We take our stand on the phrase of Pope Benedict XV in his letter to the belligerent powers on August 1st, 1917, that what is needed is ‘a simultaneous and reciprocal diminution of armaments’and it is needed precisely in order to help the nations to an era of peace. No one doubts but that these enormous armaments are themselves a cause of unrest in Europe, of themselves they suggest menace and a doom.

But again it is undoubted that armaments are themselves not so much a cause of evil as a result of evil; they testify to an evil beneath the surface of which they are the outward and visible sign. That deeper evil is the one which is in most need of cure. It would be as unwise to attempt to cure our troubles by mere disarmament as it would be to cure a fever by putting ointment on the resulting rash, for everyone knows that armaments are a symptom and are not the disease.

That disease is selfishness, unrestrained desire to possess. It runs through national as well as international politics, it is to be found not merely in nations but in persons; not just at Geneva or Shanghai but in each of us. A gathering of Christians to protest against excessive armaments is in the nature of a confession. There would be no need to-day to have this meeting if we ministers of Christ had properly done our work. We meet here therefore not first to protest against others but to confess our own failure.