Peace will come to a wartorn world, if we will only listen

Life has a way of meeting our wants, just as nature gives strong roots to the tree on the windy cliff, white fur to wild animals in wintertime, waterproof underwear to birds that live on the sea and calloused hands to the workers.

There is a name for all this, and scientists can explain how it all comes about.

Following the obliging ways of nature, man has tried to help himself in the matter of times and seasons.

Before we go into the coldest part of winter, we celebrate the gayest, liveliest festival of the year, the home-going, hatedestroying Christmas, with star and candle, blazing hearth fires and sparking tables. It satisfies something in us to usher in January days with warmth, light and colour, and by these we hope to cheat what is usually the gloomiest season.

So, too, in the spring, when the winter is over and the sap begins to rise, a frenzy of cleaning seizes us, we want to paint and paper, rake up the debris of winter, dig and sow, and joyously prepare for a new crop. The long days of waiting are over; life has come out of death and so we throw off the smother of storm-windows, and woollen underwear, and rejoice with the rivers when they break their chains, and with the first meadowlark when he drives his mellow note across the plain. It’s Easter then, and the bells ring out, and hope and joy are in the air.

Man has made for himself other holidays, of less significance than these, yet all are designed to add to the dignity of the race and the harmony of human relations.

Tomorrow, Nov. 11, we celebrate the Armistice, the cessation of war. In 1918, it came on us as a day of rejoicing and a day of mourning. The war was over but the price was heavy, and yet we told each other that the men who died had died for freedom.

But now, doubts are in our minds, and a great bewilderment has come to the world. We have certainly lost the peace of 1918. We know now, as Edith Cavell said before the bandage was put over her eyes, that “patriotism is not enough; we have to learn to love everyone.” We did not know that in 1918. So this year, 1939, it will be best for us not to spend the two-minute silence in tribute to our grave and gallant dead. They have entered into their inheritance, and need no tribute or tear of ours to sanctify their rest. It will be better for us to think of ourselves this year and try to find wherein we have failed our fellow men.

Humanity has surely taken the wrong road; and that is why it is now wandering in the wilderness of destruction and pain.

Every military parade, every man in uniform, every guard who, gun in hand, defends our ports, is a mute confession that we have not learned to live with our fellow men. We do not even need to go that far to be reminded of our failure.

There are feuds in families, feuds in churches, feuds between neighbours. We need not wonder when all these are added together, all over the world, we have war. How could it be otherwise?

We have tried to speak to Germany, with leaflets and through radio messages. We have tried to tell them that they are worshipping false gods, who will bring them to ruin. And we have endeavoured to make them understand we are friendly to them, and if they will get rid of their wicked and untruthful rulers, we will reach out our hands in friendship to them, and make a settlement of the trouble in Europe, which will give them their share of the good things in life.

There are many difficulties in the way of the German people. Their chances for reading these kindly and vital messages are small. They are in danger of their lives, if they are seen reading these. Perhaps they cannot believe them, even if they do read them. They may say: “The British and French are deceiving us and really planning our complete destruction.”

We wish the Germans were a little faster in their minds. Some of us go so far as to say they are dull flatheads, hugging their chains, happier in their bondage than they would be in freedom. They can understand nothing but a blow! So we say, in our blindness.

Why should we be hard on anyone for failing to discern the truth when it is put before them? We are so dull ourselves. We should be charitable to all dullness.

In this country, and in the whole British Empire, a real plan for peace has been put before us for centuries. Christ knew the needs of the world, when He preached the Sermon on the Mount. And what have we done with it?

We have argued about it. We have split up into many factions over it. We have read books about it, listened to sermons, read lovely poetry about it which made us go all misty-eyed and sentimental. We have done almost everything with the Plan for Peace, except trying it. And we haven’t the excuse the German people have, for not any of us are in danger of our lives if we accept it, nor do we really doubt its truth. We all pay lip service to it. Indeed, most of us have seen it at work in the lives of others.

What, then, is our trouble? And what can we do about it, now, on Armistice Day?

Let us suppose that, for the two minutes tomorrow, when every wheel stops turning, and every voice is still, we listen to the Inner Voice, called by some the Voice of Conscience, and by others the Voice of God, and see what message will come to us, when we really ask the question Paul asked on the Damascus road: “What do you want me to do, Lord?”

I believe we could bring peace in our families, in our school boards, in our cities and provinces, and eventually in the whole world, if we earnestly accepted the leading of the still, small voice, which will come to us, if we will only listen.

People everywhere are hungry for guidance. Every cup-reader and fortune-teller, is busy. People are seeking for signs — in the stars, in the palms of their hands, in the cut of the cards. While all the time the way is open, and the promise is sure. When man listens, God speaks.

When the war is over this time, let us not be content with an armistice, which, in 1918, was more or less just a change of weapons. Let us be content with nothing less than a Peace built on the solid foundation of the Golden Rule.