religion was the earliest
preacher of the divine gospel of pity, and it is to Him that we owe the
loveliest and purest conception of brotherhood. He claimed to be the
Brother of us all; He showed how we should treat our brethren, and He
carried His teaching on to the very close of His life.

So far from talking puerilities about equality, we should all see that
there are degrees in our vast family; the elder and stronger brethren
are bound to succour the younger and weaker; the young must look up to
their elders; and the Father of all will perhaps preserve peace among us
if we only forget our petty selves and look to Him. Alas, it is so hard
to forget self! The dullest of us can see how excellent and divine is
brotherhood, if we do assuredly carry out the conception of fraternity
thoroughly; but again I say, How hard it is to banish self and follow
the teaching of our divine Brother! If we cast our eyes over the world
now, we may see--perhaps indistinctly--things that might make us weep,
were it not that we must needs smile at the childish ways of men. In the
very nation that first chose to put forward the word "fraternity" as one
of the symbols for which men might die we see a strange spectacle. Half
that nation is brooding incessantly on revenge; half the nation is bent
only on slaying certain brother human beings who happen to live on the
north and east of a certain river instead of on the south and west. The
home of the solacing doctrine of fraternity is also the home of
incessant preparations for murder, rapine, bitter and brutal vengeance.
About a million of men rise every morning and spend the whole day in
practising so that they may learn to kill people cleverly; hideous
instruments, which must cause devastation, torture, bereavement, and
wreck, should they ever be used in earnest, are lovingly handled by men
who hope to see blood flow before long. The Frenchman cannot yet venture
to smite his Teutonic brother, but he will do so when he has the chance;
and thus two bands of brethren, who might have dwelt together amicably,
may shortly end by inflicting untold agonies on each other. Both nations
which so savagely await the beginning of a mad struggle are supposed to
be followers of the Brother whose sweet message is read and repeated by
nearly all the men who live on our continent, yet they only utter bitter
words and think sullen thoughts, while the more acrid of the two
adversaries is the country which once ins