aWURDS UR PLOWSHARES?
By Wesley Amundsen
Wx 44 0 YOU remember Armistice Day
in 1918? Do you recall the joy that raced
through the world when the thunderings
of war ceased and the blood dried upon
Flanders fields, where today the poppies
grow? Do vou remember how men said,
“This is the end of war, nations will most
certainly never permit themselves to be
drawn into another such inferno of hell as
were those frightful years of 1914-19187"?
Then it was that preacher and statesman
took for their text the words of Micah the
prophet, “And they shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears into prun-
ing hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword
against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more.” Micah 4: 3.
But some Bible students failed to be
convinced that the time had come for wars
to cease. They recognized that this call to
peace came from ‘many nations,” not
from God. They refused to believe that
the golden era of peace and prosperity was
now ushered in, and that men would love
one another in the way God has said that
they should. They prophesied that an-
other war was in the offing, and that the
next war would be greater than any past
war. But,—well, you remember, how 1t
was back there ~—men ‘pooh-poohed” the
idea, and said that all future disputes
would be settled by arbitration boards, or
committees. But it just has not turned
out the way so many men hoped it would.
The world has gotten itself into tremend-
ously serious difficulties, and men by the
millions are dying on the battlefields mn
what is known as the greatest war, with
the deadliest weapons, ever fought in the
history of the world.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO
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History repeats itself, and prophecy
points out the future. And that 1s the way
we see 1t. God tells of times of war in the
last days (Revelation 11:18) prior to the
coming of the peace which is even beyond
the comprehension of men today. In the
language of Joel the prophet, God says:
“Proeclaim ye this among the Gentiles;
Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let
all the men of war draw near; let them
come up: beat your plowshares into swords,
and vour pruning hooks into spears: let the
weak say, I am strong.” Joel 3:9, 10
Germany has been beating plowshares
and pruning hooks into instruments of war
for over seven vears. England and other
nations commenced in more recent years.
Today the leaders of the United States of
America say our country is to be the
“arsenal for democracy.”
In the December, 1941, American Maga-
zine, Donald M. Nelson, then Director of
Priorities for the U.S. Office of Production
Management, tells us of the tremendous
sacrifice which Americans are going to have
to make in order to keep the wheels of m-
dustry spinning so that we can produce
enough munitions of war for every nation
fighting on the side of the Alles. He says
in part:
“I anticipate that we are going to spend
one hundred billion dollars, maybe more,
before we are through.” And then he goes
on to tell what will be consumed in this
staggering sum, a sum of which you and I
NNN
—_s
as laymen have not the faintest compre-
hension. We have built new munition
plants which are turning out more explo-
sives than ever before in our history. Mr.
Nelson asserts our airplane factories have
imereased their output at least thirty
times. More men are engaged in wartime
industry than ever before. Everything 1s
geared for beating the plowshares and the
pruning hooks into tanks, guns, airplanes,
battleships, and all the rest of the equip-
ment that it takes to make up a modern,
fighting army and navy. Look over the
list of things which are now going into
war munitions:
®
Soap materials, plasterboard, soft drink
equipment and material, safes and locks,
biscuits, false teeth, roofing materials,
paper board, writing paper, ribbons, ho-
siery, tapestry, tape, shoes, and as he says
‘even caramel candy’ are used. Added
to this list are automobiles, washing-
machines, cotton, juke boxes, marble pin
OUIeS, toy electric trains, copper weather-
Stripping, fancy ash-trayvs, fine gutter-
spouts, cuspidors, aluminum pots and pans
and gadgets as well as rubber materials.
Yes, it 1s a bit more than just the plow-
shares and the pruning hooks now. War
has invaded every home and every com-
munity. It is no longer a war among the
European nations, it is already a world
war, for the whole world is feeling and
suffering the effects of it.
On another page in the same issue of the
American Magazine, is shown a wonderful
photograph in colors, of one of the hugest
of the electric steel furnaces in our land.
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X Somewhere in eastern Ontario in. a century-old town is a huge factory, built up from a lowly
blacksmith shop, which 1s efficiently beating plowshares into the tools of war.
hundred years it had been turning out farm implements.
Our picture shows soldiers
chiefly rifle grenades.
manufacturer of pl owshares.
For more than one
Now it 1s making war instruments,
throwing these grenades made by the former
Page SIX
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE