Boon-fellow of the stardawn and sun
rise,
I shall keep a lover’s tryst
With the gold and amethyst,
With the stars for my companions in
the skies.
—Odell Shepard in Book News
Monthly.
MEANING OF THE
EUROPEAN WAR
To the Editor of The Observer:
Probably never in the history of the
past have men's ideals been so sud
denly and completely shattered.
Just at the moment when the
churches and peace societies were
giving the cry of “Peace and Safety,”
and nations were signing peace trea
ties not to make war any more, the
greatest war of the centuries burst
unexpectedly upon the world. Bright
hopes have been blasted by this pres
ent European war.
What does it mean0 While for
years men have been talking that we
had reached a place in our civilization
where war was a thing of the past,
and that we would now beat our
“swords into plowshares,’” and our
I “spears into pruning hooks." Again
[ we ask if it means anything.'
In the second chapter of Isaiah in
the first few verses we find that “in
the last days” * * "many people
shall go, and sav,” and the substance
of what they will say is this, that we
! w ill “beat our swords into plowshares”
and etc.. And have many people been
: saying this? Most certainly. Then
i at least it means prophecy is being
j fulfilled. But while the nations of
earth have been talking peace, have
they not been steadily at work prepar
ing the most destructive implements
of warfare that have ever been? Do
these inconsistencies mean anything?
One thing is quite evident, anil that
is that the human heart is very de
ceitful.
