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REPARATION NOT VENGEANCE.

A SERMON PREACHED BY THE
REV. JOHN E. BUSHNELL,
Pastor of the Phillips Presbyterian Church,
on April 24th, 1898.

' ' And if a man strives for masteries, yet is he not crowned
except he strive lawfully. " II Tim. 2; j.

These words are chosen to preface our thoughts at
this time simply because they well represent the spirit
which is at the foundation of what we have to say 
and each hearer is left to make such particular applica
tion of them as he may judge best as our discussion this
morning shall proceed.
After much hesitation as to my duty, and with much
shrinking from the burden, I have been led to feel that
some words are due to this people to-day about the
war which has now been begun between this country
and Spain. I regard it as more fitting that what I
have to say should be called simply a statement
rather than a sermon, as my desire is, by a calm
and unrhetorical presentation of the case, to aid so
far as possible to a clear understanding of the position
into which we are now brought. In exciting times,

when passion is liable to cloud right thinking and
conflicting opinions as to what is right disturb many, it
is well if the Christian community can find a point of
view where vision is clarified by divine light, and
current events are interpreted with reference to the far
reaching purposes of God.
Probably all conscientious persons Jiave in these last
few weeks passed through several and conflicting states
of mind as to the justice of our present national position,
being to-day of one conviction and tomorrow possessed
of quite another, leading us to sympathy with the un
happy philosopher who first believed, and then doubted,
and then doubted whether he doubted.
And now that our policy is fixed, perhaps many
wish secretly that they were more sure that it is a
necessary and righteous war which has broken the long
peace of America. Shall we fling out our banners to
the breeze with the proud confidence that we may
expect the blessing of heaven upon our cause? Shall we
go forward with the feeling that another is added to
those many struggles by which right has conquered
wrong, and mankind has been brought up to a higher
exaltation? Or must we feel that the followers of the
Prince of Peace must be ashamed? It is because such
questions are raised among the thoughtful that I ven
ture to speak especially on the subject of The Christians
attitude in the present crisis.
i. In the first place as to the state of mind which we
should have towards the country with which we are at
war. It is a wrong to ourselves to depart from a Christian
attitude in the way we think even of our enemies. We
hear angry clamour against Spain. Severe and only
too just condemnation of her long and unhappy history
are upon all tongues.
It is hard to be patient and calm in judgment upon

her. Her faults are of that sort which most tries
patience and excuses wrath. Her long history is a con
tinuous crime against humanity.
And yet the spirit of animosity and hatred which
many seek to stir up towards these unfortunate people is
not that which adds to our own strength or allies us to
the mind of Christ. No people are in a more piti
able position than they of Spain. Possessing their full
share of faults and yet not without admirable quali
ties, as £ people they have been as badly governed
as any great nation that ever lived. The vast majority
to-day are entirely without education. A good author
ity places the number unable to read or write as
high as eighty per cent. They are toiling under bur
dens which a corrupt government has put upon them.
They/have been hopelessly handicapped in the race with
other nations by the religious and political systems
under which they have for centuries lived, which have
been of such a kind as to bring out their undesirable
traits and hinder their developments in other directions.
The air of freedom in which other people have
been thriving is unknown to them, and their very
devotion to their land, so admirable in itself, has only
encouraged their oppressors the more and sunk them
in deeper thralldom.
How pitiful to our modern world at the close of the
nineteenth century to read, for instance, the Queen
Mother's pathetic and even beautiful appeal calling
upon that people to defend — what? Their homes, their
liberties, their possessions? No! Is her thought for their
sufferings and how they may be relieved? No! But
the frantic appeal is that they may shed their blood and
impoverish themselves the more in order to help her
keep the property of her son, and hand it over to him in
later years unimpaired; for Cuba is the property of her
dear boy.

•dout \ S many

And when we see their response and their readiness
to die for that idea, we wish that a people which is
capable of such sacrifice had only a better chance of
developing in virtues which would regain them a place
among the nations. i.
The Christian attitude toward such a people is one
not of harsh judgment so much as profound pity and
hope that they may yet have their chance. Would that
they could be told that the only feeling ii ?w p*ossesse(j
wards them is just that sentiment which _ ,
people who have been very much favo, ' -doubted
towards one which has been most unfortuna
hurt their proud hearts more than scorn,
be truer to our Lord and Master. ]L IS a.
\
A Christian nation cannot afford to cher._.n * l°ng
any more than can individuals. The man who i >rs to
in feelings of bitterness toward another injui may
own character. Pity and compassion may not hel] Vwe
enemy but they help you, for ugly and angry though 'to-
bitter and corrode the heart which holds thet ju
thoughts of charity and compassion sweeten w ..ever
house they dwell in.
2. The next thought is as to our attitude toward the
motives for this war. I do not need to waste words in
this place in saying that war is a fearful thing, and that
only the most absolute necessity can justify it. It is the
triumph of Christianity that it has become so difficult to
go to war and that the principle of arbitration has
attained to such weight and prominence.
It is because of that fact that many are sober to-day
in the doubt whether there be in this case a reason large
enough to make this a righteous war. We meet with
those who^herish motives for it which it is unnecessary
to say here, are not Christian motives. On a recent visit

to Washington I found the streets and public buildings
filled with men, boys and women wearing the badge on
which was inscribed the words: "Avenge the Maine."
I do not doubt that the idea so rudely expressed, was
a kind of righteous,.one to some. But "Avenge" is not
the word which a Christian people should readily use.
It is like the old* Hebrew idea, "An eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth. " It would be mortifying to believe
^\L^' going to a conflict with that word as the
ties, as !*•
as any* grr _•_,-,»..,. ........
¦.~ a on for the Maine is a cry which will in time
j tring, but "Reparation " sounds better than
. . , he nation which fights for vengeance must
high af ,, , & . , s
, ° there is no other way to right a wrong and
dens v * •<¦ * a ¦ UK
^opportunity of undoing a wrong has been
" . Wf should be glad that while in former days
y way to do when injured was to strike back in
a little harder blow, the people to-day which
bee ....
ils its spirit is greater than they who lose it.
be just under the smarting of injury is the sub
lime, net of self control on the part of any people.
To patiently work out the justice of a case, with a
patience which will not be driven into a hurry lest it
make a mistake and include the innocent with guilty,
that is true greatness and that is Christian.
It is not natural to the human heart to do that.
But the grace of God effects it. Patience, calmness,
justice to all and determination to do the right, never had a
better exponent than the Christian President of this
Christian land has shown the world in the last few
weeks. The loss of that good ship and faithful company must
be answered for, yet long before that terrible event befell
us, successive presidents had foreseen that this conflict
must come. But while the loss of the Maine, if it does not

finally brand Spanish officials with eternal shame, will
at least give the last overwhelming proof, as ourPresident
argues, that Spain is not capable of governing her domains
and must make way for those who can, yet if the Maine
had never been lost, there would still be as much reason
for this war as now or else we are upon a false ground and
it is not a righteous war. It is not a war for vengeance,
God forbid that it should ever be recorded so. Though
men may strike a little harder and risk their lives a little
more readily as their blood warms at the thought of
comrades who were stricken with no chance to defend
themselves, yet the ground on which the Christian is
moving out to this conflict is ground which a century
has been preparing.
The only ground which is broad enough to justify
war is that the condition of things is intolerable to a
Christian community and that the call of human distress
is so great that we must heed it. If that is taken from
under our feet we have no other to stand upon. A
Christian President says that is the condition, and I firmly
believe him. It is not the first time it has been said.
It has been said by earlier Presidents. Cuba has been
"the open sore" upon this Hemisphere through the nine
teenth century.
A careful Christian President has declared that every
other means except war has been exhausted in vain, in
the attempt to end those oppressions which cry to heaven
and will banish peace from all our hearts until they be
ended. Whether he would have been obliged to say it
if all we Ministers and people had let our voices be heard
in support of his patience and forbearance, as loudly as
did those who cried for haste, we cannot tell, but we are
simply as Christians now committed to a war which is
for us at least one for humanity.
That is its purpose. The best that can be said for it
is, that so far as the Christian interest in it goes it is en-

tirely a most unselfish war. It may be a mistaken one,
we are not the judges of that. But it is unselfish.
We gain nothing by it. We have little or no knowl
edge of those who are to profit by our sacrifice. I do
not recall a war which was begun on so purely unselfish
grounds. So far as the mass of our people go, we expect
to gain nothing good. We may get much that is bad.
We do not want the land for which we struggle. It would
be a care and perhaps a curse to us to have it. We have
little liking for the people whom we seek to redeem.
Since we must go through it, let it be simply with this
for the reason that we strive for a down trodden people,
who have tried to rise before, who seem to be uncon
querable now, and who by their sacrifices already made
have proven their right to taste of the fruits of freedom.
3. And this leads us up to the other remaining ques
tion towards which we want t'o be in the right attitude.
Who shall assume to say when a state of things is in
tolerable ? Has any nation the right to pass judgment,
and execute it toward another ? There was a time
when it was not thought to be a matter of concern to
one people what went on in another part of the world.
Herod could destroy the first born children without a
murmur from other realms. A change has come over
the earth.
A wave of indignation and disgust went over us when
Christian Europe allowed the sufferings of Armenia, and
the triumph of the Turk. Instinctively we felt that such
apathy was a crime. No one denies that the sufferings
of those near our door have been far greater than those
of Armenia. There must be right in that feeling, which
condemns oppression, and tells us that the time has come
to go outside our own affairs for the good of the op
pressed. It is a great trust to rule over, a beautiful
land where millions of men live and work andi:prepare

for eternity. And when a power says to us " this is my
property; I can do with it as I wish," we begin to feel
that there is something wrong with that claim. No land
is ours to do as we will with it. Those who have held
so have been driven away; have forfeited their own.
Their vineyard is given to another. They are weighed
in the balance and found wanting.
If we believe that to be true then we have assurance
to go forward. Poor Spain, for I would speak of her
only in sorrow, has proved herself an unhappyjrguardian
of the lives of her many people. She has already been
judged by those successive acts of providence by which
her many lands have been taken from her, until she has
been reduced to a shadow of herself.
She has had plenty of warning that a new rule alone
could save her this last trouble.
But she has given no sign that she had learned the
lesson of her past. The harshest thing that I need to
say of her to-day is that she has never been able to rule
and make her people happy.
They have suffered and grown poor and been falling
behind in the onward sweep of empires. Another ter
rible judgment day is upon her. The right to rule a
part of the globe, to-day, is more of a responsibility
than it was, and more easily forfeited. The "divine
right of kings" has given way to "the divine right of
people." The cry " this is not your business" will no
longer protect a wicked tyranny in its brutal abuse of
God's poor creatures. The Christian consciousness
mounts above all the technicalities of international laws
and usages, and like a river it sweeps on its majestic
course, doing the will of the Almighty by crumbling
wicked thrones and exacting justice on earth. And
when a people follow the dictates of that enlightened
consciousness, I believe that they are but putting them
selves in line with Providence.

We are saddened, we are almost ashamed to find
that we are at war. But while you and I may not say
that we are going to it with enthusiasm, or with the
confidence that we are right with which they went out
•of this city, to war, a generation ago, yet this is the at
titude that I am in this morning and as far as I have
gone in my thoughts. A country which has lost most of
her other fair treasures by folly and blind misrule, is again
paying the merited reward of her lack of faith and
humanity toward her lovely pearl in the Antilles. A
people once drawn back into submission, not by force of
arms, but by promises that have been absolutely disre
garded, takes up arms again in a rebellion which can
not be put down except by the annihilation of a whole
race. I for one am free to say that I do not believe
there is any hope that that uprising would ever be put
down. And if it were it would not be for long.
In such a state of misery and strife we have been lead
to think that it was the call of God to make an end.
We even take nothing away that was not lost before to
Spain, we only shorten the period of distress.
I rest and find some peace of mind in the thought
that when a great nation like ours gets filled with an idea
until it crrries them away, an idea which has no self-
seeking in it, but only self-loss, it is not right to say it
is madness or it is wrong. Before this, the world has
been lifted up and moved on by the uprising of people
and by war as the last court of appeal. It was at that
grim court that we had awarded to us the sacred liberties
of our Anglo-Saxon race.
Now that we have started on the path that we can
not leave until the end is reached, let us take it for
granted that since our prayers for peace have not been
answered, Providence is using us for another of those
trials by which He brings in a better reign on earth.
And if we have been misled, we will trust that it may

still be overruled for the blessing of the beautiful land
that he has laid in the sea. Our attitude is not that of
anger or malice toward a nation whose ways are not ours.
It is not of the spirit of revenge. It is not for land or
for renown. It is that the cry of the prisoners seems to
us to be the call of God. It must be the task of another
day than ours to decide whether or not we were right in
our estimate of the facts.
It is, as patriots, too late for us to doubt whether
we are right. We must go on as if we knew it to be so.
When some after generation shall read the history
which we are about to make and children shall study it
as a part of their lesson in school, then, and perhaps not
till then, will it be surely known whether its results were
for the blessing of God's children. But if we do not
want to make them ashamed of this page of their nation's
history let us make it clear that we did it thinking it was
the only way to bring peace and mercy, with no malice
or anger nor spirit of vengeance, but soberly, and in the
belief that what we do is for the best good of those whom
we crown with the glory of independence, and also for the
final benefit of that beautiful, fertile land, and proud but
unhappy people, whose worst enemies have always been
those who ruled them, and whose best friends may yet
foe proven to be those whom they now hate so bitterly.
When the Almighty stretched out His hand over the
great void to create the lands and seas, he wore upon
His finger a gem which outshone the brightness of the
sun, and it befell that this priceless stone loosed from
its setting and slipped into the sea. And when God saw
how it adorned the earth He left it there to send its pure
and cheering beams over the dark waters, and that
fairest of pearls was the Island of Cuba.
So runs the legend among those who still love the
spot where little but sufferings have come to them and

with a love more deep and true for the price already
paid in tears in blood.
May we not believe that the moving of this great
Christian nation to battle is the process by which God's
hand reaches down to claim His Pearl again, that He
may wear it as one of His jewels; its lustre no longer
dimmed by uncleanness and its beauty unobscured
by the covering of misery and degradation ! So may
Divine love reach out to all those island gems that
stud the emerald mantle of the sea! So may He remem
ber all lands where human feet have gone and human
hearts are aching, until the difference of tongue and
name shall cease to be a ground of hatred or distrust and
all shall speak one language of Christian love, shall share
one glorious Gospel — liberty, and live in one common
hope in the Christ wno died to atone for the sins of all.