But, to-day, even national preservation demands that the rule of peace shall give place to the rule of war. In the older countries of the earth the great drains made upon industry and life to support vast armies and equip them for slaughter is depopulating states and impoverishing the lands. And besides all this, so far as external power is concerned, no nation adds to its effectiveness to battle with the others by increasing its army and navy. This simply serves to increase the strength of the enemy’s guns and to make new combinations between hostile lands, until the very strength of a nation becomes its weakness and must in turn lead to its decay and overthrow. The nation that would to-day disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrung from its hostile and unwilling serfs. A nation like this would exhibit to the world such an example of moral grandeur and true vitality and worth that no nation, however powerful, would dare to invite the odium and hostility of the world by sending arms and men to conquer a peaceful, productive, non-resistant land. If the integrity and independence of a nation depended upon its forts and guns the smaller countries of Europe would at once be wiped from the map of the world. Switzerland, Holland, Greece, Italy, and Spain are absolutely powerless to defend themselves by force. If these nations should at once disarm every soldier and melt every gun and turn the worse than wasted labor into productive, life-saving work, they could but greatly strengthen themselves amongst the other nations of the earth. Not only this, their example would serve to help turn the tide of the world from the barbarous and soul-destroying path of war toward the higher, nobler life of peace and good will toward men.