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THE CHURCH AND THE PAX ECUMENICA
By Robert Stuart MacArthur, Minister of Calvary Baptist Church, New York City, since May 15, 1870.
Address Delivered at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, Mohonk Lake, Uster County, N. Y.
Seventeenth Annual Meeting, May 24-26, 1911.
S THE advocates of universal and
perpetual peace came up to Lake
Mohonk this year, the words of
the old Psalm expressed their joy
ous experiences: “Then was our
mouth filled with laughter, and
our tongue with singing.” All ob
servers of current events must
say, regarding the lovers of
LU
peace: “Jehovah hath done great things for
them;” and all the peacemakers can make
glad reply: ‘‘Jehovah hath done great things
for us, whereof we are glad.” Advocates of
peace sowed in tears; they now reap in joy.
Influences have gone out from these noble
hills, this quiet lake, this hospitable home,
and the brave men and women who have as
sembled here from year to year as the guests
of Albert K. Smiley—influences which have
been felt in cabinets, parliaments, and pal
aces, and which have girdled the globe. Here
we dreamed our dreams, cherished our hopes,
and voiced our prophecies. These dreams are
now becoming realities, these hopes fruitions,
and these prophecies fulfilments. We already
see the approach of the day prophesied by
Micah, when strong nations shall beat their
swords into ploughshares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks; when nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more. We have great
reason to thank God and take courage.
We ought to rejoice in the noble words of
the President of the United States, in his
declaration that all matters of national honor
may as truly be referred to a court of arbi
tration, as matters of national proprietor
ship. In so declaring, the President took a
more advanced position as statesman, hu
manitarian, and religionist, than that occu
pied by any other head of a nation in the
world. He will be crowned with unfading
honor for the heroic words which he has
spoken. He has come to the Republic for
such a time as this. His management of the
delicate questions growing out of the treaty
with Japan, in eliminating the clause which
was offensive to Japan, adds greatly to his
honor as well as to that of the Secretary
of State. It seems almost certain that the
arbitration treaty with Great Britain will be
ratified. This treaty will mark the dawn of a
new day for these two English-speaking na
tions, and for civilization around the globe.
Eventually France and Germany will be in
cluded in the pax. The Pax-Americana, Bri
tannica, Franca, and Germanica, will make
the Pax-Ecumenica eventually absolutely cer
tain. These four nations united for peace will
practically make war impossible on any part
of this globe. President Taft has become the
leader of a holy crusade against war; he is as
truly a leader in this crusade as the immortal
Lincoln was in the crusade against slavery.
As we look at the progress which has been
made toward the realization of our hopes for
universal peace, we may well sing a Te Deum
as we come up to this Seventeenth Annual
meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference on
International Arbitration. Compared with
the early days when Dodge and Ladd and
Burritt laid the foundations, how glorious, is
now the rising structure! Even in the earlier
days at Lake Mohonk, we were like those
that dream. So-called practical men smiled
patronizingly on our assemblies, and read in
credulously our prophecies. Today the sun
of a new era is rising. Already the eastern
sky is radiant with the crimson and gold of
this diviner day; already the angels are pre
paring to chant anew the song which rolled
over the plains of Bethlehem when the Christ
was bom, “Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will toward men.”
The Golden Age for June 15,1911.
The Church and Humanity.
We are prepared to affirm this incontro
vertible proposition: There is no interest of
humanity regarding which the Church can
be indifferent, and remain loyal to her ex
alted Lord. The Church must adapt herself
to the conditions of today. The killing of
man by man international war is as certain
to cease as the sun is certain to rise tomor
row. The day is coming when we shall look
back with as much wonder and horror on in
struments of war as we now look upon in
struments of torture as they have been pre
served in public museums. It must be ad
mitted that the Church has too often opposed
humanitarian reforms. She waited until re
form movements had become victorious, and
then she had to assume an apologetic atti
tude. She ought to have been the heroic
leader instead of being the tardy follower.
Had she so led, she would have been crowned
with honor. The Church has often been si
lent regarding reforms, when her voice ought
to have rung out like a trumpet. The ab
sence of clergymen at European Peace Con
gresses has often been the subject of com-
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? REV. ROBT. STUART MACARTHUR. ?
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ment. Fortunately, both in Great Britain
and in the United States, churches are now
becoming potent factors in the movement for
peace. The time has come when the Church
must see that the killing of men is incon
sistent with the religion of the Prince of
Peace. The Church must remember that as
God is our Father, all men our brothers. Jesus
Christ came not to destroy but to save men
for both worlds. The Church must remem
ber that there is a higher use for men than
to kill their fellowmen, or to be killed by their
fellowmen. There is need that we remember
the words of Torence, the Roman writer and
actor of plays, when he said: “I am a man,
and I deem nothing common to man foreign
to me.” It is said that when these words
were pronounced in a Roman theater, they
evoked tumultuous applause. These words
might have been spoken by the Apostle Paul;
indeed, if they appeared in the Sermon on
the Mount, they would not seem unworthy
of him who spake as never man spake. The
Church must surely come up to the high ideal
of this Roman poet.
Humanity’s Greatest Evil.
We are prepared to utter another proposi
tion : There is no interest of humanity more
important than the preservation of universal
and perpetual peace. Compared with war all
other ills to which humanity is heir are in
significant. War is the child of Hades, and
it evermore leads to the place of its birth.
War is often as foolish as it is generally
wicked. The great majority of wars could
have been avoided, and the incalculable loss
of property and life would have been saved.
Today foremost philanthropists, statesmen,
and publicists are placing themselves in the
ranks of the peacemakers. The late King
Edward VII. gloried in the title, “Peacema
ker.” He gave his best thought to the pre
servation of peace throughout the world. The
foremost thinkers today in every civilized
land are the men most interested in the pre
servation of peace with honor. Peace is vir
tually the profession of all men in the United
States; our nation is really a great Peace So
ciety. The church is now discovering that
she must strive to save society, so that the
will of God may be done on earth, in some
measure, as it is in heaven. The great busi
ness organiztions, the socialistic societies, as
well as the distinctively church federations
are using their best endeavors to make peace
universal and permanent. We already have,
in the new world which has recently come,
the realization of Tennyson’s dream of “The
Parliament of Man”; tomorrow, we shall have
the fulfilment of his other prophecy, “The
Federation of the World.” It has been
abundantly shown that wars settle no moral
questions; they simply show which nation is
the stronger by having the better credit.
How much wiser would it have been for the
Boers and the British to have settled their
difficulties by arbitration than by war. How
much saner both Russia and Japan would
have been, had they done in the first place
what they did in the last—settled their diffi
culties by conciliation, concession, and arbi
tration.
It has been shown that the money spent in
one battleship would build a Harvard Uni
versity, and leave enough to erect a Tuskegee
Institute. All the forces of civilization in our
century tend toward the elimination of war.
These forces are really massed against the
common foe of humanity. All great religious
denominations, all humanitarian societies, all
Masonic and other fraternities, all inter
changes of college professors, all great relig
ious congresses, as well as the financial in
terests of nations, make for peace and plead
against war. Churches are now seeing that
wars are directly opposed to the noblest
ideals of missionary societies. Wars do more
to plunge nations into darkness in a few years
than missionary societies can do to illumine
them in generations. Rightly to serve God is
truly to love our brother. In recent days, sec
tionalism has become nationalism, and na
tionalism is becoming internationalism. Men
today are cosmopolites as never before. The
nineteenth century was characterized by na
tional development; the twentieth century
will be marked by international development.
Men today are the citizens of the world; they
are brothers of humanity; they are heirs of a
common destiny. The great conferences at
The Hague marked the dawn of the new era,
and are prophetic of eras still more humane
and celestial. It has already been proved by
Chile and Argentina that all matters of dis
pute between nations may be settled by arbi
tration. The new world is already born.
Humanity’s New Ideals.
How shall the churches realize these no
blest ideals? The foundation is already laid
for the new humanity; its structure will go
forward apace.
We need new ideals of heroism. The man
