Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'The World House" calls for a unity of all people which is understood by Julia Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Despite being a hundred year apart, these two works are not all that different: one talks of oppressed blacks during the civil rights movement while the other is the battle song of the North during the Civil War.  As one looks deeper into the meaning of each they can see that by understanding what the Battle Hymn is saying will help to understand the interpretation of Martin Luther's "The World House."  King opens up stating that the world is a house for all walks of life and the only way to make this place the best it can, is to come together as one.  All walks of life must come together to defeat the problems we face as a human race.  Howe's song tells the story of the North fighting for the civil war through what god has told them to fight for.  It tells the fight they are going through and what they need to do to persevere to win what they are fighting for. It has been said that history often repeats itself, and this is no exception as there are many similarities between these two works that bring out each others meanings despite being a hundred years apart.

The first battle that King addresses that the people need to fight is the war on race.  As long as people have been in this world house, the black race has been oppressed.  King and many others of his time realized that it was time to start fighting for what was really their god given right.  Which was to be considered on an equal level with the whites.  There was talk about fighting and the fight grew into a war: "The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of the disinherited masses" (King 285).  This correspond to the line of Howe's which states; "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored" (Howe 2).   In both instances, a group of people have been taken advantage of they thought and over time a large group of people came to realize it.  It has come a time for both to finally get angry enough about their situations to start fighting back and have what they thought they was right.  Oppressed people can not remain oppressed forever and they will eventually get mad enough to where they send a shock around the world for standing up for what they believe in.  As this is seen in both instances of work.  

King says that both black and whites are brothers, and to make a better place they need to come together to live as one like brothers should.  This also correlates to the battle hymn as it is talking about the civil war in which brothers where fighting against each other as north and south.  Brothers of the south were fighting literally against their own brothers as documented in other works.  King's use of the word brother is not literal in this since, but both have the meaning that the opposing sides are in this together and need to unite as one to face the difficult challenges.  This is the first of many correlations between the people that the works are talking about. 

Just as the people who are fighting are brothers of each other, that means they are connected to god in a similar way.  Both sets of opposing sides were thought to be connected to god and very religious.  The blacks and white of the 1980's and the North and the South of the 1880's were all four very religious.  King used religion in all of his works as he was a preacher who used nonviolence mainly for his struggle.  He thought that racism was clearly seen as negative in the eyes of god, so he was confused on why whites promoted it so much: "Racism is a serious predicament for modern man as dark clouds begin to form around people when the soul is not proportionate and the external of mans nature starts to subjugate to the internal" (King 286).  This creates bad people who in turn god will see their actions when they come before him.  The battle hymn relates to this saying that god will see the hearts of the good men who have done right, and in turn call out the bad ones: "He is sifting out the hearts of the men before his judgment-seat (Howe 14).  Both use this as a scare tactic to try and provoke the south and whites to stop opposing them.  This is because they have God on their side and if you don't listen know then God will notice it when you die.

As the civil rights fight went on, King become the leader of the blacks and was put on a stand to lead them through this difficult time.  Much like god was put on a stand to lead the North to victory in the battle hymn: "They have builded Him an alter in the evening dews and damps" (Howe 6).   As it went on King lost his life to the battle much as Jesus lost his life to standing up in what he was fighting for: "As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free" (Howe 19).  However, it is the significant deaths in a fight against struggle that urge people to keep fighting.  These two deaths are similar in making the people angry and ultimately fighting even harder to stand up for what they believe in.  It keeps the fight marching on.  King and the Bible had a lot of things in common as were stated in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" which help understand the interpretation of what both were fighting for even though they were a hundred years apart.

The second battle that King talks about is the fight on poverty.  For the world to be a better place, everyone has to thrive.  The few rich people can not have everything, while the masses are in poverty and suffering.  The world will never get better with the mindset as we are in the fight of survival together.  We are all brothers and if one suffers we all do, only when the world comes to realize this is when it will be the best place it can for ALL people: "The time has come for an all out war on poverty" (King 290).  The biggest thing that holds people back is the fact that they focus on the materials more then they have on morality and spirit.  People need to see the lord and understand him and then they will realize priorities and what needs to be done. People all over the world need to be humbled sometimes and be told to focus a little less on their new car and a little more on reading the bible.  This is nothing knew as it has been going on forever. However recently we have drifted away a little more as the North in the 1880's was still pretty familiar with what the bible says: "I have read the fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel" (Howe 9).  Both the Hymn and King are calling on the people to listen to the word of God to lead the way into which people should spend more time helping those in need then focusing on what possessions they have brought with their excess money.

The North at the time thought that they saw what the lord wanted them to do and followed it.  They took up for this and fought till the end for it.  They did not stop until the South had been defeated and this is what King says we need to do.  We need to listen to god and carry his word to bring people out of poverty.  March with God to improve the means of the unimproved or else everyone will suffer.  By listening to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," the reader can interpret what King is trying to say a hundred years later that God wants all people to come together to help each other out in times of need.  Once the people start to end poverty, the fight can not just be stopped.  It has to be followed and keep marching on until everyone is better off.  When the battle is won and the enemy has been beaten it needs to stay that way:  "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat" (Howe 13). In the way that God is talking about marching on to seek glory, the point of King's fight against poverty can be better understood to hear the call to do what needs to be done.

The last war that king is addressing is the war on values of humans in todays age.  In the time that King was speaking and even more so today, society is more focused with the things that they have, when they should be focused on the people in the society and how they are doing.  It affects every single person and a society like this is not healthy nor good.   It causes good people to become "cold and conscienceless" (King 295).  The whole point of every economy in the world is to get profit.  This creates a cutthroat and violent time for the power struggle of what every one seeks: money, which is nothing but a piece of paper.  It is all materialistic and we have idolized this paper which we chase constantly.  When really the only thing that people should put on an alter is god as done in the battle hymn: "they have builded him an alter in the evening dews and damps" (Howe 6).  The battle hymn helps us understand Kings interpretation that god and good values should be put way above all the materialistic things, which are really useless until we make them something in our minds.  

A revolution of what we think is important is soon forth coming King said, and now it is here and is still here in 2015.  This revolution questions the fairness and justice of the policies and mindset we as people have set for ourselves.  This is parallel to what was going on in the civil war days as money was really becoming a sought after thing for the first time.  However, as then and now God is calling upon us to act and be the good Samaritan to which we should take actions: "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat" (Howe 14).  This is a positive revolution right now which can be fixed, however if not addressed then could be past the point of fixing.  In the past and present god has been deciding who has set their values straight, and has been accepting or rejecting people to heaven based on it.  If this bad way of thinking is not fixed as King says, then he will continue to turn away the confused people in the future.  Howe says "be swift and be jubilant to answer him" (Howe 15), for we have pushed this problem off to long.  King tells us that tomorrow is today and this is our last chance to fix this chaos.  Both are trying to tell us to follow the words of the "fiery gospel" to fix the confusion of our present thing-oriented society before it is too late for our nation.  

Even though the two were written about a hundred years apart and one focuses on civil rights, society and poverty while the other focuses on the North's fight during the civil war, the two works are not all that different.  After first read of Martin Luther's "The World House," one can understand the problems of the world we live in and how they need to be addressed immediately.  However, that interpretation was greatly improved after relating it to Julia Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic."  This song focuses on many of the same aspects of the problems that America was facing during each of the two time periods. Not only do they share similar problems, but the song tells the reader how to fix the problems talked about by King in his paper.  These answers greatly influence the interpretation of the work presented by King which if read together by more people, could greatly help society attempt to fix these colossal problems of the 1960's which happen to still be present in todays time.

