Every soldier is connected, as all of us, by dear ties of kindred, love, and friendship. Perhaps there is an aged mother, who fondly hoped to lean her bending form on his more youthful arm; perhaps a young wife, whose life is entwined inseparably with his; perchance a sister, a brother. But as he falls on the field of battle, must not all these suffer? His aged mother surely falls with him. His young wife is suddenly widowed, his children orphaned. That husband's helping hand is forever stayed. A parent's voice is stilled, and the children's plaintive cries for their loving father fall on unheeding ears. Tell me, friends, you who know the bitterness of parting with dear ones whom you watched tenderly through the last hopeful moments, can you measure your anguish? Yet, what a contrast! Your dear ones departed soothed by kindness and love, while the dying soldier gasped out his life on the battlefield alone. And what a waste is war! We are just beginning to realize the tremendous cost, the incalculable wastefulness, not only of actual war but of the preparation for future possible wars. For the current fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, the United States has appropriated in round numbers $535,000,000, in preparation for future wars and because of wars fought in the past. Sixty-seven cents out of every dollar expended by our national government goes to feed the present-day mania for war, present and past, leaving only thirty-three cents out of each dollar for the combined expense of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of our national government. When we realize that the cost of a single battleship exceeds the total value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in the state of Kansas, the figures indicating this expense have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship is $1700, enough to send a young man through college, the common man realizes that the United States cannot afford to go to war or even prepare for war. And all this suffering and cost are to no purpose. War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance its professed object. The wretchedness it involves contributes to no beneficial result, helps to establish no right, and, therefore, in no respect promotes harmony between the contending nations. When the Saviour was born, angels from heaven sang to the children of the human family this benediction: Glory to God in the highest, Peace on earth, good will toward men. And at last, in the beginning of this twentieth century, nations seem to be visibly approaching that unity so long hoped and prayed for; and that nation which shall precede all others in the abolition of war will be crowned by history with everlasting honor. The risk will be very little, the gain incalculable.