m the earliest times a people that have laid the
greatest possible stress upon the rule of law; so much so, that their
own laws were supposed to have divine sanction. In olden Jewish times
everything was regulated by law--man's relation to his fellow men, to
the state, and to God; to such a degree that we have been blamed often
for being a law-ridden people. We cannot, therefore, remain oblivious
to the fact that the sanctity of law has now been rudely called into
question and its authority greatly weakened. As Jews we must be deeply
concerned in assisting the European world back to a full consciousness
of the majesty and eminence of the rule of law.

But more than that, it was part of our earliest teaching that "thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." What clouds of hatred have not
been blown from one line of trenches to the other! What volumes of
spleen have not been sent from one country to the other! In countless
speeches, in newspapers and in books, the doctrines of dislike, of
animosity, of deepest malice have been preached. Men have been taught
to look upon certain neighbors as born enemies, to see in those who do
not speak their own tongue not only a stranger but an enemy. Back of
the soldiers under arms, back of the cannons with their deadly
missiles, stand millions of loathing men and women shooting darts of
odium that reach further than any shell and that are more poisonous
than any gas. When shall we be able once again to preach the beautiful
teaching of the prophet, "Have we not all one Father; hath not one God
created us all?"

And lastly, we must bear in mind that the Jews have been opposed from
of old to the rule and reign of might as represented by the God of
War. In a syllabus on the history of the Peace Movement just published
by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, it is passing
strange to find that the Old Testament is entirely overlooked and that
from the first point, "The Cosmopolitan Ideal among the Greek
Philosophers," the jump is made at once to the second, "Jesus Christ,
the Prince of Peace." And yet we know that in the outlook of our
greatest teachers and philosophers the vision of peace loomed large
and powerful. "Ye shall not teach war any more," said one of our
greatest. And for another the true sign of his prophetic mission is
that he preached peace. How sadly these teachings have been belied in
the present war we know only too well.

_Is War Necessary and Good?_

In m