Pastor Russell, of Allegheny, Pa., preached here today. We report one of the discourses, from the text: "He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth." Psa. 46:9.

The questions of war and peace, their rights and wrongs, come continually before our attention. That peace is desirable no right minded person will dispute, and yet all persons of sound judgment will admit that many of the wars of the past have brought to the world some of its choicest blessings and liberties. No one conversant with history, and capable of taking a broad grasp of the world's affairs, could dispute for a moment this proposition. The question before us is, "How shall we harmonize these seemingly contrary thoughts? If peace is most desirable, if it is always to be sought, if wars are always to be shunned, why do we find that in every age of the world some of the very best of mankind have been embroiled in wars, rebellions, etc.? Why do we find that blessings have resulted from these wars, etc.?"

There is but one standpoint from which these questions can be answered satisfactorily, and that is the Bible standpoint. It explains the beauties and blessings of peace, and assures us that God's purpose, when ultimately accomplished, will establish peace on the earth on a permanent basis and make all wars to cease. This is the testimony of our text, "He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth." The Bible gives us the key, explaining why wars under present conditions are necessary, why God's people are to be peace-lovers and peacemakers, and how a permanent peace will be ultimately established under the whole heavens.

As originally created in the image of God, man had too much sympathy, love, mercy, kindness and generosity for war. Where love prevails war is impossible. It was after the fall after years of gradual deflection from the condition of love into a selfish attitude of mind that the baser elements of the human nature maintaining their strength and the higher mental and moral qualities deteriorating, the selfish faculties obtained the controlling influence amongst mankind. Under the stress of necessity for earning bread by the sweat of the face, love gave place to selfishness, and it became the rule amongst mankind to each look out for Number One, and to see to it that whoever lacked, whoever suffered, it should not be himself. Since our Lord's advent this tendency has been checked in some who have received and profited by his teachings, but alas, these are now as ever since the fall but a small fragment of the race.

According to the Bible account man's first fighting was with the wild animals. As originally created man's dominating power over the lover animals was such that he was naturally their master, but with the fall came loss of power, loss of influence, antagonisms, until the hunting of wild animals to their death became almost a necessity. Nimrod is recorded as the great leader in the fighting of wild beasts he was a "mighty hunter," (Gen. 10:9); but this battling with the wild beasts took time and attention from the higher and nobler things, just as the fightings of earth have ever done. On the other hand it cultivated the spirit of combativeness and destructiveness. It was not long after this that among Nimrod's children the war spirit arose with the selfish endeavor to improve their own conditions at the expense of others to bring other families, tribes and nations into subjection, so as to collect tribute from them to the enrichment of the more powerful family, tribe, nation.

Added to this selfish and thievish desire to take advantage of others, came later a pride of national standing and prowess, which is but another form of selfishness. These two qualities have stimulated wars amongst the people of the earth for now six thousand years, an additional element closely blended with these being a sort of religious fanaticism the supposition of one people that it had a right to impose its religious convictions upon another.

This unbalance of minds, which we have just seen operating in all to a greater or lesser degree and inclining all to selfishly seek personal advantage, personal and national honor at the expense of others and the pride of thinking they must enforce their religious convictions upon others at the point of the sword, have put the poor world [HGL299] into a sad plight. Of course, no two persons being mentally exactly alike, there would naturally be some more benevolently disposed, some more peaceable, some more just, some with better conceptions of true religion than others; but the great mass of mankind would gradually sink down into the bog of indolence and lowest degradation or into despair.

What could the few who loved peace and more quiet pursuit of selfish interests do in the presence of neighbors and friends and relatives more ambitious and disposed to war and fight, to thieves and kill, to denude their neighbors and plume themselves? Could we expect these to quietly allow themselves to be slaughtered, and their goods and the fruit of their labor to be appropriated by others? Would it have been to the benefit of the world to its ennoblement and progress, if they had thus submitted? Truly, no. Surely the reign of selfishness would have come to still greater extremes than it has done had it not been for the oppositions encountered. Truly wrath meeting wrath, sword meeting sword, have had the effect throughout the world of hindering one family, class or nation from obtaining the complete power and influence, and making of the remainder the most ignoble slaves, depriving them of practically everything but their lives, and those to be merely used as they would profit their masters. Humanely speaking, this would have been the result if peace had been insisted upon, if the majority of mankind, were to have insisted that peace must be maintained at any cost. No one would claim that such an enslavement of the race to one man or one family or one autocracy or to one hierarchy would have been safe or beneficial.

Only one person could have been trusted with such omnipotent power over the race, and that is our Creator. His justice, His wisdom, His love, His power, would indeed have been all sufficient and have brought blessings instead of a slavery to the world of mankind. But it was this very autocracy that was rebelled against in the beginning, and human selfishness and the hope of sooner or later obtaining average blessings and perhaps a little advantage over a neighbor would still hinder the majority of the intelligent people of the world from desiring that the Almighty mind that if all the accrued blessings of the world were evenly and equitably divided with every member of the race at this moment, there would very speedily re-commence a fresh warfare, permitted by this selfish desire to have more of earth's comforts, conveniences and blessings, power and display.

A considerable number of Christian people of apparent intelligence assure us that, after looking over this picture of the past and scanning the conditions of the world in the present, they have good hopes that a millennium of peace and good will toward men will very soon be ushered in by the conversion of the whole world to the principles of righteousness. Poor blind men! if they be even saints they should be able to measure the world's condition better than this by considering what the promptings of their own fleshly natures would be aside from the power of grace, the Holy Spirit of truth, working in them. Measuring the natural man by their own fallen nature they should see that the world would run with blood before those who have gotten control of the power and wealth, the honors and the influence, would relinquish these or even agree to keep just what they now have, to cease fighting for more.

We are to remember that in our day this warfare is carried on differently from what it was in the past. In olden times the strong nation looted the weaker one, confiscating their treasures. In our day the same is accomplished in effect but in a very different manner. The strong nation by treaties, gunboats, etc., seeks to exploit the weaker one to secure their business, their trade. Instead of requiring tribute as in olden times, they conduct themselves in apparently a much more just manner, though really it is as in the other case the wiser, the more expert, the stronger nation taking advantage of the weaker neighbor. Commercialism is now in control of the armies and navies and all the powers of the world, and all the wars of our time can more or less directly be traced to this. Take the Russo-Japanese war as an example. What was it but a commercial war, the endeavor of Russia to advance her financial interests in the far east at the expense of the Chinese and Japanese.

On the other hand the realization of this by the Japanese, and their appreciation of the fact that as a nation they would be strengthened financially and every way if they did not rise at once to repel the intruder? Look at the Transvaal war: see how its basis was commercialism. The British and the Dutch had come to that part of Africa for selfish interests, the Dutch for settlement, the British largely for commerce. The power of the latter; especially on the sea, gave it the control of the situation, and when gold and diamonds were found a commercial warfare ensued, the Dutch by taxes and in other ways seeking to hold the wealth of nature to their own special advantage, the British desiring to be untrammeled in their pursuit of riches. The commercial warfare, as we all know, brought about a bloody strife, a terribly severe experience to both parties, for both apparently were to some extent at fault, selfishness, commercialism, being the foundation of the entire trouble.

A somewhat similar condition of affairs led up to the war with Spain. Selfishness on the part of Spain was hindering Cuba's prosperity. The United States, as a neighbor, as a friend of liberty, and as one who might reasonably expect to profit commercially by a change in Cuban affairs, espoused her cause, not purely for love of righteousness, but largely in hope of commercial advantage. No doubt the war was an advantage so far as justice is concerned and the welfare of the people of Cuba; we are merely pointing out the fact that selfishness in the form of commercialism is at the back of our present struggles of warfare.

But we need not look merely to these wars. There is a warfare of another kind at present in progress between all the civilized nations of the world a commercial warfare between the United States and Canada, between the United States and Germany, Britain and France. Tariffs on the one hand and special arrange-ments on the other are the fortresses behind which each seeks its own protection, while sending out pirate attacks upon the business and commerce of each other. It is the same warfare, permitted [HGL300] by the same selfishness, manifesting itself in a different direction from that of the past. The same competition is growing in intensity internally in every land, in every city, as between shops, factories, etc. Trusts, combines, federations, tariff agreements, are all endeavors to meet these conditions in such a manner as might be most favorable to the promoters of them. But the effect of all these conditions in a general way is that they unite the manufacturers of the world's necessities on the one side as against the consumers of these necessities on the other side.

Summing up the whole condition of the world, therefore, we see that the spirit of war, selfishness, no less than the fact of war, contention, opposition, strife, for name and fame and wealth, is greater today, more general, than it ever was before. We do not say that there is proportionately more danger of national wars, although we expect more of them, and do not expect that ague conferences in general will accomplish much more for the peace of the world in the future than it did to prevent the war between Russia and Japan. We do hold that the general warfare and strife amongst the peoples of the world is getting more intense day by day, year by year; and that the formation of trusts, so far from implying a cessation of this warfare, is merely combining the warriors into larger camps that the battle may be carried on more fiercely and more successfully than ever before the battle of the classes against the masses the battle for larger shares of this world's favors and blessings and privileges, opportunities, emoluments and honors.

The scriptures declare that what we must expect in the near future is a time of contention, wars, strife for wealth and advantage, such as has never been known on earth before. The scriptural declaration is that we are entering "a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation," nor ever shall be again. (Matt. 24:21.) It declares that in that time of trouble every man's hand shall be against his neighbor. (Zech. 8:10.) It is very nearly to this point now; national lines, party lines, all lines are ignored except as they prove advantageous to the individual. Self first is the rule of general conduct, and this legitimately means very soon every man's hand for himself and against his neighbor.

Those who are expecting the Millennium of peace and good will amongst men must be very blind indeed if they cannot see these things. They must see that it would not be sufficient to convert a nation, in the sense of having it agree that it would destroy its battleships, its fortifications, and disarm its soldiers, although nothing seems farther from the intention of the nations themselves than such a disarmament. They must see that if every nation were disarmed, the strife internally, every man's hand against his neighbor, is going on and will go on more fiercely as the days and weeks and years roll by. The increase of knowledge which has come to the world has brought with it an increase of ambition, a restless desire which, having a selfish basis of operation, can bring forth no other fruitage than that of contention and strife. We evidently must look to the Lord for help, and as we reverently turn to Him our attention and give heed to the answer of our fears, we hear the messages of His Word assuring us in the language of our text that "he will make wars to cease unto the end of the earth."

The assurance of the Lord comforts our hearts even before we learn of the method He will pursue to bring about the good result. We say to ourselves, there have been great evangelistic movements in the world and we have heard of thousands upon thousands being converted, and yet in spite of all these conversions, in spite of all these labors public and private, in spite of all the ministerial means and schools, we have seen that the strife amongst nations and individuals is on the increase, and that this is fully borne out by the apostle's testimony, "In the last days (in the close of this age, in the dawning of the Millennium) perilous times shall come; men shall be lovers of their own selves (selfish), without natural affection, covenant breakers, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," etc. 2 Tim. 3:1.

What a picture! And how well it agrees with what we have just seen. The apostle does not say that in the last days men will become more heathenish than before, less civilized, that they will abandon the arts and the sciences and take to living in dens and caves of the earth. No! but that with a form of godliness such as we see about us today, the power of it will be denied in their lives; selfishness will more and more obtain the control, with the result that it will lead to the wreck of the present social structure in anarchy, confusion and selfish endeavor on the part of each to look out for Number One, and will result in a maelstrom of trouble in which all law and order and government, social, religious and political, will be submerged. These wrecks of our modern civilization, these desolations that will ensue will all be the direct result of man's neglect of the divine wisdom, his rejection of the divine law of love, his following of the Satanic law of selfishness, and the Lord at this time will so direct the affairs of the world that selfishness will thus bring about its own destruction, its own disadvantage.

This is exactly the statement of our text. The prophet, speaking of the matter, says, "Behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire." Thus it is plainly stated that the anarchy that is impending upon the world and which will doubtless be ripe within ten years, according to the scriptures, is the natural outworking of selfishness which the Lord is now permitting, to the intent that men may learn the better way through the failure of the wrong way, to the intent that the lessons which they would not learn from his messages may be learned through their own sad experiences.

Describing the matter in preceding verses, the prophet declares, "The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted." The voice of God, which speaks peace through Jesus Christ our Lord to all who accept Him, is about to speak justice to the world in general in the great time of trouble. All injustice, all unrighteousness, everything contrary to the spirit of love, [HGL301] is about to react upon the world in general as a great object lesson. We sometimes say, speaking of the social order, that the friction between capital and labor is getting hotter and hotter; and the scriptures, using the same figure of speech, declare that the earth that is, symbolically society will melt with the fervency of the heat of the strife and contention and anarchy which will prevail the entire social fabric will melt in the fire of that day, symbolical fire.

As a result of these experiences a great blessing will come to the world. Indeed, the Lord now only permits the selfishness of man to work the destruction of civilization because the proper time has come because the time has come for the establishment of the Kingdom of God's dear Son. In the past God did not utter His voice, else the world would have melted long ago, the savage passions of humanity would have been loosed long ago. He reserved the uttering of His voice, His bestowal of justice and recompense to mankind, until this time, when He is ready to make use of the trouble for the advantage of our race in general. He deferred the utterance of His voice, calling for justice and vengeance, until first the redemption had been accomplished by our dear Redeemer at Calvary and until, subsequently to that, the elect church, His Bride, had been selected. And this heavenly Bridegroom and Bride changed from earthly to spiritual, heavenly conditions and glory are to be the divine power in the world for the blessing of every creature, the teaching of the whole world a better way than the way of selfishness.

Six thousand years the Lord has allowed the world to try under various expedients and in various ways the operation of the law of selfishness, to prove its good and its bad elements and features and results; and now, when civilization has attained its highest degree of development, it has also attained its highest destructive power and is about to accomplish its own collapse. Then the Lord will speak through the glorified Christ to the world in peace and with power. He will speak peace through Jesus Christ to all those who will submit to the terms and conditions of righteousness. He will speak forth tribulation to all who will not submit their wills to that new arrangement called in the scriptures a "new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."

This is clearly set forth in the context, which represents the Lord as commanding the world to be still and to recognize Him, His law, His way, His plans, His methods, thus implying what we know has been the truth that the world for some time has been disposed to ignore the Lord and to follow its own way, its own course, a course that is rapidly leading to anarchy.

A part of the same statement is, "I will be exalted amongst the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." It will be the Millennial Kingdom of Christ that will thus exalt the law and word of Jehovah throughout the whole earth, causing all nations, peoples, kindred and tongues to know and to obey. A blessing will follow the institution of this Kingdom; the nations will find it to be to their advantage, as it is written, "The desire of all nations shall come." In their trouble and anarchy they will find consolation and rest in obedience to the institutions and laws of the Kingdom of Immanuel, and as the prophet again declares, "Many nations shall come and say, 'Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house; He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths.'"(Isa. 2:3.) Thus the promised blessing shall fill the earth, for Satan shall be bound, all evil shall be restrained, and during that thousand years the world of mankind shall come to fullest opportunity for comparing sin with righteousness, selfishness with love, and then those who love righteousness will be manifested and those who have still a hankering for selfishness will also be manifested, and the latter will be utterly destroyed, we are told, in the Second Death, from which there will be no recovery. Our hearts cry out in the language of our Lord's prayer, "Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as in heaven."