If we reason from small things to great, we see that the squabbling nests of murderers, or would-be murderers, who peopled France, England, Germany, Austria, and Italy have given way to compact nations which enjoy unbroken internal peace.  The struggles of business go on; the weak are trampled under foot in the mad rush of the cities of men, but the actual infliction of pain and death is not now dreamed of by Frenchman against Frenchman or German against German.  We must remember that there never was so deadly and murderous a spirit displayed as during the Thirty Years’ War, and yet the peoples who then wrestled and throttled each other are now peaceful under the same yoke.  May we not trust that a time will come when nations will see on a sudden the blank folly of making war?  Day by day the pressure of armaments is growing greater, and we may almost hope that the very fiendish nature of modern weapons may bring about a blessed reductio ad absurdum, and leave war as a thing ludicrous, and not to be contemplated by sane men!  I find one gun specially advertised in our Christian country, and warranted to kill as many men in one minute as two companies of infantry could in five!  What will be the effect of the general introduction of this delightful weapon?  No force can possibly stand before it; no armour or works can keep out the hail of its bullets.  Supposing, then, that benevolent science goes on improving the means of slaughter, must there not come a time when people will utterly refuse to continue the mad and miserable folly of war?  Over the whole of Britain we may find even now the marks of cannon-shot discharged by Englishmen against the castles of other Englishmen.  Is there one man in Britain who can at this present moment bring his imagination to conceive such an occurrence as an artillery fight between bodies of Englishmen?  It is almost too absurd to be named even as a casual supposition.  So far has fraternity spread.  Now, if we go on perfecting dynamite shells which can destroy one thousand men by one explosion; if we increase the range of our guns from twelve miles to twenty, and fight our pieces according to directions signalled from a balloon, we shall be going the very best way to make all men rise with one spasm of disgust, and say, “No more of this!”

We cannot hope to do away with evil speaking, with verbal quarrelling, with mean grasping of benefits from less fortunate brethren.  Alas, the reign of brotherhood will be long in eradicating the primeval combative instinct; but, when we compare the quiet urbanity of a modern gathering with the loud and senseless brawling which so often resulted from social assemblies even at the beginning of this century we may take some heart and hope on for the best.  Our Lord had a clear vision of a time when bitterness and evil-doing should cease, and His words are more than a shadowy prediction.  The fact is that, in striving gradually to introduce the third of the conditions of life craved