A Dream of Peace by U. V. W.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 10, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 40.

A Dream of Peace

By U. V. W.

DR. NITOBE, who is representing the Japanese government as an advocate of international peace, in the United States, and who is also a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, closed his address at Stanford University September 18 by saying:

"Twelve years ago, when I came to this country, there was no sound of the mechanic with his hammer building 'Dreadnoughts,' there were no masons building forts, no rapidly maneuvering of troops playing war. But the other day, as I came through San Francisco, how different! I can not but marvel; I am surprised and astonished that a nation's whole energies should be expended in preparing for a possible war. For myself, I would say that such economic extravagance spells only ruin!"

"Let us hope," he added, "that these clouds of war shall dissipate, disperse, and roll away, and we shall awake from such dreams of war as from a horrible nightmare, and find that we have entered into a period of harmony and international good-fellowship."

This eminent Japanese publicist and orator can not but see the national catastrophe awaiting such wanton expenditure in which our nation and the other nations are now competing. But the war clouds are not dissipated, nor shall we "awake from such dreams, as from a nightmare," into a condition of international peace.

The greatest of statesmen as men can see clearly the fruition of the present-day war preparations, but like a child they vainly clasp an intangible hope of peace; they grasp at straws; they seek to educate greedy corporations, and palliate the spirit of war and strife by erecting peace monuments, establishing Peace Foundations, with millions of dollars gained in making war material, and filling the land with literature for the promulgation of international amity and concord. These statesmen, and the ambassadors of peace, utter, in direct contradiction to their clear, logical conclusions of the ultimate outcome of present-day conditions, "Peace, peace," but there shall be no peace! For from a divine source comes the picture of this time and a bit of future history truer than the sanguine statements of the world's greatest statesmen, saying: "Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war; stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together." See Joel 3:9-14. It is the gathering to the great war of Armageddon.

U. V. W.