Hall Caine

“ War itself is not dead. There are now a million and a half more men under arms than ever before in times of peace.
Mankind's Supreme Interest. What then? Where lies the remedy both for friend and foe, for conquered and conqueror? In Parliaments, in Cabinets, in chancelleries, in conferences? No—for these are at best only the representatives of ourselves; but in our own souls and on our knees before the Lord of Hosts. At God's feet there is neither hatred nor jealousy. There is only mercy and forgiveness. God's law is love, and He has no other law. ”

“ Empires founded on force pass away; the one thing solid and enduring is the human soul. What it wills to do can always be done.
Statesmen tell us that if the world is to be saved, the remedy for its ills must be applied now; that it is perishing and cannot wait. Well, the remedy is here—in the human soul, the individual soul, your soul, mine, the mightiest thing in the world. Let there be no more vengeance and no more race hatred. On this fifth anniversary of Armistice Day, let us resolve on peace, and peace will come. ”

“ What, then, is the gospel of war The gospel of war is that war has failed as a judge of human conduct; that it is not (as Edmund Burke said) the last appeal court of Providence; that the conscience of humanity repudiates it; that there is no safety under the soldiers' sword: that the supreme interest of mankind his this hour of the world's peril is peace, and that the further militarisation of the world must cease. There will be people enough to tell us that we cannot oppose sentiment to machine guns ”

“ The ruling classes may have fought for power, for territory, for a little earth, but the common soldiers fought for peace. And if they are with us to-night, in the darkness over land and sea, they are speaking that word into our hearts now, as the message of hope that will lighten the burden of the troubled world. ”

“ Our own country may have laid down its arms, but it is now fighting a deadlier enemy than Germany—poverty and want. A million and a quarter of our people are unemployed and living on the charity of the State; nearly 4,000,000 are badly housed, or not housed at all. We try to reconcile ourselves to our condition by thinking how much worse it might have been if we had been beaten in the war, but what is it to be the victors if our victory is as dust and ashes? ”

“ Somewhere and somehow, in the mysterious ways of Providence, our sacrifices will have their reward. But has our hope of a better world been fulfilled? What do we see? Europe is in chaos. One of its empires, the one that began the war, has been almost wiped off the map. ”

“ History shows that on the battlefield itself moral strength compared with physical force has always been as four to one, and the faith that holds humanity together is that justice always triumphs over violence. ”