{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18650/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18650","id":"gutenberg_18650","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18650","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","World War, 1914-1918"],"text":"E-text prepared by Irma Spehar and the Project Gutenberg Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from page images\ngenerously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries\n(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)\n\n\n\nNote: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See\n      http://www.archive.org/details/warandchurches00mccauoft\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAR AND THE CHURCHES\n\nby\n\nJOSEPH McCABE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited]\nLondon: Watts & Co. 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.C.\n1915\n\n\n\n\nWORKS BY THE AUTHOR\n\n_Modern Rationalism_ (Watts), 2nd ed. 1/-\n\n_Peter Abelard_ (Duckworth), 2nd ed. 3/6.\n\n_Saint Augustine and his Age_ (Duckworth), 2nd ed. 3/6.\n\n_Twelve Years in a Monastery_ (Smith Elder), 3rd ed. _6d._ and 1/-\n\n_Life in a Modern Monastery_ (Grant Richards). 6/-\n\n_Life and Letters of G. J. Holyoake_ (Watts), 2 vols. L1/1/-\n\n_Talleyrand_ (Hutchinson). 14/-\n\n_The Iron Cardinal_ (Nash). 12/-\n\n_Goethe_ (Nash). 15/-\n\n_A Candid History of the Jesuits_ (Nash). 10/6.\n\n_The Evolution of Mind_ (Black). 5/-\n\n_Evolution_ (Twentieth Century Science Series). 1/-\n\n_Prehistoric Man_ (Twentieth Century Science Series). 1/-\n\n_The Principles of Evolution_ (The Nation's Library). 1/-\n\n_The Decay of the Church of Rome_ (Methuen), 2nd ed. 7/6.\n\n_The Story of Evolution_ (Hutchinson), 2nd ed. 7/6.\n\n_The Empresses of Rome_ (Methuen). 12/6.\n\n_The Empresses of Constantinople_ (Methuen). 12/6.\n\n_Church Discipline_ (Duckworth). 3/6.\n\n_Can we Disarm?_ (Heinemann). 2/6.\n\n_In the Shade of the Cloister_ (pseudonymous--Constable). 6/-\n\n_The Bible in Europe_ (Watts). 3/6.\n\n_The Religion of Woman_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._\n\n_Woman in Political Evolution_ (Watts). _6d._\n\n_Haeckel's Critics Answered_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._\n\n_From Rome to Rationalism_ (Watts), 4th ed. _4d._\n\n_The Origin of Life_ (Watts). 1/-\n\n_Secular Education_ (Watts), 2nd ed. 1/-\n\n_The Martyrdom of Ferrer_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._\n\n_The Religion of the Twentieth Century_ (Watts). 1/-\n\n_A Hundred Years of Education Controversy_ (Watts). _3d._\n\n_The Existence of God_ (Watts). _9d._\n\n_Shakespeare and Goethe_ (Cole). _6d._\n\n_George Bernard Shaw_ (Kegan Paul). 7/6.\n\n_The Religion of Sir Oliver Lodge_ (Watts). 2/-\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe searching crisis through which the nation is passing must have the\neffect of securing grave consideration for many aspects of our life and\ninstitutions. We have already traversed the acute stage of suspense, and\nare gradually becoming sensible of these wider considerations. It was\nnatural that for a prolonged period the disturbance of our economic\nconditions, the anxiety for the safety of our nation in face of an\nappalling menace, the personal concern of millions about the lives of\nsons or brothers who have bravely responded to the call, should keep our\nthoughts enchained to the daily or hourly fortunes of the field of\nbattle. Now that the initial disorder has been allayed and we have\nattained a quiet and reasonable confidence in the issue, we turn to\nother and broader aspects of this mighty event of our generation. How\ncomes it that the most enlightened century the world has yet seen should\nbe thus darkened by one of the bloodiest and most calamitous wars that\nhave ever spread their awful wings over the life of man? Where is all\nthe optimism of yesterday? Must we reconsider our reasoned boast that\nour civilisation has lifted the life of man to a level hitherto\nunattained? Is there something entirely and most mischievously wrong\nwith the foundations of modern civilisation?\n\nA dozen such questions will press for an answer, but it will be granted\nthat one of the most urgent and most interesting of the many grave\nconsiderations which the war suggests is its relation to the prevailing\ncreeds and standards of conduct. The war coincides with an advanced\nstage of what is called the spread of unbelief. In each of the nations\nof Europe which are engaged in this awful struggle complaints have been\nmade every year for the last two or three generations that Christianity\nis losing its moral control of the white race. In the cities, especially\nin the capitals, of Europe there has been a proved and acknowledged\ndecay of church-going; and, however much we may be disposed to think\nthat these millions who no longer attend church retain in their minds\nthe beliefs of their fathers, the slender circulation of religious\nliterature makes it plain that the vast majority of them do not, in\npoint of fact, receive either the spoken or written message of the\nChristian Church. In the great cities--and it is undoubted that the life\nof a nation is mainly controlled by its cities--there has been an\nincreasing reluctance to listen to the authoritative exponents of the\nChristian gospel.\n\nA number of the clergy have very naturally noticed and stressed this\ncoincidence. Prelates of high authority have, as we shall see, even\ndeclared that the war is a scourge deliberately laid on the back of\nmankind by the Almighty on account of this spreading infidelity. As a\nrule, the clergy shrink from advocating a theory which has such grave\nimplications as this has, and they are content to submit the more\nplausible suggestion, that the decay of the Christian standard of\nconduct in the mind of a large proportion of our generation accounts for\nthis tragic combat of nations. A distinguished Positivist writer, Mr. J.\nCotter Morison, commenting in the last generation on the decay of\nChristian belief, expressed some such concern in the following terms:\n\n     \"It would be rash to expect that a transition, unprecedented for\n     its width and difficulty, from theology to positivism, from the\n     service of God to the service of Man, could be accomplished without\n     jeopardy. Signs are not wanting that the prevalent anarchy in\n     thought is leading to anarchy in morals. Numbers who have put off\n     belief in God have not put on belief in Humanity. A common and\n     lofty standard of duty is being trampled down in the fierce battle\n     of incompatible principles.\"[1]\n\nIt is true that in the work from which I quote[1] the learned, if\nsomewhat nervous, Positivist does not, by his masterly survey of the\nmoral history of Europe, afford us the least reason to think that we\nhave really deteriorated from the standard of conduct set us by earlier\ngenerations, but his words do tend to press on our notice the claim of\nmany writers, clerical and non-clerical, that we are returning from\nChristianity to Paganism, from a settled moral discipline to an\nunhealthy moral scepticism. Can one entirely and safely reconstruct the\nbases of personal and national conduct in one or two generations?\n\nThis very plain and plausible theory is, however, exposed to criticism\nfrom other points of view. The clergy as a body are not at all willing\nto concede that the decay of belief has spread as far as the theory\nwould suggest. In order to suppose that the life of Europe has, in a\nmatter of the gravest importance, been directed by a non-Christian\nspirit, one must assume that at least the majority in each nation have\ndeserted the traditional creed. It is by no means conceded or\nestablished that the fighting nations have ceased to be predominantly\nChristian. Indeed, if we confine the awful responsibility for this\ntragedy, as the evidence compels us, to Germany and Austria-Hungary, we\nare casting it upon the two nations which have been the chief\nrepresentatives in Europe of the two leading branches of the Church.\nMost assuredly no prelate of either country would admit that his nation\nhas ceased to be Christian or surrendered its life to non-Christian\nimpulses; and in our own country we have frequently been assured of late\nyears that the real power of Christianity was never greater.\n\nClearly these conflicting claims and this contrast of profession and\npractice suggest a problem that deserves consideration. The problem\nbecomes the more interesting, and the plausible theory of non-Christian\nresponsibility is even more severely shaken, when we reflect that war is\nnot an innovation of this unbelieving age, but a legacy from the earlier\nand more thoroughly Christian period. Had mankind departed from some\nadmirable practice of submitting its international quarrels to a\nreligious arbitrator, and in our own times devised this horrible\narbitrament of the sword, we should be more disposed to seek the cause\nin a contemporary enfeeblement of moral standards. This is notoriously\nnot the case. Men have warred, and priests have blessed the banners\nwhich were to wave over fields of blood, from the very beginning of\nChristian influence, not to speak of earlier religious epochs. There is\nassuredly a ghastly magnitude about modern war which almost lends it an\nelement of novelty, but the appearance is illusory. That intense\nemployment of resources which makes modern war so sanguinary tends also\nto shorten its duration. No military struggle could now be prolonged\ninto the period of the Napoleonic wars; to say nothing of the Thirty\nYears War, which involved the death, with every circumstance of\nferocity, of immensely larger numbers than could be affected by any\nmodern war. Nor may we forget that it is the modern spirit which has\nclaimed some alleviation of the horrors of the field, and that the\nmajority of the nations engaged in the present struggle have observed\nthe new rules.\n\nThese considerations show that the problem is less simple and more\nserious than is often supposed, and I set out to discuss each of them\nwith some fullness. That the war has _no_ relation to the Churches will\nhardly be claimed by anybody. Such a claim would mean that they were\nindifferent to one of the very gravest phases of human conduct, or\nwholly unable to influence it. Nor can we avoid the issue by pleading\nthat Christianity approves and blesses a just defensive war, and that,\nsince the share of this country in the war is entirely just and\ndefensive, we have no moral problem to consider. I have assuredly no\nintention of questioning either the justice of Britain's conduct or the\nprudence of the Churches in adapting the maxims of the Sermon on the\nMount to the practical needs of life. If and when a nation sees its life\nand prosperity threatened by an ambitious or a jealous neighbour, one\ncannot but admire its clergy for joining in the advocacy of an efficient\nand triumphant defence. But this is merely a superficial and proximate\nconsideration. Not the actual war only, but the military system of which\nit is the occasional outcome, has a very pertinent relation to religion;\nthe maintenance of this machinery for settling international quarrels in\nan age in which applied science makes it so formidable is a very grave\nmoral issue. It turns our thoughts at once to those branches of the\nChristian Church which claim the predominant share in the moulding of\nthe conduct of Europe.\n\nBut these questions of the efficacy of Christian teaching or the\ninfluence of Christian ministers are not the only or the most\ninteresting questions suggested by the relation of the war to the\nprevailing religion. The great tragedy which darkens the earth to-day\nraises again in its most acute form the problem of evil and Providence.\nMore than two thousand years ago, as _Job_ reminds us, some difficulty\nwas experienced in justifying the ways of God to men. The most\npenetrating thinker of the early Church, St. Augustine, wrestled once\nmore with the problem, as if no word had been written on it; and he\nwrestled in vain. A century and a half ago, when the Lisbon earthquake\ndestroyed forty thousand Portuguese, Voltaire attempted, with equal\nunsuccess, to vindicate Providence with the faint hope of the Deist.\nModern science, prolonging the sufferings of living things over earlier\nmillions of years, has made that problem one of the great issues of our\nage, and this dread spectacle of _human_ nature red in tooth and claw\nbrings it impressively before us. Is the work of God restricted to\ncounting the hairs of the head, and not enlarged to check the murderous\nthoughts in the human brain? Nay, when we survey those horrid stretches\nof desolation in Belgium and Poland and Serbia, where the mutilated\nbodies of the innocent, of women and children, lie amidst the ashes of\ntheir homes; when we think of those peaceful sailors of our mercantile\nmarine at the bottom of the deep, those unoffending civilians whose\nflesh was torn by shells, those hundreds of thousands whom patriotic\nfeeling alone has summoned to the vast tombs of Europe, those millions\nof homes that have been darkened by suspense and loss--how can we repeat\nthe ancient assurance that God _does_ count the hairs of the head and\nmark the fall of even the sparrows? Does God move the insensate stars\nonly, and leave to the less skilful guidance of man those momentous\nlittle atoms which make up the brain of statesmen?\n\nThese are reflections which must occur to every thoughtful person in the\nlater and more meditative phases of a great war, when the eye has grown\nsomewhat weary of the glitter of steel and the colour of banners, when\nthe world mourns about us and the long lists of the dead and longer list\nof the stupendous waste sober the mind. Something is gravely wrong with\nour international life; and, plainly, it is not a question _whether_\nthat international life departs from the Christian standard, but _why_,\nafter fifteen hundred years of mighty Christian influence, it does so\ndepart. Is the moral machinery of Europe ineffective? One certainly\ncannot say that it has not had a prolonged trial; yet here, in the\ntwentieth century, we have, in the most terrible form, one of the most\nappalling evils which human agency ever brought upon human hearts. We\nhave to reconsider our religious and ethical position; to ask ourselves\nwhether, if the influence of religion has failed to direct men into\npaths of wisdom and peace, some other influence may not be found which\nwill prove more persuasive and more beneficent.\n\nJ. M.\n\n_Easter, 1915._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAP.                                              PAGE\n\n  I.  THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCHES             1\n II.  CHRISTIANITY AND WAR                          25\nIII.  THE APOLOGIES OF THE CLERGY                   48\n IV.  THE WAR AND THEISM                            70\n  V.  THE HUMAN ALTERNATIVE                         95\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAR AND THE CHURCHES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCHES\n\n\nThe first question which the unprejudiced inquirer will seek to answer\nis: How far were the Churches able to prevent, yet remiss in using their\ninfluence to prevent, the present war? There is, unhappily, in these\nmatters no such thing as an entirely unprejudiced inquirer. Our\npreconceived ideas act like magnets on the material of evidence which is\nsubmitted to us, instinctively selecting what bears in their favour and\ndeclining to receive what they cannot utilise. Nowhere is this more\nconspicuous than in the field of religious inquiry, nor is it confined\nto either believers or unbelievers. There has been too much mutual\nabuse, and too little attention to the fact that the mind no less than\nthe mouth has its palate, its impulsive selections and rejections. One\ncan meet the difficulty only by a patient and full examination of the\npleas of both parties to a controversy.\n\nAnd the first plea which it is material to examine is that, since it is\nclaimed that all the nations engaged in the war are Christian nations,\none may accuse them collectively of moral failure. From the earliest\ndays of the Christian religion it was the boast of those who accepted\nit that it abolished all distinctions of caste and race. In the little\ncommunity which gathered round the cross there was neither bond nor\nfree, neither Greek nor Roman. This cosmopolitanism was, in fact, a\nnatural feature of religious movements at the time, and was due not so\nmuch to their intrinsic development as to the political circumstances of\nthe world in which they spread. All round the eastern and northern\nshores of the Mediterranean a great variety of races mingled in every\nport and every commercial town, and it was the policy of the powerful\nEmpire which extended its sway over them all to overrule their national\nantagonisms. When, in the earlier period, Jew and Greek and Egyptian had\nmaintained their separate nationalities, hostility to other races had\nbeen a very natural social quality, an inevitable part of the spirit of\nself-preservation in a race. When the great Empires had conquered the\nsmaller nationalities or the decaying older Empires, this mutual\nhostility was moderated, and, as the vast movements of population which\nmarked the end of the old and the beginning of the new era filled the\nMediterranean cities with extraordinarily mixed crowds, mutual\nfriendship became the more fitting and more useful social virtue. A good\ndeal of the old narrow patriotism had been due to the fact that each\nnation had its own god. In the new Roman world this theological\nexclusivism broke down, and the priests of a particular god, scattered\nlike their followers among the cities of the eastern world, began to\nseek a cosmopolitan rather than a nationalist following. In the temple\nof each of the leading gods of the time--Jahveh, Serapis, Mithra, and so\non--people of all races and classes were received on a footing of\nequality. The doctrine of the brotherhood of man spread all over that\ncosmopolitan world.\n\nWhen the old world, to the south and east of the Mediterranean, was\nblotted out of history, and Europe in turn became a group of conflicting\nnationalities, racial hatred was revived and in its political and social\naspects the doctrine of the brotherhood of man was virtually forgotten.\nBut the Christian Church had embodied that doctrine in its sacred\nwriting, and was bound to maintain it. In its ambition of a universal\ndominion it was the direct successor of the Roman Empire. All the races\nof Europe were to meet as brothers under the one God of the new world\nand under the direction of his representatives on earth. It was this\nchange in the features of the world which gave a certain air of\ninsincerity to the Christian gospel. In the older days there had been\npolitical unity with a great diversity of religions; now there was\nreligious unity spread over a great diversity of antagonistic political\nbodies. Men were brothers from the religious point of view and, only too\nfrequently, deadly enemies from the political point of view. The discord\nwas made worse by the feudal system which was adopted. Even within the\nsame race there was no brotherhood. In effect the clergy as a body did\nnot insist that the noble was a brother of the serf, and did not exact\nfraternal treatment of the serf. Thus the phrase, \"the brotherhood of\nman,\" which had been a most prominent and active principle of early\nChristianity, became little more than a useless theological thesis.\n\nThe solution of the difficulty would, of course, have been for the\nclergy, as the supreme representatives of the doctrine of brotherhood,\nto apply that doctrine boldly to every part of man's conduct; to\npronounce that all violence and bloodshed were immoral, and to devise a\nhumane means of settling international quarrels. I will consider in the\nnext chapter why the Christian leaders failed even to attempt this great\nreform. For the moment it is enough to observe that the conditions of\nmodern times favoured a fresh assertion of the doctrine of brotherhood.\nGreat as the power of sincere moral idealism has always been, the\nhistorian must recognise that economic changes have had a most important\ninfluence upon the development or acceptance of moral ideas. Just as in\nearlier ages the development of forms of life was conditioned by changes\nin their material surroundings, so man's moral development has been\nprofoundly influenced by industrial, commercial, and political changes.\n\nThe destruction of feudalism and the development of the modern worker\nwere notoriously not due to religious influence, yet they had an\nimportant relation to religious doctrines. Once the new spirit had\nasserted its right, the clergy recollected that all men are brothers\nfrom the social as well as the religious point of view. Many of them,\nand even some social writers of Christian views, maintain that the new\nsocial order is itself based on or inspired by the religious doctrine of\nbrotherhood. This speculation is entirely opposed to the historical\nfacts, but it will easily be realised that when the workers had, in\ntheir own interest, asserted afresh the doctrine of human brotherhood,\nthe Churches had a new occasion to preach it. How timid and tentative\nthat preaching was, and even is, we have not to consider here. On the\nwhole the brotherhood of men was re-affirmed by the Churches both in the\nsocial and religious sense.\n\nThis situation makes more violent than ever the contrast between the\npolitical and religious relations of men, and gives a strong _prima\nfacie_ case to the charge against the Churches which I am considering.\nIt is wholly artificial and insincere to say that men are brothers\nsocially and religiously, yet are justified in marching out in millions,\nwith the most murderous apparatus science can devise, to meet each other\non the field of battle. We condemn crime for social reasons. We have\nrelegated to the Middle Ages, to which it belongs, the notion that the\ncriminal is a man who has affronted society, and that society may take a\nrevenge on him. In the sane conception of our time the criminal is a\nmischievous element disturbing the social order, and, in the interest of\nthat order, he must be isolated or put out of existence. It is not the\n_guilt_, but the _social effect_, which we regard. And from this point\nof view a single great war is far more calamitous than all the crime in\nEurope during whole decades. It is estimated by high authorities that if\nthe present war lasts only twelve months it will cost Europe, directly\nand indirectly, including the destruction of property and the loss to\nindustry and commerce, no less a sum than L9,000,000,000; and it will\ncertainly cost more than a million, if not more than two million, lives,\nbesides the incalculable amount of suffering from wounds, loss of\nrelatives, outrages, and the incidental damage of warfare. The time will\ncome when historians will study with amazement the wonderful system we\nhave devised in Europe for the suppression of breaches of the social\norder at a time when we complacently suffer these appalling periodical\ndestructions of the entire social order of nations.\n\nIt is quite natural to arraign the Christian Churches in connection\nwith this disastrous outbreak. Unless they discharge the high task of\nthe moral direction of men, in international as well as in personal\nconduct, they have no _raison d'etre_. Few of them to-day will plead\nthat their function is merely to interpret to their fellows what they\nregard as the revealed word of God. In face of the challenging spirit of\nour time they maintain that they discharge a moral mission of such\nimportance that society is likely to go to pieces if Christianity is\nabandoned. We therefore ask very pertinently where they were, and what\nthey were doing, during the months when the nations of Europe were\nslowly advancing toward a declaration of war.\n\nIn examining the charge that, for some reason or other, they neglected\ntheir mission at a crisis of supreme importance, we must recall that few\nof us believed that a great war would occur until we actually heard the\ndeclaration. No indictment of the clergy is valid which presupposes that\nthey are more sagacious or far-seeing than the rest of us. Yet, however\nmuch we may have doubted the actual occurrence of war, we have known for\nyears, and have quite complacently commented upon, the danger that half\nof Europe would sooner or later be involved in the horrors of the\ngreatest war in history. Now it is notorious that the Christian Churches\nhave done little or nothing, in proportion to their mighty resources and\ninfluence, to avert this danger. No collective action has been taken,\nand relatively few individuals have used their influence to moderate or\nobviate the danger. The supreme head of the most powerfully organised\nand most cosmopolitan religious body in the world, an institution which\nhas its thousands of ministers among each of the antagonistic peoples--I\nmean the Church of Rome--gave his attention to minute questions of\ndoctrine and administration, and bemoaned repeatedly the evil spirit of\nour age, but issued not one single syllable of precise and useful\ndirection to the various national regiments of his clergy in connection\nwith this terrible impending danger. The heads or Councils of the\nvarious Protestant bodies were equally remiss. Here and there individual\nclergymen joined associations, founded by laymen, which endeavoured to\nmaintain peace and to secure arbitration upon quarrels, and one Sunday\nin the year was set aside by the pulpits for the vague gospel of peace.\nBut in almost all cases these movements were purely secular in origin,\nand the few movements of a religious nature have been obviously founded\nonly to keep the idealism linked with a particular Church, have had no\ngreat influence, and have been too vague in their principles to have had\nany effect upon the growing chances of a European war. There is no doubt\nthat the Churches have remained almost dumb while Europe was preparing\nfor its Armageddon.\n\nI speak of the clergy, but in our time the responsibility cannot be\nconfined to these. Even in the Church of England the laity have now a\nconsiderable influence, and in the other Protestant bodies they have\neven more power in the control of policy. No doubt the duty of\ninitiative and of work in such matters lies mainly with the more\nleisured and more official interpreters of the Christian spirit, yet it\nwould be absurd to restrict the criticism to them. The various Christian\nbodies, as a whole, have confronted a very grave and imminent danger\nwith remarkable indifference, although that danger could become an\nactual infliction only by seriously immoral conduct on the part of some\nnation. They saw, as we all saw, the vast armies preparing for the fray,\nthe diplomatists betraying an increasing concern about the relations\nbetween their respective nations, the press embittering those relations,\nand a pernicious and provocative literature inflaming public opinion. We\nall saw these things, and knew that a war of appalling magnitude would\nfollow the first infringement of peace. Yet I think it will hardly be\ncontroverted that the Churches made no serious effort to avert that\ncalamity from Europe. They were deeply concerned about unbelief, about\npersonal purity, about the cleanness of plays and books and pictures,\neven about questions of social reform which a rebellious democracy\nforced on them; but they took no initiative and performed no important\nservice in connection with this terrible danger.\n\nThat is the indictment which many bring against Christianity, and we\nhave now to consider the general defence. I will examine later a number\nof religious pronouncements about the war, and will discuss here only a\nfew general pleas which are put forward as a defence against the general\nindictment.\n\nIt is, in the first place, urged that the moral and humanitarian\nteaching which the Christian Churches never ceased to put before the\nworld condemned in advance every departure from the paths of justice and\ncharity; that it was not the fault of Christianity if men refused to\nlisten to or carry into practice that teaching. But at no period in the\nhistory of morals has it sufficed to lay down general principles.\nEverybody perceives to-day, not only that slavery was in itself a crime,\nbut that it was essentially opposed to the Christian morality. Yet, as\nno Christian teacher for many centuries ventured to apply the principle\nby expressly denouncing slavery, the institution was taken over from\nPaganism by Christian Europe and lasted centuries after the fall of the\nRoman Empire. The Church itself had vast numbers of slaves, and later of\nserfs, on its immense estates. Leo the Great disdainfully enacted that\nthe priesthood must not be stained by admitting so \"vile\" a class to its\nranks, and Gregory the Great had myriads of slaves on the Papal\n\"patrimonies.\" So it was with the demand for social reform which\ncharacterised the nineteenth century. To-day Christians claim that their\nprinciples sanctioned and gave weight to those early demands of reform,\nyet their principles had been vainly repeated in Europe for fifteen\nhundred years, and, when the people themselves at last formulated their\ndemands in the early part of the nineteenth century, it is notorious\nthat the clergy opposed them. The teaching of abstract moral principles\nis of no avail. Man is essentially a casuist. Leave to him the\napplication of your principles, and he will adapt almost any scheme of\nconduct to them. The moralist who does not boldly and explicitly point\nthe application of his principles is either too ignorant of human nature\nto discharge his duty with effect or is a coward. The plain fact is that\nthe preaching of justice and peace throughout Europe has been steadily\naccompanied by an increase in armaments and in international friction.\nIt had no moral influence on the situation.\n\nA more valid plea is that we must distinguish carefully between the\nnations which inaugurated the war and the nations which are merely\ndefending themselves, and we must quarrel with the Christian Churches\nonly in those lands which are guilty. It may, indeed, be pleaded that,\nsince each nation regards itself as acting on the defensive and uses\narguments to this effect which convince its jurists and scholars no less\nthan its divines, there is no occasion at all to introduce Christianity.\nMost of us do not merely admit the right, we emphasise the duty, of\nevery citizen to take his share in the just defence of his country,\neither by arms or by material contribution. Since there seems to be a\ngeneral conviction even in Germany and Austria that the nation is\ndefending itself against jealous and designing neighbours, why quarrel\nwith their clergy for supporting the war?\n\nWhen the plea is broadened to this extent we must emphatically reject\nit. There has been too much disposition among moralists to listen\nindulgently to such talk as this. When we find five nations engaged in a\nterrible war, and each declaring that it is only defending itself\nagainst its opponent, the cynic indeed may indolently smile at the\nsituation, but the man of principle has a more rigorous task. Some one\nof those peoples is lying or is deceived, and, in the future interest of\nmankind, it is imperative to determine and condemn the delinquent. There\nis no such thing as an inevitable war, nor does the burden of great\narmaments lead of itself to the opening of hostilities. It is certain\nthat on one side or the other, if not on both sides, there is a terrible\nguilt, and it is the duty of Christian or any other moralists, whether\nor no they belong to the guilty nations, sternly to assign and condemn\nthat guilt. It is precisely on this loose and lenient habit of mind that\nthe engineers of aggressive war build in our time, and we have seen, in\nthe case of neutral nations and of a section of our own nation, what\nchances they have of succeeding. They have only to fill their people and\nthe world at large with counter-charges, resolutely mendacious, and\nmany will throw up their hands in presence of the mutual accusations and\ndeclare that it is impossible to assign the responsibility. That is a\nfatal concession to immorality, and we must hold that in some one or\nmore of the combatant nations the Churches have, for some reason or\nother, acquiesced in a crime.\n\nThe plea is valid only to this extent, that the guilty nations in this\ncase were notoriously Germany and Austria-Hungary, and therefore one\ncannot pass any censure on British Christians for supporting the war. I\nhave in other works dealt so fully with the guilt of those two nations\nthat here I must be content to assume it. The general and incessant cry\nof the German people, that they are only defending their Empire against\nmalignant enemies, must be understood in the light of their recent\nhistory and literature. No Power in the world had given any indication\nof a wish to destroy Germany; there were, at the most, a few\nuninfluential appeals in England for an attack on Germany, but solely on\nthe ground that it meditated an attack on England, and the accumulated\nevidence now shows that it did meditate such an attack. England did not\ndesire an acre of German ground. France had assuredly not forgotten\nAlsace and Lorraine, but France would have had no support, and would\nhave failed ignominiously, in an aggressive campaign to secure those\nprovinces. On the other hand, an immense and weighty literature, which\nis unfortunately very little known in England, has familiarised Germany\nfor fifteen years with aggressive ideas. The most authoritative writers\nclaimed that, as they said repeatedly, \"Germany must and will expand\";\nand leagues which numbered millions of subscribers propagated this\nsentiment in every school and village. A definite demand was made\nthroughout Germany for more colonies and a longer coast-line on the\nNorth Sea; and it was in relation to this ambition that England, France,\nand Russia were represented--and justly represented--as Germany's\nopponents. England, in particular, was described as the great dragon\nwhich watched at the gates of Germany and grimly forbade its\n\"development.\" It is in this sense that the bulk of the German people\nmaintain that their action is defensive.\n\nIn passing, let me emphasise this peculiar economic difference between\nthe four nations. Russia had a vast territory in which her people might\ndevelop. France had no surplus population, and had a large colonial\nfield for such of her children as desired adventure abroad or would\nescape the competition at home. England had, in Canada and Australasia\nand South Africa, a magnificent estate for her surplus population. None\nof these Powers had an economic ground for aggression. Germany was\nundoubtedly in a far less fortunate position, and had an overflowing\npopulation. Six hundred thousand men and women (mostly men) had to leave\nthe fatherland every year, and, as the colonies were small and\nunsatisfactory, they were scattered and lost among the nations of the\nearth. The proper attitude toward Germany is, not to gratify the cunning\nof her leaders by superficially admitting that she was not aggressive,\nbut to understand clearly the very solid grounds of her desire for\nexpansion.\n\nInto the whole case against Germany, however, I cannot enter here.\nFamiliar from their chief historical writers with the supposed law of\nthe expansion of powerful nations, convinced by their economists that\nthe country would soon burst with population and be choked by their own\nindustrial products unless they expanded, knowing well that such\nexpansion meant war to the death against France and England (who would\nsuffer by their expansion), the German people consented to the war.\nTheir official documents absolutely belie the notion that they were\nmeeting an aggressive England. But the Christians of Germany were\nutterly false to their principles in supporting such a war. I do not\nmean merely that they set aside the precept, or counsel to turn the\nother cheek to the smiter, for no one now expects either nation or\nindividual to act on that maxim. They were false to the ordinary\nprinciples of Christian morals or of humanity. Even if one were\ndesperately to suppose that, learned divines like Harnack were unable to\nassign the real responsibility for the war, or that the whole of Germany\nis kept in a kind of hot-house of falsehood, it would be impossible to\ndefend them. The Churches of Germany have complacently watched for\ntwenty-three years the tendency which William II gave to their schools;\nthey have passed no censure on the fifteen years of Imperialist\npropaganda which have steadily prepared the nation for an aggressive\nwar; and they have raised no voice against the appalling decision that,\nin order to attain Germany's purposes, every rule of morals and humanity\nshould be set aside. They have servilely accepted every flimsy pretext\nfor outrage, and have followed, instead of leading, their\npassion-blinded people. It was the same in Austria-Hungary. Austrian and\nHungarian prelates have passed in silence the fearful travesties of\njustice by which, in recent years, their statesmen sought to compass\nthe judicial murder of scores of Slavs; they raised no voice when, at\nthe grave risk of a European war, Austria dishonestly annexed Bosnia and\nHerzegovina; they gave their tacit or open consent when Austria,\nrefusing mediation, declared war on Serbia and inaugurated the titanic\nstruggle; and they have passed no condemnation on the infamies which the\nMagyar troops perpetrated in Serbia.\n\nI am concerned mainly with the action or inaction of the Churches in\nthis country, but it is entirely relevant to set out a brief statement\nof these facts about Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Christian religion\nwas on trial in those countries as well as here. It failed so\nlamentably, not because there is more Christianity here than in Germany\nand Austria, not because the national character was inferior to the\nEnglish and less apt to receive Christian teaching, but because the\ntemptation was greater. Until this war occurred, no responsible\ntraveller ever ventured to say that the German or Austrian character was\ninferior to the British. It is not. But the economic difficulties of\nGermany and the political difficulties (with the Slavs) of\nAustria-Hungary laid a heavier trial on those nations, and their\nChristianity entirely failed. Catholic and Protestant alike--for the two\nnations contain fifty million Catholics to sixty million\nProtestants--were swept onward in the tide of national passion, or\nfeared to oppose it.\n\nOne might have expected that at least the supreme head of the Roman\nChurch would, from his detached throne in Rome, pass some grave censure\non the outrages committed by Catholic Bavarians in Belgium or Catholic\nMagyars in Serbia. Not one syllable either on the responsibility for the\nwar or the appalling outrages which have characterised it has come from\nhim. The only event which drew from him a protest--a restrained and\ninoffensive remonstrance--was the confinement to his palace for some\ndays of my old friend and teacher, Cardinal Mercier! To the stories of\nfearful and widespread outrage, even when they were sternly\nauthenticated, he was deaf. One knows why. If Germany and Austria fail\nin this war, as they will fail, the Catholic bodies of Germany and\nAustria, the strongest Catholic political parties in Europe, will be\nbroken. Millions of the Catholic subjects of Germany and Austria will\npass under the rule of unbelieving France or schismatical Russia. So the\nsupreme head of the Roman Church wraps himself nervously in a mantle of\npolitical neutrality and disclaims the duty of assigning moral guilt.\n\nOn us in England was laid only the task of defending our homes and our\nhonour. It is in those other countries that we most clearly see\nChristianity put to the test, and failing deplorably under the test. I\ndo not mean that there was no opportunity here for the Churches to\ndisplay their effectiveness as the moral guides of nations. In those\nfateful years between 1908 and 1914, during which we now see so plainly\nthe preparation for this world-tragedy, they might have done much. They\ndid nothing. They might have seen, at least at the eleventh hour, the\niniquity of sustaining the military system, and have cast the whole of\ntheir massive influence on the side of the promoters of arbitration. I\ndo not mean that any man should advocate disarmament, or less effective\narmament, in England while the rest of the world remains armed. As long\nas we retain the military system instead of an international court, the\nsoldier's profession is honourable, and the man who voluntarily faces\nthe horrors of the field is entitled to respect and gratitude. But in\nevery country there was an agitation for the _general_ abandonment of\nmilitarism and the substitution of lawyers for soldiers in the\nsettlement of international quarrels. Had the Churches in every country\ngiven their whole support to this agitation, and insisted that it is\nmorally criminal for the race as a whole to prolong the military system,\nwe might not have witnessed this great catastrophe.\n\nBefore, however, I press this charge against the Christian bodies, let\nme discuss the third plea that may be urged in defence of the Churches.\nIt is the plea of those who are so eager to disclaim responsibility that\nthey are willing to allow an enormous decay of religious influence in\nthe modern world. You have repeatedly told us, they say to the\nRationalist, that Christianity has lost its hold on Europe. You speak of\nmillions who no longer hear the word of Christian ministers, but who\n_do_ read Rationalist literature in enormous quantities. Very well, you\ncannot have it both ways. Let us admit that the nations of Europe have\nbecome non-Christian, and we cast on your non-Christian influence the\nburden of responsibility for the war.\n\nThis language has been used more than once in England. It leaves the\nspeaker free to assume that in England, whose action in the war we do\nnot criticise, the nation remains substantially Christian, while in\nGermany and Austria the Churches have lost more ground. Indeed, one may\nalmost confine attention to Germany. Profoundly corrupt as political\nlife has been in Austria-Hungary for years, there is no little evidence\nin the official publications of diplomatic documents that at the last\nmoment, when the spectre of a general war definitely arose, Austria\nhesitated and entered upon a hopeful negotiation with Russia. It was\nGermany's criminal ultimatum to Russia which set the avalanche on its\nterrible path. Now Germany is notoriously a land of religious criticism\nand Rationalism. Church-going in Berlin is far lower even than in\nLondon, where six out of seven millions do not attend places of worship.\nIt is almost as low as at Paris, where hardly a tenth of the population\nattend church on Sundays. In other large towns of Germany the condition\nis, as in England, proportionate. Almost in proportion to the size of\nthe town is the aversion of the people from the Churches.\n\nIt is absolutely impossible in the case of Germany to determine, even in\nvery round numbers, how many have abandoned their allegiance to\nChristianity, though, when one remembers the enormous rural population\nand the high proportion of believers in the smaller towns, it seems\npreposterous to suggest that the country has, even to the extent of one\nhalf, become non-Christian. But I am anxious to do justice to this plea,\nand would point out that it is the educated class and the men of the\nlarge cities who control a nation's policy. The rural population--the\ngeneral population, in fact--follows its educated leaders. Now there is\nno doubt that in Germany, as elsewhere, this body of the population--the\nmiddle class and the workers of the great cities--has very largely lost\nthe traditional belief. The workers of Berlin are solidly Socialistic,\nwhich means very largely anti-clerical. And I would boldly draw the\nconclusion that the responsibility for the war is shared at least\nequally by Christians and non-Christians. The stricture I have passed on\nthe Churches of Germany is based on the fact that they, being organised\nbodies with a definite moral mission, were peculiarly bound to protest\nagainst the obvious political development of their country, and they\nentirely failed to do so. But I should be the last to confine the\nresponsibility to them. Not only religious leaders like Harnack and\nEucken, but leading Rationalists like Haeckel and Ostwald, have\ncordially supported the action of their country. So it was from the\nfirst. Of that large class of men who may be said to have had some real\ncontrol of the fortunes of their country a very high proportion--I\nshould be disposed to say at least one half--are not Christians, or are\nChristians only in name.\n\nWhile we thus candidly admit that non-Christians as well as Christians\nin Germany bear the moral responsibility, we must be equally candid in\nrejecting the libellous charge that the principles, or lack of\nprinciples, of the non-Christians tended to provoke or encourage war, in\nopposition to the Christian principles. This not uncommon plea of\nreligious people is worse than inaccurate, since it is quite easy to\nascertain the principles of those who reject Christianity. In Germany,\nas elsewhere, the non-Christians are mainly an unorganised mass, but\nthere are two definite organisations, which, in this respect, reflect or\neducate the general non-Christian sentiment. These are the Social\nDemocrats, a body of many millions who are for the most part opposed to\nthe clergy, and the Monists, an expressly Rationalistic body. In both\ncases the moral principles of the organisation are emphatically\nhumanitarian and opposed to violence, dishonesty, or injustice; in both\ncases those principles are adhered to with a fidelity at least equal to\nthat which one finds in the Christian Churches. It is little short of\nmonstrous to say that the moral teaching of Bebel and Singer and\nLiebknecht, or of Haeckel and Ostwald--all men of high moral\nidealism--gave greater occasion than the teaching of Christianity to\nthis atrocious war. The Socialists, indeed, were the strongest opponents\nof war and advocates of international amity in Europe. How, like the\nEvangelical and the Christian Churches, they failed in a grave crisis to\nassert their principles may be a matter for interesting consideration,\nbut it would be entirely dishonest to plead that the substitution of the\ninfluence of Rationalists and Socialists for Christian ministers has in\nany degree facilitated the war.\n\nThe Christian who regards all these non-Christian influences as \"Pagan,\"\nand feels that a \"return to Paganism\" explains the essential immorality\nof Germany's conduct, usually has a grossly inaccurate idea of Paganism.\nWhatever may be said of sexual developments in modern and ancient times,\nwe shall see that the Roman writers held principles which most decidedly\nmade for peace and brotherhood and justice. In point of fact, the\nmajority of the German writers who have been responsible for the\neducation of Germany in war-like ideas have been Christians. The Emperor\nhimself, who is mainly responsible because of his deliberate\nprostitution of German schools to militarist purposes since 1891, will\nhardly be described as other than Christian; certainly every prelate or\nminister in Germany would vehemently resent such a description.\nTreitschke, who is probably the best known in England of the Imperialist\nwriters, definitely bases his appalling conception of life on Christian\nprinciples, and claims that he is acting from a sense of the divine\nmission of Germany. General von Bernhardi uses precisely the same\nChristian language. But these are only two in a hundred writers who,\nfor more than half a century, have been educating Germany in aggressive\nideas, and, speaking from personal acquaintance with their works, I\nshould say that the overwhelming majority of them are Christians. Not a\nsingle Socialist, and not a single well-known Rationalist, has\ncontributed to their pernicious gospel.\n\nProbably the one German writer in the mind of those English people who\nspeak of Germany's return to Paganism is Friedrich Nietzsche. It is true\nthat Nietzsche was bitterly anti-Christian, and he has probably had a\ngreater influence in Germany, in spite of his strictures on the country,\nthan many seem disposed to allow. German booksellers have recently drawn\nup a statement in regard to the favourite books of soldiers in the\nfield, and it appears that Nietzsche's _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ is\nsecond on the list--leagues ahead of the Bible. But to conclude from\nthis that the anti-moral doctrine of the Pagan Nietzsche is the chief\nsource of the outrages committed is one of those slipshod inferences\nwhich make one despair of Christian literature.\n\nIn the first place, Goethe is even more popular with the troops than\nNietzsche, and, although Goethe too was a Pagan, his teaching was the\nvery antithesis of crime, violence, injustice, or hypocrisy. No nobler\nhuman doctrine was ever set forth than in the pages of his _Faust_, the\nfirst on this list of favourite books. In the second place, this fact at\nonce warns us of a circumstance which we might have taken for granted:\nin the knapsacks of the overwhelming majority of the soldiers there are\nno books at all. It is the minority who read; and it is quite safe to\nassume that this thoughtful minority are not the minority who have\ndisgraced German militarism. Thirdly--and it should hardly be necessary\nto make this observation--the sensitive and high-strung Nietzsche would\nhave regarded with shuddering horror these outrages which some\nignorantly attribute to his influence. It is indeed probable that, if he\nstill looked from his hill-top upon the fields of Europe, he would pour\nout his most volcanic scorn upon the warring nations, and especially\nupon Germany and Austria. In fine, it is necessary to remember that\nNietzsche was violently anti-democratic. For the mass of the people he\nhad only disdain, and it is folly to suppose that his aristocratic\nphilosophy has been accepted among them as a gospel.\n\nNietzsche has had a considerable influence on the more thoughtful\nreading public in Germany, yet even here one has to make reserves in\ncharging him with a part in the preparation of the country for an\naggressive war. His peculiar art and temperamental exaggerations make it\nimpossible for any but a patient few to grasp his teaching accurately,\nand are peculiarly liable to mislead the less patient. When, therefore,\nhe stresses--as most anti-Socialists do--the Darwinian struggle for\nexistence, when he assails the humanitarian and Christian doctrine of\nhelping the weak, when he calls into question the received code of\nmorals, and when he extols self-assertion and strength of will, his\nfiery words do lend some confirmation, which he assuredly never\nintended, to the Prussian ideal of a State. Nietzsche was too much\naverse from politics to intend such an application of his teaching,\nwhich is essentially individualistic, and he had nothing but contempt\nfor the bluster and philistinism of the Prussian State in particular. We\nmust admit, however, that in this unintentional way he contributed to\nthe formation of that German temper which led to the war. General von\nBernhardi's admiring references to his philosophy sufficiently show\nthis.\n\nBut Nietzsche's very limited influence on German thought cannot\nreasonably be quoted as justification of the common saying that Germany\nhad deserted Christianity for Paganism. Had such a statement been made\nbefore the war began, our divines would have indignantly repudiated it.\nThe truth is that all classes--Christian and non-Christian--have yielded\nfatally to the pernicious interpretation which interested politicians,\nsoldiers, manufacturers, and Jingoistic writers have put on the real\neconomic needs of the country. Of the Socialist and Catholic parties, in\nparticular, the two most powerfully organised bodies in Germany, we may\nsay that, in deserting their ideals, they have been partly deceived into\na real belief that Russia and England sought their destruction, and they\nhave partly yielded to that very old and familiar temptation--the desire\nto retain their numerical strength by compromising with their\nprinciples. In justice to the Socialists it should be added that that\nparty has furnished the only men and journals in Germany to raise any\nprotest against the madness of the nation. One of the most repulsive\nmoral traits in Germany to-day is, even when we have made the most\nliberal allowance for the painful and desperate circumstances of the\npeople, the astounding expression and cultivation of hatred. It has\ntranspired time after time that the _Vorwaerts_ has protested against\nthis. Not once has it been reported that the religious press or\nreligious ministers have protested. The new phrase that is officially\nsanctioned, \"God punish England,\" is a religious phrase that no\nNeo-Pagan could use. On the very day on which I write this page it is\nreported that Socialists have protested in the Reichstag against the\nofficial endorsement of outrages. We do not hear of any Christian\nprotest, from end to end of the campaign.\n\nYet I do not wish to disguise the fact that both Christians and\nnon-Christians share the guilt of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The real\ndifference between the two bodies appears when we take a broader view of\nthe war, and only in this way can any general indictment of Christianity\nbe formulated. Important as it is to determine the responsibility for\nthis war, it is even more important to conceive that the war is the\nnatural outcome of a system which Europe ought to have abolished ages\nago. We are not far from the time when, in spite of the official\nteaching of the Churches, every Christian nation maintained the practice\nof the duel which the Teutonic nations introduced fourteen centuries\nago. Although in Germany the Christian clergy have not the courage to\nassert their plain principles in opposition to the Emperor's barbaric\npatronage of the duel, the people of most civilised countries now regard\nthe duel as a crime. No one who surveys the whole stream of moral\ndevelopment can doubt that a time is coming when war, the duel of\nnations, will be regarded as an infinitely graver crime. The day is\nsurely over when sophists like Treitschke and callous soldiers like\nBernhardi could sing the praises of war. The pathetic picture drawn by\nour great novelist of a worthless young lord lying at the feet of his\nopponent touched England profoundly and hastened the end of the duel in\nthis country. If England, if the civilised world, be not even more\ndeeply touched by the descriptions we have read, week after week, of\ntens of thousands of braver and more innocent men lying in their blood,\nof all the desolation and sorrow that have been brought on whole\nkingdoms of Europe, one will be almost tempted to despair of the race.\nWar is the last and worst stain of barbarism on the escutcheon of\ncivilisation.\n\nThe question of real interest is, therefore, the historical question.\nThose of us who did not foresee this war until we were in the very\npenumbra of the tragedy cannot complain that our Christian neighbours\ndid not foresee and prevent it. Those of us who feel that the\nparticipation of our country is just and necessary may, with no strain\nof imagination, conceive the men of other countries equally persuading\nthemselves that the action of their country is just and necessary. But\nfrom the day when we awoke to an adult perception of the life of the\nworld we have been aware that the established system of settling\ninternational quarrels was barbaric and might in any year lead to just\nsuch a catastrophe. How comes it that such a system has survived fifteen\nhundred years of profound Christian influence? Whatever we may think of\nthe clergy of to-day, with the more powerful clergy of yesterday we have\na grave reckoning. The Rationalist is a new thing in Europe. The very\nname is little more than a century old, and until a few decades ago only\na few thousand would accept it. Not from such a new and struggling\nmovement do we ask why this military system has dominated Europe for\nages and has only in recent times been seriously challenged. During\nthose ages the Churches suffered none but themselves to pretend to a\nmoral influence over the life of the nations, nor were there many bold\nand independent enough to make the claim. It is of the Churches we ask\nwhy this appalling system has taken such deep root in the life of Europe\nthat it resists the most devoted efforts to eradicate it. It is not\n_this_ war, but war, that accuses the Churches. We are entangled in a\nsystem so widespread and so subtle that, when a war occurs, each nation\ncan persuade itself that it is acting on just grounds. It is the system\nwhich interests us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND WAR\n\n\nThe day will come when the student of human development will find war\none of the most remarkable institutions that ever entered and quitted\nhistory. Civilisation took it over from barbarism; barbarism from the\nsavage; the savage from the beast. So we are accustomed to argue, but we\nmust make a singular reservation. The lowest peoples of the human\nfamily, which seem to represent primitive man, do not wage war, and are\nlittle addicted to violence. They seem by some process of natural\nselection to have obtained the social quality of peacefulness and mutual\naid. There was, in a sense, a stage of primitive innocence. As, however,\nthese primitive peoples grew in numbers and were organised in tribes, as\nthey obtained collective possessions--flocks and pastures and hunting\ngrounds--they came into collision with each other, and all the old\npugnacity of the beast awoke. Skill, and even ferocity, in war became a\nvaluable social quality, and we get the stage of the savage. The\nbarbarian, or the man between savagery and civilisation, was still\ncompelled to fight for his possessions. He was usually surrounded by\nfierce savage tribes. The civilised man in turn was surrounded by\nsavages and barbarians, and needed to fight. So through thousands of\nyears of development of moral sentiment and legal procedure the\nprimitive method of the beast has been preserved.\n\nBut I am not writing a history of warfare, and need not describe these\nstages more closely, or examine the new sentiment of imperialist\nexpansion which gave civilisations a fresh incentive to develop methods\nof warfare. The point of interest is to determine at what stage it might\nhave been possible for the moral element to intervene and bid the\nwarriors, in the name of humanity, lay down their arms; at what stage\nthe tribunal which men had set up to adjudicate between the quarrels of\nindividuals might have been enlarged so as to be capable of arbitrating\non the quarrels of nations.\n\nNow this was plainly impossible in the early centuries of the present\nera, and it is therefore foolish to ask why Pagan moralists did not do\nwhat we expect Christian moralists to have done. I have already\nmentioned, and have fully described elsewhere, how humanitarian\nsentiments were generally diffused throughout the old Graeco-Roman world.\nThere is not a phrase of the New Testament which has not a parallel\namong the Jews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The great\nfusion of peoples in the Roman Empire begot a feeling of brotherhood,\nand, by a natural reaction on years of vice and violence, there was a\nconsiderable growth of lofty and tender, and often impracticable,\nsentiments. Moralists urged men to avoid anger, to bear blows with\ndignity, to greet all men as brothers, even to love their enemies. Plato\nand Epictetus and Plutarch and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius urged these\nmaxims as forcibly as Christ did. The Stoic religion or philosophy,\nwhich guided Emperors and lawyers, and had a very wide influence in the\nRoman world, was intensely and quite modernly humanitarian. Its\nprincipal exponents condemned slavery and promoted a remarkable spread\nof philanthropy.\n\nIt was, however, not possible for the Stoics to condemn war. Some of the\nmore ardent and less practical humanitarians of the time did this, but\nno alert Roman citizen could advocate the abolition of the legions. The\nEmpire was completely surrounded by barbarians who would rush in and\ntrample on its civilisation the moment the fence of spears was removed.\nFrom the turreted walls in the north of England, where men watched the\nPicts and Scots, to the deserts of Mesopotamia--from the banks of the\nDanube and Rhine to the spurs of the Atlas--it was essential to maintain\nthose bronzed legions who guarded the civilised provinces from\nmarauders. With those outlying barbarians no treaty was possible or\nsacred; no legal tribunal would have protected those frontiers from the\nmen who looked covetously on the fertile fields and comfortable cities\nof the Roman provinces. From the first to the fourth century Rome\nfought, not for its expansion, but for its preservation against these\nincreasing enemies; and it was the final intensification of the pressure\nin the Danube region by the arrival of enormous hordes of barbarians\nfrom Asia which precipitated the final catastrophe. Paganism had never\nthe slightest opportunity to abandon the military system, and only those\nwho are totally unacquainted with Roman history can wonder why it did\nnot make the attempt. It would have been a crime to abandon the\ncivilised provinces to barbarism.\n\nThis was the essential position of the Roman Empire: the civil wars of\nthe fourth century, by which its military system was abused, need not\nbe considered here. And the student of history must recognise with\nequal candour that the new Christianity, which succeeded Paganism in the\nfourth and fifth centuries, was equally powerless to abolish warfare.\nWhat we may justly blame is that the triumphant Christianity of the\nfourth century did not merely sanction the use of arms in defence of\ncivilisation; it employed them in its own interest. The earlier\nChristians had exasperated the Romans by refusing to bear arms in the\nservice of the Empire, plain as the need was. To a slight extent this\nwas due to an aversion from the shedding of blood; for the most part\nmilitary service was refused because it was saturated with Pagan rites.\nWhen the Empire became Christian, this objection was removed, and the\nChristians freely entered the army. Unhappily, the Christian body\ndeteriorated with the new prosperity and base instincts were indulged.\nIt is an undoubted historical fact, recorded by St. Jerome himself, that\nthe election of Pope Damasus, his friend and benefactor, was accompanied\nby bloody and fatal riots. From undoubted historical sources we know\nthat the Christian mob compelled the Prefect of Rome to fly from the\ncity, and there is very serious evidence (in a document written by two\nRoman priests) that Damasus employed the swords and staves of his\nsupporters to secure his position. Damasus and subsequent Popes then\nobtained or sanctioned the use of the Roman soldiers for the suppression\nof heresy and schism and Paganism, and Christianity was installed by\nviolence throughout the Empire. In the Eastern Roman Empire things were\neven worse. Violence became the customary device in the seething\nreligious quarrels of the time, and, literally, tens of thousands lost\ntheir lives. The Byzantine or Greek Christianity entered upon a record\nof crime and violence which disgraced it for many centuries.\n\nThis development did not augur well for the application of Christian\nprinciples to warfare. We may, however, observe at once that for many\ncenturies the Roman Church had not the slightest chance of establishing\npeace in Europe. The destruction of the Roman Empire and disbanding of\nits armies made an entirely new situation in Italy. The Popes were, for\nthe most part, good men, but they did not dream at that time of\ncontrolling the counsels of kings and dictating affairs of State. Even\nthe story of Pope Leo the Great overawing the King of the Huns, Attila,\nand turning his army away from Italy, is a mere legend of medieval\nwriters, and is at variance with the nearer authorities. The northern\ntribes themselves were to a great extent, and for some centuries, of the\nArian faith, and took no advice from Rome. In a word, it would be stupid\nto expect Christian leaders of the early Middle Ages to press the cause\nof peace. The northern peoples, who would in time form the nations of\nEurope, were essentially violent and warlike, and would have recognised\nno pacific counsels in that imperfect stage of their religious\ndevelopment.\n\nWhere the historian may and must censure the Church is in its adoption\nof militarism for its own purposes. Pope Gregory the Great found Italy\nin a chaotic and pitiful condition, and no doubt he acted, on the whole,\nrightly in organising its military defence. The more serious\ncircumstance was that he began to receive immense estates, as gifts or\nlegacies, in all parts of Italy as the property of the Roman Church, and\nfrom that time either a Papal army or the employment of the army of\nsome friendly monarch was necessary in order to protect these estates.\nWith the confirmation and consolidation of these estates into a kingdom\nunder Charlemagne in the ninth century the Papacy completed its moral\naberration. Most of the Popes were still men of good character, and they\nno doubt persuaded themselves that, since the income of these estates\nwas needed for the fulfilment of their spiritual task, it was proper to\ndefend them by the sword. But casuistry of this kind has never prospered\nindefinitely, and few historians will doubt that this temporal\ndevelopment led directly to that degradation of the Papacy which\nrendered it unfit to exercise moral influence on Europe. The Papacy\nbecame a princedom to attract the covetous and the ambitious, and the\nline of Popes sank so low by the tenth century that the grossest\ncharacters were able to occupy the chair of Peter at a time when the\nnations of Europe were sufficiently advanced to be susceptible of a\nsincere moral influence. The record of the Papacy, from the ninth\ncentury to the nineteenth, contains on almost every page a bloody\nstruggle for the temporal power. The most religious and most eminent of\nthe Popes, such as Gregory VII and Innocent III, were the most prompt to\nset in motion the machinery of war in defence of their territories or in\npunishment of rebels against their authority. Not one of them was in a\nposition to bid kings disband their armies, or ever dreamed of enjoining\nthem to do more than observe a few days' truce or keep their swords from\neach other in order to save them for the common enemy of Christendom.\n\nIt would be useless to speculate about the date when the new nations of\nEurope had become sufficiently civilised to hear a gospel of peace. The\nidea of superseding the military system of Europe by a juridical system\noccurred to no Christian leader, and therefore we need not consider what\nprospect it might have had of realisation. The Christian gospel of\nmeekness had become a mockery: even the great abbeys, in which the\ngentler and more religious were supposed to be immured, had their\ntroops, and abbots and bishops, and very often Papal Legates, appeared\nat the head of armies. Two Popes, John X and Julius II, marched\nthemselves at the head of their troops. Cardinals had their suites of\nswordsmen, and the castles of the Roman aristocracy were at times strong\nfortifications from which war of the most ferocious and unscrupulous\ncharacter was waged. Christendom was steeped in violence; only a gentle\nsaint or bishop here and there caught a futile vision of a world of\npeace. Every man was armed against possible trouble with his neighbour;\nevery noble had his retainers and kept them well exercised; every prince\nwas free, as far as the spiritual authorities were concerned, to covet\nand bloodily exact the lands of his neighbour. The noble, of either sex,\nfound supreme delight in jousts which the modern sentiment finds as\ninhuman as a sordid quarrel of _Apaches_ over a mistress; the peasants\nfound a corresponding pleasure in the play of quarter-staves or the\ncombats of dogs and cocks.\n\nIt is, as I said, little use to speculate about the chances of a gospel\nof humanity in such a world. The overwhelming majority of priests and\nprelates made no effort whatever to restrain the prevailing violence.\nThe elementary duty of any profound moral agency was to protest without\nceasing, even if the protest was unavailing. It is not at all clear that\nit would have been unavailing. The power of the Popes was beyond that\nof any other hierarchy known to history, and at least the moral\neducation of Europe would have proceeded less slowly, and war would have\nbeen abolished centuries ago, if there had been any serious, collective,\nand authoritative enforcement of Christian principles. There was not,\nand to this silence of the clergy during those long ages of their power\nwe owe the maintenance in Europe to-day of the regime of violence. They\nwere so far from enjoying moral inspiration in this respect that they\nwere amongst the first to bless the banners and swell the coffers of an\naggressive monarch, and they gave the military system a final\nconsecration by employing it repeatedly in the interests of the Church.\n\nAll that one can plead in mitigation of this deep historical censure of\nthe medieval Church is that the frontiers of Christendom were for\ncenturies threatened by the Turk and the Saracen. The old need of\nprotecting civilisation by arms had almost disappeared. Few and feeble\npeoples remained outside the range of Christian civilisation after the\ntenth century. Armies were maintained only in the interest of criminal\nambition or for the settlement of disputes which ought to have been\nsubmitted to judges. The menace of the Turk, with his hostile religion,\nwas, of course, a just ground for armaments, but a few nations generally\nbore the whole brunt of his onset. Whatever religious feeling may make\nof the great Crusades, which drew to the east armies from all parts of\nEurope, secular history must dismiss them as appalling blunders. The few\nadvantages they brought to European culture cannot seriously be weighed\nagainst the terrible sacrifice of lives and the even more terrible\nconsecration of militarism. In a word, the menace of the Turk could\nhave been met admirably by such an arrangement as we are advocating in\nEurope to-day: the maintenance of a small force by each nation for\ncommon action, under the direction of a supreme legal tribunal, against\nnations which would not obey the common law of peace. But we need not\nseriously discuss the influence of the Turk on the system. The last\nphases of the struggle, when the selfish nations and the ambitious\nPapacy spent their time in idle mutual recrimination and left the\nHungarians and Poles to do all the work, justify us in dismissing that\nelement. Kings and republics maintained armies for purely selfish\npurposes, for brutal aggression and defence against aggressors; and not\na prelate in Europe had any moral repugnance to the system, or ventured\nto condemn it, especially as the Church used the same agency in defence\nof its own temporal interests.\n\nWith the development of the Papal power and the advance of the peoples\nof Europe the opportunity of peace became greater, but the spiritual\nauthority pledged itself more and more deeply to the military system.\nThe Popes aspired--as Gregory VII and Innocent III repeatedly state--to\ncontrol the temporal as well as the spiritual affairs of Europe, to\ntransfer crowns when they thought fit, to direct invasions and military\nexpeditions against any who questioned their authority. Hildebrand\nboasts (_Ep._ vii, 23) that, when William of Normandy sent envoys to ask\nPope Alexander to sanction his unscrupulous invasion of England, and the\nPapal Court was itself too sensible of the enormity to give its\nsanction, he (Hildebrand) overbore the wavering Pope and forced him to\nbless the enterprise; and, when he had in his turn mounted the Papal\nthrone, he vehemently claimed that his action had made England a fief\nfor ever of the Holy See! Gregory VII and Innocent III are the two\ngreatest and most sincerely religions of the medieval Popes, and they\ncarried the power of the Papacy to a height which excites the amazement\nof the modern historian. But they were at the same time the most\nmilitant of the Popes, and on the least provocation they set\narmies--even the most barbaric and ferocious troops in Europe--in motion\nto carry out their imperial commands. They arrogated the power of\ndeposing monarchs, and thus encouraged civil war and the ambitions of\nneighbouring kings.\n\nThe rise of heresy and of protests against the corruption of the Papacy\nwas another very grave pretext of the Church to support the military\nsystem. In the days of Gregory VII a body of Puritans known as the\nPatareni spread over the north of Italy, and Rome encouraged a few\nsoldiers to lead armed mobs against them and drown their idealism in\nblood. Innocent III has a more terrible stigma on his record. The\nAlbigensians, an early type of Protestants, were spreading in the south\nof France, and the Pope sanctioned a \"crusade\"--an expedition, largely,\nof looters and cut-throats--against them from all parts of France. The\nappalling deceit practised by the Papal Legate and sanctioned by the\nPope, the ferocity of the campaign, and the desolation brought on one of\nthe happiest and most prosperous provinces of France, may be read in any\nhistory of the thirteenth century. Tens of thousands of men, women, and\nchildren were savagely put to death. And this was only the beginning of\nthe Papal war on heresy, which from the thirteenth century never ceased\nto spring up in Europe until it won its right of citizenship in the\nReformation. Even more vehemently was war urged against the Moors, then\nthe most civilised people in Europe.\n\nIn face of this notorious history of Europe during the long course of\nthe Middle Ages it is now usual for Catholic apologists to plead that\nthe blood of the barbarian still flowed in the veins of the Christian\nnations and men were not yet prepared to listen to the message of peace.\nThis plea cannot for a moment be admitted in extenuation of the Church's\nguilt. The clergy had themselves no conception of the criminality of\nwar, and did not rise above the moral level of their age. Here and there\na saint or a prelate raised a feeble voice against the violence of men,\nbut we do not estimate an institution by the words of an occasional\nmember, especially if they are at variance with the official conduct and\nthe general sentiment. On the other hand, to boast that the clergy at\ntimes enforced a temporary cessation of fighting (the \"Truce of God\")\nonly increases our appreciation of their guilt. The men who enforced\nthat Truce gave proof at once of their power and of their perception of\nthe un-Christian nature of warfare. But they were unwilling to condemn\noutright a machinery which they might employ at any moment in defence or\nadvancement of their own interests. Had the Church been a serious moral\ninfluence in Europe, had it been true to the message in virtue of which\nit had grown rich and powerful, it would have protested unceasingly\nagainst this reign of violence. It was not a great moral influence. The\ngrossness and illiteracy of the people, the appalling immorality of the\nclergy and monks and nuns, and this almost entire failure to apply\nChristian or ordinary human principles to the worst feature of the life\nof Europe, are terrible offsets to the little good it achieved. Europe\nwas steadily educated and encouraged, century after century, in the\nshedding of blood.\n\nThe Protestant is at times disposed to dismiss the whole sordid story\nwith the remark that this Roman Church was not Christianity at all. He\ncontrives to overlook the serious difficulty that, if the Roman Church\ndid not represent Christianity from the sixth century to the sixteenth,\nthere was, contrary to the promise of Christ, no Christianity in Europe\nfor a thousand years; and he surrenders all the wonderful art of the\nMiddle Ages (as he ought) to entirely non-Christian forces. That,\nhowever, does not concern me here. The slightest recollection of history\nwould warn the Protestant that the Reformation brought no improvement\nwhatever, as far as this reign of violence is concerned. The forces set\nup by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation fought each other for\nsome decades with the comparatively peaceful weapons of mutual abuse and\nheated argument. When it was perceived that these weapons were of no\navail, there was the customary appeal to the sword. In the historical\ndocuments which tell the life of Pope Paul IV we see the Papacy and the\nJesuits urging the Catholic princes to lead out their armies. Heresy was\nto be extinguished in blood; and, seeing how many millions in the north\nhad by that time embraced the heresy, there can have been no illusion as\nto the magnitude of the oceans of blood that would be required to drown\nit. So Europe entered upon the horrors of the Thirty Years' War\n(1618-1648), which put back the civilisation of Germany for more than a\nhundred years and utterly ruined some of the small principalities. The\npopulation of Bohemia alone fell from three millions to less than a\nmillion. Nearly every nation in Europe was involved, and the war was\nconducted with all the brutality of the older medieval warfare.\n\nThe fact that political as well as religious ambitions were engaged in\nthe Thirty Years' War does not affect my argument. In so far as\nreligious sentiment was responsible--and it will hardly be questioned\nthat it had a large share in the Thirty Years' War--we find a fresh\nconsecration by Christianity itself of the use of the sword. But the\nmain point we have to consider is that the new spiritual authorities\nwere no more inclined than the old to declare that warfare was opposed\nto Christian principles. The last three centuries have been as full of\naggressive war as the three centuries which preceded, but there was no\nprotest by Christian ministers either in Protestant England and\nScandinavia or in Catholic France and Austria. It was the period when\nthe modern Powers of Europe were building up their vast dominions, and\nno one who is acquainted with the story can have any illusion as to the\napplication to that process of what are now described as clear Christian\nprinciples.\n\nThis is precisely the plaint of modern Germany. We seek, they say, to do\nmerely what England and France--it were indiscreet to mention\nAustria--did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were\nvigorous peoples with an impulse to expand and to extend their\ncivilisation over backward lands. They appealed solely to the right of\nthe sword, and all the Christian authorities in Europe--the bishops of\nWilliam and of Anne, the bishops of Louis XIV, the bishops of Peter the\nGreat--had not a single syllable to say against the right of the sword.\nThe various branches of the Christian Church were at that time\nsingularly unanimous in accommodating their principles to imperialist\nand aggressive warfare. Now that you have obtained all that you\nneed--the aggrieved Teuton says--now that I in turn would expand and\ncolonise, you discover that this imperialist aggression is supremely\nopposed to Christian principles.\n\nOn some such meditations, in part, the German bases his conviction of\nthe hypocrisy and perfidy of the English character. He is, of course,\nentirely wrong. A real change has taken place in the moral sentiment of\nthis country; a change so real that when, in South Africa, the nation\nentered upon a war which many regarded as aggressive and merely\nacquisitive, there was a very widespread revolt. The cynic might\ngenially observe that it is not difficult to retire from evil-doing and\ncultivate lofty principles when your fortune has been made, but it is\nimportant to realise this change and understand its significance. There\nis, no doubt, a sound human element in the cynic's observation. It _is_\neasier to recognise moral principle when the period of temptation is\nover. Every thoughtful and humane Englishman will make allowance for the\nless fortunate position of Germany, and not foolishly pride himself on\nhis own superiority of character. The fact remains, however, that there\nhas been a real moral improvement in England and France, and it would\nnow be impossible for those nations to enter upon the aggressive and\nnakedly ambitious wars which they were accustomed to undertake before\nthe nineteenth century. We have a genuine abhorrence of the \"lust for\nland\" which has impelled Germany to plunge Europe into war. But until a\ncentury or two ago that lust for land was considered a legitimate\nappetite in Europe, and the clergy crowded with the people to greet the\nwarriors who came home with the news that they had added, by the sword,\none more province to our spreading Empire.\n\nThat this change of heart is not merely a feeling that we have no\nfurther need of aggression, and would ourselves suffer by the aggression\nof others, could easily be proved, if it were necessary. In the same\nperiod of change we abolished the duel, and there was no material\nadvantage in discovering the immorality of the duel. We abolished\ndog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and other brutalising\nspectacles. We undertook a reform of our industrial and penal systems\nwhich, however imperfect it be, was very considerable in itself, and was\ninspired solely by motives of humanity. There was a general and marked\nimprovement of public sentiment, and it is as part of this improvement\nthat we now find a universal condemnation of aggressive war and a\nwidespread demand for the entire abolition of war. The construction of\nEnglish history and English character on the lines of Mr. G. B. Shaw may\nbe entertaining, and may save considerable trouble of research, but it\ndoes not conduce to sound judgment. The laments of social pessimists and\nof certain religious controversialists are never supported by accurate\nknowledge. Every social historian who gives evidence of knowing the\nevils of the England of a century ago as well as the England of to-day\nadmits that there has been a great moral advance.\n\nI will examine in the next chapter certain comments of religious writers\nand speakers on this advance. Here I wish to determine the facts with\nsome clearness. It has not been necessary for me to discuss the medieval\nand the early modern period with any fullness. There is no dispute about\nthe features of those periods. They were ages of violence, of incessant\nand frankly aggressive war, of unrestrained ambition. The smallest\npretext sufficed for a monarch, if his forces and finances were in\norder, to invade his neighbour's territory and annex as much of it as\nhe could hold by the sword. Frederic the Great and Napoleon did not\nintroduce new ideas into Europe; they attempted to revive medieval ideas\nin a changing world. Austria in its annexation of Bosnia and\nHerzegovina, Germany in its ambition to annex Belgium and the colonies\nwhich other Powers have laboriously cultivated, are following their\nexample. They are not inventing new forms of criminality; they are not\nreturning to Pagan ideals: they are reverting merely to ideals which\nwere accepted throughout Europe for more than a thousand years. In the\nmore brutal features of war to which they have descended they are even\nmore emphatically reverting to the Middle Ages. The Romans did not\ncommit such outrages at the command of educated officers. Medieval\nChristians did: the record of Papal warfare, down to the \"Massacre of\nPerugia\" in 1859, is as deeply stained as any by these abominable\nmethods.\n\nMy further point, that the Christian Church or Churches made no serious\nresistance to the prevailing brutality, is just as easy to establish. It\nis a sheer travesty of argument to put forward the gentle exhortations\nof a Francis of Assisi as characteristic of the Christian Church when\nthe Pope of the time, one of the most powerful and conscientious Popes\nof all time, Innocent III, was threatening or directing the movements of\nferocious armies all over Europe. Most assuredly there were among the\nnumbers of fine characters who appeared in Christendom in the course of\na thousand years many who deeply resented the prevailing violence. But\nwhen we speak of the Church, we speak of its official action and its\npredominant sentiment. The official action of the Popes was, during all\nthat period, to make the same use as any terrestrial monarch of the\nservice of soldiers; they failed, from Gregory the Great to Pius X, to\nrecognise one of the supreme moral needs of Europe. The bishops of the\nChurch of England and the heads of the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches\ndid not prove to have any sounder moral inspiration in this respect. It\nwas left to despised bodies like the Friends, who were hardly recognised\nas Christians, and to rare individuals to protest against the system\nwhich has brought such appalling evil on Europe.\n\nIn the nineteenth century the moral sentiment of Europe began to advance\nmore rapidly than it had previously done, and the idea of substituting\narbitration for war began to spread. The history of this reform has not\nyet been written, as far as I can discover, but it is hardly likely that\nany will be bold enough to suggest that the idea was due to\nChristianity. After the Napoleonic wars, at least, Europe was ripe for\nsuch a reform. I do not mean that public feeling in Europe was prepared\nfor the idea. It would have met with a very considerable degree of\nresistance, and would have generally been conceived as the dream of an\namiable fanatic. Such resistance makes the duty of the moralist or the\nreformer all the more pressing, and it is merely amazing to hear the\nearlier Christian clergy exonerated on the ground that the world was not\nprepared to receive a message of peace from them. They did not try the\nexperiment because it did not occur to them, or because they were too\nclosely dependent on the monarchs of the earth to question the wisdom of\ntheir arrangements. Europe was, in point of fact, quite ripe for the\nchange in the second decade of the nineteenth century, and there would\nassuredly be no war to-day if the Churches had had the moral inspiration\nand the moral courage to insist on it. The frontiers of the nations were\n(except in the case of Italy and Poland) defined with a fair show of\njustice, and the time had come to disband armies and submit any future\nquarrel to arbitration: to retain only a small standing army in each\ncountry for the defence of its colonial frontiers against tribes which\ndo not respect arbitration, or for the enforcement of the decisions of\nthe central tribunal. The conditions were almost as favourable for such\na change in 1816 as they are to-day, or will be in 1916, and it is\nanother grave point in the indictment of Christianity that it had no\ninspiration to demand that change. The bishops of England no less than\nthe bishops of Rome were deeply concerned about the rise of democracy\nand the spread of unbelief, and they joined with the monarchs in\nenforcing a system of violent repression. For the larger and more real\nneed of Europe they had no feeling whatever, and militarism entered upon\nits last and most terrible phase: the stage of national armies and of\nmeans of destruction prepared with all the fearful skill of modern\nscience.\n\nAs the nineteenth century proceeded, humanitarianism attained clearer\nconceptions and more articulate speech. The scheme of substituting legal\nprocedure for military violence was definitely put before the world. It\nis not necessary, and would be difficult, to trace the earliest\ndevelopments of this idea. On the one hand, I find no claim that it was\nput forward by representatives of Christianity; on the other hand,\nliterary research among the records of the early Rationalist movements\nin this country has shown me that the idea was familiar and welcome\namongst them. No doubt the aversion of the Friends from bloodshed had\nsome influence, and we find representatives of that noble-minded Society\nactive in more than one of the early reform-movements. But, as far as I\ncan discover, it was Robert Owen who first definitely advanced the idea\nof substituting arbitration for war, and it was repeatedly discussed\namong the \"Rational Religion\" Societies--which were not at all\nreligious--that he founded or inspired in various parts of the country.\nThe immense influence which he obtained in the thirties and forties\nenabled him to direct public attention to the reform.\n\nThis early history is, however, as yet vague and unstudied, nor do we\nneed to enter into any ungenerous struggle about priority. It is enough\nthat the idealist scheme was well known in England long before the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century. Did the Christian Churches adopt and\nenforce it? Here, at least, no minute research is needed. The Christian\nbodies failed lamentably and totally (apart from the heterodox Friends)\neven to recognise the moral and humane greatness of the idea when it was\ndefinitely presented to them. It is only in the last few years that a\nPeace Sunday has--at the suggestion of lay associations--been adopted in\nthe churches and chapels of England. It is only in quite recent times\nthat bishops and ministers have stood on peace-platforms and advocated\nthe reform. And even to-day, when peace associations founded by laymen\nhave been endeavouring for decades to educate the country, no branch of\nthe Christian Church has officially and collectively decreed that\nChristian principles enjoin the reform; no Pope or Archbishop or Church\nCouncil has supported it with a stern and official injunction that\nChristian and moral principle demands that all the members of the\nparticular Church shall subscribe to and work for the reform. Even at\nthis eleventh hour, when the issue of peace or war confronts the whole\nof mankind, one notices hesitation, reserve, ambiguity. During the\nfateful years between 1900 and 1914, when the nations were, in the eyes\nof all, preparing the most appalling armaments ever known in history,\nwhen men were speaking freely all over Europe of \"the next war\" and the\nterrific dimensions which modern science and modern alliances would give\nto it, the various branches of the Christian Church adhered to their\nancient and futile practice of preaching general principles (as far as\nnational conduct is concerned), and had little practical influence on\nthe development.\n\nI am not unaware of the small movements among the clergy for cultivating\ninternational clerical friendship, or of the extent to which individual\nclergymen have co-operated in the various arbitration movements. That is\nonly a feeble discharge of a small part of their duty. Had Leo XIII or\nPius X issued a plain and explicit Encyclical on the subject, and\ndirected his vast international organisation of clergy to labour\nwholeheartedly for its realisation, who can estimate what the result\nwould have been? Had the clergy of Germany issued a stern and collective\ndenunciation of the Pan-German and Imperialist literature which was\ninstilling poison into every village of the country, can we suppose that\nit would have been without avail? Had the Archbishops and Bishops of\nEngland, and the leaders of the Free Churches, definitely instructed\ntheir people that the pacifist ideal was not merely in accord with\nChristian principles, but was one of the most urgent and beneficent\nreforms of our time, would the English people have passed as\ninobservantly as it did through the five years of preparation for a\ngreat war?\n\nIt is no part of my plan to analyse this deplorable failure of the\nChurches as moral agencies. The explanation would be complex, and is now\nsuperfluous. The clergy were, like the majority of their fellows,\nobsessed by the military system and unable to realise the possibility of\na change. In part they were deluded by the catch-words of superficial\nliterature. They had an idea that we were asking England to lower its\narmament while the rest of the world increased its armament. They\nmuttered that \"the time was not ripe,\" not realising that it was their\nbusiness to make it ripe. They had been accustomed for ages to preaching\na purely individualist morality, and they felt ill at ease in the larger\nsocial applications of moral principle which our age regards as more\nimportant. They feared to offend military supporters, and did not\nrealise that one may entirely honour the soldier as long as the military\nsystem lasts, yet resent the system. They felt that this new movement\nwas suspiciously hailed by Socialists, and that to denounce armies had\nan air of politics about it. They were peculiarly wedded to tradition,\non account of the very nature they claimed for their traditions, and\nthey instinctively felt that to denounce war would be to attempt to\nimprove, not merely on their predecessors, but on the Old and the New\nTestaments. They solaced themselves with the thought that unnecessary\nviolence was condemned in their general teaching, and that, if it\neventually transpired that war was unnecessary, they could point out\nonce more the all-embracing character of the Christian ethic. In fine,\nthey were for the greater part, like the greater part of their fellows,\nmentally indolent and indisposed to think out or fight for a new idea.\n\nWhatever the explanation, the fact remains. By the tenth century\nChristianity was fully organised, and all the peoples of Europe were\nChristian; by the thirteenth century the power of the Church was\nenormous and the nations of Europe were settled and civilised. But\nneither then nor at any later period did Christianity perceive the crime\nand stupidity of the prevailing system. The perception is even now only\nfaint and partial. It is this long toleration of the military system,\nthe thousand-year silence on what is now acclaimed as one of the\ngreatest applications of Christian principle, that one finds it\ndifficult or impossible to forgive. The zeal of some of the modern\nclergy is open to a certain not unnatural suspicion: in view of their\nshrinking authority and the growing indifference of the world to dogma\nand ritual, they have been forced to take up these new and larger ideas\nof our time.\n\nEven if one lays aside that suspicion, and in many cases it is quite\nunjust, the clergy must realise that the indictment of Christianity is\ngrave, and is almost unatonable. Those thousand years of conflict,\nduring which they sanctioned every variety of war and initiated many\nwars in their own interest, have given the military system such root in\nthe hearts of men that it will require a supreme and prolonged effort to\ndestroy it. The proverbial visitor from Mars would not be so much amazed\nat any feature of our life as at this retention amid a great\ncivilisation of the barbaric method of settling international\ndifferences. He would ask in astonishment how an intelligent and\ngenerally humane race, a race which raises homes for stray cats and aged\nhorses, could cling to a system which, on infallible experience, plunges\none or more countries in the deepest suffering every few years. He would\nlearn that there has not been a war in Europe for a hundred years the\ninitial cause of which would not have been better appreciated and\nadjudicated on by a body of impartial lawyers; and that, if the quarrels\nhad thus been submitted to arbitration, we should have saved (including\nthe annual military expenditure and the cost of the present war) some\nthree million lives and more than L15,000,000,000--since the end of the\nNapoleonic wars. In answer to the amazement of this imaginary critic, we\ncould reply only that Europe has grown to regard the military system as\nso permanent and unquestioned an institution of our civilisation that it\nsimply cannot imagine the abolition of that system.\n\nFor this incapacity, this widespread inertia, this blundering idea that\nthere is some serious intrinsic difficulty in the matter, the Churches\nare responsible. If they had directed to war the smallest particle of\nthe ardent rhetoric they have poured on disbelief in dogmas which they\nare to-day abandoning, the public mind would have awakened long ago.\nThere is no intrinsic difficulty in substituting arbitration for war.\nThere are technical difficulties which the great lawyers and statesmen\nof the peace-movement have given ample promise of surmounting, but the\noverwhelming obstacle is merely this--the peoples of Europe do not\ninsist on the reform. Of all the large problems which confront the\nmodern mind this is incomparably the simplest. We are hopelessly divided\nas to the nature of the remedy for most of our social ills. Here the\nremedy is acknowledged: the plan has been elaborated almost in entirety:\nthe international tribunal already exists, and awaits only its\nexecutive, which the nations of Europe could supply to-morrow. It is the\nwill, the demand, that is wanting. For that lack we charge the utter\nfailure of the Churches during the ages of their power to enunciate a\nplain moral lesson, and their positive encouragement of an evil system.\nThat is the real indictment. It affects the Christian Church in every\nnation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE APOLOGIES OF THE CLERGY\n\n\nAny person who cares to read the reports of the utterances of our clergy\nin the current religious periodicals will recognise that they are\npainfully conscious of the reproach which this war implies. One\nconstantly finds them repeating that in this year of tragedy\n\"Christianity has failed\" and \"the gospel has broken in our hands.\" It\nhad been their boast that Christianity had civilised Europe, and none of\nthem has the audacity or indecency to claim, as some writers have done,\nthat such a war is in harmony with the principles and ideals of\ncivilisation. They have preached brotherhood and peace, and the greater\npart of Christendom is engaged in a strife of the most terrible nature.\nIt is not a struggle of Christian and infidel; it is a struggle of\nChristian and Christian, and one or several of the Christian nations\ninvolved are guilty of a crime greater in magnitude than all the murders\nin Europe during a decade. Above all patriotism, above all immediate\nanxiety, above all argumentation about responsibility, this grim fact\nstands out and reproaches them: after fifteen hundred years of Christian\npreaching Europe is locked in the bloodiest struggle of all time.\n\nDuring the last fifty or hundred years the clergy have developed some\nexpertness in making apologies. They have lived in a world of anxious\nquestions and heated charges, and a special department called\nApologetics has been added to theology. They are, it is true, sorely\nperplexed, divided in counsel, uneasy as to their procedure. Some would\nignore the pertinacious outsider and persuade their followers that he is\nnegligible; others would sustain an energetic campaign against him. Some\nwould openly and candidly meet the questions of their followers; others\nwould prefer not to unsettle the large number who never ask questions.\nAt the present juncture it is impossible to be wholly silent. Some of\nthe clergy, it seems--I learn this from the recorded words of eminent\npreachers--wish to ignore the war and go on with their business as\nusual. But the majority feel that such a procedure is dangerous. This\nviolent breach of Christian principles by Christian nations requires\nsome explanation. Where is the long-boasted moral influence of\nChristianity? Where is the all-loving ruler of the universe? Let us\nexamine some of the apologies of the preachers.\n\nLet me confess that, from a long experience of this apologetic branch of\ntheology, I am not surprised to find that not a single speaker or\nwriter--as far as my reading of their utterances goes--fairly meets the\nmain difficulty. Most of them, naturally, are content to plead that the\nwar has been forced on Europe by Germany, and that therefore no\nresponsibility lies on Christianity as a whole for the tragedy and the\nmoral failure it involves. A large number of them go even farther. They\npoint to the heroic sacrifices made in defence of an ideal by France,\nBelgium, England, and Russia--the millions of men streaming to the\nbattle-field, the millions of women bravely enduring the suspense and\nthe loss, the millions who generously open their purses to every\nphilanthropic enterprise--and they acclaim this as a triumph of\nChristian civilisation. As to the failure of Christianity in Germany to\nstand the test, they either point superficially to the growth of\nRationalism, Biblical Criticism, and Socialism in that country, or they\ntake refuge in the confusions of the extreme pacifists and refuse to\nassign responsibility at all, or they persuade themselves that a small\nminority of men who were not Christians deluded the German people into\nconsenting to the war. In any case, they insist that Christianity as a\nwhole is not impeached. Assume that Austria was dragged into the war by\nGermany, and you have four Christian nations--five, if one includes\nSerbia--behaving with great gallantry and entire propriety, and only one\nChristian nation misbehaving.\n\nThere is no doubt that this is the common religious attitude, but it\ndoes not satisfy some of the more thoughtful and earnest preachers. This\noptimism seems to them rebuked by the very fact that Christendom is in a\nstate of war to which Paganism can offer no parallel. They think of the\nlands beyond the sea to which they have been sending the Christian\nmessage of peace and brotherhood. They fancy they see China and Japan\nsmiling their faint but distressing smile at the situation in Christian\nEurope. They have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has\nbuilt up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and\nquiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of\nfierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by\nChristians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down in\nEurope, they regretfully admit.\n\nBut they never go beyond this vague admission and boldly state the sin\nof the Churches. One would imagine that, in spite of its obvious and\nlamentable failure, they still thought that their predecessors had been\njustified in preaching only the general terms of the Christian gospel\nand never applying it to war. One would fancy that they are so\nunacquainted with history as to suppose that during the long ages of the\npast the Churches were really frowning on violence and warfare, instead\nof blessing and employing it. They fear to draw out in its full\nproportion the inefficacy (because of its vagueness) of the gospel and\nthe long perversion of its ministers. Yet we cannot evade this\nfundamental fact of the situation, that this particular war is an\noutcome of a general military system, and the Churches have a very grave\nresponsibility for the maintenance of that system until the twentieth\ncentury. We all know how the technical moral theologian of recent times\nhas glossed the complacency of his Church. He has drawn a distinction\nbetween offensive and defensive war, and, since the latter is obviously\njust, he has maintained that armies are rightly raised to wage it when\nnecessary. On this petty fallacy the Churches have so long reconciled\nthemselves to militarism, and have, in fact, been amongst its closest\nallies. The clergy did not, or would not, see that the retention of the\nmilitary system was in itself the surest provocation of offensive war;\nthat ambition or covetousness could almost always find a moral pretext\nfor aggression, and that there have been comparatively few priests in\nthe history of Europe who ever stood out and unmasked the hypocrisy of\nsuch monarchs. As long as the military system lasted, it was certain\nthat wars would take place, yet they never denounced the system. The\ngreat conception of substituting justice for violence, law for\nlawlessness, did not enter the mind of Christianity. It was born of the\nsecular humanitarian spirit of modern times.\n\nFor any serious person this is the gravest charge which the clergy have\nto meet, and they one and all evade it. The civilisation of Europe has a\nunique greatness on its material side; in its applied science, its\nengineering, its industries, its commerce. For that, assuredly, the\nChurches are not in any degree responsible. Our civilisation is unique\nalso in its political power, its mastery over other peoples; and for\nthat again the Churches are not responsible. It is great on the\nintellectual side, in its science and philosophy, its art and general\nculture; and that greatness, too, has been won independently of, or in\ndefiance of, the clergy. On the moral side only it may plausibly be\nconnected with its established religion, and here precisely it fails and\napproaches barbarism. I do not wonder that the Churches are troubled,\nand do not wonder greatly that they are silent.\n\nBut while they are silent on the main issue, they have a vast amount to\nsay about minor issues and secondary aspects. They console and reconcile\ntheir people in a hundred ways. Actually they seem, in a great measure,\nto entertain the idea that the Churches are going to emerge from this\ntrial stronger than ever, and to witness at last that religious revival\nwhich they had almost begun to despair of securing. Let me examine a few\nof these clerical pronouncements. I do not choose the eccentric sermons\nof ill-educated rural preachers, but the utterances of some of the more\ndistinguished preachers, reproduced with pride and honour in the leading\nreligious periodicals. Yet no person can coldly reflect on these\npronouncements and fail to realise that our generation acts not\nunnaturally in passing by the open doors of the Churches; that the\nclergy are, as usual, shirking the most serious questions of the modern\nintelligence, and trusting mainly to profit by the heated and disordered\nand confusing emotions of the hour.\n\nOne of the most extraordinary of these deliverances reaches me from\nAustralia, but as it comes from one of the leading prelates of the\nCommonwealth and does assuredly express what multitudes of preachers are\nsaying everywhere, I do not hesitate to give it prominence. Archbishop\nCarr, of Melbourne, set out in the middle of the war to enlighten his\nfollowers, and his words are reported with great deference in the\nMelbourne _Age_ (December 28th). The prelate observed that he had \"very\nstrong ideas about the war\" (I quote the words of the _Age_), and \"did\nnot believe it had happened by accident, or by the chance action of some\nking or emperor.\" He believed that \"the great God who provided for all\nhuman creatures, through the war was punishing sin that had prevailed\nfor a long time, particularly in the shape of infidelity.\" The\nArchbishop proved from history and the Bible that war did come sometimes\nas a punishment of sin, and he concluded, or the journal thus summarises\nhis conclusion:\n\n     \"The reason that God was using the present war for the punishment\n     of the nations was that for a very considerable time there had been\n     not merely neglect of the worship and service of God, which had\n     always existed to a greater or less extent, but a regular upraising\n     of human light and human understanding and human will against the\n     existence of the providence of God. It was not so common among us\n     here [it is just as common], but there were countries in Europe in\n     which the spirit of infidelity and the absence of supernatural\n     faith had been increasing for many years. Men were coming to think\n     they were quite sufficient in themselves for the working out of\n     their own destinies, but the war had come, and it was humbling such\n     men.\"\n\nArchbishop Carr is not adduced here as a representative type of clerical\nculture. On what grounds the Roman Catholic authorities select men like\nhim and the late Cardinal Moran to preside over the destinies of their\nChurch in our great and promising Commonwealth is not clear. In the\ncourse of this important sermon, in which he is delivering his very\npersonal and mature conclusions on the greatest issue of the hour, the\nArchbishop observed that \"the Roman Empire had been attacked by Attila\"\nand \"Attila scourged the Romans for the crimes of which they had for a\nlong while been guilty.\" One is surprised that he did not add the pretty\nlegend of the awe-stricken Hun retreating before the majestic figure of\nPope Leo I. However, most of us are aware that, as a student in any\ncollege of Australia ought to be able to inform the Archbishop, Attila\nnever reached within two hundred miles of Rome, and that the Pagan\nRomans, whom the Archbishop obviously has in mind, had been extinguished\nlong before the monarch of the Huns was born. There is no greater\nhistorical scholarship in the other proofs which the prelate brings in\nsupport of his thesis that war is often deliberately sent as a\npunishment.\n\nBut what are we to make of the moral standards of an eminent prelate of\nthe Roman Church who can hold and express so appalling a theory? It is\nbased on the moral standard of the Prussian officer, of the medieval\ntorturer. The majority of clergymen have at length come to realise,\ntardily and reluctantly, that the man or woman who rejects the creeds\nthey offer may quite possibly not believe in them. The practice of\ndescribing a refusal to assent to the doctrine of hell and heaven as a\nwilful rebellion of passion against the restraining influences of\nChristianity is going out of fashion. Christian people were meeting too\nmany heretics in the flesh, and did not recognise the thing described\nfrom the pulpit. The sturdy Archbishop will have none of this pampering.\nUnbelief is a matter of the will as well as the understanding. And he\nactually believes that God guided the thoughts of William II in\nengineering this war--believes it for a reason a hundred times worse\nthan the Kaiser's idea. He believes that God sent on Europe a war that\nwill cost L10,000,000,000, that is blasting the homes and embittering\nthe hearts of millions, that mingles the innocent and guilty in one\ncommon and fearful desolation, that sends millions to a premature death\namidst circumstances which do not lend themselves to a devout\npreparation, that is raising storms of hatred and perverting the souls\nof millions, because a few other millions refuse to go to church. It\nwould be difficult to conceive a cruder and more barbarous idea. Attila\ndid not scourge the Romans, but he did scourge other peoples; and we\nhold him up to execration for ever for it. But Archbishop Carr, and many\nother preachers, think that an all-holy and all-intelligent God can do\ninfinitely worse than Attila. He is going to punish the unbelievers in\neternal fire when they die: meantime he will make a hell on earth for\nthe innocent as well as the supposed guilty, the child and the mother as\nwell as the free-thinking father. Of a truth, it is not surprising that\na reluctance to listen to sermons has spread to Melbourne, and that men\nare wondering whether they had better not take in hand their own\ndestinies rather than entrust them to such spiritual guides as this.\n\nNote, particularly, in passing the emphasis which the Archbishop puts on\nthe determination of our generation to control its own destinies. Until\nthe nineteenth century men entrusted their destinies, on the moral side,\nto guides like Archbishop Carr. I have described the result. In the\nnineteenth century there began this practice, which the Archbishop\nthinks worthy of so inhuman a chastisement, of men attending to their\nown moral interests. Of this also I have described the result. The moral\nsentiment of Europe has greatly improved, and there is at least a\nwidespread revolt against warfare and a prospect of abolishing it. For\nthis God, the more than human, scorched Europe with the horrible flames\nwhich Archbishop Carr thinks he keeps in his arsenal of\ntorture-implements. The Archbishop says that infidelity has not spread\nso much in Australia. I should, if I were not well acquainted with the\nCommonwealth, be disposed to see in that the reason why eminent prelates\ncan still utter such gross medieval nonsense in that country.\n\nIn England this particularly crude type of nonsense is not usually\nuttered by preachers of distinction,[2] though it is common enough among\nless responsible preachers; but there is a dangerous approach to it in\nsome of the sermons which the religious periodicals regard as\nimportant. Looking over the current issues of the religious press, I\nnotice a sermon on the war by Professor Clow, in which the Allies are,\nin harmony with his test, described as \"the vultures of God.\" Germany,\nit seems, is the prey, and Germany's sins are painted black. Professor\nClow, it is true, shrinks from the very natural implication of his\nwords, but he clearly intimates that he sees the action of God in the\nmilitary conduct of the Allies, and to that extent he is hardly less\nrevolting, in view of his culture, than the archbishop. Could the God of\nProfessor Clow find no other way of removing Germany's arrogance than to\nsear and blast it with a world-war and involve millions of innocent\nalong with the guilty in his lakes of fire and blood?\n\nMore important, however, is a sermon delivered before the recent\nNational Free Church Council by one of the most esteemed Nonconformist\npreachers, the Rev. J. H. Rushbrooke, and reproduced admiringly in the\nNonconformist journals. The cloud of war, naturally, brooded over this\ngathering of ministers. Some of them heroically closed their eyes to it\nand went on with their clerical business as usual. But most of the\nspeakers seem to have felt that all other issues were thrust aside in\nthe minds of their followers just now, and that a grave and soul-shaking\nquestion possessed them. As a result we have, I suppose, the finest\nefforts of Nonconformity to meet that question and save the prestige of\nthe Churches.\n\nMr. Rushbrooke frankly described the war as an overwhelming catastrophe,\ngravely disturbing the religious mind. It bore witness, he said, to \"the\nfailure of organised, or disorganised, Christianity.\" He conceived it as\n\"God's judgment upon the Church's failure seriously to devote herself\nto the great cause of peace on earth and good-will among men.\" With all\ntheir boasts of what Christianity had done in Europe, it now appeared\nthat that civilisation was raised upon \"foundations of sand.\" The\npreacher claimed that much was being done in modern times by the clergy\nto promote international amity, but he seemed to feel that it was little\nand was _very_ recent. The spectacle unfolded before us in Europe to-day\nis a sufficient proof of its inadequacy. And, as Mr. Rushbrooke said, we\nnow see how little use it is to preach ideals at home and not apply them\nto the common life of the world.\n\nThese words are the nearest to wisdom that I have found among a large\ncollection of pulpit-utterances and religious articles. The preacher\nplainly sees, and with some measure of candour confesses, that long\nremissness of Christian ministers in applying their principles to which\nthe war, and all wars, are fundamentally due. The record which he\ncarefully makes of recent efforts to redeem the failure is paltry in\ncomparison with the resources even of the Free Churches, and only serves\nto bring out more clearly the awful neglect of Christian ministers\nduring the long ages when they had a mighty power in Europe. But Mr.\nRushbrooke makes one grave error. He feels that not merely the relation\nof the war to Christianity, but its relation to God, is engaging public\nattention, and he stumbles into the theory that God sent the war. It is\n\"God's judgment on the Church's failure.\" We must suppose that Mr.\nRushbrooke did not literally mean what he said. His words imply a theory\nof the war more monstrous even than that of Archbishop Carr. To punish\nEurope for the sins of unbelievers has at least a genuine medieval\nplausibility about it; but to send this indescribable plague on the\nnations of Europe because the clergy failed to do their duty.... One\nmust really assume that Mr. Rushbrooke did not mean what he said, and\nleave the sentence unfinished. What he meant it is impossible to\nconjecture. To the religious mind \"God's judgment\" means a chastisement\nsent by God. But, whatever Mr. Rushbrooke meant, he had been wiser to\nleave the idea of God out of his comments on this war, and to say\nfrankly that it would bring on them and on their predecessors, on the\nwhole of Christianity, the judgment of man and the judgment of history\nfor their neglect of their opportunities.\n\nThe Rev. A. T. Guttery addressed the Council in a more cheerful mood,\nand his reflections are characteristic of a large group of the clergy.\nHe would not for a moment allow the failure of Christianity. The\nChurches had, he said, been so successful in compelling the world to\nrecognise the evil of aggressive warfare that even the Germans were\neager to describe their action as purely defensive. \"The Pagan glory of\nwar for its own sake was gone.\" And when we acknowledge the comparative\nfailure of religion in Germany, and restrict our attention to the sphere\nof our own clergy, we find that they have created an entirely new\nspirit. The lust for territory and for gold is felt no more in England.\nHere there is no mafficking over victories, there are no hymns of hate.\nThe British nation has been sobered by the influence of Christianity. We\nmay regret that the German people has not proved equally susceptible,\nand its pastors equally energetic, but we cannot bear their burden.\nTheir naughtiness alone has disturbed the moral progress which, even in\nthis department, Christianity was fostering.\n\nThis is, I think, a very usual attitude of the clergy, and I have\nalready appreciated the sound element of it. There is no comparison\nbetween the behaviour of the two nations. Whether England deserves quite\nall the compliments which Mr. Guttery showers upon it may be a matter of\nopinion. We have as yet little cause for \"mafficking,\" but there is very\nlittle doubt that it will occur on a grandiose scale before the war is\nover. We do not sing hymns of hate; but it might be hazardous to\nspeculate what we would do if some nation drew an iron ring round our\ncountry and reduced us almost to a condition of starvation. We have no\nlust for territory--I am not sure about the lust for gold--because we\nhave in our Empire territory enough for our population; and we may wait\nto see if England does not annex any part of Germany's African or\nPacific possessions. Mr. Guttery's contrast is crude and superficial. He\nignores the economic and geographical conditions which give us a feeling\nof content and Germany a profound feeling of discontent and a dangerous\nambition. The German character is not in itself inferior to ours, and it\nwere well for us to fancy ourselves in Germany's position and wonder if\nwe would have acted otherwise.\n\nOn the other hand, I have freely acknowledged, or claimed, that there\nhas been a great improvement in the moral temper of Europe, and that\nthis is especially seen in the odium that is now cast on aggressive or\noffensive war. But to claim this improvement for the credit of religion\nis, to say the least, audacious. The more simple-minded of Mr. Guttery's\nhearers would imagine that the change set in with the fall of Paganism.\n\"The Pagan glory of war for its own sake is gone.\" When clerical writers\nspeak of Paganism they think that any evil deed ever done by a Pagan is\ncharacteristic of the whole body; they ask us to apply a different\nstandard to their own body. Plato and Socrates were Pagans; Marcus\nAurelius and Antoninus Pius--to speak of warriors and statesmen--were\nPagans. The truth is that a glory in war for its own sake was no more\ngenerally characteristic of Paganism than it was of Christian Europe\nuntil a century ago: it was probably less. Most of the German Emperors\nand of the Kings of England, France, and Spain would fairly come under\nthe description which Mr. Guttery calls Pagan. One hardly needs to know\nmuch of history to perceive that this moral improvement in the\nconception of war belongs to the last century and a half, and it is\nsomewhat bold to claim that a change which made no appearance during a\nthousand years of profound Christian influence, and did begin to appear\nand make progress as that faith waned, can be claimed for Christianity.\nI do not forget that the theologian began long ago, in the seclusion of\nhis cell or study, to condemn offensive warfare. But there have been\nhundreds of offensive wars waged by Christian monarchs since that date,\nand we do not read of any instance in which the clergy failed to endorse\nthe thin casuistry by which the offensive was turned into a defensive or\na preventive war, or refused to sanction an entire neglect of the\nprinciple.\n\nDr. Scott-Lidgett followed on somewhat similar lines. The whole trouble,\nhe protested, was due to an anti-Christian, illiberal, and inhuman\nsystem. It seems that he was referring to Prussia, and it is regrettable\nthat he did not feel called to explain why that system prevails in the\nyear of the Lord 1915, or how it finds an instrument of its ambition in\na militarism that ought to have been denounced and abolished centuries\nago. Mr. Shakespeare, another distinguished Nonconformist, follows the\nsame facile course--casts all the responsibility on Germany--and equally\nfails to explain how Germany came to find the machinery of destruction\nat its hand in our age.\n\nIn fine, Dean Welldon, one of the most energetic spokesmen of the Church\nof England, addressed this Free Church Council, and imparted an element\nof originality. He used the inconclusive and dangerous argument of _tu\nquoque_. If, he said, you claim that this war exhibits the failure of\nChristianity, you must admit that it shows equally the failure of\nscience and civilisation. Nay, he says, growing bolder, if your\ncontention is true, Christianity has done no more than supply the\ninstrument of its own destruction, but science and civilisation have\nbrought us back to savagery.\n\nIt is, of course, difficult to follow a man's rounded thought in the\ncrabbed phrases of an abbreviating reporter, but it is plain that Dean\nWelldon has here been guilty of a confusion which only betrays his\napologetic poverty in face of this great crisis. Science--and it is\nespecially science that the clergy conceive as the rival they have to\ndiscredit--has no concern whatever with the war. Science, either as an\norganised body of teachers or as a branch of culture, has never\ndiscussed war, and never had the faintest duty or opportunity to do so.\nEconomic science may discuss particular aspects of war, but the\neconomist deals with things as they are, not as they ought to be. Moral\nscience even is not a preaching agency, desirous of dividing with the\nclergy the ethical guidance of the people. When men pit science against\nreligion, they usually refer to its superior power of explaining\nreality. And if it be objected that therefore no morally educative\nagency would remain if religion were discarded, the answer is simple. A\nsystem of moral idealism founded on science--it is absurd to call it\nscience--does exist, and might at any time be enlarged to the\nproportions of a national or international educative agency. As yet it\nis left to individual cultivation or crystallised in a few tiny\nassociations, such as Ethical and Secularist and, partly, Socialist\nSocieties; and I venture to say, from a large experience of these\nbodies, that, apart from the professed peace societies, they have been\nmore assiduous than any religious associations in England, in proportion\nto their work, in demanding the substitution of arbitration for war, and\nthat the overwhelming majority, almost the entirety, of their members\nare pacifists. To speak of this small organised force, with its slender\ninfluence, as equally discredited with the far mightier and\nthousand-year-older influence of the Churches would be strangely\nincongruous; and it is hardly less incongruous to drag science into the\ncomparison.\n\nA somewhat similar distinction must be observed in regard to\ncivilisation. The antithesis of religion and civilisation is confused\nand confusing. Christian ministers have claimed that _they_ are the\nmoral element of civilisation, and they have jealously combated every\neffort to take from them or divide with them that function. They resist\nevery attempt to exclude their almost useless Bible-lessons from our\nschools, and to substitute for them a direct and more practical moral\neducation of children. They have for fifteen hundred years claimed and\npossessed the monopoly of ethical culture in European civilisation, and\nwe are a little puzzled when they turn round and say, with an air of\nargument, that if Christianity has failed civilisation also has failed.\nThere is only one civilisation in Europe that has attempted to\nsubstitute a humanitarian for a religious training of conduct; one\nnation that is plainly and overwhelmingly non-Christian. That nation is\nFrance. And France has one of the best moral records in modern Europe,\nand has behaved nobly throughout this lamentable business. In fine, if\nwe take Dean Welldon's words in the most generous sense, if we assume\nthat he refers to the whole body of culture and sentiment which, in our\ntime, aspires to mould and direct the race apart from Christian\ndoctrine, the answer has already been given. Christianity is, as a power\nin Europe, fourteen centuries old; this humanitarianism is hardly a\ncentury old. But there has surely been more progress made during this\nlast century toward the destruction of the military system, and more\nprogress in the elimination of brutality from war, than in the whole\npreceding thirteen centuries. Does Dean Welldon doubt that? Or does he\nregard it as a mere coincidence?\n\nThus, whether we turn to Churchman or Nonconformist, to cleric or\nlayman, we find no satisfactory apology. I have before me a short\narticle by Mr. Max Pemberton on the question, \"Will Christianity survive\nthe war?\" He uses the most consecrated phrases of the Church, and leaves\nno doubt whatever that he writes in defence of Christianity. But Mr.\nPemberton practically confines himself to a very emphatic personal\nassurance that Christianity _will_ survive the war, and does not\nhonestly face a single one of the questions of \"the Pagan\" against whom\nhe is writing. He does make one serious point of a peculiar character.\nThere are, he says, \"23,000 priests fighting for France in the\ntrenches.\" Mr. Pemberton seems to find it easy to accept the interested\nstatements of those Roman Catholic journalists who make sectarian use of\nsome of the London dailies. There are only about 30,000 priests in\nFrance, and, since none of them are younger than twenty-three, to\nsuppose that seventy-five per cent. of them are of military age is to\ntake a remarkable view of the population of France. In any case, there\nis no special ground for rhapsody. They are not volunteers; in France\nevery man must do his civic duty. We may appreciate their devotion to\ntheir religion on the battle-field, but Mr. Pemberton must be\nimperfectly acquainted with the French character if he supposes that the\nthirty-four million unbelievers of France are going to return to the\nChurch because the younger _cures_ did not try to evade the military\nservice which the State imposed on them.\n\nAnother document I may quote is a manifesto issued by the \"Hampstead\nEvangelical Free Church Council,\" a joint declaration of the principal\nNonconformist ministers of that highly cultivated suburb. It does not\npurport to vindicate the Churches, yet some of its observations in\nconnection with the war open out a new page of apologetics. These\nclergymen invite all the citizens of their district, on the ground of\nthe war, to attend church, even if they have not been in the habit of\ndoing so. On what more precise ground? The able lawyer who received this\ninvitation, and forwarded it to me, thought it, not the most ingenious,\nbut the most curious, piece of pleading he had ever known. The citizens\nof Hampstead were invited to go to church \"to offer up to God a\nsacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for his goodness to us as a\nnation\"! At the very time the eminent preachers were writing this, the\ndarkened city still cowered under the threat of a horrible outrage; the\nshattered homes and fresh graves of Scarborough and Whitby reminded us\nfaintly of the horrors beyond the sea; the maimed soldiers all over the\ncountry, the sad figures of the bereaved, the anxious hearts of a\nmillion of our people, were but a beginning of the evil that had fallen\non us. We had in fourteen years, since the last war, been obliged to\nspend a thousand millions sterling in preparation for a war we did not\ndesire, and we were entering upon an expenditure of something more than\na thousand millions in a year. All this we had incurred through no fault\nof ours. And these clergymen thought it a good opportunity to invite us\nto go to church to thank God for \"his goodness to us as a nation.\"\n\nAnother manifesto is signed by a body of archbishops and bishops of the\nAnglican Church. It enjoined all the faithful to supplicate the Almighty\non January 3rd to stop the war. This was to be done \"all round the\nEmpire.\" I will not indulge in any cheap sarcasm as to the result,\nthough one would probably be right in saying that, if the end be\ndeferred to the year 1917, they will still believe that their prayers\nhad effect. What it is more material to notice is that the prelates\nthink that \"these are days of great spiritual opportunity.\" It seems\nthat \"the shattering of so much that seemed established reveals the\nvanity of human affairs,\" and that \"anxiety, separation, and loss have\nmade many hearts sensible of the approach of Christ to the soul.\" It is,\nperhaps, unkind to examine this emotional language from an intellectual\npoint of view, but one feels that there is a subtle element of apology\nin it. These spiritual advantages may outweigh the secular pain; may\neven justify God's share in the great catastrophe. I have examined, and\nwill discuss more fully in the next chapter, the theistic side of this\nplea. Intellectually, it borders on monstrosity: it is the survival of\nan ancient and barbaric conception. The notion that \"the approach of\nChrist to the soul\" is felt especially in time of affliction is merely a\nstatement of a certain type of emotional experience, while the\nrevelation of \"the vanity of human affairs\" is sheer perversity. Human\naffairs have for ages been so badly managed, in this respect, that we\ncannot in a decade or a century rid ourselves of such a legacy. The real\nmoral is to discover who were responsible for that legacy of disorder\nand violence, and to put our affairs on a new and sounder basis.\n\nA considerable number of clerical writers proceed on the suggestion\ndiscreetly advanced by these Anglican prelates. Let us wait, they ask,\nuntil the clouds of war have rolled away, and then estimate the\nspiritual gain to men from the trial through which they have passed, and\nthe closer association of the Churches which it may bring about. Now I\nhave no doubt that many who really believe the doctrines of\nChristianity, yet have for years neglected the duties which their belief\nimposes on them, will be induced by this awful experience to return to\nallegiance. The number is limited, and an equal or greater number may\nbe, and probably will be, induced to surrender religion entirely, and\nwith good reason, by the reflections with which this war inspires them.\nBut to insinuate that this spiritual advantage, if it be an advantage,\nof the few is justly purchased by the appalling suffering and disorder\nbrought about by the war is one of those religious affirmations which\nseem to the outsider positively repulsive.\n\nI do not speak merely of the deaths, the pain, the privation, the\noutrages, the flood of tears and blood over half of Europe. This,\nindeed, is of itself enough to make the theory repellent to any who do\nnot share the ascetic views taught in the Churches. The notion that an\nevil is justified if good issue from it is akin to the notion that the\nend justifies the means. But I would draw attention to an aspect of the\nwar which is almost ignored by these eloquent preachers. They eagerly\nrecord every flash of heroism, every spark of charity and mercy, that\nthe war evokes. They refer sympathetically to the dead and the bereaved,\nthe outraged girls and women--whom, in the narrowest Puritanism, they\nforbid to rid themselves of the awful burden laid on them by drunken\nbrutes--the shattered homes and monuments. But there is a side of war\nwhich they must know, and it demands plain speaking. It relaxes the\ncontrol of moral restraints even where it was before operative. The\nillegitimate-birth rate of England and France will faintly tell the\nstory before the year is out. Inquiry in any town where our soldiers are\nlodged, or in the rear of the French and English (or any other)\ntrenches, will tell it more fully. I do not speak of crime and violence,\nbut of willing sexual intercourse where it was never known before. These\nthings, and the increased drunkenness and the stirring of old passions,\nare regarded by the clergy as amongst the most evil things of life. Do\nthey seriously suggest that they have been brought in to secure, or are\njustified by, the spiritual advantage of the refined and emotional few\nwhose religion is only deepened by affliction?\n\nIn short, I find not a single phrase of valid explanation or apology in\nthese and other prominent clerical pronouncements I have read. They are\nsuperficial, contradictory, and vapid. Nothing is more common than for\nreligious writers to protest that the conception of reality which is\nopposed to theirs is shallow. What depth, what sincere grip of reality,\ndoes one find in any of these pulpit utterances? Yet I have taken the\npronouncements of official bodies or of distinguished preachers who may\nbe trusted to put the Christian feeling in its most persuasive form. One\nthinks that God sent the war; another attributes it to German rebels\nagainst God. One regards it as a spiritual agency devised for our good;\nanother says that it is an unmitigated calamity sent for our punishment.\nOne sees in it the failure of Christianity; others find in it precisely\na confirmation of Christian teaching. Some think it will draw men to\nGod; others that it will drive men from God. Unity, perhaps, we cannot\nexpect; but the empty rhetoric and utter sophistry of most of these\nutterances reveal the complete lack of defence. On the main indictment\nof the Christian Church, its failure to have condemned and removed\nmilitarism long ago, all are silent; or the one preacher who notices it\ncan only dejectedly confess that it is true.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE WAR AND THEISM\n\n\nIn the leading Catholic periodical of this country there has been some\nnervous discussion of the attitude of the Pope. A new man, a strong and\nenlightened man, happens to have mounted the chair of Peter in the midst\nof the war. For more than a century his predecessors have bemoaned the\nincreasing wickedness of the world: Pius VII, tossed like a helpless\ncork on the waves of the Revolution; Leo XII and Pius VIII, the\nassociates of the Holy Alliance; Gregory XVI, eating sweetmeats or\nmumbling his breviary while young Italy sweated blood; Pius IX, grasping\neagerly his tatters of sovereignty; Leo XIII, the unsuccessful\ndiplomatist; Pius X, the medieval monk. They saw their Church shrink\ndecade by decade, and they witnessed the prosperity of all that they\ndenounced. Benedict XV came to save the Church, and a great moral\nopportunity awaited him. But, while claiming to be the moral arbitrator\nof the world, he avoids his plain duty, and is content to repeat the\nworn phrases about the iniquity of the modern spirit. His apologists say\nthat the war is politics, and that Popes must not interfere in politics.\n\nI have earlier explained in what sense this war presents a political\naspect to Benedict XV, and given the reason for his reluctance. It is\ntypical of the whole failure of Christianity. A little over nineteen\ncenturies ago, it is said in the churches, a star shone over the cradle\nof the Saviour, and choirs of angels announced his coming as a promise\nof \"peace on earth and good-will among men.\" I am not in this little\nwork examining the whole question of the influence of Christianity. But\nit is well to recall that, according to its own records, its first and\ngreatest promise to the world was peace; and to that old Roman Empire,\nand to Europe at any stage in its later history, no greater blessing\ncould have been brought. Has Christianity succeeded?\n\nBut the religious interest of the war is by no means exhausted when we\nhave concluded that it marks, in one of the most important departments\nof human action, the complete failure of historical Christianity. My\npurpose is to discuss this relation to the Churches, and it would not be\ncompleted unless I considered the war in relation to their fundamental\ndoctrine, the moral government of the universe by a Supreme Being. In a\nfew months, we hope, the war will be over: the Allies will have\ntriumphed. We know, from experience and from history, what will follow\nin the Churches. From end to end of Britain, from Dover to Penzance and\nfrom Southampton to Aberdeen, there will rise a jubilant cry that God\nhas blessed our arms and awarded us the victory. Now that we are in the\nmidst of the horrors and burdens of the war God is little mentioned. One\nwould imagine that the great majority of the clergy conceived him as\nstanding aside, for some inscrutable reason, and letting wicked men\ndeploy their perverse forces. When the triumph comes, gilding the past\nsacrifices or driving them from memory, God will be on every lip. The\nwhole nation will be implored to come and kneel before the altars.\nRoyalty and nobility and military, judges and stockbrokers and working\nmen--above all, a surging, thrilling, ecstatic mass of women--will\ngather round the clergy, and will avow that they see the finger of God\nin this glorious consummation. The relation of the war to God will then\nbecome the supreme consideration for the Christian mind. It may be more\ninstructive to consider it now, before the last flood of emotion pours\nover our judgments.\n\nI have already discussed some of the clerical allusions to the share of\nGod in the war. They are so frankly repellent that one cannot be\nsurprised that the majority of the clergy prefer to be silent on that\npoint. They prefer to await the victory and build on its more genial and\nindulgent emotions. The war is either a blessing or a curse. One would\nthink that there was not much room for choice, but we saw that some are\nbold enough to hint that the spiritual good may outweigh the bodily\npain. They remind us of a Treitschke or a Bernhardi writing smugly of\nthe moral grandeur of war, the need to brace the slackness of human\nnature periodically by war, the chivalry and devotion it calls out, and\nso on.\n\nStill worse is the theory of those who regard war frankly as a curse,\nyet put it to the direct authorship of the Almighty. This theory is\nnatural enough in the minds of men and women who believe in hell. In\nearlier ages men could not distinguish between the law of retaliation\nand the need to deter criminals by using violence against them when they\ntransgressed. In many primitive systems of justice the law of\nretaliation is expressly consecrated. It is even introduced,\ninconsistently and as a survival of barbaric times, in the Babylonian\nand the Judaic codes, side by side with saner views. It is, of course,\nmerely a systematisation of brute passion. In the beginning, if a man\nknocked your tooth out, you knocked one of his teeth out. With the\ngrowth of law and justice, the barbarous nature of the impulse was\nrecognised, and the community, by its representatives, inflicted a\n\"punishment\" on the offender instead of allowing the offended to\nretaliate. With the modern improvement of moral sentiments we have\nrealised that this is an imperfect advance on the barbaric idea. The\ncommunity has no more right to \"punish\" than the offended individual\nhad. We now impose hardship on an offender only for the purpose of\nintimidating him from repeating the offence, or of deterring others from\noffending. The idea is still somewhat crude, and a third stage will in\ntime be reached; but it is satisfactory that we now--not since the\nadvent of Christianity, but since the rise of modern humanism--all admit\nthat the only permissible procedure is deterrence, and not punishment as\nsuch.\n\nIt may seem ungracious to be ever repeating that these improvements did\nnot take place during the period of Christian influence, but in the\nrecent period of its decay. There is, however, in this case a most\nimportant and urgent reason for emphasising the fact. I say that we\n_all_ admit the more humane conception of punishment, but this must be\nqualified. In human affairs we do: Carlyle was, perhaps, the last\nmoralist to cling to the old conception. But in the religious world the\nold idea has been flagrantly retained. The doctrine of eternal\npunishment is clearly based on the barbaric old idea that a prince whose\ndignity has been insulted may justly inflict the most barbarous\npunishment on the offender. Theologians have, since the days of Thomas\nAquinas, wasted whole reams of parchment in defending the dogma of hell,\nbecause they knew nothing whatever of comparative jurisprudence and the\nevolution of moral ideas. To us the development of the doctrine is\nclear. In the Christian doctrine of hell we have a flagrant survival of\nthe early barbaric theory of punishment. Modern divines--while\ncontinuing to describe the non-religious view of life as \"superficial\"\nand the Christian as \"profound\"--have actually yielded to the modern\nsentiment, and in a very large measure rejected one of the fundamental\ndogmas of the Christian tradition. In order to conceal the procedure as\nfar as possible, some of them are now contending brazenly that Christ\nnever taught the doctrine of eternal punishment, and are deluding their\nuncultivated congregations with sophistical manipulations of Greek\nwords.\n\nThis does not mean that Christians have lower moral sentiments than\nnon-Christians, but that the rigidity of their traditions, which they\nregard as sacred and unalterable, imposes restrictions on them. Hence\nthe fact that, while Protestants have so very largely rejected the\ndoctrine of hell, Roman Catholics, with their more rigid conservatism\nand claim of infallibility, still cling to it, and offer the amazing\nspectacle of a body claiming to possess the highest ideals in the world,\nyet actually cherishing an entirely barbaric theory. There is probably\nnot a Catholic lawyer in the world who does not reject the old idea of\npunishment as barbaric, yet he placidly believes that God retains it.\nThat is why we find a Catholic archbishop like Carr putting forth so\nrevolting an idea of the war, while Protestant preachers as a rule\nshrink from mentioning God in connection with it. These things make it\nimpossible for one to understand how non-Christians can say, as they do\nsometimes, that if they _were_ to accept a creed, it would be the Roman\ncreed.\n\nAny theory of the war which proceeds on the lines of the hell-theory is\nsimply barbaric, and is beneath serious discussion. We know to-day that\nboth ethics and religion are in a state of constant evolution. We look\nback over a stream of several thousand years of historically traceable\ndevelopment; we follow that stream faintly through earlier tens of\nthousands of years in the ideas of primitive peoples; and we see the\nevolution going on plainly in the creeds and ethical codes of our own\ntime. But the practice of registering certain stages of this evolution\nin sacred books or codes, which are then imposed on man for centuries or\nmillennia as something unalterable, has been and is a very serious\nhindrance to development, both in ethics and religion. It is all the\nworse because these codes and sacred books always contain certain\nelements which belong to even earlier and less enlightened stages, and\nwhole regiments of philosophers or theologians are employed for ages in\nputting glosses on ancient and barbaric ideas at which the world\neventually laughs. However, we need not linger here over these ancient\nways of regarding life. The man who keeps his God at a moral level which\nwe disdain ourselves rarely listens to argument. He protects his \"faith\"\nby believing that it is a mortal sin (involving sentence of hell) to\nread any book that would examine it critically. It is a most ingenious\narrangement by which the doctrine of a vindictive God protects itself\nagainst moral progress.\n\nNow any suggestion that God sent this war upon Europe--whether as a\njudgment on the clergy, or a judgment on unbelievers, or a judgment on\nthe arrogance of the Germans, etc.--is part of this old barbarism, and\nmay be disregarded. It conceives that God is vindictive, and at the same\ntime assures us that Christianity sternly condemns vindictiveness. It\nallows God to deal mighty blows at those who affront him, and tells men\nto bear affront with patience and turn the other cheek to the smiter. It\nis simply part of that mixture and confusion of old and new ideas which\na codified religion always exhibits. We pass it by, and turn to more\nserious considerations. I pass by also eccentric ideas of Deity like\nthose of Sir Oliver Lodge or Mr. G. B. Shaw--two oracles who have been\nsingularly silent on the religious aspect of the war. Let us examine the\nmain religious problem as broadly and as honestly as we can.\n\nThe first and chief reflection that occurs to any man who does thus\nseriously examine the relation of the war to theism is that, after all,\nit is not so easy to disentangle theology from the crude old doctrines\nwhich our more liberal divines think they have abandoned. They tell us\nthat they do not believe in a vindictive Deity, they disdain the\ndoctrine of eternal punishment, they smile at many of the Judaic\nconceptions of Jehovah in the Old Testament. God is the all-holy and\nbenevolent ruler of the universe. They refuse to believe that the souls\nof sinners and unbelievers are tortured for ever after death, and trust\nthe whole scheme of things to the love and justice of God.\n\nThe grave difficulty of this enlightened theology, indeed of all\ntheology, is the immense amount of pain and evil in the universe, and\nthis mighty war we are considering puts it in a very acute form. It is\namusing to look back on some of the lines of apologetics in recent\nyears. There was a school of people, following some \"profound\" religious\nthinker, who held that evil was \"only relative.\" They made the wonderful\ndiscovery that everything real is good, in the metaphysical sense, and\nevil is unreal. Evil, they said, is merely the negation, the\nfalling-short, of good; and you do not ask for the creator or cause of a\nnegative thing. More recently a school endeavoured to come to their\nassistance with the discovery that pain does not really exist at all.\nOne did not need to know philosophy or science in order to realise that\na sensation of pain is just as positive and real a thing as a sensation\nof pleasure; or that, although death is _only_ the negation of life, one\nis really entitled to ask why one's dear child is thus \"negated\" at the\nage of six or twelve. Then there came this new school with its discovery\nthat pain does not exist. Death, of course, is an entry into a more\nglorious life beyond; pain is an illusion to be banished by resolute\nthought. These childish symposia were interrupted every few years by\nsome disastrous earthquake, the sinking of a great liner, an epidemic of\ndisease, a famine, and so on; but the pious philosophers bravely\nstruggled on. One may trust that the war has reduced them to silence,\nand that we need not linger over them.\n\nThen there was the school which sought desperately to find good in evil.\nA man or woman is stricken with disease. Very often it brings with it a\nsoftening, an improvement, of character; either in the patient or in the\nnurses, or in both. Our religious philosophers fancied they caught in\nthis a glimpse of the divine plan: cancer was an instrument of\nrighteousness in the hands of the Almighty, the bacillus of\ntuberculosis was a moral agency. They detected cases in which adverse\nfortune had sobered and softened a man: the finger of Providence. In\nFrance there was a very considerable return to the Catholic Church, and\nrecovery of its power, after the disastrous war of 1870. In the south of\nItaly there is always much less sexual freedom for a time after an\nearthquake has buried a few tens of thousands under the ruins of their\nhouses. I would undertake to fill a quarto volume with instances of good\nthings which arose out of or followed upon evil experiences. We saw that\nthe present war is being examined in the same respect. There are \"great\nspiritual opportunities\": hundreds of thousands of young men are being\ncompelled (by the authorities) to go to church who had not been for\nyears; the different denominations are fraternising as they never did\nbefore; the churches are rather fuller than they had been of late:\ncharity is awakened on a prodigious scale; zeal for an ideal (the\nviolated peace of Belgium) is dragging men even from our slums to the\ncolours. Here again one could at least fill a moderate treatise with the\nthings achieved; and beyond them all is the unuttered vision of the\ncrowded churches at the triumphant close of the war, perhaps that\nlong-coveted religious revival.\n\nThere is no doubt whatever that this theory of the war will be\nassiduously pressed when nature has drawn her green mantle once more\nover the blackened area of the war and our hearts are lifted up by\nthought of victory. It is already being urged, and I would add a little\nto the comments I have already passed on it.\n\nThe clergy would do well to realise that, whatever virtue this theory\nmay have in soothing the minds and dissolving the doubts of their\nfollowers, to an outsider it seems monstrous. In the first place, it\nincludes no sense of proportion, and amounts to a colossal untruth. We\nmust surely take into account the amount of evil inflicted and the\namount of good that ensues. Take sickness, for instance. One would\nimagine that, if Christians seriously believe that illness is sent by\nGod to achieve certain salutary modifications of character, they ought\nstrenuously to oppose the modern determination to reduce disease to a\nminimum. They do not, and would, on the contrary, soon reduce to silence\nany religious crank who proposed it. They know perfectly well that the\ncases of \"spiritual advantage\" from illness bear no proportion whatever\nto the amount of suffering in the world. Slight but painful illnesses\nrarely have any beneficent effect on character; very frequently the\nreverse. Any large city, at any given moment, is racked with pains which\ndo but give rise to curses, or a polite equivalent. Most of the\nirritation and perversion of character is due to morbid influences. And\nfor every case in which a long illness issues in some signal advance of\ncharacter, a hundred others could be quoted in which the illness was an\nunmitigated calamity. So it is with bereavement and with adversity of\nfortune. Look honestly into the experience of any class of the\ncommunity, and ask in what _proportion_ of cases narrowness of means,\nespecially after comfort, brings a \"spiritual advantage.\"\n\nSo it is above all with this war. Any man who thinks that the awful\nperversion of the character of a great European people, the death of\nsuch vast numbers in such painful circumstances, the ruin of further\nmillions, and all the innumerable ugly results of a great war, were\nworth bringing about in order to secure a few spiritual advantages has\nneither sense of proportion nor sense of decency nor sense of humour.\nThe theory would be too repulsive if it were put in this plain form, and\nit is more usual merely to point out these good results and hint that\nwar is not absolutely and in every respect an evil. As if any person\never said that it was. The point is simple, and ought not to be\nobscured. A few incidental advantages do not reconcile us to this\ncolossal misery, suffering, and waste, and do not in the slightest\ndegree alleviate the position of the man who thinks that God directed\nhuman events to this awful consummation. If an earthly ruler employed\nsuch agencies to educate his subjects, with such an extraordinary\ndisproportion between the suffering inflicted and the results attained,\nwhat should we think of him?\n\nThe parallel reminds us that of infinite wisdom we expect infinitely\nmore than of a human ruler. Once unintelligent nature had a crude,\nwasteful, hard method of producing new and higher types of life. Man,\nhaving intelligence, produces the same result without waste or\nsuffering. We expect immeasurably higher procedure of such an\nintelligence as Christians ascribe to God. One can understand the man\nwho says that the plan of such an intelligence might be beyond human\nken, but I am discussing the opinions of people who contend that they\nbring it within human ken. In fact, there is no need here to remind us\nof the mysteriousness of the ways of an infinite intelligence. If the\nwar was designed for certain practical uses, such as those we have had\nsuggested by various divines, one may reply at once that a more brutal\nand unjust way of attaining those ends could not have been devised. It\nis almost impossible to conceive any man seriously entertaining the\nnotion. Yet all the jubilation and thanksgiving that will follow the\nwar, all the supplication that accompanies its fortunes to-day, and the\nwhole teaching of Christian theology, imply that God did direct the\npolitical movements and military ambitions which have culminated in the\nwar. Even a human statesman could have devised a less terrible method of\nattaining any end that has yet been conceived for the war. The idea of\nthe war as a punishment is quite logical and intelligible, though five\nhundred years out of date. But the idea of the war as a medicinal or an\neducative process has neither logic nor intelligibility, and does not\neven attain that consistency with modern ethical sentiments which it\nseeks. The colossal amount of suffering inflicted on innocent people and\non children puts it entirely out of court.\n\nThirdly, this theory, as I said, raises the question whether the end\njustifies the means. Here we have another illustration of the way in\nwhich Christian dogma keeps the Christian conscience in many matters\nbehind the ethical sentiment of the age. Many liberal divines would\nexpress genuine repugnance at Archbishop Carr's view of the war; yet\nsome of the most liberal of these divines and laymen are almost as\nbackward in another direction. They justify the world-process through\nwhich we are struggling on the ground that it will, we hope, issue in a\nnobler order of things: of the war, in particular, that hope is\nentertained, and to the war, accordingly, this theory of justification\nis applied. That is a case of the end justifying the means. Christian\nthinkers are advancing so rapidly and erratically that in some cases we\nare not clear whether the writer does or does not regard God as infinite\nin power and intelligence. We may ignore these few cases. The vast\nmajority emphatically hold that view. In their regard we can say only\nwhat has been said a hundred times. Whether you speak of the\nworld-process in general or any particular cruel phase of it, such as\nthis war, you maintain that God chose, out of many conceivable ways, the\none way that is marked by cruelty and suffering. An infinite God is not\nso confined in the choice of means. And just as we say of the\nworld-process in general, that to build the sunnier lives of a remote\ngeneration on the sufferings of this and earlier generations implies a\ngrave injustice to _us_, so we must say of the war. No spiritual\nadvantages to those who survive will reconcile us to the suffering and\nthe loss of those who fell in the tragic combat. I speak impersonally.\nIt happens that I have no near relatives of military age, and neither I\nnor any near relative is likely to suffer by the war. But when I brood\nover the agony of the less fortunate millions, over the harrowing\nexperience of Belgians, Poles, and Serbs, over the whole ghastly orgy of\nblood and tears in Europe, I feel unutterable disdain of these paltry\nefforts to justify the ways of God to man.\n\nLet us look a little deeper into the matter. No doubt the plain\nstatement that God \"sent\" or caused this war will excite a certain\nrepugnance in many Christian minds. They will prefer to say that God\n\"permitted\" it. Man has \"free will,\" and it is the plan of providence to\ngive a certain play to this free will. When man has bruised his\nshins--more frequently the shins of other people--God may, on being\nsupplicated sufficiently, issue his veto and put matters right. I am\nquite acquainted, from a severe theological education, with the more\nlearned language in which this theory is expressed by theologians, but\nI prefer to deal with it as it exists in the words of most preachers\nand the minds of most Christians.\n\nIt would be impossible here to deal at any length with the doctrine of\nfree will. Unless you conceive it in some novel and irrelevant sense, as\nProfessor Bergson does, it is a very much disputed thing amongst the\nexperts whose business it is to inform us on the subject--our\npsychologists. The majority of modern psychologists seem to reject it\naltogether. On the other hand, no theologian has ever yet reconciled it\nin any intelligible scheme with the supposed omnipotence of God. But it\nis not necessary to enter into these abstruse considerations. Let us\ntake the matter in the concrete.\n\nWe look back to-day on a long series of processes and circumstances\nwhich culminate in the war. There is the whole history of Germany for a\nhundred and fifty years inspiring the German people with a bias toward\naggressive war; there are the economic and geographical circumstances\nwhich, at the end of the nineteenth century, begin to make it think\nagain of aggressive war; there is the overflowing population, bred by\norder of the clergy who stupidly condemn an artificial restriction of\nbirths; there is the coincident trouble of Austria with the Slavs, of\nEngland with its subject peoples, and so on. In the eyes of the careful\nstudent a hundred lines of circumstance and development have led to this\nwar. The melodramatic idea that it all springs from the free will of the\nKaiser, or of a group of soldiers and statesmen, need not be seriously\nconsidered. Moreover, even when we introduce the personal element--and\nthe personality of the Kaiser has had a very considerable influence--it\nis foolish to throw the whole burden on free will. The mood and outlook\nand ambition of the Kaiser take their colour from his notoriously morbid\nnervous frame. In a word, you have a mighty concurrence of movements,\nwhether acts of will or otherwise, converging in all parts of Europe\ntoward this war. Was God indifferent to the whole of those movements?\n\nThose movements are particularly traceable in Europe during the last\nfourteen years. Before that there was a similar concurrence of movements\neventuating in the South African War; and in the meantime a series of\nprocesses and circumstances had given us the Russo-Japanese War and the\nBalkan-Turkish War and the Mexican War. So we might go over the wars of\nthe nineteenth century and all earlier wars. The \"permissiveness\" or\nindifference of the ruler of the universe grows amazingly. In the\nmeantime we had mighty catastrophes like the sinking of the _Titanic_\nand other ships, the earthquakes at Messina and elsewhere, famines and\nepidemics and floods in various places, and great numbers of murders,\nrailway and other accidents, etc. We begin to ask _where_ the ruling of\nthe universe comes in at all, and, as far as human events go, all that\nwe can gather in the way of reply is that sometimes individuals who pray\nvery fervently get their diseases healed or their coffers filled; and\neven these claims do not pass rational inquiry.\n\nNow here is the precise difficulty of the unbeliever, and this present\ntragedy makes it acute. We ask our neighbour, or seek in some learned\ntheological treatise, what are the indications of this government of the\nuniverse, and we are told about the making of stars and the decoration\nof flowers and the putting of instincts into animals or pretty patterns\non their skins. But when we point out that the really important thing\nin our part of the universe is this human life of ours, imperfectly\nprotected as yet against disease and malice (which is largely disease)\nand natural forces, the theologian has no clear evidence to produce.\nEven the evidence he draws from stars and flowers and peacocks' tails\nand sunsets, with which he is, as a rule, very imperfectly acquainted,\nis, of course, heatedly disputed, and the proper authorities on these\nsubjects are, on the whole, not well disposed toward his interpretation.\nBut we need not consider that here. Where we should most logically\nexpect the hand of Providence is in the human order, because in that\norder catastrophe is infinitely more important, in view of man's\ncapacity for pain. Yet it is precisely in regard to this order that the\ntheologian is vaguest and least satisfactory. He talks grandly of God\nmoving every atom in the universe, counting the hairs of our heads,\nnumbering (but not preventing) the fall of the sparrows, and so on; but\nwhen we ask for the evidence of God's concern with contemporary human\nevents he is very vague if they are good events, and, if they are evil,\nhe hastily disclaims any interference of the Deity. Some of our more\nadvanced theologians are claiming that the finest improvement they have\nmade in their science is to have brought God from _without_ the universe\n(where no theologian had ever put him) and make him _immanent_ in it.\nBut they seem just as incapable as the others to trace his interposition\nin human events.\n\nTheologians still maintain a valiant and stubborn fight against\nscientific men, but they do not fight historians. They are very keen on\nmaintaining the influence of God over atoms and stars and roses and\nbirds, but not half so keen to vindicate it in the life of man. The\nstory of the world, _our_ world, may be divided into three chapters: a\nchapter describing the moulding of the globe and the rocks, a chapter\ndescribing the slow evolution of the plants and animals, and a chapter\ndescribing the antics and fortunes of man. Some may surrender the first\nchapter to science, some the second chapter, but it looks as if they all\nsurrender the third. They have long been accustomed to surrender the\nearly part, and very much the longer and more laborious part, of man's\nstory to natural forces, or the devil. Then there was a melodramatic\nnotion that God, after the lapse of hundreds of thousands of years,\nbegan to take an interest in one very small people and kept revealing\nthings to it, and smiting its enemies, until Christianity was given to\nthe world. History tells the story in a totally different way. We find\nthe stream of moral and religious evolution flowing steadily on nineteen\nhundred years ago, much as we do to-day. At this point, of course, the\ntheologian does make a struggle with the historian. In proportion to the\nimperfectness of his culture and the backwardness and conservatism of\nhis Church, he fights for miraculous interpositions in human events\nnineteen hundred years ago. But we need not delay to examine that\ndifference of opinion, because the later period suffices for my purpose.\n\nA few theologians, not well acquainted with history, see another\nmiraculous interposition in the fourth century, when Christianity was\nestablished; and the Roman Catholic--in the intellectual rear, as\nusual--believes in hundreds of miraculous interpositions, in small\nmatters, as late as the year 1914. But in order to take a broad view of\nthe matter we may leave these controversies with the more reactionary on\none side. The history of Europe for the last fifteen centuries at least\nis now entrusted to able laymen, and it has been purged of divine\ninterpositions. Innumerable myths and legends, often based on what are\nnow acknowledged to be spurious documents, have been cast out of the\nscience, and we are presented with a quite continuous and purely natural\nsequence of events. Religious historians like Bishop Creighton or Lord\nBryce do not find their periods broken by divine interpositions; the\nwriters of the Cambridge History do not occasionally arrest us before\nsome great event and warn us that the chain of human causation seems to\nbe obscure or discontinuous. There are, of course, problems of history,\nbut they are not obscurities which, like the obscure places in science,\ntempt the theologian to enter and claim a divine interposition. The\nstory is from beginning to end--to use Nietzsche's phrase--\"human, all\ntoo human.\" On the whole, as it has been hitherto written, it is a story\nof wars, and, though patriotic piety puts its gloss on the issue of a\nwar here and there, the historian does not find any serious problem in\nthem. No French historian will now claim divine action in the Napoleonic\nwars, and assuredly few of us are prepared to see the finger of God in\nthe fortunate issue of Prussia's many campaigns since Frederick the\nGreat.\n\nWhatever we may think of the cosmic process generally, the human part of\nthat process does not encourage a theological interpretation. Man is\nworking out his own destiny, and doing it ill. We see him, like some\npedlar plodding along a country road under his burdens, carrying through\nwhole centuries institutions and ideas and follies that he will\neventually shed. When he drops them, there is no more element of\nmiracle or revelation in his action than when he discovers the use of\nsteam or of aluminium or of the spectroscope. His mind expands and his\nideals rise. It is a little incongruous to suppose that some infinitely\nwiser and affectionate parent was looking on all the time and giving no\nassistance. In the dialogue between Mephistopheles and God which Goethe\nprefixes to his _Faust_, the devil obviously scores. In the sight of\nsuch an intelligence man must have made a pretty fool of himself during\nthe last 1500 years. We human beings are more charitable. Take the whole\nstory as the gradual development of human intelligence and emotion under\nunfavourable political conditions, hampered by a despotic and perverse\nclergy, and it seems natural enough.\n\nThis is the impression one gets from history, and the nearer history is\nto our own time and the better we know it, the less it suggests a divine\nguidance. There is something parochial or rural about the average\nChristian way of looking at events. One day the German Christian goes to\nchurch to thank God for driving the Russians out of East Prussia; the\nnext day the English Christian thanks the same God for killing or\nwounding 20,000 Germans at Neuve Chapelle--with the help of 350 guns.\nYet such things as these are the only claims we have offered to us of\nthe action of God in human events. Neither the steps that man takes\nonward nor the steps that he takes backward are ascribed to divine\ninfluence. All that is claimed is that when a ship goes down, for\ninstance, he saves the saved, and \"permits\" the rest to be drowned; when\na war has been raging for a few months by his \"permission,\" he puts a\nstop to it when one army is worn out. The unbeliever is really entitled\nto a good deal of sympathy for his inability to follow this tortuous\nreasoning with confidence. One cannot entirely blame him for being more\ninterested in the heart of man than in the petals of a rose.\n\nThese considerations are, of course, not novel. I am only applying to\nthis special case of the war a difficulty that has been discussed in all\nages, and has been acutely felt by very able religious thinkers. How a\ngroup of bishops can sit down to write, in very deliberate and elegant\nlanguage, that such a calamity as this makes the soul more sensible of\n\"the approach of Christ\" is one of the many little mysteries of the\nclerical mind. It has precisely the opposite effect in any logical mind.\nWhen the way of life is smooth, and our nation or home is prospering, we\nmay be genially disposed to think that God is near and is looking after\nus as well as the sparrows. But when a black storm bursts suddenly and\ndisastrously on us; when the earth shakes their roofs on ten thousand of\nour fellows, or a great ship strikes a rock and pours a laughing crowd\nsuddenly into the lap of death; when vast provinces are laid desolate by\nwar, and we see the tens of thousands clasping the hand of their loved\nones for the last time, it seems rather uncanny that this should suggest\nto any person the approach of Christ. To very many people it is a\nconfirmation of the general impression they get from the world-process\nand the story of man: that these great forces deploy and interlace and\nbuild up and destroy without the slightest intervention from without.\n\nIn our time, we must remember, this difficulty had already been\nenormously increased. St. Augustine, who felt the problem acutely in the\nprime of his intelligence, had really a very much lighter task than the\nmodern divine. He had merely to suggest why evil was permitted in the\nnarrow world he knew; and he had the great advantage of being able to\nappeal to a primitive sin and primitive punishment of the race. The\nproblem became more serious when original sin, or at least the notion\nthat the race might justly be damned for one man's fault, was abandoned.\nIt became graver still when science discovered the tombs of inhabitants\nof this globe who had lived during millions of earlier years, and showed\nthat the very law of their life and progress was struggle against evil.\nEvery attempt to minimise the struggle of those earlier ages has failed.\nAt a time when there was no possibility of \"spiritual advantage\" there\nwas acute consciousness of pain, the struggle and suffering were\nprodigious. Theistic literature of the last half century, growing more\nweary and more wistful in each decade, reflects the increasing\ndifficulty. If any man can see in this war a relief of the difficulty,\nand not an appalling accentuation and illustration of it, he must be\ngifted with a peculiar type of mind and emotion. It is more probable\nthat an increasing number will conclude that, if God is indifferent to\nthese things, they will be indifferent to him. Professor William James,\nin his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, declared that the only gods\nthe men of the new generation would recognise would be gods of some use\nto them. The war does not encourage the chances of the Christian God.\n\nA few modern religious thinkers seem to imagine that they have found\nsome relief by devising the formula that God's plan is to \"co-operate\nwith man,\" and in those modern advances which I have freely admitted\nthey see indications of this co-operation. This new formula is not a\nwhit better than the other phrases which have, at various stages, been\nregarded by religions people as profound thoughts. In the recent history\nof moral progress we have, as a rule, a minority of high-minded men and\nwomen struggling to impress their sentiments on the inert majority. The\nnew theologian is not daunted in the application of his theory by the\nfact that a large proportion of these pioneers did not believe in God at\nall, so I will not discuss that aspect; though no doubt the plain man\nwill find it interesting to trace how, in the earlier and more difficult\ndays of modern humanism, so few of the reformers were Christian\nministers and so many Rationalists. From the historical point of view,\nhowever, we find this line of development quite intelligible. We find,\nfor instance, Robert Owen (a great Rationalist) advocating the\nsubstitution of arbitration for war nearly a century ago, and we\ndiscover the earlier sources of Owen's enthusiasm in English Radicals\nlike Godwin, who were affected by the early French Revolutionaries, who\nhad been influenced by Rousseau, and so on. It is a quite natural\nevolution of ideas, as they find a congenial soil in each generation in\ncertain types of temperament. But where are the traces or what was the\nnature of God's co-operation with these men? Looking to their generally\nheterodox character and the hostility of the Churches to them, the idea\nis not without humour; but, even if we reconcile ourselves to this\npeculiar feature, anything in the nature of positive evidence of divine\naction is wholly lacking, and we can understand the whole process\nwithout it. The theory is merely a desperate and unfounded assertion of\nmen who are determined that God shall not be left out.\n\nThere is a further grave difficulty. One would imagine that the kind of\npaternal affection which is ascribed to God would have induced him to\nintervene at an earlier stage. The kind of father who co-operates with\nthe more gifted and ambitious of his children, and does nothing for the\nless gifted and sluggish, is a narrow-minded and narrow-hearted man.\nAffection turns rather to those who cannot help themselves, or who need\njudicious and constant inspiration. This view we are considering is even\nless flattering to God, because the aspiring children of the nineteenth\nand twentieth centuries seem able to dispense with his co-operation,\nwhile the ignorant and priest-ridden children of earlier ages could do\nlittle of themselves. The theologians who have found this new formula\nare of the more liberal school. They do not attribute all the blunders\nand crimes and failures of the Middle Ages to free will, to a sheer and\ndeliberate obstinacy in clinging to evil. They realise the overpowering\nnature of the environment and the drastic discouragement by the clergy\nof anything like novelty or initiative in ethics. It was then that man\nneeded God, if there is a God. But, on this theory, God argued with the\nacademic wisdom of a medieval theologian; he concluded that medieval men\nwere quite capable of originating modern ideas, and he would not\nco-operate until they did. The theory is preposterous in every respect.\n\nFinally, we have the very large class of candid or of hopelessly puzzled\nChristians who give up the matter as a mystery. They do not understand\nhow this ruling of the universe which they seem to see clearly in stars\nand flowers should become so obscure or disappear altogether in the\nhuman order. They realise that, if this war were an isolated\noccurrence, they might imagine God holding his hand for a season, for\nsome reason unknown to us; but they know that it is not an isolated\noccurrence: it is part of the human order of things. It has been\npreceded by other wars at intervals of every few years, and war itself\nis only one of a series of catastrophes and calamities that splash the\nhuman chronicle with innocent blood. They give it up, sorrowfully, and\nfind a thin consolation in learned formulae about the impossibility of a\nfinite mind understanding an infinite mind, and so on: which give, as I\nsay, thin consolation, for one may at least see that an infinite\nbenevolence ought not to act worse than a moderate human benevolence.\n\nNow if there were any very strong evidence of divine ruling outside the\nhuman order, we might find a certain amount of logic in this position.\nThe mystery of a God who moves the stars and inspires the bees, yet\nleaves man to his own unhappy impulses (after putting those impulses in\nhim), would be, one imagines, painful enough; but if there were\nirresistible evidence that God does move the stars and quicken the bird\nand beast, we might be compelled to reconcile ourselves to that unhappy\ndilemma. There is, however, no such irresistible evidence. This is not\nthe place to examine such evidence as is adduced. I must be content to\nrecall the fact that it is all highly controverted; that theologians\ntear to pieces each other's \"proofs\" of the existence of God; and that a\nlarge and increasing body of cultivated men and women discard the\nevidence entirely. So that, in the last resort, the situation is this:\non the one hand we have a number of very disputable suggestions, which\nare growing fainter in proportion as science investigates these matters,\nof divine action in stars and rocks and reptiles, and on the other hand\nwe have a stupendous mass of suffering, starting millions of years ago\nat the very birth of consciousness and piled up mountains high in this\nyear 1915, which no thinker has ever yet reconciled with the notion of a\ndivine ruling of the life of man. This is a very grave and plain\nsituation, and if the clergy have nothing more to say about it than to\nborrow from an ancient Hebrew certain offensive gibes at the unbeliever,\nor to offer us the kind of apologies we examined in the last chapter,\none must conclude that they do not realise the situation. The war has\nterribly accentuated the most terrible difficulty they ever had to face.\nWhether there is intelligence manifested in nature is, after all, an\nacademic question which does not profoundly stir the modern world.\nWhether there is benevolence, a moral personality, reflected in the\ncourse of man's history is the much more important question. And this\nappalling calamity will induce many to take a more candid view of the\nworld-process and conclude that, as far as the critical eye can see,\nman's world seems to be left entirely to his own efforts, to his own\ncrimes and blunders and aspirations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE HUMAN ALTERNATIVE\n\n\nIf the observations I have made in the preceding chapters are even\napproximately just, the hope which many of the clergy express, that\nthere will be a religious revival at the close of the war, is very\nsingular. No doubt it means, on the whole, that some advantage to\nreligion will be sought in the flood of genial and generous emotion\nwhich will surge through the country. In Germany and Austria, one\nimagines, religion will have a rough experience. The people who wrote\nand repeated constantly, \"Gott strafe England\"--which, by the way, is\nanother proof that the general German attitude is theological rather\nthan humanist--will have a few serious questions to put to the clergy,\nas well as to their secular rulers. In France, despite the reports of\ninterested people, there will be little change. The nation, being\noverwhelmingly Rationalistic, relied on its 75-centimetre guns rather\nthan on prayer, and will find its wisdom justified. But in England and\nRussia, and in the backward Slav countries, there will be mighty\nflag-waving in Church, and no doubt a great number of not very\nthoughtful people will conclude that the clergy and the Y.M.C.A. and the\nSalvation Army have behaved very nicely over the whole affair, and there\nwill be, for a time, an increased attendance at church.\n\nWe may suppose that this emotional storm will not last long, and the\nnation will settle down to face the bill, the empty chairs at home, and\nthe disorganisation of its industries. Then will arise the questions I\nhave been endeavouring to answer in this little book. The clergy behaved\nvery well during the war, short of volunteering in any conspicuous\nnumber for active service; but what is the sense of this lofty message\nof \"peace on earth and good-will among men\" which never produces any\nresult? The Churches are fairly eager to join in the work of peace now\nthat it is being promoted by large associations of laymen; but where, in\nthe name of heaven, were they during these \"ages of faith\" which they\nbemoan? God may conceivably have been at work somewhere among the\nbatteries or the infantry of the Allies--it is so very difficult to\nanalyse these things--but we should be infinitely more grateful if he\nhad asserted his power earlier and spared us all the bloodshed. He may\nbe a very stern schoolmaster, teaching us a valuable lesson by means of\nthis war; but we were really quite open to conviction if he had sent us\nthe lesson in a more humane form. A great many good people may have\nderived spiritual advantages from the war, but the price was stupendous,\nand we would rather they got their spiritual advantages in another way.\n\nThese questions and reflections must surely arise, and they will lead to\nlarger reflections. Men will perceive the antithesis I pointed out\nbetween all that is claimed for Christianity in Europe and the actual\ncondition of Europe; between the supposed luminous traces of the finger\nof God in the non-human world and the complete absence of them from the\nhuman world. From the samples of clerical eloquence which we have\nexamined, we can hardly suppose that the clergy will have great success\nin meeting the inquirers. An enormous proportion of their followers, of\ncourse, will not ask questions, or will be satisfied with anything in\nthe nature of an answer. I heard a group of men discussing the subject\nin a rural ale-house, and the most intelligent man in the group, to\nwhom, as an educated visitor, the natives looked up with respect, said:\n\"War is God's way of purifying and bracing nations from time to time.\"\nThis sort of stuff pacifies hundreds of thousands: like the stuff that\nArchbishop Carr found it possible to put before his Australian\nCatholics. But inquiry and reflection grow among the adherents of the\nChurches, and, although the Press generally refuses to bring books of\nthis character to the notice of the public, and clergymen often stoop to\nthe most despicable means to exclude them from bookstalls and shops,\nthey seem to find a fairly large public to-day. Thinking is as needful\nan exercise for the mind as work is for the body, and the only plausible\nground on which you can seek to suppress thinking about Christianity is\nthe fear that it will not be good for Christianity.\n\nThen we shall have the next and inevitable question: What would you put\nin the place of Christianity? Young men in various parts of the country\nhurl that question at one as if it were really very serious, putting an\nend to all dispute. Any person who is quite candid and sincere about\nthese matters can find the material for an answer easily enough. Take\nFrance. Forty years ago the nation was overwhelmingly Christian; to-day\nit is overwhelmingly non-Christian. It has not put anything in the place\nof Christianity, and has prospered remarkably. There is a legacy of what\nis called vice which comes down from earlier religious times, but any\nperson who cares to examine criminal and other statistics, the only\npositive tests of a nation's health, will find that France has been\nextraordinarily successful without Christianity and without putting\nanything in its place. There are, it is true, moral lessons in its\nschools, but I would not claim that they are much responsible: the\nsystem is imperfect, and the teachers not well equipped. Take our ally\nJapan. The moral discipline of the nation, which, in spite of some\nrecent deterioration through Western influence, is admirable, does not\nrest on religious foundations. Take London or any metropolis of modern\nEurope. The bulk of the people have ceased to receive any influence from\nthe representatives of Christianity, yet there has been moral progress\ninstead of deterioration. Those who speak of degeneration in London or\nParis do not accurately know and estimate the state of those cities in\nmore religious times.\n\nThis experience might be enlarged indefinitely, but one or two instances\nwill suffice for my purpose. The soundness of these instances which I\nquote I have established elsewhere, and the general truth to which I\nrefer may be sufficiently gathered from the words of the clergy\nthemselves. The rhetorical way in which they characterise our times is\nmore or less typical of the carelessness of their judgments and the\nstrength of their prejudices. One group of clerical writers, which\ngenerally includes the reigning Pope, speak in the darkest terms of our\nage and suggest that a sensible degeneration has followed the decrease\nof the influence of the Churches. Another group, considering the\nremarkable spread of idealism in our generation, the growing demand for\npeace, justice, and sobriety, claim that this moral progress, which they\ncannot deny, is due to some tardy recognition of the spirit of Christ:\na strange contention, seeing that our age is less and less willing to\nhear the words of Christ and ascribes its sentiments to entirely\ndifferent inspiration. Hence there are a few who frankly admit that the\nidealism of modern times is to them a rebuke and a mystery. One of these\nmore sensitive religious writers once confessed to me that the fact that\nthe times became better while the influence of Christianity grew less\nwas to him a perplexing truth.\n\nThe really honest social student, who does not measure his age by his\nprejudices, but fashions his theories according to the carefully\nascertained facts, will try to discover the causes of this phenomenon.\nIn those wide and varied areas where it is observed, we cannot say that\nanything has taken the place of Christianity. The Press sometimes\nflatters itself that it has taken the place of the pulpit, but opinions\nwill differ in regard to its efficacy as a moral agency. On the whole,\nit is too apt to reflect the moral sentiments of the more reactionary,\nwho are generally the most self-assertive, and it has no moral, as\ndistinct from political, leadership. Then there are Ethical and kindred\nsocieties which hold \"services\" of a humanitarian character, and are to\nmany people a substitute for the Christian Churches. Their influence is,\nhowever, restricted to a few thousand people in the whole country, and\nsigns are not wanting that their usefulness will be only transitory. The\nexperience of any careful observer is that the mass of people who cease\nto attend church desire and need no substitute whatever for\nChristianity. The Rationalist literature which many of them read is, as\na rule, of a high idealist character; but here again the influence is\nvery restricted. No organised influence is at work to any great extent\nas a successor to Christianity, yet it is indubitable that, as Christian\ninfluence wanes, the temper of the age improves.\n\nThis improvement must have an adequate cause, and it would be merely\nanother form of crude social reasoning and of sectarian prejudice to\nsay, in the rich language of the older anti-clericals, that breaking\n\"the fetters of superstition and priestcraft\" led of itself to such a\nresult. But this sanguine rhetoric does contain or obscure a certain\ntruth. In plain human language, when you prevent a man from relying on\nthe old traditional inspirations, he may for a time be tempted to act\nwithout inspiration. In the matter of his dealings with his fellows it\nis an undeniable fact that, on the whole, he has not been thus tempted.\nIt is absurd to heap up all the contemporary instances of corruption in\ntrade and politics, looseness in domestic life, and so on, unless you\nmake a similar study of the vices and crimes of an earlier and more\nChristian generation, and carefully compare the two. It is not a\nquestion whether there is evil in our generation; it is a question\nwhether there is more or less evil than in earlier generations. I must\nbe pardoned for reiterating this, because, although this comparison is\nessential for forming an accurate judgment on the moral effect of the\ndecay of Christianity, it is rarely instituted with the least pretence\nof rigour. I have sufficiently studied it in earlier works (especially\n_The Bible in Europe_), and will not repeat the facts. Cotter Morison,\nwhom I quoted on an early page, was wrong in his expectation. The change\nfrom Christian to humanist inspiration is taking place without disorder\nand with increasing advantage.\n\nThe solution of this apparent problem is really not obscure. If the\ngenuine basis of human conduct needed an elaborate search--if it had to\nbe revealed by a Deity or laboriously established by moral theologians\nor moral philosophers--no doubt the age of transition would be an age of\ndisorder, and a very comprehensive educational organisation would be\nneeded. But the true basis of human conduct is simple. There are, of\ncourse, Rationalists who feel that some very abstruse \"science of\nethics\" has to be constructed as the solid foundation of conduct; but\nthis has as little relation to the conduct of ordinary men as the\nlearned pedants of the science of prosody have to ordinary speakers of\nprose. Experience is the real base and guide of conduct, and it forces\nitself on every man and woman, even on the child. \"Do unto others as you\nwould that they should do unto you\" is the first principle of morals;\nand to inculcate it you need neither the thunders of Jupiter nor the\nimpressive abstractions of a science of ethics: nor do you need any\nmoral genius or philosophical skill to discover it. It is a rule of life\nthat suggests itself spontaneously. It is a natural and prompt\nexpression of the fact that our life is social: our acts have the\nclosest relation to others besides ourselves. Now and again, perhaps, a\nman is tempted to assert his own personality, or seek his own\ngratification, in such a way as to ignore his fellows; but he is usually\narrested before long by the simple experience that he himself suffers\nfrom the actions of others just as they may suffer from his conduct. It\nis a lesson of life which one needs no power of analysis to learn.\n\nAnd the chief reason why the abandonment of the old doctrines is\nproceeding without any moral degeneration is that this experience was\nreally always the basis of general morality. We need not question--it\nwould be absurd to question--that refined natures have received moral\naid from their belief in the presence of God, or in a desire to please\nGod by accepting the law of virtue as a declaration of his will; though\nwe must be equally candid in admitting that men and women of this nature\nhave not been observed to deteriorate when they sacrifice their\nreligious beliefs, as thousands of them have done. On the other hand, we\nwill hardly question that numbers of people of coarser nature have been\ndeterred from evil-doing by dread of supernatural punishment. It is,\nhowever, notorious in the moral history of Europe that these religious\nbeliefs have been consistent with a vast amount of transgression of the\ndecalogue: more than we witness in any civilised country in our own\ntime. How, then, are we to discover what were the real springs of\nconduct in the mass of ordinarily decent people? It seems to me that the\nonly accurate method is to avoid theories and consider people in the\nflesh. Do our Christian friends--did we ourselves in Christian\ndays--refrain from lying, dishonesty, injustice, cruelty, and injury,\nsolely or mainly because God forbids them or will punish them? I have\nnot met the man, except in the imaginative pages of religious\ncontroversy, who confessed that he would stoop freely to these things if\nthere were no Christian prohibition. The mainspring of ordinary decent\nconduct in any educated community has always been a perception of its\nhuman and social value.\n\nThe only line of the decalogue about which there is likely to be any\ndispute in this regard is that putting restraint on sexual relations. I\nhave not to consider here a subject so remote from my immediate\ninterest, and will observe only that any act which hurts either an\nindividual or the social interest will as plainly come under a\nhumanitarian law as the practice of lying: acts which inflict no injury\nand have been forbidden only on mystic grounds are not likely to remain\non the moral code of the future. But I am concerned here with a definite\nissue, and need discuss general morality only in so far as that issue is\naffected.\n\nHere, at least, the way of the humanitarian is plain. Sermons on the\nbrotherhood of men under the fatherhood of God have been totally\nineffective to prevent war and abolish militarism. There is something\nincongruous in the introduction into a modern peace-meeting of some\nclerical speaker who talks unctuously about the great promise and\nprecept of Christianity. The meeting itself, being held nineteen\ncenturies after the promise was made, is a sufficient indication of its\nfutility. No progress was made or seriously attempted in the work of\npeace until a genuine human passion was substituted for that empty\nphraseology. The brotherhood of men was, in the Christian sense of that\nphrase, too abstruse and precarious a conclusion to be of use in such a\nstruggle. The plain fact is that it was of no use, and is of no use\nto-day. There is, indeed, reason to think that we should make more\nprogress if we entirely discarded figures of speech like \"the\nbrotherhood of men.\" The fact that we are all children of God, or\nchildren of Eve, or children of some Tertiary anthropoid, does not very\nobviously impose on us the duty not to take up arms in an international\nquarrel.\n\nThe ultimate basis of morality is, as Schopenhauer said, sympathy,\nthough in an advanced social order this sentiment approves itself to\nthe intellect, and its requirements may be precisely formulated by\nreason. One is not sure whether there will not be more morality in the\nworld when the word \"morality,\" with all its mystic entanglements, is\ndiscarded, and we speak plainly of social law. Violence, the infliction\nof pain and injustice, is one of the most obvious infractions of social\nlaw, quite apart from any religious commandments. Its social evil is so\nobvious that the community has, at an early date in its development,\nelaborated a special machinery for restraining it, and has imposed\npenalties in this world, whatever it thinks about the next. There may be\nquestions raised, and one can understand people who are confined to a\nreligious environment feeling a genuine concern, about other sections of\nmoral law; but it would be obviously absurd to think that a humanitarian\nethic would fail here. There have been attempts in modern times to\nquestion the validity of ethical law altogether. In so far as this\nmovement aims at stripping moral law of its mysticism and fearlessly\ninvestigating its traditional content, it is admirable and will grow;\nbut in so far as these moral rebels would resent restraint of any kind,\nand pronounce the freedom of every individual impulse, they seem to\noverlook a factor of great importance--the impulse of retaliation. A\npretty state of society we should have if such a theory were generally,\nor largely, carried into practice.\n\nBut these are academic vagaries, like those of the mystic or the moral\ntheologian. Whatever be the future fortune of Christian legends, men are\nnot likely to sacrifice the peace and security of social life to such\ntheories of freedom any more than they are likely to expose property to\na general scramble. The instinct of sympathy is now growing deeper in\nevery century. Most of the great improvements of social life (in its\nwidest sense) during the nineteenth century, which we have inherited,\nwere due to that development of sympathy. It matters not whether the\nreformer was Christian or non-Christian--Elizabeth Fry and Florence\nNightingale or Robert Owen and John Stuart Mill--the impulse was\nsympathy with suffering fellow-humans. All the hope of improvement in\nthe twentieth century looks to a continued growth of that sentiment. It\nbecomes a veritable passion in certain natures, as long as there are\nlarge and cruel evils to redress; and this passion of a few leading\nspirits, communicating something of its fire to the colder mass, is the\ngreat cause of progress. Surely that is the correct interpretation of\nthe progressive life of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries? Men\nrealised that to cultivate sympathy because it was enjoined by religion\nwas a more or less mercantile procedure: it was worth cultivating for\nits own sake.\n\nHere we have the reply to those who, unfamiliar with any but their own\nreligious environment, ask what place there will be for sympathy in an\nintellectual or nationalistic age. It is a very grave error to suppose\neither that our age is becoming less emotional or that Rationalism has\nno place for emotions. In pursuing its task during the nineteenth\ncentury Rationalism was an intensely emotional movement. Mr G. K.\nChesterton, in his _Victorian Age in Literature_, speaks of J. S. Mill's\n\"hard rationalism in religion\" and \"hard egoism in ethics.\" Like very\nmany other statements in that lamentable book, these are inexplicably\nunjust. Mill was so far from being \"hard\" in religion that he ended his\ndays in a kind of sentimental theism; he was so far from being a \"hard\negoist\" in ethics that he declared that he would burn in hell for ever\nrather than lie at the supposed bidding of a Deity. Robert Ingersoll,\nthe most popular Rationalist of that age, was--I judge from his private\nletters, not his ornate speeches--a man of the most tender and fine\nsentiment. It is simply ludicrous to suppose that, because we do not\nadmit emotion to be a test of the accuracy of statements of fact (as all\nreligious dogmas claim to be), we do not find any room for emotion in\nlife. Is the whole of man's life an affirmation about reality or\ncriticism of such affirmation? This supposed \"hardness\"--I detest these\nvague phrases, but one knows what is meant--of the Rationalist temper is\none of the strangest myths the clergy have invented.\n\nReason not merely approves, but enjoins, the cultivation of sentiment.\nWhen the sentiment in question is one that shows a power of transforming\nlife and impelling men to struggle against pain and evil, reason\napplauds it as one of the most valuable forces we can cultivate. Such,\nplainly, is the sentiment of sympathy. We look back to-day with horror\non the industrial and social condition of England in the earlier part of\nthe nineteenth century: the burdened lives and few gross pleasures of\nthe workers, the horrible cellar-homes of the poor, the ghastly\ntreatment of child-workers, the stupid and brutal herding of criminals,\nthe tragedies of asylums and workhouses, the fearful political\ncorruption and despotism, the subjection of women, the revolting\nproportions of the birth-rate and death-rate. We have still much to do\nto redeem our civilisation from medieval errors, but when one\ncontemplates the social revolution that human sympathy has brought about\nin the life of England, one feels that this, and not the long-futile\nteaching of Christianity, is the hope of the future. Christian preaching\nof virtue has been individualistic. Even in our time the clergy hesitate\nand are divided in face of social problems which plainly involve moral\nprinciples. But the humanitarian ethic is essentially social, and this\npassion of sympathy is its chief root.\n\nWe wish, then, not to substitute any creed or organisation for\nChristianity, but to sweep away these primitive or medieval speculations\nabout life, and let the human mind and human heart increasingly devote\nthemselves, directly, to human interests. In discussing the question of\npeace and war, the application is obvious. We enclose or dispatch the\nmurderer, lest some fresh grave act of violence be perpetrated. We agree\nthat the violent and premature termination of a life is the most serious\ntransgression of social law that a man can perpetrate. Next to it we put\nrape, mutilation, the destruction of a man's home or fortune; all acts,\nin a word, that come nearest to it in threatening or causing the\ngreatest desolation. Yet we have suffered, age after age, that every few\nyears all these acts should be gathered into one mighty outrage and\nshowered upon whole populations. The time will come when men will read\nwith bewilderment the things that have been written about warfare in the\nnineteenth, and even the twentieth, century. The men of clear judgment\nand sound emotion of some coming age will see anguish rising, as vapour\ndoes from some tropical sea, from our vast battle-fields. They will read\nof Cats' Homes, and Anti-Vivisection Societies, and Homes of Rest for\nHorses, and a hundred such institutions, and they will find contributors\nto these institutions stirring not one finger when hundreds of thousands\nof men writhe under hails of shrapnel, and crowds of homeless women and\nchildren fly in terror before the unavoidable calamities or the\nsuperfluous brutalities of war. They will see a generation shaken and\nshuddering as the ghastly picture is daily unfolded before it, and they\nwill see that same generation in a few months grow dully indifferent to,\nif not actively supporting, the military system which invariably brings\nthese horrors every few years upon the world. They will read of social\naspiration spreading through our civilisation, and statesmen regretting\nthat want of funds alone prevents them from remedying our social ills;\nand they will read how Europe in one year wasted in butchery the\nresources that might have renovated its disfigured civilisation, and the\nnext year complacently shouldered its military burden, its annual waste\nof a thousand millions sterling, with the prospect of a costlier war\nthan ever.\n\nIn face of this situation the question, What would you put in place of\nChristianity? is a mere mockery. One can see some pertinence and use in\nthe question: How shall we induce the Christian Churches to employ their\nstill great resources in helping to bring on the reign of peace? But it\nis not to them that we now look for redemption. It is to the\nhumanitarian spirit, the clearer reason, of our age. I have described\nthe situation in terms of emotion, because thus it spontaneously rises\nbefore me; but it may be recorded in terms of pure reason. We maintain\nin Europe a machinery for settling international quarrels which costs us\nmore than a thousand millions sterling annually, while we could erect at\na cost of a few thousands annually an efficient machinery for dealing\nwith those quarrels, and for a few millions we could add the machinery\nfor carrying out its decisions. We boast that our civilisation is\nfounded on justice; yet, of the two types of machinery for adjusting\nquarrels, we retain the one that is the least possible adapted for\nsecuring the triumph of justice and discard the one that is\npre-eminently fitted to secure it. We flatter ourselves that we rise\nabove the savage in enjoying security of life and property, and we\nretain this system though we know that, periodically, it will invade\nlife and property on a scale that surpasses the experience of the savage\nas much as a Dreadnought surpasses a canoe.\n\nIt is just as easy to state our situation in terms of reason as in terms\nof sentiment: it would not be easy to say in which guise it is ugliest.\nLet us talk no more nonsense about needing religion to help us to get\nrid of this atrocious nightmare. It drives both reason and sentiment to\nthe brink of insanity. Both protest against it with every particle of\ntheir energy. Why Christianity failed to protest against it in fifteen\nhundred years may or may not be obscure; but there is no obscurity\nwhatever about the probable effect on militarism and war of a\ncultivation of reason and sympathy.[3]\n\nMany a reform has been actually retarded by the use of rhetoric. An\noutpour of vehement language seems to release, both in the speaker and\nin the assenting audience, a part of that energy which ought to issue in\naction. It has been one of the grave blunders of the Churches that they\nthought their function ended with the eloquent announcement that men\nwere brothers. We must be more practical. Now, while the imagination of\nthe world is filled with the horrors of war, and sympathy is ready to\nfire us with a mighty energy, is one of the great opportunities of\npeace. One may trust that, after this experience, the Churches will\nawaken to the implications of their moral doctrine and set to work to\nimpress it emphatically and repeatedly, as a moral duty, on their\nfollowers. It is, however, not impossible that, with all their\nscoutmasters and chaplains and services of thanksgiving for victory, a\nvery large part of the clergy will find themselves so closely allied\nwith militarism when the war is over, so confused in their appreciation\nof what it has done for us, that they will continue to mumble only\ngeneral principles and halting counsels. In any case, in the cities and\nlarge towns of this kingdom, where are found the effective controllers\nof our destiny, the majority do not any longer sit at the feet of the\nclergy. Precise statistical observation has shown this.\n\nLet us remember that the one task before us is to inspire the _majority_\nin each civilised nation with a determination that the system shall end.\nThe only practical difficulty of considerable magnitude is the economic\ndifficulty: the disorganisation of the industrial world by suppressing\nwar-industries and large standing armies. It is, however, foolish to\nregard this as an obstacle to disarmament, since--to put an extreme\ncase--it would be more profitable to a nation to maintain these men in\nidleness than run the risk of another war. For disarmament itself what\nis needed is that half a dozen, at least, of the great Powers shall\nagree to submit _all_ quarrels to arbitration, and reduce their armies\nto the proportions of an international police, at the service of the\ninternational tribunal and for use (under its permit) against lower\npeoples who turn aggressive. No one doubts that this can be done when\nthe Powers agree to do it. But for one reason or other, which I need not\ndiscuss, the Governments will probably not do this until a majority of\nthe electorate indicate a resolute demand for it. The immediate task is\nto secure this majority by education; and the work of education will be\nbest conducted by vast non-sectarian peace-organisations. The mixture of\nfutile Christian phraseology and genuine humanitarian interests in some\nof these movements has been hitherto a grave disadvantage. The movement\nhas been compelled to split into sectarian branches, and has\nproportionately lost efficacy. If the clergy insist on winning prestige\nfor themselves, or respect and recognition for their doctrines, by\nacting in these bodies, they are again hampering the work of reform. A\ngreat national agitation, linked with similar agitations in other lands,\navoiding Christian formulae as well as anti-Christian reproaches, will\nalone secure the object.\n\nI confess--with ardent hope that I may be wrong--that I expect no\nimmediate realisation of the reform. It may take years, even after the\ngrim lesson that militarism has given us, to inspire the majority of our\npeople with an unsleeping and irresistible demand, and the work will\ngrow more arduous as the memory of the hardships of the war fades. On\nthe day on which I write this I have listened to the conversation, in a\ntrain, of a wealthy, refined, and cultivated Churchwoman. \"I said to my\nson when he set out,\" she observed, with a laugh, to her neighbour,\n\"that it was far better for him to get shot than to die of diphtheria or\nsomething at home.\" If that sentiment, that obtuseness to the massive\nhorrors of war even when a son was involved, is widespread, the outlook\nis dark. One fears that it is not very promising.\n\nThe lady I quote would read these pages, if she could constrain herself\nto do so, with a genuine shudder. Abandon Christianity! She would\nvolubly reel off the eloquent forecasts of the doom of society which she\nhas heard from a hundred pulpits. Meantime she is one of the gravest\nobstacles (as a type of her class) to the removal from society of one of\nits most crushing burdens and most criminal usages. To me her class\nillustrates the limitations of Christianity, and it confirms me in the\nbelief that we shall make more rapid progress without it. She was a lady\nof keen sympathies and of great activity for others: the kind of woman\nwho, as she would put it, practised her Christianity. Yet in face of\nthis mighty disorder she showed at once the failure of Christianity and\nthe reason of it. Her genuine human sympathy was directed by an ancient\nand outworn code of duties. Where Christianity had delivered no clear\nmessage, the expanding of her sympathy was barred. War was part of the\nestablished order of things. She could even cheat her maternal sentiment\nwith thin fallacies, because they reconciled her to what the Church had\nnot condemned. She had never seen the vision of peace, never grasped the\ncomparatively easy alternative to war.\n\nThis, in general terms, is what one means by the expectation that a\nsurrender of Christian doctrines will certainly not check the growth of\nsympathy, and is more likely to promote it. It will direct itself\nspontaneously to departments of suffering to which the Church had not\ndirected it. But we should be foolish to rely on this free growth and\nspontaneous application of sympathy. It must be cultivated: our\ngeneration must be educated to a sense of its value. As far as the child\nis concerned, the need is plain. Children do not merely have veins of\ncruelty; they have, as comparative psychology knows, the blood and\nimpulses of primitive man. The general impulse of a healthy boy is to\nexact an eye for an eye: the impulse which it is the supreme care of a\nmodern State to curb in its citizens. To educate such children in\nmilitary history, whether of ancient Jews or medieval Englishmen or\nmodern Germans, is, as William II knows, the best means of maintaining\nwar. As to the New Testament, its language is not addressed to children,\nits sentiments are often so obviously impracticable that it defeats the\nend of education, and its precepts and counsels are so emphatically\nbased on a disputable reward in heaven that their ethic savours of a\nrisky commercial speculation. We must abandon \"Bible lessons,\" and teach\nchildren to be human.\n\nBut for the work of education to end when the child leaves the school is\none of the crudities of our elementary civilisation. The human material\nis just becoming fit for the efforts of the educator when the child\nleaves school, yet from that moment we leave it to the casual and\nlargely pernicious influences of its environment. Some day, perhaps, our\neducation department will be more seriously concerned about the youth\nand the adult than about impressing a few facts of history and geography\non the memory of the child: even if it did no more than organise and\ndirect the innumerable foundations and voluntary organisations which\nactually exist, and bring them into living and practical contact with\nour splendid museums and libraries and art-collections, a vast amount\ncould be done in the education of the adult. Meantime a persistent,\ncomprehensive, intensely earnest propaganda of peace is needed. Since I\nwrote a little work on those lines in 1899 I have had fifteen years'\nexperience of preaching the gospel of peace, and know well how\nconvincing are its arguments and how little it has to overcome except\ninertia. We need only to help the imagination of the mass of people; to\nput clearly before them the comparative easiness and the incalculable\nvalue of the change. Christianity has not tried and failed; it has not\neven tried. It has wasted its resources in generalities which have\nproved wholly futile. We must speak as men to men; and men will be more\nopen to conviction when we plead that, not the supposed commands of a\nGalilean preacher of nineteen hundred years ago, but their own highest\nand most sacred instincts, bid them lay down their arms and inaugurate\nthe age of international peace.\n\n[Footnote 1: _The Service of Man_ (_6d._ edition), p. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 2: As I write, the Press describes Canon Green of Burnley as\nsaying that \"the war is a divine judgment on the world--England for the\nlast ten years has been God-forgetting, drunken, immoral.\"]\n\n[Footnote 3: Let me again guard myself against misrepresentation. Were I\nof military age, I should to-day be in the trenches. The men who, as\nlong as the military system is retained, expose their lives in our\ndefence have my entire respect and gratitude. It is the system I\nimpugn.]\n\n\nPrinted by Watts & Co., Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.C.","title":"The War and the Churches","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35875}