Page:Back From Hell, by Samuel Cranston Benson.djvu/22

 it was likely that we soon would be violating God's commandment,

I did not believe in killing. I had lectured with David Starr Jordan and spoken with Mr. Bryan. I hated war. As a minister of the gospel my natural inclination was to preach gentle forgiveness and tender mercy, and how I did preach it! I was for peace at any price. I preached peace in my church and I preached it on the street. I even went so far as to rent halls and denounce the doctrine of military preparedness as a dangerous and vicious propaganda.

I declared with all my power that America ought to keep herself out of this war and that she ought to suffer any indignity rather than take up the sword and slay other people. I said that was murder. While not approving of the sinking of the merchant ships, yet I said that those people who traveled on belligerent vessels did so at their own risk and that the United States ought not to bring blood upon her hands because others had done so. I had no antipathy toward the German people. I liked them. I had shown this by studying German in college as my only for-