War is an ugly and an awful thing, while some peace theories are very beautiful, and they are quite safe in times of peace; but when, in the past, slaves had to be freed, then the true Christians took down their old swords and shouldered their old guns, and went to the front. If we read the inscriptions on the monuments erected to the memory of those who died in our great Civil War, we find it was an army of Christians who fell. War is often a necessity. It cannot always be avoided, and, when it comes, we want the best tools we can get with which to fight. It is criminal negligence for a nation not to be prepared against war. It is criminal negligence for a great nation not to be abreast of the times in arms and equipment. Often at the bayonet's point, trade and civilization and even Christianity, have been forced upon the savage, and upon exclusive and unwarlike peoples, and now Christianity, civilization, and militarism, sisters of strange relation, hand in hand, embrace the world. In "Sartor Resartus" Carlyle says: "_The first ground handful of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling. What will the last do?_" His own answer is that it will "... _achieve the final undisputed prostration of force under thought, of animal courage under spiritual_." Again Carlyle says, in the same work: * * * * * "_Such I hold to be the genuine use of gunpowder: that it makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more mind, though all but no body whatever, then canst thou kill me first, and art the taller. Hereby, at last is the Goliath powerless and the David resistless; savage animalism is nothing, inventive spiritualism is all_." * * * * * What does the Bible say about Christ's mission of peace? * * * * * "_And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke II: 13, 14)._ "_And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest ... to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke I: 76, 79)._ "_And his name shall be called ... The Prince of Peace" (Is. IX: 6)._ * * * * * I hold that there is nothing whatever in the foregoing quotations inconsistent with warring for the right. From the nature of things, war is often the price of peace, and justice can only be enforced by the sword. In the great American Rebellion it was the voice of guns alone that could command the emancipation of the slaves. An apostle of the Prince of Peace may often best serve his Master by becoming a good soldier. The Christian armies that turned back and drove out of Europe the invading Moors rendered their Master better service than had they, in order to escape war, fled before the advancing hosts of Islam.