"This is yesterday's,--but here is one of to-day." He took another out of
his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
"You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station," he said;
"it was dreadful. Wives, children, more than a thousand of them, weeping.
They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further. Strangers wept,
looking on. One woman from Toula gasped and fell down dead. Five
children. They have since been placed in various institutions; but the
father was driven away all the same.... What do we want with this
Manchuria, or whatever it is called? There is sufficient land here. And
what a lot of people and of property has been destroyed."
Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different from that which
formerly existed, even so lately as the year '77. That which is now
taking place never took place before.
The papers set forth that, during the receptions of the Tsar, who is
travelling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the men who are
being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the
people. As a matter of fact, something quite different is being
manifested. From all sides one hears reports that in one place three
Reservists have hanged themselves; in another spot, two more; in yet
another, about a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing her
children to the conscription committee-room and leaving them there; while
another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander. All are
dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words, "For the Faith, the King,
and the Fatherland," the National Anthem, and shouts of "Hurrah" no
longer act upon people as they once did. Another warfare of a different
kind--the struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness of the
work to which people are being called--is more and more taking possession
of the people.
Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking place between
the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the
white and yellow races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,
bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without ceasing has gone
on and is now going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind
now waiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which
surrounds and oppresses mankind.
In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and said, "I came to cast
fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled." Luke
xii. 49.
That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished, the fire is being
kindled. Then do not let us check it, but let us spread and serve it.