My bias rules me altogether here. I see men in social, in economic
and in international affairs alike, eager to put an end to conflict,
inexpressibly weary of conflict and the waste and pain and death it
involves. But to end conflict one must abandon aggressive or uncordial
pretensions. Labour is sick at the idea of more strikes and struggles
after the war, industrialism is sick of competition and anxious for
service, everybody is sick of war. But how can they end any of these
clashes except by the definition and recognition of a common end which
will establish a standard for the trial of every conceivable issue, to
which, that is, every other issue can be subordinated; and what common
end can there be in all the world except this idea of the world kingdom
of God? What is the good of orienting one's devotion to a firm, or to
class solidarity, or _La Republique Francais_, or Poland, or Albania, or
such love and loyalty as people profess for King George or King Albert
or the Duc d'Orleans--it puzzles me why--or any such intermediate object
of self-abandonment? We need a standard so universal that the platelayer
may say to the barrister or the duchess, or the Red Indian to the
Limehouse sailor, or the Anzac soldier to the Sinn Feiner or the
Chinaman, "What are we two doing for it?" And to fill the place of that
"it," no other idea is great enough or commanding enough, but only the
world kingdom of God.
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