The Peace Movement by Frederick M. Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 17, 1913

The Peace Movement

By Frederick M. Wilcox

THERE has been much agitation during the last decade in the interest of the so-called peace movement, an effort to bring about universal disarmament of the nations and to induce them to submit questions of international misunderstanding to arbitration. This movement has many earnest advocates. Many men, actuated by the highest motives have devoted to its propagation their lives and fortunes. We believe that the highest motives have possessed them in their advocacy of these measures, and we would indeed that the measures which they propose might be universally adopted, and that the nations of men might settle their differences through kindly counsel and arbitration rather than through resort to war and bloodshed. And yet so far as the practical workings of the movement are concerned, and the present hope of its ultimate success, the situation is far from flattering, notwithstanding the spirit of optimism that possesses some of its advocates.

Of the strength of the peace movement Rev. Benjamin F. Trueblood, LL. D., of Washington, D. C., in the Homiletic Review for May, 1913, speaks at some length. He says:—

The old forces of barbarism and savagery which have worked immense mischief in the past, and may do so again, are gradually being suppressed by the forces of modern Christian civilization which have made such great strides in national affairs, and are beginning to produce encouraging results in the international sphere. All militarism is doomed to die. The hand of God and of good men is against it. The movement of our time is steadily away from the employment of brute force and toward the substitution in its place of reason and law in the international field. How soon the movement for world peace is to be consummated no one can accurately foretell.

Such optimism is born of a forlorn hope, which can recognize in the movement of our times an influence away from the employment of brute force and toward the substitution of reason and law. When we look at the arming of the nations, which is going on today as never before in their history; the continual preparations for offensive and defensive warfare; the equipment of navies; the manufacture and invention of destructive, death-dealing agencies,—the trend truly if not toward the employment of brute force of the past, is toward the employment of more scientific and at the same time more destructive agencies of warfare than this world has ever before witnessed.

A disarmament of earth's nations will never be consummated in this world. The prophecy of the Scripture is against it (see Joel 3:9-16); the logic of facts is opposed to it. To believe it we must set at naught the word of God, and deny the evidences of our own senses.

Universal peace will be consummated only at the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; it will be consummated when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, when sin and sinners are destroyed, when righteousness covers this earth as the waters cover the sea. To this time of peace we can look forward with optimistic faith, with a faith not founded upon platitudes or that is the fruit of a delusive hope, but a faith founded upon the infallible Word of God. F. M. W.