1914-12-24agga

Two Hamilton newspaper editorials published on December 24, 1914, both using the title, “Christmas, 1914.

          From the Hamilton Herald :

          “ ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.’ Thus spoke the Prince of Peace whose nativity the world will celebrate tomorrow. By this legacy of peace was not meant national immunity from war. If it had been, what irony there would be in the words! – for since they were spoken there has been, of the nineteen hundred years that have passed, scarcely one in which war was not waged somewhere on the earth. The ‘peace’ of the precious legacy is the peace of the individual soul. It is the fruit of love and unselfish service and sacrifice for others. But if this peace abounded among mankind, it would end war as inevitably as the morning sun ends the darkness.

          “Earth affords no stronger contrast than that between the spirit of peace which moves Christendom at this season and the spirit which is responsible for the terrible war in which half the world is engaged. Love and the spirit of unselfish sacrifice and service have their direct opposites in the motives which prompted the rulers of the Germanic empires to plunge their countries into war. They were not desirous of doing service to their neighbors; they aimed at robbing their neighbors. Hatred, not love, inspired them – hatred and covetousness, envy and insatiable lust for power, national vainglory and egotism. The utter absence of the soul’s peace is seen, not only in the actions of the rulers, but in those of their soldiery also – not so much on the battlefields as in the ruined towns of stricken Belgium –

          “ ‘ Where hideously ‘mid rape and sack

             The murderer’s laughter echoed back

               His prey’s convulsive laughter.’

          “In Belgium, in the wasted fields and shattered towns and villages of northern France, of Poland, of Servia, along the long battle lines and in the field hospitals are seen the ghastly fruits of the Prussian ‘will-to-power’ spirit. In countless North American homes and churches and charitable institutions, the beautiful Christmas peace glows and radiates. The former are the logical results of the teaching of Nietzsche and Treitschke; the latter flows from the teaching of Christ.

          “Though stern, terrible work must yet be done, the Christ-like spirit will prevail. It must prevail, if this world is to be made fit for the inhabitants of civilized humanity. The apostles of force and false national glory will be discredited and brought to shame and there will be a chance for the spread of peace on earth and good will towards men. It is to this end that Britain and her allies are warring. When they have put down the sinister forces which have bred suspicion and fear and hatred and, at last, war it may be – let us hope that it will be – practicable by international agreement to declare war against war and provide means for enforcing the decree. It may be that before another Christmas dawns, mankind will, as a result of the great war, be more receptive than ever before to the sweet influence of the peace spirit which hallows this season, and that there will be sure signs of the approach of that time

          “ ‘When peace shall over all the earth

             Its ancient splendors fling.

             And the whole world will give back the song,

             Which now the angels sing.’ ”

 

From the Hamilton Spectator :

          “Could there be a greater contrast than that between the scenes on the plains of Judea when the herald angels chanted ‘Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth and good will to men,’ and the awful tragedy now being enacted on a stage covering the greater part of Europe. The nations at war are nominally Christian. Has Christianity failed? Is it an outworn faith, unable to bear the stress of twentieth century thought? Must we bid good-bye to Christmas, and all that it supplies.

          “ ‘I, if I be lifted up,’ said Christ Himself, ‘will draw all men unto Me,’ and sad to say it is not the true Christ but a misrepresentation of Him, that has been presented to the gaze of men. It is a simulacrum of Christianity, not the real thing that has broken down. As Browning said, we shall never know what Christianity is until we have tried it. Compare the highest form of manifested Christianity with the lofty standard of the Sermon on the Mount, and the observation will be understood. The European catastrophe was not caused by Christianity, but by the want of it. The Prince of Peace, it is true, came not to bring peace but a sword, till righteousness shall prevail; but on the basis of righteousness was to come the peace that passeth understanding.

          ‘The cult of Frederick the Great, of Treitschke, of Nietzsche, and of Bernhadri, was the very antithesis of Christianity. The superman who rides roughshod over thousands of weaklings that a favored few may flourish is far removed as hell from heavens from Him who stoops to save. He who ‘emptied Himself of His glory, that we, through His poverty, might be made rich’ can have no sympathy with a selfish lust of world empire. Can we imagine the Kaiser washing the feet of his peasantry? Modern German philosophy, so-called, finds no place for the weak, but extinction to magnify the strong. St Paul said to the Ephesian elders: ‘I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye might support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ To the Romans, he said: ‘We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of nthe weak and not please ourselves.” He even laid down the principle that we are to refrain from a legitimate practice rather than wound the tender conscience of a weaker brother.

          “Anyone has but to follow out this line of thought for himself to see that there could be nothing more inimical than German militarism to the spirit of  the Founder of the Christian Church and the precepts of His apostles. And the removal of that bane from the face of the face of the earth will be the longest step that could be taken toward the advent of millennial peace.

          “When Christ reigns in Germany, there will be a new Germany, which may be heartily welcomed into the circle of Christian nations. Then we may look forward, as wisely as wistfully, to the day when men shall ‘beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.’  - when wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, shall dwell together, ‘and a little child shall lead them.’ Arbitration may take the place of armaments. Appeal may be made to the parliament of man, the federation of the world. Then we shall know all it means when the first Christmas was made luminous by seraphs of the sky.”