Article March 11, 1905 Issue

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with contributions from Charles F. Dole, J. W. Dawson, E. M. Martinson

We simply call attention to the fact that this "peace of justice," quick to avenge insults, which makes a strong nation at once the judge and jury and executioner in its own suit, and spends more on the machinery of military force than on all measures of public service combined, is not the kind of peace for which Christmas Day is set to remind us. Jesus' method, his spirit, his teaching, are utterly different. The Christmas peace is the peace of the men of good-will. The method is trust; the spirit is humanity. Good-will carries justice with it.

It is important to make this distinction. Millions of people do not yet see how great it is. They still worship force. They confuse the simple life of the Man of Nazareth with external power and material pomp. They look back and worship a sort of war-lord, coming in the skies to punish his enemies. They have yet to learn that good-will is the mightiest force in the universe. They have yet to trust this new force, and to apply it to every kind of problem. They had better not reverence Jesus at all, if they miss the kernel of his teaching. Do they imagine that, if he were addressing the American people, he would bid them build more fighting ships?

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