p. 10 | THE DREAM OF PEACE by George Butler Thompson

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 23, 1915

THE DREAM OF PEACE

By George Butler Thompson

JULY 25, 1870, during the war between Germany and France, George Meredith wrote to John Morley, at that time one of England's noted men, as follows:

"The tremendous armaments on both sides were meant for this duel, and it mattered very little what was the pretext of the outbreak. . . . At any rate, it was a fight to come on; and here we have it; and if we are energetic and wise, it may be the last of the great fights of Europe."

Forty-five years later, instead of this being "the last of the great fights of Europe," we find the continent involved in the most calamitous contest known in history, and men's dream of peace again shattered. No such bloody struggle, where so many men are arrayed in battle line, with such implements of slaughter at their command, is recorded since the fall of man.

Again men are predicting that when the present death struggle shall in some way terminate, the price paid in blood and treasure will be so enormous that the world will have learned a lesson which will lead the nations to settle all differences in the future by arbitration, and the world will know war no more.

But the hope expressed is a vain one. The nations are planning larger and swifter Dreadnoughts, and inventing new and more improved methods of slaying one another. They are preparing for a greater and more desperate struggle in the future, preparing for the Armageddon of the Scriptures.

Not till the Prince of peace shall come, and put down all earthly rule and authority, and sweep from the earth with the besom of destruction all the nations of earth like chaff from the threshing floor, and establish His kingdom forever and ever, will the earth be free from war and bloodshed, and know peace. May this glad day soon dawn. G. B. T.