Article November 26, 1927 Issue

Signs of the Times

Herbert S. Houston with contributions from Lynn Radcliffe, Ditman Larsen

[From the Christian World, London, England]

Mr. Frank Hodges received a great welcome on rising in the City Temple pulpit to make his first speech from that historic spot, at the eleventh annual meeting of the League to Abolish War, which attracted a considerable concourse of people. "My experience of the world," he began, "is that there is very little peace in it. We are assured that the spirit that expresses itself in war is innate in human nature, and that war will endure so long as human nature remains what it is. My answer to that is that war may have been inevitable, but it is not inevitable to-day. One point of view that has to be taken into consideration is, Does war pay? The emphatic answer to that is, It does not pay. Whether it be war between nations or industrial war, there is no question that it does not pay: it is as bad for the victor as for the vanquished. Really," he added, "the root of our troubles lies in ourselves. We must learn to rely a little more upon our moral judgment. There is no trouble as to the machinery for the preservation of peace—that can be created easily enough: what I fear is that the stream of moral force in the world is too sluggish, and it is the pace of that stream which has to be increased. It is the moral force within us that must subjugate the biological urge to war."

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