How many pages of history are written with the point of the sword—not with ink, but tears and blood? It is chiefly taken up with the recital of wars. What age has not been the era, what country the scene of bloody strifes? What soil does not hold the dust of thousands that have fallen by brothers’ hands? Our glebes have been fattened with the bodies of the slain? On those fields where, with the lark carolling overhead, the peasant drives his ploughshare, other steel than the sickle has glanced, and other shouts have risen than those of happy reapers bearing some blushing, sun-browned maid on their broad shoulders at the Harvest Home. The tall gray stones, the hoary cairns, tell how on other days these quiet scenes were disturbed by the roar of battle, and lay red with another dye than that of heath or purple wild flowers. Go wherever our foot may wander, we find tokens of war; and select what age soever we may, since Abel fell beneath a brother’s hand, we find in man’s first death, and the earth’s first lone grave, a bloody omen of future and frequent crimes. What a commentary is human history on these words of Holy Scripture, “The whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain till now!—nor shall it cease to groan, or hail the day of its redemption, till the Prince of Peace is enthroned in the heart of all nations, and the labours of missionaries have extended that kingdom to the ends of the earth, whose triumphs are bloodless—whose walls are Salvation and her gates Praise.”
Without disparagement to the happy influence of education, the extension of commerce, and the efforts of benevolent men, the real Peace Society is the Church of God; the olive branch which the Spirit, dove-like, is bearing on blessed wing to a troubled world, is the Word of God; and the gospel’s is the voice which, like Christ’s on Galilee’s waves, shall speak peace to a distracted earth, and change its wildest passions into a holy calm. Till all nations receive the Bible in its integrity and own it as their only rule of policy, till kings reign for Christ and lay their crowns at His feet, a lasting peace is an idle dream. Treaties will no more bind nations that lie under the influence of unsanctified passions, that chains him who dwelt among the tombs, and within whom dwelt a legion of devils. Till other and better days come, the best cemented peace is only a pause—a truce—an armistice; the breathing-time of exhausted combatants. Alas, that it should be so: yet true it is, that that nation dooms itself to disaster, if not destruction, which, pursuing only the arts of peace, leaves its swords to rust, and its navies to rot, and forts with empty embrasures to moulder into ruins. The trumpet of the world’s Jubilee has not yet sounded, nor have all the vials of the Apocalypse been emptied of the wrath of God. And so, till the nations have emerged from spiritual darkness; till God’s Word is an open book, and duly honoured in all lands; till immorality has ceased to weaken the bonds of social happiness, discontent to rankle in the bosom of the people, and ambition to fire the breasts of kings, the world may expect ever and anon to hear the voice of Joel sounding out this trumpet call, “Prepare ye war; wake up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near—beat your ploughshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears—put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.”
Better days are coming—some think near at hand. Turning a seer’s eye on futurity, Isaiah descried them in the far distance—saw the reign of the Prince of Peace—Jesus crowned King of kings and Lord of lords—swords beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks—every man, whether at hall or cottage door, sitting under the shade of his vine and fig-tree—the whole earth quiet, and at rest. And glad is the Church, as, weary of strife and sin and sorrow, she looks up into the darksome sky, and cries, Watchman, what of the night? to get a hopeful response,—to catch any sign, in break, or blush, or gray gleam however feeble, that seems to reply, The morning cometh! Come blessed morn, come Prince of Peace—come Lord Jesus—come quickly! Let wars cease unto the ends of the earth! Scatter Thou the people that delight in war.
The vision tarries, but come it shall. In answer to the cry of blood that rises to heaven with a different voice from that of Abel’s, peace shall reign and wars shall cease. By the hands that men nailed to a cross God will break the bow, the battle, and the spear—burning the chariot in the fire. And though any peace which our age may enjoy should be only a breathing-time, but a pause in the roar of the bloody tempest, let us improve it to remedy all wrongs at home; to educate our ignorant and neglected masses; to eradicate the vices that disgrace and degrade our nation; to build up the Church wherever it lies in ruins; to extend not so much Britain’s empire as Christ’s kingdom abroad, and so hasten forward the happy time when the Song of the Angels shall be echoed from every land, and the voices of the skies of Bethlehem shall be lost in the grander, fuller, nobler chorus of all nations, singing, Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men!
