PLEA FOR PEACE

POPE BENEDICT

TO-DAY, on the sad anniversary of the terrible conflict, our heart gives forth the wish that the war will soon end. We raise again our voice to utter a fatherly cry for peace. May this cry, dominating the frightful noise of arms, reach the warring peoples and their chiefs and induce kindly and more serene intentions.

In the name of the Lord God, in the name of the Father and Lord in heaven, in the name of the blessed blood of Jesus the price of the redemption of humanity — we implore the belligerent nations, before Divine Providence, henceforth to end the horrible carnage which for a year has been dishonoring Europe.

This is the blood of brothers that is being shed on land and sea. The most beautiful regions of Europe - this garden of the world are sown with bodies and ruins. There, where recently fields and factories thrived, cannon now roar in a frightful manner, in a frenzy of demolition, sparing neither cities nor villages, and spreading the ravages of death.

You who before God and men are charged with the grave responsibility of peace and war, listen to our prayer, listen to the fatherly voice of the vicar of the eternal and supreme Judge to whom you should give account of your public works as well as private actions.

The abundant riches which the creating God has given

Pope Benedict XV sent out this appeal from the Vatican on the first anniversary of the great war.

POPE BENEDICT

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to your lands permit you to continue the contest. But at what a price! At the price of thousands of young lives lost each day on the battlefields, and of the ruins of so many cities and villages, so many monuments, erected through the piety and genius of our forefathers.

The bitter tears which flow in the sanctity of homes and at the foot of altars, do they not also repeat that the price of the continuation of the contest is great, too great?

And it cannot be said that the immense conflict cannot be ended without violence of arms. May this craze for destruction be abandoned; nations do not perish. Humiliated and oppressed, they tremblingly carry the yoke imposed on them and prepare their revenge, transmitting from generation to generation a sorrowful heritage of hate and vengeance.

Why not now weigh with serene conscience the rights and just aspiration of the peoples? Why not start with good will a direct or indirect exchange of views with the object of considering as far as possible these rights and aspirations, and thus put to an end the terrible combat, as has been the case previously under similar circumstances?

Blessed be he who first extends the olive branch and tenders his hand to the enemy in offering his reasonable condition of peace.

The equilibrium of world progress and the security and tranquillity of nations repose on mutual well-being and respect of the right and dignity of others more than on the number of armies and a formidable zone of fortresses.

It is the cry of peace which issues from our supreme soul this sad day and which invites the true friends of peace in the world to extend their hands to hasten the end of a war which for a year has transformed Europe into an enormous battlefield.

Let us hope for the reconciliation of the States; may the people once again become brothers and return to their peaceful labor in arts, learning, and industry; may once again the empire of justice be established; may the people decide henceforth to confine the solution of their differences no longer to the sword, but to courts of justice and equity, where the questions may be studied with necessary calm and thought.

This will be the most beautiful and glorious victory.

A STRUGGLE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

TAKE JONESCU

In all our long history there has never been a time of greater gravity, or one richer in possibilities, or one more overwhelming for us by its very grandeur, than the time through which the world is now passing; and naturally it affects us too, affects us more closely indeed than it affects others.

Shall we inquire, gentlemen, what is the meaning of that which is happening around us? Is this merely a war like all other wars? Is it just one of those numberless historical incidents which at first sight seem to be important, but, as one realizes later, were of no more than passing interest? Or are we indeed face to face with one of those great upheavals which, occurring but rarely, make the end of one world and the beginning of another?

Contemporaries, gentlemen, seldom realize the importance of the events amid which they live. In their wars they count the thousands of the slain, the millions of money lost; but rarely do they take into account the far-off consequences of these events, obliged as they are

This speech was delivered in the Roumanian Chamber of Deputies during the sitting of the 16th and 17th of December, 1915.

Monsieur Jonescu has been the "strong man of Roumania" for some time, and at all times since the outbreak of the war has championed the cause of the Allied Powers. He it was who was chiefly responsible for the entrance of Roumania into the war on the side of France and England.

by the necessities of life to go on living their everyday existence amidst the tragedy all around.

During the barbaric invasions nobody took into account what transformations they involved. Nobody knew that therefrom might result the death of civilization for a thousand years. If people had realized the meaning of these things, they would have made better defense against them. At the time of the French Revolution people had no idea of the tremendous consequences it was to bring, of the far distance they would reach. To-day, gentlemen, I think we are confronted, not with an ordinary war which will simply involve a certain changing of frontiers, leaving other matters very much as they were before. We are faced by a catastrophe involving the whole of the human race; we have before our eyes the declining twilight of one world, preceding the dawn of another and a new world.

And note, gentlemen, how grave is the problem with which humanity is faced to-day! You see Italy, instead of accepting a gratuitous increase of territory, throwing herself of her own free will into the horrors of war. And it is not alone the peoples of Europe who are throbbing with excitement to-day. Have you never asked yourselves what these new nations are doing in the great conflict the young Republics founded by the AngloSaxons across the ocean? Why is it that we see Canada, Australia, New Zealand enrolling from seven to eight per cent of their populations as volunteers? Is it for love of the mother country? Sentiment does not move humanity to such a degree as that. How is it the conscience of the United States of America has become uneasy? Out of love for England? Nothing of the sort, gentlemen. To attack Great Britain has always been recognized as a safe and popular note by orators