household, and proceed to their fields and destroy
also ? No, you answer, there is a law in the land to
protect you, a higher authority to appeal to.
Well, I say to the nations, there is a God in the land. A higher authority. Appeal to Him.
But, you answer, there is no God: or what is much the same thing, you refuse to trust, to believe that nothing can wrong you so long as you do no wrong. Yery well, even admit there is no God, and you will find there is a moral idea of right in the world to-day that will not let one nation long oppress another.
Beasts have gone back to the jungles. Theseus may sleep and Hercules put aside his club and surrender to love. Man is no more in danger from them.
Savage men have passed away. They come not down from the north nor up from the south; and even if they did, I believe they could be won to us by kindness and an appeal to their sense of right. But should that not be possible, I know their favour could be bought with a hundredth part of the time and money that is spent in a single war.
The loss of life in war is not much it is the least of all things to be thought of. Men who fall in battle have mostly seen enough of life. Many have passed its prime, all have seen its spring, and they do not, on an average, lose more than ten or a dozen years. It is the bad moral effect. Towns grow up again; ships rebuild, and nations someh
