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Si vis pacem, para bellum

by
20 December 2013

24th December, 1913.

AT THIS season of the year the message of peace renews its appeal to Christian hearts. We would all be pacificists if we could, but the times seem to be out of joint, and we are all at cross-purposes at home and the nations are more like military encampments than civilised communities. This latter fact exposes some of us to the charge of inconsistency, when we support the strengthening of our naval armaments while we advocate the doctrines of peace. It is the unfortunate fact that pacificists are at present urging counsels of perfection, none the less necessary, yet practicable only when the work of conversion shall have been much further advanced. In existing circumstances, the strengthening of our armaments, and particularly of the Navy, is to be regarded as an insurance against war. Now, as so often in the past, the truth of the venerable paradox, Si vis pacem, para bellum, holds good. We could wish that those who are for international peace at any price were equally desirous of promoting domestic peace, but truth compels us to confess that the party spirit of our time is as bitter as it ever was in the past. The celebration of the great festival of peace should, if we rightly observe it, stir within us a better spirit of kindliness and mutual esteem. We foresee in the coming new year many things that will endanger the advance of that spirit, and we can only pray that this may not be so. Once more we have the happiness to wish our readers a Merry Christmas.

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