When war broke over the world three years ago many ministers and other people declared that Armageddon had come. They had in mind a tradition founded on a part of the sixteenth chapter of Revelations, in which the prophet was supposed to describe a vision of the end of the world. In that awful day seven angels appeared with seven vials of wrath, and the contents of each when poured out wiped away something that was dear to the men of the earth. The sixth angel poured out on the waters of the river Euphrates, and they were dried up; and then unclean spirits issued from the mouths of the dragons and of other beasts and from the mouth of the false prophet, and they went into the kings of the earth, then the political rulers of mankind, and induced them to bring the people together “to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” And the armies met at Armageddon and fought there the last battle of time. This striking figure made a deep impression on the early Christians, and out of it arose the belief that some day would come a great and final war, in which the nations of the earth would unite for their mutual destruction, after which the spirit of righteousness would establish a millennial reign of peace. And so when most of the nations of the world came together in war in 1914, many persons pronounced the struggle the long expected Armageddon. It was easy to say in those days of excitement that this war was going to be the last. Madness it certainly was, and surely a mad world would come back to reasonableness after a season of brutal destruction. Common sense, humanity, and the all powerful force of economic interest would bring the struggle to an end, and then by agreement steps would be taken to make a recurrence of the situation impossible. It was in the days when we still had confidence in civilization. Humanity, we said, had developed to such an extent that it could not return to the chaos that an age of war would imply. International law was still considered a binding body of morality, if not of actual law. International public opinion was believed to have power to punish national wrong-doers. We who teach said as much to our classes many times in those days of innocence. In all sincerity we felt that a nation could not do this or that thing because public opinion would not tolerate it. How far distant seem now the days of early summer in 1914!