Editorial February 17, 1917 Issue

"Rightful King of the world"

Archibald McLellan

There can be no doubt that at the end of two and a half years the world is heartily tired of war's hatreds, barbarities, and sufferings, and that there is today a genuine desire for peace. Whether it is to be peace within a short time, or peace only after months or years more of fighting, is something which even the wisest cannot say at this moment, but there is little question about the kind of peace desired.

From every side comes a demand that the present war shall be followed by such arrangements between the nations as will ensure the impossibility of war in the future. Each side professes to believe that this result can be obtained only by the complete defeat or exhaustion of the other side, and each also professes to believe that it has the physical power which will enable it to defeat the other. That there should be some within the belligerent and the neutral nations who deny both of these propositions is not surprising. Neither is it surprising that those who believe the present war must end in a decisive victory, and those who think this impossible, should now look forward to the time when not only the present war shall terminate, but also the peace of the world shall be rendered secure forever.

What human means are necessary to be established in the working out of these problems is still uncertain, so uncertain in fact that those who really are looking for results are beginning to turn away from human will with its alleged power, and are looking to God, who is divine power. If a precedent for this course of action is needed, we have but to turn to that challenge to obedience to divine law promulgated centuries ago: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." A striking example of this turning of thought to the one and only power is before us in the words of the well known writer, H. G. Wells, who in his recent article in the Saturday Evening Post, dealing with the possibility of a peace which shall lead to the end of all war, writes as follows:—

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