RELIGION IN A 
 WORLD AT WAR 
 
 GEORGE HODGES 
 
tihtavy of CKc 'theological ^^minavy 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Dr. Earl A. Pope 
 
 Manson Professor of Bible 
 
 Lafayette College 
 
 The Earl A. Pope Collection 
 
 115. ¥2 H7 1917 
 „ dges , George , 1856-1919. 
 -..igion in a. world a.t wa.r. 
 
cL ^^^t^ Cc. 
 
RELIGION 
 IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
^Th^)^ o 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
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 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
RELIGION 
 IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE HODGES 
 
 Dean of the Episcopal Theological School 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts 
 
 ^Rt OF PRINCE^ 
 SEP 6 2000 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1918 
 
 All rights reserve^ 
 
Copyright, 1917, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, May, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 In the Storm of War . . . .1 . . . i 
 
 Easter in a World at War 13 
 
 Memorial Day in a World at War . . 23 
 
 All Saints' Day in a World at War . . 35 
 
 Christmas in a World at War .... 49 
 
 God and the World's Pain ..... 59 
 
 Pain and the World's Progress ... 74 
 
 The Everlasting Vitality of the Christian 
 
 Religion . . .) 89 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD 
 AT WAR 
 
 IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth 
 my hands to war and my fingers to fight. Psalm 
 144:1. 
 
 CHE Old Testament is filled with the 
 alarm of war. Its books of history 
 are occupied with accounts of campaigns, 
 successful and unsuccessful. Its books of 
 prophecy are composed of the sermons 
 which men preached who took their texts 
 from the bulletins of Assyrian and Chaldean 
 invasion, from the plots of Egyptian con- 
 spirators, from the tragedies of deportation. 
 When Ulfilas, the apostle of the Goths, 
 translated the Bible into the language of 
 his people, he omitted the books of Samuel 
 and Kings, because there is so much fight- 
 ing in them. He feared that his belligerent 
 countrymen would find these books more 
 interesting than the Sermon on the Mount. 
 But even in an Old Testament thus pru- 
 
 I 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 dently expurgated, there is plenty of war 
 left. 
 
 The modern Hebrew is for the most part 
 a peaceable person; sometimes suffering 
 at the hands of semi-barbarous Christian 
 neighbours, but rarely retaliating. The an- 
 cient Hebrew was a fierce and eager soldier. 
 With his sword and with his bow he had 
 won the land which he inhabited, and he 
 had defended his possession in a thousand 
 battles. According to his theology, the 
 Lord himself was a man of war. The saints 
 in his calendar wore helmets instead of ha- 
 loes, and showed that the grace of God was 
 in them by the might with which they smote 
 their enemies. Saint Abraham took the 
 three hundred and eighteen men who com- 
 posed his body-guard and fell upon the hosts 
 of the allied kings of the east. Saint Moses, 
 meekest of men, began his career of social 
 reconstruction by killing an Egyptian over- 
 seer. Saint Samuel, though properly a 
 prophet rather than a warrior, hewed King 
 Agag in pieces before the Lord, and wiped 
 his bloody axe confident that in him God 
 was well pleased. The time would fail me, 
 says the writer of the Epistle to the He- 
 
IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 brews, to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and 
 of Samson, and of Jephthah, — saints and 
 heroes all, — who waxed valiant in fight, 
 and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 
 
 Those were days when hatred was held 
 high among the manly virtues. " Do not I 
 hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? " cries 
 the writer of a psalm. " I hate them with 
 a perfect hatred: I count them mine ene- 
 mies." And then, without the slightest 
 pause or hesitation, he continues, " Search 
 me, O God, and know my heart, try me and 
 know my thoughts, and see if there be any 
 wickedness in me, and lead .me in the way 
 everlasting." There may be some wicked- 
 ness in him, but he thinks not. His con- 
 science is quite clear. That his hatred of 
 his enemies might possibly be considered a 
 defect in his character never enters for a 
 moment into his mind. By the stoutness of 
 his hatred he commends himself to the ap- 
 proval of God. He is proud of the perfection 
 of his wrath. 
 
 As for war, it was commonly considered a 
 normal part of every well-ordered masculine 
 life. Sometimes, in the depression of discour- 
 agement and defeat long continued, a 
 
 3 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 prophet might have a vision of a blessed 
 peace when swords should be beaten into 
 plough-shares, and spears into pruning- 
 hooks. This, however, was but a passing vi- 
 sion, and seemed on reflection a dull dream. 
 The natural occupation of a man in ordinary 
 health was to fight. " It came to pass," says 
 an Old Testament historian, by way of cas- 
 ually dating an event, " it came to pass at the 
 time when kings go forth to battle." The 
 winter is over, the sweet spring awakens new 
 life in the brown fields, the hearts of men 
 beat faster in tune with the universe, and re- 
 joicing kings lead their happy warriors forth 
 with merry shouting. What can we do bet- 
 ter, these fine fresh mornings, than to kill one 
 another? The cause? They ask no cause. Is 
 the war offensive or defensive? It matters 
 not to them. Do they fight for principle, or 
 for plunder? They do not greatly care; 
 though they probably prefer plunder. They 
 go to war for war's sake. 
 
 A theory of the Bible which put the Old 
 Testament on a level with the New found 
 precedent in these old battles and sanction in 
 the fierce old psalms. Saint Bernard took the 
 first verse of the One Hundred and forty- 
 4 
 
IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 fourth Psalm, and made it the war-cry of the 
 Crusades. The Christian knights rode into 
 battle, singing as they couched their lances, 
 " Blessed be the Lord my strength, which 
 teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to 
 fight." Cromwell led his cavalry against the 
 fortress of Drogheda with the watch-word, 
 " Our Lord God," and said at the end of a 
 massacre, whose fearful echoes ring in Ire- 
 land to this hour, " It hath pleased God to 
 bless our endeavours." The English lost a 
 hundred men that day; the Irish lost three 
 thousand. But there was a similar dispro- 
 portion at the taking of Jericho. There were 
 texts of Scripture to justify it. " It was set 
 upon some of our hearts," said Cromwell, 
 " that a great thing should be done, not by 
 power or by might, but by the Spirit of God." 
 Cromwell was entirely honest about it. He 
 could have said in his prayers that night, like 
 the man in the psalm, *' Search me, O God, 
 and know my heart, and see if there be any 
 wickedness in me." The doctrine of the in- 
 spiration of Scripture may seem somewhat 
 removed from the practical side of human 
 life, but that day in Ireland a doctrine of the 
 inspiration of the Old Testament encouraged 
 
 5 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 an army of psalm-singing and praying sol- 
 diers to butcher a defenceless garrison. 
 
 Of course, the truth is that the Bible is a 
 record of moral progress. Little by little, 
 century by century, through experiences in- 
 structive but often terrible, the race comes on 
 into better knowledge of God and of man. 
 When the invading army of the Germans re- 
 peated in Belgium the methods of the invad- 
 ing army of the Israelites in Canaan, they 
 had the Old Testament on their side. But 
 the Christian world was horrified. In the 
 midst of all the manifold confusions, misun- 
 derstandings and perplexities of the war, the 
 invasion of Belgium stands out as one plain 
 count in our indictment of Germany, one 
 vast and hideous crime which has not been 
 denied, and for which there has been no 
 repentance. We go to war with Germany in 
 defence and protest against a manner of 
 fighting which defies the ideals of humanity. 
 But it did not defy the ideals of humanity in 
 the time of the Old Testament. Our state of 
 mind shows the progress which has been 
 made, in most nations, since that day. 
 
 It is true that history contains the record 
 of just and necessary wars. Out of a hundred 
 6 
 
IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 thousand pages stained with folly, and ambi- 
 tion, and tragic error, and the passions of 
 wild beasts, and exhibiting war as the blind 
 enemy of mankind, the destroyer of art and 
 industry, the wanton hinderer of the prog- 
 ress of the race, there are chapters which 
 shine with the splendour of heroism and 
 martyrdom, and with the glory of perma- 
 nent achievement. There are wars which 
 have won decisive victories for humanity, 
 for truth, for liberty. 
 
 Leonidas at Thermopylae, meeting the 
 hosts of the East at the threshold of their in- 
 vasion of the West, as Horatius kept the 
 bridge at Rome, was engaged in an undertak- 
 ing for which no other implements than arms 
 were competent. No priest of Corinth with 
 his prayers, no philosopher of Athens with 
 his arguments, could have held back that 
 devastating host. Charles Martel, confront- 
 ing the Saracens at Tours, was engaged in a 
 business which neither courts nor churches 
 could accomplish. Somebody had to fight 
 that advancing army. It was the only way. 
 The destiny of Christianity and of civilisa- 
 tion depended on the energies of war. 
 
 In like manner in this country, our fathers 
 
 7 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 fought for liberty and unity. They had to 
 fight. They went into battle with as clear a 
 conscience, and upheld by as confident a con- 
 viction of the approval of the Lord of Hosts, 
 as any warrior of the Old Testament, or as 
 any martyr of the New. Thus fought the 
 men of the War of Independence; and the 
 men of the North when they met the men of 
 the South. These soldiers went to war not 
 to satisfy the ambition of anybody in au- 
 thority, nor for the sake of the conquest 
 of territory, nor to try out the value of the 
 inventions of manufacturers of munitions, 
 nor for any merely material interests; still 
 less did they fight for the sake of fighting. 
 They were of the mind of Sir Philip Sidney 
 when he said, " Whenever you hear of a good 
 war, go to it." It was a good war, and they 
 went to it on that account. 
 
 The determining question which a Chris- 
 tian nation asks on the eve of war has regard 
 not to the excellence of peace — which may 
 well be debated in the time of peace — but to 
 the character of the impending war. Is it a 
 good war? Is the quarrel great enough, and 
 irreconcilable enough? Is it so serious and 
 urgent beyond all doubt as to justify the kill- 
 8 
 
IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 ing of a hundred thousand men? Is it the 
 kind of crisis which, arising between intelli- 
 gent neighbours on our street, would require 
 one neighbour, on behalf of the eternal prin- 
 ciples of right and justice and humanity, to 
 bum the other neighbour's house, and shoot 
 his wife and children? 
 
 If we say Yes, the quarrel is sufficiently 
 great, the disagreement demands settlement 
 and cannot wait ; still the question remains. 
 Have all the civilised methods of settlement 
 been tried? Have all the substitutes of law 
 for war been put into effect? 
 
 For the event of war contradicts in a mo- 
 ment the whole progress of civilisation. It 
 declares that that for which the church 
 stands, and that for which the college stands, 
 and that that is represented by the courts of 
 law, is of no avail. 
 
 By long labour, by hard experience, by 
 patient thought, by the endeavours of the 
 best men, the race comes on slowly and pain- 
 fully out of savagery into civilisation. The 
 church is occupied in teaching the brother- 
 hood of man, and in softening the natural 
 brutalities of men; the college is engaged in 
 getting the world administered according to 
 
 9 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 the processes o£ reason, as opposed to the 
 methods of physical force ; the court is con- 
 cerned to extend and maintain the peace 
 which comes by the just and orderly settle- 
 ment of disputes. Between them, they have 
 almost abolished private war. It is true that 
 they have not yet succeeded completely. But 
 they have done much. They have brought it 
 about that a man's house need no longer be 
 his fortress, and that a man need no longer 
 protect himself against injustice by attacking 
 his neighbour with a gun. When that sort of 
 thing happens, as it does happen still in the 
 less-privileged districts of great cities, we 
 perceive the last dregs of a cup of strife 
 which was once full to the brim. The church, 
 the college and the court have brought about 
 the dominion of religion, of reason, and of 
 law over the affairs of individuals. 
 
 They have not accomplished this civilising 
 process in the affairs of nations. In spite of 
 all this progress, suddenly comes war,' and 
 men revert to barbarism. The nations act as 
 if neither court, nor college, nor church ex- 
 isted. Each nation undertakes to settle its 
 difference with a neighbour nation in the 
 ancient manner which antedates all civilis- 
 
 10 
 
IN THE STORM OF WAR 
 
 ation. Thus they did beside the Tigris and 
 the Euphrates before Babylon was born, and 
 in the valley of the Nile before the oldest 
 pyramid was built. Thus the lions and the 
 bears administer justice in the jungle. 
 
 The sound of trumpets fills the land with 
 primitive emotions; the drums beat and 
 crowds gather in the public places ; men are 
 impatient to march into the flame and thun- 
 der. They would go singing like the crusa- 
 ders, " Blessed be the Lord my strength, 
 which teacheth my hands to war, and my fin- 
 gers to fight." But the everlasting truth is 
 that the Lord intends our hands to war and 
 our fingers to fight not only when our cause 
 is just, but when all other plans and endeav- 
 ours have plainly failed, and the only way in 
 which we can persuade our brothers is by 
 the argument which Cain used with Abel. 
 
 Up to the moment when that condition is 
 made plain beyond mistake, a Christian na- 
 tion will maintain a patience proportioned 
 to the solemn and tremendous importance of 
 the event. It will preserve a patience which 
 shall stir up in the souls of irresponsible peo- 
 ple a very storm of abusive indignation, — 
 and will still be patient. It will wait, not till 
 
 II 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 there is an excuse for making war, nor till 
 some act is committed which seems to call 
 for the reply of war, but till the situation is 
 such that it is plain that no processes of peace 
 can solve it. For war means that your son 
 kills your neighbour's son, and is brought 
 back to you shot through the head. We shall 
 never confront the situation fairly, so long as 
 we state it to ourselves in terms of other peo- 
 ple's sons. It is by our own relation to it that 
 we must fortify our utmost patience. 
 
 Then, when the last walls of our Christian 
 patience are beaten down, and we come to 
 the pass of which our Master spoke when he 
 said, " I came not to send peace but a 
 sword " ; when there must be war for the de- 
 fence of our liberties, for the protection of 
 our homes, or for the punishment of intoler- 
 able crimes against God and man ; God give 
 us grace to meet it with courage and a 
 clear conscience. Blessed be the Lord my 
 strength, who taught men's hands to war 
 and their fingers to fight, in the old time 
 when that was the only way. And blessed be 
 the Lord of Hosts who on a thousand battle- 
 fields has defended the right against the 
 mighty ; and shall again defend it. 
 
 12 
 
EASTER IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 ^T^HEN our Lord said, " The Son of Man 
 vAx shall be betrayed unto the chief 
 priests and unto the scribes, and they shall 
 condemn him to death, and shall deliver him 
 to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and 
 to crucify him, — and the third day he shall 
 rise again," he included Good Friday and 
 Easter in the same sentence. 
 
 It is the divine succession: after tragedy, 
 victory ; after death, the resurrection ; hope- 
 less failure, everything lost, all the good 
 plans of God gone wrong, the devil dom- 
 inant, the Son of Man betrayed, delivered to 
 the Gentiles, mocked, scourged and cruci- 
 fied, — then the third day. It is as he said in 
 another place, " In the world ye shall have 
 tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have 
 overcome the world." 
 
 In the conviction that the best prophecy 
 is history, we consult the Old Testam.ent. 
 We perceive that a great part of the Old Tes- 
 tament was written under Good-Friday con- 
 
 13 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 «■ 
 ditions. The nation was delivered over into 
 
 the hands of its enemies, and was mocked 
 and scourged and crucified. The situation 
 was Uke that of Belgium, of Poland, of Ser- 
 bia, of Armenia. The righteous were beaten 
 down, and trodden under foot, and " killed 
 all the day long." Most of the prophets 
 preached under such circumstances. Some 
 of them saw the evil afar off, and hoped that 
 it might be averted; some of them, in the 
 midst of the evil days, saw the dim light of a 
 distant dawn. But there they were, in a 
 world at war, as we are. 
 
 So with the men who wrote the Psalms. 
 See how many of these poems are in the 
 minor key. They are full of pain and per- 
 plexity. They express the amazement of the 
 faithful at the prosperity of the wicked, and 
 at the consequent defeat and affliction of the 
 righteous. They were written by men who 
 beside the waters of Babylon wept when they 
 remembered Zion. As we read them, we per- 
 ceive how perfectly they express the feelings 
 of our brethren in the devastation of the Ger- 
 man War. 
 
 Yet the Psalter ends with the great praise 
 of the last psalm ; and the poem of the pas- 
 M 
 
EASTER IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 sion, which begins in the deepest depths with 
 the cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" comes out into the shining 
 light of faith and satisfaction. It begins with 
 Good Friday, but it ends with Easter. The 
 sequence is so remarkable in the prophets as 
 to give rise to the theory that sentences of 
 promise and consolation and victory were 
 added to the books by later writers. Even if 
 this were true, it would mean that later 
 writers saw that the universal gloom of the 
 prophets was a misinterpretation of the 
 course of the world. Probably the prophets 
 saw that themselves. 
 
 Anyhow, here is the fact : most of the Old 
 Testament was written in a world at war, 
 and yet the dominant note of the Old Testa- 
 ment is the note of victory. The men of that 
 tragic time, living as we do in the face of the 
 strife of nations, themselves actually in the 
 midst of it, daily suffering under the horrible 
 distress of it, nevertheless maintained the 
 serenity of their faith. They held that doc- 
 trine of the gracious and loving providence 
 of God which in all ages has triumphantly 
 withstood the contradiction of the facts. In 
 a thousand wars, as in individual experiences 
 
 15 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 out of number, the facts are dead against the 
 assertion of divine providence. The proposi- 
 tion that God is our Father is disproved 
 every day. But we believe it. That is the ex- 
 traordinary thing. It is a part of the invin- 
 cible creed of man, against which all facts 
 and all arguments beat as vainly as the 
 doctrine of the immortality of the soul sur- 
 vives the daily contradiction of the death of 
 the body. 
 
 Nobody in Europe can add anything to 
 the Old Testament consciousness of the 
 calamity of war. The Hebrews learned the 
 whole terrible lesson from the Assyrians and 
 the Chaldeans, centuries before the Germans 
 were ever heard of. Yet the total result of 
 the Old Testament writings is that by pa- 
 tience and comfort of the Scriptures we may 
 have hope. Their message is that after be- 
 trayal, and mocking, and scourging, and cru- 
 cifixion; after the sun is turned into dark- 
 ness, and the moon into blood, and the stars 
 fall; there comes the sure dawn of a third 
 day, when the Lord of Life, whom we 
 thought dead, rises again. 
 
 There is a serious defect, however, in the 
 Old Testament hope and comfort. It is a 
 i6 
 
EASTER IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 message to the nations rather than to the 
 men and women of whom the nations are 
 composed. It is an interpretation of life in 
 terms of continents and centuries. The 
 " third day '' is Hke the days of creation in the 
 book of Genesis. It is so long, and the first 
 day and the second are so long in between, 
 that we despair of seeing it. It will come, 
 no doubt, and this will be a better world in 
 consequence of all this pain ; but we shall not 
 be here to welcome it. It is as when the Lord 
 said to Mary in her mourning, " Thy brother 
 shall rise again " ; and Mary replied, " Yes, 
 Lord, I know that he shall rise, — in the 
 resurrection at the last day." That was a 
 cold and remote comfort : as when one says, 
 " It will be all the same in a hundred years." 
 The storm of war falls upon the land and 
 sweeps away our home, our property, our 
 place to live in, and those who are dear to 
 us, and leaves us impoverished, spoiled, 
 maimed and bereft. They who are thus 
 taken out of our sight go, no doubt, to their 
 reward. But here are we; here are our 
 brothers and sisters in the devastated lands. 
 There is no immediate consolation for them 
 in the expectation that by-and-by, after years 
 
 17 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 of pain and labour, these ghastly ruins shall 
 be built again into decent habitations, and 
 men and women shall live happily in them. 
 What is the consolation of religion for these 
 afflicted people now? 
 
 It is where the New Testament saints 
 found it, in an interpretation of life which 
 defied poverty, and persecution and the 
 sword and the loss of all things, because they 
 had transferred the emphasis of their inter- 
 est from the world to the soul. Their treas- 
 ure was laid up where no fire could burn it, 
 where no thieves could steal it. 
 
 It is to be said for war that it makes a dif- 
 ference in the common standard of value. It 
 distinguishes sharply between that which is 
 material and temporal and that which is 
 eternal. With all its hideous brutality, with 
 its emphasis on the baser passions, tempting 
 men to enrich themselves by means of the 
 pain of their brethren, nevertheless it re- 
 veals among us an unsuspected prevalence 
 of faith in the things which are above. 
 
 The men v/ho go into the war leave their 
 
 business, which had seemed to them the most 
 
 important thing in life. They give up the 
 
 pursuit of gain, which had been the goal of 
 
 i8 
 
EASTER IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 their efforts. The current of their ambition 
 is suddenly turned into a new channel ; they 
 have not only new occupations but new mo- 
 tives. With the abandonment of the com- 
 forts of life, and of the ordinary aims of life, 
 they are prepared to give up life itself. And 
 this, with no expectation of reward. To the 
 habitual question of commercial prudence, 
 " What is there in this for me? " the answer 
 which they make to their souls is that there 
 is nothing in it of material advantage to 
 them. All that they expect, all that they de- 
 sire, is the satisfaction which comes to those 
 who do their duty, and the joy which is the 
 reward of those who have their part in the 
 winning of a good fight. And these are 
 things which are above. 
 
 Under the easy conditions of a long peace, 
 such a situation may seem incredible. We 
 may think ill of human nature. We may be 
 of the opinion that man is invincibly selfish, 
 and cares only for the comforts and conven- 
 iences of life, and has forgotten the ideals of 
 his youth, and prefers gain to godliness, and 
 is incapable of self-sacrifice. We may say to 
 the social reformer, " You can't get men to 
 give their money, or their time, or even the 
 
 19 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 use of their influential names, to any attack 
 upon the devil; because it would interfere 
 with their business. It would interfere with 
 their sacred business." 
 
 Then war comes, and the doctrine that 
 human nature is invincibly selfish is dis- 
 proved by the argument of innumerable 
 lives. Under the revealing conditions of this 
 demand, unsuspected heroism, devotion, 
 nobility, patriotism, self-sacrifice, and re- 
 ligion appear. Men are better than we 
 thought. We ourselves are not so selfish, 
 not so committed to the mere things of life, 
 as we had feared. Even death takes on a new 
 significance when it comes not in ignomini- 
 ous slow surrender to disease, but as a splen- 
 did offering of all that we have and are for 
 the triumph of the righteous cause. The hero 
 gives himself, with open eyes, with rejoicing 
 devotion. He consecrates himself to the ser- 
 vice of his country. He meets death not as an 
 accident, not as a defeat, but as a part of the 
 great day's work. " Gladly I lived, and 
 gladly I die, and I lay me down with a will." 
 The black storm of war overtakes us, and 
 we count up our losses. They are bitter 
 losses. A great war touches every family in 
 
 20 
 
EASTER IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 the nation. There is no shelter from it. Let 
 us not suffer ourselves to be deceived by the 
 enthusiasm of thoughtless people, or to set 
 out gaily keeping step to the beat of drums. 
 Let us not share in the false security of those 
 who say, as they read the tragedies of other 
 people, " It can never happen to me." In this 
 v^ar, we shall all suffer. There is no escape. 
 We perceive, however, that a large part of 
 the loss in war consists in the destruction of 
 material things. And we perceive, further, 
 that most of these things are such as we can 
 do without. 
 
 We learn again the spiritual philosophy of 
 St. Paul, who not in easy theory only, not in 
 a sermon only, but in the actual experience 
 of his life, accounted all material things as 
 no better than refuse, as of no value whatso- 
 ever, in comparison with the love of Christ. 
 Christ, for our sakes, became poor, not of 
 necessity, neither reluctantly nor regret- 
 fully, but with a great gladness, as one who 
 enters into a splendid independence, un- 
 hampered, free, who sees life clear of all illu- 
 sion, and puts first things first. St. Paul, and 
 all the apostles, all the disciples, followed his 
 example. " If ye then be risen with Christ," 
 
 21 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 he said, " seek those things which are 
 above." It was his Easter message to those 
 who had suffered the loss of all things. Seek 
 those abiding things on which the destruc- 
 tive hand of adversity, of persecution, or of 
 war cannot be laid. Though heaven and 
 earth pass away, these eternal things re- 
 main. 
 
 War or no war, this is the true way of life. 
 We may not get out from under the burden 
 of our possessions, nor separate ourselves 
 from our social complications, nor forsake 
 the world. We may not seek the simple life 
 under artificial conditions of seclusion. That 
 would be the kind of retreat which is the 
 same as defeat. We are to live the life to 
 which it has pleased God to call us. But we 
 are to live it in the spirit of the philosopher to 
 whom a fanatic cried, " The world is coming 
 to an end," and who answered, " I can get 
 along very well without it." There is the 
 test, there is our daily task of preparation. 
 We are so to live, in the consciousness of 
 God, in the sight of heaven, that we can get 
 along without any of these material things, 
 and survive the comforts and conveniences 
 of life with unperturbed serenity. 
 
 22 
 
MEMORIAL DAY IN A WORLD 
 AT WAR 
 
 Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 15:26. 
 
 ^^^HEY had hazarded their lives not on 
 ^^ fields of battle but in the dangerous 
 adventures of peace. 
 
 Saint Paul, who was of their company, 
 gives a list of the kinds of things which they 
 had done and endured : " Five times re- 
 ceived I forty stripes save one, thrice was I 
 beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I 
 suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I 
 been in the deep." To these perils of waters, 
 he added perils of the wilderness, of the jour- 
 ney, and of the city; and perils by the 
 heathen, by his own countrymen, and by 
 false brethren. He said that he had been " in 
 deaths oft." It is the experience of the sol- 
 dier whose companions in the trenches have 
 been killed on either side of him. And all in 
 times of peace, without uniform or beat of 
 
 23 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 drum, without the aid of the excitement of 
 the stricken field! That which these men 
 did and endured was under the conditions of 
 a cold courage — the noblest and rarest kind 
 of courage. 
 
 The situations were widely different, but 
 the heroes thus described were kinsmen of 
 those whom we have in memory to-day, and 
 kinsmen of those other heroes the thought 
 of whom, dying this moment on battlefields 
 in Europe, subordinates this year the mem- 
 ory of every other war. Heroes of peace, he- 
 roes of battle — they are all alike heroic in 
 the fact that they hazarded their lives. In the 
 supreme moment, they considered not them- 
 selves. All their possessions, all their pros- 
 pects, all the things for which men compete 
 and strive, even to life itself, they piled up on 
 the altar of their sacrifice. 
 
 We praise unselfishness ; we assent to the 
 assertion that all the virtues are included in 
 it ; but, at the same time, we group it with 
 the passive excellencies. In our common 
 thought it does not stand among the mas- 
 teries. It is gracious and beautiful, but we do 
 not instinctively recognise it as a manifesta- 
 tion of strength. The strong man asserts 
 24 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 himself, impresses himself on his neigh- 
 bours, leads the way, gives the words of 
 command, and gets himself obeyed. We say 
 dutifully that the meek shall inherit the 
 earth, but we do not believe it. The meek? 
 They are the unselfish, the humble-minded, 
 who have no disposition to push their way 
 among their fellows, and are not seeking 
 anything for themselves. How shall they in- 
 herit the earth? the earth, which has been 
 fought for, step by step, in all ages, as it is 
 being fought for to-day in the fields of Bel- 
 gium and France, and has been inherited, as 
 a matter of fact, by the stoutest army! 
 
 Then comes such a day as this, when we 
 think not so much of the living as of the dead, 
 and commemorate not so much the heroes 
 as the martyrs, and we begin to realise that 
 these men saved the world by dying for it. 
 They saved it, that is, by an act out of which 
 all individual self-seeking had been taken. 
 In the face of death, hazarding their lives, 
 losing their lives, they asked nothing for 
 themselves. They gave all; and gave it for 
 their cause, for their country, for the for- 
 warding of their ideal among men. We un- 
 derstand how our Lord said that He came 
 
 25 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 not to be ministered unto but to minister, 
 and expressed in that sentence a standard of 
 life into which all the strengths and mas- 
 teries are lifted up. 
 
 If we say that the men whose self-sacrifice 
 is recalled by this Memorial Day hazarded 
 their lives, indeed, but not " for the name of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ," then we may re- 
 member the debate which was argued in the 
 presence of St. Anselm regarding a predeces- 
 sor of his in the see of Canterbury, St. Al- 
 phege. It was said that Alphege could not 
 properly be called a saint because he did not 
 die in the service of religion. The invading 
 Danes having captured Alphege and holding 
 him for ransom, he refused to allow the bur- 
 den of his release to be laid upon his people. 
 They were poor enough, he said, already. 
 Thus he died in resistance to an unjust tax. 
 But Anselm said that Alphege was a saint 
 indeed, because he gave his life for the com- 
 mon good, and the common good is the cause 
 of God. 
 
 Thus died the men of the war which was 
 
 ended fifty years ago. They died to set men 
 
 free. They died to convert a confederacy of 
 
 states into a united nation. Even the second 
 
 26 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 of these purposes was so contributory to the 
 prosperity and abiding peace of our people 
 that we may recognise in it a religious value, 
 and see the connection of it with the cause of 
 Christ. Concerning the first, there is no 
 doubt whatever. These men fought in a war 
 of the Lord. They hazarded their lives for 
 the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 It may be discussed — and perhaps with 
 profit — whether the results which they at- 
 tained by the tragedy of war could not have 
 been gained, and, on the whole, much better 
 gained, by the patient processes of peace. 
 We may frankly admit that the idea that 
 moral betterment can never be had except by 
 the methods of the jungle is altogether in- 
 tolerable. Nevertheless, the fact remains 
 that these men fought, and that out of their 
 fighting, out of the hazard of their lives, 
 came those good results. We remember 
 them to-day not as heroes only but as bene- 
 factors. 
 
 Standing by the graves of these men we 
 look out into our contemporary world. The 
 storm of strife increases. On goes the un- 
 ceasing tragedy of the war. We place our 
 memorial flowers on the graves of the men 
 
 27 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 of half-a-century ago at a time when the 
 making of graves has come to be one of the 
 chief industries of the race. They cannot be 
 dug fast enough to satisfy the daily demand. 
 But we perceive that we can in some meas- 
 ure understand now what was taking place 
 among us fifty years ago. We can see in cer- 
 tain definite details how all that misery and 
 pain and grief were concerned with human 
 progress. And we believe, in the midst of the 
 present strife of the nations, that this also 
 shall some time be understood, and shall be 
 found serviceable toward the long plans of 
 God. 
 
 It may be that the men who are now haz- 
 arding their lives are by their pain bringing 
 on the end not of this war only but of all war. 
 The Carnegie Endowment for International 
 Peace puts forth a statement saying, " We 
 wish to say to all friends of peace that the 
 dreadful war now waging affords no just 
 cause for discouragement, no discredit to 
 past efforts, and no reason to doubt that still 
 greater efforts in the future may be effective 
 and useful. The war itself is teaching the 
 gospel of peace through a lesson so shocking 
 and so terrible that the most indifferent can- 
 28 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 not fail to attend and understand it. Not 
 only have the destruction of life, the devasta- 
 tion and suffering, in the warring countries 
 passed all experience, but the cessation of 
 production, the closing of markets, the 
 blocking of trade routes, the interruption of 
 exchanges, have affected industry and 
 caused ruin and poverty in all the peaceful 
 countries of the world. The universal inter- 
 dependence of nations has been demon- 
 strated, and the truth forced upon every 
 mind that the peace of all nations is the vital 
 concern of every nation." 
 
 And there is another effect than that. The 
 policy of frightfulness has brought about an 
 unintended result. It has stained and de- 
 faced the ancient glory of war. It has cov- 
 ered the profession of arms with shame. It 
 has taken the name of soldier, which in spite 
 of all the inevitable cruelties of war has kept 
 a tradition of nobility, and has made it de- 
 scriptive of the basest crimes of criminals. 
 The report of Mr. Bryce's commission to 
 examine into the conduct of the war in Bel- 
 gium writes into the pages of carefully au- 
 thenticated history the record of an army 
 degraded into murderers, and adulterers and 
 
 29 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 thieves. Here is war reduced to a calculated 
 science, divested of all romance, emptied of 
 all chivalry, equipped with torches to bum 
 the houses of non-combatants, destroying 
 here an ancient university and there a ca- 
 thedral consecrated by the associations of 
 centuries, levying monstrous fines : and this, 
 not in the heat and rage of battle, not as the 
 fiendish acts of men beyond control, but in 
 deliberation, under orders written in mili- 
 tary offices. These atrocities are the last 
 word in war. They are the accomplishment 
 of the most efficient military organisation 
 which has been seen on this embattled earth 
 since Cain murdered Abel. They reveal war 
 as it is, a horrible crime against both man 
 and God, menacing the human race as the 
 savages in the colonial days menaced the 
 settlers. And not to be endured, never again 
 to be permitted ! 
 
 The men who are putting their lives to 
 hazard will break down that increasing 
 might of militarism which has long menaced 
 the prosperity of nations. In the armed 
 camp of Europe, for now these many years, 
 the energy, the time and the money which 
 are needed for the positive purposes of civil- 
 30 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 isation, for the work of moral and social con- 
 struction, for education and religion, have 
 been diverted into the unproductive and 
 perilous maintenance of armies and the mak- 
 ing of costly munitions of war. Every hour 
 of this time, every ounce of this strength, 
 and every dollar of this money have been 
 taken from the great purposes in which we 
 believe. And now at last the war has come 
 for which these preparations have been 
 made. We may trust that when it is over, 
 and the weary and wounded nations return 
 to the life which human beings ought to live, 
 they will do so in a temper which will no 
 longer endure the existence of these appli- 
 ances for the murder of men. They will take 
 their submarines and their aeroplanes, and 
 their shrapnel and their poisons, and make a 
 bonfire of them on the ruins of the Krupp 
 gun-factory at Essen, in the light of whose 
 flames men shall be able to read the fine 
 print of the Sermon on the Mount from 
 Petrograd to Constantinople, and from the 
 Straits of Gibraltar to the Kiel Canal. 
 
 The war has deepened the moral and spir- 
 itual life in the belligerent countries. Old 
 frivolities are being cast aside, like the toys 
 
 31 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 of childhood. A new seriousness, a new con- 
 sciousness of God, a revival of religion ap- 
 pears. This may be due, indeed, in part, to 
 the fact that whole populations are suddenly 
 brought face to face with the peril of death. 
 Every man who goes to the front knows 
 very well that he may never return, and that 
 thought is in the hearts of all his relatives 
 and friends. They all put on a cheerful face, 
 so far as they are able, and away goes the 
 father, husband, son, -amidst shouts of ap- 
 plause and the waving of brave farewells, 
 but nothing can disguise the presence of the 
 awful probability of death. It puts a new 
 value on all that part of life which cannot 
 die. It emphasises religion. 
 
 But this it does, also, because it beats true 
 with the heart of religion itself. This su- 
 preme unselfishness, this offering of oneself 
 for the common good, this hazarding of 
 one's life for a great cause, is of the very es- 
 sence of Christianity, and finds its symbol 
 in the cross of Christ. " Militarism," says 
 President Tucker, "has nothing to teach 
 Christianity regarding the practice of the 
 heroic virtues. A religion which was born in 
 the supreme act of sacrificial courage, which 
 32 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 defied the centuries of persecution, which 
 mastered in turn the virile races of Europe, 
 which conquered despotism and cast out 
 slavery, which has subdued savage tribes, 
 and now holds its outposts in all dark and 
 cruel parts of the hospitable earth, is not a 
 religion to be asked to sit at the feet of mod- 
 ern militarism." 
 
 Christianity is a militant religion, into 
 whose service we are enlisted as true sol- 
 diers. It has v/ithin it place and play for all 
 the heroic virtues: not for the courage of 
 the arm only, but for the more difficult cour- 
 age of the conscience ; not for strength only, 
 but for chivalry. It is a contention against 
 principalities and powers, against the devil, 
 against everything that is mean and base 
 and evil in the world. War comes and con- 
 tradicts it, presenting itself as the great self- 
 ishness, the great endeavour of the strong 
 to subjugate the weak, destructive, ruthless, 
 cruel. And yet war gives it opportunity, 
 being at the same time the supreme call to 
 unselfish service, and rising to self-sacrifice. 
 Memorial Day and Trinity Sunday are al- 
 most coincident, significantly. For Memorial 
 Day stands for the fact of war, and Trinity 
 
 33 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Sunday stands for the fact of God. What we 
 need at this moment is somehow to hold 
 those facts together, and to bring the one 
 to the interpretation of the other. And for 
 that we need the largest possible under- 
 standing of God. In the midst of war, for 
 our comfort, for our faith, we would renew 
 our belief in God not only as the creator of 
 the world, and not only as the redeemer of 
 the race, but as the constant sanctifier of hu- 
 manity, our unfailing helper in the long 
 struggle with all wrong, in whom believing 
 we know that somehow, beyond our sight, 
 all things, even in the storm of war, shall 
 work together for the accomplishment of 
 good. 
 
 34 
 
ALL SAINTS' DAY IN A WORLD 
 AT WAR 
 
 They wrought righteousness. Heb. 11:33. 
 They were tempted. 11:37. 
 
 ^^?fHE eleventh chapter of the Epistle 
 ^^ to the Hebrews marches like a pro- 
 cession. 
 
 First come the kings and the captains: 
 Abel in the lead, after him Noah, then Abra- 
 ham, then Moses, in single file, dignified and 
 imposing persons. Then follow the footsol- 
 diers, in regiments and companies : first, the 
 heroes of the active life, the men who did 
 great things, — they subdued kingdoms, 
 stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the 
 violence of fire, waxed valiant in fight, 
 turned to flight the armies of the aliens; 
 then, the heroes of the passive life, the men 
 who endured great things,— they had trial 
 of mockings and scourgings, of bonds and 
 imprisonment, they were stoned, they were 
 sawn asunder. Thus they march, the heroes 
 
 35 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 of the faith, the veterans of old wars, in uni- 
 form, with gleaming medals, and with the 
 scars of their honourable wounds upon 
 them. 
 
 But in the midst of these regiments of 
 splendid warriors are two unexpected and 
 surprising groups. With men in uniform be- 
 fore them, and men in uniform behind them, 
 they march in plain attire, in citizen's dress. 
 It looks for a moment as if some quiet per- 
 sons, coming in out of the country, had got 
 into the procession by mistake. 
 
 Among the heroes of the active life, are 
 those whose humble record is contained in 
 the description : " They wrought righteous- 
 ness." This is the best that can be said of 
 them. They kept the commandments; they 
 were just plain good. And among the heroes 
 of the passive life, between the memorial 
 banner o^ those who were sawn asunder and 
 the memorial banner of those who were 
 slain with the sword, is an army of people 
 still more humble, of whom the very best 
 that can be said is, " They were tempted." 
 Why, we are all tempted. As the long vic- 
 torious procession passes, and these citizens 
 come in sight, we spectators, any of us, may 
 36 
 
ALL SAINTS' DAY 
 
 come in off the common sidewalk, and take 
 our places in these ranks, keeping step with 
 them. Of course, they resisted temptation. 
 This is a march of triumph, not of defeat. 
 But we, too, resist temptation, sometimes. 
 If there is room among the heroes for such 
 as these, there is room for such as we. 
 
 It means that there is another heroism be- 
 side the heroism of the battle. There is a 
 heroism of the camp. 
 
 We come in sight of the same contrast 
 when we read side by side this roll of brave 
 men in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews and the roll of brave men in 
 the eleventh chapter of the First Book of 
 Chronicles. 
 
 The Old Testament heroes were persons 
 of strenuous activity. One of them led the 
 attack which resulted in the taking of Jeru- 
 salem by the Jews. He climbed up the steep 
 face of the cliff, as Wolfe climbed to the 
 Heights of Abraham. Another met three 
 hundred Philistines, and faced them with 
 his single spear, and slew them at one time. 
 Three of them, in the heat of battle, heard 
 David say, *' Oh, that one would get me a 
 drink of water from the well by the gate of 
 
 37 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Bethlehem," and they brake through the 
 host of the Philistines and drew water out of 
 the well and brought it to David. Another 
 slew a lion in the midst of a pit on a stormy 
 day. Another fought a duel with an Eg)^- 
 tian giant ; the Egyptian was eight feet high, 
 and had a spear like a weaver's beam; the 
 hero plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's 
 hand and slew him. 
 
 The heroes of the New Testament list 
 showed their courage in altogether different 
 ways. Abel was a hero because he offered 
 an acceptable sacrifice. Noah was a hero 
 because he built an ark. Enoch was a hero 
 because he walked with God. Abraham was 
 a hero because he went into a new country, 
 and there made a home for himself and his 
 family after him. Moses was a hero because 
 he preferred to suffer affliction with the peo- 
 ple of God rather than enjoy the pleasures 
 of Egypt. Their heroism was displayed not 
 in the field of military courage, but in the 
 field of character. Not one of them won his 
 renown by killing anybody. 
 
 It means that there is another heroism be- 
 side the heroism of danger. It is the hero- 
 ism of quiet duty. 
 38 
 
ALL SAINTS' DAY 
 
 A Hebrew captain, on the eve of a difficult 
 and dangerous campaign, heard the voice of 
 God in his soul, and the voice said, "Be 
 strong and very courageous." Of course. 
 These are the proper qualities of captains. 
 But the rest of the sentence is in the New 
 Testament spirit: "Be strong and very 
 courageous — that thou mayest observe to 
 do according to all the law." The Lord says, 
 " Joshua, you will be brave in battle : that is 
 taken for granted. That is easy. But the 
 hardest thing that you will have to do is to 
 keep the commandments. The conquest of 
 the Canaanites is a matter of course. You 
 and your men will fight, and enjoy it. But 
 after the Canaanites are conquered, you will 
 have to fight the devil. That is a very differ- 
 ent and more serious matter. You will have 
 to fight against the devil. You must resist 
 temptation, and help your people to resist it. 
 You must be righteous and make your peo- 
 ple righteous." 
 
 It is plain — is it not? — that this call to 
 the heroism of the camp demands even more 
 than the call to the heroism of the battle. 
 
 The thing is verified in the experience of 
 every nation. It seems hard enough to die 
 
 39 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 for one's country, but it is much harder to 
 live for one's country. Men, for example, 
 are found in great numbers ready to imperil 
 their lives in the defence of the community 
 against a foreign enemy. But when it comes 
 to imperilling their property, their business 
 interests, their personal comfort or conven- 
 ience, in the defence of the community 
 against intolerable political conditions, or 
 against the devil entrenched in the brothel 
 or the saloon, that is another matter. Men 
 who would be brave soldiers are found to be 
 timid citizens. Sometimes they are found to 
 be treacherous citizens, actual enemies of 
 the community, contending for their own 
 advantage against the life and character of 
 their neighbours. They are willing to own 
 houses which poison the bodies and souls of 
 those who live in them, or to employ for 
 their own gain the labour of women and 
 children under such conditions of hours and 
 pay that the women are unfitted to be moth- 
 ers, and the boys and girls are unable to 
 grow up into good men and women. 
 
 Dr. Benjamin Church, in the Revolution, 
 was taken out of Cambridge to the music of 
 a fife and drum playing the ** Rogue's 
 40 
 
ALL SAINTS* DAY 
 
 March/* because he was discovered to be 
 carrying on a traitorous correspondence 
 with the enemy during the siege of Boston. 
 That was in time of war. At such a time, 
 traitors are recognised and sharply disci- 
 plined. But in times of peace, one may be a 
 traitor to his social trusts without fairly per- 
 ceiving his own treachery. Miss Addams, in 
 her " Twenty Years at Hull House," speaks 
 of a man whose conscience was in serious 
 doubt as to the righteousness of contribu- 
 ting money to a social settlement because 
 the settlements give no religious instruc- 
 tion, while at the same time the conscience 
 of the settlement itself was even more 
 deeply perplexed as to its right to take his 
 money because of the notorious unscrupu- 
 lousness of his business methods. So easy 
 is it to attend to the great transactions of 
 the battle, and at the same time to disregard 
 the common duties of the camp. They who 
 wrought righteousness belong among the 
 heroes. They fought as brave a fight as they 
 who "turned to flight the armies of the 
 aliens." 
 
 You can see how this interprets the festi- 
 val of All Saints. It is a day which brings 
 
 41 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 plain people into the company o£ prophets 
 and apostles. It extends the list o£ Christian 
 saints till it includes so great a multitude 
 that no man could number them. They 
 stand before us a shining company uncanon- 
 ised and uncalendared, but wearing haloes 
 of celestial light. They have no place in the 
 pages of history. There is no record of their 
 names. Such commemoration as they have 
 is like the Tower of the Forty Martyrs by 
 the coast of Syria, concerning which nobody 
 knows who the martyrs were, or in what 
 holy war they offered up their lives, or even 
 whether they were Mohammedans or Chris- 
 tians. They are indistinguishably lost in the 
 ranks of the private soldiers of whom the 
 whole army of martyrs is composed. 
 
 Thus the portion of Scripture appointed 
 for the epistle for All Saints' Day is the most 
 monotonous passage of the New Testament : 
 " Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve 
 thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were 
 sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad 
 were sealed twelve thousand." And so on 
 down the list, wherein one tribe is exactly 
 like every other tribe, and the regiments of 
 twelve thousand march in step, every man 
 42 
 
ALL SAINTS* DAY 
 
 like every other man, without any individual 
 distinction. When the hundred and forty- 
 four thousand saints are finally numbered, 
 and to them is added the innumerable com- 
 pany of other saints, of all nations and kin- 
 dreds and people and tongues, standing be- 
 fore the throne, clothed in white robes and 
 having palms in their hands, all that we see 
 is a vast multitude in which no person ap- 
 pears to be of separate value. 
 
 Then we remember that wars are won by 
 armies, not by captains ; and cities are built 
 by companies of labourers, many of whom, 
 in these days when our unskilled workmen 
 come from all the nations of the earth, are 
 known not by their names but by their num- 
 bers. The kingdom of God is set forward 
 daily by the honest lives of plain people, by 
 faith and love of which the world knows 
 nothing, by prayer and patience seen only 
 by Him who seeth in secret. We perceive, 
 indeed, when we consider the matter, that 
 the great saints, even the apostles, were dis- 
 tinguished chiefly by their loyalty, not by 
 their ability. Even in their loyalty, they 
 failed sometimes. When a book is written 
 about the Acts of the Apostles the writer 
 
 43 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 can find only two of the first twelve concern- 
 ing whom he may report ; and of these two, 
 one says never a word, and appears only as 
 the shadow of the other. As for the rest, the 
 roll is called at the beginning of the book, 
 and thereafter they are heard of no more: 
 not because they were unfaithful, not be- 
 cause they accomplished little, but because 
 the things which they did were so simple, so 
 quiet, so involved in the customary routine 
 of life, that the historian did not find enough 
 material in their experience to make a para- 
 graph. Peter, indeed, preaches in the street, 
 in defiance of the municipal authorities, and 
 is arrested, and put in prison. There is a 
 whole chapter about that. But Andrew 
 found his brother Simon, and he brought 
 him to Jesus; Philip found Nathaniel: the 
 fact may be stated in a sentence; it cannot 
 well be expanded into pages. Nevertheless, 
 thus it was that the kingdom of heaven 
 grew, by quiet influence, by the word and 
 example of plain people, by the kind of saint- 
 liness which we commemorate on All Saints' 
 Day. 
 
 We perceive also that the All Saints' Day 
 Epistle, which marches the saints in regi- 
 44 
 
ALL SAINTS' DAY 
 
 ments of twelve thousand, and shows us, 
 after these have passed, how the procession 
 pushes on so eagerly that all the order of the 
 ranks is broken, and the street is filled from 
 fence to fence with a great multitude in 
 which saints of all lands and languages are 
 crowded together,— this epistle is followed 
 by an All Saints' Day Gospel, in which 
 heroism is defined in terms of simple good- 
 ness, not in terms of physical courage. The 
 description of the saints in this passage from 
 the Sermon on the Mount makes no men- 
 tion of stopping the mouths of lions, or 
 quenching the violence of fire, or turning to 
 fiight the armies of the aliens. It is con- 
 cerned with righteous living, and with the 
 endurance of temptation. The heroes mani- 
 fest their heroism by their meekness, by be- 
 ing merciful, and making peace. Theirs is a 
 moral courage. 
 
 It is not, indeed, so passive as it looks. 
 They who are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake are not submissive persons. They 
 would not be persecuted if they were. They 
 are the obstinate souls who will not yield, 
 who pay no heed to the voice of a majority 
 in error, who block the way which leads to 
 
 45 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 falsehood and wrong, and are persecuted be- 
 cause nobody can go that way without en- 
 countering them. The beatitudes are not a 
 glorification of the merely passive virtues. 
 But what they say is this : that heroism is by 
 no means dependent upon strength of arm 
 or boldness of spirit, does not wait for any 
 dramatic occasion, tarries not for the procla- 
 mation of a war, but is one of the quiet vir- 
 tues, the opportunity for whose exercise 
 comes daily into even the most sheltered 
 lives. Remember how a philosopher said 
 that he who habitually speaks the truth shall 
 find himself in situations sufficiently dra- 
 matic ! 
 
 Blessed indeed is he who does a great 
 thing in a great way. Let us give him a full 
 measure of appreciation and applause. But 
 the great occasions are infrequent, and they 
 who thus stand out before the eyes of the 
 world, even of the little world of their own 
 neighbourhood, are few in number. Blessed 
 are they who have learned that to do right- 
 eousness and to resist temptation is a part of 
 the day's work of heroic souls. These are 
 the heroes, these are the saints of the Lord. 
 46 
 
ALL SAINTS* DAY 
 
 To encounter pain and disappointment 
 and discouragement with a high courage, to 
 be of good cheer when all the conditions are 
 in contradiction, to take up the monoto- 
 nous tasks of daily duty and perform them 
 with unfailing faithfulness, this is to follow 
 in the steps of the most holy life, and sub- 
 stantially to set forward the kingdom of 
 God. This is to take one's place among all 
 the saints. 
 
 Remember that the " chief of the devils," 
 as he is revealed in the New Testament, is 
 not the prince of the power of the air, nor 
 the prince of the power of the water; he 
 makes his attack neither by Zeppelin nor by 
 submarine. His name is Beelzebub, which, 
 being interpreted, is the " god of the flies," 
 the god of the stinging flies. He is the devil 
 of petty annoyances, of trifling irritations, of 
 our besetting sins, the devil of the diffi- 
 culties of common life. Against this devil 
 we go not in uniform, nor to the sound of 
 drums and fifes. So much the worse for us. 
 It is a necessary battle in as hard a war as is 
 being fought to-day upon this blood-stained 
 earth. It calls for a longer courage than is 
 
 47 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 needed in the army, as the trench needs a 
 braver spirit than the charge. They who 
 fight in this campaign with patience and suc- 
 cess are not only saints but heroes. 
 
 46 
 
CHRISTMAS IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 The people that walked in darkness have seen a 
 great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow 
 of death upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9:2. 
 
 ONE of the services rendered to religion 
 by the revisers of the English transla- 
 tion of the Bible is to bring light into the 
 darkness of the Old Testament lesson for 
 the morning of Christmas Day. 
 
 The lesson ends, indeed, in a blaze of 
 glory. " Unto us a child is born, unto us a 
 son is given, and the government shall be 
 upon his shoulder, and his name shall be 
 called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, 
 Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." This 
 is as plain as the shining day, and its appro- 
 priateness to the festival of Christ's Nativity 
 is evident. But what is this about the " dim- 
 ness " which " shall not be such as was in 
 her affliction "? In whose affliction? What is 
 this about multiplying the nation and not in- 
 creasing the joy? It reads like a foreboding 
 of national disaster and decline, when there 
 
 49 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 are more people to be fed than there is food 
 to feed them. " For every battle of the war- 
 rior is with confused noise and garments 
 rolled in blood; but this shall be with burn- 
 ing and fuel of fire." What does that mean? 
 How does it agree with the anthem of peace 
 on earth which the Christmas angels sang? 
 
 These questions are answered by the re- 
 vised translation. 
 
 Isaiah was speaking at the moment when 
 the northern kingdom of Israel, — the land 
 of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, Galilee 
 of the nations — was being invaded by the 
 Assyrians, its cities and sanctuaries de- 
 stroyed, and its people deported. In the 
 midst of this distress, which we are able to 
 understand by comparison with events now 
 taking place, the prophet promised deliver- 
 ance. He looked on as we do: except that 
 between the conquered territory and his 
 own country there was no protecting bar- 
 rier of ocean. He was a wise man, who saw 
 that the flood of invasion would not be 
 stopped by any boundary line, but would roll 
 even to the walls of Jerusalem. The world 
 was at war, and no land was safe. Still, he 
 promised peace and prosperity. So strong 
 50 
 
CHRISTMAS IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 was his confidence that he spoke as if the 
 divine blessing had already come. He 
 looked through the smoke of burning cities 
 and saw light. 
 
 " There shall be no gloom in her that was 
 in anguish. In the former time he brought 
 into contempt the land of Zebulon and the 
 land of Naphtali ; but in the latter time hath 
 he made it glorious, by way of the sea, be- 
 yond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The 
 people that walked in darkness have seen a 
 great light; they that dwelt in the land of 
 the shadow of death, upon them hath the 
 light shined. Thou hast multiplied the na- 
 tion and increased their joy. They joy be- 
 fore thee according to the joy in harvest, as 
 men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For 
 the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his 
 shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, thou hast 
 broken as in the day of Midian. For all the 
 armour of the armed men in the tumult, and 
 the garments rolled in blood, shall be for 
 burning, for fuel of fire." The munitions and 
 the munition factories and all the imple- 
 ments of war, and every bloody trace of bat- 
 tle, shall the clean fire consume. 
 
 It is a promise of national salvation. The 
 
 51 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 yoke of the invader shall be broken, and all 
 the armour of the invading soldiers shall be 
 burned. The nation shall be greater than 
 before, with more people, and more joy in 
 proportion. This shall be accomplished by 
 that Messianic deliverer whose four mys- 
 tical names are Wonderful Counsellor, 
 Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of 
 Peace. 
 
 We bring over the great words from their 
 connection with the strife of contending 
 peoples long ago in Asia to their relation to 
 the strife of contending peoples at this day 
 in Europe, and to all other strife between 
 right and wrong, and all other conflict be- 
 tween joy and sorrow. Our leader, our hope, 
 our invincible strength is that same Prince 
 of old whom we now identify with the Sav- 
 iour of the World. " Unto us a child is born, 
 unto us a son is given, and the government 
 shall be upon his shoulder." It is true again 
 for us, and true forever, that " the people 
 that walked in darkness have seen a great 
 light; they that dwelt in the land of the 
 shadow of death, upon them hath the light 
 shined." It is a Christmas text for Cardinal 
 Mercier in the midst of the ruins of Belgium. 
 52 
 
CHRISTMAS IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Christmas is the symbol and assurance of 
 that saving light. It shines to-day in the 
 dark world as the skies shone when the an- 
 gels sang over the fields of Bethlehem. Its 
 message to all afflicted people is the mes- 
 sage of that holy night when the Child was 
 born and the Son was given, "Behold, I 
 bring you good tidings of great joy which 
 shall be to all people : for unto you is bom a 
 Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord." 
 
 Christmas is so much a time of merry- 
 making that we easily miss its profound sig- 
 nificance as a Festival of Consolation. Sad 
 people seem out of place in it. If they can- 
 not be glad and laugh and sing, and take part 
 in our games, let them go away by them- 
 selves until after New Year's Day. Their 
 faces do not suit the gay colours of our deco- 
 rations; their voices make a discord in our 
 carols. 
 
 Not at all. Not only does the wide and 
 warm hospitality of Christmas take in all 
 sorts of men, but the holy day is vitally re- 
 lated to the tragedy of life. The light of it 
 shines in the darkness, and is made visible 
 by the darkness, as the stars appear when 
 the sun is out of sight. The ministry of 
 
 53 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 grew dark again, and the hard problems had 
 to be undertaken as before, and nobody was 
 promoted or enriched. The shepherds went 
 out, night after night, into the chill pastures. 
 Joseph and Mary worked for their living, 
 and having had no friends before in Bethle- 
 hem had enemies now, and fled for their lives. 
 The singing of the choir of heaven which 
 seemed, for the moment, to be the beginning 
 of an oratorio of general peace and joy, was 
 followed by the cries of the mothers of Beth- 
 lehem who were weeping for their children, 
 and could not be comforted. Anybody who 
 is sad this Christmas may find his counter- 
 part in the Christmas story. 
 
 Nevertheless, the quality of life was 
 changed, the meaning of life was inter- 
 preted, and the Christmas people went for- 
 ward into the new day with hearts uplifted, 
 and with a joy which no affliction could take 
 from them. 
 
 Christmas is a Festival of Consolation. It 
 is true that the Christmas candles, as they 
 burn, burn down; and the Christmas gar- 
 lands wither; the symbols of our happiness 
 are also symbols of the transitoriness of hu- 
 man life. Every year, and this year more 
 56 
 
CHRISTMAS IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 than ever before, there are those who see 
 these things through their tears. But the 
 Christmas blessing is as abiding as the light, 
 which shines not only in the candles but in 
 the sun and the stars ; it is as abiding as the 
 life which is perpetually renewed in the 
 growing trees, and in all the harvests of the 
 earth. When the spring comes, even the 
 battlefields shall be green again. The wan- 
 ing candles and the withering wreaths are 
 only incidents in the great, wise, providen- 
 tial ordering of things. 
 
 For the heart of Christmas is the mani- 
 festation of the care of God. This it is which 
 is preached in the sermons, and lifted into 
 song in carols and anthems, and celebrated 
 in all the holy solemnities. 
 
 What we need is to know the meaning o£ 
 our life. Bitter experiences befall us, disap- 
 pointment and foreboding darken upon us, 
 all our individual ills blend with the black 
 background of the present woes of the 
 world. The facts make pessimism seem rea- 
 sonable and inevitable. But Isaiah kept his 
 faith under conditions which contradicted it 
 as sharply as ever the Great War will. In 
 the shadow of death he saw the light of life. 
 
 57 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Because he believed in God. And Christmas 
 comes certifying the care of God, and assur- 
 ing us in spite of all the oppositions of dis- 
 tress and doubt that we are the children 
 of the divine Father. His dealing with us 
 passes our understanding, but we know that 
 somehow it is wise and right. The Son of 
 God, our Brother, was cradled in a manger 
 and after many bitter trials and disappoint- 
 ments was put to death on a cross: we re- 
 member that, when life seems difficult and 
 tragic. 
 
 He came to save us from our sins and sor- 
 rows, and all along, on Christmas Days and 
 other days, he does it, till they who walk in 
 darkness see great light, and the light shines 
 even on them that dwell, like our brothers 
 across the sea, in the land of the shadow of 
 death. Over our heads the heavens glow 
 with new radiance, and there are voices 
 from the sky and music of celestial choirs 
 and proclamations of eternal joy. We per- 
 ceive that behind the heavy clouds are the 
 gates of heaven. We enter with new faith 
 and new courage into the Christmas conso- 
 lation. 
 
 58 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 Why standest thou so far off, O Lord, and hidest 
 thy face in the needful time of trouble? Psalm io:i. 
 
 XT is the everlasting question which is 
 asked in all time of tribulation, and 
 now especially in the increasing distresses 
 of the war. There is some measure of com- 
 fort in the fact that it has been asked innu- 
 merable times, ever since the race of man 
 began to think, and that although it has 
 never been answered to our complete satis- 
 faction, still we go on. Still we go on believ- 
 ing that this is on the whole a good world, 
 governed by a good God. 
 
 Every vast disaster, like this war, every 
 apparent contradiction of the fatherhood of 
 God, has driven some people into the con- 
 fusion and darkness of doubt. At first they 
 have said, " How long wilt thou forget me, 
 O Lord, for ever? how long wilt thou hide 
 thy face from me? " Then they have cried, 
 " My God, my God, look upon me, why hast 
 
 59 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 thou forsaken me? " Then they have given 
 it all up, saying in their heart, *' There is no 
 God." And all this they have done as if they 
 had entered into an altogether new experi- 
 ence, and had made a new discovery about 
 God and the world's pain. 
 
 It is one of the oldest of all discoveries. 
 Every element of bitterness in it, every rea- 
 son for doubt and disbelief, has been felt, and 
 reckoned with, and counted, and faced, since 
 trouble entered into the life of man. It is 
 one of the primitive problems. The present 
 war has added nothing to it. These tragic 
 years have brought to our attention no de- 
 tail of suffering or sorrow, no injustice, no 
 evidence of the incredible patience, or of the 
 non-existence, of God, which has not been 
 written in the books of history a hundred 
 thousand times. The only contribution 
 which the present war brings to this imme- 
 morial problem is the realisation of it which 
 comes from its approach to us. 
 
 The idea that faith has entered now into 
 an unprecedented peril, and that belief in 
 the power or in the goodness of God must 
 perish from the creeds of men, can be held 
 only by those who are unacquainted with 
 60 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 history. The whole matter was faced and 
 fought out by the Christians who experi- 
 enced the overthrow of the Roman Empire 
 at the hands of the Goths and Vandals. 
 Even then, it had been faced and fought out 
 long before by the Jews who experienced 
 the overthrow of the Hebrew Empire at the 
 hands of the Assyrians and Chaldeans. 
 These peoples met the question of the provi- 
 dence of God under the conditions of defeat : 
 conditions which magnified every difficulty 
 of the problem. The Jews of the Chaldean 
 invasion and the Christians of the Gothic in- 
 vasion, not only cried " Why standest thou 
 so far off, O Lord, and hidest thy face in the 
 needful time of trouble?'' but they said, 
 " Mine enemies live and are mighty ; thou art 
 far off, and puttest us to confusion, and go- 
 est not forth with our armies. Thou makest 
 us to turn our backs upon our enemies, so 
 that they which hate us spoil our goods. 
 Thou lettest us be eaten like sheep. They 
 have set fire upon thy holy places; they 
 break down all the carved work thereof with 
 axes and hammers. Our bones are scattered 
 at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth 
 and cleaveth wood upon the earth." 
 
 6i 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 The significant thing is that none of these 
 vast calamities destroyed or even seriously 
 discouraged faith. The king of the Assyri- 
 ans came marching down upon Jerusalem, 
 as the Germans came upon the Belgians, 
 and as the Turks came upon the Armenians. 
 He said in his heart, " I have removed the 
 bounds of the people, and have robbed their 
 treasures, I have put down the inhabitants 
 like a valiant man. My hand hath found as 
 a nest the riches of the people ; as one gath- 
 ereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all 
 the earth; and there was none that moved 
 the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped." 
 After the Assyrians came the Chaldeans, 
 and Jerusalem was destroyed, so that not 
 one stone was left upon another. But faith 
 survived in triumph. An invincible trust in 
 God over-balanced all the pain of the world. 
 So it is to-day. 
 
 This belief has not depended on a process 
 of convincing argument, or on a satisfactory 
 understanding of the world. 
 
 In the Old Testament a common explana- 
 tion of prosperity and adversity, of success 
 and defeat, of war and peace, is in moral 
 terms. The prosperous are blessed of God 
 
 62 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD^S PAIN 
 
 with prosperity because they are good, the 
 unprosperous are cursed with adversity be- 
 cause they are bad. Thus it is written in the 
 book of Deuteronomy: "It shall come to 
 pass if thou shalt hearken diligently unto 
 the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe 
 and to do all his commandments which I 
 command thee this day, that the Lord thy 
 God will set thee on high above all nations 
 of the earth. Blessed shalt thou be in the 
 city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. 
 The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise 
 up against thee to be smitten before thy 
 face; they shall come out against thee one 
 way, and shall flee before thee seven ways." 
 Disobedience shall be followed by corre- 
 sponding maledictions and disasters : " The 
 Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, 
 and with a fever, and with a fiery heat, and 
 with the sword, and they shall pursue thee 
 until thou perish." 
 
 Accordingly, when the friends of Job 
 came out and found him covered with boils 
 from the crown of his head to the soles of 
 his feet, they said, "Job, what have you 
 done? What fearful sin have you commit- 
 ted?" And when Job replied that he had 
 
 63 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 done nothing : that so far as he knew he had 
 lived blamelessly in the obedience of God, 
 they could not believe it. They saw in his 
 condition the sure proof of wrong-doing, 
 and they pursued him with accusations to 
 find out what the wrong-doing was. 
 
 So also in the New Testament, when the 
 tower fell in Siloam and killed a number of 
 by-standers, the immediate inference of the 
 neighbours was that these were the worst 
 sinners in the place. The discriminating 
 stones had selected them for punishment. 
 According to the common theory of the 
 meaning of pain the stones must fall upon 
 the heads of the most grievous offenders. 
 Even to this day, a great disaster, — a fire, a 
 flood, an earthquake, a shipwreck, — dis- 
 closes the fact that this idea of the relation 
 of God to the world's pain still continues. 
 
 The theory is confirmed by various facts 
 of human life. It is the foundation of many 
 very sensible reflections upon the course of 
 the world, in the book of Proverbs. " Be- 
 hold, the righteous shall be recompensed in 
 the earth, much more the wicked and the 
 sinners." They shall be rewarded and pun- 
 ished " in the earth," here in their own life- 
 64 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 time, by prosperity and by adversity. The 
 thing is daily verified in the case of the 
 moral qualities upon which the book of 
 Proverbs lays the greatest stress; for these 
 are the virtues of honesty, of thrift, of indus- 
 try, of diligence. " The way of the slothful 
 man is a hedge of thorns, but the way of 
 the righteous is made plain.'' It is, indeed. 
 " I went by the field of the slothful, and by 
 the vineyard of the man void of understand- 
 ing; and lo, it was all grown over with 
 thorns, and nettles had covered the face 
 thereof, and the stone wall thereof was 
 broken down. Then I saw, and considered it 
 well. I looked upon it and received instruc- 
 tion. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a 
 little folding of the hands to sleep : so shall 
 thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and 
 thy want as an armed man." 
 
 But the coming of want as an armed man 
 cannot always be so easily explained. The 
 poverty of the abandoned farm may be due 
 not to the sloth of the farmer but to the dep- 
 redations of the armed man. The desolate 
 fields of Belgium and France, where nettles 
 cover the face thereof and the stone walls 
 are broken down, are not accounted for by 
 
 65 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 the philosophy of the book of Proverbs, nor 
 by the theology of the book of Deuteron- 
 omy. The explanation of the pain of the 
 world by the assertion that he who suffers 
 brought his suffering upon himself inter- 
 prets a part of the problem of evil, but only 
 a small part. 
 
 The Old Testament people realised this. 
 They saw that the doctrine of pain as pun- 
 ishment did not account for the whole of ex- 
 perience, and they tried in several ways to 
 bring the justice of God and the facts of life 
 together. 
 
 They said, It is true that the sinners are 
 sometimes prosperous and the saints suffer, 
 but these conditions are temporary, " I was 
 grieved at the wicked," says a psalmist, " I 
 do also see the ungodly in such prosperity. 
 They come in no misfortune like other folk, 
 neither are they plagued like other men. 
 Then thought I to understand this, but it was 
 too hard for me, until I went into the sanc- 
 tuary of God, then understood I the end of 
 these men ; namely, how thou dost set them 
 in slippery places, and castest them down, 
 and destroyest them." For the moment, the 
 bad enjoy the riches which they have gained 
 66 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD^S PAIN 
 
 by plundering the good ; but wait, the God of 
 justice will change all that. '* Fret not thy- 
 self because of the ungodly, neither be thou 
 envious against the evil doers ; for they shall 
 soon be cut down like the grass, and be with- 
 ered even as the green herb." 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, while some 
 of the evil-doers are cut down like the grass, 
 many more go on and prosper. They may 
 miss the best joys of life, but we can only 
 guess at that. The plain fact is that they 
 keep the money which they gained by evil 
 doing, and add more to it, and live in luxury 
 all their days. Meanwhile the defrauded 
 saints get nothing back, and die poor. Over 
 the hopeless ruins of the houses of the inno- 
 cent the army of invasion marches victor- 
 ious. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, 
 saith the Lord " ; we wish that, until our wish 
 becomes a curse, but nothing happens. We 
 cannot make reprisal, and God does not. The 
 assertion as a general principle that the 
 material prosperity of the wicked is tem- 
 porary, may be made, as the psalmist said, in 
 the sanctuary of God, where the harsh con- 
 tradictions of the world are shut out, and in 
 the stillness we think of life as it ought to be, 
 
 67 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 but it cannot endure the test of actual expe- 
 rience. 
 
 So then they said, It may be that the sin 
 which brings adversity on men was com- 
 mitted not by them but by their ancestors. 
 Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who with their 
 own eyes saw the righteous forsaken, quote 
 a proverb which was current in their time : 
 " The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and 
 the children's teeth are set on edge." The 
 saying has a basis in the order of things. The 
 sins of the fathers are visited upon the chil- 
 dren. The children are poor because the 
 fathers were poor, and weak because the 
 fathers were weak. The doctrine of heredity 
 is no longer accounted an adequate explan- 
 ation of the general state of human affairs, 
 but it does explain some of them. The 
 prophets rejected it because it seemed to 
 them to break down the foundation of indi- 
 vidual responsibility. They said, " Every 
 one shall die for his ow^n iniquity ; every man 
 that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be 
 set on edge." The essential discrediting of 
 the theory, however, is in the impossibility 
 of proving it. It is like the Buddhist doctrine 
 that we suffer not for any wrong which we 
 68 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 do, but for some wrong which we did before 
 we were born, in a previous state of exist- 
 ence. It is not so much an explanation as an 
 evasion of the apparent injustice of life. 
 
 The same objection holds against another 
 endeavour of the Old Testament people to 
 solve the problem of pain. The writer of the 
 prose parts of the book of Job said that evil 
 comes into the world by the suggestion and 
 action of the devil, A door is opened into 
 heaven, and he beholds a celestial conference 
 in session, and Satan proposes the smiting of 
 Job by way of experiment, to see how he will 
 take it. Satan is permitted to smite Job. He 
 spoils his goods, he kills his children, he puts 
 upon him the burden of great pain. Thus the 
 tragedy begins. The inference is that many 
 of the afflictions of the righteous have some 
 such infernal origin. 
 
 The devil has almost disappeared from our 
 theology. He used to be brought out often 
 for the scaring of sinners. Nowadays, per- 
 haps because the sinners are no longer scared 
 so easily, or because we have outgrown a 
 doctrine which taught us to believe in two 
 gods, one good and the other bad, the devil 
 has become hardly more than a convenient 
 
 69 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 and picturesque synonym for the power of 
 evil. It is true that as we read the war news 
 in the daily papers, and recall the inhuman 
 and incredible things which have been done 
 since the war began, the old doctrine of the 
 devil seems a reasonable explanation. How 
 could honest and friendly citizens be so 
 transformed by putting them into uniform, 
 unless they were possessed of the devil? The 
 doctrine fails, however, because we cannot 
 prove it. It retreats into those invisible re- 
 gions whither we cannot follow it. 
 
 The unsolved problem of the good God 
 and the bad world confronted the prophet 
 Habakkuk in the midst of a world at war. 
 
 Out of Babylon came the Chaldeans, with 
 their faces toward the Great Sea, and be- 
 tween them and Egypt lay the little kingdom 
 of the Jews. The whole earth shook beneath 
 them. Death and destruction came with 
 them. Civilisation and religion seemed alike 
 in peril. And God was silent. In the soul of 
 the prophet, above the terror of the impend- 
 ing war, was a fearful perplexity, deepening 
 into doubt. For him the supreme tragedy 
 was his inability to bring the situation into 
 accord with the just government of God. 
 70 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 The march of the invading army, the spoiling 
 of towns, the desecration of sanctuaries, the 
 destruction of the patient work of centuries, 
 the loss of life, he could endure ; but it seemed 
 to him that with these lamentable losses he 
 had lost God also. How could the justice of 
 God, the love of God, the very being of God, 
 be consistent with these tragedies? He re- 
 peated the persistent question of the psalm, 
 " Why standest thou so far off, O Lord, and 
 hidest thy face in the needful time of trou- 
 ble? " " O Lord, how long shall I cry, and 
 thou wilt not hear, even cry unto thee of vio- 
 lence, and thou wilt not save? " " Thou art 
 of purer eyes," he says, " than to behold evil, 
 and canst not look upon iniquity" — canst 
 not look upon it with approval, or with indif- 
 ference, or even with patience. "Where- 
 fore lookest thou [passive and silent] upon 
 them that deal treacherously, and boldest 
 not thy tongue when the wicked devoureth 
 the man that is more righteous than he? " 
 
 It is our own problem. It is the question 
 which confronts us to-day in sight of Ar- 
 menia, and Serbia, and Poland, and Belgium, 
 and the ruined fields of France. Habakkuk 
 says, " I will stand upon my watch, and set 
 
 71 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 me upon my tower, and will look forth to see 
 what he will speak with me, and what I shall 
 answer concerning my complaint. And the 
 Lord answered me, and said, Write the vi- 
 sion, and make it plain upon tablets that he 
 may run that readeth it. The righteous shall 
 live in his faithfulness/' The righteous finds 
 his true life in his own soul, indestructible, 
 safe from all invading armies, unharmed by 
 any ills of war. He lives in his faithfulness 
 to the truth, in his constant obedience to 
 God, in his allegiance to his best ideals. 
 
 The watch-tower of the prophet is no sun- 
 swept parapet on the broad roof of a strong 
 castle. It is lifted only a little way above the 
 stricken field, and the dust and smoke of bat- 
 tle are so blown against it that the watcher 
 gets only glimpses of the situation. But 
 what he sees is true. Here, while the earth 
 quakes about him, he stands firm. The idea 
 that God rewards the good with material 
 blessings and punishes the bad with material 
 defeat, is only partially true. The other ex- 
 planations of the world's pain are not so true 
 as that. But this is true : that the best of life 
 is beyond this touch of tribulation. That 
 for which we care most, and for which we 
 73 
 
GOD AND THE WORLD'S PAIN 
 
 believe God cares supremely, cannot be 
 counted, cannot be measured, cannot be ex- 
 pressed in terms of possession. The best of 
 life is separate from lands and houses, and 
 art and architecture, and peace and pros- 
 perity, even from life itself. It is truth, and 
 honour, and faithfulness and self-sacrifice, 
 and love which is stronger than death. Out 
 of the lower levels, and the selfish ambi- 
 tions, and the lesser ways of living we are 
 uplifted, even by the pain of war, to these 
 high places, eternal in the heavens. 
 
 73 
 
PAIN AND THE WORLD'S 
 PROGRESS 
 
 He was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
 bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our 
 peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are 
 healed. Isaiah 53:5. 
 
 'S the queen's treasurer read this page 
 aloud to himself, he looked up and saw 
 the evangelist Philip, and, perceiving him to 
 be a man of God, he asked. Of whom speak- 
 eth the prophet this? Philip, in reply, ex- 
 pounded the passage in terms of the sacrifi- 
 cial death of Jesus Christ. He it was who 
 was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and his 
 life taken from the earth. He was wounded 
 for our transgressions, and bruised for our 
 iniquities; the chastisement of our peace 
 was upon him, and with his stripes we are 
 healed. It is doubtful, however, whether the 
 prophet, as he spoke of the Suffering Ser- 
 vant of the Lord, had in mind some man, 
 then living or yet to come, or was thinking 
 of the whole people of God, suffering for the 
 
 74 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 sake o£ humanity, whose pain is for the ac- 
 complishment of our peace. 
 
 It does not greatly matter. That the 
 prophetic vision found fulfilment, centuries 
 after, in Jesus Christ, is plain enough. " He 
 is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered 
 for us, and hath taken away the sin of the 
 world; who by his death hath destroyed 
 death, and by his rising to life again hath 
 restored to us everlasting life." It is plain 
 also that the vision has been fulfilled so many 
 times, under so many different circum- 
 stances, that it refers not so much to any 
 single instance as to an eternal principle of 
 life. It is true always, and the truth of it is 
 illustrated every day, that suffering is a form 
 of service, and that pain is one of the efficient 
 elements of progress. 
 
 The fact is that the world is made that 
 way. The world is so made, and we are in it 
 upon such conditions, that obedience is es- 
 sential to happiness. It is necessary to obey 
 the laws of the physical universe in order to 
 be well; it is necessary to obey the moral 
 laws in order to be good. Righteousness and 
 health, individual and general, are the goals 
 of progress. This is what we desire for our- 
 
 75 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 selves and for all men, that we may each of 
 us have a sound body and a clear conscience. 
 But before we can obey the physical and 
 moral laws we must know what they are. 
 And they are discovered by experience, by 
 hard experience. 
 
 Every race, every generation, every one 
 of us, inherits from the past a great amount 
 of knowledge which has been laboriously 
 and painfully learned. Some of it we have to 
 learn over again because we are not quite 
 convinced of the wisdom of our elders. But 
 we are not only to enter into this knowledge, 
 we are to add to it. We are to increase the 
 amount of ascertained and accepted knowl- 
 edge of the difference between good and evil. 
 It is the business of every generation to say 
 to those who come after: Here is something 
 which we have found out; we have learned 
 that such and such a thing, about which there 
 used to be confusion of mind, is bad. It may 
 be slavery, it may be autocratic government, 
 it may be the settlement of international dif- 
 ferences by war: no matter. This thing is 
 bad. We have put it out. We have labelled 
 it " Poison." 
 
 This is what we mean by progress, — this 
 76 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 gradual addition to the sum total of acquired 
 knowledge, this advance through experience 
 into better ways of living. It is gained by 
 pain. Even of the Supreme Master of the 
 spiritual life it is said that he learned obe- 
 dience by the things which he suffered. 
 Even for him there was no other way. 
 " Though he were a Son, yet learned he obe- 
 dience by the things which he suffered." It 
 is a principle of life. 
 
 The physical world is so ordered that its 
 laws are learned by processes of penalty. 
 There is no discrimination. No allowances 
 are made either for saints or for fools. The 
 sun shines and the rain falls on the evil and 
 on the good, and the same is true of the fire 
 and of the flood. We may imagine different 
 conditions, and shut our eyes to contradict- 
 ing facts. We may rebel with the pessimist, 
 and blaspheme the world. We may sigh with 
 the poet, 
 
 " Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire 
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire. 
 Would we not shatter it to bits — and then 
 Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!" 
 
 We know very well, however, that the ac- 
 tual ordering of our life is a wise ordering. 
 
 77 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 We can see that. It might indeed be pleas- 
 ant to have the law of gravitation pull sud- 
 denly and hard on a burglar climbing into a 
 second-story window, and deal very gently 
 with a small child leaning perilously out ; but 
 such a difference would put us to intellectual 
 confusion. What we have, as it is, is a world 
 on which we may rely, and which we may 
 understand more and more, and to which we 
 are therefore able to adjust ourselves. It is 
 a world in which there are absolute scien- 
 tific values. Under such conditions progress 
 is possible. For if the well-being of the body 
 of man depends on obedience to the laws of 
 nature, it is necessary that those laws should 
 be so impartial and unchanging that we may 
 depend upon them. 
 
 The truth is that the natural laws of God, 
 even when they seem for the moment to ac- 
 complish nothing but the pain of man, are 
 found to be impelling influences toward 
 progress. 
 
 Take, for example, the desolation and 
 tragedy of drought. The heaven gives no 
 rain, the sun shines with pitiless heat, the 
 earth is dried up and yields no fruit, and peo- 
 ple starve. A dreadful situation ! What shall 
 78 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 we say of a world in which the faithful pray 
 and there is no answer, and little children 
 die for lack of food? There is a reasonable 
 theory that in just such pain as this the civi- 
 lisation of the race got its first great start. 
 Men had emerged from the savagery of the 
 wild forests, and had encamped upon the 
 grass lands of northern Arabia and of south- 
 em Russia. It was a place for the domestica- 
 tion of flocks and herds, and for the begin- 
 nings of human society. The primitive peo- 
 ple liked it, and were contented with it. Hav- 
 ing come that brief distance on the long road 
 of progress, they were satisfied to sit down 
 and go no farther. They were driven out by 
 drought. Bad seasons made the pleasant 
 grass-lands uninhabitable. Thereupon some 
 of the people of northern Arabia crossed 
 over into Egypt and settled the valley of the 
 Nile ; others went up and settled the valleys 
 of the Tigris and Euphrates. In like man- 
 ner, some of the people of the steppes of Rus- 
 sia moved down into Greece, others into 
 India. Thus the drought, which seemed for 
 the moment to block the progress of the 
 race, helped it on. 
 
 As in the physical world, so in the moral. 
 
 79 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 The happiness of man consists in conformity 
 to the will of God. But before the will of God 
 is done, two things are necessary. It is 
 necessary that we should know what the will 
 of God is ; it is also necessary that we should 
 realise that our happiness depends on our 
 obedience. 
 
 Slowly, the race learns by experience what 
 the will of God is. For example, there was a 
 time when the divine will was supposed not 
 only to sanction but to command the de- 
 struction of our enemies. Out went the Is- 
 raelites, led by the prophet Elisha, into the 
 land of Moab, and this is what they did: 
 " They smote the Moabites, so that they fled 
 before them," and " they went forward smit- 
 ing the Moabites, even in their own country. 
 And they beat down the cities, and on every 
 good piece of land cast every man his stone 
 and filled it; and they stopped all the wells 
 of water, and felled all the good trees." That 
 was their honest idea of the will of God. 
 Even the neighbouring heathen were scan- 
 dalised and horrified by it. " There was 
 great indignation against Israel " ; so that 
 even the Israelites began to suspect that 
 they had made a mistake as to the divine 
 80 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 will ; " and they returned to their own land " ; 
 having, perhaps, learned something. By 
 hard experience, sometimes through pain of 
 our neighbours, but more often through pain 
 of our own souls and bodies, we learn how 
 God would have us live. 
 
 This is a slow lesson, but more slowly still 
 do we learn that our happiness depends on 
 our obedience. We assent to the statement. 
 That is easy. As a matter of fact, however, 
 even the best of us sometimes act as if we 
 were in doubt about it. And mankind in gen- 
 eral is still unconvinced. We all desire ear- 
 nestly to be happy, but a great number of 
 people are of the opinion that more pleasure 
 is to be had by breaking the moral law than 
 by keeping it. The narrow way to happiness 
 is entered by the gate of obedience, and there 
 is a guide-post by the gate stating that fact 
 plainly in all the languages of the earth ; but 
 people are forever trying other paths, hoping 
 to get there by a shorter way. 
 
 Our life is so ordered that these exper- 
 iments are permitted. Not only do we learn 
 by experience what the will of God is, but 
 we learn by the same process of instruction 
 that our welfare consists in doing it. It is 
 
 8i 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 often a bitter lesson. In the distress and 
 tragedy of it, in all ages, men say. Why does 
 not God make the wrong choice impossible? 
 Here, for example, is the pestilence of war. 
 We thought that we had put it down. We 
 thought that at last we had become so civi- 
 lised and so Christian that disputes would 
 be argued by force of blows only in the back 
 streets of the world, only by men of savage 
 tribes, ignorant and belated, still near of kin 
 to the animals of the jungle, not by gentle- 
 men, not by educated and religious people. 
 In our disappointment, we ask, not only in 
 grief but in grave doubt. Why does God 
 allow it? Is he good, but not strong enough? 
 or is he strong, but not good enough, to stop 
 it? 
 
 The answer is that God, who made the 
 world and us, has so ordered our life that 
 man proceeds from the worse to the better 
 by the discipline of experiment. It was in 
 accordance with our best knowledge of God 
 and of man that the Hebrews imagined the 
 opportunity of a wrong choice in the Garden 
 of Eden. Man had to have the chance to 
 choose wrong in order that his right choice 
 might be the expression not of a will with- 
 82 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 out him, but of his own will within him. By 
 this choice he became man. Thus his virtues 
 became manly virtues. A world without lib- 
 erty of choice would be a world of slaves or 
 imbeciles. It would be a good world, because 
 it would be compelled to be good: there 
 would be no alternative. And being thus 
 good, it would be spared much of the pain 
 which now besets us. It would be a world of 
 peace. But peace at what a price! Man 
 would have the blessing of peace at the cost 
 of his own soul. Such a solution of the prob- 
 lem of pain is like a sudden hard blow on the 
 head, after which we shall have no worry 
 and no conscience, no will and no manhood, 
 and shall sit smiling vacantly at the empty 
 sky. Anything is better than that. 
 
 It is true that, after all is said, pain is in- 
 volved in mystery, and there are questions 
 which we cannot answer. The long dia- 
 logues of the book of Job end here. God 
 speaks to the disputants in a majestic re- 
 minder of their own inevitable ignorance. 
 " Where wast thou when I laid the founda- 
 tions of the earth, when the morning stars 
 sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy? Hast thou entered into the 
 
 83 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 springs of the sea? hast thou perceived the 
 breadth of the earth? have the gates of death 
 been opened unto thee? " We have to con- 
 fess that the order and purpose of the world, 
 of which pain is a detail, are beyond our un- 
 derstanding. We are like the footsoldiers in 
 the midst of the battle, who see that which 
 is immediately about them, but do not know 
 how the great day goes, whether in victory 
 or in defeat. We are like the passers-by who 
 see beside the road great piles of stone and 
 lumber, but cannot tell whether they mean 
 destruction or construction. If we guess that 
 some sort of construction is in progress, we 
 do not know the plan, or how this apparently 
 hopeless disorder shall contribute to it. 
 Every calamity, every war, finds us confront- 
 ing the world in this perplexity. 
 
 But under such conditions, our thoughts 
 may take one or other of two directions. We 
 may say, It is all a hopeless, tragic, awful 
 muddle, which nobody can understand. Or 
 we may say. Somewhere, overlooking this 
 field of battle, there is a commander in whose 
 purposes all these details are gathered up 
 and have their place; somewhere, back of 
 these heaps of wood and stone, there is an 
 84 
 
PAIN AND WORLD^S PROGRESS 
 
 architect in whose plans they are all marked 
 and have their use. I do not understand it; 
 it all looks blind to me ; but he knows. 
 
 Even in our ignorance, we are able to see 
 that pain is a contributing fact in progress. 
 Sometimes when the sky is more than 
 usually clear, or the event is so far off that 
 we can see it in completion, the sequence and 
 significance are plain. St. Stephen, in the old 
 time, is stoned. There he stands, young, 
 strong, full of ability, full of promise, his face 
 like the face of an angel, and they stone him 
 to death. Horrible! But there are unex- 
 pected results. The disciples are scattered. 
 Away they go, fleeing for their lives. But as 
 they go, they preach the gospel. At once, the 
 Christian mission widens into a new activity. 
 Under the conditions of a hospitable Jerusa- 
 lem, the Christian fraternity might have set- 
 tled down to a quiet life of compromise, and 
 so have disappeared. Out of the stones 
 which killed Stephen the disciples began the 
 building of the Christian church. 
 
 It shows the same relation between pain 
 and progress which appears in the results 
 of the successive invasions of Judea by 
 Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and 
 
 85 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Romans. These invasions were interpreted 
 by generations of good people in terms of 
 doubt and despair. They seemed to prove 
 that God had forsaken his people. What 
 they did, however, was to scatter the Jews 
 over the face of the earth. They went every- 
 where, preaching that higher truth and liv- 
 ing that better life, which they were inclined 
 to regard as a racial privilege rather than as 
 a summons to a world-wide mission. 
 
 The same thing appears in the relation be- 
 tween religious persecution and the colonis- 
 ation of this continent. Why did the good 
 God permit the wars which followed the 
 Reformation? Why did he suffer men in his 
 name to work the works of the devil? These 
 questions found no satisfying answers in the 
 1 6th and 17th centuries ; and we are far from 
 satisfied with the answers which we propose 
 to them to-day. But this, at least, we see: 
 that over the ocean, in consequence of this 
 injustice and cruelty, came the men who es- 
 tablished our American institutions. What 
 Puritan of them all would have faced the 
 perils of the sea and the perils of the shore if 
 he had been well-treated in England? Out 
 they came, as the friends of Stephen fled in 
 86 
 
PAIN AND WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 the old time. Let us remember that, when 
 the breaking of peace seems to us the build- 
 ing of a barrier across the plans of God. We 
 were born under the stormy skies of a broken 
 peace. Intolerance was our father, persecu- 
 tion was our mother. Out of evil came our 
 good, out of pain our progress. 
 
 The physical world and the moral world, 
 as they actually are, involve the fact of pain. 
 Given these two conditions of life, the uni- 
 formity of natural law and the liberty of 
 human will, and pain is inevitable. They are 
 worth the price. The uniformity of natural 
 law is the basis of our reason, the liberty of 
 human will is the basis of our righteousness. 
 On these conditions we exist. On these con- 
 ditions we progress. For the advance of man 
 is a process of adjustment; we adjust our- 
 selves to this physical and moral world in 
 which we live. Pain shows where the ad- 
 justment is not yet complete. It summons 
 our energies to make the adjustment right. 
 
 Thus pain involves not only suffering but 
 service. They on whom it comes ought not 
 to feel that they are caught by the universal 
 curse, but that their distress is a contribution 
 to the cause of progress. They may be like 
 
 87 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 the people on whom fell the tragedies of the 
 drought, or the invasion, or the persecution, 
 by which men were driven out of conditions 
 of comfort into the undertaking of a great 
 mission. Or their suffering, like that of our 
 brethren under the storm of war, may be the 
 last convincing and compelling revelation of 
 evils of nationalism, of militarism, of materi- 
 alism, with which the world can be no longer 
 patient. Or the laying down of their lives 
 may be an efficient means whereby war shall 
 be abolished, and government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the people shall be 
 securely established in the earth. By their 
 stripes we are healed. By their pain another 
 step is taken in the progress of the world. 
 
 88 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 
 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for 
 new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. II Peter 3:13. 
 
 ^^^HERE was no sign of the fulfilment of 
 ^^ the promise. The old heavens contin- 
 ued overhead, a grey sky, heavy with threat- 
 ened clouds; and the old earth underfoot 
 was as much the residence of sin and sorrow 
 as it had ever been. 
 
 They had expected a speedy return of the 
 Lord Christ to make all things new, but the 
 months had lengthened into years, and noth- 
 ing had happened. There was no apparent 
 likelihood that anything would happen. The 
 writer of the epistle says that scoffers were 
 asking, " Where is the promise of his com- 
 ing? " and were saying that "since the 
 fathers fell asleep all things continue as they 
 were from the beginning of the creation." 
 But the difficulty of the situation must have 
 
 89 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 been plain to others beside scoffers. There 
 must have been devout and faithful people 
 who were sorely perplexed by the fact that 
 the Christian religion seemed to make no 
 progress toward the accomplishment of any 
 great change in human life. Indeed, on the 
 whole, things appeared to be worse rather 
 than better. But they kept their faith. 
 " Nevertheless," they said, " we, according 
 to his promise, look for new heavens and a 
 new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 For already, in the short history of the 
 Christian religion, there had been expe- 
 rience of the fact of failure, and experience 
 also of the translation of failure into accom- 
 plishment. The word "nevertheless" had 
 been both justified and glorified. 
 
 The Christian religion failed when the 
 song of the Christmas angels fell into silence, 
 and the light went out of the Christmas sky. 
 For the light and the song were the symbols 
 of a splendid promise which was not fulfilled. 
 So, at least, it must have seemed to the shep- 
 herds and the wise men. They went home 
 and nothing happened. Years passed, and 
 nothing happened. The child thus welcomed 
 into the world was never heard of afterward, 
 90 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 so far as the wise men and the shepherds 
 knew. Indeed, at the age of thirty, he seemed 
 to his fellow-townsmen of Nazareth so ordi- 
 nary a person that when they heard of the 
 stir which he was making in the world they 
 could not believe it. 
 
 Nevertheless, after the long silence and 
 apparent failure of the promise at his birth, 
 he stirred the world indeed. 
 
 Then came another failure. The Christian 
 religion had barely begun, when the founder 
 of it, the heart of it, was seized and put to 
 death. The high hopes of his followers were 
 frustrated. We hear them talking three days 
 after his crucifixion, and they speak not only 
 of him but of their faith in him in the past 
 tense. " We trusted," they said, " that it had 
 been he which should have delivered Israel." 
 That hope had been disappointed. That 
 bright vision had completely vanished; not 
 even a " nevertheless " remained. It is im- 
 possible for us to exaggerate the sense of ir- 
 reparable defeat which filled the souls of the 
 disciples after the tragedy of Good Friday. 
 They had come to the end of all their expec- 
 tation. 
 
 Then suddenly they looked not for new 
 
 91 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 heavens and a new earth, but at them. There 
 they were : the earth firm with the everlast- 
 ing solidity of the planet, and the heavens 
 bright as with the constant shining of the 
 sun. There they were, realised, the new 
 heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. 
 
 This divine sequence, — after the glory of 
 Christmas, the uneventful and disappointing 
 monotony of thirty obscure years ; after the 
 tragedy of Good Friday, the victory of Eas- 
 ter, — interprets for our understanding and 
 encouragement the whole course of Chris- 
 tian history. It takes the word " Neverthe- 
 less," and writes it on the cross, writes it on 
 the blackest pages of the records of the past, 
 writes it to-day on the battlefields of Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 For example, in the third century, when 
 after a long space of peace another persecu- 
 tion was suddenly begun, the number of 
 apostates was so great, the Christians in 
 every city so crowded one upon another to 
 deny the faith, that it seemed for the mo- 
 ment as if there were no saints left. The peo- 
 ple deserted the services and the sacraments, 
 and forsook Christ, led by their ministers. 
 92 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 That was an appropriate time for essays on 
 the Failure of the Church. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Christian religion as- 
 serted its everlasting vitality, and the 
 church, which seemed to have failed, proved 
 strong enough to defy successfully the com- 
 bined strength of all the forces of the em- 
 pire. The soldiers who had conquered the 
 world could not conquer the church. Pres- 
 ently the emperor Constantine was con- 
 verted, and Christianity became the accepted 
 religion. 
 
 Then the Christians began to fight among 
 themselves. They were divided by their 
 doctrinal disagreements, and debated not 
 only in conventions with fierce arguments, 
 but in the streets with clubs and in the fields 
 with swords. The world was filled with the 
 clamour of Christian contention. Christians 
 led out armies against Christians. At an 
 election of a bishop of Rome, in the fourth 
 century, the floor of the Church of Santa 
 Maria Maggiore was found to be strewn, 
 after the proceedings were over, with the 
 bodies of a hundred and thirty-seven dead 
 electors. Somebody, a year or two ago, 
 wrote a paper in a magazine on the Collapse 
 
 93 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 of the Church. He had in mind the condition 
 of our own time ! It was like the headlines in 
 which such big type is used to describe a 
 fight in a back street that there is nothing 
 bigger left for the battles of a great war. 
 Such a title might have been used with pro- 
 priety in the fourth century. The situation 
 was not only serious but desperate. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was a strong church 
 which out-rode the tremendous storm of the 
 barbarian invasion, and came to the summit 
 of secular power in the Middle Ages. It 
 built magnificent cathedrals, organised mo- 
 nastic orders, sent out missions which con- 
 verted races, and ruled the world. And rul- 
 ing the world, it lost its own soul. To no 
 period of history may the titles. The Failure 
 of the Church, The Collapse of the Church, 
 be so fitly applied as to those days when the 
 services of religion were most splendid and 
 most numerously attended, and the Church 
 was the most conspicuous fact in human life, 
 — and faith had fallen into superstition, and 
 the ministers of faith had fallen into im- 
 morality. After having descended into that 
 abyss, and climbed up again, the use of such 
 large words as "failure" and "collapse" 
 94 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 for our own small discouragements, even for 
 the contradictions of the present war, shows 
 a lack of the sense of proportion. 
 
 Then came the Reformation, and in Eng- 
 land the Puritan Revolution, and religion 
 seemed to be the mother of divisions and con- 
 fusions. It was identified with the inquisi- 
 tion. The hands of religion dripped with the 
 blood of " holy wars." There was no crime 
 of which the Christian religion was not 
 guilty. It seemed to be a contrivance of the 
 devil to poison the world. It lay upon the 
 souls of men like a foul curse. Nevertheless, 
 out of it, and through it, and by reason of it, 
 appeared new heavens and a new earth 
 wherein dwelt righteousness. A new free- 
 dom of thought and speech, a new perspec- 
 tive, a new sense of eternal values, and new 
 standards of Christian conduct appeared. 
 
 In the midst of every such period of ap- 
 parent defeat and failure, even the faithful 
 are tempted to lose heart. They look at one 
 another in grief and perplexity, asking. Has 
 the church collapsed? They are of the mind 
 of Pope Gregory who, at the beginning of 
 the mission which converted the English to 
 Christianity, described the church as " an old 
 
 95 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 and violently shattered ship, admitting the 
 water on all sides, its timbers rotten, shaken 
 by daily storms, and fast becoming a mere 
 wreck." Over what seas then undiscovered, 
 through how many successful adventures, 
 into what distant ports, has that wrecked 
 ship sailed ! 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century. Bishop 
 Butler, in a charge to the clergy of the dio- 
 cese of Durham, spoke of the " general decay 
 of religion in this nation, which is now ob- 
 served by every one, and has been for some 
 time the complaint of all serious persons." 
 Addison said at that time that there was 
 " less appearance of religion in England than 
 in any neighbouring state or nation." This 
 observation was confirmed by Montesquieu, 
 who said that he had imagined France to be 
 the least religious country on the face of the 
 earth, till he visited England. There, he said, 
 the subject of religion, if it was mentioned at 
 all, " excited nothing but laughter." 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century, religion 
 in America was in the " Great Slump." The 
 building of churches ceased, and those 
 already built were almost empty. Young 
 men in all the colleges professed themselves 
 96 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 atheists. Good morals were fast going the 
 way of good religion. The church, so far as 
 its stoutest adherents could discern, had lost 
 all influence over contemporary life. 
 
 Fifty years ago appeared the doctrines of 
 Darwin and Spencer, which, according to 
 their enthusiastic disciples, were to produce 
 an " eclipse of faith," in which not the church 
 only but Christianity itself was to fall into 
 the everlasting dark, and perish. We were 
 gravely told that nothing remained for the 
 Christian religion but decent burial. And in 
 spite of all the reassuring experiences of the 
 past, a great many people believed it. 
 
 Nevertheless, and nevertheless ! After the 
 ebb tide there is a flood ; after every night, no 
 matter how dark, the sun rises in the morn- 
 ing; after the bleakest winter, the ice and 
 snow melt, the streams run again, and the 
 earth is green and fertile. 
 
 Some people find the history of the church 
 depressing reading, but the chapters which 
 seem the most depressing are in truth, when 
 they are read aright, the most encouraging. 
 They prove that the Christian religion pos- 
 sesses an invincible vitality. What peril has 
 it not met, what might of adversaries, what 
 
 97 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 treachery of false friends ! Into what wrong 
 roads has it not been misled, down what 
 steep precipices has it not fallen! And yet, 
 after all, strengthened rather than disabled 
 by hard experience, the church has come on, 
 slowly mastering the life of man. 
 
 All this about " collapse " and " failure " 
 and the " impending crisis," and the " church 
 at the cross-roads," has been said a thousand 
 times, and may be said a thousand times 
 again. It is a salutary thing to say, and there 
 is always need of it. The mission of the 
 church is to bring human nature into the ful- 
 filment of the best ideals, and at this task it 
 is forever failing. Of course, it fails. The 
 only road to this attainment is beset at every 
 turn with failure. Everybody who tries in 
 his own life to transform the real into the 
 ideal knows how true this is. 
 
 But there has never been a time when the 
 church was so clearly aware of its mission, 
 and so steadily engaged in it, as it is at pres- 
 ent ; never a time when the Bible was so in- 
 telligently read, and the creeds so reasonably 
 interpreted ; never a time when men were so 
 free to study the problems of life and to 
 announce the results of their investigations ; 
 98 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 never a time when ecclesiastical interests 
 were so subordinated to religious interests, 
 or when religious interests were so vitally re- 
 lated to social betterment; never a time so 
 filled with helpful Christian activity. 
 
 But the war! It defies both religion and 
 civilisation. We confess that. It is a manner 
 of settling differences such as is proper not 
 to rational beings, but to brute beasts. The 
 billions of dollars which we propose to spend 
 upon it would otherwise go, in great part, to 
 the upbuilding of our useful industries, to the 
 extension of manufactures and railways, to 
 the education of our people, to the increase 
 of our prosperity and happiness. The hun- 
 dreds of thousands of young men whom we 
 propose to send into this business to destroy 
 property, to maim and kill hundreds of thou- 
 sands of other men, and eventually to be shot 
 to pieces themselves, are not only our sons 
 and brothers, each of them the centre of the 
 affection of a family, but they are the hope 
 of the nation. These are they who should 
 have been helpers and leaders in a thousand 
 arts, poets, preachers, lawyers, men of busi- 
 ness, husbands and fathers. Out they go 
 with their young hearts filled with enthu- 
 
 99 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 siasm and patriotism and self-sacrifice and 
 most precious virtues, to be changed into 
 dead bodies, fit only to be buried out of sight. 
 War is the most horrible fact in the history 
 of man, and this war is the most horrible of 
 wars. 
 
 It is to be said, however, that we went into 
 it with great reluctance. We waited until it 
 seemed to some that we were patient beyond 
 the bounds of patience. We endured insult 
 and injury; plots were laid against our 
 peace; our people were ruthlessly wrecked 
 and drowned without mercy in the deep sea ; 
 we were daily made aware of conditions of 
 warfare, at first incredible, then proved, in 
 the sea and in the air and on the land, 
 wherein all the savagery of primitive barba- 
 rism was revived and outdone, and all the 
 ideals of humanity defied. We perceived that 
 this warfare, which spared neither woman 
 nor child, and which destroyed everything, 
 — churches, libraries, mills, schools, peace- 
 ful villages, and even the land itself — was 
 directed against those conditions of democ- 
 racy and liberty on the basis of which this 
 nation was founded. It became plain to us 
 that the fight of the world against Germany 
 
 100 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 was our fight, and that we could not stay out. 
 We had hoped against hope that some ap- 
 peal to reason might make the appeal to 
 arms unnecessary. The situation is different 
 from the foolish enthusiasm with which we 
 hurried into the war with Spain. We have 
 had no such savage and wicked watchword 
 as *' Remember the Maine." In the face of 
 all provocation, we have entered the war 
 slowly, advisedly, gravely, without hatred, 
 for the securing of those principles of liberty 
 and humanity which we believe to be essen- 
 tial to the well-being of the world, as a Chris- 
 tian people. 
 
 The Lord of our life, the Prince of Peace, 
 looked through such a situation as this which 
 now confronts us, and saw the light, and 
 victory, and the kingdom of God, on the 
 other side. " Ye shall hear of wars and ru- 
 mours of wars, nation shall rise against 
 nation and kingdom against kingdom; and 
 there shall be signs in the sun, and in the 
 moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth 
 distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea 
 and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing 
 them for fear, and for looking after those 
 things which are coming on the earth.'* In 
 
 zoi 
 
RELIGION IN A WORLD AT WAR 
 
 this dread confusion, our ears smitten day 
 by day with the fearful sound of this univer- 
 sal storm, we hear again his serene voice, 
 saying, " When these things begin to come 
 to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, 
 for your redemption draweth nigh. When 
 ye see these things come to pass, know ye 
 that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." 
 
 It is the Lord's " Nevertheless." The 
 whole world is at war. The Sermon on the 
 Mount is torn into scraps of paper, as Moses 
 in the old time flung down the tables of the 
 law, and broke them into a thousand pieces. 
 But the commandments survived, and the 
 beatitudes shall likewise survive. What 
 shall be wrought at last out of the furnace of 
 this fire, nobody knows : what purification of 
 the church, what defeat of the devil, what 
 uplifting of the ideals of the race, what mani- 
 festation of the kingdom of God, nobody 
 knows. But this we know, that the word of 
 Jesus Christ shall be fulfilled again, as in a 
 thousand wars of old, and out of this evil 
 shall come good. Though victory to-day and 
 to-morrow attend the armies of the adver- 
 sary, and the thrones of the wicked seem as 
 solid as the everlasting hills, ** Nevertheless 
 
 102 
 
THE EVERLASTING VITALITY 
 
 we, according to his promise, look for new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." We may wait long, but we 
 shall not be disappointed. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
'HE following pages contain advertisements of 
 Macmillan books by the same author. 
 
Henry Codman Potter 
 
 SEVENTH BISHOP OF NEW YORK 
 
 By GEORGE HODGES 
 
 Illustrated; cloth, 8vo, $3.50 
 
 "He has performed a labor of love with extraordinarily painstaking devotion 
 and comprehensiveness. The book is one worthy of the attention, not only of the 
 Episcopal fellowship, but of the people of the city of New York, to whose ad- 
 vancement in all that is good Henry Codman Potter devoted the best years of a 
 tremendously useful life." — New York Evening Post. 
 
 "An admirable portrait of a great churchman who figured prominently in 
 the history of the nation and whose life and labors are of interest to all thinking 
 people." — San Francisco Bulletin. 
 
 "His biography makes excellent good reading throughout its 381 pages. . . . 
 In this, as in his other works, Dean Hodges is scholarly, clear and direct. His 
 personality is obtruded just enough to reveal sympathy with his subject and 
 appreciation for dramatic and picturesque episodes."^ — Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 "Dean Hodges' biography is a delightful piece of work which will be enjoyed 
 by those outside his own communion as well as by churchmen." — New York 
 Herald. 
 
 "Dean Hodges' biography is a fine monument to a churchman of whom his 
 city and country are justly proud." — Nation, 
 
 "His work is interesting not only as the biography of one of the foremost men 
 of our day, but as a valuable document in the history of the Episcopal Church." 
 — Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 "Here is a biography which with exceptional completeness fills the place of 
 autobiography. The subject of it could not himself have been more sympathetic 
 toward his work as churchman and citizen. ... He writes of his subject with 
 fine blending of moderation and earnestness, a just balancing of judicial restraint 
 and aggressive zeal. ... A volume which is interesting to read as a narrative 
 and which is of inestimable value for information and for reference." — New 
 York Tribune. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY DEAN HODGES 
 
 The Episcopal Church : Its Faith and Order 
 
 Cloth, i2mo, $1.00 
 
 This present volume is a concise statement of the doctrine and discipline of 
 the Episcopal Church. .„,-,• , 
 
 It is intended for three groups — the younger clergymen who will find m the 
 analyses prefaced to the chapters material that will be valuable in their own 
 teaching, members of confirmation classes who will be helped by the summaries 
 which it contains, and persons who are desirous of knowing the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Episcopal Church. The volume embodies the results of twenty 
 years' experience in the instruction of students in the Episcopal Theological 
 School. In the midst of many natural differences of emphasis and opinion there 
 are indicated in this work those positions in which most members of the Episcopal 
 Church are substantially agreed. 
 
 "The author writes for humanity, and no better book for religious study, for 
 clergy, laity, and for the younger members of churches has appeared in some 
 time." — Review oj Reviews. 
 
 "Contains material to strengthen faith and create respect." — Boston Herald. 
 
 A Classbook of Old Testament History 
 
 Cloth, J 2 mo, $1.00 
 
 This volume, with a simplicity of style that charms the reader, brings the 
 results of the best scholarship of the day, without any reference to the processes, 
 to the general reader. Old Testament History is not found in the Bible as a 
 continuous narrative. As it stands, it is in two editions. "One edition includes 
 the books from Genesis to Second Kings. The other edition includes the books 
 from First Chronicles to Nehemiah." To get the entire history it is necessary 
 to bring these two series of books together. Again, there are books of poetry, 
 and especially books of prophecy, in the Old Testament, which were written in 
 the midst of the events which historians narrate, and although these books bring 
 new light to the historical events, they are placed by themselves. Historical 
 criticism has done an enormous amount of keen critical work in analyzing and 
 constructing the materials to present to the reader the actual history of the 
 Hebrews. 
 
 Everyman's Religion cioth, i2mo, $1.50 
 
 Macmillan Standard Library Edition, 50 cents 
 
 Underlying the many sects of the Christian religion there are certain funda- 
 mental facts which are sometimes lost sight of in the devotion to a particular 
 creed. The purpose of Dean Hodges' book is to present these essential elements 
 of Christian faith and life in a manner simple, unconventional and appealing t:^ 
 a man's common sense. The conclusions at which the author arrives are largeiy 
 orthodox, but the reasoning makes no use of the argument from authority. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishera 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
NEW EDITIONS OF DEAN HODGES' S BOOKS 
 
 Christianity between Sundays $1.25 
 
 The Heresy of Cain $1.23 
 
 The Battles of Peace $1.23 
 
 The Human Nature of the Saints $i.2s 
 The Year of Grace Two volumes, each $1.25 
 
 The Path of Life $1.25 
 
 The Cross and Passion $1.25 
 
 Faith and Social Service $1.25 
 
 Uniformly hound, each i2mo 
 
 Dean George Hodges is one of those gifted writers who makes of religion a 
 very practical thing. He neither tires the reader with discussions of dogmas nor 
 of creeds, but as a critic once put it, "gets down to business in a businesslike 
 fashion." His books which have previously been published and are known to 
 many men and women are reissued now in new editions bound uniformly in blue 
 cloth. Individually and collectively they demonstrate once more the truth of 
 the Christian Register^ s commtnt that "Dr. Hodges is an inspired apostle of 
 the new philanthropy." The intimate talks in the volumes are on themes of vital 
 interest to every one living in this twentieth century. They contain possibilities 
 of application so pointed and evident that "they convey their own instruction 
 and their own impulse," to quote further from the Christian Register's re- 
 marks on one of the author's works, which may in absolute truth be applied to 
 them all. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
Moral Training in the 
 School and Home 
 
 By E. HERSHEY SNEATH and GEORGE HODGES 
 
 80 cents 
 
 "This study should be read not only by teachers but by parents as well." 
 ■ — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 "The whole discussion is strong, clear, wholesome and invigorating." — 
 Education, Boston. 
 
 "The book is consistently practical and offers genuine help to mothers and 
 teachers." — Christian Register. 
 
 "Many a mother, we are sure, would be grateful for such extremely judicious 
 guidance." — Pacific Churchman. 
 
 "Such themes as are treated by these judicious authors, will be found of 
 superlative value in this form of training. They deal with life in its many 
 aspects — bodily, intellectual, social, economic, political, and aesthetic, and what 
 is suggested in each chapter is worthy of the highest regard, when it comes from 
 authors of such strength of character and saneness of thought." — Journal oj 
 Education. 
 
 "It would be hard to find a better school reader or one more free from triviali- 
 ties and cant." — The San Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 "Of considerable value to teachers and parents will be the carefully selected 
 lists which the book contains of stories designed to illustrate the several kinds of 
 virtues. These tales are of excellent quality and not above average juvenile 
 tastes." — North American Review. 
 
 "The wide experience of both the authors abundantly qualifies them to 
 produce a really helpful book along the lines indicated." — Home and School. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
The Golden Rule Series 
 
 By E. HERSHEY SNEATH, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Yale University 
 
 GEORGE HODGES, D.D., D.C.L. 
 
 Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, and 
 
 EDWARD LAWRENCE STEVENS, Ph.D., L.H.D. 
 Late Associate Superintendent of Schools, New York City 
 
 The Golden Ladder Book 
 The Golden Path Book 
 The Golden Door Book 
 The Golden Key Book 
 The Golden Word Book 
 The Golden Deed Book 
 
 Third Grade 
 
 $0.48 
 
 Fourth Grade 
 
 $0.52 
 
 Fifth Grade 
 
 $0.60 
 
 Sixth Grade 
 
 $0.60 
 
 Seventh Grade 
 
 $0.60 
 
 Eighth Grade 
 
 $0.60 
 
 "The Golden Rule Series" is a treasury of literary selections from modern 
 classics. The purpose of the series is to furnish literary material adapted to the 
 needs of children that can be used as a basis for moral mstruction. It aims to 
 supplement "The King's Highway Series" on the moral side. 
 
 The method of instruction employed in "The Golden Rule Series" is the in- 
 direct method, and is similar to the method employed in "The King's Highway 
 Series." In the prefaces to', the volumes of "The Golden Rule Series," apart 
 from the text, are to be found suggestions and directions for the successful teach- 
 ing of the moral lessons involved in the literary selections. 
 
 "The Golden Rule Series " is adapted to serve as collateral reading in connec- 
 tion with "The King's Highway Series." The Golden Rule Readers are source 
 books that can be used independently or to supplement the lessons in "The 
 King's Highway Series." 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publisheri 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
The King's Highway Series 
 
 By E. HERSHEY SNEATH, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and ReUgious Education, 
 
 Yale University 
 
 GEORGE HODGES, D.D., LL.D. 
 Dean of Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, and 
 
 HENRY HALLAM TWEEDY, M.A. 
 
 Professor of Practical Theology, Yale University 
 
 "The King's Highway Series" embodies a graded system of moral and reli- 
 gious instruction for the home and school. The subject-matter of each book is 
 carefully adapted to the needs of children of the age for which it is designed (in 
 the light of recent child psychology — especially the psychology of the moral 
 and religious unfolding of the child — and also with special reference to modern 
 pedagogical science) — being graded in vocabulary, interest, form, and moral 
 and spiritual content. The method of instruction is the indirect method of story, 
 biography, and history — teaching largely by example. A modicum of precept, 
 in the form of wise sayings, scripture selections, following each lesson, and usually 
 summing up its moral and spiritual content, is also used. 
 
 The Series fully covers the essential Bible message, embodied in no less than 
 six hundred Bible stories and selections in the form of verses, proverbs, psalms, 
 parables, and the great Scriptural classics — such as the Ten Commandments, 
 The Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, and other selections from the Sermon on the 
 Mount, Paul's great chapter on Love, and similar extracts from the Epistles. 
 The Series contains also a Life of Christ by Dean Hodges and a Life of Paul by 
 Professor Tweedy. 
 
 The other material is selected from the best literary sources, the stories, 
 biographies, and poems being especially interesting and wholesome. There are 
 also a number of the great hymns and prayers of the ages. Many of the selec- 
 tions are ilJustrated with pictures from the best art. 
 
 Books of the Series Now Ready 
 
 The Way of the Gate The Way of the Hills 
 
 $o.6s Illustrated, ismo, $0.55 
 
 The Way of the Green Pastures The Way of the Rivers 
 
 $0.65 Illustrated, i2mo, $0.55 
 
 The Way of the Stars The Way of the Mountains 
 
 Illustrated, i2mo, $0.65 Illustrated, i2mo, $0.65 
 
 The Way of the King's Gardens The Way of the King's Palace 
 Illustrated, i2mo, $0.75 Illustrated, i2mo, $0.75 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
Princeton Theological Semina^ Libraries 
 
 1 1012 01218 8985