Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/192

 this war, if we had been watching the ruin of our Allies and remained passive. Better war, we say from our hearts, than the tame acquiescence in the claim of the German militarism to dominate the world.

But Jesus is first King of Righteousness, Is this an antiquated phrase covering a dead thought? Nay, verily it is the spring of life's hope and of its highest joy. Righteousness is the keyword of the Christian faith. It is the granite foundation of our faith. The idea of righteousness is not a simple rudiment of the spiritual schools. Whoever understands St. Paul's intense conception of righteousness knows that it was the secret spring of the Apostle's spiritual power. To him the Gospel was primarily a declaration of the righteousness of God. Even love took second place to righteousness. This idea was given from above; it was not evolved from the inner consciousness, or from a survey of the world's history. The whole course of revelation is the gradual unveiling of the righteous God, which reaches its end in the New Testament. Once we know what righteousness meant to the Apostles we have not much more to learn.

I agree with the eminent preacher who said that if we as a nation had never known Christ we should have been at peace. It is Christ Who has flung His shield over the weak things of the world. The love of liberty, the abhorrence of tyranny, the care for the rights of other nations, the sacred obligations of honour, would have had no power to move us to battle had it not been for the spirit of Christ within us. The devil would have advised us to be neutral. He would have whispered to us that nothing was to be put in comparison with our own comfort and prosperity and security. He would have advised us to be content with our little island, and to obey the bests of our masters, and to cast to the wind the old superstitions about justice and mercy and courage and faith. No, it is because we are Christians that we are gone to war. It is Christ Himself Who has bidden us draw the sword for the cause of righteousness.

First righteousness, and then peace—by which I mean a righteous peace. There is no other peace worth striving for, no other peace in which men can be happy. It is possible for us to hope that as a result of this frightful war such a peace may come to us? There are many who are comforting themselves during this agony by the thought that this war will mean the end of wars. There are others, less sanguine,