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Show 2 80 ‘4.)qu mum they have allowed Leopold to give the Congo Free State to the Belgian people under stipulations which gua‘antee the perpetuation of his brutal system of exploitation. And yet the nations hesitate to intervene! You are well aware that the most atrocious crime, the most damnable cruelty. the foulest treachery of any age is beingr perpetuated today in Africa. And yet we talk of peace! \\'e "shut our eyes against the painful truth" and "indulge in illu- sions of hope!" Must we hear the groans and shrieks of dying men, the wails of little children, the report of the rifle and the crack of the sentry's lash, must we scent the odor of htnnan flesh as the cannibal soldier prepares his evening meal; must we walk among the skeletons that lie thick upon the scene of a once peace- ful village. before we awake front our lethargy to restore justice and punish the criminal? ls it peace these helpless people want? Somehow it seems as if the silent lips of those Congo natives "limit death has granted peace cry out for justice. How they would tight for justice if they were alive! and how righteous would be their cause! llut the nations remain in idleness. Will they never learn that injustice is the cause of war; that if war shall cease, inj .tice must cease? \Vill they never shake off the selfishness and greed that blind their vision and distract their sympathy, and act together in the cause of righteous peace whose end is always justice? Verily, they have abandoned the cause of suffering humanity, and like the Priest and Levite of the parable, have looked on the ahlictions of their neighbors. but have passed by on the other side. Today we are assembled to further the interests of worldwide peace. \\‘ith one accord we have come to uorship at the shrine of peace and lay our offerings on the altar of justice All that can be done. all that ought to be done to promote this sacred l Cause it is our tuty to consider. llut what matters it to us that millions of our brethren in that portion of darkest Africa. now drenched with blood and rendered hideous with slaughter, are still beggars and slaves in their own country? What matters it that from every corner of the earth the cry for help, the cry for mercy. goes up unheeded? ls it for us to heed the despairing appeal of the lc>ire>=iifieriuer Jew, driven by injustice about the earth? Must we listen to the cry of millions of Russian peasants enduring the brutalitiw of dtspotisin or the horrors of exile on the 28t frozen steppe: of Siberia? (jail we endure in silence the unutterable atI'U(:ill<‘>. practiced by the Turks upon the helpless Armenian ? Shall we be moved by the stifled sohs of the children in our own mills and factories, oppressed by the unrelenting hand of capital? If we are true to our manhood and to the holy purposes that guide our thoughts and actions, there is but one course for us to pursue. We must intervene by diplomacy if possible, by force if necessary. J:very injustice tolerated by the nations is a mockery of peace and a challenge to its advocates. When such horrors exist in the broad daylight of the twentieth century, when barbarisni breaks loose under the bright sunlight of Christianity and the nations that trust to arbitration are guilty of such destructive inactivity and awful delay, every advocate of peace should hang his head in shame. There are greater obstacles to surmount, greater conquests to be made than men have dreamed of It is not so much the love of fighting as the lust of power and the greed for gold that we must overcome. It is not so much the willingness to arbitrate as the consciousness of human interdependence embodied in the spirit of brotherhood that we must seek to cultivate. The eternal demands of justice challenge the peacelovingr nations of our day to act in defense of an outraged humanity and stop forever the sheddingr of innocent blood. \Vlta‘. greater conquest in the name of peace could be achieved? Hav- ingr labored together in restoringr the rights and liberties of down trodden peoples the nations must henceforth be bound together by eternal cords of sympathy and a common love of justice. On the highest accessible peak of the Andes where they mark the boundary between Chile and the Argentine Republic may be seen a colossal statue of Christ. The words inscribed on a bronze tablet at its base tell us the story of its erection: "Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than Argentines and Chileans br ‘ak the peace to which they have pledged themselves at the fret of Christ the Redeemer." It is indeed a fitting memorial of the day when the people of those two republics laid aside the swords, laid aside all bitterness and distrust, and solemnly pledged their mutual friendship and good-will. hit it may be something more than a memorial of that happy day. It may be the sublime prophecy of other statues of Christ that the future must unveil. \\'hen the nation: |