have been granted to our arms, to a better organization of our
fleets and armies, and to the old methods of diplomacy and the
balance of power to avert a disaster like that which has
overwhelmed the world into which we were born. If S0, we
shall only once more be building our cities on the edge of a
volcano. We must, I say it advisedly, hate war. We must
exorcise its spirit. We must cease to believe that it can ever be
redeemed by the chivalry it evokes, the sacrifices it inspires, the
discipline it entails. Discipline, sacrifice, and chivalry are
splendid capacities of human nature with which war has nothing
to do. Men and women will still be required to die for their
country, for the human race, and for God when war is no longer
recognized as a legitimate incident in the life of nations. They
will be needed, they are needed every day, because we are not
so foolish as to identify the cessation of war with the advent of
the millennium, or to suppose that the age-long conflict between
good and evil will ever cease until the kingdoms of this world
have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Messiah.
But war, as we know it, is based upon the ultimate assumption
 that one nation is necessarily the rival of another.” It
means that Bernhardism is not confined to one nation, but
enters in varying degrees into the ideals of all. To demand its
abolition is not to assume that in an imperfect world aggression
will never be attempted by a country that develops anti-social
tendencies. It does not mean that we are at once to disband
armies, disperse fleets, dismantle defences, and then capitulate to
violence whenever it is offered. We know that lawlessness will
raise its head among the family of nations, as it still does among
the citizens of states. But can anything be more unlike the use of
force in the administration of a nation’s justice than the spectacle
which this great war presents? The repression of the murderer
and the thief does not involve the dislocation of the national
life, the infliction of suffering on a multitude of innocent
persons, the loosing of rage and hatred, the inevitable mixture
of less worthy motives with the desire to vindicate truth, the
absence of all judicial process, and of the arraignment of the
offender before a calm and competent bar. The elimination
of force as a factor in the control and progress of the world can
only occur as the growth of a higher conscience renders it
obsolete. But there is no reason why force should not be
brought under discipline and made the handmaid of law and not
the instrument of passion for nations no less than for individuals.
We are bound to seek out some method of restraining the wrongdoer
 which shall not let slip the hounds of hell. We can only
do this if we are prepared to set our faces against every form of
patriotism which can only be pursued through jealousy of other
countries, and patiently to adopt a policy of mutual trust which
refuses to believe in any national rivalry save in the contributions