,note3 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive_/,canadian ,libraries4 ,see http3_/_/www4archive4org_/details_/waran dchurches#jjmccauoft ,,the ,,war ,,and ,,the ,,churches by ,,joseph ,mc,c,a,b,e ,issued for the ,rationalist ,press ,association1 ,limited ,london3 ,watts ,co4 #ag ,johnson's ,court1 ,fleet ,street1 ,e4,c4 #aiae ,,works ,,by ,,the ,,author ,modern ,rationalism 7,watts71 #bnd ed4 #a_/- ,peter ,abelard 7,duckworth71 #bnd ed4 #c_/f4 ,saint ,augustine and his ,age 7,duckworth71 #bnd ed4 #c_/f4 ,twelve ,years in a ,monastery 7,smith ,elder71 #crd ed4 #f;d4 and #a_/- ,life in a ,modern ,monastery 7,grant ,richards74 #f_/- ,life and ,letters of ,g4 ,j4 ,holyoake 7,watts71 #b vols4 #a_/a_/- ,talleyrand 7,hutchinson74 #ad_/- ,the ,iron ,cardinal 7,nash74 #ab_/- ,goethe 7,nash74 #ae_/- ,a ,candid ,history of the ,jesuits 7,nash74 #aj_/f4 ,the ,evolution of ,mind 7,black74 #e_/- ,evolution 7,twentieth ,century ,science ,series74 #a_/- ,prehistoric ,man 7,twentieth ,century ,science ,series74 #a_/- ,the ,principles of ,evolution 7,the ,nation's ,library74 #a_/- ,the ,decay of the ,church of ,rome 7,methuen71 #bnd ed4 #g_/f4 ,the ,story of ,evolution 7,hutchinson71 #bnd ed4 #g_/f4 ,the ,empresses of ,rome 7,methuen74 #ab_/f4 ,the ,empresses of ,constantinople 7,methuen74 #ab_/f4 ,church ,discipline 7,duckworth74 #c_/f4 ,can we ,disarm8 7,heinemann74 #b_/f4 ,in the ,shade of the ,cloister 7pseudonymous--,constable74 #f_/- ,the ,bible in ,europe 7,watts74 #c_/f4 ,the ,religion of ,woman 7,watts71 #bnd ed4 #f;d4 ,woman in ,political ,evolution 7,watts74 #f;d4 ,haeckel's ,critics ,answered 7,watts71 #bnd ed4 #f;d4 ,from ,rome to ,rationalism 7,watts71 #dth ed4 #d;d4 ,the ,origin of ,life 7,watts74 #a_/- ,secular ,education 7,watts71 #bnd ed4 #a_/- ,the ,martyrdom of ,ferrer 7,watts71 #bnd ed4 #f;d4 ,the ,religion of the ,twentieth ,century 7,watts74 #a_/- ,a ,hundred ,years of ,education ,controversy 7,watts74 #c;d4 ,the ,existence of ,god 7,watts74 #i;d4 ,shakespeare and ,goethe 7,cole74 #f;d4 ,george ,bernard ,shaw 7,kegan ,paul74 #g_/f4 ,the ,religion of ,sir ,oliver ,lodge 7,watts74 #b_/- ,,preface ,the searching crisis through which the nation is passing must have the effect of securing grave consideration for many aspects of our life and institutions4 ,we have already traversed the acute stage of suspense1 and are gradually becoming sensible of these wider considerations4 ,it was natural that for a prolonged period the disturbance of our economic conditions1 the anxiety for the safety of our nation in face of an appalling menace1 the personal concern of millions about the lives of sons or brothers who have bravely responded to the call1 should keep our thoughts enchained to the daily or hourly fortunes of the field of battle4 ,now that the initial disorder has been allayed and we have attained a quiet and reasonable confidence in the issue1 we turn to other and broader aspects of this mighty event of our generation4 ,how comes it that the most enlightened century the world has yet seen should be thus darkened by one of the bloodiest and most calamitous wars that have ever spread their awful wings over the life of man8 ,where is all the optimism of yesterday8 ,must we reconsider our reasoned boast that our civilisation has lifted the life of man to a level hitherto unattained8 ,is there something entirely and most mischievously wrong with the foundations of modern civilisation8 ,a dozen such questions will press for an answer1 but it will be granted that one of the most urgent and most interesting of the many grave considerations which the war suggests is its relation to the prevailing creeds and standards of conduct4 ,the war coincides with an advanced stage of what is called the spread of unbelief4 ,in each of the nations of ,europe which are engaged in this awful struggle complaints have been made every year for the last two or three generations that ,christianity is losing its moral control of the white race4 ,in the cities1 especially in the capitals1 of ,europe there has been a proved and acknowledged decay of church-going2 and1 however much we may be disposed to think that these millions who no longer attend church retain in their minds the beliefs of their fathers1 the slender circulation of religious literature makes it plain that the vast majority of them do not1 in point of fact1 receive either the spoken or written message of the ,christian ,church4 ,in the great cities--and it is undoubted that the life of a nation is mainly controlled by its cities--there has been an increasing reluctance to listen to the authoritative exponents of the ,christian gospel4 ,a number of the clergy have very naturally noticed and stressed this coincidence4 ,prelates of high authority have1 as we shall see1 even declared that the war is a scourge deliberately laid on the back of mankind by the ,almighty on account of this spreading infidelity4 ,as a rule1 the clergy shrink from advocating a theory which has such grave implications as this has1 and they are content to submit the more plausible suggestion1 that the decay of the ,christian standard of conduct in the mind of a large proportion of our generation accounts for this tragic combat of nations4 ,a distinguished ,positivist writer1 ,mr4 ,j4 ,cotter ,morison1 commenting in the last generation on the decay of ,christian belief1 expressed some such concern in the following terms3 ,it would be rash to expect that a transition1 unprecedented for its width and difficulty1 from theology to positivism1 from the service of ,god to the service of ,man1 could be accomplished without jeopardy4 ,signs are not wanting that the prevalent anarchy in thought is leading to anarchy in morals4 ,numbers who have put off belief in ,god have not put on belief in ,humanity4 ,a common and lofty standard of duty is being trampled down in the fierce battle of incompatible principles4#a ,it is true that in the work from which ,i quote#a the learned1 if somewhat nervous1 ,positivist does not1 by his masterly survey of the moral history of ,europe1 afford us the least reason to think that we have really deteriorated from the standard of conduct set us by earlier generations1 but his words do tend to press on our notice the claim of many writers1 clerical and non-clerical1 that we are returning from ,christianity to ,paganism1 from a settled moral discipline to an unhealthy moral scepticism4 ,can one entirely and safely reconstruct the bases of personal and national conduct in one or two generations8 ,this very plain and plausible theory is1 however1 exposed to criticism from other points of view4 ,the clergy as a body are not at all willing to concede that the decay of belief has spread as far as the theory would suggest4 ,in order to suppose that the life of ,europe has1 in a matter of the gravest importance1 been directed by a non-,christian spirit1 one must assume that at least the majority in each nation have deserted the traditional creed4 ,it is by no means conceded or established that the fighting nations have ceased to be predominantly ,christian4 ,indeed1 if we confine the awful responsibility for this tragedy1 as the evidence compels us1 to ,germany and ,austria-,hungary1 we are casting it upon the two nations which have been the chief representatives in ,europe of the two leading branches of the ,church4 ,most assuredly no prelate of either country would admit that his nation has ceased to be ,christian or surrendered its life to non-,christian impulses2 and in our own country we have frequently been assured of late years that the real power of ,christianity was never greater4 ,clearly these conflicting claims and this contrast of profession and practice suggest a problem that deserves consideration4 ,the problem becomes the more interesting1 and the plausible theory of non-,christian responsibility is even more severely shaken1 when we reflect that war is not an innovation of this unbelieving age1 but a legacy from the earlier and more thoroughly ,christian period4 ,had mankind departed from some admirable practice of submitting its international quarrels to a religious arbitrator1 and in our own times devised this horrible arbitrament of the sword1 we should be more disposed to seek the cause in a contemporary enfeeblement of moral standards4 ,this is notoriously not the case4 ,men have warred1 and priests have blessed the banners which were to wave over fields of blood1 from the very beginning of ,christian influence1 not to speak of earlier religious epochs4 ,there is assuredly a ghastly magnitude about modern war which almost lends it an element of novelty1 but the appearance is illusory4 ,that intense employment of resources which makes modern war so sanguinary tends also to shorten its duration4 ,no military struggle could now be prolonged into the period of the ,napoleonic wars2 to say nothing of the ,thirty ,years ,war1 which involved the death1 with every circumstance of ferocity1 of immensely larger numbers than could be affected by any modern war4 ,nor may we forget that it is the modern spirit which has claimed some alleviation of the horrors of the field1 and that the majority of the nations engaged in the present struggle have observed the new rules4 ,these considerations show that the problem is less simple and more serious than is often supposed1 and ,i set out to discuss each of them with some fullness4 ,that the war has no relation to the ,churches will hardly be claimed by anybody4 ,such a claim would mean that they were indifferent to one of the very gravest phases of human conduct1 or wholly unable to influence it4 ,nor can we avoid the issue by pleading that ,christianity approves and blesses a just defensive war1 and that1 since the share of this country in the war is entirely just and defensive1 we have no moral problem to consider4 ,i have assuredly no intention of questioning either the justice of ,britain's conduct or the prudence of the ,churches in adapting the maxims of the ,sermon on the ,mount to the practical needs of life4 ,if and when a nation sees its life and prosperity threatened by an ambitious or a jealous neighbour1 one cannot but admire its clergy for joining in the advocacy of an efficient and triumphant defence4 ,but this is merely a superficial and proximate consideration4 ,not the actual war only1 but the military system of which it is the occasional outcome1 has a very pertinent relation to religion2 the maintenance of this machinery for settling international quarrels in an age in which applied science makes it so formidable is a very grave moral issue4 ,it turns our thoughts at once to those branches of the ,christian ,church which claim the predominant share in the moulding of the conduct of ,europe4 ,but these questions of the efficacy of ,christian teaching or the influence of ,christian ministers are not the only or the most interesting questions suggested by the relation of the war to the prevailing religion4 ,the great tragedy which darkens the earth to-day raises again in its most acute form the problem of evil and ,providence4 ,more than two thousand years ago1 as ,job reminds us1 some difficulty was experienced in justifying the ways of ,god to men4 ,the most penetrating thinker of the early ,church1 ,st4 ,augustine1 wrestled once more with the problem1 as if no word had been written on it2 and he wrestled in vain4 ,a century and a half ago1 when the ,lisbon earthquake destroyed forty thousand ,portuguese1 ,voltaire attempted1 with equal unsuccess1 to vindicate ,providence with the faint hope of the ,deist4 ,modern science1 prolonging the sufferings of living things over earlier millions of years1 has made that problem one of the great issues of our age1 and this dread spectacle of human nature red in tooth and claw brings it impressively before us4 ,is the work of ,god restricted to counting the hairs of the head1 and not enlarged to check the murderous thoughts in the human brain8 ,nay1 when we survey those horrid stretches of desolation in ,belgium and ,poland and ,serbia1 where the mutilated bodies of the innocent1 of women and children1 lie amidst the ashes of their homes2 when we think of those peaceful sailors of our mercantile marine at the bottom of the deep1 those unoffending civilians whose flesh was torn by shells1 those hundreds of thousands whom patriotic feeling alone has summoned to the vast tombs of ,europe1 those millions of homes that have been darkened by suspense and loss--how can we repeat the ancient assurance that ,god does count the hairs of the head and mark the fall of even the sparrows8 ,does ,god move the insensate stars only1 and leave to the less skilful guidance of man those momentous little atoms which make up the brain of statesmen8 ,these are reflections which must occur to every thoughtful person in the later and more meditative phases of a great war1 when the eye has grown somewhat weary of the glitter of steel and the colour of banners1 when the world mourns about us and the long lists of the dead and longer list of the stupendous waste sober the mind4 ,something is gravely wrong with our international life2 and1 plainly1 it is not a question whether that international life departs from the ,christian standard1 but why1 after fifteen hundred years of mighty ,christian influence1 it does so depart4 ,is the moral machinery of ,europe ineffective8 ,one certainly cannot say that it has not had a prolonged trial2 yet here1 in the twentieth century1 we have1 in the most terrible form1 one of the most appalling evils which human agency ever brought upon human hearts4 ,we have to reconsider our religious and ethical position2 to ask ourselves whether1 if the influence of religion has failed to direct men into paths of wisdom and peace1 some other influence may not be found which will prove more persuasive and more beneficent4 ,j4 ,m4 ,easter1 #aiae4 ,,contents ,,chap4 ,,page ,i4 ,,the ,,responsibility ,,of ,,the ,,churches #a ,,ii4 ,,christianity ,,and ,,war #be ,,iii4 ,,the ,,apologies ,,of ,,the ,,clergy #dh ,,iv4 ,,the ,,war ,,and ,,theism #gj ,v4 ,,the ,,human ,,alternative #ie ,,the ,,war ,,and ,,the ,,churches ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,responsibility ,,of ,,the ,,churches ,the first question which the unprejudiced inquirer will seek to answer is3 ,how far were the ,churches able to prevent1 yet remiss in using their influence to prevent1 the present war8 ,there is1 unhappily1 in these matters no such thing as an entirely unprejudiced inquirer4 ,our preconceived ideas act like magnets on the material of evidence which is submitted to us1 instinctively selecting what bears in their favour and declining to receive what they cannot utilise4 ,nowhere is this more conspicuous than in the field of religious inquiry1 nor is it confined to either believers or unbelievers4 ,there has been too much mutual abuse1 and too little attention to the fact that the mind no less than the mouth has its palate1 its impulsive selections and rejections4 ,one can meet the difficulty only by a patient and full examination of the pleas of both parties to a controversy4 ,and the first plea which it is material to examine is that1 since it is claimed that all the nations engaged in the war are ,christian nations1 one may accuse them collectively of moral failure4 ,from the earliest days of the ,christian religion it was the boast of those who accepted it that it abolished all distinctions of caste and race4 ,in the little community which gathered round the cross there was neither bond nor free1 neither ,greek nor ,roman4 ,this cosmopolitanism was1 in fact1 a natural feature of religious movements at the time1 and was due not so much to their intrinsic development as to the political circumstances of the world in which they spread4 ,all round the eastern and northern shores of the ,mediterranean a great variety of races mingled in every port and every commercial town1 and it was the policy of the powerful ,empire which extended its sway over them all to overrule their national antagonisms4 ,when1 in the earlier period1 ,jew and ,greek and ,egyptian had maintained their separate nationalities1 hostility to other races had been a very natural social quality1 an inevitable part of the spirit of self-preservation in a race4 ,when the great ,empires had conquered the smaller nationalities or the decaying older ,empires1 this mutual hostility was moderated1 and1 as the vast movements of population which marked the end of the old and the beginning of the new era filled the ,mediterranean cities with extraordinarily mixed crowds1 mutual friendship became the more fitting and more useful social virtue4 ,a good deal of the old narrow patriotism had been due to the fact that each nation had its own god4 ,in the new ,roman world this theological exclusivism broke down1 and the priests of a particular god1 scattered like their followers among the cities of the eastern world1 began to seek a cosmopolitan rather than a nationalist following4 ,in the temple of each of the leading gods of the time--,jahveh1 ,serapis1 ,mithra1 and so on--people of all races and classes were received on a footing of equality4 ,the doctrine of the brotherhood of man spread all over that cosmopolitan world4 ,when the old world1 to the south and east of the ,mediterranean1 was blotted out of history1 and ,europe in turn became a group of conflicting nationalities1 racial hatred was revived and in its political and social aspects the doctrine of the brotherhood of man was virtually forgotten4 ,but the ,christian ,church had embodied that doctrine in its sacred writing1 and was bound to maintain it4 ,in its ambition of a universal dominion it was the direct successor of the ,roman ,empire4 ,all the races of ,europe were to meet as brothers under the one ,god of the new world and under the direction of his representatives on earth4 ,it was this change in the features of the world which gave a certain air of insincerity to the ,christian gospel4 ,in the older days there had been political unity with a great diversity of religions2 now there was religious unity spread over a great diversity of antagonistic political bodies4 ,men were brothers from the religious point of view and1 only too frequently1 deadly enemies from the political point of view4 ,the discord was made worse by the feudal system which was adopted4 ,even within the same race there was no brotherhood4 ,in effect the clergy as a body did not insist that the noble was a brother of the serf1 and did not exact fraternal treatment of the serf4 ,thus the phrase1 the brotherhood of man1 which had been a most prominent and active principle of early ,christianity1 became little more than a useless theological thesis4 ,the solution of the difficulty would1 of course1 have been for the clergy1 as the supreme representatives of the doctrine of brotherhood1 to apply that doctrine boldly to every part of man's conduct2 to pronounce that all violence and bloodshed were immoral1 and to devise a humane means of settling international quarrels4 ,i will consider in the next chapter why the ,christian leaders failed even to attempt this great reform4 ,for the moment it is enough to observe that the conditions of modern times favoured a fresh assertion of the doctrine of brotherhood4 ,great as the power of sincere moral idealism has always been1 the historian must recognise that economic changes have had a most important influence upon the development or acceptance of moral ideas4 ,just as in earlier ages the development of forms of life was conditioned by changes in their material surroundings1 so man's moral development has been profoundly influenced by industrial1 commercial1 and political changes4 ,the destruction of feudalism and the development of the modern worker were notoriously not due to religious influence1 yet they had an important relation to religious doctrines4 ,once the new spirit had asserted its right1 the clergy recollected that all men are brothers from the social as well as the religious point of view4 ,many of them1 and even some social writers of ,christian views1 maintain that the new social order is itself based on or inspired by the religious doctrine of brotherhood4 ,this speculation is entirely opposed to the historical facts1 but it will easily be realised that when the workers had1 in their own interest1 asserted afresh the doctrine of human brotherhood1 the ,churches had a new occasion to preach it4 ,how timid and tentative that preaching was1 and even is1 we have not to consider here4 ,on the whole the brotherhood of men was re-affirmed by the ,churches both in the social and religious sense4 ,this situation makes more violent than ever the contrast between the political and religious relations of men1 and gives a strong prima facie case to the charge against the ,churches which ,i am considering4 ,it is wholly artificial and insincere to say that men are brothers socially and religiously1 yet are justified in marching out in millions1 with the most murderous apparatus science can devise1 to meet each other on the field of battle4 ,we condemn crime for social reasons4 ,we have relegated to the ,middle ,ages1 to which it belongs1 the notion that the criminal is a man who has affronted society1 and that society may take a revenge on him4 ,in the sane conception of our time the criminal is a mischievous element disturbing the social order1 and1 in the interest of that order1 he must be isolated or put out of existence4 ,it is not the guilt1 but the social effect1 which we regard4 ,and from this point of view a single great war is far more calamitous than all the crime in ,europe during whole decades4 ,it is estimated by high authorities that if the present war lasts only twelve months it will cost ,europe1 directly and indirectly1 including the destruction of property and the loss to industry and commerce1 no less a sum than #i1jjj1jjj1jjj2 and it will certainly cost more than a million1 if not more than two million1 lives1 besides the incalculable amount of suffering from wounds1 loss of relatives1 outrages1 and the incidental damage of warfare4 ,the time will come when historians will study with amazement the wonderful system we have devised in ,europe for the suppression of breaches of the social order at a time when we complacently suffer these appalling periodical destructions of the entire social order of nations4 ,it is quite natural to arraign the ,christian ,churches in connection with this disastrous outbreak4 ,unless they discharge the high task of the moral direction of men1 in international as well as in personal conduct1 they have no raison d'tre4 ,few of them to-day will plead that their function is merely to interpret to their fellows what they regard as the revealed word of ,god4 ,in face of the challenging spirit of our time they maintain that they discharge a moral mission of such importance that society is likely to go to pieces if ,christianity is abandoned4 ,we therefore ask very pertinently where they were1 and what they were doing1 during the months when the nations of ,europe were slowly advancing toward a declaration of war4 ,in examining the charge that1 for some reason or other1 they neglected their mission at a crisis of supreme importance1 we must recall that few of us believed that a great war would occur until we actually heard the declaration4 ,no indictment of the clergy is valid which presupposes that they are more sagacious or far-seeing than the rest of us4 ,yet1 however much we may have doubted the actual occurrence of war1 we have known for years1 and have quite complacently commented upon1 the danger that half of ,europe would sooner or later be involved in the horrors of the greatest war in history4 ,now it is notorious that the ,christian ,churches have done little or nothing1 in proportion to their mighty resources and influence1 to avert this danger4 ,no collective action has been taken1 and relatively few individuals have used their influence to moderate or obviate the danger4 ,the supreme head of the most powerfully organised and most cosmopolitan religious body in the world1 an institution which has its thousands of ministers among each of the antagonistic peoples--,i mean the ,church of ,rome--gave his attention to minute questions of doctrine and administration1 and bemoaned repeatedly the evil spirit of our age1 but issued not one single syllable of precise and useful direction to the various national regiments of his clergy in connection with this terrible impending danger4 ,the heads or ,councils of the various ,protestant bodies were equally remiss4 ,here and there individual clergymen joined associations1 founded by laymen1 which endeavoured to maintain peace and to secure arbitration upon quarrels1 and one ,sunday in the year was set aside by the pulpits for the vague gospel of peace4 ,but in almost all cases these movements were purely secular in origin1 and the few movements of a religious nature have been obviously founded only to keep the idealism linked with a particular ,church1 have had no great influence1 and have been too vague in their principles to have had any effect upon the growing chances of a ,european war4 ,there is no doubt that the ,churches have remained almost dumb while ,europe was preparing for its ,armageddon4 ,i speak of the clergy1 but in our time the responsibility cannot be confined to these4 ,even in the ,church of ,england the laity have now a considerable influence1 and in the other ,protestant bodies they have even more power in the control of policy4 ,no doubt the duty of initiative and of work in such matters lies mainly with the more leisured and more official interpreters of the ,christian spirit1 yet it would be absurd to restrict the criticism to them4 ,the various ,christian bodies1 as a whole1 have confronted a very grave and imminent danger with remarkable indifference1 although that danger could become an actual infliction only by seriously immoral conduct on the part of some nation4 ,they saw1 as we all saw1 the vast armies preparing for the fray1 the diplomatists betraying an increasing concern about the relations between their respective nations1 the press embittering those relations1 and a pernicious and provocative literature inflaming public opinion4 ,we all saw these things1 and knew that a war of appalling magnitude would follow the first infringement of peace4 ,yet ,i think it will hardly be controverted that the ,churches made no serious effort to avert that calamity from ,europe4 ,they were deeply concerned about unbelief1 about personal purity1 about the cleanness of plays and books and pictures1 even about questions of social reform which a rebellious democracy forced on them2 but they took no initiative and performed no important service in connection with this terrible danger4 ,that is the indictment which many bring against ,christianity1 and we have now to consider the general defence4 ,i will examine later a number of religious pronouncements about the war1 and will discuss here only a few general pleas which are put forward as a defence against the general indictment4 ,it is1 in the first place1 urged that the moral and humanitarian teaching which the ,christian ,churches never ceased to put before the world condemned in advance every departure from the paths of justice and charity2 that it was not the fault of ,christianity if men refused to listen to or carry into practice that teaching4 ,but at no period in the history of morals has it sufficed to lay down general principles4 ,everybody perceives to-day1 not only that slavery was in itself a crime1 but that it was essentially opposed to the ,christian morality4 ,yet1 as no ,christian teacher for many centuries ventured to apply the principle by expressly denouncing slavery1 the institution was taken over from ,paganism by ,christian ,europe and lasted centuries after the fall of the ,roman ,empire4 ,the ,church itself had vast numbers of slaves1 and later of serfs1 on its immense estates4 ,leo the ,great disdainfully enacted that the priesthood must not be stained by admitting so vile a class to its ranks1 and ,gregory the ,great had myriads of slaves on the ,papal patrimonies4 ,so it was with the demand for social reform which characterised the nineteenth century4 ,to-day ,christians claim that their principles sanctioned and gave weight to those early demands of reform1 yet their principles had been vainly repeated in ,europe for fifteen hundred years1 and1 when the people themselves at last formulated their demands in the early part of the nineteenth century1 it is notorious that the clergy opposed them4 ,the teaching of abstract moral principles is of no avail4 ,man is essentially a casuist4 ,leave to him the application of your principles1 and he will adapt almost any scheme of conduct to them4 ,the moralist who does not boldly and explicitly point the application of his principles is either too ignorant of human nature to discharge his duty with effect or is a coward4 ,the plain fact is that the preaching of justice and peace throughout ,europe has been steadily accompanied by an increase in armaments and in international friction4 ,it had no moral influence on the situation4 ,a more valid plea is that we must distinguish carefully between the nations which inaugurated the war and the nations which are merely defending themselves1 and we must quarrel with the ,christian ,churches only in those lands which are guilty4 ,it may1 indeed1 be pleaded that1 since each nation regards itself as acting on the defensive and uses arguments to this effect which convince its jurists and scholars no less than its divines1 there is no occasion at all to introduce ,christianity4 ,most of us do not merely admit the right1 we emphasise the duty1 of every citizen to take his share in the just defence of his country1 either by arms or by material contribution4 ,since there seems to be a general conviction even in ,germany and ,austria that the nation is defending itself against jealous and designing neighbours1 why quarrel with their clergy for supporting the war8 ,when the plea is broadened to this extent we must emphatically reject it4 ,there has been too much disposition among moralists to listen indulgently to such talk as this4 ,when we find five nations engaged in a terrible war1 and each declaring that it is only defending itself against its opponent1 the cynic indeed may indolently smile at the situation1 but the man of principle has a more rigorous task4 ,some one of those peoples is lying or is deceived1 and1 in the future interest of mankind1 it is imperative to determine and condemn the delinquent4 ,there is no such thing as an inevitable war1 nor does the burden of great armaments lead of itself to the opening of hostilities4 ,it is certain that on one side or the other1 if not on both sides1 there is a terrible guilt1 and it is the duty of ,christian or any other moralists1 whether or no they belong to the guilty nations1 sternly to assign and condemn that guilt4 ,it is precisely on this loose and lenient habit of mind that the engineers of aggressive war build in our time1 and we have seen1 in the case of neutral nations and of a section of our own nation1 what chances they have of succeeding4 ,they have only to fill their people and the world at large with counter-charges1 resolutely mendacious1 and many will throw up their hands in presence of the mutual accusations and declare that it is impossible to assign the responsibility4 ,that is a fatal concession to immorality1 and we must hold that in some one or more of the combatant nations the ,churches have1 for some reason or other1 acquiesced in a crime4 ,the plea is valid only to this extent1 that the guilty nations in this case were notoriously ,germany and ,austria-,hungary1 and therefore one cannot pass any censure on ,british ,christians for supporting the war4 ,i have in other works dealt so fully with the guilt of those two nations that here ,i must be content to assume it4 ,the general and incessant cry of the ,german people1 that they are only defending their ,empire against malignant enemies1 must be understood in the light of their recent history and literature4 ,no ,power in the world had given any indication of a wish to destroy ,germany2 there were1 at the most1 a few uninfluential appeals in ,england for an attack on ,germany1 but solely on the ground that it meditated an attack on ,england1 and the accumulated evidence now shows that it did meditate such an attack4 ,england did not desire an acre of ,german ground4 ,france had assuredly not forgotten ,alsace and ,lorraine1 but ,france would have had no support1 and would have failed ignominiously1 in an aggressive campaign to secure those provinces4 ,on the other hand1 an immense and weighty literature1 which is unfortunately very little known in ,england1 has familiarised ,germany for fifteen years with aggressive ideas4 ,the most authoritative writers claimed that1 as they said repeatedly1 ,germany must and will expand2 and leagues which numbered millions of subscribers propagated this sentiment in every school and village4 ,a definite demand was made throughout ,germany for more colonies and a longer coast-line on the ,north ,sea2 and it was in relation to this ambition that ,england1 ,france1 and ,russia were represented--and justly represented--as ,germany's opponents4 ,england1 in particular1 was described as the great dragon which watched at the gates of ,germany and grimly forbade its development4 ,it is in this sense that the bulk of the ,german people maintain that their action is defensive4 ,in passing1 let me emphasise this peculiar economic difference between the four nations4 ,russia had a vast territory in which her people might develop4 ,france had no surplus population1 and had a large colonial field for such of her children as desired adventure abroad or would escape the competition at home4 ,england had1 in ,canada and ,australasia and ,south ,africa1 a magnificent estate for her surplus population4 ,none of these ,powers had an economic ground for aggression4 ,germany was undoubtedly in a far less fortunate position1 and had an overflowing population4 ,six hundred thousand men and women 7mostly men7 had to leave the fatherland every year1 and1 as the colonies were small and unsatisfactory1 they were scattered and lost among the nations of the earth4 ,the proper attitude toward ,germany is1 not to gratify the cunning of her leaders by superficially admitting that she was not aggressive1 but to understand clearly the very solid grounds of her desire for expansion4 ,into the whole case against ,germany1 however1 ,i cannot enter here4 ,familiar from their chief historical writers with the supposed law of the expansion of powerful nations1 convinced by their economists that the country would soon burst with population and be choked by their own industrial products unless they expanded1 knowing well that such expansion meant war to the death against ,france and ,england 7who would suffer by their expansion71 the ,german people consented to the war4 ,their official documents absolutely belie the notion that they were meeting an aggressive ,england4 ,but the ,christians of ,germany were utterly false to their principles in supporting such a war4 ,i do not mean merely that they set aside the precept1 or counsel to turn the other cheek to the smiter1 for no one now expects either nation or individual to act on that maxim4 ,they were false to the ordinary principles of ,christian morals or of humanity4 ,even if one were desperately to suppose that1 learned divines like ,harnack were unable to assign the real responsibility for the war1 or that the whole of ,germany is kept in a kind of hot-house of falsehood1 it would be impossible to defend them4 ,the ,churches of ,germany have complacently watched for twenty-three years the tendency which ,william ,,ii gave to their schools2 they have passed no censure on the fifteen years of ,imperialist propaganda which have steadily prepared the nation for an aggressive war2 and they have raised no voice against the appalling decision that1 in order to attain ,germany's purposes1 every rule of morals and humanity should be set aside4 ,they have servilely accepted every flimsy pretext for outrage1 and have followed1 instead of leading1 their passion-blinded people4 ,it was the same in ,austria-,hungary4 ,austrian and ,hungarian prelates have passed in silence the fearful travesties of justice by which1 in recent years1 their statesmen sought to compass the judicial murder of scores of ,slavs2 they raised no voice when1 at the grave risk of a ,european war1 ,austria dishonestly annexed ,bosnia and ,herzegovina2 they gave their tacit or open consent when ,austria1 refusing mediation1 declared war on ,serbia and inaugurated the titanic struggle2 and they have passed no condemnation on the infamies which the ,magyar troops perpetrated in ,serbia4 ,i am concerned mainly with the action or inaction of the ,churches in this country1 but it is entirely relevant to set out a brief statement of these facts about ,germany and ,austria-,hungary4 ,the ,christian religion was on trial in those countries as well as here4 ,it failed so lamentably1 not because there is more ,christianity here than in ,germany and ,austria1 not because the national character was inferior to the ,english and less apt to receive ,christian teaching1 but because the temptation was greater4 ,until this war occurred1 no responsible traveller ever ventured to say that the ,german or ,austrian character was inferior to the ,british4 ,it is not4 ,but the economic difficulties of ,germany and the political difficulties 7with the ,slavs7 of ,austria-,hungary laid a heavier trial on those nations1 and their ,christianity entirely failed4 ,catholic and ,protestant alike--for the two nations contain fifty million ,catholics to sixty million ,protestants--were swept onward in the tide of national passion1 or feared to oppose it4 ,one might have expected that at least the supreme head of the ,roman ,church would1 from his detached throne in ,rome1 pass some grave censure on the outrages committed by ,catholic ,bavarians in ,belgium or ,catholic ,magyars in ,serbia4 ,not one syllable either on the responsibility for the war or the appalling outrages which have characterised it has come from him4 ,the only event which drew from him a protest--a restrained and inoffensive remonstrance--was the confinement to his palace for some days of my old friend and teacher1 ,cardinal ,mercier6 ,to the stories of fearful and widespread outrage1 even when they were sternly authenticated1 he was deaf4 ,one knows why4 ,if ,germany and ,austria fail in this war1 as they will fail1 the ,catholic bodies of ,germany and ,austria1 the strongest ,catholic political parties in ,europe1 will be broken4 ,millions of the ,catholic subjects of ,germany and ,austria will pass under the rule of unbelieving ,france or schismatical ,russia4 ,so the supreme head of the ,roman ,church wraps himself nervously in a mantle of political neutrality and disclaims the duty of assigning moral guilt4 ,on us in ,england was laid only the task of defending our homes and our honour4 ,it is in those other countries that we most clearly see ,christianity put to the test1 and failing deplorably under the test4 ,i do not mean that there was no opportunity here for the ,churches to display their effectiveness as the moral guides of nations4 ,in those fateful years between #aijh and #aiad1 during which we now see so plainly the preparation for this world-tragedy1 they might have done much4 ,they did nothing4 ,they might have seen1 at least at the eleventh hour1 the iniquity of sustaining the military system1 and have cast the whole of their massive influence on the side of the promoters of arbitration4 ,i do not mean that any man should advocate disarmament1 or less effective armament1 in ,england while the rest of the world remains armed4 ,as long as we retain the military system instead of an international court1 the soldier's profession is honourable1 and the man who voluntarily faces the horrors of the field is entitled to respect and gratitude4 ,but in every country there was an agitation for the general abandonment of militarism and the substitution of lawyers for soldiers in the settlement of international quarrels4 ,had the ,churches in every country given their whole support to this agitation1 and insisted that it is morally criminal for the race as a whole to prolong the military system1 we might not have witnessed this great catastrophe4 ,before1 however1 ,i press this charge against the ,christian bodies1 let me discuss the third plea that may be urged in defence of the ,churches4 ,it is the plea of those who are so eager to disclaim responsibility that they are willing to allow an enormous decay of religious influence in the modern world4 ,you have repeatedly told us1 they say to the ,rationalist1 that ,christianity has lost its hold on ,europe4 ,you speak of millions who no longer hear the word of ,christian ministers1 but who do read ,rationalist literature in enormous quantities4 ,very well1 you cannot have it both ways4 ,let us admit that the nations of ,europe have become non-,christian1 and we cast on your non-,christian influence the burden of responsibility for the war4 ,this language has been used more than once in ,england4 ,it leaves the speaker free to assume that in ,england1 whose action in the war we do not criticise1 the nation remains substantially ,christian1 while in ,germany and ,austria the ,churches have lost more ground4 ,indeed1 one may almost confine attention to ,germany4 ,profoundly corrupt as political life has been in ,austria-,hungary for years1 there is no little evidence in the official publications of diplomatic documents that at the last moment1 when the spectre of a general war definitely arose1 ,austria hesitated and entered upon a hopeful negotiation with ,russia4 ,it was ,germany's criminal ultimatum to ,russia which set the avalanche on its terrible path4 ,now ,germany is notoriously a land of religious criticism and ,rationalism4 ,church-going in ,berlin is far lower even than in ,london1 where six out of seven millions do not attend places of worship4 ,it is almost as low as at ,paris1 where hardly a tenth of the population attend church on ,sundays4 ,in other large towns of ,germany the condition is1 as in ,england1 proportionate4 ,almost in proportion to the size of the town is the aversion of the people from the ,churches4 ,it is absolutely impossible in the case of ,germany to determine1 even in very round numbers1 how many have abandoned their allegiance to ,christianity1 though1 when one remembers the enormous rural population and the high proportion of believers in the smaller towns1 it seems preposterous to suggest that the country has1 even to the extent of one half1 become non-,christian4 ,but ,i am anxious to do justice to this plea1 and would point out that it is the educated class and the men of the large cities who control a nation's policy4 ,the rural population--the general population1 in fact--follows its educated leaders4 ,now there is no doubt that in ,germany1 as elsewhere1 this body of the population--the middle class and the workers of the great cities--has very largely lost the traditional belief4 ,the workers of ,berlin are solidly ,socialistic1 which means very largely anti-clerical4 ,and ,i would boldly draw the conclusion that the responsibility for the war is shared at least equally by ,christians and non-,christians4 ,the stricture ,i have passed on the ,churches of ,germany is based on the fact that they1 being organised bodies with a definite moral mission1 were peculiarly bound to protest against the obvious political development of their country1 and they entirely failed to do so4 ,but ,i should be the last to confine the responsibility to them4 ,not only religious leaders like ,harnack and ,eucken1 but leading ,rationalists like ,haeckel and ,ostwald1 have cordially supported the action of their country4 ,so it was from the first4 ,of that large class of men who may be said to have had some real control of the fortunes of their country a very high proportion--,i should be disposed to say at least one half--are not ,christians1 or are ,christians only in name4 ,while we thus candidly admit that non-,christians as well as ,christians in ,germany bear the moral responsibility1 we must be equally candid in rejecting the libellous charge that the principles1 or lack of principles1 of the non-,christians tended to provoke or encourage war1 in opposition to the ,christian principles4 ,this not uncommon plea of religious people is worse than inaccurate1 since it is quite easy to ascertain the principles of those who reject ,christianity4 ,in ,germany1 as elsewhere1 the non-,christians are mainly an unorganised mass1 but there are two definite organisations1 which1 in this respect1 reflect or educate the general non-,christian sentiment4 ,these are the ,social ,democrats1 a body of many millions who are for the most part opposed to the clergy1 and the ,monists1 an expressly ,rationalistic body4 ,in both cases the moral principles of the organisation are emphatically humanitarian and opposed to violence1 dishonesty1 or injustice2 in both cases those principles are adhered to with a fidelity at least equal to that which one finds in the ,christian ,churches4 ,it is little short of monstrous to say that the moral teaching of ,bebel and ,singer and ,liebknecht1 or of ,haeckel and ,ostwald--all men of high moral idealism--gave greater occasion than the teaching of ,christianity to this atrocious war4 ,the ,socialists1 indeed1 were the strongest opponents of war and advocates of international amity in ,europe4 ,how1 like the ,evangelical and the ,christian ,churches1 they failed in a grave crisis to assert their principles may be a matter for interesting consideration1 but it would be entirely dishonest to plead that the substitution of the influence of ,rationalists and ,socialists for ,christian ministers has in any degree facilitated the war4 ,the ,christian who regards all these non-,christian influences as ,pagan1 and feels that a return to ,paganism explains the essential immorality of ,germany's conduct1 usually has a grossly inaccurate idea of ,paganism4 ,whatever may be said of sexual developments in modern and ancient times1 we shall see that the ,roman writers held principles which most decidedly made for peace and brotherhood and justice4 ,in point of fact1 the majority of the ,german writers who have been responsible for the education of ,germany in war-like ideas have been ,christians4 ,the ,emperor himself1 who is mainly responsible because of his deliberate prostitution of ,german schools to militarist purposes since #ahia1 will hardly be described as other than ,christian2 certainly every prelate or minister in ,germany would vehemently resent such a description4 ,treitschke1 who is probably the best known in ,england of the ,imperialist writers1 definitely bases his appalling conception of life on ,christian principles1 and claims that he is acting from a sense of the divine mission of ,germany4 ,general von ,bernhardi uses precisely the same ,christian language4 ,but these are only two in a hundred writers who1 for more than half a century1 have been educating ,germany in aggressive ideas1 and1 speaking from personal acquaintance with their works1 ,i should say that the overwhelming majority of them are ,christians4 ,not a single ,socialist1 and not a single well-known ,rationalist1 has contributed to their pernicious gospel4 ,probably the one ,german writer in the mind of those ,english people who speak of ,germany's return to ,paganism is ,friedrich ,nietzsche4 ,it is true that ,nietzsche was bitterly anti-,christian1 and he has probably had a greater influence in ,germany1 in spite of his strictures on the country1 than many seem disposed to allow4 ,german booksellers have recently drawn up a statement in regard to the favourite books of soldiers in the field1 and it appears that ,nietzsche's ,thus ,spake ,zarathustra is second on the list--leagues ahead of the ,bible4 ,but to conclude from this that the anti-moral doctrine of the ,pagan ,nietzsche is the chief source of the outrages committed is one of those slipshod inferences which make one despair of ,christian literature4 ,in the first place1 ,goethe is even more popular with the troops than ,nietzsche1 and1 although ,goethe too was a ,pagan1 his teaching was the very antithesis of crime1 violence1 injustice1 or hypocrisy4 ,no nobler human doctrine was ever set forth than in the pages of his ,faust1 the first on this list of favourite books4 ,in the second place1 this fact at once warns us of a circumstance which we might have taken for granted3 in the knapsacks of the overwhelming majority of the soldiers there are no books at all4 ,it is the minority who read2 and it is quite safe to assume that this thoughtful minority are not the minority who have disgraced ,german militarism4 ,thirdly--and it should hardly be necessary to make this observation--the sensitive and high-strung ,nietzsche would have regarded with shuddering horror these outrages which some ignorantly attribute to his influence4 ,it is indeed probable that1 if he still looked from his hill-top upon the fields of ,europe1 he would pour out his most volcanic scorn upon the warring nations1 and especially upon ,germany and ,austria4 ,in fine1 it is necessary to remember that ,nietzsche was violently anti-democratic4 ,for the mass of the people he had only disdain1 and it is folly to suppose that his aristocratic philosophy has been accepted among them as a gospel4 ,nietzsche has had a considerable influence on the more thoughtful reading public in ,germany1 yet even here one has to make reserves in charging him with a part in the preparation of the country for an aggressive war4 ,his peculiar art and temperamental exaggerations make it impossible for any but a patient few to grasp his teaching accurately1 and are peculiarly liable to mislead the less patient4 ,when1 therefore1 he stresses--as most anti-,socialists do--the ,darwinian struggle for existence1 when he assails the humanitarian and ,christian doctrine of helping the weak1 when he calls into question the received code of morals1 and when he extols self-assertion and strength of will1 his fiery words do lend some confirmation1 which he assuredly never intended1 to the ,prussian ideal of a ,state4 ,nietzsche was too much averse from politics to intend such an application of his teaching1 which is essentially individualistic1 and he had nothing but contempt for the bluster and philistinism of the ,prussian ,state in particular4 ,we must admit1 however1 that in this unintentional way he contributed to the formation of that ,german temper which led to the war4 ,general von ,bernhardi's admiring references to his philosophy sufficiently show this4 ,but ,nietzsche's very limited influence on ,german thought cannot reasonably be quoted as justification of the common saying that ,germany had deserted ,christianity for ,paganism4 ,had such a statement been made before the war began1 our divines would have indignantly repudiated it4 ,the truth is that all classes--,christian and non-,christian--have yielded fatally to the pernicious interpretation which interested politicians1 soldiers1 manufacturers1 and ,jingoistic writers have put on the real economic needs of the country4 ,of the ,socialist and ,catholic parties1 in particular1 the two most powerfully organised bodies in ,germany1 we may say that1 in deserting their ideals1 they have been partly deceived into a real belief that ,russia and ,england sought their destruction1 and they have partly yielded to that very old and familiar temptation--the desire to retain their numerical strength by compromising with their principles4 ,in justice to the ,socialists it should be added that that party has furnished the only men and journals in ,germany to raise any protest against the madness of the nation4 ,one of the most repulsive moral traits in ,germany to-day is1 even when we have made the most liberal allowance for the painful and desperate circumstances of the people1 the astounding expression and cultivation of hatred4 ,it has transpired time after time that the ,vorwrts has protested against this4 ,not once has it been reported that the religious press or religious ministers have protested4 ,the new phrase that is officially sanctioned1 ,god punish ,england1 is a religious phrase that no ,neo-,pagan could use4 ,on the very day on which ,i write this page it is reported that ,socialists have protested in the ,reichstag against the official endorsement of outrages4 ,we do not hear of any ,christian protest1 from end to end of the campaign4 ,yet ,i do not wish to disguise the fact that both ,christians and non-,christians share the guilt of ,germany and ,austria-,hungary4 ,the real difference between the two bodies appears when we take a broader view of the war1 and only in this way can any general indictment of ,christianity be formulated4 ,important as it is to determine the responsibility for this war1 it is even more important to conceive that the war is the natural outcome of a system which ,europe ought to have abolished ages ago4 ,we are not far from the time when1 in spite of the official teaching of the ,churches1 every ,christian nation maintained the practice of the duel which the ,teutonic nations introduced fourteen centuries ago4 ,although in ,germany the ,christian clergy have not the courage to assert their plain principles in opposition to the ,emperor's barbaric patronage of the duel1 the people of most civilised countries now regard the duel as a crime4 ,no one who surveys the whole stream of moral development can doubt that a time is coming when war1 the duel of nations1 will be regarded as an infinitely graver crime4 ,the day is surely over when sophists like ,treitschke and callous soldiers like ,bernhardi could sing the praises of war4 ,the pathetic picture drawn by our great novelist of a worthless young lord lying at the feet of his opponent touched ,england profoundly and hastened the end of the duel in this country4 ,if ,england1 if the civilised world1 be not even more deeply touched by the descriptions we have read1 week after week1 of tens of thousands of braver and more innocent men lying in their blood1 of all the desolation and sorrow that have been brought on whole kingdoms of ,europe1 one will be almost tempted to despair of the race4 ,war is the last and worst stain of barbarism on the escutcheon of civilisation4 ,the question of real interest is1 therefore1 the historical question4 ,those of us who did not foresee this war until we were in the very penumbra of the tragedy cannot complain that our ,christian neighbours did not foresee and prevent it4 ,those of us who feel that the participation of our country is just and necessary may1 with no strain of imagination1 conceive the men of other countries equally persuading themselves that the action of their country is just and necessary4 ,but from the day when we awoke to an adult perception of the life of the world we have been aware that the established system of settling international quarrels was barbaric and might in any year lead to just such a catastrophe4 ,how comes it that such a system has survived fifteen hundred years of profound ,christian influence8 ,whatever we may think of the clergy of to-day1 with the more powerful clergy of yesterday we have a grave reckoning4 ,the ,rationalist is a new thing in ,europe4 ,the very name is little more than a century old1 and until a few decades ago only a few thousand would accept it4 ,not from such a new and struggling movement do we ask why this military system has dominated ,europe for ages and has only in recent times been seriously challenged4 ,during those ages the ,churches suffered none but themselves to pretend to a moral influence over the life of the nations1 nor were there many bold and independent enough to make the claim4 ,it is of the ,churches we ask why this appalling system has taken such deep root in the life of ,europe that it resists the most devoted efforts to eradicate it4 ,it is not this war1 but war1 that accuses the ,churches4 ,we are entangled in a system so widespread and so subtle that1 when a war occurs1 each nation can persuade itself that it is acting on just grounds4 ,it is the system which interests us4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,christianity ,,and ,,war ,the day will come when the student of human development will find war one of the most remarkable institutions that ever entered and quitted history4 ,civilisation took it over from barbarism2 barbarism from the savage2 the savage from the beast4 ,so we are accustomed to argue1 but we must make a singular reservation4 ,the lowest peoples of the human family1 which seem to represent primitive man1 do not wage war1 and are little addicted to violence4 ,they seem by some process of natural selection to have obtained the social quality of peacefulness and mutual aid4 ,there was1 in a sense1 a stage of primitive innocence4 ,as1 however1 these primitive peoples grew in numbers and were organised in tribes1 as they obtained collective possessions--flocks and pastures and hunting grounds--they came into collision with each other1 and all the old pugnacity of the beast awoke4 ,skill1 and even ferocity1 in war became a valuable social quality1 and we get the stage of the savage4 ,the barbarian1 or the man between savagery and civilisation1 was still compelled to fight for his possessions4 ,he was usually surrounded by fierce savage tribes4 ,the civilised man in turn was surrounded by savages and barbarians1 and needed to fight4 ,so through thousands of years of development of moral sentiment and legal procedure the primitive method of the beast has been preserved4 ,but ,i am not writing a history of warfare1 and need not describe these stages more closely1 or examine the new sentiment of imperialist expansion which gave civilisations a fresh incentive to develop methods of warfare4 ,the point of interest is to determine at what stage it might have been possible for the moral element to intervene and bid the warriors1 in the name of humanity1 lay down their arms2 at what stage the tribunal which men had set up to adjudicate between the quarrels of individuals might have been enlarged so as to be capable of arbitrating on the quarrels of nations4 ,now this was plainly impossible in the early centuries of the present era1 and it is therefore foolish to ask why ,pagan moralists did not do what we expect ,christian moralists to have done4 ,i have already mentioned1 and have fully described elsewhere1 how humanitarian sentiments were generally diffused throughout the old ,grco-,roman world4 ,there is not a phrase of the ,new ,testament which has not a parallel among the ,jews1 the ,egyptians1 the ,greeks1 and the ,romans4 ,the great fusion of peoples in the ,roman ,empire begot a feeling of brotherhood1 and1 by a natural reaction on years of vice and violence1 there was a considerable growth of lofty and tender1 and often impracticable1 sentiments4 ,moralists urged men to avoid anger1 to bear blows with dignity1 to greet all men as brothers1 even to love their enemies4 ,plato and ,epictetus and ,plutarch and ,seneca and ,marcus ,aurelius urged these maxims as forcibly as ,christ did4 ,the ,stoic religion or philosophy1 which guided ,emperors and lawyers1 and had a very wide influence in the ,roman world1 was intensely and quite modernly humanitarian4 ,its principal exponents condemned slavery and promoted a remarkable spread of philanthropy4 ,it was1 however1 not possible for the ,stoics to condemn war4 ,some of the more ardent and less practical humanitarians of the time did this1 but no alert ,roman citizen could advocate the abolition of the legions4 ,the ,empire was completely surrounded by barbarians who would rush in and trample on its civilisation the moment the fence of spears was removed4 ,from the turreted walls in the north of ,england1 where men watched the ,picts and ,scots1 to the deserts of ,mesopotamia--from the banks of the ,danube and ,rhine to the spurs of the ,atlas--it was essential to maintain those bronzed legions who guarded the civilised provinces from marauders4 ,with those outlying barbarians no treaty was possible or sacred2 no legal tribunal would have protected those frontiers from the men who looked covetously on the fertile fields and comfortable cities of the ,roman provinces4 ,from the first to the fourth century ,rome fought1 not for its expansion1 but for its preservation against these increasing enemies2 and it was the final intensification of the pressure in the ,danube region by the arrival of enormous hordes of barbarians from ,asia which precipitated the final catastrophe4 ,paganism had never the slightest opportunity to abandon the military system1 and only those who are totally unacquainted with ,roman history can wonder why it did not make the attempt4 ,it would have been a crime to abandon the civilised provinces to barbarism4 ,this was the essential position of the ,roman ,empire3 the civil wars of the fourth century1 by which its military system was abused1 need not be considered here4 ,and the student of history must recognise with equal candour that the new ,christianity1 which succeeded ,paganism in the fourth and fifth centuries1 was equally powerless to abolish warfare4 ,what we may justly blame is that the triumphant ,christianity of the fourth century did not merely sanction the use of arms in defence of civilisation2 it employed them in its own interest4 ,the earlier ,christians had exasperated the ,romans by refusing to bear arms in the service of the ,empire1 plain as the need was4 ,to a slight extent this was due to an aversion from the shedding of blood2 for the most part military service was refused because it was saturated with ,pagan rites4 ,when the ,empire became ,christian1 this objection was removed1 and the ,christians freely entered the army4 ,unhappily1 the ,christian body deteriorated with the new prosperity and base instincts were indulged4 ,it is an undoubted historical fact1 recorded by ,st4 ,jerome himself1 that the election of ,pope ,damasus1 his friend and benefactor1 was accompanied by bloody and fatal riots4 ,from undoubted historical sources we know that the ,christian mob compelled the ,prefect of ,rome to fly from the city1 and there is very serious evidence 7in a document written by two ,roman priests7 that ,damasus employed the swords and staves of his supporters to secure his position4 ,damasus and subsequent ,popes then obtained or sanctioned the use of the ,roman soldiers for the suppression of heresy and schism and ,paganism1 and ,christianity was installed by violence throughout the ,empire4 ,in the ,eastern ,roman ,empire things were even worse4 ,violence became the customary device in the seething religious quarrels of the time1 and1 literally1 tens of thousands lost their lives4 ,the ,byzantine or ,greek ,christianity entered upon a record of crime and violence which disgraced it for many centuries4 ,this development did not augur well for the application of ,christian principles to warfare4 ,we may1 however1 observe at once that for many centuries the ,roman ,church had not the slightest chance of establishing peace in ,europe4 ,the destruction of the ,roman ,empire and disbanding of its armies made an entirely new situation in ,italy4 ,the ,popes were1 for the most part1 good men1 but they did not dream at that time of controlling the counsels of kings and dictating affairs of ,state4 ,even the story of ,pope ,leo the ,great overawing the ,king of the ,huns1 ,attila1 and turning his army away from ,italy1 is a mere legend of medieval writers1 and is at variance with the nearer authorities4 ,the northern tribes themselves were to a great extent1 and for some centuries1 of the ,arian faith1 and took no advice from ,rome4 ,in a word1 it would be stupid to expect ,christian leaders of the early ,middle ,ages to press the cause of peace4 ,the northern peoples1 who would in time form the nations of ,europe1 were essentially violent and warlike1 and would have recognised no pacific counsels in that imperfect stage of their religious development4 ,where the historian may and must censure the ,church is in its adoption of militarism for its own purposes4 ,pope ,gregory the ,great found ,italy in a chaotic and pitiful condition1 and no doubt he acted1 on the whole1 rightly in organising its military defence4 ,the more serious circumstance was that he began to receive immense estates1 as gifts or legacies1 in all parts of ,italy as the property of the ,roman ,church1 and from that time either a ,papal army or the employment of the army of some friendly monarch was necessary in order to protect these estates4 ,with the confirmation and consolidation of these estates into a kingdom under ,charlemagne in the ninth century the ,papacy completed its moral aberration4 ,most of the ,popes were still men of good character1 and they no doubt persuaded themselves that1 since the income of these estates was needed for the fulfilment of their spiritual task1 it was proper to defend them by the sword4 ,but casuistry of this kind has never prospered indefinitely1 and few historians will doubt that this temporal development led directly to that degradation of the ,papacy which rendered it unfit to exercise moral influence on ,europe4 ,the ,papacy became a princedom to attract the covetous and the ambitious1 and the line of ,popes sank so low by the tenth century that the grossest characters were able to occupy the chair of ,peter at a time when the nations of ,europe were sufficiently advanced to be susceptible of a sincere moral influence4 ,the record of the ,papacy1 from the ninth century to the nineteenth1 contains on almost every page a bloody struggle for the temporal power4 ,the most religious and most eminent of the ,popes1 such as ,gregory ,,vii and ,innocent ,,iii1 were the most prompt to set in motion the machinery of war in defence of their territories or in punishment of rebels against their authority4 ,not one of them was in a position to bid kings disband their armies1 or ever dreamed of enjoining them to do more than observe a few days' truce or keep their swords from each other in order to save them for the common enemy of ,christendom4 ,it would be useless to speculate about the date when the new nations of ,europe had become sufficiently civilised to hear a gospel of peace4 ,the idea of superseding the military system of ,europe by a juridical system occurred to no ,christian leader1 and therefore we need not consider what prospect it might have had of realisation4 ,the ,christian gospel of meekness had become a mockery3 even the great abbeys1 in which the gentler and more religious were supposed to be immured1 had their troops1 and abbots and bishops1 and very often ,papal ,legates1 appeared at the head of armies4 ,two ,popes1 ,john ,x and ,julius ,,ii1 marched themselves at the head of their troops4 ,cardinals had their suites of swordsmen1 and the castles of the ,roman aristocracy were at times strong fortifications from which war of the most ferocious and unscrupulous character was waged4 ,christendom was steeped in violence2 only a gentle saint or bishop here and there caught a futile vision of a world of peace4 ,every man was armed against possible trouble with his neighbour2 every noble had his retainers and kept them well exercised2 every prince was free1 as far as the spiritual authorities were concerned1 to covet and bloodily exact the lands of his neighbour4 ,the noble1 of either sex1 found supreme delight in jousts which the modern sentiment finds as inhuman as a sordid quarrel of ,apaches over a mistress2 the peasants found a corresponding pleasure in the play of quarter-staves or the combats of dogs and cocks4 ,it is1 as ,i said1 little use to speculate about the chances of a gospel of humanity in such a world4 ,the overwhelming majority of priests and prelates made no effort whatever to restrain the prevailing violence4 ,the elementary duty of any profound moral agency was to protest without ceasing1 even if the protest was unavailing4 ,it is not at all clear that it would have been unavailing4 ,the power of the ,popes was beyond that of any other hierarchy known to history1 and at least the moral education of ,europe would have proceeded less slowly1 and war would have been abolished centuries ago1 if there had been any serious1 collective1 and authoritative enforcement of ,christian principles4 ,there was not1 and to this silence of the clergy during those long ages of their power we owe the maintenance in ,europe to-day of the regime of violence4 ,they were so far from enjoying moral inspiration in this respect that they were amongst the first to bless the banners and swell the coffers of an aggressive monarch1 and they gave the military system a final consecration by employing it repeatedly in the interests of the ,church4 ,all that one can plead in mitigation of this deep historical censure of the medieval ,church is that the frontiers of ,christendom were for centuries threatened by the ,turk and the ,saracen4 ,the old need of protecting civilisation by arms had almost disappeared4 ,few and feeble peoples remained outside the range of ,christian civilisation after the tenth century4 ,armies were maintained only in the interest of criminal ambition or for the settlement of disputes which ought to have been submitted to judges4 ,the menace of the ,turk1 with his hostile religion1 was1 of course1 a just ground for armaments1 but a few nations generally bore the whole brunt of his onset4 ,whatever religious feeling may make of the great ,crusades1 which drew to the east armies from all parts of ,europe1 secular history must dismiss them as appalling blunders4 ,the few advantages they brought to ,european culture cannot seriously be weighed against the terrible sacrifice of lives and the even more terrible consecration of militarism4 ,in a word1 the menace of the ,turk could have been met admirably by such an arrangement as we are advocating in ,europe to-day3 the maintenance of a small force by each nation for common action1 under the direction of a supreme legal tribunal1 against nations which would not obey the common law of peace4 ,but we need not seriously discuss the influence of the ,turk on the system4 ,the last phases of the struggle1 when the selfish nations and the ambitious ,papacy spent their time in idle mutual recrimination and left the ,hungarians and ,poles to do all the work1 justify us in dismissing that element4 ,kings and republics maintained armies for purely selfish purposes1 for brutal aggression and defence against aggressors2 and not a prelate in ,europe had any moral repugnance to the system1 or ventured to condemn it1 especially as the ,church used the same agency in defence of its own temporal interests4 ,with the development of the ,papal power and the advance of the peoples of ,europe the opportunity of peace became greater1 but the spiritual authority pledged itself more and more deeply to the military system4 ,the ,popes aspired--as ,gregory ,,vii and ,innocent ,,iii repeatedly state--to control the temporal as well as the spiritual affairs of ,europe1 to transfer crowns when they thought fit1 to direct invasions and military expeditions against any who questioned their authority4 ,hildebrand boasts 7,ep4 vii1 #bc7 that1 when ,william of ,normandy sent envoys to ask ,pope ,alexander to sanction his unscrupulous invasion of ,england1 and the ,papal ,court was itself too sensible of the enormity to give its sanction1 he 7,hildebrand7 overbore the wavering ,pope and forced him to bless the enterprise2 and1 when he had in his turn mounted the ,papal throne1 he vehemently claimed that his action had made ,england a fief for ever of the ,holy ,see6 ,gregory ,,vii and ,innocent ,,iii are the two greatest and most sincerely religions of the medieval ,popes1 and they carried the power of the ,papacy to a height which excites the amazement of the modern historian4 ,but they were at the same time the most militant of the ,popes1 and on the least provocation they set armies--even the most barbaric and ferocious troops in ,europe--in motion to carry out their imperial commands4 ,they arrogated the power of deposing monarchs1 and thus encouraged civil war and the ambitions of neighbouring kings4 ,the rise of heresy and of protests against the corruption of the ,papacy was another very grave pretext of the ,church to support the military system4 ,in the days of ,gregory ,,vii a body of ,puritans known as the ,patareni spread over the north of ,italy1 and ,rome encouraged a few soldiers to lead armed mobs against them and drown their idealism in blood4 ,innocent ,,iii has a more terrible stigma on his record4 ,the ,albigensians1 an early type of ,protestants1 were spreading in the south of ,france1 and the ,pope sanctioned a crusade--an expedition1 largely1 of looters and cut-throats--against them from all parts of ,france4 ,the appalling deceit practised by the ,papal ,legate and sanctioned by the ,pope1 the ferocity of the campaign1 and the desolation brought on one of the happiest and most prosperous provinces of ,france1 may be read in any history of the thirteenth century4 ,tens of thousands of men1 women1 and children were savagely put to death4 ,and this was only the beginning of the ,papal war on heresy1 which from the thirteenth century never ceased to spring up in ,europe until it won its right of citizenship in the ,reformation4 ,even more vehemently was war urged against the ,moors1 then the most civilised people in ,europe4 ,in face of this notorious history of ,europe during the long course of the ,middle ,ages it is now usual for ,catholic apologists to plead that the blood of the barbarian still flowed in the veins of the ,christian nations and men were not yet prepared to listen to the message of peace4 ,this plea cannot for a moment be admitted in extenuation of the ,church's guilt4 ,the clergy had themselves no conception of the criminality of war1 and did not rise above the moral level of their age4 ,here and there a saint or a prelate raised a feeble voice against the violence of men1 but we do not estimate an institution by the words of an occasional member1 especially if they are at variance with the official conduct and the general sentiment4 ,on the other hand1 to boast that the clergy at times enforced a temporary cessation of fighting 7the ,truce of ,god7 only increases our appreciation of their guilt4 ,the men who enforced that ,truce gave proof at once of their power and of their perception of the un-,christian nature of warfare4 ,but they were unwilling to condemn outright a machinery which they might employ at any moment in defence or advancement of their own interests4 ,had the ,church been a serious moral influence in ,europe1 had it been true to the message in virtue of which it had grown rich and powerful1 it would have protested unceasingly against this reign of violence4 ,it was not a great moral influence4 ,the grossness and illiteracy of the people1 the appalling immorality of the clergy and monks and nuns1 and this almost entire failure to apply ,christian or ordinary human principles to the worst feature of the life of ,europe1 are terrible offsets to the little good it achieved4 ,europe was steadily educated and encouraged1 century after century1 in the shedding of blood4 ,the ,protestant is at times disposed to dismiss the whole sordid story with the remark that this ,roman ,church was not ,christianity at all4 ,he contrives to overlook the serious difficulty that1 if the ,roman ,church did not represent ,christianity from the sixth century to the sixteenth1 there was1 contrary to the promise of ,christ1 no ,christianity in ,europe for a thousand years2 and he surrenders all the wonderful art of the ,middle ,ages 7as he ought7 to entirely non-,christian forces4 ,that1 however1 does not concern me here4 ,the slightest recollection of history would warn the ,protestant that the ,reformation brought no improvement whatever1 as far as this reign of violence is concerned4 ,the forces set up by the ,reformation and the ,counter-,reformation fought each other for some decades with the comparatively peaceful weapons of mutual abuse and heated argument4 ,when it was perceived that these weapons were of no avail1 there was the customary appeal to the sword4 ,in the historical documents which tell the life of ,pope ,paul ,,iv we see the ,papacy and the ,jesuits urging the ,catholic princes to lead out their armies4 ,heresy was to be extinguished in blood2 and1 seeing how many millions in the north had by that time embraced the heresy1 there can have been no illusion as to the magnitude of the oceans of blood that would be required to drown it4 ,so ,europe entered upon the horrors of the ,thirty ,years' ,war 7#afah-afdh71 which put back the civilisation of ,germany for more than a hundred years and utterly ruined some of the small principalities4 ,the population of ,bohemia alone fell from three millions to less than a million4 ,nearly every nation in ,europe was involved1 and the war was conducted with all the brutality of the older medieval warfare4 ,the fact that political as well as religious ambitions were engaged in the ,thirty ,years' ,war does not affect my argument4 ,in so far as religious sentiment was responsible--and it will hardly be questioned that it had a large share in the ,thirty ,years' ,war--we find a fresh consecration by ,christianity itself of the use of the sword4 ,but the main point we have to consider is that the new spiritual authorities were no more inclined than the old to declare that warfare was opposed to ,christian principles4 ,the last three centuries have been as full of aggressive war as the three centuries which preceded1 but there was no protest by ,christian ministers either in ,protestant ,england and ,scandinavia or in ,catholic ,france and ,austria4 ,it was the period when the modern ,powers of ,europe were building up their vast dominions1 and no one who is acquainted with the story can have any illusion as to the application to that process of what are now described as clear ,christian principles4 ,this is precisely the plaint of modern ,germany4 ,we seek1 they say1 to do merely what ,england and ,france--it were indiscreet to mention ,austria--did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries4 ,they were vigorous peoples with an impulse to expand and to extend their civilisation over backward lands4 ,they appealed solely to the right of the sword1 and all the ,christian authorities in ,europe--the bishops of ,william and of ,anne1 the bishops of ,louis ,,xiv1 the bishops of ,peter the ,great--had not a single syllable to say against the right of the sword4 ,the various branches of the ,christian ,church were at that time singularly unanimous in accommodating their principles to imperialist and aggressive warfare4 ,now that you have obtained all that you need--the aggrieved ,teuton says--now that ,i in turn would expand and colonise1 you discover that this imperialist aggression is supremely opposed to ,christian principles4 ,on some such meditations1 in part1 the ,german bases his conviction of the hypocrisy and perfidy of the ,english character4 ,he is1 of course1 entirely wrong4 ,a real change has taken place in the moral sentiment of this country2 a change so real that when1 in ,south ,africa1 the nation entered upon a war which many regarded as aggressive and merely acquisitive1 there was a very widespread revolt4 ,the cynic might genially observe that it is not difficult to retire from evil-doing and cultivate lofty principles when your fortune has been made1 but it is important to realise this change and understand its significance4 ,there is1 no doubt1 a sound human element in the cynic's observation4 ,it is easier to recognise moral principle when the period of temptation is over4 ,every thoughtful and humane ,englishman will make allowance for the less fortunate position of ,germany1 and not foolishly pride himself on his own superiority of character4 ,the fact remains1 however1 that there has been a real moral improvement in ,england and ,france1 and it would now be impossible for those nations to enter upon the aggressive and nakedly ambitious wars which they were accustomed to undertake before the nineteenth century4 ,we have a genuine abhorrence of the lust for land which has impelled ,germany to plunge ,europe into war4 ,but until a century or two ago that lust for land was considered a legitimate appetite in ,europe1 and the clergy crowded with the people to greet the warriors who came home with the news that they had added1 by the sword1 one more province to our spreading ,empire4 ,that this change of heart is not merely a feeling that we have no further need of aggression1 and would ourselves suffer by the aggression of others1 could easily be proved1 if it were necessary4 ,in the same period of change we abolished the duel1 and there was no material advantage in discovering the immorality of the duel4 ,we abolished dog-fighting1 cock-fighting1 bull-baiting1 and other brutalising spectacles4 ,we undertook a reform of our industrial and penal systems which1 however imperfect it be1 was very considerable in itself1 and was inspired solely by motives of humanity4 ,there was a general and marked improvement of public sentiment1 and it is as part of this improvement that we now find a universal condemnation of aggressive war and a widespread demand for the entire abolition of war4 ,the construction of ,english history and ,english character on the lines of ,mr4 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw may be entertaining1 and may save considerable trouble of research1 but it does not conduce to sound judgment4 ,the laments of social pessimists and of certain religious controversialists are never supported by accurate knowledge4 ,every social historian who gives evidence of knowing the evils of the ,england of a century ago as well as the ,england of to-day admits that there has been a great moral advance4 ,i will examine in the next chapter certain comments of religious writers and speakers on this advance4 ,here ,i wish to determine the facts with some clearness4 ,it has not been necessary for me to discuss the medieval and the early modern period with any fullness4 ,there is no dispute about the features of those periods4 ,they were ages of violence1 of incessant and frankly aggressive war1 of unrestrained ambition4 ,the smallest pretext sufficed for a monarch1 if his forces and finances were in order1 to invade his neighbour's territory and annex as much of it as he could hold by the sword4 ,frederic the ,great and ,napoleon did not introduce new ideas into ,europe2 they attempted to revive medieval ideas in a changing world4 ,austria in its annexation of ,bosnia and ,herzegovina1 ,germany in its ambition to annex ,belgium and the colonies which other ,powers have laboriously cultivated1 are following their example4 ,they are not inventing new forms of criminality2 they are not returning to ,pagan ideals3 they are reverting merely to ideals which were accepted throughout ,europe for more than a thousand years4 ,in the more brutal features of war to which they have descended they are even more emphatically reverting to the ,middle ,ages4 ,the ,romans did not commit such outrages at the command of educated officers4 ,medieval ,christians did3 the record of ,papal warfare1 down to the ,massacre of ,perugia in #ahei1 is as deeply stained as any by these abominable methods4 ,my further point1 that the ,christian ,church or ,churches made no serious resistance to the prevailing brutality1 is just as easy to establish4 ,it is a sheer travesty of argument to put forward the gentle exhortations of a ,francis of ,assisi as characteristic of the ,christian ,church when the ,pope of the time1 one of the most powerful and conscientious ,popes of all time1 ,innocent ,,iii1 was threatening or directing the movements of ferocious armies all over ,europe4 ,most assuredly there were among the numbers of fine characters who appeared in ,christendom in the course of a thousand years many who deeply resented the prevailing violence4 ,but when we speak of the ,church1 we speak of its official action and its predominant sentiment4 ,the official action of the ,popes was1 during all that period1 to make the same use as any terrestrial monarch of the service of soldiers2 they failed1 from ,gregory the ,great to ,pius ,x1 to recognise one of the supreme moral needs of ,europe4 ,the bishops of the ,church of ,england and the heads of the ,lutheran and ,calvinistic ,churches did not prove to have any sounder moral inspiration in this respect4 ,it was left to despised bodies like the ,friends1 who were hardly recognised as ,christians1 and to rare individuals to protest against the system which has brought such appalling evil on ,europe4 ,in the nineteenth century the moral sentiment of ,europe began to advance more rapidly than it had previously done1 and the idea of substituting arbitration for war began to spread4 ,the history of this reform has not yet been written1 as far as ,i can discover1 but it is hardly likely that any will be bold enough to suggest that the idea was due to ,christianity4 ,after the ,napoleonic wars1 at least1 ,europe was ripe for such a reform4 ,i do not mean that public feeling in ,europe was prepared for the idea4 ,it would have met with a very considerable degree of resistance1 and would have generally been conceived as the dream of an amiable fanatic4 ,such resistance makes the duty of the moralist or the reformer all the more pressing1 and it is merely amazing to hear the earlier ,christian clergy exonerated on the ground that the world was not prepared to receive a message of peace from them4 ,they did not try the experiment because it did not occur to them1 or because they were too closely dependent on the monarchs of the earth to question the wisdom of their arrangements4 ,europe was1 in point of fact1 quite ripe for the change in the second decade of the nineteenth century1 and there would assuredly be no war to-day if the ,churches had had the moral inspiration and the moral courage to insist on it4 ,the frontiers of the nations were 7except in the case of ,italy and ,poland7 defined with a fair show of justice1 and the time had come to disband armies and submit any future quarrel to arbitration3 to retain only a small standing army in each country for the defence of its colonial frontiers against tribes which do not respect arbitration1 or for the enforcement of the decisions of the central tribunal4 ,the conditions were almost as favourable for such a change in #ahaf as they are to-day1 or will be in #aiaf1 and it is another grave point in the indictment of ,christianity that it had no inspiration to demand that change4 ,the bishops of ,england no less than the bishops of ,rome were deeply concerned about the rise of democracy and the spread of unbelief1 and they joined with the monarchs in enforcing a system of violent repression4 ,for the larger and more real need of ,europe they had no feeling whatever1 and militarism entered upon its last and most terrible phase3 the stage of national armies and of means of destruction prepared with all the fearful skill of modern science4 ,as the nineteenth century proceeded1 humanitarianism attained clearer conceptions and more articulate speech4 ,the scheme of substituting legal procedure for military violence was definitely put before the world4 ,it is not necessary1 and would be difficult1 to trace the earliest developments of this idea4 ,on the one hand1 ,i find no claim that it was put forward by representatives of ,christianity2 on the other hand1 literary research among the records of the early ,rationalist movements in this country has shown me that the idea was familiar and welcome amongst them4 ,no doubt the aversion of the ,friends from bloodshed had some influence1 and we find representatives of that noble-minded ,society active in more than one of the early reform-movements4 ,but1 as far as ,i can discover1 it was ,robert ,owen who first definitely advanced the idea of substituting arbitration for war1 and it was repeatedly discussed among the ,rational ,religion ,societies--which were not at all religious--that he founded or inspired in various parts of the country4 ,the immense influence which he obtained in the thirties and forties enabled him to direct public attention to the reform4 ,this early history is1 however1 as yet vague and unstudied1 nor do we need to enter into any ungenerous struggle about priority4 ,it is enough that the idealist scheme was well known in ,england long before the middle of the nineteenth century4 ,did the ,christian ,churches adopt and enforce it8 ,here1 at least1 no minute research is needed4 ,the ,christian bodies failed lamentably and totally 7apart from the heterodox ,friends7 even to recognise the moral and humane greatness of the idea when it was definitely presented to them4 ,it is only in the last few years that a ,peace ,sunday has--at the suggestion of lay associations--been adopted in the churches and chapels of ,england4 ,it is only in quite recent times that bishops and ministers have stood on peace-platforms and advocated the reform4 ,and even to-day1 when peace associations founded by laymen have been endeavouring for decades to educate the country1 no branch of the ,christian ,church has officially and collectively decreed that ,christian principles enjoin the reform2 no ,pope or ,archbishop or ,church ,council has supported it with a stern and official injunction that ,christian and moral principle demands that all the members of the particular ,church shall subscribe to and work for the reform4 ,even at this eleventh hour1 when the issue of peace or war confronts the whole of mankind1 one notices hesitation1 reserve1 ambiguity4 ,during the fateful years between #aijj and #aiad1 when the nations were1 in the eyes of all1 preparing the most appalling armaments ever known in history1 when men were speaking freely all over ,europe of the next war and the terrific dimensions which modern science and modern alliances would give to it1 the various branches of the ,christian ,church adhered to their ancient and futile practice of preaching general principles 7as far as national conduct is concerned71 and had little practical influence on the development4 ,i am not unaware of the small movements among the clergy for cultivating international clerical friendship1 or of the extent to which individual clergymen have co-operated in the various arbitration movements4 ,that is only a feeble discharge of a small part of their duty4 ,had ,leo ,,xiii or ,pius ,x issued a plain and explicit ,encyclical on the subject1 and directed his vast international organisation of clergy to labour wholeheartedly for its realisation1 who can estimate what the result would have been8 ,had the clergy of ,germany issued a stern and collective denunciation of the ,pan-,german and ,imperialist literature which was instilling poison into every village of the country1 can we suppose that it would have been without avail8 ,had the ,archbishops and ,bishops of ,england1 and the leaders of the ,free ,churches1 definitely instructed their people that the pacifist ideal was not merely in accord with ,christian principles1 but was one of the most urgent and beneficent reforms of our time1 would the ,english people have passed as inobservantly as it did through the five years of preparation for a great war8 ,it is no part of my plan to analyse this deplorable failure of the ,churches as moral agencies4 ,the explanation would be complex1 and is now superfluous4 ,the clergy were1 like the majority of their fellows1 obsessed by the military system and unable to realise the possibility of a change4 ,in part they were deluded by the catch-words of superficial literature4 ,they had an idea that we were asking ,england to lower its armament while the rest of the world increased its armament4 ,they muttered that the time was not ripe1 not realising that it was their business to make it ripe4 ,they had been accustomed for ages to preaching a purely individualist morality1 and they felt ill at ease in the larger social applications of moral principle which our age regards as more important4 ,they feared to offend military supporters1 and did not realise that one may entirely honour the soldier as long as the military system lasts1 yet resent the system4 ,they felt that this new movement was suspiciously hailed by ,socialists1 and that to denounce armies had an air of politics about it4 ,they were peculiarly wedded to tradition1 on account of the very nature they claimed for their traditions1 and they instinctively felt that to denounce war would be to attempt to improve1 not merely on their predecessors1 but on the ,old and the ,new ,testaments4 ,they solaced themselves with the thought that unnecessary violence was condemned in their general teaching1 and that1 if it eventually transpired that war was unnecessary1 they could point out once more the all-embracing character of the ,christian ethic4 ,in fine1 they were for the greater part1 like the greater part of their fellows1 mentally indolent and indisposed to think out or fight for a new idea4 ,whatever the explanation1 the fact remains4 ,by the tenth century ,christianity was fully organised1 and all the peoples of ,europe were ,christian2 by the thirteenth century the power of the ,church was enormous and the nations of ,europe were settled and civilised4 ,but neither then nor at any later period did ,christianity perceive the crime and stupidity of the prevailing system4 ,the perception is even now only faint and partial4 ,it is this long toleration of the military system1 the thousand-year silence on what is now acclaimed as one of the greatest applications of ,christian principle1 that one finds it difficult or impossible to forgive4 ,the zeal of some of the modern clergy is open to a certain not unnatural suspicion3 in view of their shrinking authority and the growing indifference of the world to dogma and ritual1 they have been forced to take up these new and larger ideas of our time4 ,even if one lays aside that suspicion1 and in many cases it is quite unjust1 the clergy must realise that the indictment of ,christianity is grave1 and is almost unatonable4 ,those thousand years of conflict1 during which they sanctioned every variety of war and initiated many wars in their own interest1 have given the military system such root in the hearts of men that it will require a supreme and prolonged effort to destroy it4 ,the proverbial visitor from ,mars would not be so much amazed at any feature of our life as at this retention amid a great civilisation of the barbaric method of settling international differences4 ,he would ask in astonishment how an intelligent and generally humane race1 a race which raises homes for stray cats and aged horses1 could cling to a system which1 on infallible experience1 plunges one or more countries in the deepest suffering every few years4 ,he would learn that there has not been a war in ,europe for a hundred years the initial cause of which would not have been better appreciated and adjudicated on by a body of impartial lawyers2 and that1 if the quarrels had thus been submitted to arbitration1 we should have saved 7including the annual military expenditure and the cost of the present war7 some three million lives and more than #ae1jjj1jjj1jjj--since the end of the ,napoleonic wars4 ,in answer to the amazement of this imaginary critic1 we could reply only that ,europe has grown to regard the military system as so permanent and unquestioned an institution of our civilisation that it simply cannot imagine the abolition of that system4 ,for this incapacity1 this widespread inertia1 this blundering idea that there is some serious intrinsic difficulty in the matter1 the ,churches are responsible4 ,if they had directed to war the smallest particle of the ardent rhetoric they have poured on disbelief in dogmas which they are to-day abandoning1 the public mind would have awakened long ago4 ,there is no intrinsic difficulty in substituting arbitration for war4 ,there are technical difficulties which the great lawyers and statesmen of the peace-movement have given ample promise of surmounting1 but the overwhelming obstacle is merely this--the peoples of ,europe do not insist on the reform4 ,of all the large problems which confront the modern mind this is incomparably the simplest4 ,we are hopelessly divided as to the nature of the remedy for most of our social ills4 ,here the remedy is acknowledged3 the plan has been elaborated almost in entirety3 the international tribunal already exists1 and awaits only its executive1 which the nations of ,europe could supply to-morrow4 ,it is the will1 the demand1 that is wanting4 ,for that lack we charge the utter failure of the ,churches during the ages of their power to enunciate a plain moral lesson1 and their positive encouragement of an evil system4 ,that is the real indictment4 ,it affects the ,christian ,church in every nation4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,apologies ,,of ,,the ,,clergy ,any person who cares to read the reports of the utterances of our clergy in the current religious periodicals will recognise that they are painfully conscious of the reproach which this war implies4 ,one constantly finds them repeating that in this year of tragedy ,christianity has failed and the gospel has broken in our hands4 ,it had been their boast that ,christianity had civilised ,europe1 and none of them has the audacity or indecency to claim1 as some writers have done1 that such a war is in harmony with the principles and ideals of civilisation4 ,they have preached brotherhood and peace1 and the greater part of ,christendom is engaged in a strife of the most terrible nature4 ,it is not a struggle of ,christian and infidel2 it is a struggle of ,christian and ,christian1 and one or several of the ,christian nations involved are guilty of a crime greater in magnitude than all the murders in ,europe during a decade4 ,above all patriotism1 above all immediate anxiety1 above all argumentation about responsibility1 this grim fact stands out and reproaches them3 after fifteen hundred years of ,christian preaching ,europe is locked in the bloodiest struggle of all time4 ,during the last fifty or hundred years the clergy have developed some expertness in making apologies4 ,they have lived in a world of anxious questions and heated charges1 and a special department called ,apologetics has been added to theology4 ,they are1 it is true1 sorely perplexed1 divided in counsel1 uneasy as to their procedure4 ,some would ignore the pertinacious outsider and persuade their followers that he is negligible2 others would sustain an energetic campaign against him4 ,some would openly and candidly meet the questions of their followers2 others would prefer not to unsettle the large number who never ask questions4 ,at the present juncture it is impossible to be wholly silent4 ,some of the clergy1 it seems--,i learn this from the recorded words of eminent preachers--wish to ignore the war and go on with their business as usual4 ,but the majority feel that such a procedure is dangerous4 ,this violent breach of ,christian principles by ,christian nations requires some explanation4 ,where is the long-boasted moral influence of ,christianity8 ,where is the all-loving ruler of the universe8 ,let us examine some of the apologies of the preachers4 ,let me confess that1 from a long experience of this apologetic branch of theology1 ,i am not surprised to find that not a single speaker or writer--as far as my reading of their utterances goes--fairly meets the main difficulty4 ,most of them1 naturally1 are content to plead that the war has been forced on ,europe by ,germany1 and that therefore no responsibility lies on ,christianity as a whole for the tragedy and the moral failure it involves4 ,a large number of them go even farther4 ,they point to the heroic sacrifices made in defence of an ideal by ,france1 ,belgium1 ,england1 and ,russia--the millions of men streaming to the battle-field1 the millions of women bravely enduring the suspense and the loss1 the millions who generously open their purses to every philanthropic enterprise--and they acclaim this as a triumph of ,christian civilisation4 ,as to the failure of ,christianity in ,germany to stand the test1 they either point superficially to the growth of ,rationalism1 ,biblical ,criticism1 and ,socialism in that country1 or they take refuge in the confusions of the extreme pacifists and refuse to assign responsibility at all1 or they persuade themselves that a small minority of men who were not ,christians deluded the ,german people into consenting to the war4 ,in any case1 they insist that ,christianity as a whole is not impeached4 ,assume that ,austria was dragged into the war by ,germany1 and you have four ,christian nations--five1 if one includes ,serbia--behaving with great gallantry and entire propriety1 and only one ,christian nation misbehaving4 ,there is no doubt that this is the common religious attitude1 but it does not satisfy some of the more thoughtful and earnest preachers4 ,this optimism seems to them rebuked by the very fact that ,christendom is in a state of war to which ,paganism can offer no parallel4 ,they think of the lands beyond the sea to which they have been sending the ,christian message of peace and brotherhood4 ,they fancy they see ,china and ,japan smiling their faint but distressing smile at the situation in ,christian ,europe4 ,they have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in ,europe1 and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror1 of fierce hatred1 of appalling carnage1 of the wanton destruction by ,christians of ,christian temples4 ,the ,gospel has1 somehow1 broken down in ,europe1 they regretfully admit4 ,but they never go beyond this vague admission and boldly state the sin of the ,churches4 ,one would imagine that1 in spite of its obvious and lamentable failure1 they still thought that their predecessors had been justified in preaching only the general terms of the ,christian gospel and never applying it to war4 ,one would fancy that they are so unacquainted with history as to suppose that during the long ages of the past the ,churches were really frowning on violence and warfare1 instead of blessing and employing it4 ,they fear to draw out in its full proportion the inefficacy 7because of its vagueness7 of the gospel and the long perversion of its ministers4 ,yet we cannot evade this fundamental fact of the situation1 that this particular war is an outcome of a general military system1 and the ,churches have a very grave responsibility for the maintenance of that system until the twentieth century4 ,we all know how the technical moral theologian of recent times has glossed the complacency of his ,church4 ,he has drawn a distinction between offensive and defensive war1 and1 since the latter is obviously just1 he has maintained that armies are rightly raised to wage it when necessary4 ,on this petty fallacy the ,churches have so long reconciled themselves to militarism1 and have1 in fact1 been amongst its closest allies4 ,the clergy did not1 or would not1 see that the retention of the military system was in itself the surest provocation of offensive war2 that ambition or covetousness could almost always find a moral pretext for aggression1 and that there have been comparatively few priests in the history of ,europe who ever stood out and unmasked the hypocrisy of such monarchs4 ,as long as the military system lasted1 it was certain that wars would take place1 yet they never denounced the system4 ,the great conception of substituting justice for violence1 law for lawlessness1 did not enter the mind of ,christianity4 ,it was born of the secular humanitarian spirit of modern times4 ,for any serious person this is the gravest charge which the clergy have to meet1 and they one and all evade it4 ,the civilisation of ,europe has a unique greatness on its material side2 in its applied science1 its engineering1 its industries1 its commerce4 ,for that1 assuredly1 the ,churches are not in any degree responsible4 ,our civilisation is unique also in its political power1 its mastery over other peoples2 and for that again the ,churches are not responsible4 ,it is great on the intellectual side1 in its science and philosophy1 its art and general culture2 and that greatness1 too1 has been won independently of1 or in defiance of1 the clergy4 ,on the moral side only it may plausibly be connected with its established religion1 and here precisely it fails and approaches barbarism4 ,i do not wonder that the ,churches are troubled1 and do not wonder greatly that they are silent4 ,but while they are silent on the main issue1 they have a vast amount to say about minor issues and secondary aspects4 ,they console and reconcile their people in a hundred ways4 ,actually they seem1 in a great measure1 to entertain the idea that the ,churches are going to emerge from this trial stronger than ever1 and to witness at last that religious revival which they had almost begun to despair of securing4 ,let me examine a few of these clerical pronouncements4 ,i do not choose the eccentric sermons of ill-educated rural preachers1 but the utterances of some of the more distinguished preachers1 reproduced with pride and honour in the leading religious periodicals4 ,yet no person can coldly reflect on these pronouncements and fail to realise that our generation acts not unnaturally in passing by the open doors of the ,churches2 that the clergy are1 as usual1 shirking the most serious questions of the modern intelligence1 and trusting mainly to profit by the heated and disordered and confusing emotions of the hour4 ,one of the most extraordinary of these deliverances reaches me from ,australia1 but as it comes from one of the leading prelates of the ,commonwealth and does assuredly express what multitudes of preachers are saying everywhere1 ,i do not hesitate to give it prominence4 ,archbishop ,carr1 of ,melbourne1 set out in the middle of the war to enlighten his followers1 and his words are reported with great deference in the ,melbourne ,age 7,december #bhth74 ,the prelate observed that he had very strong ideas about the war 7,i quote the words of the ,age71 and did not believe it had happened by accident1 or by the chance action of some king or emperor4 ,he believed that the great ,god who provided for all human creatures1 through the war was punishing sin that had prevailed for a long time1 particularly in the shape of infidelity4 ,the ,archbishop proved from history and the ,bible that war did come sometimes as a punishment of sin1 and he concluded1 or the journal thus summarises his conclusion3 ,the reason that ,god was using the present war for the punishment of the nations was that for a very considerable time there had been not merely neglect of the worship and service of ,god1 which had always existed to a greater or less extent1 but a regular upraising of human light and human understanding and human will against the existence of the providence of ,god4 ,it was not so common among us here it is just as common1 but there were countries in ,europe in which the spirit of infidelity and the absence of supernatural faith had been increasing for many years4 ,men were coming to think they were quite sufficient in themselves for the working out of their own destinies1 but the war had come1 and it was humbling such men4 ,archbishop ,carr is not adduced here as a representative type of clerical culture4 ,on what grounds the ,roman ,catholic authorities select men like him and the late ,cardinal ,moran to preside over the destinies of their ,church in our great and promising ,commonwealth is not clear4 ,in the course of this important sermon1 in which he is delivering his very personal and mature conclusions on the greatest issue of the hour1 the ,archbishop observed that the ,roman ,empire had been attacked by ,attila and ,attila scourged the ,romans for the crimes of which they had for a long while been guilty4 ,one is surprised that he did not add the pretty legend of the awe-stricken ,hun retreating before the majestic figure of ,pope ,leo ,i4 ,however1 most of us are aware that1 as a student in any college of ,australia ought to be able to inform the ,archbishop1 ,attila never reached within two hundred miles of ,rome1 and that the ,pagan ,romans1 whom the ,archbishop obviously has in mind1 had been extinguished long before the monarch of the ,huns was born4 ,there is no greater historical scholarship in the other proofs which the prelate brings in support of his thesis that war is often deliberately sent as a punishment4 ,but what are we to make of the moral standards of an eminent prelate of the ,roman ,church who can hold and express so appalling a theory8 ,it is based on the moral standard of the ,prussian officer1 of the medieval torturer4 ,the majority of clergymen have at length come to realise1 tardily and reluctantly1 that the man or woman who rejects the creeds they offer may quite possibly not believe in them4 ,the practice of describing a refusal to assent to the doctrine of hell and heaven as a wilful rebellion of passion against the restraining influences of ,christianity is going out of fashion4 ,christian people were meeting too many heretics in the flesh1 and did not recognise the thing described from the pulpit4 ,the sturdy ,archbishop will have none of this pampering4 ,unbelief is a matter of the will as well as the understanding4 ,and he actually believes that ,god guided the thoughts of ,william ,,ii in engineering this war--believes it for a reason a hundred times worse than the ,kaiser's idea4 ,he believes that ,god sent on ,europe a war that will cost #aj1jjj1jjj1jjj1 that is blasting the homes and embittering the hearts of millions1 that mingles the innocent and guilty in one common and fearful desolation1 that sends millions to a premature death amidst circumstances which do not lend themselves to a devout preparation1 that is raising storms of hatred and perverting the souls of millions1 because a few other millions refuse to go to church4 ,it would be difficult to conceive a cruder and more barbarous idea4 ,attila did not scourge the ,romans1 but he did scourge other peoples2 and we hold him up to execration for ever for it4 ,but ,archbishop ,carr1 and many other preachers1 think that an all-holy and all-intelligent ,god can do infinitely worse than ,attila4 ,he is going to punish the unbelievers in eternal fire when they die3 meantime he will make a hell on earth for the innocent as well as the supposed guilty1 the child and the mother as well as the free-thinking father4 ,of a truth1 it is not surprising that a reluctance to listen to sermons has spread to ,melbourne1 and that men are wondering whether they had better not take in hand their own destinies rather than entrust them to such spiritual guides as this4 ,note1 particularly1 in passing the emphasis which the ,archbishop puts on the determination of our generation to control its own destinies4 ,until the nineteenth century men entrusted their destinies1 on the moral side1 to guides like ,archbishop ,carr4 ,i have described the result4 ,in the nineteenth century there began this practice1 which the ,archbishop thinks worthy of so inhuman a chastisement1 of men attending to their own moral interests4 ,of this also ,i have described the result4 ,the moral sentiment of ,europe has greatly improved1 and there is at least a widespread revolt against warfare and a prospect of abolishing it4 ,for this ,god1 the more than human1 scorched ,europe with the horrible flames which ,archbishop ,carr thinks he keeps in his arsenal of torture-implements4 ,the ,archbishop says that infidelity has not spread so much in ,australia4 ,i should1 if ,i were not well acquainted with the ,commonwealth1 be disposed to see in that the reason why eminent prelates can still utter such gross medieval nonsense in that country4 ,in ,england this particularly crude type of nonsense is not usually uttered by preachers of distinction1#b though it is common enough among less responsible preachers2 but there is a dangerous approach to it in some of the sermons which the religious periodicals regard as important4 ,looking over the current issues of the religious press1 ,i notice a sermon on the war by ,professor ,clow1 in which the ,allies are1 in harmony with his test1 described as the vultures of ,god4 ,germany1 it seems1 is the prey1 and ,germany's sins are painted black4 ,professor ,clow1 it is true1 shrinks from the very natural implication of his words1 but he clearly intimates that he sees the action of ,god in the military conduct of the ,allies1 and to that extent he is hardly less revolting1 in view of his culture1 than the archbishop4 ,could the ,god of ,professor ,clow find no other way of removing ,germany's arrogance than to sear and blast it with a world-war and involve millions of innocent along with the guilty in his lakes of fire and blood8 ,more important1 however1 is a sermon delivered before the recent ,national ,free ,church ,council by one of the most esteemed ,nonconformist preachers1 the ,rev4 ,j4 ,h4 ,rushbrooke1 and reproduced admiringly in the ,nonconformist journals4 ,the cloud of war1 naturally1 brooded over this gathering of ministers4 ,some of them heroically closed their eyes to it and went on with their clerical business as usual4 ,but most of the speakers seem to have felt that all other issues were thrust aside in the minds of their followers just now1 and that a grave and soul-shaking question possessed them4 ,as a result we have1 ,i suppose1 the finest efforts of ,nonconformity to meet that question and save the prestige of the ,churches4 ,mr4 ,rushbrooke frankly described the war as an overwhelming catastrophe1 gravely disturbing the religious mind4 ,it bore witness1 he said1 to the failure of organised1 or disorganised1 ,christianity4 ,he conceived it as ,god's judgment upon the ,church's failure seriously to devote herself to the great cause of peace on earth and good-will among men4 ,with all their boasts of what ,christianity had done in ,europe1 it now appeared that that civilisation was raised upon foundations of sand4 ,the preacher claimed that much was being done in modern times by the clergy to promote international amity1 but he seemed to feel that it was little and was very recent4 ,the spectacle unfolded before us in ,europe to-day is a sufficient proof of its inadequacy4 ,and1 as ,mr4 ,rushbrooke said1 we now see how little use it is to preach ideals at home and not apply them to the common life of the world4 ,these words are the nearest to wisdom that ,i have found among a large collection of pulpit-utterances and religious articles4 ,the preacher plainly sees1 and with some measure of candour confesses1 that long remissness of ,christian ministers in applying their principles to which the war1 and all wars1 are fundamentally due4 ,the record which he carefully makes of recent efforts to redeem the failure is paltry in comparison with the resources even of the ,free ,churches1 and only serves to bring out more clearly the awful neglect of ,christian ministers during the long ages when they had a mighty power in ,europe4 ,but ,mr4 ,rushbrooke makes one grave error4 ,he feels that not merely the relation of the war to ,christianity1 but its relation to ,god1 is engaging public attention1 and he stumbles into the theory that ,god sent the war4 ,it is ,god's judgment on the ,church's failure4 ,we must suppose that ,mr4 ,rushbrooke did not literally mean what he said4 ,his words imply a theory of the war more monstrous even than that of ,archbishop ,carr4 ,to punish ,europe for the sins of unbelievers has at least a genuine medieval plausibility about it2 but to send this indescribable plague on the nations of ,europe because the clergy failed to do their duty4444 ,one must really assume that ,mr4 ,rushbrooke did not mean what he said1 and leave the sentence unfinished4 ,what he meant it is impossible to conjecture4 ,to the religious mind ,god's judgment means a chastisement sent by ,god4 ,but1 whatever ,mr4 ,rushbrooke meant1 he had been wiser to leave the idea of ,god out of his comments on this war1 and to say frankly that it would bring on them and on their predecessors1 on the whole of ,christianity1 the judgment of man and the judgment of history for their neglect of their opportunities4 ,the ,rev4 ,a4 ,t4 ,guttery addressed the ,council in a more cheerful mood1 and his reflections are characteristic of a large group of the clergy4 ,he would not for a moment allow the failure of ,christianity4 ,the ,churches had1 he said1 been so successful in compelling the world to recognise the evil of aggressive warfare that even the ,germans were eager to describe their action as purely defensive4 ,the ,pagan glory of war for its own sake was gone4 ,and when we acknowledge the comparative failure of religion in ,germany1 and restrict our attention to the sphere of our own clergy1 we find that they have created an entirely new spirit4 ,the lust for territory and for gold is felt no more in ,england4 ,here there is no mafficking over victories1 there are no hymns of hate4 ,the ,british nation has been sobered by the influence of ,christianity4 ,we may regret that the ,german people has not proved equally susceptible1 and its pastors equally energetic1 but we cannot bear their burden4 ,their naughtiness alone has disturbed the moral progress which1 even in this department1 ,christianity was fostering4 ,this is1 ,i think1 a very usual attitude of the clergy1 and ,i have already appreciated the sound element of it4 ,there is no comparison between the behaviour of the two nations4 ,whether ,england deserves quite all the compliments which ,mr4 ,guttery showers upon it may be a matter of opinion4 ,we have as yet little cause for mafficking1 but there is very little doubt that it will occur on a grandiose scale before the war is over4 ,we do not sing hymns of hate2 but it might be hazardous to speculate what we would do if some nation drew an iron ring round our country and reduced us almost to a condition of starvation4 ,we have no lust for territory--,i am not sure about the lust for gold--because we have in our ,empire territory enough for our population2 and we may wait to see if ,england does not annex any part of ,germany's ,african or ,pacific possessions4 ,mr4 ,guttery's contrast is crude and superficial4 ,he ignores the economic and geographical conditions which give us a feeling of content and ,germany a profound feeling of discontent and a dangerous ambition4 ,the ,german character is not in itself inferior to ours1 and it were well for us to fancy ourselves in ,germany's position and wonder if we would have acted otherwise4 ,on the other hand1 ,i have freely acknowledged1 or claimed1 that there has been a great improvement in the moral temper of ,europe1 and that this is especially seen in the odium that is now cast on aggressive or offensive war4 ,but to claim this improvement for the credit of religion is1 to say the least1 audacious4 ,the more simple-minded of ,mr4 ,guttery's hearers would imagine that the change set in with the fall of ,paganism4 ,the ,pagan glory of war for its own sake is gone4 ,when clerical writers speak of ,paganism they think that any evil deed ever done by a ,pagan is characteristic of the whole body2 they ask us to apply a different standard to their own body4 ,plato and ,socrates were ,pagans2 ,marcus ,aurelius and ,antoninus ,pius--to speak of warriors and statesmen--were ,pagans4 ,the truth is that a glory in war for its own sake was no more generally characteristic of ,paganism than it was of ,christian ,europe until a century ago3 it was probably less4 ,most of the ,german ,emperors and of the ,kings of ,england1 ,france1 and ,spain would fairly come under the description which ,mr4 ,guttery calls ,pagan4 ,one hardly needs to know much of history to perceive that this moral improvement in the conception of war belongs to the last century and a half1 and it is somewhat bold to claim that a change which made no appearance during a thousand years of profound ,christian influence1 and did begin to appear and make progress as that faith waned1 can be claimed for ,christianity4 ,i do not forget that the theologian began long ago1 in the seclusion of his cell or study1 to condemn offensive warfare4 ,but there have been hundreds of offensive wars waged by ,christian monarchs since that date1 and we do not read of any instance in which the clergy failed to endorse the thin casuistry by which the offensive was turned into a defensive or a preventive war1 or refused to sanction an entire neglect of the principle4 ,dr4 ,scott-,lidgett followed on somewhat similar lines4 ,the whole trouble1 he protested1 was due to an anti-,christian1 illiberal1 and inhuman system4 ,it seems that he was referring to ,prussia1 and it is regrettable that he did not feel called to explain why that system prevails in the year of the ,lord #aiae1 or how it finds an instrument of its ambition in a militarism that ought to have been denounced and abolished centuries ago4 ,mr4 ,shakespeare1 another distinguished ,nonconformist1 follows the same facile course--casts all the responsibility on ,germany--and equally fails to explain how ,germany came to find the machinery of destruction at its hand in our age4 ,in fine1 ,dean ,welldon1 one of the most energetic spokesmen of the ,church of ,england1 addressed this ,free ,church ,council1 and imparted an element of originality4 ,he used the inconclusive and dangerous argument of tu quoque4 ,if1 he said1 you claim that this war exhibits the failure of ,christianity1 you must admit that it shows equally the failure of science and civilisation4 ,nay1 he says1 growing bolder1 if your contention is true1 ,christianity has done no more than supply the instrument of its own destruction1 but science and civilisation have brought us back to savagery4 ,it is1 of course1 difficult to follow a man's rounded thought in the crabbed phrases of an abbreviating reporter1 but it is plain that ,dean ,welldon has here been guilty of a confusion which only betrays his apologetic poverty in face of this great crisis4 ,science--and it is especially science that the clergy conceive as the rival they have to discredit--has no concern whatever with the war4 ,science1 either as an organised body of teachers or as a branch of culture1 has never discussed war1 and never had the faintest duty or opportunity to do so4 ,economic science may discuss particular aspects of war1 but the economist deals with things as they are1 not as they ought to be4 ,moral science even is not a preaching agency1 desirous of dividing with the clergy the ethical guidance of the people4 ,when men pit science against religion1 they usually refer to its superior power of explaining reality4 ,and if it be objected that therefore no morally educative agency would remain if religion were discarded1 the answer is simple4 ,a system of moral idealism founded on science--it is absurd to call it science--does exist1 and might at any time be enlarged to the proportions of a national or international educative agency4 ,as yet it is left to individual cultivation or crystallised in a few tiny associations1 such as ,ethical and ,secularist and1 partly1 ,socialist ,societies2 and ,i venture to say1 from a large experience of these bodies1 that1 apart from the professed peace societies1 they have been more assiduous than any religious associations in ,england1 in proportion to their work1 in demanding the substitution of arbitration for war1 and that the overwhelming majority1 almost the entirety1 of their members are pacifists4 ,to speak of this small organised force1 with its slender influence1 as equally discredited with the far mightier and thousand-year-older influence of the ,churches would be strangely incongruous2 and it is hardly less incongruous to drag science into the comparison4 ,a somewhat similar distinction must be observed in regard to civilisation4 ,the antithesis of religion and civilisation is confused and confusing4 ,christian ministers have claimed that they are the moral element of civilisation1 and they have jealously combated every effort to take from them or divide with them that function4 ,they resist every attempt to exclude their almost useless ,bible-lessons from our schools1 and to substitute for them a direct and more practical moral education of children4 ,they have for fifteen hundred years claimed and possessed the monopoly of ethical culture in ,european civilisation1 and we are a little puzzled when they turn round and say1 with an air of argument1 that if ,christianity has failed civilisation also has failed4 ,there is only one civilisation in ,europe that has attempted to substitute a humanitarian for a religious training of conduct2 one nation that is plainly and overwhelmingly non-,christian4 ,that nation is ,france4 ,and ,france has one of the best moral records in modern ,europe1 and has behaved nobly throughout this lamentable business4 ,in fine1 if we take ,dean ,welldon's words in the most generous sense1 if we assume that he refers to the whole body of culture and sentiment which1 in our time1 aspires to mould and direct the race apart from ,christian doctrine1 the answer has already been given4 ,christianity is1 as a power in ,europe1 fourteen centuries old2 this humanitarianism is hardly a century old4 ,but there has surely been more progress made during this last century toward the destruction of the military system1 and more progress in the elimination of brutality from war1 than in the whole preceding thirteen centuries4 ,does ,dean ,welldon doubt that8 ,or does he regard it as a mere coincidence8 ,thus1 whether we turn to ,churchman or ,nonconformist1 to cleric or layman1 we find no satisfactory apology4 ,i have before me a short article by ,mr4 ,max ,pemberton on the question1 ,will ,christianity survive the war8 ,he uses the most consecrated phrases of the ,church1 and leaves no doubt whatever that he writes in defence of ,christianity4 ,but ,mr4 ,pemberton practically confines himself to a very emphatic personal assurance that ,christianity will survive the war1 and does not honestly face a single one of the questions of the ,pagan against whom he is writing4 ,he does make one serious point of a peculiar character4 ,there are1 he says1 #bc1jjj priests fighting for ,france in the trenches4 ,mr4 ,pemberton seems to find it easy to accept the interested statements of those ,roman ,catholic journalists who make sectarian use of some of the ,london dailies4 ,there are only about #cj1jjj priests in ,france1 and1 since none of them are younger than twenty-three1 to suppose that seventy-five per cent4 of them are of military age is to take a remarkable view of the population of ,france4 ,in any case1 there is no special ground for rhapsody4 ,they are not volunteers2 in ,france every man must do his civic duty4 ,we may appreciate their devotion to their religion on the battle-field1 but ,mr4 ,pemberton must be imperfectly acquainted with the ,french character if he supposes that the thirty-four million unbelievers of ,france are going to return to the ,church because the younger curs did not try to evade the military service which the ,state imposed on them4 ,another document ,i may quote is a manifesto issued by the ,hampstead ,evangelical ,free ,church ,council1 a joint declaration of the principal ,nonconformist ministers of that highly cultivated suburb4 ,it does not purport to vindicate the ,churches1 yet some of its observations in connection with the war open out a new page of apologetics4 ,these clergymen invite all the citizens of their district1 on the ground of the war1 to attend church1 even if they have not been in the habit of doing so4 ,on what more precise ground8 ,the able lawyer who received this invitation1 and forwarded it to me1 thought it1 not the most ingenious1 but the most curious1 piece of pleading he had ever known4 ,the citizens of ,hampstead were invited to go to church to offer up to ,god a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for his goodness to us as a nation6 ,at the very time the eminent preachers were writing this1 the darkened city still cowered under the threat of a horrible outrage2 the shattered homes and fresh graves of ,scarborough and ,whitby reminded us faintly of the horrors beyond the sea2 the maimed soldiers all over the country1 the sad figures of the bereaved1 the anxious hearts of a million of our people1 were but a beginning of the evil that had fallen on us4 ,we had in fourteen years1 since the last war1 been obliged to spend a thousand millions sterling in preparation for a war we did not desire1 and we were entering upon an expenditure of something more than a thousand millions in a year4 ,all this we had incurred through no fault of ours4 ,and these clergymen thought it a good opportunity to invite us to go to church to thank ,god for his goodness to us as a nation4 ,another manifesto is signed by a body of archbishops and bishops of the ,anglican ,church4 ,it enjoined all the faithful to supplicate the ,almighty on ,january #crd to stop the war4 ,this was to be done all round the ,empire4 ,i will not indulge in any cheap sarcasm as to the result1 though one would probably be right in saying that1 if the end be deferred to the year #aiag1 they will still believe that their prayers had effect4 ,what it is more material to notice is that the prelates think that these are days of great spiritual opportunity4 ,it seems that the shattering of so much that seemed established reveals the vanity of human affairs1 and that anxiety1 separation1 and loss have made many hearts sensible of the approach of ,christ to the soul4 ,it is1 perhaps1 unkind to examine this emotional language from an intellectual point of view1 but one feels that there is a subtle element of apology in it4 ,these spiritual advantages may outweigh the secular pain2 may even justify ,god's share in the great catastrophe4 ,i have examined1 and will discuss more fully in the next chapter1 the theistic side of this plea4 ,intellectually1 it borders on monstrosity3 it is the survival of an ancient and barbaric conception4 ,the notion that the approach of ,christ to the soul is felt especially in time of affliction is merely a statement of a certain type of emotional experience1 while the revelation of the vanity of human affairs is sheer perversity4 ,human affairs have for ages been so badly managed1 in this respect1 that we cannot in a decade or a century rid ourselves of such a legacy4 ,the real moral is to discover who were responsible for that legacy of disorder and violence1 and to put our affairs on a new and sounder basis4 ,a considerable number of clerical writers proceed on the suggestion discreetly advanced by these ,anglican prelates4 ,let us wait1 they ask1 until the clouds of war have rolled away1 and then estimate the spiritual gain to men from the trial through which they have passed1 and the closer association of the ,churches which it may bring about4 ,now ,i have no doubt that many who really believe the doctrines of ,christianity1 yet have for years neglected the duties which their belief imposes on them1 will be induced by this awful experience to return to allegiance4 ,the number is limited1 and an equal or greater number may be1 and probably will be1 induced to surrender religion entirely1 and with good reason1 by the reflections with which this war inspires them4 ,but to insinuate that this spiritual advantage1 if it be an advantage1 of the few is justly purchased by the appalling suffering and disorder brought about by the war is one of those religious affirmations which seem to the outsider positively repulsive4 ,i do not speak merely of the deaths1 the pain1 the privation1 the outrages1 the flood of tears and blood over half of ,europe4 ,this1 indeed1 is of itself enough to make the theory repellent to any who do not share the ascetic views taught in the ,churches4 ,the notion that an evil is justified if good issue from it is akin to the notion that the end justifies the means4 ,but ,i would draw attention to an aspect of the war which is almost ignored by these eloquent preachers4 ,they eagerly record every flash of heroism1 every spark of charity and mercy1 that the war evokes4 ,they refer sympathetically to the dead and the bereaved1 the outraged girls and women--whom1 in the narrowest ,puritanism1 they forbid to rid themselves of the awful burden laid on them by drunken brutes--the shattered homes and monuments4 ,but there is a side of war which they must know1 and it demands plain speaking4 ,it relaxes the control of moral restraints even where it was before operative4 ,the illegitimate-birth rate of ,england and ,france will faintly tell the story before the year is out4 ,inquiry in any town where our soldiers are lodged1 or in the rear of the ,french and ,english 7or any other7 trenches1 will tell it more fully4 ,i do not speak of crime and violence1 but of willing sexual intercourse where it was never known before4 ,these things1 and the increased drunkenness and the stirring of old passions1 are regarded by the clergy as amongst the most evil things of life4 ,do they seriously suggest that they have been brought in to secure1 or are justified by1 the spiritual advantage of the refined and emotional few whose religion is only deepened by affliction8 ,in short1 ,i find not a single phrase of valid explanation or apology in these and other prominent clerical pronouncements ,i have read4 ,they are superficial1 contradictory1 and vapid4 ,nothing is more common than for religious writers to protest that the conception of reality which is opposed to theirs is shallow4 ,what depth1 what sincere grip of reality1 does one find in any of these pulpit utterances8 ,yet ,i have taken the pronouncements of official bodies or of distinguished preachers who may be trusted to put the ,christian feeling in its most persuasive form4 ,one thinks that ,god sent the war2 another attributes it to ,german rebels against ,god4 ,one regards it as a spiritual agency devised for our good2 another says that it is an unmitigated calamity sent for our punishment4 ,one sees in it the failure of ,christianity2 others find in it precisely a confirmation of ,christian teaching4 ,some think it will draw men to ,god2 others that it will drive men from ,god4 ,unity1 perhaps1 we cannot expect2 but the empty rhetoric and utter sophistry of most of these utterances reveal the complete lack of defence4 ,on the main indictment of the ,christian ,church1 its failure to have condemned and removed militarism long ago1 all are silent2 or the one preacher who notices it can only dejectedly confess that it is true4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,war ,,and ,,theism ,in the leading ,catholic periodical of this country there has been some nervous discussion of the attitude of the ,pope4 ,a new man1 a strong and enlightened man1 happens to have mounted the chair of ,peter in the midst of the war4 ,for more than a century his predecessors have bemoaned the increasing wickedness of the world3 ,pius ,,vii1 tossed like a helpless cork on the waves of the ,revolution2 ,leo ,,xii and ,pius ,,viii1 the associates of the ,holy ,alliance2 ,gregory ,,xvi1 eating sweetmeats or mumbling his breviary while young ,italy sweated blood2 ,pius ,,ix1 grasping eagerly his tatters of sovereignty2 ,leo ,,xiii1 the unsuccessful diplomatist2 ,pius ,x1 the medieval monk4 ,they saw their ,church shrink decade by decade1 and they witnessed the prosperity of all that they denounced4 ,benedict ,,xv came to save the ,church1 and a great moral opportunity awaited him4 ,but1 while claiming to be the moral arbitrator of the world1 he avoids his plain duty1 and is content to repeat the worn phrases about the iniquity of the modern spirit4 ,his apologists say that the war is politics1 and that ,popes must not interfere in politics4 ,i have earlier explained in what sense this war presents a political aspect to ,benedict ,,xv1 and given the reason for his reluctance4 ,it is typical of the whole failure of ,christianity4 ,a little over nineteen centuries ago1 it is said in the churches1 a star shone over the cradle of the ,saviour1 and choirs of angels announced his coming as a promise of peace on earth and good-will among men4 ,i am not in this little work examining the whole question of the influence of ,christianity4 ,but it is well to recall that1 according to its own records1 its first and greatest promise to the world was peace2 and to that old ,roman ,empire1 and to ,europe at any stage in its later history1 no greater blessing could have been brought4 ,has ,christianity succeeded8 ,but the religious interest of the war is by no means exhausted when we have concluded that it marks1 in one of the most important departments of human action1 the complete failure of historical ,christianity4 ,my purpose is to discuss this relation to the ,churches1 and it would not be completed unless ,i considered the war in relation to their fundamental doctrine1 the moral government of the universe by a ,supreme ,being4 ,in a few months1 we hope1 the war will be over3 the ,allies will have triumphed4 ,we know1 from experience and from history1 what will follow in the ,churches4 ,from end to end of ,britain1 from ,dover to ,penzance and from ,southampton to ,aberdeen1 there will rise a jubilant cry that ,god has blessed our arms and awarded us the victory4 ,now that we are in the midst of the horrors and burdens of the war ,god is little mentioned4 ,one would imagine that the great majority of the clergy conceived him as standing aside1 for some inscrutable reason1 and letting wicked men deploy their perverse forces4 ,when the triumph comes1 gilding the past sacrifices or driving them from memory1 ,god will be on every lip4 ,the whole nation will be implored to come and kneel before the altars4 ,royalty and nobility and military1 judges and stockbrokers and working men--above all1 a surging1 thrilling1 ecstatic mass of women--will gather round the clergy1 and will avow that they see the finger of ,god in this glorious consummation4 ,the relation of the war to ,god will then become the supreme consideration for the ,christian mind4 ,it may be more instructive to consider it now1 before the last flood of emotion pours over our judgments4 ,i have already discussed some of the clerical allusions to the share of ,god in the war4 ,they are so frankly repellent that one cannot be surprised that the majority of the clergy prefer to be silent on that point4 ,they prefer to await the victory and build on its more genial and indulgent emotions4 ,the war is either a blessing or a curse4 ,one would think that there was not much room for choice1 but we saw that some are bold enough to hint that the spiritual good may outweigh the bodily pain4 ,they remind us of a ,treitschke or a ,bernhardi writing smugly of the moral grandeur of war1 the need to brace the slackness of human nature periodically by war1 the chivalry and devotion it calls out1 and so on4 ,still worse is the theory of those who regard war frankly as a curse1 yet put it to the direct authorship of the ,almighty4 ,this theory is natural enough in the minds of men and women who believe in hell4 ,in earlier ages men could not distinguish between the law of retaliation and the need to deter criminals by using violence against them when they transgressed4 ,in many primitive systems of justice the law of retaliation is expressly consecrated4 ,it is even introduced1 inconsistently and as a survival of barbaric times1 in the ,babylonian and the ,judaic codes1 side by side with saner views4 ,it is1 of course1 merely a systematisation of brute passion4 ,in the beginning1 if a man knocked your tooth out1 you knocked one of his teeth out4 ,with the growth of law and justice1 the barbarous nature of the impulse was recognised1 and the community1 by its representatives1 inflicted a punishment on the offender instead of allowing the offended to retaliate4 ,with the modern improvement of moral sentiments we have realised that this is an imperfect advance on the barbaric idea4 ,the community has no more right to punish than the offended individual had4 ,we now impose hardship on an offender only for the purpose of intimidating him from repeating the offence1 or of deterring others from offending4 ,the idea is still somewhat crude1 and a third stage will in time be reached2 but it is satisfactory that we now--not since the advent of ,christianity1 but since the rise of modern humanism--all admit that the only permissible procedure is deterrence1 and not punishment as such4 ,it may seem ungracious to be ever repeating that these improvements did not take place during the period of ,christian influence1 but in the recent period of its decay4 ,there is1 however1 in this case a most important and urgent reason for emphasising the fact4 ,i say that we all admit the more humane conception of punishment1 but this must be qualified4 ,in human affairs we do3 ,carlyle was1 perhaps1 the last moralist to cling to the old conception4 ,but in the religious world the old idea has been flagrantly retained4 ,the doctrine of eternal punishment is clearly based on the barbaric old idea that a prince whose dignity has been insulted may justly inflict the most barbarous punishment on the offender4 ,theologians have1 since the days of ,thomas ,aquinas1 wasted whole reams of parchment in defending the dogma of hell1 because they knew nothing whatever of comparative jurisprudence and the evolution of moral ideas4 ,to us the development of the doctrine is clear4 ,in the ,christian doctrine of hell we have a flagrant survival of the early barbaric theory of punishment4 ,modern divines--while continuing to describe the non-religious view of life as superficial and the ,christian as profound--have actually yielded to the modern sentiment1 and in a very large measure rejected one of the fundamental dogmas of the ,christian tradition4 ,in order to conceal the procedure as far as possible1 some of them are now contending brazenly that ,christ never taught the doctrine of eternal punishment1 and are deluding their uncultivated congregations with sophistical manipulations of ,greek words4 ,this does not mean that ,christians have lower moral sentiments than non-,christians1 but that the rigidity of their traditions1 which they regard as sacred and unalterable1 imposes restrictions on them4 ,hence the fact that1 while ,protestants have so very largely rejected the doctrine of hell1 ,roman ,catholics1 with their more rigid conservatism and claim of infallibility1 still cling to it1 and offer the amazing spectacle of a body claiming to possess the highest ideals in the world1 yet actually cherishing an entirely barbaric theory4 ,there is probably not a ,catholic lawyer in the world who does not reject the old idea of punishment as barbaric1 yet he placidly believes that ,god retains it4 ,that is why we find a ,catholic archbishop like ,carr putting forth so revolting an idea of the war1 while ,protestant preachers as a rule shrink from mentioning ,god in connection with it4 ,these things make it impossible for one to understand how non-,christians can say1 as they do sometimes1 that if they were to accept a creed1 it would be the ,roman creed4 ,any theory of the war which proceeds on the lines of the hell-theory is simply barbaric1 and is beneath serious discussion4 ,we know to-day that both ethics and religion are in a state of constant evolution4 ,we look back over a stream of several thousand years of historically traceable development2 we follow that stream faintly through earlier tens of thousands of years in the ideas of primitive peoples2 and we see the evolution going on plainly in the creeds and ethical codes of our own time4 ,but the practice of registering certain stages of this evolution in sacred books or codes1 which are then imposed on man for centuries or millennia as something unalterable1 has been and is a very serious hindrance to development1 both in ethics and religion4 ,it is all the worse because these codes and sacred books always contain certain elements which belong to even earlier and less enlightened stages1 and whole regiments of philosophers or theologians are employed for ages in putting glosses on ancient and barbaric ideas at which the world eventually laughs4 ,however1 we need not linger here over these ancient ways of regarding life4 ,the man who keeps his ,god at a moral level which we disdain ourselves rarely listens to argument4 ,he protects his faith by believing that it is a mortal sin 7involving sentence of hell7 to read any book that would examine it critically4 ,it is a most ingenious arrangement by which the doctrine of a vindictive ,god protects itself against moral progress4 ,now any suggestion that ,god sent this war upon ,europe--whether as a judgment on the clergy1 or a judgment on unbelievers1 or a judgment on the arrogance of the ,germans1 etc4--is part of this old barbarism1 and may be disregarded4 ,it conceives that ,god is vindictive1 and at the same time assures us that ,christianity sternly condemns vindictiveness4 ,it allows ,god to deal mighty blows at those who affront him1 and tells men to bear affront with patience and turn the other cheek to the smiter4 ,it is simply part of that mixture and confusion of old and new ideas which a codified religion always exhibits4 ,we pass it by1 and turn to more serious considerations4 ,i pass by also eccentric ideas of ,deity like those of ,sir ,oliver ,lodge or ,mr4 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw--two oracles who have been singularly silent on the religious aspect of the war4 ,let us examine the main religious problem as broadly and as honestly as we can4 ,the first and chief reflection that occurs to any man who does thus seriously examine the relation of the war to theism is that1 after all1 it is not so easy to disentangle theology from the crude old doctrines which our more liberal divines think they have abandoned4 ,they tell us that they do not believe in a vindictive ,deity1 they disdain the doctrine of eternal punishment1 they smile at many of the ,judaic conceptions of ,jehovah in the ,old ,testament4 ,god is the all-holy and benevolent ruler of the universe4 ,they refuse to believe that the souls of sinners and unbelievers are tortured for ever after death1 and trust the whole scheme of things to the love and justice of ,god4 ,the grave difficulty of this enlightened theology1 indeed of all theology1 is the immense amount of pain and evil in the universe1 and this mighty war we are considering puts it in a very acute form4 ,it is amusing to look back on some of the lines of apologetics in recent years4 ,there was a school of people1 following some profound religious thinker1 who held that evil was only relative4 ,they made the wonderful discovery that everything real is good1 in the metaphysical sense1 and evil is unreal4 ,evil1 they said1 is merely the negation1 the falling-short1 of good2 and you do not ask for the creator or cause of a negative thing4 ,more recently a school endeavoured to come to their assistance with the discovery that pain does not really exist at all4 ,one did not need to know philosophy or science in order to realise that a sensation of pain is just as positive and real a thing as a sensation of pleasure2 or that1 although death is only the negation of life1 one is really entitled to ask why one's dear child is thus negated at the age of six or twelve4 ,then there came this new school with its discovery that pain does not exist4 ,death1 of course1 is an entry into a more glorious life beyond2 pain is an illusion to be banished by resolute thought4 ,these childish symposia were interrupted every few years by some disastrous earthquake1 the sinking of a great liner1 an epidemic of disease1 a famine1 and so on2 but the pious philosophers bravely struggled on4 ,one may trust that the war has reduced them to silence1 and that we need not linger over them4 ,then there was the school which sought desperately to find good in evil4 ,a man or woman is stricken with disease4 ,very often it brings with it a softening1 an improvement1 of character2 either in the patient or in the nurses1 or in both4 ,our religious philosophers fancied they caught in this a glimpse of the divine plan3 cancer was an instrument of righteousness in the hands of the ,almighty1 the bacillus of tuberculosis was a moral agency4 ,they detected cases in which adverse fortune had sobered and softened a man3 the finger of ,providence4 ,in ,france there was a very considerable return to the ,catholic ,church1 and recovery of its power1 after the disastrous war of #ahgj4 ,in the south of ,italy there is always much less sexual freedom for a time after an earthquake has buried a few tens of thousands under the ruins of their houses4 ,i would undertake to fill a quarto volume with instances of good things which arose out of or followed upon evil experiences4 ,we saw that the present war is being examined in the same respect4 ,there are great spiritual opportunities3 hundreds of thousands of young men are being compelled 7by the authorities7 to go to church who had not been for years2 the different denominations are fraternising as they never did before2 the churches are rather fuller than they had been of late3 charity is awakened on a prodigious scale2 zeal for an ideal 7the violated peace of ,belgium7 is dragging men even from our slums to the colours4 ,here again one could at least fill a moderate treatise with the things achieved2 and beyond them all is the unuttered vision of the crowded churches at the triumphant close of the war1 perhaps that long-coveted religious revival4 ,there is no doubt whatever that this theory of the war will be assiduously pressed when nature has drawn her green mantle once more over the blackened area of the war and our hearts are lifted up by thought of victory4 ,it is already being urged1 and ,i would add a little to the comments ,i have already passed on it4 ,the clergy would do well to realise that1 whatever virtue this theory may have in soothing the minds and dissolving the doubts of their followers1 to an outsider it seems monstrous4 ,in the first place1 it includes no sense of proportion1 and amounts to a colossal untruth4 ,we must surely take into account the amount of evil inflicted and the amount of good that ensues4 ,take sickness1 for instance4 ,one would imagine that1 if ,christians seriously believe that illness is sent by ,god to achieve certain salutary modifications of character1 they ought strenuously to oppose the modern determination to reduce disease to a minimum4 ,they do not1 and would1 on the contrary1 soon reduce to silence any religious crank who proposed it4 ,they know perfectly well that the cases of spiritual advantage from illness bear no proportion whatever to the amount of suffering in the world4 ,slight but painful illnesses rarely have any beneficent effect on character2 very frequently the reverse4 ,any large city1 at any given moment1 is racked with pains which do but give rise to curses1 or a polite equivalent4 ,most of the irritation and perversion of character is due to morbid influences4 ,and for every case in which a long illness issues in some signal advance of character1 a hundred others could be quoted in which the illness was an unmitigated calamity4 ,so it is with bereavement and with adversity of fortune4 ,look honestly into the experience of any class of the community1 and ask in what proportion of cases narrowness of means1 especially after comfort1 brings a spiritual advantage4 ,so it is above all with this war4 ,any man who thinks that the awful perversion of the character of a great ,european people1 the death of such vast numbers in such painful circumstances1 the ruin of further millions1 and all the innumerable ugly results of a great war1 were worth bringing about in order to secure a few spiritual advantages has neither sense of proportion nor sense of decency nor sense of humour4 ,the theory would be too repulsive if it were put in this plain form1 and it is more usual merely to point out these good results and hint that war is not absolutely and in every respect an evil4 ,as if any person ever said that it was4 ,the point is simple1 and ought not to be obscured4 ,a few incidental advantages do not reconcile us to this colossal misery1 suffering1 and waste1 and do not in the slightest degree alleviate the position of the man who thinks that ,god directed human events to this awful consummation4 ,if an earthly ruler employed such agencies to educate his subjects1 with such an extraordinary disproportion between the suffering inflicted and the results attained1 what should we think of him8 ,the parallel reminds us that of infinite wisdom we expect infinitely more than of a human ruler4 ,once unintelligent nature had a crude1 wasteful1 hard method of producing new and higher types of life4 ,man1 having intelligence1 produces the same result without waste or suffering4 ,we expect immeasurably higher procedure of such an intelligence as ,christians ascribe to ,god4 ,one can understand the man who says that the plan of such an intelligence might be beyond human ken1 but ,i am discussing the opinions of people who contend that they bring it within human ken4 ,in fact1 there is no need here to remind us of the mysteriousness of the ways of an infinite intelligence4 ,if the war was designed for certain practical uses1 such as those we have had suggested by various divines1 one may reply at once that a more brutal and unjust way of attaining those ends could not have been devised4 ,it is almost impossible to conceive any man seriously entertaining the notion4 ,yet all the jubilation and thanksgiving that will follow the war1 all the supplication that accompanies its fortunes to-day1 and the whole teaching of ,christian theology1 imply that ,god did direct the political movements and military ambitions which have culminated in the war4 ,even a human statesman could have devised a less terrible method of attaining any end that has yet been conceived for the war4 ,the idea of the war as a punishment is quite logical and intelligible1 though five hundred years out of date4 ,but the idea of the war as a medicinal or an educative process has neither logic nor intelligibility1 and does not even attain that consistency with modern ethical sentiments which it seeks4 ,the colossal amount of suffering inflicted on innocent people and on children puts it entirely out of court4 ,thirdly1 this theory1 as ,i said1 raises the question whether the end justifies the means4 ,here we have another illustration of the way in which ,christian dogma keeps the ,christian conscience in many matters behind the ethical sentiment of the age4 ,many liberal divines would express genuine repugnance at ,archbishop ,carr's view of the war2 yet some of the most liberal of these divines and laymen are almost as backward in another direction4 ,they justify the world-process through which we are struggling on the ground that it will1 we hope1 issue in a nobler order of things3 of the war1 in particular1 that hope is entertained1 and to the war1 accordingly1 this theory of justification is applied4 ,that is a case of the end justifying the means4 ,christian thinkers are advancing so rapidly and erratically that in some cases we are not clear whether the writer does or does not regard ,god as infinite in power and intelligence4 ,we may ignore these few cases4 ,the vast majority emphatically hold that view4 ,in their regard we can say only what has been said a hundred times4 ,whether you speak of the world-process in general or any particular cruel phase of it1 such as this war1 you maintain that ,god chose1 out of many conceivable ways1 the one way that is marked by cruelty and suffering4 ,an infinite ,god is not so confined in the choice of means4 ,and just as we say of the world-process in general1 that to build the sunnier lives of a remote generation on the sufferings of this and earlier generations implies a grave injustice to us1 so we must say of the war4 ,no spiritual advantages to those who survive will reconcile us to the suffering and the loss of those who fell in the tragic combat4 ,i speak impersonally4 ,it happens that ,i have no near relatives of military age1 and neither ,i nor any near relative is likely to suffer by the war4 ,but when ,i brood over the agony of the less fortunate millions1 over the harrowing experience of ,belgians1 ,poles1 and ,serbs1 over the whole ghastly orgy of blood and tears in ,europe1 ,i feel unutterable disdain of these paltry efforts to justify the ways of ,god to man4 ,let us look a little deeper into the matter4 ,no doubt the plain statement that ,god sent or caused this war will excite a certain repugnance in many ,christian minds4 ,they will prefer to say that ,god permitted it4 ,man has free will1 and it is the plan of providence to give a certain play to this free will4 ,when man has bruised his shins--more frequently the shins of other people--,god may1 on being supplicated sufficiently1 issue his veto and put matters right4 ,i am quite acquainted1 from a severe theological education1 with the more learned language in which this theory is expressed by theologians1 but ,i prefer to deal with it as it exists in the words of most preachers and the minds of most ,christians4 ,it would be impossible here to deal at any length with the doctrine of free will4 ,unless you conceive it in some novel and irrelevant sense1 as ,professor ,bergson does1 it is a very much disputed thing amongst the experts whose business it is to inform us on the subject--our psychologists4 ,the majority of modern psychologists seem to reject it altogether4 ,on the other hand1 no theologian has ever yet reconciled it in any intelligible scheme with the supposed omnipotence of ,god4 ,but it is not necessary to enter into these abstruse considerations4 ,let us take the matter in the concrete4 ,we look back to-day on a long series of processes and circumstances which culminate in the war4 ,there is the whole history of ,germany for a hundred and fifty years inspiring the ,german people with a bias toward aggressive war2 there are the economic and geographical circumstances which1 at the end of the nineteenth century1 begin to make it think again of aggressive war2 there is the overflowing population1 bred by order of the clergy who stupidly condemn an artificial restriction of births2 there is the coincident trouble of ,austria with the ,slavs1 of ,england with its subject peoples1 and so on4 ,in the eyes of the careful student a hundred lines of circumstance and development have led to this war4 ,the melodramatic idea that it all springs from the free will of the ,kaiser1 or of a group of soldiers and statesmen1 need not be seriously considered4 ,moreover1 even when we introduce the personal element--and the personality of the ,kaiser has had a very considerable influence--it is foolish to throw the whole burden on free will4 ,the mood and outlook and ambition of the ,kaiser take their colour from his notoriously morbid nervous frame4 ,in a word1 you have a mighty concurrence of movements1 whether acts of will or otherwise1 converging in all parts of ,europe toward this war4 ,was ,god indifferent to the whole of those movements8 ,those movements are particularly traceable in ,europe during the last fourteen years4 ,before that there was a similar concurrence of movements eventuating in the ,south ,african ,war2 and in the meantime a series of processes and circumstances had given us the ,russo-,japanese ,war and the ,balkan-,turkish ,war and the ,mexican ,war4 ,so we might go over the wars of the nineteenth century and all earlier wars4 ,the permissiveness or indifference of the ruler of the universe grows amazingly4 ,in the meantime we had mighty catastrophes like the sinking of the ,titanic and other ships1 the earthquakes at ,messina and elsewhere1 famines and epidemics and floods in various places1 and great numbers of murders1 railway and other accidents1 etc4 ,we begin to ask where the ruling of the universe comes in at all1 and1 as far as human events go1 all that we can gather in the way of reply is that sometimes individuals who pray very fervently get their diseases healed or their coffers filled2 and even these claims do not pass rational inquiry4 ,now here is the precise difficulty of the unbeliever1 and this present tragedy makes it acute4 ,we ask our neighbour1 or seek in some learned theological treatise1 what are the indications of this government of the universe1 and we are told about the making of stars and the decoration of flowers and the putting of instincts into animals or pretty patterns on their skins4 ,but when we point out that the really important thing in our part of the universe is this human life of ours1 imperfectly protected as yet against disease and malice 7which is largely disease7 and natural forces1 the theologian has no clear evidence to produce4 ,even the evidence he draws from stars and flowers and peacocks' tails and sunsets1 with which he is1 as a rule1 very imperfectly acquainted1 is1 of course1 heatedly disputed1 and the proper authorities on these subjects are1 on the whole1 not well disposed toward his interpretation4 ,but we need not consider that here4 ,where we should most logically expect the hand of ,providence is in the human order1 because in that order catastrophe is infinitely more important1 in view of man's capacity for pain4 ,yet it is precisely in regard to this order that the theologian is vaguest and least satisfactory4 ,he talks grandly of ,god moving every atom in the universe1 counting the hairs of our heads1 numbering 7but not preventing7 the fall of the sparrows1 and so on2 but when we ask for the evidence of ,god's concern with contemporary human events he is very vague if they are good events1 and1 if they are evil1 he hastily disclaims any interference of the ,deity4 ,some of our more advanced theologians are claiming that the finest improvement they have made in their science is to have brought ,god from without the universe 7where no theologian had ever put him7 and make him immanent in it4 ,but they seem just as incapable as the others to trace his interposition in human events4 ,theologians still maintain a valiant and stubborn fight against scientific men1 but they do not fight historians4 ,they are very keen on maintaining the influence of ,god over atoms and stars and roses and birds1 but not half so keen to vindicate it in the life of man4 ,the story of the world1 our world1 may be divided into three chapters3 a chapter describing the moulding of the globe and the rocks1 a chapter describing the slow evolution of the plants and animals1 and a chapter describing the antics and fortunes of man4 ,some may surrender the first chapter to science1 some the second chapter1 but it looks as if they all surrender the third4 ,they have long been accustomed to surrender the early part1 and very much the longer and more laborious part1 of man's story to natural forces1 or the devil4 ,then there was a melodramatic notion that ,god1 after the lapse of hundreds of thousands of years1 began to take an interest in one very small people and kept revealing things to it1 and smiting its enemies1 until ,christianity was given to the world4 ,history tells the story in a totally different way4 ,we find the stream of moral and religious evolution flowing steadily on nineteen hundred years ago1 much as we do to-day4 ,at this point1 of course1 the theologian does make a struggle with the historian4 ,in proportion to the imperfectness of his culture and the backwardness and conservatism of his ,church1 he fights for miraculous interpositions in human events nineteen hundred years ago4 ,but we need not delay to examine that difference of opinion1 because the later period suffices for my purpose4 ,a few theologians1 not well acquainted with history1 see another miraculous interposition in the fourth century1 when ,christianity was established2 and the ,roman ,catholic--in the intellectual rear1 as usual--believes in hundreds of miraculous interpositions1 in small matters1 as late as the year #aiad4 ,but in order to take a broad view of the matter we may leave these controversies with the more reactionary on one side4 ,the history of ,europe for the last fifteen centuries at least is now entrusted to able laymen1 and it has been purged of divine interpositions4 ,innumerable myths and legends1 often based on what are now acknowledged to be spurious documents1 have been cast out of the science1 and we are presented with a quite continuous and purely natural sequence of events4 ,religious historians like ,bishop ,creighton or ,lord ,bryce do not find their periods broken by divine interpositions2 the writers of the ,cambridge ,history do not occasionally arrest us before some great event and warn us that the chain of human causation seems to be obscure or discontinuous4 ,there are1 of course1 problems of history1 but they are not obscurities which1 like the obscure places in science1 tempt the theologian to enter and claim a divine interposition4 ,the story is from beginning to end--to use ,nietzsche's phrase--human1 all too human4 ,on the whole1 as it has been hitherto written1 it is a story of wars1 and1 though patriotic piety puts its gloss on the issue of a war here and there1 the historian does not find any serious problem in them4 ,no ,french historian will now claim divine action in the ,napoleonic wars1 and assuredly few of us are prepared to see the finger of ,god in the fortunate issue of ,prussia's many campaigns since ,frederick the ,great4 ,whatever we may think of the cosmic process generally1 the human part of that process does not encourage a theological interpretation4 ,man is working out his own destiny1 and doing it ill4 ,we see him1 like some pedlar plodding along a country road under his burdens1 carrying through whole centuries institutions and ideas and follies that he will eventually shed4 ,when he drops them1 there is no more element of miracle or revelation in his action than when he discovers the use of steam or of aluminium or of the spectroscope4 ,his mind expands and his ideals rise4 ,it is a little incongruous to suppose that some infinitely wiser and affectionate parent was looking on all the time and giving no assistance4 ,in the dialogue between ,mephistopheles and ,god which ,goethe prefixes to his ,faust1 the devil obviously scores4 ,in the sight of such an intelligence man must have made a pretty fool of himself during the last #aejj years4 ,we human beings are more charitable4 ,take the whole story as the gradual development of human intelligence and emotion under unfavourable political conditions1 hampered by a despotic and perverse clergy1 and it seems natural enough4 ,this is the impression one gets from history1 and the nearer history is to our own time and the better we know it1 the less it suggests a divine guidance4 ,there is something parochial or rural about the average ,christian way of looking at events4 ,one day the ,german ,christian goes to church to thank ,god for driving the ,russians out of ,east ,prussia2 the next day the ,english ,christian thanks the same ,god for killing or wounding #bj1jjj ,germans at ,neuve ,chapelle--with the help of #cej guns4 ,yet such things as these are the only claims we have offered to us of the action of ,god in human events4 ,neither the steps that man takes onward nor the steps that he takes backward are ascribed to divine influence4 ,all that is claimed is that when a ship goes down1 for instance1 he saves the saved1 and permits the rest to be drowned2 when a war has been raging for a few months by his permission1 he puts a stop to it when one army is worn out4 ,the unbeliever is really entitled to a good deal of sympathy for his inability to follow this tortuous reasoning with confidence4 ,one cannot entirely blame him for being more interested in the heart of man than in the petals of a rose4 ,these considerations are1 of course1 not novel4 ,i am only applying to this special case of the war a difficulty that has been discussed in all ages1 and has been acutely felt by very able religious thinkers4 ,how a group of bishops can sit down to write1 in very deliberate and elegant language1 that such a calamity as this makes the soul more sensible of the approach of ,christ is one of the many little mysteries of the clerical mind4 ,it has precisely the opposite effect in any logical mind4 ,when the way of life is smooth1 and our nation or home is prospering1 we may be genially disposed to think that ,god is near and is looking after us as well as the sparrows4 ,but when a black storm bursts suddenly and disastrously on us2 when the earth shakes their roofs on ten thousand of our fellows1 or a great ship strikes a rock and pours a laughing crowd suddenly into the lap of death2 when vast provinces are laid desolate by war1 and we see the tens of thousands clasping the hand of their loved ones for the last time1 it seems rather uncanny that this should suggest to any person the approach of ,christ4 ,to very many people it is a confirmation of the general impression they get from the world-process and the story of man3 that these great forces deploy and interlace and build up and destroy without the slightest intervention from without4 ,in our time1 we must remember1 this difficulty had already been enormously increased4 ,st4 ,augustine1 who felt the problem acutely in the prime of his intelligence1 had really a very much lighter task than the modern divine4 ,he had merely to suggest why evil was permitted in the narrow world he knew2 and he had the great advantage of being able to appeal to a primitive sin and primitive punishment of the race4 ,the problem became more serious when original sin1 or at least the notion that the race might justly be damned for one man's fault1 was abandoned4 ,it became graver still when science discovered the tombs of inhabitants of this globe who had lived during millions of earlier years1 and showed that the very law of their life and progress was struggle against evil4 ,every attempt to minimise the struggle of those earlier ages has failed4 ,at a time when there was no possibility of spiritual advantage there was acute consciousness of pain1 the struggle and suffering were prodigious4 ,theistic literature of the last half century1 growing more weary and more wistful in each decade1 reflects the increasing difficulty4 ,if any man can see in this war a relief of the difficulty1 and not an appalling accentuation and illustration of it1 he must be gifted with a peculiar type of mind and emotion4 ,it is more probable that an increasing number will conclude that1 if ,god is indifferent to these things1 they will be indifferent to him4 ,professor ,william ,james1 in his ,varieties of ,religious ,experience1 declared that the only gods the men of the new generation would recognise would be gods of some use to them4 ,the war does not encourage the chances of the ,christian ,god4 ,a few modern religious thinkers seem to imagine that they have found some relief by devising the formula that ,god's plan is to co-operate with man1 and in those modern advances which ,i have freely admitted they see indications of this co-operation4 ,this new formula is not a whit better than the other phrases which have1 at various stages1 been regarded by religions people as profound thoughts4 ,in the recent history of moral progress we have1 as a rule1 a minority of high-minded men and women struggling to impress their sentiments on the inert majority4 ,the new theologian is not daunted in the application of his theory by the fact that a large proportion of these pioneers did not believe in ,god at all1 so ,i will not discuss that aspect2 though no doubt the plain man will find it interesting to trace how1 in the earlier and more difficult days of modern humanism1 so few of the reformers were ,christian ministers and so many ,rationalists4 ,from the historical point of view1 however1 we find this line of development quite intelligible4 ,we find1 for instance1 ,robert ,owen 7a great ,rationalist7 advocating the substitution of arbitration for war nearly a century ago1 and we discover the earlier sources of ,owen's enthusiasm in ,english ,radicals like ,godwin1 who were affected by the early ,french ,revolutionaries1 who had been influenced by ,rousseau1 and so on4 ,it is a quite natural evolution of ideas1 as they find a congenial soil in each generation in certain types of temperament4 ,but where are the traces or what was the nature of ,god's co-operation with these men8 ,looking to their generally heterodox character and the hostility of the ,churches to them1 the idea is not without humour2 but1 even if we reconcile ourselves to this peculiar feature1 anything in the nature of positive evidence of divine action is wholly lacking1 and we can understand the whole process without it4 ,the theory is merely a desperate and unfounded assertion of men who are determined that ,god shall not be left out4 ,there is a further grave difficulty4 ,one would imagine that the kind of paternal affection which is ascribed to ,god would have induced him to intervene at an earlier stage4 ,the kind of father who co-operates with the more gifted and ambitious of his children1 and does nothing for the less gifted and sluggish1 is a narrow-minded and narrow-hearted man4 ,affection turns rather to those who cannot help themselves1 or who need judicious and constant inspiration4 ,this view we are considering is even less flattering to ,god1 because the aspiring children of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seem able to dispense with his co-operation1 while the ignorant and priest-ridden children of earlier ages could do little of themselves4 ,the theologians who have found this new formula are of the more liberal school4 ,they do not attribute all the blunders and crimes and failures of the ,middle ,ages to free will1 to a sheer and deliberate obstinacy in clinging to evil4 ,they realise the overpowering nature of the environment and the drastic discouragement by the clergy of anything like novelty or initiative in ethics4 ,it was then that man needed ,god1 if there is a ,god4 ,but1 on this theory1 ,god argued with the academic wisdom of a medieval theologian2 he concluded that medieval men were quite capable of originating modern ideas1 and he would not co-operate until they did4 ,the theory is preposterous in every respect4 ,finally1 we have the very large class of candid or of hopelessly puzzled ,christians who give up the matter as a mystery4 ,they do not understand how this ruling of the universe which they seem to see clearly in stars and flowers should become so obscure or disappear altogether in the human order4 ,they realise that1 if this war were an isolated occurrence1 they might imagine ,god holding his hand for a season1 for some reason unknown to us2 but they know that it is not an isolated occurrence3 it is part of the human order of things4 ,it has been preceded by other wars at intervals of every few years1 and war itself is only one of a series of catastrophes and calamities that splash the human chronicle with innocent blood4 ,they give it up1 sorrowfully1 and find a thin consolation in learned formul about the impossibility of a finite mind understanding an infinite mind1 and so on3 which give1 as ,i say1 thin consolation1 for one may at least see that an infinite benevolence ought not to act worse than a moderate human benevolence4 ,now if there were any very strong evidence of divine ruling outside the human order1 we might find a certain amount of logic in this position4 ,the mystery of a ,god who moves the stars and inspires the bees1 yet leaves man to his own unhappy impulses 7after putting those impulses in him71 would be1 one imagines1 painful enough2 but if there were irresistible evidence that ,god does move the stars and quicken the bird and beast1 we might be compelled to reconcile ourselves to that unhappy dilemma4 ,there is1 however1 no such irresistible evidence4 ,this is not the place to examine such evidence as is adduced4 ,i must be content to recall the fact that it is all highly controverted2 that theologians tear to pieces each other's proofs of the existence of ,god2 and that a large and increasing body of cultivated men and women discard the evidence entirely4 ,so that1 in the last resort1 the situation is this3 on the one hand we have a number of very disputable suggestions1 which are growing fainter in proportion as science investigates these matters1 of divine action in stars and rocks and reptiles1 and on the other hand we have a stupendous mass of suffering1 starting millions of years ago at the very birth of consciousness and piled up mountains high in this year #aiae1 which no thinker has ever yet reconciled with the notion of a divine ruling of the life of man4 ,this is a very grave and plain situation1 and if the clergy have nothing more to say about it than to borrow from an ancient ,hebrew certain offensive gibes at the unbeliever1 or to offer us the kind of apologies we examined in the last chapter1 one must conclude that they do not realise the situation4 ,the war has terribly accentuated the most terrible difficulty they ever had to face4 ,whether there is intelligence manifested in nature is1 after all1 an academic question which does not profoundly stir the modern world4 ,whether there is benevolence1 a moral personality1 reflected in the course of man's history is the much more important question4 ,and this appalling calamity will induce many to take a more candid view of the world-process and conclude that1 as far as the critical eye can see1 man's world seems to be left entirely to his own efforts1 to his own crimes and blunders and aspirations4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,human ,,alternative ,if the observations ,i have made in the preceding chapters are even approximately just1 the hope which many of the clergy express1 that there will be a religious revival at the close of the war1 is very singular4 ,no doubt it means1 on the whole1 that some advantage to religion will be sought in the flood of genial and generous emotion which will surge through the country4 ,in ,germany and ,austria1 one imagines1 religion will have a rough experience4 ,the people who wrote and repeated constantly1 ,gott strafe ,england--which1 by the way1 is another proof that the general ,german attitude is theological rather than humanist--will have a few serious questions to put to the clergy1 as well as to their secular rulers4 ,in ,france1 despite the reports of interested people1 there will be little change4 ,the nation1 being overwhelmingly ,rationalistic1 relied on its #ge-;centimetre guns rather than on prayer1 and will find its wisdom justified4 ,but in ,england and ,russia1 and in the backward ,slav countries1 there will be mighty flag-waving in ,church1 and no doubt a great number of not very thoughtful people will conclude that the clergy and the ,y4,m4,c4,a4 and the ,salvation ,army have behaved very nicely over the whole affair1 and there will be1 for a time1 an increased attendance at church4 ,we may suppose that this emotional storm will not last long1 and the nation will settle down to face the bill1 the empty chairs at home1 and the disorganisation of its industries4 ,then will arise the questions ,i have been endeavouring to answer in this little book4 ,the clergy behaved very well during the war1 short of volunteering in any conspicuous number for active service2 but what is the sense of this lofty message of peace on earth and good-will among men which never produces any result8 ,the ,churches are fairly eager to join in the work of peace now that it is being promoted by large associations of laymen2 but where1 in the name of heaven1 were they during these ages of faith which they bemoan8 ,god may conceivably have been at work somewhere among the batteries or the infantry of the ,allies--it is so very difficult to analyse these things--but we should be infinitely more grateful if he had asserted his power earlier and spared us all the bloodshed4 ,he may be a very stern schoolmaster1 teaching us a valuable lesson by means of this war2 but we were really quite open to conviction if he had sent us the lesson in a more humane form4 ,a great many good people may have derived spiritual advantages from the war1 but the price was stupendous1 and we would rather they got their spiritual advantages in another way4 ,these questions and reflections must surely arise1 and they will lead to larger reflections4 ,men will perceive the antithesis ,i pointed out between all that is claimed for ,christianity in ,europe and the actual condition of ,europe2 between the supposed luminous traces of the finger of ,god in the non-human world and the complete absence of them from the human world4 ,from the samples of clerical eloquence which we have examined1 we can hardly suppose that the clergy will have great success in meeting the inquirers4 ,an enormous proportion of their followers1 of course1 will not ask questions1 or will be satisfied with anything in the nature of an answer4 ,i heard a group of men discussing the subject in a rural ale-house1 and the most intelligent man in the group1 to whom1 as an educated visitor1 the natives looked up with respect1 said3 ,war is ,god's way of purifying and bracing nations from time to time4 ,this sort of stuff pacifies hundreds of thousands3 like the stuff that ,archbishop ,carr found it possible to put before his ,australian ,catholics4 ,but inquiry and reflection grow among the adherents of the ,churches1 and1 although the ,press generally refuses to bring books of this character to the notice of the public1 and clergymen often stoop to the most despicable means to exclude them from bookstalls and shops1 they seem to find a fairly large public to-day4 ,thinking is as needful an exercise for the mind as work is for the body1 and the only plausible ground on which you can seek to suppress thinking about ,christianity is the fear that it will not be good for ,christianity4 ,then we shall have the next and inevitable question3 ,what would you put in the place of ,christianity8 ,young men in various parts of the country hurl that question at one as if it were really very serious1 putting an end to all dispute4 ,any person who is quite candid and sincere about these matters can find the material for an answer easily enough4 ,take ,france4 ,forty years ago the nation was overwhelmingly ,christian2 to-day it is overwhelmingly non-,christian4 ,it has not put anything in the place of ,christianity1 and has prospered remarkably4 ,there is a legacy of what is called vice which comes down from earlier religious times1 but any person who cares to examine criminal and other statistics1 the only positive tests of a nation's health1 will find that ,france has been extraordinarily successful without ,christianity and without putting anything in its place4 ,there are1 it is true1 moral lessons in its schools1 but ,i would not claim that they are much responsible3 the system is imperfect1 and the teachers not well equipped4 ,take our ally ,japan4 ,the moral discipline of the nation1 which1 in spite of some recent deterioration through ,western influence1 is admirable1 does not rest on religious foundations4 ,take ,london or any metropolis of modern ,europe4 ,the bulk of the people have ceased to receive any influence from the representatives of ,christianity1 yet there has been moral progress instead of deterioration4 ,those who speak of degeneration in ,london or ,paris do not accurately know and estimate the state of those cities in more religious times4 ,this experience might be enlarged indefinitely1 but one or two instances will suffice for my purpose4 ,the soundness of these instances which ,i quote ,i have established elsewhere1 and the general truth to which ,i refer may be sufficiently gathered from the words of the clergy themselves4 ,the rhetorical way in which they characterise our times is more or less typical of the carelessness of their judgments and the strength of their prejudices4 ,one group of clerical writers1 which generally includes the reigning ,pope1 speak in the darkest terms of our age and suggest that a sensible degeneration has followed the decrease of the influence of the ,churches4 ,another group1 considering the remarkable spread of idealism in our generation1 the growing demand for peace1 justice1 and sobriety1 claim that this moral progress1 which they cannot deny1 is due to some tardy recognition of the spirit of ,christ3 a strange contention1 seeing that our age is less and less willing to hear the words of ,christ and ascribes its sentiments to entirely different inspiration4 ,hence there are a few who frankly admit that the idealism of modern times is to them a rebuke and a mystery4 ,one of these more sensitive religious writers once confessed to me that the fact that the times became better while the influence of ,christianity grew less was to him a perplexing truth4 ,the really honest social student1 who does not measure his age by his prejudices1 but fashions his theories according to the carefully ascertained facts1 will try to discover the causes of this phenomenon4 ,in those wide and varied areas where it is observed1 we cannot say that anything has taken the place of ,christianity4 ,the ,press sometimes flatters itself that it has taken the place of the pulpit1 but opinions will differ in regard to its efficacy as a moral agency4 ,on the whole1 it is too apt to reflect the moral sentiments of the more reactionary1 who are generally the most self-assertive1 and it has no moral1 as distinct from political1 leadership4 ,then there are ,ethical and kindred societies which hold services of a humanitarian character1 and are to many people a substitute for the ,christian ,churches4 ,their influence is1 however1 restricted to a few thousand people in the whole country1 and signs are not wanting that their usefulness will be only transitory4 ,the experience of any careful observer is that the mass of people who cease to attend church desire and need no substitute whatever for ,christianity4 ,the ,rationalist literature which many of them read is1 as a rule1 of a high idealist character2 but here again the influence is very restricted4 ,no organised influence is at work to any great extent as a successor to ,christianity1 yet it is indubitable that1 as ,christian influence wanes1 the temper of the age improves4 ,this improvement must have an adequate cause1 and it would be merely another form of crude social reasoning and of sectarian prejudice to say1 in the rich language of the older anti-clericals1 that breaking the fetters of superstition and priestcraft led of itself to such a result4 ,but this sanguine rhetoric does contain or obscure a certain truth4 ,in plain human language1 when you prevent a man from relying on the old traditional inspirations1 he may for a time be tempted to act without inspiration4 ,in the matter of his dealings with his fellows it is an undeniable fact that1 on the whole1 he has not been thus tempted4 ,it is absurd to heap up all the contemporary instances of corruption in trade and politics1 looseness in domestic life1 and so on1 unless you make a similar study of the vices and crimes of an earlier and more ,christian generation1 and carefully compare the two4 ,it is not a question whether there is evil in our generation2 it is a question whether there is more or less evil than in earlier generations4 ,i must be pardoned for reiterating this1 because1 although this comparison is essential for forming an accurate judgment on the moral effect of the decay of ,christianity1 it is rarely instituted with the least pretence of rigour4 ,i have sufficiently studied it in earlier works 7especially ,the ,bible in ,europe71 and will not repeat the facts4 ,cotter ,morison1 whom ,i quoted on an early page1 was wrong in his expectation4 ,the change from ,christian to humanist inspiration is taking place without disorder and with increasing advantage4 ,the solution of this apparent problem is really not obscure4 ,if the genuine basis of human conduct needed an elaborate search--if it had to be revealed by a ,deity or laboriously established by moral theologians or moral philosophers--no doubt the age of transition would be an age of disorder1 and a very comprehensive educational organisation would be needed4 ,but the true basis of human conduct is simple4 ,there are1 of course1 ,rationalists who feel that some very abstruse science of ethics has to be constructed as the solid foundation of conduct2 but this has as little relation to the conduct of ordinary men as the learned pedants of the science of prosody have to ordinary speakers of prose4 ,experience is the real base and guide of conduct1 and it forces itself on every man and woman1 even on the child4 ,do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is the first principle of morals2 and to inculcate it you need neither the thunders of ,jupiter nor the impressive abstractions of a science of ethics3 nor do you need any moral genius or philosophical skill to discover it4 ,it is a rule of life that suggests itself spontaneously4 ,it is a natural and prompt expression of the fact that our life is social3 our acts have the closest relation to others besides ourselves4 ,now and again1 perhaps1 a man is tempted to assert his own personality1 or seek his own gratification1 in such a way as to ignore his fellows2 but he is usually arrested before long by the simple experience that he himself suffers from the actions of others just as they may suffer from his conduct4 ,it is a lesson of life which one needs no power of analysis to learn4 ,and the chief reason why the abandonment of the old doctrines is proceeding without any moral degeneration is that this experience was really always the basis of general morality4 ,we need not question--it would be absurd to question--that refined natures have received moral aid from their belief in the presence of ,god1 or in a desire to please ,god by accepting the law of virtue as a declaration of his will2 though we must be equally candid in admitting that men and women of this nature have not been observed to deteriorate when they sacrifice their religious beliefs1 as thousands of them have done4 ,on the other hand1 we will hardly question that numbers of people of coarser nature have been deterred from evil-doing by dread of supernatural punishment4 ,it is1 however1 notorious in the moral history of ,europe that these religious beliefs have been consistent with a vast amount of transgression of the decalogue3 more than we witness in any civilised country in our own time4 ,how1 then1 are we to discover what were the real springs of conduct in the mass of ordinarily decent people8 ,it seems to me that the only accurate method is to avoid theories and consider people in the flesh4 ,do our ,christian friends--did we ourselves in ,christian days--refrain from lying1 dishonesty1 injustice1 cruelty1 and injury1 solely or mainly because ,god forbids them or will punish them8 ,i have not met the man1 except in the imaginative pages of religious controversy1 who confessed that he would stoop freely to these things if there were no ,christian prohibition4 ,the mainspring of ordinary decent conduct in any educated community has always been a perception of its human and social value4 ,the only line of the decalogue about which there is likely to be any dispute in this regard is that putting restraint on sexual relations4 ,i have not to consider here a subject so remote from my immediate interest1 and will observe only that any act which hurts either an individual or the social interest will as plainly come under a humanitarian law as the practice of lying3 acts which inflict no injury and have been forbidden only on mystic grounds are not likely to remain on the moral code of the future4 ,but ,i am concerned here with a definite issue1 and need discuss general morality only in so far as that issue is affected4 ,here1 at least1 the way of the humanitarian is plain4 ,sermons on the brotherhood of men under the fatherhood of ,god have been totally ineffective to prevent war and abolish militarism4 ,there is something incongruous in the introduction into a modern peace-meeting of some clerical speaker who talks unctuously about the great promise and precept of ,christianity4 ,the meeting itself1 being held nineteen centuries after the promise was made1 is a sufficient indication of its futility4 ,no progress was made or seriously attempted in the work of peace until a genuine human passion was substituted for that empty phraseology4 ,the brotherhood of men was1 in the ,christian sense of that phrase1 too abstruse and precarious a conclusion to be of use in such a struggle4 ,the plain fact is that it was of no use1 and is of no use to-day4 ,there is1 indeed1 reason to think that we should make more progress if we entirely discarded figures of speech like the brotherhood of men4 ,the fact that we are all children of ,god1 or children of ,eve1 or children of some ,tertiary anthropoid1 does not very obviously impose on us the duty not to take up arms in an international quarrel4 ,the ultimate basis of morality is1 as ,schopenhauer said1 sympathy1 though in an advanced social order this sentiment approves itself to the intellect1 and its requirements may be precisely formulated by reason4 ,one is not sure whether there will not be more morality in the world when the word morality1 with all its mystic entanglements1 is discarded1 and we speak plainly of social law4 ,violence1 the infliction of pain and injustice1 is one of the most obvious infractions of social law1 quite apart from any religious commandments4 ,its social evil is so obvious that the community has1 at an early date in its development1 elaborated a special machinery for restraining it1 and has imposed penalties in this world1 whatever it thinks about the next4 ,there may be questions raised1 and one can understand people who are confined to a religious environment feeling a genuine concern1 about other sections of moral law2 but it would be obviously absurd to think that a humanitarian ethic would fail here4 ,there have been attempts in modern times to question the validity of ethical law altogether4 ,in so far as this movement aims at stripping moral law of its mysticism and fearlessly investigating its traditional content1 it is admirable and will grow2 but in so far as these moral rebels would resent restraint of any kind1 and pronounce the freedom of every individual impulse1 they seem to overlook a factor of great importance--the impulse of retaliation4 ,a pretty state of society we should have if such a theory were generally1 or largely1 carried into practice4 ,but these are academic vagaries1 like those of the mystic or the moral theologian4 ,whatever be the future fortune of ,christian legends1 men are not likely to sacrifice the peace and security of social life to such theories of freedom any more than they are likely to expose property to a general scramble4 ,the instinct of sympathy is now growing deeper in every century4 ,most of the great improvements of social life 7in its widest sense7 during the nineteenth century1 which we have inherited1 were due to that development of sympathy4 ,it matters not whether the reformer was ,christian or non-,christian--,elizabeth ,fry and ,florence ,nightingale or ,robert ,owen and ,john ,stuart ,mill--the impulse was sympathy with suffering fellow-humans4 ,all the hope of improvement in the twentieth century looks to a continued growth of that sentiment4 ,it becomes a veritable passion in certain natures1 as long as there are large and cruel evils to redress2 and this passion of a few leading spirits1 communicating something of its fire to the colder mass1 is the great cause of progress4 ,surely that is the correct interpretation of the progressive life of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries8 ,men realised that to cultivate sympathy because it was enjoined by religion was a more or less mercantile procedure3 it was worth cultivating for its own sake4 ,here we have the reply to those who1 unfamiliar with any but their own religious environment1 ask what place there will be for sympathy in an intellectual or nationalistic age4 ,it is a very grave error to suppose either that our age is becoming less emotional or that ,rationalism has no place for emotions4 ,in pursuing its task during the nineteenth century ,rationalism was an intensely emotional movement4 ,mr ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton1 in his ,victorian ,age in ,literature1 speaks of ,j4 ,s4 ,mill's hard rationalism in religion and hard egoism in ethics4 ,like very many other statements in that lamentable book1 these are inexplicably unjust4 ,mill was so far from being hard in religion that he ended his days in a kind of sentimental theism2 he was so far from being a hard egoist in ethics that he declared that he would burn in hell for ever rather than lie at the supposed bidding of a ,deity4 ,robert ,ingersoll1 the most popular ,rationalist of that age1 was--,i judge from his private letters1 not his ornate speeches--a man of the most tender and fine sentiment4 ,it is simply ludicrous to suppose that1 because we do not admit emotion to be a test of the accuracy of statements of fact 7as all religious dogmas claim to be71 we do not find any room for emotion in life4 ,is the whole of man's life an affirmation about reality or criticism of such affirmation8 ,this supposed hardness--,i detest these vague phrases1 but one knows what is meant--of the ,rationalist temper is one of the strangest myths the clergy have invented4 ,reason not merely approves1 but enjoins1 the cultivation of sentiment4 ,when the sentiment in question is one that shows a power of transforming life and impelling men to struggle against pain and evil1 reason applauds it as one of the most valuable forces we can cultivate4 ,such1 plainly1 is the sentiment of sympathy4 ,we look back to-day with horror on the industrial and social condition of ,england in the earlier part of the nineteenth century3 the burdened lives and few gross pleasures of the workers1 the horrible cellar-homes of the poor1 the ghastly treatment of child-workers1 the stupid and brutal herding of criminals1 the tragedies of asylums and workhouses1 the fearful political corruption and despotism1 the subjection of women1 the revolting proportions of the birth-rate and death-rate4 ,we have still much to do to redeem our civilisation from medieval errors1 but when one contemplates the social revolution that human sympathy has brought about in the life of ,england1 one feels that this1 and not the long-futile teaching of ,christianity1 is the hope of the future4 ,christian preaching of virtue has been individualistic4 ,even in our time the clergy hesitate and are divided in face of social problems which plainly involve moral principles4 ,but the humanitarian ethic is essentially social1 and this passion of sympathy is its chief root4 ,we wish1 then1 not to substitute any creed or organisation for ,christianity1 but to sweep away these primitive or medieval speculations about life1 and let the human mind and human heart increasingly devote themselves1 directly1 to human interests4 ,in discussing the question of peace and war1 the application is obvious4 ,we enclose or dispatch the murderer1 lest some fresh grave act of violence be perpetrated4 ,we agree that the violent and premature termination of a life is the most serious transgression of social law that a man can perpetrate4 ,next to it we put rape1 mutilation1 the destruction of a man's home or fortune2 all acts1 in a word1 that come nearest to it in threatening or causing the greatest desolation4 ,yet we have suffered1 age after age1 that every few years all these acts should be gathered into one mighty outrage and showered upon whole populations4 ,the time will come when men will read with bewilderment the things that have been written about warfare in the nineteenth1 and even the twentieth1 century4 ,the men of clear judgment and sound emotion of some coming age will see anguish rising1 as vapour does from some tropical sea1 from our vast battle-fields4 ,they will read of ,cats' ,homes1 and ,anti-,vivisection ,societies1 and ,homes of ,rest for ,horses1 and a hundred such institutions1 and they will find contributors to these institutions stirring not one finger when hundreds of thousands of men writhe under hails of shrapnel1 and crowds of homeless women and children fly in terror before the unavoidable calamities or the superfluous brutalities of war4 ,they will see a generation shaken and shuddering as the ghastly picture is daily unfolded before it1 and they will see that same generation in a few months grow dully indifferent to1 if not actively supporting1 the military system which invariably brings these horrors every few years upon the world4 ,they will read of social aspiration spreading through our civilisation1 and statesmen regretting that want of funds alone prevents them from remedying our social ills2 and they will read how ,europe in one year wasted in butchery the resources that might have renovated its disfigured civilisation1 and the next year complacently shouldered its military burden1 its annual waste of a thousand millions sterling1 with the prospect of a costlier war than ever4 ,in face of this situation the question1 ,what would you put in place of ,christianity8 is a mere mockery4 ,one can see some pertinence and use in the question3 ,how shall we induce the ,christian ,churches to employ their still great resources in helping to bring on the reign of peace8 ,but it is not to them that we now look for redemption4 ,it is to the humanitarian spirit1 the clearer reason1 of our age4 ,i have described the situation in terms of emotion1 because thus it spontaneously rises before me2 but it may be recorded in terms of pure reason4 ,we maintain in ,europe a machinery for settling international quarrels which costs us more than a thousand millions sterling annually1 while we could erect at a cost of a few thousands annually an efficient machinery for dealing with those quarrels1 and for a few millions we could add the machinery for carrying out its decisions4 ,we boast that our civilisation is founded on justice2 yet1 of the two types of machinery for adjusting quarrels1 we retain the one that is the least possible adapted for securing the triumph of justice and discard the one that is pre-eminently fitted to secure it4 ,we flatter ourselves that we rise above the savage in enjoying security of life and property1 and we retain this system though we know that1 periodically1 it will invade life and property on a scale that surpasses the experience of the savage as much as a ,dreadnought surpasses a canoe4 ,it is just as easy to state our situation in terms of reason as in terms of sentiment3 it would not be easy to say in which guise it is ugliest4 ,let us talk no more nonsense about needing religion to help us to get rid of this atrocious nightmare4 ,it drives both reason and sentiment to the brink of insanity4 ,both protest against it with every particle of their energy4 ,why ,christianity failed to protest against it in fifteen hundred years may or may not be obscure2 but there is no obscurity whatever about the probable effect on militarism and war of a cultivation of reason and sympathy4#c ,many a reform has been actually retarded by the use of rhetoric4 ,an outpour of vehement language seems to release1 both in the speaker and in the assenting audience1 a part of that energy which ought to issue in action4 ,it has been one of the grave blunders of the ,churches that they thought their function ended with the eloquent announcement that men were brothers4 ,we must be more practical4 ,now1 while the imagination of the world is filled with the horrors of war1 and sympathy is ready to fire us with a mighty energy1 is one of the great opportunities of peace4 ,one may trust that1 after this experience1 the ,churches will awaken to the implications of their moral doctrine and set to work to impress it emphatically and repeatedly1 as a moral duty1 on their followers4 ,it is1 however1 not impossible that1 with all their scoutmasters and chaplains and services of thanksgiving for victory1 a very large part of the clergy will find themselves so closely allied with militarism when the war is over1 so confused in their appreciation of what it has done for us1 that they will continue to mumble only general principles and halting counsels4 ,in any case1 in the cities and large towns of this kingdom1 where are found the effective controllers of our destiny1 the majority do not any longer sit at the feet of the clergy4 ,precise statistical observation has shown this4 ,let us remember that the one task before us is to inspire the majority in each civilised nation with a determination that the system shall end4 ,the only practical difficulty of considerable magnitude is the economic difficulty3 the disorganisation of the industrial world by suppressing war-industries and large standing armies4 ,it is1 however1 foolish to regard this as an obstacle to disarmament1 since--to put an extreme case--it would be more profitable to a nation to maintain these men in idleness than run the risk of another war4 ,for disarmament itself what is needed is that half a dozen1 at least1 of the great ,powers shall agree to submit all quarrels to arbitration1 and reduce their armies to the proportions of an international police1 at the service of the international tribunal and for use 7under its permit7 against lower peoples who turn aggressive4 ,no one doubts that this can be done when the ,powers agree to do it4 ,but for one reason or other1 which ,i need not discuss1 the ,governments will probably not do this until a majority of the electorate indicate a resolute demand for it4 ,the immediate task is to secure this majority by education2 and the work of education will be best conducted by vast non-sectarian peace-organisations4 ,the mixture of futile ,christian phraseology and genuine humanitarian interests in some of these movements has been hitherto a grave disadvantage4 ,the movement has been compelled to split into sectarian branches1 and has proportionately lost efficacy4 ,if the clergy insist on winning prestige for themselves1 or respect and recognition for their doctrines1 by acting in these bodies1 they are again hampering the work of reform4 ,a great national agitation1 linked with similar agitations in other lands1 avoiding ,christian formul as well as anti-,christian reproaches1 will alone secure the object4 ,i confess--with ardent hope that ,i may be wrong--that ,i expect no immediate realisation of the reform4 ,it may take years1 even after the grim lesson that militarism has given us1 to inspire the majority of our people with an unsleeping and irresistible demand1 and the work will grow more arduous as the memory of the hardships of the war fades4 ,on the day on which ,i write this ,i have listened to the conversation1 in a train1 of a wealthy1 refined1 and cultivated ,churchwoman4 ,i said to my son when he set out1 she observed1 with a laugh1 to her neighbour1 that it was far better for him to get shot than to die of diphtheria or something at home4 ,if that sentiment1 that obtuseness to the massive horrors of war even when a son was involved1 is widespread1 the outlook is dark4 ,one fears that it is not very promising4 ,the lady ,i quote would read these pages1 if she could constrain herself to do so1 with a genuine shudder4 ,abandon ,christianity6 ,she would volubly reel off the eloquent forecasts of the doom of society which she has heard from a hundred pulpits4 ,meantime she is one of the gravest obstacles 7as a type of her class7 to the removal from society of one of its most crushing burdens and most criminal usages4 ,to me her class illustrates the limitations of ,christianity1 and it confirms me in the belief that we shall make more rapid progress without it4 ,she was a lady of keen sympathies and of great activity for others3 the kind of woman who1 as she would put it1 practised her ,christianity4 ,yet in face of this mighty disorder she showed at once the failure of ,christianity and the reason of it4 ,her genuine human sympathy was directed by an ancient and outworn code of duties4 ,where ,christianity had delivered no clear message1 the expanding of her sympathy was barred4 ,war was part of the established order of things4 ,she could even cheat her maternal sentiment with thin fallacies1 because they reconciled her to what the ,church had not condemned4 ,she had never seen the vision of peace1 never grasped the comparatively easy alternative to war4 ,this1 in general terms1 is what one means by the expectation that a surrender of ,christian doctrines will certainly not check the growth of sympathy1 and is more likely to promote it4 ,it will direct itself spontaneously to departments of suffering to which the ,church had not directed it4 ,but we should be foolish to rely on this free growth and spontaneous application of sympathy4 ,it must be cultivated3 our generation must be educated to a sense of its value4 ,as far as the child is concerned1 the need is plain4 ,children do not merely have veins of cruelty2 they have1 as comparative psychology knows1 the blood and impulses of primitive man4 ,the general impulse of a healthy boy is to exact an eye for an eye3 the impulse which it is the supreme care of a modern ,state to curb in its citizens4 ,to educate such children in military history1 whether of ancient ,jews or medieval ,englishmen or modern ,germans1 is1 as ,william ,,ii knows1 the best means of maintaining war4 ,as to the ,new ,testament1 its language is not addressed to children1 its sentiments are often so obviously impracticable that it defeats the end of education1 and its precepts and counsels are so emphatically based on a disputable reward in heaven that their ethic savours of a risky commercial speculation4 ,we must abandon ,bible lessons1 and teach children to be human4 ,but for the work of education to end when the child leaves the school is one of the crudities of our elementary civilisation4 ,the human material is just becoming fit for the efforts of the educator when the child leaves school1 yet from that moment we leave it to the casual and largely pernicious influences of its environment4 ,some day1 perhaps1 our education department will be more seriously concerned about the youth and the adult than about impressing a few facts of history and geography on the memory of the child3 even if it did no more than organise and direct the innumerable foundations and voluntary organisations which actually exist1 and bring them into living and practical contact with our splendid museums and libraries and art-collections1 a vast amount could be done in the education of the adult4 ,meantime a persistent1 comprehensive1 intensely earnest propaganda of peace is needed4 ,since ,i wrote a little work on those lines in #ahii ,i have had fifteen years' experience of preaching the gospel of peace1 and know well how convincing are its arguments and how little it has to overcome except inertia4 ,we need only to help the imagination of the mass of people2 to put clearly before them the comparative easiness and the incalculable value of the change4 ,christianity has not tried and failed2 it has not even tried4 ,it has wasted its resources in generalities which have proved wholly futile4 ,we must speak as men to men2 and men will be more open to conviction when we plead that1 not the supposed commands of a ,galilean preacher of nineteen hundred years ago1 but their own highest and most sacred instincts1 bid them lay down their arms and inaugurate the age of international peace4 ,footnote #a3 ,the ,service of ,man 7#f;d4 edition71 p4 #af4 ,footnote #b3 ,as ,i write1 the ,press describes ,canon ,green of ,burnley as saying that the war is a divine judgment on the world--,england for the last ten years has been ,god-forgetting1 drunken1 immoral4 ,footnote #c3 ,let me again guard myself against misrepresentation4 ,were ,i of military age1 ,i should to-day be in the trenches4 ,the men who1 as long as the military system is retained1 expose their lives in our defence have my entire respect and gratitude4 ,it is the system ,i impugn4 ,printed by ,watts ,co41 ,johnson's ,court1 ,fleet ,street1 ,e4,c4