most dreadful conflict recorded in history. Man by worldly methods has done his utmost and failed miserably. It is time to turn to God. He desires to give us peace. But men must acknowledge Him as King if they are to have peace. This does not imply that man is to sit with folded arms and look to God to adjust world affairs. God wants man to do all in his power for justice, to work as hard for peace as if it depended on his unaided efforts, but to know that for success peace must be the result of serving and reverencing Him, the Ruler of Nations.

A great deal of the distress of nations to-day is due to the fact that subjects have lost respect for legitimate authority. Governments fail to realize that in leaving God out of their deliberations and policies they have taught their subjects to do the same. In doing this, they have undermined their own authority, as is evident from the shaky foundation on which many governments rest to-day.

National as well as international peace rests on respect for legitimate authority. If nations want loyalty from subjects, and justice from one another, the surest way to both is loyalty to God. The government that reverences God will not be an aggressor nor a delinquent. The government that reverences God will regulate its aims and policies by the laws of eternal justice.

Justice, the justice that is of God, will restrain national selfishness, and in consequence prevent the clash of nations. But in order that justice reign, man must realize that there is a Just Monarch of Mankind, Whose authority cannot be defied with impunity. If the Creator has permitted mankind to be infected with selfishness, He has also given an antidote. That antidote is respect for the Lawgiver of Mankind. Subjects have disregarded Him, and national disasters have resulted. Nations have discarded Him, and the World War was the penalty. The way to peace is God's way, good will shown by respecting God's authority. That will bring peace, and only that. Governments must realize that there is a sanction above for right. They must know that although they may violate justice and carry out selfish policies, they cannot ignore the Lawgiver of the World with impunity. The wages of sin is death. Every individual knows that. It holds for governments as well. Consult history.

Are we to be pessimistic, therefore, and let a selfish world run to ruin? By no means. Governments are made up of individuals. Each individual by respecting God and His justice will be doing his part to better his government and the world. If the individual ignores justice, he must not be surprised if government does also. Now there is no power among mankind so efficacious for establishing justice as Christianity. History confirms this. Wars there have always been and will be. Christ the Prince of Peace has declared it. Nevertheless, Christianity has done more to minimize war and its atrocities than any other power in the world.

Before Christ, war was the occupation of nations. The Roman Empire was at peace only three short periods during seven hundred years. Powerful nations sought more dominion, weak nations fought for existence. It was the rule of might. The only peace was that of exhaustion or slavery. Unless we go back to pre-Christian times, we can have no idea of what Christianity has done for the world's welfare. Bad as conditions are now, they were incalculably worse before Christ. Treaties mean much or little now. They meant nothing then. Justice had no meaning except it was supported by force. The existence of a small nation like Switzerland cannot be imagined in preChristian times. It would have been absorbed or annihilated.

If a powerful nation now attempted to absorb or destroy a smaller nation, it would evoke protest and opposition. And why? It would outrage prevailing sentiment. And what created civilized sentiment as it is to-day? Christianity. Before Christ, the ruler of a nation was not only a tyrant but a god. He acknowledged no power above him. In point of fact the Roman Emperors were deified. Their word was law. They made wrong right, or right wrong. And there was no one to gainsay them. True, an assassin's dagger sometimes stopped them. But there was nothing in the machinery of government or the times to restrain injustice. Christianity proclaimed to the ruler on the throne that he was subject to a Higher Power. It declared to these gods of clay that they had an accountability. It placed the standard of justice before ruler and subject alike, and informed them that they violated it at their eternal peril,

Gradually as the Church of Christ made peaceful conquest of the world, it replaced might by right. Not all at once, nor at any time entirely. It was hard work and long work. First it had to change the ideals of the pagan Romans, and afterwards to soften the brutality of the invading barbarians. But it introduced a new thing into the world, justice. It erected a new tribunal for individual, nation and world, the tribunal of right.

Until the Catholic Bishop Ambrose withstood the Roman Emperor Theodosius to his face there never was a power in the world which said effectively to a tyrant, "It is unjust; thou shalt not." This was a new idea among mankind. A ruler acknowledging a Super-Ruler! A king or emperor was after all not a god, not the arbiter of right or wrong.

I wonder if we who are the heirs of all the beneficence which Christianity has wrought and brought are not sometimes not only unmindful of but also ungrateful to Christ. We glory in the brotherhood of man. Liberty, equality, fraternity! But it was Christ who first declared the brotherhood of man. It was His Church which abolished slavery. One third of the world was in slavery before the Catholic Church gradually enfranchised them. Things do not merely happen. It is not civilization which has brought justice and liberty into the world. Civilization was at its height in the pagan Roman Empire when justice and freedom were trampled underfoot. It was the Catholic Church preaching the justice and brotherhood proclaimed by Christ which brought about respect for justice and freedom for the individual.

But what has all this to do with the problem we are facing? Everything. Peace is not more difficult of attainment than justice or freedom. The Catholic Church gave us justice and freedom, and it can give us peace. I am addressing readers some of whom are not of my faith. In this brief article I cannot substantiate all my statements. But read history aright and you will find the corroboration of all I say. Read Balmes's History of Euro-* pean Civilization, and you will say I am understating rather than exaggerating my claims. The Catholic Church gave us the ideals of justice and brotherhood which the modern world cherishes.

It gave us the ideals. That does not mean that justice and fraternity have always prevailed. But if with the ideals things

are as they are, what would the world be without them! In point of fact the Church has not only given us the ideals but has contributed powerfully to their realization. Yes, I know the abuses of rulers and nations and individuals in Church and State the past twenty centuries; but mankind is mankind. We, individually and collectively, are prone to evil. We are morally free. Human passion often hurls us headlong. But look over the past twenty centuries and you will find that never before in the history of the world was justice or the individual held in such respect. Wars and crimes there have been. But the wars and crimes which the Church prevented were innumerable. Even when war was unavoidable, the Church mitigated its horrors. Before Christianity, war was a shambles and worse. Prisoners were put to death or sent into slavery. Women and children were butchered or reserved for a worse fate. Since, prisoners have been almost envied, and women and children held sacred even by their What did that? The Catholic Church. It put the fear of the Lord in subjects and rulers. When war was inevitable, this same Church caused it to be less disastrous by the Truce of God, which called a halt to the clash of arms. the Papacy, the much abused and much misunderstood Papacy, was supreme, it time and again prevented war. It used its mighty power to check acts of injustice on the throne, to make hostile rulers listen to reason, to halt the hand of the powerful aggressor, and in various ways to make justice reign instead of force. It was the one super-power among nations in the ages of faith, and on the whole that power was employed for the maintenance of peace by upholding the law of right and the brotherhood of man. Space does not permit me to say more.

conquerors.

When

A new era has come. The old ideals have been crowded out. Materialism is the god now worshipped. Greatness is measured by size. The man is great who has much. The nation is great that is rich. There is no room except for bulk. Material standards dominate the world. Result: Among individuals a mad race for wealth regardless of honesty; and among nations a struggle for territory, trade and resources regardless of justice. Materialism is enthroned. Behold its votaries! Conscienceless governments, bleeding nations, discouraged peoples, lawless individuals.

Materialism is the new god! And what does it give its worshippers? In a world which abounds in natural resources and teems with sustenance for mankind it gives stone for bread. Never before was it so evident that "not in bread alone does man live". Guided mainly by material standards the world was never so materially destitute. Starving millions in a world of plenty! What an indictment of man's pride and selfishness!

War has done it, war which was all but universal. And what caused the war? We all know; material ideals, a return to paganism. The governments of Europe for the past few centuries have been more or less a combination of merchant and highwayman. By deception, intrigue, propaganda, downright injustice and force, they have sought to extend their territories and enrich their treasuries. And all the while the multitudes were bleeding and dying, and the productive earth was trampled on by devastating armies. And to what purpose? To gratify the ambition of rulers or feed the pride of nations.

What is the remedy? First of all there is a remedy: Reverence for the ideals introduced into the world by Christ. A return to spiritual values. These ideals cured the pagan world of the dreadful evils of slavery, butchery of prisoners of war, infant murder, the debasement of woman, and other maladies so firmly rooted that they seemed impossible of eradication.

Christian ideals are the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and immortality of man. If mankind realizes that the Creator and Ruler of the world is a just God Who will render to every man according to his works, mankind will respect justice, and human governments will rule by right, not by might. But if mankind believes that it is but a material part of this material world, and that life and its accountability terminate in a bit of dust, and that there is no ruling power above, the hand of every man will be against his neighbor and the policy of every government will be plunder. There will be no restraint on subject or ruler but that of expediency, which teaches that everything is lawful that is desirable and obtainable.

Here precisely is where Christianity stands forth as the worldremedy. Not desire but duty should be man's principle of action. Every Christian denomination holds that. The Catho