Peace On Earth

"Peace upon earth the angels sang

Good will unto men the chorus rang...."

Cecily Mary Barker

But that was many, many years ago at the first Christmas time.

We could scarcely hear the angels if they were singing now for the

clamor of disputing and wrangling which is going

 on where peace is suppose to be.

In our own country, there is a gathering into groups with

mutterings and threats of violence, with some bloodshed and danger

of more, and there is still war and threat of war over most of the world.

This would be bad enough at any time, but just now when we are

thinking of all the blessed meanings of Christmastide,

it becomes much more terrible.

A great deal is said and written about natural, national boundaries

and learned discussions of racial antagonisms as the causes of restlessness

and ill-temper of the nations; and there are investigations and commissions

and inquiries to discover what is the matter with the world

and to find a remedy.

But the cause of all the unrest and strife is easily found. It is selfishness,

nothing else, selfishness deep in the hearts of the people.

It seems rather impossible that such a small thing as individual selfishness

could cause so much trouble, but my selfishness added to your selfishness and

that added to the selfishness of our neighbors all over the big, round world

is not a small thing.

We may have thought that our own greed and striving to take unfair

advantage were not noticed and would never be known, but you and I and

our neighbors make the neighborhood and neighborhoods makes the states

and states make the nations and the nations are the peoples of the world.

No one would deny that the thoughts and actions and spirit of every person

affect his neighborhood, and it is just as plain that the spirit and temper of the

communities are reflected in the state and nation and influence the whole world.

The nations of Europe are selfishly trying to take advantage of one another

in the settlement of boundaries and territory, and so the World War is like a

fire that has been stopped in its wild advance only to smoulder and break

here and there a little farther back along the sides.*

At home, in the troubles between labor and capital, each is willing to stop

disputes and eager to cure the unrest of the people if it can be done at the

expense of the other party and leave them undisturbed 

in their own selfish gains.

Following all the unrest and unreason on down to its real source where

it lurks in the hearts of the people, its roots will be found there in individual

selfishness, in the desire to better one's own condition at the expense of

another by whatever means possible; and this desire of each person

infects groups of people and moves nations.

Here and there one sees a criticism of Christianity because of the things

that have happened and are still going on. "Christian civilization is a failure,"

some say.  "Christianity has not prevented these things; therefore, it

is a failure, " say others.

But this is a calling of things by the wrong names. It is rather the lack of

Christianity that has brought us where we are. Not a lack of churches or

religious forms but of the real thing in our hearts.

There is no oppression of a group of people but that which has its root

and inception in the hearts of the oppressors.  There is no wild lawlessness

and riot and bloodlust of a mob but that which has its place in the hearts of

persons who are that mob. Just so, if justice and fairness and kindness fill

the minds of a crowd of persons, those things will be shown in their actions.

So, if we are eager to help in putting the world to rights, our first duty is

to put ourselves right, to overcome our selfishness and be as eager that others

shall be treated fairly as we are that no advantage shall be taken of ourselves;

and to deal justly and have a loving charity and mercy for others as we wish

them to have for us. Then we may hear the Christmas angels singing in our

own hearts, "Peace on earth!  Good will unto men."

"Peace On Earth"

(December 1919)

Laura Ingalls Wilder

(1867-1957)

Prolific American writer and pioneer girl

From the book, "Little House In The Ozarks

A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler

The Rediscovered Writings"

Edited by Stephen W. Hines

Guidepost Edition

(1991)

* Many historians judge that the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I,

so exacerbated poor economic conditions in Europe that made 

World War II almost inevitable.