratiVe and illustrative rather than as legal He gave princi- Dle in the form of precept, and knew that the people of His day and class ! wOuld understand that these were not intended to be taken as applying with out variation to all cases alike, but
 were representative of the spirit which should actuate all our attitudes. i If Jesus did not mean this, then He l violated His own teachings as have
 His disciples and all His followers. Must Fight to Finish.
 I've are to meet hostility and hate ! in the spirit of kindness and love, but 1 that does not mean that we are to
 meekly submit to insult and abuse and