ye
Me)

to the inherent dignity of human nature. They furnish recruits,
but a stern discipline is necessary before those recruits can be
made steady and good soldiers. And when the work to be done
is not the mere destruction of evil, but the reconstruction of
society, no atmosphere is less likely to produce solid and effective
work than fiery indignation. It is scarcely possible for any but
God Himself so to be angry that sin is excluded and salvation
achieved. Those of us who have been engaged in social reform,
in opposing the power of the drink traffic or the abomination of
white slavery, know only too well how passion darkens counsel
and gives the advantage to the very enemies that we are
endeavouring to defeat. I am certain that at the present moment
Christian workers will show themselves the truest patriots by
kindling in the heart of the nation the fire of redemptive love,
which is the very motive of that Cross on which the Son of God
was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil.
The task of reconstruction must be begun now in the building
ap of that habit of mind in which alone, when the war is over,
the reconciliation of a bruised and battered world can be
achieved. Pray do not imagine that in what I say I am
presuming to touch the question, when we may rightly consider
that the danger of a speedy recrudescence of the present conflict
has been averted. We are all at one in believing that no stone
should be left unturned to make it impossible that, if nothing
further is accomplished, our children and our children’s children
should be involved in the horror which has darkened the lives of
the present generation. But might can never prove that might is
not right. ‘We should only show how uncertain was our faith in
the righteousness of the cause for which we stood if we accepted
defeat at the hands of a stronger enemy as a settlement of the
question which provoked the conflict. If I grapple with a burglar
it is only because I can see no other way of protecting my goods.
If he overcomes my resistance, I do not admit his right of
pillage. But it will be acknowledged that, if I can succeed in
convincing him of the error of his way, I have conferred a lasting
benefit upon society, such as I could never have accomplished
by knocking him down. And there is only one way of crushing
militarism, which so long as it is unconvinced will remain as a
standing menace to all social and international reconstruction,
and that is by separating the reason and sentiment of mankind
from the folly which is ready to put the fabric—painfully reared,
it may be, through decades or even centuries of persevering
labour—at the hazard of a few months, or it may be days, of
senseless destruction.
We cannot, therefore, set about the work of reconstruction
with any hope of a success which will lift the whole life of the
world to a higher plane, if we are content to leave the problem
of war just where we found it, trusting to such success as may