Society thus teaches that the taking of life, though it is regarded as the biggest crime, and receives the biggest punishment, is not, in itself, wrong. It is only, on some occasions, and for some social purposes, inexpedient. Society is not yet awake to the idea that, for spiritual purposes, the taking of human life is always inexpedient, because human life is not an end in itself, but a stepping-stone to further life, which may possibly be forfeited by blundering mankind.
In the eyes of woman, war also means the negation of civilisation and of progress. Of what use the care and labour spent in science, art, culture, education, if, at the command of militarism, these and their votaries are to be periodically blotted out.
Civilisation, as we were taught, meant the progress of the human race in ideals, spiritual and moral. Civilisation, as our children are being taught, means progress in the invention of machines for destroying life--the one thing on earth which can't be made by machines. (The word "artillery," with its present murderous meaning, derived from Latin "ars," "artis," art!)
War means that all the finest intellects, of the finest of God's creatures, are set to vie one with the other--on what false track of evolution are we rushing?--to vie, one with the other, how best to destroy life and to precipitate death! Death is sacred, but not life.
War means blood, slaughter, brutality, deformities, and always death, death, death. Is man jealous of God, that he destroys God's handiwork, and spares his own, when he runs amok? When the Germans destroyed, at Louvain, the works of man, a howl of horror rose from every voice and newspaper throughout the civilised world. But during this European war, thousands of unique specimens of the works of God, Europe's finest manhood, are every day being destroyed, and we are still waiting for the howl of horror.
The other day I was told by one who witnessed it, that, from one trench, 800 men were killed within three minutes. Now it takes women years and years of infinite love, and patience, of sacrifice, and devotion, to mould their sons--their creations--after the image of God, in body, soul and mind. They fashion, with infinite pains, these precious lives for God, and the end is--to be blown to pieces, 800 in three minutes. To this end has the wisdom of Man brought Man. Could the wisdom of Woman bring us to a worse abyss than this? However desperate the remedy, must not the help of woman be hailed, to save life from the abyss?