vol. xxx, no. 4 april 1926 universal brotherhood - a fact in nature

THE DOVE OF PEACE
Soul of the Silence and the source of Wisdom. Her radiance sustains
the universe.
And what is war? 'The howling of wolves against the moon.'
The raging of men maddened by hunger for gold and fear of one another.
An eagle might serve as a symbol for war, but an eagle kills for
food; men kill for power, for wealth, or for a dream of honor, and more
than all from fear. No! The symbol for war is man - or flame. War
is a fire that wastes and devastates the world.
How shall we symbolize Peace? MThat emblem can we use to
suggest the power and the dignity, the fostering love and universal
motherhood, of Peace? The inoffensive dove? The fruitful olive branch?
What hint is there in these of the great spiritual power that is the Soul
of things? Before Peace can be fitly symbolized it must first be understood.
Certainly there is a kind of peace that all can understand, the
peace that follows war as night the day, and, like the night, is but an
interval of rest and preparation for the morrow: but this is not the
peace that puts an end to war; this is not permanent nor is it universal;
for as the globe revolves unceasingly the night and day divide the earth
continually; so wars die down in one place and break out anew elsewhere.
Is there then no such thing as permanent and universal peace?
Upon the surface of the earth day follows night and night suc-
ceeds the day; and so it is with war and with the peace that follows
war and that prepares new wars. The earth revolves unceasingly upon
its axis; but the axis is at rest as long as the revolving globe endures.
The night succeeds the day infallibly; but yet the sun shines on un-
changeably. Must we then never cease from war?
So long as man is satisfied to live upon the surface of the earth
he must submit to alternation as a necessary condition of his life upon
the surface of this globe. He must have periods of rest as well as of
activity: he must be born and die: but life goes on unceasingly although
the form of things must change. And there is always peace at the heart
of things no matter what the discord in the outer spheres of life.
So long as man believes that discord is his foreordered destiny,
so long will war continue among men. So long as each man thinks of
himself as separate from the rest, with separate rights of individual
possession, so long will he endeavor to enforce his fancied rights by violence.
But when men learn the truth that lies behind the principle of
Universal Brotherhood, when they can venture to believe that Brother-
hood is actually a fact in Nature, and not merely an amiable aspira-
'