He was convinced that he was God’s instrument for peace. He, more than anyone else, had to go to Paris.

He confided to his private secretary, Tumulty: “This trip will either be the greatest success or the supremest tragedy in all history; but I believe in a Divine Providence . . . It is my faith that no body of men, however they concert their power or their influence, can defeat this great world enterprise.” (Italics ours.) As one authority states: “The President was determined to use his power and prestige to have the final peace settlement include a plan for a League of Nations.”

Writer Charles L. Mee states: “At one point he amazed Lloyd George and Clemenceau by explaining how the league would establish a brotherhood of man where Christianity had not been able to do so. ‘Why,’ Lloyd George recalled Wilson as saying, ‘has Jesus Christ so far not succeeded in inducing the world to follow His teachings in these matters? It is because He taught the ideal without devising any practical means of attaining it. That is the reason why I am proposing a practical scheme to carry out His aims.’”​—The End of Order, Versailles 1919.

Certainly, Wilson got encouragement from many quarters. The U.S. secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, greeted the publication of the draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations with this eulogy: “The draft of the League of Peace is almost as simple as one of the Parables of Jesus and almost as illuminating and as uplifting. It is time for church bells to peal, for preachers to fall upon their knees, for statesmen to rejoice, and for the angels to sing, ‘Glory to God in the Highest!’”

The League and the Catholic Church

Did preachers fall on their knees? Some were certainly quick to hail the League as God’s answer to mankind’s problems. Pope Benedict XV had nearly upstaged Wilson in August 1917 when, according to writer John Dos Passos, he appealed to the warring nations “to negotiate a peace without victory, on approximately the terms laid down in Woodrow Wilson’s speeches before America’s entrance into the war.” However, Wilson felt he was too busy waging war to pay attention to the pope​—that is, until he received a significant letter from Colonel House, his personal aide. It stated:

“I am so impressed with the importance of the situation that I am troubling you again . . . I believe that you have an opportunity to take the peace negotiations out of the hands of the Pope and hold them in your own.”

Wilson took swift action to make sure that he did not lose the initiative. The League of Nations vision was his, not the pope’s. And he was the man to see it through.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church lent its support to the League. Cardinal Bourne, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster until the end of 1934, stated: “Remember that the League of Nations, whatever imperfections it may have, is carrying out the desire of the Catholic Church for Peace, and carrying out the wishes of our Holy Father, the Pope.”

“The League of Nations Is Rooted in the Gospel”

The Protestant clergy were not reticent in their support of the League either. The New York Times for January 11, 1920, reported: “The London church bells this evening have been pealing in celebration of the conclusion of peace with Germany and the official coming into existence of the League of Nations.”

A booklet published in England under the title The Christian Church and the League of Nations stated: “The Christian Church in Great Britain supports the League of Nations. Here is an Affirmation made by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, thirty-five English Diocesan Bishops, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and official representatives of all the Free Churches in England:

“We are convinced:

“(1) That God at this time is calling the nations of the world to learn to live as one family;

“(2) That the machinery of international cooperation provided by the League of Nations . . . affords the best available means of applying the principles of the Gospel of Christ to stop war, to provide justice, and to organise peace.”

Prior to the above, in December of 1918, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America issued a declaration that said in part: “As Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a League is not a mere political expedient; it is rather the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.” (Italics ours.) It then went on to say: “The Church has much to give and much to gain. It can give a powerful sanction by imparting to the new international order something of the prophetic glory of the Kingdom of God. . . . The League of Nations is rooted in the Gospel.”