英国语文第六册(双语):战争是什么?(2)
Speaking here, however, to such an audience—an audience probably, for its numbers, as intelligent and as influential as ever was assembled within the walls of any hall in this kingdom—I think I may put before you higher considerations even than those of property and the institutions of your country. I may remind you of duties more solemn, and of obligations more imperative. You profess to be a Christian nation. You make it your boast even—though boasting is somewhat out of place in such questions—you make it your boast that you are a Christian people, and that you draw your rule of doctrine and practice, as from a well pure and undefiled, from the lively oracles of God, and from the direct revelation of the Omnipotent. You have even conceived the magnificent project of illuminating the whole Earth, even to its remotest and darkest recesses, by the dissemination of the volume of the New Testament, in whose every page are written for ever the words of peace. Within the limits of this island alone, every Sabbath-day, 20,000, yes, far more than 20,000 temples are thrown open, in which devout men and women assemble to worship him who is the "Prince of Peace."
然而，说到这里，面对这样一个听众(或许是一个观众)，他和曾经在这个王国的任何大厅里聚集过的人一样聪慧且有影响力。我想我可以在你面前提出甚至比你国家的财产和制度更高层次的考虑，我可以使你想起自己更庄严的责任，更迫切的义务。你们自称是基督教国家，你们让它成为夸耀的资本，即使在这种问题上夸耀有点不合时宜，你们夸耀自己是基督徒，夸耀自己已经从纯洁无瑕的井中、从生动活泼的神谕中、从全能的直接启示中找到了教义和实践法则。你甚至设想了一项宏伟的计划，即通过传播每一页都写着和平话语的《新约》来照亮整个地球，甚至照亮它最遥远、最黑暗的深处。仅仅在这座岛上，每一个安息日，共20000个，没错，共20000多座寺庙开放，供虔诚的男男女女聚集在一起敬拜这位“和平之王”。
Is this a reality? or is your Christianity a romance, and your profession a dream? No; I am sure that your Christianity is not a romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not a dream. It is because I believe this that I appeal to you with confidence, and that I have hope and faith in the future. I believe that we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic principles spreading much more widely amongst the people; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed unfruitful; and—which will be better than all—the churches of the United Kingdom, the churches of Britain, awaking as it were from their slumbers, and girding up their loins to more glorious work, when they shall not only accept and believe in the prophecy, but labour earnestly for its fulfilment, that there shall come a time—a blessed time—a time which shall last for ever—when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
这是现实吗？或者你的基督教是一种浪漫？或者你的入教是一场梦？不，我很确定你的基督教不是一种浪漫，同样，我也确定你的入教不是一场梦。正因为我相信这一点，我才充满信心地向你们呼吁我对未来充满希望和信心。我相信，在不久的将来，健全的经济原则将在人们中间广泛传播；正义感将在一块至今仍被贫瘠的土地上生长；并且，它们会比大不列颠联合王国、比英国所有的教堂都要好，他们好像从沉睡中醒来，束紧腰带准备做更荣耀的工作。当他们不仅接受和相信预言，而且为实现这个预言而认真劳作之时，总有这样一天会到来，即幸福之时，永远的幸福之时。到那时，“一国不会举刀攻击他国，各国也不再学习战事。”
