VII BLOOD AND IRON: THE IMMORALITY OF MILITARISM TEXT:-"Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end, Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee."-Ezekiel 35: 5-6. PERHAPS there is no piece of literature either in the Bible or out of it that portrays in fewer words and more graphic colors the diabolical character of the spirit of militarism as it has revealed itself in every country and in every age. The whole hell-begotten family of this hell-begotten mother troop past us in this chapter across the stage of Edom's life. Here we see the "pride" that hardens the sensibilities; here is the "hatred" that is "perpetual"; here is the "revenge" that never sleeps; here is the blood-lust that wallows in carnage; here is "envy" that clouds the reason; here is the "blas phemy" that shudders the soul; here is the mad and ruthless ambition that tramples under foot the sacred rights of the weak, and does not hesitate "to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind.” In those days of Ezekiel it was the land of Edom that was seized with this wild insanity— an insanity that has never failed to find a victim in every age of the world's life. What you find in Edom you will find in Nero at Rome, who gloated over the human torches with which he lighted his gardens as he burned the Christians to death. What you find in Nero you find in Napoleon, in the presence of whose statue in one of the great squares of Paris, one was heard to utter these words, "Monster, if all the blood that thou hast shed were gathered in this square thou wouldst not need to stoop thy lips to drink." What you find in Napoleon you find in Prince Bismarck, whose watchword for the German Empire was summed up in that notorious phrase, "Blood and iron! by blood and iron we shall extend our power." And what you find in Bismarck you will find in modern Prussia that has sold herself to blood, that has dedicated her powerful intellect to the de |