Editorial May 21, 1904 Issue

A Universal Brotherhood

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The growth of a larger and truer sense of brotherhood in all the world, is one of the many assurances of the spiritual advance of the race. Despite the fact of wars and rumors of war, of racial jealousies, political contentions, and economic strifes, the definiteness and intensity of the communal consciousness steadily increases, and the pooling of common interests keeps pace with that multiplication of the means of intercourse which has signalized this "Electric Age."

Very many of those who, under military requirement, are subject to the command to array themselves against one another in deadly combat, are realizing that they have no occasion to slay their brother men; that the dreadful sufferings entailed by wars, the lifetime burdens they impose, are not borne by those who precipitate them; that the adjustment of conflicting national interests ought to be effected, and might easily be effected, through mutual concession or arbitration, and that prosperity cannot exist apart from the recognition of fraternity, the maintenance of peace.

In times past, the soldiers of belligerent armies cherished for each other only enmity and hatred, and every victory was followed by a heartless slaughter of the wounded and defenceless. To-day no less tender care is shown the wounded enemy than the wounded comrade; while in the instance of the war now waging, a frateful organization in one country has sent a message to the people of the other, which reads in part, "Dear Comrades, We are brothers and sisters and have no reason to fight each other. . . . Those who are fighting for humanity must remember that the end does not justify the means. . . . The most important question before us is, How can we bring this dreadful war to a close?" Such an expression of brotherliness and sympathy under the existing conditions, awakens a new hope for humanity, and indicates the approach of that day, promised of old, when "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hook;" when "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

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May 21, 1904
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