Peace, Peace, There Is No Peace HE SHALL judge between the nations and shall reprove many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 11:4. Forty centuries have passed over the world since that reassurance was repeated through ancient Israel. Judgments may have been rendered between nations and many peoples have doubtless been reproved. Metaphorically expressed, swords have been beaten into plowshares; at all events they are not effective in warfare any more. Spears may have become pruning hooks since they are useless on modern battlefields. But nations have never ceased to lift up a weapon of one kind or another against opposing nations. It was once the catapult that hurled huge stones into huddled masses of humanity; the battle ax with which men hewed each other down like harvesting corn; the blunderbuss of conquistadores; the field cannon of the last century; the machine gun of 25 years ago; it is the bomb of poison gas, of deadly microbes, of liquid fire, used in this advanced age of religious missions, moral legislation and philanthropic achievement. In spite of the pleas of churchmen, in defiance of the efficacy of improved implements of death and destruction, in full remembrance of the horrors of a world wracking war not 20 years past, governments are still promoting war, schoolmasters are teaching war, children are learning war and many little lads are actually enrolled for war in some armies. Avarice, Ambition, Intolerance and Malevolence are the four horsemen that lead the cavalcade of war. They involve friends and communities in senseless strife, sever family and religious ties, arouse racial animosities and gallop down the course of time with torch and saber, leaving death and mutilation, mourning and desolation, in their wake. The story of mankind is a history of slaughter. From the date of that primeval fratricide when the first felon walked and talked with his God, down through 40 centuries of mental growth, moral legislation and religious influence, man has fought his fellowman for reasons suggested by the equestrian quartet. Avarice enters the abode of Contentment in the guise of prudence. Frugality is a virtue commended. Circumstances have demonstrated its worth and experience has signed its testimonials. Thrift is the watchword and comfort the inducement to welcome and shelter this horseman. In such environment he reaches the age of vanity, cultivates pride of possession, grows to the stature of greed and ceases to be satisfied with what is acquired honestly. He plans, schemes and finally fights to gain what others have accumulated, then mounts his charger, Rapacity, and gallops away to war. Ambition canters up to the door of Opportunity under the name of youthful yearning. He knocks and enters and continues to knock. He chafes at restrictions and daily rides over the fields and gardens of the neighborhood. Filling his lungs with intoxicating ozone he lashes his steed until pedestrians have to clear the way. From one height to another he drives with cruel spurs. Each alluring ridge reveals another further on. Away he dashes on his heaving horse, Envy, disappearing in a cloud of dust toward the slippery field of war Intolerance hides the sharp features of fanaticism behind a mask of piety and benignly beams on one who opens the door of Hope. He is welcomed by Reverence and entertained by Charity. Emboldened by the timidity of Innocence and the admiration of Credulity, fair daughters of the household, he becomes dictatorial and dogmatic. He lays aside all pretense, proclaims superior virtues, works himself into a frenzy of zeal, curses all who fail to understand his diatribes, mounts his unbroken mustang, Superstition, and rides furiously to war. Malevolence, the emissary of Hatred, with credentials from Fear and Weakness, ambles slowly through the gate of Neutrality, the sword of vengeance swinging at his side, a bomb of cruelty in his saddle bag, the arrogance of offended dignity in his bearing. He is eloquent with plausible excuses for a ferocious manner and profuse in his promises to make others behave for the good of humanity. He brandishes his weapon, laughs like a fiend, rowels his faithful steed, Barbarism, and dashes off to war. Out of the cradle of humanity, out of the cradles of every race, out of the cradles of all creeds, out of the cradles of modern enlightenment, potential horsemen of the Apocalypse are rising daily to test their strength, their endurance, their ingenuity, their adroitness and their opportunities in the primal struggle not for existence, but for power to make men cringe and contribute and conform to rules and creeds prescribed by autocratic authority. The preaching of peace and teaching of tolerance seem futile. To hold aloof does not always bring tranquillity or security. To call war murder never seems to outlaw it. Porteous said a century and a half ago, just before he was hanged by a mob, that one murder makes a felon, millions a hero, for generals are licensed to kill and numbers sanctify the crime. Men have memorized and repeated that aphorism while marching away to war. Alexander Pope wrote: Curst is the man and void of law and right, unfit for public rule or private care that wretch, that monster who delights in war. Isaiah made a statement in the twenty eighth chapter of his book which is more pessimistic than it sounds: The prophets that have been before me, and before thee of old, prophesied against many countries and against great kingdoms, of war and of evil and of pestilence; the prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known. Anyone who at that time, or at any subsequent time, had the temerity to prophesy peace is entitled to be known as a real prognosticator when the word of the prophet shall come to pass. It is not so perplexing to predict war. David took safer ground when he smote his harp and, in the thirtieth verse of the Sixty eighth Psalm, sang praises, saying: He hath scattered the people that delight in war princes shall come out of Egypt Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God. Ethiopia is stretching out her palsied, sun scorched, empty hands in piteous supplication, but the hoofbeats of the four horsemen galloping over her ancient roads are echoing around the earth.