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 HE CHRISTIAN 
 IN WAR TIME 
 
 FREDERICK LYNCH 
 
Class 
 
 Book 
 
 Ti^htN^ 
 
 COF/RIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
The 
 Christian in War Time 
 
The 
 
 Christian in War Time 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK LYNCH, D.D. 
 
 WITH FOUR ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS 
 
 BY 
 
 Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., Robert E. Speer, D.D., 
 William I. Hull, Ph.D., and Francis E. Clark, D.D. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1917, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Prmted in the United States of America 
 
 DEC -6 1917 
 
 New York : 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh : 100 Princes Street 
 
 ©CI.A479425 
 
THE United States is gradually beginning 
 to realize tiiat it really is at war. Prices 
 are soaring, conscription has passed and 
 when it becomes operative we shall realize as we 
 have not yet done that war is upon ns. Commis- 
 sions have been here from England, France, Italy 
 and Russia conferring with the government on 
 methods of warfare, and on the part the United 
 States is to take in the conflict. 
 
 There are a great many good Christians in the 
 United States who do not like war but who feel 
 that this war was inevitable and that the country 
 was dragged into it by no fault of its own. They 
 have found it difficult to reconcile themselves to 
 it, and probably would not have been able to do 
 so for the excuses given for entering upon the war. 
 !N'ow that they have discovered that the real rea- 
 son for President Wilson taking the step he did 
 was the fear expressed to him by the Allies that 
 the outcome was extremely dubious unless they 
 had immediate help, these people have become 
 more resigned to it. They see that we are faced 
 with two alternatives, Prussianism or democracy 
 ruling the future, and that democracy and all it 
 stands for is in danger of being lost both to the 
 old world and to the new. It was this that pressed 
 
 5 
 
6 THE CHRISTIAN" II^" WAR TIME 
 
 us into the war, and not simply a desire to protect 
 American property and American lives. The 
 President, of course, intimated this in his proc- 
 lamation, but it would have been better if the ad- 
 ministration had frankly told the real facts at 
 that time instead of waiting until now. It may 
 be a long war, it may be a short one. Nobody 
 knows anything about it, and all prophesyings 
 are valueless. Of this, however, we may be cer- 
 
 /• tain: that it will not stop immediately, and that 
 ., J we are soon going to be involved in it on the seas, 
 
 and a little later on the land. 
 \^ % , The Christian in war time! How strange it 
 ^-> ^ / sounds ! But it is a fact. Being a fact, Christian 
 people have got to adjust themselves to the new 
 situation. Especially is this true since the Chris- 
 tian is by profession a believer in goodwill and 
 
 '^ peace. He has got to face the fact that, much as 
 *v5>' he regrets it, he is at war with another group of 
 people which also calls itself Christian and ac- 
 knowledges the same Lord, and he has got to take 
 part in the maiming and destruction of these peo- 
 ple, although doing so, as he sincerely believes, 
 to save civilization and Christianity to the world. 
 The Christian in war time; how shall he conduct 
 himself ? 
 
 In the first place he should see to it that never 
 is the war degraded into a desire for aggrandise- 
 ment, or for territory, or for revenge or retalia- 
 tion; not even in order to protect American 
 
 
 <" 
 
THE CHRISTIAN^ IK WAR TIME 1 
 
 property. The preacher in tlie pulpit, the Chris- 
 tian editor in his paper, the layman in all his 
 conversation must see that the war is waged only 
 with those high ends in view which were pro- 
 claimed by the President of the United States at 
 the beginning, and were given as the motive of 
 our nation in entering upon this road of terrible 
 suffering and sacrifice. Let us recall his words 
 to our minds. He said "Our object now, as then, 
 is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice 
 in the life of the world as against selfish and auto- 
 cratic power, and to set up among the really free 
 and self-governed peoples of the world such a con- 
 cert of purpose and of action as will henceforth 
 ensure the observance of these principles. . . . 
 It is a fearful thing to lead this peaceful people 
 into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of 
 all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the 
 balance. But the right is more precious than 
 peace, and we shaU fight for the things which we 
 have always carried nearest our hearts — for 
 democracy, for the right of those who submit to 
 authority to have a voice in their governments, 
 for the rights and liberties of small nations, for 
 a universal dominion of right by such a concert 
 of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to 
 all nations and make the world itself at last free." 
 This is the noblest proclamation of war that 
 has ever been written. If war were ever per- 
 missible in the Christian ethic it would be only. 
 
8 THE CHRISTIAlSr m WAR TIME 
 
 with such a purpose or for the immediate de- 
 fense of an attacked nation. If we must enter 
 upon this war, then, let every Christian man see 
 that this purpose never be lost sight of in its 
 course. Churches might well print on cards the 
 section of the President's proclamation quoted and 
 give it to every man enlisting in their parishes. 
 There will be many who will try as time goes on 
 to turn it into a war of conquest. Many will be- 
 gin to insist that the United States have a part in 
 the spoils. If American ships are sunk many will 
 begin to cry for revenge. The Christians, the 
 churches, must resist all clamor of this baser sort 
 and insist that the war be waged only for uni- 
 versal democracy, the rights of the smaller nations 
 and the future peace of the world. 
 
 The Christian must insist that no element of 
 hatred be allowed to enter this war. He is the 
 follower of Him who said, "Love your enemies." 
 He loved them himself, and he who hates is no 
 follower of Jesus Christ. Here again the Presi- 
 dent has spoken in Christian terms. He said: 
 "We have no quarrel with the German people, 
 we have no feeling towards them but one of sym- 
 pathy and friendship. It was not upon their im- 
 pulse that their government acted in entering this 
 war. It was not with their previous knowledge 
 or approval. . . . The world must be made 
 safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted 
 upon the tested foundations of political liberty. 
 
THE CHKISTIAIT IK WAK TIME 9 
 
 We have no seMsli ends to serve. We desire no 
 conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities 
 for ourselves, no material compensation for tlie 
 sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one 
 of the champions of the rights of mankind. We 
 shall be satisfied when those rights have been made 
 as secure as the faith and the freedom of the 
 nations can make them. Just because we fight 
 without rancor and without selfish object, seeking 
 nothing for ourselves hut what we shall wish to 
 share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel con- 
 fident, conduct our operations as belligerents with- 
 out passion and ourselves observe with proud 
 punctilio the prvnciples of right and fair play we 
 profess to be fighting for." (The italics are mine.) 
 Here is a great opportunity for the Christian. 
 Germany has expressed toward England words of 
 hatred of which even she herself is now ashamed. 
 She has performed acts of inhumanity of which 
 her children will be ashamed in the future. There 
 has been little of this on the part of England so 
 far, but there have been some unchristian utter- 
 ances and some reprisals. Would that every 
 Englishman might have uttered during the course 
 of this war only such sentiments as those which 
 fell from the lips of Edith Cavell as she was 
 being executed. "Standing as I do in view of 
 God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not 
 enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness to- 
 ward anyone." France has been noblest of them 
 
10 THE CHRISTIAE" m WAR TIME 
 
 all, but she, too, has descended once or twice to 
 reprisals, provoked by terrible barbarities enacted 
 on her territories. But here is the opportunity 
 of America to set a new ideal to the world. Let 
 every Christian see that no words of hatred escape 
 his lips, no cry for revenge, whatever happens. 
 Let every Christian pastor impress upon the boys 
 going from his parish their duty to keep unsullied 
 the fair name of America and to keep it true to 
 the high utterances of the President in this re- 
 gard, and never by word or deed to show bestial 
 hatred toward the enemy. Let our army, if by 
 and by it enters upon fields occupied by the enemy, 
 show to the enemy that it fights not in hatred but 
 in knightly crusade for right and peace. Let every 
 Christian in America insist that this nation vio- 
 late no slightest iota of international law or tradi- 
 tion in its warfare on sea and land, that it permit 
 no act of ruthlessness, of wanton destruction or 
 of lust. Let it be shown to all the world that 
 American soldiers are above atrocities of any kind. 
 Let the Christians of America insist that there be 
 no reprisals in kind for atrocities perpetrated by 
 the enemy. We believe that after this war is over 
 all high-minded Christian Englishmen will regret 
 that they ever stooped to German methods in 
 reprisal for inhumanities practiced upon English 
 subjects. Let all American Christians insist at 
 the beginning that America shall not stoop to 
 anything in her warfare that is not knightly. 
 
II 
 
 THESE are going to be trying days for many 
 sincere Christians. Christians are not 
 going to be able to see eye to eye. The 
 experience in England has shown that there is 
 going to be much more difference of opinion on 
 the righteousness of war for Christians than there 
 has ever been in any previous time. Eifty years 
 ago, and even less, objection to war under any 
 conditions was confined almost entirely to the 
 Society of Friends. But the general pacifist 
 movement has made great progress since those 
 days and many converts to this point of view have 
 been gained from all religious communions, and 
 many of the labor and Socialist groups hold the 
 same belief. Thus England, much closer to the 
 war than we and with vital interest much more 
 threatened, has witnessed the formation of a Fel- 
 lowship of Eeconciliation of some four thousand 
 members, mostly young men and women, not pre- 
 dominantly Quakers, who have taken a radical 
 stand against war as being in its essence un- 
 christian under any conditions. Furthermore, 
 many of the thousands who have come into prom- 
 inence as conscientious objectors in England, have 
 had no connection with the Society of Friends. 
 
 11 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN IN WAE TIME 
 
 All this is referred to simply because it indi- 
 cates what will surely be the experience of Amer- 
 ica. The peace movement has made much greater 
 progress here than in England. There are thou- 
 sands of people in America whose consciences will 
 not let them kill their fellow men in settlement of 
 international disputes. Some of these might feel 
 that were this country invaded they might then 
 be justified in resisting attack, but under present 
 conditions they cannot go forth to kill. They are 
 all the more strengthened in this position because 
 of the great number of people who were opposed 
 to entering the war at all. One of the leading 
 Congressmen, just after the vote had been taken 
 in Congress, said that had they voted according 
 to their own convictions or according to the con- 
 victions of the country at large, fully half of 
 Congress and half of the nation would have voted 
 not to enter the war. It was unnecessary to say 
 this, for the utter failure of men to volunteer 
 shows how little enthusiasm there is for the war. 
 Many Christians who are standing by the war 
 now because they have heard that there was dan- 
 ger of the allies, and with them of democracy, 
 being crushed under foot, have reconciled their 
 consciences to participation in it. On the other 
 hand, many men who have conscientious objec- 
 tions to making war are strengthened in their 
 position because of the great numbers who do not 
 feel that the United States was justified in going 
 
THE CHEISTIAiT IN WAR TIME 13 
 
 into this war. We shall, therefore, find, in light 
 of all the ahove facts, that there is going to be 
 an infinitely greater number of conscientious ob- 
 jectors than there would have been twenty-five 
 years ago, and that they are going to come from 
 every rank of life. 
 
 Here is the chance for the Christian in war \^ 
 time, even though he himself believes in the in- 
 evitability of this war, and in its righteousness, 
 to render a great service to his country, to real 
 and lasting democracy, to freedom of conscience, 
 which is Protestantism in its very essence, and 
 to Christianity itself. He could insist that no 
 man be forced to act against his lifelong, or 
 deep-rooted convictions, his religious principles, 
 or his conscience. ITothing is more fatal to de- 
 mocracy, and nothing is more un-Christian, than 
 to make a man break what is his allegiance to 
 Jesus Christ, or to God, or to his own conscience. 
 Let us not make the terrible mistake England had 
 made in this regard. The one thing in this war 
 of which many of the finest Englishmen are 
 ashamed, the only thing that has approached 
 Prussian war methods, has been her harsh and un- 
 Christian treatment of conscientious objectors. 
 She has seen her mistake and has relaxed her 
 severe treatment of these men. When our con- 
 scription law begins to operate we shall have many 
 more conscientious objectors than had England. 
 Our colleges and our labor organizations are full /'■-^'^^^ 
 
14 THE CHEISTIAJS" IN WAR TIME 
 
 of them, and there are a few in our churches. 
 Every Christian should take the part of these 
 men, for it is because of what they believe about 
 Christ and his teaching that all men are brothers, 
 that they object. There is no democracy left in 
 the nation, no Protestantism in the church, when 
 men are forced to do what they believe Jesus 
 Christ absolutely forbids. There is no gain in 
 winning a war if men have been forced to sell 
 their souls before they will fight. To imprison 
 them as England has done, when they refused to 
 fight, is simply to say publicly that Christian 
 consistency is a crime. Let us be Christian toward 
 these men. Let us appoint commissions in each 
 community for examining them as to their sin- 
 cerity, and let us see that these commissions are 
 composed of the best men of the community, 
 always including some clergymen, and not of men, 
 as was often the case in England, who have no 
 sympathy either with Christian conviction or with 
 democracy. AU army ojficials should be kept off 
 the commissions. With the exception of the labor 
 and Socialist groups, it will almost always be 
 found that the conscientious objector is identified 
 with some church. His case, in this regard, might 
 well be left by the government to his pastor and 
 church officers. The pastor ought easily to be able 
 to determine the sincerity of the objector, and 
 report to the authorities. If the objection is sin- 
 cere any Christian ought to stand by the men to 
 
\^ 
 
 THE CHKISTIAK IK WAE TIME 15 
 
 the end. Eor they are only doing what, accord- 
 ing to their thought, Christ did. 
 
 And now just a word about the Christian and 
 the "pacifist." I put quotation marks about the ^' 
 word, simply because it has now come to have a 
 different content from that which it has usually 
 carried. Previous to the outbreak of the war, the i 
 pacifist was anyone who believed that judicial 
 processes ought to be substituted for war in the 
 settlement of international disputes, and he worked 
 for World Courts, Leagues of Peace, Arbitration 
 Treaties, Commissions of Inquiry, and in general 
 for the bringing of nations up to that ethical plane 
 on which individuals live. A great many felt '^ 
 honored in being numbered in this list. It was led ^ 
 by great statesmen, renowned ministers of the gos- 
 pel, and the presidents of universities. But just '^' 
 at present the pacifist is an object of scorn and 
 ridicule, and he is in many places left to bear his 
 witness to the truth as he sees it, alone and un- 
 heeded. It is just at this time that his Christian 
 brother who differs from him should recognize 
 that it may take more real courage to be a pacifist 
 than to be a soldier in the war. After all he is 
 only trying to apply to a concrete case the princi- 
 ples which many who now conscientiously be- 
 lieve in the war have been preaching heretofore. 
 Anyone who at this time says evil things about 
 him or accuses him of lack of patriotism does not 
 show a Christian spirit, for it is just because of 
 
16 THE CHRISTIAN IN WAR TIME 
 
 his allegiance to the Christ principles that he 
 perseveres in his belief that the methods of love 
 overcome evil in the long run more effectively than 
 do the methods of war, and it is just because he 
 loves his country that he wishes to keep her true 
 to what he believes to be the principles of democ- 
 racy. I happen to know a good many pacifists 
 intimately and all this talk about their being pro- 
 German is pure nonsense. Most of them condemn 
 the methods of Germany in most unsparing tierms. 
 It is simply that they believe that there is a better 
 way of overcoming evil than by force. And they 
 have very strong probabilities on their side, for 
 no matter what may be the attitude of twentieth 
 century Christianity toward war — and I am not 
 arguing here that it is the wrong attitude — it can- 
 not be denied that the great teacher, Jesus, both 
 taught and practised the principles followed by 
 the pacifist. And anyone who knows the Church 
 Fathers knows that almost without exception they 
 taught that a Christian must not kill under any 
 circumstances. You who read this should also 
 remember that the pacifist is only trying to apply 
 to this particular crisis the general peace princi- 
 ples you have been advocating until recently. You 
 may be right in believing that they will not work 
 at just this moment; but at least be patient with 
 him if he believes they will work on all occasions. 
 He is no more a traitor than are you. He is after 
 the same ends, but he advocates different weapons. 
 
THE CHRISTIAIT I:N' WAR TIME 17 
 
 Thomas Mott Osborne believes just as tborougliiy 
 as does the average prison warden that society 
 must be protected from the criminal, but he be- 
 lieves there is a better way of achieving this uni- 
 versal aim than the way of force advocated by the 
 wardens of yesterday. Some day we may all be 
 glad that the pacifist kept alive these principles 
 which now bid fair to be swallowed up in the world 
 weltering in blood. Let us as Christians at least 
 recognize in him the same sincerity and grant 
 to him the same privileges of free speech that we 
 claim for ourselves. 
 
Ill 
 
 THERE are many good Christians who can 
 enlist in the army or the navy at this time 
 and go straight to the front in France or 
 engage in battle with submarines. They believe 
 that civilization is at stake and that it is the duty 
 of the United States to save it. They will enter 
 this war with a clean conscience, believing with the 
 President that the only way to make the world of 
 the future safe for democracy is to exterminate 
 Prussianism once and forever. Or they consider 
 the acts of Germany against American ships and 
 lives equal to a direct invasion of the United 
 States. Many believe that they are going forth 
 to protect humanity against a ruthless and savage 
 foe. As one who has long been among our most 
 enthusiastic pacifiists expressed it: "Submarine 
 warfare against neutrals is in no wise different 
 from piracy and you can not reason with pirates. 
 You can only capture them." Many of these men 
 also believe that they are going to win a lasting 
 and enduring peace for the world by conquering 
 those who willfully break the peace and do not 
 believe in peace. They are following their own 
 conscience and believe they are pursuing the Chris- 
 tian course. 
 
 18 
 
1 
 THE CHKISTIAIT IN WAE TIME 19 
 
 On the other hand there are many Christians 
 — a much larger number than there ever was be- 
 fore and a growing number — ^who do not believe 
 in the resort to arms except to repel an enemy 
 who actually lands on our shores and attacks our 
 homes, and whose conscience will not let them 
 take human life. What can they do fit this time ? 
 How can they serve humanity and their country 
 while the nation is at war ? It is to these I would 
 address a few words, for they are sorely per- 
 plexed. \ ' 'I 
 
 First, they can serve their country by offering 
 their services in ambulance corps and as nurses 
 of the wounded. The Friends in England present 
 an interesting instance of this very thing. When 
 the war broke out there was a large group of stu- 
 dents in Cambridge and Oxford who believed that 
 their discipleship to Jesus Christ forbade them to 
 take human life. IFnder the leadership of Philip 
 Baker, son of J. Allen Baker, M.P., Chairman of 
 The World Alliance for Promoting International 
 Friendship through the Churches, who is well 
 known to Americans, they organized an ambulance 
 corps consisting of fifty or sixty splendid young 
 men. They collected several thousand dollars from 
 their sympathizers, purchased motors, and went 
 straight to the front in France. Here they did 
 splendid service that attracted the attention of the 
 whole world. Their bravery was a matter of com- 
 ment everywhere. Daily they went into the very 
 
20 THE CHEISTIAK IK WAE TIME 
 
 thick of the fighting, exposing themselves equally 
 with the soldiers, rushed the wounded back to the 
 hospitals in their ambulances and then returned 
 for other wounded men. Thus they went back and 
 forth on their work of mercy and they even re- 
 fused to carry the revolvers given to Red Cross 
 workers in all the armies. Already groups of 
 Eriends here have offered themselves for such 
 service. 
 
 Secondly, they can enlist under the Red Cross 
 Society and go to the front to assist on the battle- 
 fields, in the hospitals, and in the camps. The 
 Red Cross physicians and nurses will need many 
 aids of this class. 
 
 Thirdly, they can offer themselves for work in 
 prison camps. Many Christians in all the Eu- 
 ropean countries have rendered beautiful service 
 in this way. One of the most conspicuous in- 
 stances is that of a young German of Berlin, Dr. 
 F. Siegmund-Schultze, another peace worker well 
 known in America. He has been untiring in his 
 efforts to lighten the miseries of English prisoners 
 in Germany, increasing their comforts, seeing 
 that they had religious services in their own 
 tongue, sending news to their relatives, and in 
 every way trying to practice real Christianity in 
 the midst of this terrible catastrophe. 
 
 Fourthly, they can offer their services to the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. This organi- 
 zation, cooperating with the Federal Council of 
 
THE CHKISTIAISr IN WAK TIME 21 
 
 Churches, has already put in operation extensive 
 plans for work in the camps where our soldiers are 
 to be trained. They will open halls where writing 
 and reading can be engaged in, and where healthy 
 amusement will be provided. They will do every- 
 thing in their power to keep the zones about the 
 camps clean, and to keep the men out of vicious 
 resorts and saloons. With the regular chaplains 
 to be provided by the government in cooperation 
 with the Federal Council, they will carry on re- 
 ligious work among the soldiers and will hold 
 meetings in the halls to be provided. 
 
 Fifthly, they can establish intimate connection 
 with every young man leaving their, own village 
 or parish and can see that he has a Bible, and that 
 books and literature are sent to him regularly. 
 They can write to him at the camp or at the front, 
 and can see that others write, for the young man 
 away from home hungers for letters. They can 
 see that boxes containing comforts of all kinds are 
 sent to him. Christians living near camps can 
 render most salutary Christian service by inviting 
 the young men to their homes. 
 
 Sixthly, they can take it upon themselves to 
 care for the families of those who have enlisted. 
 These families will need money and other kinds 
 of help. They will need companionship in their 
 loneliness and in their anxiety for those who have 
 gone. As news of the death or capture of father, 
 husband and brother comes back, they will need 
 
22 THE CHKISTIA]!^ IN WAE TIME 
 
 consolation. The children, with the father away 
 and perhaps lost, will need a father's care and 
 guidance. Here is an opportunity for the Chris- 
 tian to render beautiful service. 
 
 In these and in many other ways the Christian 
 who cannot kill but who wants to serve his coun- 
 try and the cause of democracy and humanity, can 
 do his part. 
 
 Here let me quote the suggestive questionnaire 
 recently issued by the Friends' Committee on 
 JSTational Service, with headquarters at Philadel- 
 phia. The questionnaire has been sent out solely 
 for the purpose of learning the sentiment of young 
 men Friends, and it is specifically set forth that 
 the answers are not to be considered binding in 
 any way. The first three questions are designed 
 for those who desire to offer themselves for service 
 in the present emergency, for those who do not de- 
 sire to enter for service until drafted, and for 
 those who feel that they cannot accept compulsory 
 service of any kind. The second section of the 
 document reads: 
 
 "According to the situation as I see it to-day, if 
 I should undertake service as fi. result of the war 
 situation, I should prefer to do so in the following 
 manner : 
 
 "(1) By going abroad to assist in the relief 
 work carried on by English Friends. 
 
 "(2) By engaging in relief work under the 
 American Red Cross. (An organization which in 
 
THE CHKISTIAN IN WAE TIME 23 
 
 time of war will become subject to the military 
 authorities. ) 
 
 "(3) By engaging in relief work under an am- 
 bulance unit maintained by American Eriends, if 
 it should be found practicable to organize such a 
 unit. 
 
 "(4) By relieving suffering among alien en- 
 emies. 
 
 "(5) By engaging in agriculture to conserve the 
 food supply. 
 
 "(6) By accepting 'alternative service' in the 
 noncombatant branches of the military or naval 
 service. 
 
 "(Y) By enlisting in the military naval service. 
 
 "(8) By entering the Y. M. 0. A. work at 
 training camps. 
 
 "(9) By engaging in social welfare work." 
 
IV 
 
 WASTE is a sin under even normal con- 
 ditions. It becomes almost a heinous 
 sin in times of great stress like these. 
 It is the duty of every Christian now to guard 
 against it in every form. By so doing he may 
 render a great service to his country. 
 
 The waste in the preparation of food is enor- 
 mous. The food thrown away by the great hotels 
 and restaurants of our country would feed hun- 
 dreds of thousands. This has been so strikingly 
 put in a leaflet recently issued by the ISTational 
 Emergency Food Garden Commission called "Eood 
 Thrift" that I quote from it here: 
 
 "American kitchens waste enough food each 
 year to feed the whole British army in France 
 and several divisions of the French army. 
 
 "It is estimated that the annual food waste in 
 the United States amounts to $700,000,000. This 
 is believed to be a conservative estimate. There- 
 fore, all we need to do to make certain supplying 
 all food required and of winning the war is to cut 
 out that waste. 
 
 "It is entirely possible and feasible to do this. 
 It is only a question of every man, woman and 
 
 24 
 
THE CHKISTIAIT IN WAR TIME 25 
 
 child in tlie United States becoming individually 
 thrifty in the use of food. 
 
 "The military leaders of our nation and of our 
 allies agree that the outcome of the war is a 
 matter of food. Thus every little food saving, 
 trivial and unimportant as it may seem, adds to 
 the aggregate of the food supply which can make 
 victory certain. Without thrift at home all the 
 outpouring of blood on foreign battlefields may be 
 in vain. Famine may be the great conqueror and 
 the war may end in a surrender forced by starva- 
 tion. 
 
 "While hotels and restaurants are heavy of- 
 fenders in the matter of wasting food, yet the chief 
 contribution to the $700,000,000 food loss is made 
 in the kitchens of private homes. Good food is 
 improperly handled and stored. It is carelessly 
 cooked. It is wastefully prepared. It is over- 
 generously provided. These are the chief causes 
 of home food waste. 
 
 "Extravagant cooks must learn how to use left- 
 overs. Left-over cereals can be combined with 
 meats, fruits, or vegetables to make appetizing side 
 dishes. Even a spoonful of cereal is worth saving 
 as a thickener for soup or gravy. Don't throw 
 away stale bread, skim milk, sour milk, scraps of 
 meat or fish, trimmed fats or suet. Even the water 
 used for cooking rice and many vegetables should 
 be kept. Stale bread can be used in many ways, 
 skim milk contains all the nourishing qualities of 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAlSr IN WAK TIME 
 
 milk except fat ; sour milk can be used in baking ; 
 meat and fish scraps add flavor and nourishment 
 to made-over dishes ; fat can be tried out and used 
 as a substitute for butter and lard in cooking; 
 while cooking water will help to flavor soups and 
 sauces." 
 
 We all of us eat too much anyhow — eat twice 
 as much food as we need for proper nourishment 
 and eat many expensive foods that do not nourish 
 us as much as cheaper kinds would. We have 
 been living to eat, let us now eat to live. It 
 will save millions of dollars. In the big cities 
 thousands of people pay several dollars for a lunch 
 or dinner in a restaurant. Enough money is spent 
 in New York restaurants in one evening to keep 
 the spenders healthfully alive for a week. This is 
 wicked at such a time of crisis. Every man should 
 spend just enough for the plain, nourishing food 
 that he needs in order to do the best work. Thou- 
 sands of dollars could be saved here and many 
 more thousands of pounds of food could be pre- 
 served for the world. Luxury in food is a sin at 
 this time. 
 
 Millions of dollars are being spent in drink. It 
 is a waste at any time to spend money for that 
 which does no one any good and works harm to 
 thousands. Let every Christian labor to have these 
 vast sums of money turned into helpful channels. 
 If all the money put into drink this year were put 
 into "Liberty Bonds," the two billions would be 
 
THE CHEISTIA:N' m war time 2Y 
 
 floated easily — and more billions besides. In ad- 
 dition to this millions of bushels of grain are being 
 used to distill liquors. Every Christian should 
 insist that this grain be used for food. 
 
 Millions of dollars are being spent for tobacco. 
 Whether a Christian should smoke or not is a mat- 
 ter for him to settle with his own conscience. But 
 at this time when so many are starving in the 
 world, and our own nation is perhaps entering 
 upon grave perils, it is criminal to waste millions 
 of dollars upon expensive cigars and innumerable 
 cigarettes. If we must smoke, let us as a nation 
 reduce it to a minimum and be content with most 
 moderate indulgence. 
 
 Christian women also have a great opportunity 
 to save millions to the nation by dressing in inex- 
 pensive clothes and hats. I looked into a shop 
 window not long ago where about twenty hats were 
 upon exhibition. These hats averaged twenty dol- 
 lars each. I saw another window where gowns 
 costing hundreds of dollars each were on exhibi- 
 tion. I am not an expert on either hats or gowns, 
 but I do happen to know that some conscientious 
 women are managing to look exceedingly attractive 
 with hats and dresses costing only a fraction of 
 what these hats and gowns were marked, and they 
 are very happy in the consciousness of employing 
 the large sums previously spent upon clothes to 
 serve their country at this time. 
 
 Einally it is the duty of every Christian to 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAN" IN WAE TIME 
 
 bend all his energies to increasing the food supply 
 of the nation. How serious the crisis is, how nec- 
 essary this service is, has been stated by the 
 President himself. Remember his words : 
 
 "We must supply abundant food not only for 
 ourselves and for our armies and our seamen, but 
 also for a large part of the nations with whom we 
 have now made common cause, and in whose sup- 
 port and by whose sides we shall be fighting. . . . 
 
 "Let me suggest, also, that every one who creates 
 or cultivates a garden helps, and helps greatly, to 
 solve the problem of the feeding of the nations." 
 
 Every patch of ground should be utilized. Every 
 spare hour should be put into cultivating it, if 
 we have it. Let us get our exercise in gardening, 
 exchanging our golf stick for a hoe. Set the 
 children to gardening. Many of them will be quite 
 delighted at cultivating a little patch of ground 
 they can call their own. Let us save all the foods 
 nature herself provides. Every apple, every 
 grape in the woods, every berry in the fields, should 
 be gathered, and what is not immediately con- 
 sumed should be canned for winter use. Let those 
 who live by sea and lake choose fishing for a pas- 
 time and save the meat bill and the meat for two 
 days a week. Gather the dandelions from the 
 lawn, the mushrooms from the pastures, the water- 
 cress from the river. Let us make the earth yield 
 double this year what it has ever yielded before. 
 The following words from Mr. Charles Lathrop 
 
THE CHRISTIAl!^ IN WAR TIME 29 
 
 Pack, President of the ISTational Emergency Food 
 Garden Commission, mentioned above, should be 
 read and heeded by everybody: 
 
 "War has now made the planting of food gar- 
 dens an imperative obligation upon every Ameri- 
 can citizen who has access to land, no matter how 
 restricted the area. The man, woman, or child who 
 allows any soil fertility or available labor to go to 
 waste this year deserves the opprobrium that goes 
 to the military slacker. We are perhaps approach- 
 ing the time when we must adopt meatless days 
 either voluntarily or by government fiat. Let us 
 see to it that the food substitutes for meat are 
 produced independently of the farms by a great 
 host of home gardeners. Because it is late in the 
 season, do not neglect to plant a garden for that 
 reason." (l./f'^ 
 
WHEN a nation is at war the resources are 
 so heavily taxed for the prosecution of 
 the war itself that every form of Chris- 
 tian activity is likely to suffer. At the same time 
 taxes and prices become so high that those who 
 have money begin to conserve it, fearing for the 
 future. There are new and large demands for 
 money, such as we have just witnessed in the call 
 for two billion dollars for "Liberty Bonds," and 
 one hundred million for Ked Cross work attendant 
 upon our entering the war. The first institutions 
 to feel these new demands, with their deflexion of 
 funds, are home and foreign missions, various 
 reform societies, philanthropic and charitable or- 
 ganizations and war relief for Europe. And yet 
 the continuation of all this work at its highest 
 pitch of efficiency is more necessary than ever 
 now that we are in the war, and its relaxation will 
 work indescribable hardships upon many. 
 
 Here then is a great opportunity for the Chris- 
 tian. He must see that these various causes of 
 Christ do not suifer. The multitudes will forget 
 almost everything except the prosecution of the 
 war. It will remain for the faithful few, the 
 real Christians in the community, to see to the 
 
 30 
 
THE CHKISTIA^.IK WAE TIME 31^ 
 
 contimiation of these otlier activities. Indeed it 
 would be a poor compensation to win this war 
 against Germany and to let ignorance, crime, vice, 
 poverty conquer us at home and to lose the great 
 gains for the kingdom of God that we have made 
 in foreign lands. Let us begin with the cause of 
 missions. Germany has practically had to aban- 
 don all her splendid foreign missions. England 
 has had a great struggle and just saved the Cal- 
 cutta mission at the last moment. The English 
 people are rallying splendidly and missionary 
 contributions are coming in, in spite of the tre- 
 mendous sacrifices the English people are required 
 to make. Our American missions are the pride 
 of the American church. They are scattered all 
 over Asia, South America, Africa and the islands 
 of the Pacific. They are our imperial outposts. 
 They are large and splendidly manned, they have 
 colleges, technical schools, medical schools, divinity 
 schools, boys' and girls' schools, and hospitals 
 connected with them that measure up to the finest 
 institutions here at home. They are the outposts 
 of the finest civilization America knows and they 
 are the heralds of the American type of Christian- 
 ity. To have them crippled at this time would 
 bring an unspeakable calamity to the kingdom of 
 God, an irreparable loss to civilization, hardly to 
 be offset by any gains for democracy which this 
 war might bring, and yet it will not be long before 
 we shall be hearing from our Foreign Missionary 
 
32 THE CHEISTIAI^ IN WAK TIME 
 
 boards that receipts are falling off because of the 
 war. The same thing will of course apply to the 
 Home Missions work. What a pity it would be, 
 if the transforming work our churches are doing 
 for the immigrants in our great cities and for the 
 negroes throughout the South, should be curtailed 
 by lack of funds. What superb schools and col- 
 leges — Tuskegee, Hampton, Atlanta, Fisk, Car- 
 lisle, Talladega, to mention only a few — would 
 have to be closed. What a loss! We should be 
 l^y']^, losing one war while winning another. Every 
 pastor should at this particular time present the 
 importance of missions with tenfold greater em- 
 phasis than ever before. Some pastors are now 
 saying: "Everything must give place to the win- 
 ning of this war." This is a great mistake, as they 
 tell us from England. There they have discovered 
 that in order to win the war it was necessary to 
 sustain church life and home life at the highest 
 level, that it has not paid to take money from the 
 Christian institutions at home, even to prosecute 
 the war abroad. Our pastors might well show 
 their people that, if this war is to issue in the 
 establishment of world-wide democracy, it is of 
 inestimable advantage to have great colleges like 
 Roberts College and the American Girls' College 
 at Constantinople and the Protestant College at 
 Beirut; to have our mission stations, all of which 
 are real protagonists of democracy, in every state 
 in Christendom. So let us support our mission- 
 
\ v<^ 
 
 THE CHEISTIAK m WAR TIME 33 
 
 ary work at all hazards. Let us not only support ^.-pf^ 
 
 our own, but let us help England and France sus- ; . . .^>('^''^ 
 
 tain theirs until the pressure is over. And since 
 
 we cannot, I suppose, have dealings with German 
 
 missionaries while the war is on, we might at least 
 
 try to hold what they have achieved and minister 
 
 to the people they have won until in due time they 
 
 can resume their shattered work. This is already 
 
 being done to some extent, I understand. But this 
 
 is the one time of all others when missions should 
 
 be prosecuted with renewed passion and extensive- 
 
 ness. Give your liberty bonds to the missionary 
 
 societies. 
 
 Another sphere of activity where the stress of 
 war is being felt with most pitiable, heart-break- 
 ing results, is in the relief work for the starving 
 peoples of Europe. I happen to be treasurer of 
 one of the Relief Eunds and I am intimately con- 
 nected with the American Committee for Ar- 
 menian and Syrian Eelief. I suppose our friends 
 sometimes get impatient at our importunity. But 
 if they could see the letters and the daily cable- 
 grams from the American Consuls and missionaries 
 in Turkey and the Caucasus, and the telegrams 
 from Mr. Lansing at Washington, their hearts 
 would melt. They would see why we are con- 
 strained to ask again and again. Before the war 
 came to America we were doing fairly well with 
 the Armenian and Syrian refugees, and this coun- 
 try was doing well for Belgium and France; the 
 
34 THE CHEISTIAI^ IK WAR TIME 
 
 contributions for the Armenians are beginning to 
 fall off since the United States entered the war, I 
 think that American Christians do not really know 
 what that means. If they did they would not per- 
 mit it. It means that thousands of little children 
 and women are literally lying on the roadsides 
 slowly dying of starvation and cold. INot even a 
 root can be found now, or the bark of trees ; not a 
 rag to add to tattered garments. (Read Lord 
 Bryce's account of conditions as he recently found 
 them in Armenia, and the cablegrams from the 
 American Consul at Tiflis to Secretary Lansing.) 
 This is what it will mean to hundreds of thou- 
 sands if we withhold our gifts. Again, let me say 
 that I believe that, could the American people 
 really know the conditions of these starving people, 
 there is not one who would not send something. 
 At least every Christian should consider it his 
 duty during this war time to give something and 
 by his efforts to see that these relief funds do not 
 suffer. 
 
 Other organizations that are going to suffer 
 greatly if Christians do not rally to their support 
 are those which have been engaged in "driving 
 the evil thing out of the city." We refer to such 
 bodies as the Child Labor, the Prison Reform, the 
 Anti-Vice, the Anti-Saloon organizations; the so- 
 cieties fighting diseases, bad housing, exploitation 
 of girls; the various religious bodies doing such 
 fine work for our cities, such as the Young Men's 
 
THE CHKISTIAN IN WAK TIME 35 
 
 Christian Association, and the City Federations 
 of Churches; the Vacation Bible Schools for the 
 summer and all the organizations sending children 
 into the country for the summer ; the philanthropic 
 and charitable organizations. These are only a 
 few out of hundreds. The tendency in times of 
 financial stringency is to cut down on these local 
 charities. Already a warning has been sounded 
 in ISTew York in an editorial in the Evening 
 Post of June 2nd, where reference is made to the 
 falling off of receipts in the Charity Organization 
 Society and the consequent suffering of certain 
 families. Along all these lines the Christian has 
 a great opportunity. He can increase his own 
 contributions, he can show to his comrades that the 
 keeping up of the work of these various institu- 
 tions is just as essential to the real welfare and 
 defense of the nation as is actual military service. 
 What a calamity to our nation, if we let vice be- 
 come rampant through neglect of our Y. M. C. A.'s 
 and such institutions as provide homes for the 
 young men and women of our cities ; if we let our 
 prisons become crime-breeding pits again; if we 
 let the exploiters of women and children repeal 
 all the excellent laws which, after years of con- 
 tention, we have secured for their protection. Even 
 now a group of selfish men, taking war as an ex- 
 cuse, are trying to have the child-labor laws re- 
 pealed in Albany. And this war will increase the 
 poverty in our great cities. It will make many 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN IN WAR TIME 
 
 dependent families. Anyone wlio at this time cuts 
 off his subscriptions to charity, except under direct 
 necessity, is hurting his country. Neither can 
 any nation be at its best when vice and greed are 
 left unrestrained. The most encouraging signs 
 of a new ideal of home defense yet manifested by 
 our government are the rulings forbidding anyone 
 to serve liquor to soldiers and sailors, and the 
 determination to provide clean and helpful sur- 
 roundings for the camps. It is the duty of the 
 Christian to support at this juncture every or- 
 ganization which is striving to do this same thing 
 for the whole city. So shall he serve his country 
 most effectively. 
 
VI 
 
 FOR two years now tlie American papers 
 liave been full of tlie "shame" and "dis- 
 grace" of Germany because of the way 
 sbe treated Englisbmen wbo Happened to be living 
 in Germany when the war broke out. It should be 
 the duty of every Christian in America to see that 
 no slightest stigma of this sort is ever attached to 
 this country. There are thousands of German sub- 
 jects here and they deserve the kindliest treatment 
 at our hands. They had nothing to do with bring- 
 ing on the war originally and they had nothing to 
 do with bringing America into the war. Many of 
 them have lived here so long that their sympathies 
 are with America rather than with the fatherland. 
 But they have ties with Germany that make their 
 whole experience very sad and trying. They 
 should receive our sympathy and help rather than 
 our enmity. It is a splendid chance to practice the 
 golden rule and show what real Christianity is. 
 Even if Germany should treat Americans in Ger- 
 many in an un-Christian manner let us still be 
 Christians. The English people have just shown 
 a remarkable example in this regard. Germany 
 has been treating English sailors most barbarously, 
 shelling and sinking row-boats after the sailors 
 
 37 
 
38 THE CHEISTIA^ m WAK TIME 
 
 have left torpedoed ships, and sinking hospital 
 ships, dropping bombs on women and children, 
 actions condemned by all law, humane sentiment, 
 and practice. There have been reports of harsh 
 treatment of prisoners. It was natural that the 
 English should have been stirred to reprisals. Yet 
 in a debate in Parliament, only three men in the 
 whole British Parliament stood for . reprisals in 
 kind. The discussion was headed by the arch- 
 bishop, who took a most noble Christian stand. 
 If England, smarting under the greatest outrages 
 any war of centuries has witnessed, can take such 
 a stand, surely we in America, with no such ir- 
 ritations, can refrain from any ill-treatment, in 
 either word or deed, of Germans, who are our 
 enemies only in name. So far we have been quite 
 exemplary in this regard. Two weeks after the 
 war had opened a German singer was called before 
 the curtain of the Metropolitan Opera House a 
 dozen times at her farewell appearance. No one 
 worried whether she was German or not. Perhaps 
 the ovation was greater because she was, and the 
 three thousand Americans wished to give evidence 
 of their kindly feeling and sympathy. This was as 
 it should be. So far as 'New York is concerned, 
 I have noticed no ill feeling whatever toward Ger- 
 mans who behave themselves. Only the other day 
 a German, who has one of the most prominent 
 stores on Fifth Avenue, told me that he had not re- 
 ceived one insult since the war opened, or been 
 
THE CHKISTIAK IN WAK TIME 39 
 
 boycotted by a single cTistomer. Let all this go 
 on and let us who are really Christian go still fur- 
 ther and go out of our way to show sympathy and 
 kindliness toward these people. We ought to do 
 this all the more easily, since the government at 
 Washington has publicly expressed its satisfaction 
 that among all these thousands of Germans only 
 a mere handful — about one hundred and forty in 
 the whole nation — ^have been interned for doubtful 
 conduct or for practicing machinations against this 
 government. And some of these were spies who 
 had been sent here by Germany long before Amer- 
 ica entered the war. 
 
 The fact that there are several millions of Ger- 
 man Americans in this country also affords a 
 splendid opportunity for the practice of Christian 
 helpfulness. They are American citizens and 
 very good ones on the whole. They are splen- 
 didly loyal at this time. They have volunteered 
 with others. They will let themselves be drafted 
 without protest. But if they evince sadness 
 in their hearts over America being dragged into 
 the war, let us be charitable toward them. They 
 are in a position of great hardship. Thousands 
 of them have relatives in the German army, some 
 even have brothers. It is not easy to go forth, 
 perhaps to shoot one's own brother or uncle. One 
 of these men remarked recently that he was a good 
 American and should do his duty as an American, 
 but that he may be called upon to kill his own 
 
40 THE CHKISTIAN m WAK TIME 
 
 brother. Such men deserve our most kindly sym- 
 pathy and our pity. They are torn between con- 
 flicting emotions and their loyalty to America is 
 praiseworthy beyond characterization under the 
 circumstances and all Christians should recog- 
 nize it. 
 
 Of one other thing I should like to speak here. 
 There is now the greatest opportunity the Christian 
 has had since the Civil War to show his faith in 
 prayer. I find, from a very large correspondence, 
 that there are many Christians who believe the 
 United States is fighting the Lord's battle, is fight- 
 ing to save the world to real Christianity, and they 
 can pray for victory for American arms. I find, 
 on the other hand, a great number whose idea of 
 God and whose consciences will not let them ask 
 God's blessing on the arms of the nation, nor 
 beseech him to grant victory to our troops. Each 
 Christian will have to decide these things for him- 
 self. But there are some things on which all 
 Christians can unite in fervid and unceasing 
 prayer at this time. Some of these have been set 
 forth in the letter to the churches issued by The 
 Federal Council of Churches at its recent meeting 
 in Washington; some have received emphasis in 
 the President's letter to the Kussians ; some I will 
 suggest at this time. But for all these things the 
 Christian should pray unceasingly : 
 
 1. That this war may issue in some new inter- 
 national political order that shall make wars un- 
 
THE CHKISTIAN IN WAR TIME 41 
 
 necessary and impossible forever. The President 
 of tlie United States lias splendidly put this object 
 of prayer in the following words : 
 
 "And then the free peoples of the world must 
 draw together in some common covenant, some 
 genuine and practical co-operation that will in ef- 
 fect combine their force to secure peace and justice 
 in the dealings of nations with one another. The 
 brotherhood of mankind must no longer be a fair 
 but empty phrase; it must be given a structure 
 of force and reality. The nations must realize 
 their common life and effect a workable partner- 
 ship to secure that life against the aggressions of 
 autocratic and self -pleasing power." 
 
 2. That the world may be "made safe for de- 
 mocracy" by this war. Only in the achievement of 
 some sort of League of ISTations guaranteeing per- 
 petual peace and of world-wide democracy can man 
 ever be reconciled to the terrible price this war is 
 costing the world. Was not Dr. William S. Rains- 
 ford right when he recently said: "The gospel of 
 Jesus Christ and democracy go together, for the 
 gospel is that all men are God's children and all 
 men are brothers." If all men are children of 
 God and brothers then no one man has the right to 
 say how all men shall live. 
 
 3. That we keep our own hearts clear of all 
 arrogance and selfishness and that our nation "seek 
 no material profit or aggrandizement of any kind ; 
 that she seek no advantage or selfish object of her 
 
 ,cA ^^ 
 
42 THE CHEISTIA:N" IN WAE TIME 
 
 own, but fight for the liberation of peoples every- 
 where from the aggressions of autocratic force" ; 
 that our own nation may be kept true to its pro- 
 fessed aims of justice, liberty and brotherhood. 
 
 4. That we "testify to our fellow-Christians in 
 every land, most of all to those from whom we are 
 estranged, our consciousness of unbroken unity 
 in Christ." 
 
 5. That "our Christian institutions and activi- 
 ties may be maintained unimpaired, that the soul 
 of our nation may be nourished and renewed 
 through the worship and service of almighty God." 
 
 6. That "men everywhere may rise to new 
 obedience to the will of our Father God, who, in 
 Christ, has given himself in supreme self-sacrifice 
 for the redemption of the world, and who invites 
 us to share with him his ministry of reconcilia- 
 tion." 
 
 Y. That men and nations may learn out of the 
 travail of this war the futility of force to accom- 
 plish lasting good, and that self-seeking ends only 
 in disaster, that the nation which seeks only its 
 own life shall lose it, that "not by might but by 
 my spirit" is true national good to be achieved." 
 
YII 
 
 THEEE are some who are saying that this is 
 no time to be talking of the world after 
 the war; all our energies should now be 
 applied to winning this war. After it has been 
 won, then we will turn our thoughts to the new 
 humanity, the new interpretation and application 
 of Christianity, the new political and international 
 order. 
 
 There could be no greater mistake than this. 
 It is when the disaster is upon the world that the 
 prophets should be preaching the new era. We 
 had an illuminating instance of this last summer. 
 It was when infantile paralysis was working its 
 cruel havoc among our children that the doctors 
 and the scientists set themselves to studying 
 methods of safeguarding the country from its re- 
 currence in this present summer. It is now 
 while the war is upon us that every Christian 
 should be devoting himself to the endeavor to 
 find other ways of settling international disputes 
 than by war, and should be asking whether some 
 way can not be found of extending the principles 
 of Christianity to the nations, whether the brother- 
 hood of man taught by Jesus and all the apostles 
 is not a possibility, whether the spirit of Chris- 
 
 43 
 
44 THE CHKISTIAI^r IN WAE TIME 
 
 tian cooperation and goodwill might not be made 
 to pervade tlie relationships of nations and races. 
 I sincerely believe that if any Christian would be- 
 gin at once to preach the two messages which the 
 prophetic-minded people of all nations are begin- 
 ning to see and emphasize as a result of this war, 
 the world would soon be ready to take a step to- 
 ward lasting peace. These two messages should 
 be so integral a part of the faith of any Christian 
 that, when the peace conference convenes to adjust 
 the claims of the nations and to devise the terms 
 of peace, their action will, to a large extent, be 
 determined by this universal Christian conscience. 
 
 One of the messages is religious and has to do 
 with the extension of Christianity to international 
 affairs ; the other is political and has to do with the 
 extension of national organization to world organi- 
 zation. It is of the first that I would say a word 
 here. 
 
 The present world war was rendered possible 
 largely by the fact that, while the relationships 
 of individuals to each other and of the states in 
 the various nations to each other have become 
 practically Christian, those of nation to nation 
 still remain pagan. We have been living under a 
 double standard of ethics, one for individuals, 
 another for groups; one for persons, another for 
 nations ; one the Christian standard, the other the 
 pagan. This becomes painfully clear the moment 
 one contrasts the plane on which men live in their 
 
THE CHRISTIAlSr IK WAR TIME 45 
 
 relationships one to another and that on which 
 nations live. It is not only wrong from the 
 point of view of the Christian ethic for one man 
 to steal from another; it is a crime, punishable 
 under the laws of the state. But in the past we 
 have praised that nation most which could steal 
 the most; we have called it imperial. Our great 
 empires have been largely built up by stealing. It 
 is wrong, it is a crime for one man to kill another, 
 but whoever heard, until quite recently, of a nation 
 being criticised or condemned for going out and 
 ruthlessly destroying another nation? Read the 
 contemporary lives of IlTapoleon and see the 
 admiration of the historians for his wholesale mur- 
 der of nations. Christians long ago ceased to 
 settle their difficulties with pistols, knives and 
 fists, but let a quarrel arise between two nations 
 and they settle it with guns and battleships. The 
 first thought of an individual in case of dispute 
 is: "To court." The first thought of a nation is: 
 "To arms." Christians forgive each other. Who 
 would not laugh at the man who suggested that 
 nations should forgive each other ? The great mdn 
 according to Christian thinking is he who serves 
 and gives the most. The great nation is the one 
 that can dominate, can command the service of 
 other nations, can get the most. Christians do not 
 live by a doctrine of rigMs but by a doctrine of 
 duties. E'ations know no doctrine except that 
 based upon rights. 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAlSr IN WAR TIME 
 
 It is almost as tlioiigli there were two decalogues, 
 two sets of commandments, in existence, one for 
 men, one for nations. It will never be possible to 
 get war out of the world while this double stand- 
 ard, this contradictory ethic, remains in the world. 
 There can be no peace until all the kingdoms of 
 this world, all the spheres of human relationships, 
 have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
 Christ. The one thing every Christian should 
 now be urging unceasingly is that the Christian 
 ethic be extended to cover the relationships of 
 nations, as it has all the other conditions of human 
 life. It must be driven home to the conscience of 
 all men, everywhere, that it can not be wrong 
 for a man to steal, and right for a nation; that it 
 can not be wrong for a man to destroy his fellow 
 man, and right for a nation to destroy its fellow 
 nation ; that it can not be wrong for men to settle 
 their disputes with guns, and right for nations to 
 do this. It must be made a sort of universal sense 
 in men that the same test of greatness and good- 
 ness applies to nations as to men. There ought 
 to be the same unwritten law of honor in the hearts 
 of governments that exists in the hearts of Chris- 
 tian men, namely, that duty, opportunity, is a 
 higher law of life than is the law of rights, and 
 that if rights must be defended this will never be 
 at the cost of the innocent. (This would practi- 
 cally prevent any nation waging war against 
 another, for with the present closely knit fabric 
 
THE CHEISTIAlsT IIST WAK TIME 4Y 
 
 of civilization, all tlie world is one family, and no 
 nation can wage war against another without wag- 
 ing war against all humanity.) Christian brother- 
 hood must be extended beyond national bonnda- 
 lies; otherwise it is not Christian, only national. 
 Christianity is national now in some countries; 
 it can never be anything but international. It is 
 for the world or for nobody. So, too, if nations 
 are not brought under its sway, individuals will 
 not stay there permanently. One standard of 
 ethics in the Kingdom of God should be on every 
 Christian's lips at this time, night and day. 
 
 Two words of encouragement should be added. 
 The first is this, that such an advance in the ap- 
 plication of Christianity is not as impossible as 
 it may seem. It is but the final stage in an 
 evolutionary process which points to this fulfill- 
 ment. The relationships of men were once as 
 pagan as are those of nations. Our ancestors once 
 settled all their disputes the way nations do now, 
 with knife, sword, gun, with tooth and claw. They 
 once lived by stealing, and killed each other on 
 the slightest provocation. One has only to read 
 the romances of Scott or of Dumas to get a pic- 
 ture of individual relationships on a war basis. 
 But men have progressed far beyond this and now 
 live, in general, according to the Christian rule. 
 The other is that the states of the United States 
 once had separate armies and were ready to go to 
 war with one another. They established a court 
 
48 THE CHKISTIAN" IE" WAE TIME 
 
 at Washington and now live under the Christian 
 rule. The nations had already taken great steps 
 in this same direction, having framed arbitration 
 treaties and held Hague Conferences and voted in 
 favor of a World Court. Had not one revengeful 
 nation inflicted this war on Europe the evolution 
 would probably have gone on and we might have 
 found the nations in a third Hague Conference 
 at this time actually establishing this Court. But 
 there is encouragement in all this, and it is that 
 this truth is everywhere dawning on the world. 
 During the last two years I have followed the ser- 
 mons, articles and books of England and America 
 very carefully. In all of these I find this new 
 conception of the gospel constantly and increas- 
 ingly appearing. I wish every minister in the 
 United States would preach it over and over again. 
 
VIII 
 
 PREVIOUSLY I referred to the new gospel 
 or rather the enlarged, the more extended 
 gospel in which the Christian should in- 
 terest himself and which he should preach until it 
 becomes the habit of men's minds to talk in terms 
 of moral methods of the settlement of international 
 disputes, that these might supplant the methods 
 of war between nations as they have already elim- 
 inated war between individuals. !N"ow I wish to 
 impress upon the Christian the duty of devoting 
 his time to the study of those international in- 
 stitutions which are being carefully considered by 
 many in Great Britain, France and America at 
 this time, and are being proposed as substitutes 
 for war, and especially should he acquaint himself 
 with the proposals everywhere being discussed 
 looking toward some form of federation of the 
 nations, which shall make for peace, security, jus- 
 tice and mutual cooperation. There is a very 
 widespread feeling in both America and Europe 
 that there has got to be a new world order after 
 this war. ITobody, except a few war-lords, want 
 this thing to occur again. The futility of war as a 
 means to settle anything is coming over the world, 
 as well as its wickedness and its cost in pain, sor- 
 row, life and money. There is a growing feeling 
 
 49 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN IN WAR TIME 
 
 that there is no need of it. There is a growing 
 feeling that there must be some better way. JSTever 
 before was this feeling so general, and never was 
 there a more sympathetic hearing in Europe for 
 suggestions of machinery that may serve this bet- 
 ter way. There is not a little possibility that the 
 institution of some form of new international or- 
 ganization may take up a considerable part of the 
 discussion in the final peace conference. It is very 
 significant that the French Government, in issuing 
 its statement recently as to terms of peace, ended 
 it by saying that the guarantee of peace furnished 
 by a League of Nations might be a part of the 
 terms of peace. These new instruments of peace 
 should be so carefully studied now, so thoroughly 
 worked out and completed, and known to the peo- 
 ple, that they will be ready to be offered to the 
 peace conference the moment the war ceases, with 
 the tremendous approval of the whole Christian 
 world behind them. 
 
 The one direction in which the minds of most 
 thoughtful men seem to be turning, the one hope 
 they see of establishing and maintaining peace, is 
 through a League of Nations, the members of 
 which shall pledge themselves to submit all justici- 
 able disputes to a World Court, all questions that 
 cannot be carried into a Court to a Council of 
 Conciliation, and shall combine to prevent any 
 nation which suddenly develops criminal tenden- 
 cies from disturbing the peace of the world. 
 
THE CHRISTIAlSr IN WAR TIME 51 
 
 It has been very interesting to note what great 
 strides this idea has made since the opening of the 
 war. It is not a new idea. It was dreamed of 
 by some in the past centuries. It was revived, but 
 in such definite form that it was practically new, 
 by Andrew Carnegie in his great Eectoral Ad- 
 dress at St. Andrews, entitled, "A League of 
 Peace." Its present great impetus so far as this 
 country is concerned grew out of the meeting of 
 a little group of men for a monthly dinner at the 
 Century Club, New York City. As a result of 
 these dinner meetings a Conference was called at 
 Independence Hall, and the League to Enforce 
 Peace was formed, with Mr. Taft as President. 
 It stands for the principles enunciated above and 
 goes somewhat further, for it plans to use economic 
 pressure or the joint armies and navies of the 
 nations in the League against any nations willfully 
 breaking the peace. Some have remained outside 
 the League to Enforce Peace because of this last 
 article in its platform. But that does not hinder 
 every Christian from giving it careful study, and 
 if he cannot adopt this plank in the platform, at 
 least let him preach the great idea of a League 
 of Nations pledged to use a World Court for set- 
 tlement of disputes now put to the arbitrament 
 of war. The question of sanction will have to be 
 decided by the League itself when it shall be 
 formed. 
 
 It is also interesting to note that at the same 
 
 vi^ 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAN I:N" WAR TIME 
 
 ■ time when the Americans were studying the gen- 
 
 eral idea and were trying to formulate it, a group 
 of men in England were independently studying 
 the same plan — such men as Lord Bryce, G. Lowes 
 , . Dickinson, John A. Hobson, and H. IST. Brails- 
 
 Tv/ ^,. '\^,f/^ ford. These men issued a pamphlet which, when 
 compared with the results of the work of the 
 American Committee, showed remarkable similar- 
 ity. During the last year such men as Asquith, 
 Lord Balfour, and Earl Grey, have urged the idea 
 upon Europe. Indeed Mr. Asquith has recently 
 said: 
 
 "The idea of public right means or it ought to 
 mean, perhaps, by a slow and gradual process, the 
 substitution for force, for the clash of competing 
 ambitions, for groupings and alliances and a pre- 
 carious equipoise — the substitution for all of these 
 of a real European partnership based on the recog- 
 nition of equal rights, and established and enforced 
 by the common will. A year ago that would have 
 sounded like a Utopian idea. It is probably one 
 that may not or will not be realized either to-day 
 or to-morrow, but if and when this war is decided 
 in favor of the allies it will at once come within 
 the range and before long within the grasp of 
 European statesmanship." 
 
 In England a League of !N"ations Society has 
 been started and is drawing to itself many of the 
 leading minds of the nation. At a recent mass 
 meeting held in London over a thousand men en- 
 
THE CHKISTIAIT IN WAE TIME 53 
 
 dorsed Lord Bryce's proposal of a League of 
 Peace in whicli the nations should unite after this 
 war. In France some of the best men are giving 
 it their attention. ISTever before were so many 
 men in all the world thinking of some such federa- 
 tion of the world as now. Six books have already 
 been written upon it,* and The World Alliance 
 for Promoting International Friendship through 
 the Churches is asking the Churches to study the 
 proposal. Here is a wonderful opportunity for 
 any Christian to prepare himself to help the world 
 on toward the peaceful world of Jesus, the happy 
 Kingdom of God. Twelve nations are now in a 
 League for making war, the United States being 
 one of them. Might they not, after the war ends, 
 remain in a League for making peace, inviting 
 Germany and Austria to join? Christians, think 
 earnestly upon these things. 
 
 * Towards International Government, by John A. Hobson, pub- 
 lished by The Macmillan Co., N. Y.; Enforced Peace, Report 
 of the Proceedings of the League to Enforce Peace, published by 
 the League; A League to Enforce Peace, by Robert W. Goldsmith, 
 published by The Macmillan Co., N. Y.; Towards an Enduring 
 Peace, compiled by Randolph S. Bourne, published by Am. Ass'n 
 for Internat'l Conciliation, N. Y. ; A League of Nations, by Henry 
 Noel Brailsford, published by Headley Bros., London; The Ameri- 
 can League to Enforce Peace, by C. R. Ashbee, published by 
 George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London. 
 
WHAT CAN CHRISTIANS DO IN WAR 
 TIME? 
 
 By Rev. Chaeles E. Jeffeeson, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 WHAT can Christians do in time of war? 
 Live their religion. It is wise to do 
 this at all times, but it is doubly im- 
 perative in the day of battle. We must now prac- 
 tice more assiduously than ever the fundamental 
 virtues of our faith, mercy, brotherliness and 
 kindness toward the stranger within our gates — 
 the German, the Austrian, the Hungarian. They 
 are lonely and they need our sympathy. They 
 are by some distrusted, suspected, disliked, and 
 we must show our confidence in them and our 
 goodwill. The great mass of our foreign popula- 
 tion will be loyal straight through the war, and 
 every German should be assumed to be faithful to 
 our flag until he has given indisputable proof to 
 the contrary. 
 
 A second thing all Christians can do is to take 
 heed to our ways that we sin not with our tongue. 
 These are exciting times, and it is easy to say 
 things which had best be left unsaid. We must 
 be patient with one another. A thousand vexing 
 and tangled questions will come up for discussion, 
 
 54 
 
THE CHKISTIAI^ IN WAR TIME 55 
 
 and all of us cannot possibly think alike. The 
 only sensible thing for us is to do our own 
 thinking, and let everybody else do his, without 
 our pouncing on him and cudgeling him because 
 he does not happen to agree with us. Blessed is 
 the man who gets through this war without need- 
 lessly wounding acquaintances and friends by the 
 cruel strokes of an unruly tongue. There will be 
 enough wreckage at the end of the war without our 
 adding to it a mass of ruined friendships. Let 
 us do our utmost to maintain a cordial fellowship 
 with our fellow Christians whose opinions are 
 farthest from our own, and by our extraordinary 
 self-control, refrain from saying things of which 
 we shall be ashamed when the world is calm again. 
 The world is torn by many demons, and we cannot 
 afford to increase the fever and distraction by our 
 impatient temper or our bitter tongue. 
 
 Furthermore we can keep our heart from be- 
 coming a nest filled with ugly and hateful feel- 
 ings toward Germany. Before this war began, 
 we Americans felt we knew the German people, 
 and they held a warm place in our heart. We had 
 excellent opportunities for getting acquainted 
 with them. Some of us have lived in Germany, 
 others have been educated there, multitudes have 
 traveled through it from one end to the other. And 
 our contact with the Germans caused us to love 
 them, and to love their country also. We found 
 them to be very rational, kind-hearted and lova- 
 
66 THE CHKISTIAN IN WAE TIME 
 
 ble. Now it is incredible that any people of 
 65,000,000 should overnight degenerate into a 
 nation of imbeciles and barbarians. The Ger- 
 mans are still what they have been ever since we 
 came to know them. If we could travel through 
 Germany to-day we should find the people as sensi- 
 ble and kind-hearted as ever. They are still 
 clothed and in their right mind. The reason they 
 seem to some of us almost demented and demo- 
 niacal is because for nearly three years we have 
 been fed on the bad things which bad Germans 
 have done, and have been kept in ignorance of 
 the good things which good Germans have done. 
 We have been industriously supplied with the 
 foolish things which foolish Germans have said, 
 and have been meagerly informed of the sensible 
 things which sensible Germans have said. It 
 makes a vast difference in one's estimate of a 
 country whether he hears only good things or bad. 
 Many of us had, before the war, an unfavorable 
 opinion of France, and the chief reason was that 
 the wire across the Atlantic was a sewer through 
 which the filth of French scandal and gossip was 
 constantly flowing. For three years we have been 
 told daily what is good in the French people, and 
 our estimate has been amazingly changed. Russia 
 also was low down in our esteem, because the worst 
 things done in Russia were constantly exploited 
 in our papers. As soon as the war opened, another 
 Russia was presented, and the attitude of our heart 
 
THE CHEISTIAK IK WAK TIME 57 
 
 was gradually altered. The newspapers can 
 glorify or blacken what nation they will. There 
 are thousands of intelligent Europeans who look 
 upon the United States as a nation of semi-bar- 
 barians, because the chief things reported to them 
 about us have been our lynchings, our divorces, 
 and the tricks of our high financiers. All that 
 they have heard is true, but they have not heard 
 enough. By hearing more they would revise their 
 judgment of us. At the beginning of the war, the 
 German cable was cut, and from that day to this 
 we have been fed daily on stuff which has come 
 to us through a wire which belongs to Germany's 
 foe. Isfearly e' ' (^ :ratiaii|^v^5tie 
 
 Ijgen «ti"(r . ■■. . lU, ubIv bad thiijgs as a^'ruie hav*^ 
 been aE*^;^' I ^j s.^iue through. We have not been 
 allowed to miss a syllable which an insolent fire- 
 eater like Count Keventlow has said, and have 
 been denied the privilege of hearing the things 
 said by other Germans who dislike the surly 
 Count as much as we dislike him ourselves. Day 
 and night since August 1st, 1914, we have had 
 sounded in our ears the names of three mighty 
 Germans as though there were no others — Treit- 
 scke and Nietzsche, and Bernhardi — one a deaf, 
 cross-grained curmudgeon obsessed with a dislike 
 for Great Britain, the second a lunatic, and the 
 third a fanatic. Most of us had never heard of any 
 one of them before the war, nor had the majority 
 of Germans. Three fools can be picked out of any 
 
58 THE CHRISTIAN" IN WAR TIME 
 
 nation, even tke United States. Three Frencli or 
 Russian or English books can be found containing 
 as dangerous doctrine as anything to be found in 
 Treitschke or Nietzsche or Bernhardi. It is absurd 
 to hold a great people responsible for the false 
 philosophy of a handful of radical or eccentric 
 writers. We have been surfeited with thrilling 
 pictures of a hideous monster called Prussian mili- 
 tarism. German militarism has existed for many 
 years, and it never seriously disturbed us before. 
 We rather liked it. It was picturesque and it was 
 even fascinating. We liked to see the great pa- 
 rades in Berlin, and to read of the autumn ma- 
 neuvers, and we were fond of the Kaiser, especially 
 in his army overcoat. Some of us doted on the 
 Prussian way of doing things, and regretted that 
 our Republic did not enjoy the ennobling disci- 
 pline of universal military service. But for three 
 years Prussian militarism has been painted alto- 
 gether black. This has made a difference in our 
 feelings. 
 
 German soldiers have no doubt done monstrous 
 things, but they have been done for the most part 
 by order of their superior officers. "Theirs not to 
 make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to 
 do and die." That sentiment was written by a 
 Britisher, and has been accepted the world over 
 as a fine expression of a glorious principle. The 
 German soldiers have merely obeyed their officers, 
 and that is what soldiers in all lands are taught to 
 
THE CHEISTIAIT I^ WAE TIME 59 
 
 do. Our own soldiers are expected to do as nnich. 
 "But German soldiers have done horrible things 
 which they were not commanded to do." Very 
 true. This is inseparable from war. War itself 
 is a colossal atrocity, and minor atrocities are its 
 legitimate offspring. Eead the story of the Boer 
 War, or of any other war, if you want a sickening 
 chapter of outrages and infamies. "But the Ger- 
 man people are behind the Kaiser !" So they are, 
 and in all lands it is counted commendable for 
 citizens in time of war to get behind their Govern- 
 ment. That is exactly what we Americans are all 
 trying very hard just now to do, and we convince 
 ourselves it is a virtuous thing to do. Why blame 
 the Germans for doing what we do ourselves? 
 
 Our Government is not making war upon the 
 German people, but upon the German autocracy 
 ' — chiefly the German military staff. It is this 
 staff which has disgraced Germany. It has sanc- 
 tioned deeds which will leave a stain on German 
 history for a thousand years. It was this staff that 
 ordered the invasion of Belgium. The German 
 Army once in, other devilish things followed. A 
 burglar once in a house in which he has no right, 
 must maintain himself by perpetrating additional 
 outrages. To save himself, members of the house- 
 hold must be gagged or bound or knocked insensi- 
 ble. So of Belgium. The German robber once in, 
 all subsequent villainies became military necessi- 
 ties. For none of these is there excuse. The rape 
 
60 THE CHEISTIAIT IN WAE TIME 
 
 of Belgium is an outrage which humanity will 
 never pardon. That is the bottom reason why the 
 United States and Germany are now at war. But 
 the invasion of Belgium was not ordered by the 
 German people. That diabolism is the work of the 
 military staff. The staff is the product of the 
 doctrine of Clausewitz. Against that staff the 
 United States is at war. That gang of militarists 
 must be overcome. That mailed fist must be 
 paralyzed. But the German people are still to-day 
 what they have always been — hospitable, peace- 
 loving, amiable and sensible, and such we shall 
 find them when this war is ended. In the mean- 
 time let us think of them often as we used to 
 think of them. Let us remember their noble 
 traits, their shining virtues, their loveliest graces. 
 Let us pray without ceasing along with them, that 
 the days of our distress and theirs may be short- 
 ened, and that by the guidance of the Eternal 
 Spirit their rulers and our own may alike be led 
 into courses which shall establish righteousness, 
 and secure a just and lasting peace. 
 
 One of the most important bits of work for both 
 church and nation is the elimination of intoxicat- 
 ing drinks during the period of the war. The 
 liquor traffic is a curse at all times: the havoc 
 which it works is especially apparent in time of 
 war. It is a costly and extravagant business at 
 all times, devouring millions of tons of grain 
 which ought to be converted into bread, but this 
 
THE CHEISTIAIT IN" WAR TIME 61 
 
 extravagance becomes imbearable in a crisis like 
 the present when the whole world faces the possi- 
 bility of famine. It is a demoralizing business 
 at all times, befuddling men's brains and leading 
 them into vice and crime, but it is doubly demoral- 
 izing in times when young men are massed in 
 enormous mmibers for the purpose of carrying on 
 war. Alcohol is the deadly foe of efficiency. 
 Every European nation confessed this at the be- 
 ginning of the war. If we are willing to learn 
 from the experience of Europe, here is the place 
 to begin. We pay an awful price for entering the 
 war, a price which can in no way be avoided, but 
 there are certain items in the expense bill which 
 ought to be and can be cut out, and one of these is 
 the traffic in drink. Every brewery and every dis- 
 tillery in the United States ought to be closed at 
 once and kept closed till the end of the war. Every 
 saloon in the United States ought to be closed im- 
 mediately and kept closed until the war is over. 
 Stringent laws should be passed, and those who 
 break them ought to be dealt with as traitors to 
 their country. Give us nation-wide prohibition for 
 the period of the war, and when peace is estab- 
 lished the American people will consider the ques- 
 tion whether the good of the nation and the wel- 
 fare of mankind require that the saloons shall ever 
 be reopened. We have had a fashion of looking 
 down upon Eussia as a semi-civilized country, a 
 people incapable of entertaining high ideals and 
 
62 THE CHRISTIA:^^ IK WAE TIME 
 
 committing themselves to humanitarian causes, 
 and yet in the suppression of the liquor traffic in 
 the present war, Russia leads the world. Why- 
 should not the new Russian Republic be encour- 
 aged by our Republic taking a stand by her side ? 
 Another piece of work for christian men to at- 
 tend to is the safeguarding of the morals of the 
 men who make up our armies. There is a vile 
 and nasty side of war which is not much exploited 
 in the papers, but men who are informed know 
 about it, and talk about it in secret. Moral con- 
 ditions in all the European belligerent countries 
 are appalling. The stories which men who have 
 visited the front whisper on their return of what 
 they have seen and heard, are alarming and dis- 
 gusting. War is the mother of all vices. They 
 flourish most luxuriantly when nations fight. 
 What Robert Herrick has said of the frightful 
 devastations of tuberculosis and alcoholism and 
 syphilis in France can be paralleled by hideous 
 stories from other lands. Here are facts which 
 must not be blinked. In a world like this, every 
 intelligent man and woman knows what is likely 
 to happen when tens of thousands of young men 
 are segregated and deprived of the elevating and 
 saving influences of home. There is work here 
 for the christian church whose importance cannot 
 be overestimated. There is work here also for our 
 government to do. In these days when we think 
 nothing of spending millions and even billions for 
 
THE CHEISTIAIST IN WAR TIME 63 
 
 tlie things we deem essential, we should tolerate no 
 parsimony in expenditures for army and navy 
 cliaplains, and for all the things which chaplains 
 need. What does it profit a nation to keep the 
 routes of trade open, if in the doing of it the 
 hearts of our young men are degraded and their 
 ideals are forever overthrown? There is such a 
 thing as a nation gaining the world and losing its 
 soul. What boots it to conquer Prussian militar- 
 ism if we pile up under our flag huge masses of 
 wrecked manhood, men debauched in body, mind 
 and spirit, forever incapacitated to minister to the 
 moral life of the world ? Huge appropriations are 
 made for ships and guns and explosives ; let huge 
 appropriations be made also for defending our 
 ^lation against those spiritual enemies which are 
 able to destroy not only the body but also the soul. 
 Still another task awaits the church — the task 
 of consolation. The land is filled with anxious 
 hearts. Men and women are passing through ex- 
 periences the like of which they have never known. 
 Young men between twenty-one and thirty are 
 grappling with a problem altogether new. In 
 silence they are brooding, musing, questioning, 
 suffering, treading the wine-press alone. Fathers 
 and mothers carry a weight upon their hearts. 
 There is a shadow on them which does not lift. 
 They look into the future with many fears. The 
 whole outlook on life has been changed by the com- 
 ing of the war. It is a day of troubled hearts, and 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAN IN" WAR TIME 
 
 the Spirit is saying to all our churches : "Comfort 
 ye, comfort ye the people !" The church must be 
 more and more a place of prayer. It must be more 
 and more a seat of consolation. It must be more 
 and more a home in which affection and good-fel- 
 lowship and goodwill abound. When the world is 
 fiUed with thunder, the church of Christ must 
 minister to quietness and peace. 
 
 A duty which christian people should not over- 
 look in these distracted days is the duty of pro- 
 tecting the good things which have been won at 
 enormous cost. Legislation for the protection of 
 children, and for the safeguarding of the rights of 
 wage-earners, and for the fostering of various 
 humanitarian interests, is secured with difficulty, 
 and only after arduous labor and exasperating 
 delays. As soon as war is declared, there is 
 always a tendency to sweep away the safeguard 
 of liberty, and to take advantage of the weak. 
 The wage-earners are justified in resisting every 
 encroachment on their rights, and ought to 
 protest loudly against the imposition of laws 
 which lose sight of the man in their professed 
 zeal for the good of the country. Nothing is 
 good for the country which impairs the physical 
 and moral health of the individual man. It 
 does not follow that when a nation declares war, 
 the fourth commandment is immediately abro- 
 gated. The laws of God abide, no matter what 
 mortals think or do. Men should rest one 
 
THE CHRISTIAN m WAR TIME 65 
 
 day in seven, whether the nation is at peace 
 or in war. In war we must have efficiency, 
 and to be efficient human beings must work no 
 more than six days out of seven. Overworked men 
 can never carry through a successful war. The 
 wage-earners have often bitterly complained at the 
 apparent indifference of the christian church to 
 the injustices to which they have been subjected, 
 and to the many wrongs they have been obliged 
 to suffer. Here is a chance for christian men to 
 show themselves friends of labor. All through this 
 war the wage-earner must be protected in his full 
 rights, and he must emerge from the war no less 
 a man than he was when the war began. Church 
 members should keep their eye on the State Legis- 
 lature, and immediately protest against every at- 
 tempt on the part of the politicians to do away with 
 regulations which are sound. 
 
WAR AND THE J^ATION'S LARGER CALL 
 By RoBEET E. SpeeKj D.D. 
 
 AT this time there must be no contraction 
 in the great missionary undertakings 
 of the Church. We are called now, 
 in these days, more vividly than ever before, 
 to aim, distinctly and unhesitatingly, at en- 
 largement. We are called to this by the fact that 
 the war has transferred a larger measure of 
 the missionary obligation to America. Those of 
 us who were present at the Edinburgh Missionary 
 Conference in 1910 will remember the statements 
 by both the German and British delegates who were 
 there, in recognition of the fact that the primacy in 
 the missionary undertaking had even then crossed 
 the sea. That burden has been immensely increased 
 in the years that have gone by. It may be that the 
 European churches, barring a few of them, the 
 Moravians and the French Evangelical churches, 
 will not be largely dependent upon us for financial 
 assistance, but for many a day they will need the 
 life that America can give and that America alone 
 will have to spare. I imagine in no sections of the 
 world will this new duty be more distinct than 
 among the Mohammedan nations. It is a burden 
 resting heavily upon many a Christian conscience 
 
 66 
 
THE CHEISTIAI^ I^ WAE TIME 6Y 
 
 in Germany to-day as to how tlie Mohammedan 
 problem is to be dealt with by German churches in 
 the future, in view of the alliances of the present 
 war. In more regards than there is time to speak 
 of here, the war has passed over a heavier weight 
 of missionary duty upon the churches of America. 
 In the face of that larger obligation, dare we talk 
 of standing still, still less of drawing back ? 
 
 The war has brought us into new relations of 
 understanding and of sympathy. Both southward 
 and westward we have heavily increased our mis- 
 sionary duty. It has been one of the saddest facts 
 of international relationship, for the last half gen- 
 eration at least, that there has been a growing feel- 
 ing of alienation between the Latin- American na- 
 tions and the United States, that men like Manuel 
 Tlgarte, who held the devotion of many of the 
 young men of Latin America, could go up and 
 down those lands, like a flame of fire, preaching 
 the doctrine of deep isolation and dislike between 
 the Latin- American nations and their nearest 
 neighbors, who should be their best friends, north 
 of the Eio Grande. At the same time, Latin 
 America's devotion has been given in unstinted 
 measure for years to France. And it would seem 
 to be something in the providence of God that the 
 new relations into which we have been drawn with 
 France might be the bridge over the chasm that 
 has opened between us and Latin America_, and 
 that our common kinship and association with 
 
68 THE CHEISTIAN IIS" WAR TIME 
 
 France to-day might reunite us who had been so 
 rapidly and bitterly drifting apart here in these 
 Western lands. Between ourselves and Japan and 
 China also new understandings and confidences 
 have grown up on account of the war. Our mis- 
 sionary duty southward and westward has been 
 multiplied twofold at least by the developments 
 of the war abroad. 
 
 The war has increased our missionary obliga- 
 tions by more deeply revealing the world's need of 
 the gospel to heal its sin and make it one. I 
 had with me, in my home recently, a Japanese 
 friend. He had been only a few days before to 
 hear Dr. Jefferson preach, and he said: "Mr. 
 Speer, I see clearly that if there is any solution 
 at all to this great problem, there is only one solu- 
 tion. That is Christ. Christ alone can meet the 
 need of the world and unite the hearts of men." 
 We see to-day the futility of every other device 
 with which men have dreamed of binding the 
 nations together. There is no peace of Dives. I^o 
 strands of political or diplomatic understanding 
 can relate the nations inseparably. We see now 
 that war will be done away in Christ or it will 
 never be done away at all, and, seeing this so 
 clearly to-day, our duty to act upon this convic- 
 tion is deepened and intensified, and our mission- 
 ary obligation many-fold enlarged. 
 
 It is enlarged, oh ! how mightily it is enlarged, 
 by the visible and tragic need of the world for an 
 
THE CHKISTIAN" IN WAR TIME 69 
 
 incarnation of a universal brotherly love. It will 
 not do to talk and emotionalize over it. It will 
 not do to pass resolutions regarding it, nor to send 
 communications describing its glory, from one 
 nation to another. The thing never will be made 
 a reality except by incarnation, by such actual 
 functionings of the Christian church across the 
 world as will utter visibly and tangibly to men the 
 gpirit of a universal trust and love. To abate any 
 of our duty of missionary activity, to call in the 
 foreign missionaries, to reduce the work they are 
 doing, is to stultify our declaration that we believe 
 in a world brotherhood, or that we would penetrate 
 mankind with a spirit of universal goodwill and 
 friendship. Words can never make that real to 
 the world. And if in this day we contract our 
 acts, no expansion of our speech will ever make 
 good our betrayal. We are called by the very facts 
 of the world before us now to enlarge the agencies 
 and visible functionings of the incarnation of love 
 in flesh and blood that goes out from us, to express 
 love and kinship to the nations. 
 
 We need the missionary enterprise to-day for 
 these great purposes more than it has ever been 
 needed in the history of the world before. We 
 need it as an expression in the flesh of our convic- 
 tion that humanity is one. We need it because it 
 alone embodies a true doctrine of race function 
 and race relationship. We need it because it ap- 
 pears to be about the only instrumentality of 
 
TO THE CHKISTIAIT m WAK TIME 
 
 Christianity that utters a clear and uncompro- 
 mised super-nationalistic principle. How hard is 
 our problem to-day in all these lands in dealing 
 with the question of the relationship of Chris- 
 tianity and the spirit of nationalism! Has the 
 problem been solved in any of these nations ? While 
 we work at it let us not abandon those great ele- 
 ments in Christianity which rise above even na- 
 tionality. Whatever else we may surrender, let 
 us not surrender the missionary enterprise. We 
 can hold this fast to-day with no betrayal of our 
 own nationalistic loyalty. And we need it. The 
 new world that is coming needs it. Let us en- 
 large its functionings, and expand its activities, 
 building up increasingly the bond which we have 
 in it, which carries love across the gulf of race 
 and nation and seeks to make mankind genuinely 
 one. We need it because, in these days of strife 
 and conflict over all the world, it seems to be about 
 the only agency of international service that we 
 possess. We are beginning to learn in these last 
 few months that it is competent for a nation to 
 give money away to other nations. It has been a 
 long, slow lesson for us to learn, and maybe we 
 shall forget it soon again. But we learned long 
 ago and shall not forget that we have open in mis- 
 sionary enterprise free channels for interdenomi- 
 national and international and inter-racial service. 
 We need these to-day, not to be abridged, but to 
 be extended. 
 
THE CHKISTIAI^ IIST WAE TIME 71 
 
 l!Tot only do the conditions of this present hour 
 forbid our considering for one moment the pro- 
 posal that we should stop our missionary task. We 
 face conditions that issue to us, in the language of 
 this theme, a larger call. And it is not only a 
 larger call to world love, uttered actually and 
 tangibly in human lives, to which we are called 
 now. We need the missionary undertaking un- 
 diminished because of the hope that it embodies 
 and to which it steadfastly adheres. These are 
 dark and doubtful days for many of us, when many 
 a man whose Christian faith has not wavered be- 
 gins to wonder whether after all the dream ever 
 can come true. All around us these coming 
 months, as the shadows darken and those come 
 not back to us who went out from us — all the 
 more in those days will the heavy doubts arise. 
 We need to hold fast to an undertaking that 
 tenaciously grasps the world hope, the confidence 
 that the kingdom of God is to be in all the world, 
 that can sing as some of the lads on the Espagne 
 were singing as they sailed : "My anchor holds. It 
 holds. My anchor holds." 
 
 The function of the Christian church is a 
 double one. The church is a witness to possibilities 
 that lie beyond the facts. The church never was 
 meant to be the mere guaranty of what has be- 
 come established. That has been its shame in past 
 days. It has been thought of only as a religious 
 sanction of the status quo. The real business of 
 
72 THE CHRISTIAN m WAR TIME 
 
 the Christian church has been to witness to the 
 possibilities that were not yet seen, that lay in- 
 visible far beyond, that were themselves a contra- 
 diction of the existing facts. The Christian church 
 is also the power by which these possibilities are 
 to be made facts, and all facts contradictory to 
 them to be denied and overridden and done away. 
 Both as witness and as power the church needs the 
 breadth and boldness of the missionary hopes. We 
 need to hold fast on the world plane to an under- 
 taking that will not let go the idea of a world 
 brotherhood, that will work for that, and even in 
 these days when mankind is rent asunder, will ig- 
 nore the chasm and will send out its representa- 
 tives across the whole world, speaking its message 
 of a world love and holding fast to its dream of a 
 world hope. 
 
THE CHEISTIAI^ IN" WAK TIME 
 By William C. Hull, Ph.D. 
 
 WAR is a diversification, accentuation and 
 consummation of all evil. Hence, in 
 war-time, the Christian is trebly intent 
 upon obedience to his Leader's divine command 
 to overcome evil with good. 
 
 War makes a direct and overwhelming appeal to 
 patriotism. Hence in war-time the Christian is 
 doubly concerned to apply to patriotism as to all 
 other human virtues the test of God's will and 
 God's summons. He believes that patriotism is 
 genuine, and fruitful of good, only when it is 
 based upon an earnest seeking after and implicit 
 obedience to the will of God; and he recognizes 
 and obeys the call of his country only when he 
 hears in it also the call of his God. 
 
 War is a violent and dramatic expression of 
 nationalism, the challenge or disregard of world 
 welfare by national interests. Hence in war-time 
 the Christian is eager to preserve and to realize 
 his Leader's ideal of the universal fatherhood of 
 God and the universal brotherhood of men. 
 
 The evil that men do in war, at home as well 
 as against the enemy, is manifold and well-nigh 
 overwhelming ; and it is only through divine grace 
 
 3 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN IN WAR TIME 
 
 and courage that the Christian is enabled to con- 
 front the evil of a world in arms by a patient and 
 loving determination to overcome this evil by 
 good. The men who go down to Jericho and fall 
 among thieves, in war-time, constitute nearly the 
 whole population of the warring nations; hence 
 the task of the good Samaritan includes the bind- 
 ing up of the nation's wounds, the care of the 
 widowed and the orphaned, the multiplied increase 
 of the world's food supply in a desperate effort 
 to ward off world famine, a self-sacrificing devo- 
 tion to the science and art of curing disease and 
 checking pestilence, the defense of the weak 
 against the strong in industry, the preservation of 
 freedom from human tyranny over the bodies, 
 minds and consciences of men. 
 
 Christian patriotism in war as in peace is both 
 more inclusive and more exclusive than the brand 
 of patriotism which is flamboyant especially in 
 war-time. It includes the higher welfare of the 
 country as well as, or even in opposition to, its 
 material interests; for it applies to the nation as 
 rigidly as to individuals the test of Christ. What 
 is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world 
 and lose his own soul ? It excludes the vain, the 
 false, the shallow, which are too often epitomized 
 in the fetish of the flag, and which make patriotism 
 the last refuge of scoundrels ; for it acts upon the 
 belief that righteousness alone exalteth a nation. 
 
 While the Christian goes to the uttermost limit 
 
THE CHRISTIAl^ IN WAK TIME Y5 
 
 of conscience in obeying the laws of his country, 
 and scrnpuously renders unto Caesar the things that 
 are Caesar's, he draws a sharp line at that limit 
 and holds infinitely more sacred the things that 
 are God's. ITor will he permit his conscience to 
 be lulled or swerved by the acclaims or demands 
 of the vox populi, which is far less certain in war- 
 time than in peace-time to be the vox Dei. Pre- 
 cisely when the popular tide is flowing strong to- 
 wards war, the Christian painfully strives to re- 
 new the tenderness of his conscience and to seek 
 the guiding light of principles which are eternal 
 and of that Power which stands back of circum- 
 stance and time. 
 
 It is a natural and a pleasing trait of man to 
 desire to cooperate heartily with his fellows; and 
 the Christian especially, with his strong sense of 
 fellowship for all men, is rejoiced when he can 
 join hands in the pursuit of the same high ends 
 and holy objects which his fellow countrymen are 
 seeking. But above the tumult of the search, he 
 listens constantly for the admonitions of the 
 Divine and obeys implicitly when the injunction 
 comes, Thus far, and no farther shalt thou go. 
 With his allegiance to both the mission and the 
 methods of Christ, he must carefully and prayer- 
 fully test by Christ's standard both the aims and 
 the methods of his country; and he must stead- 
 fastly reject the wicked vow, "My Country, Eight 
 or Wrong," whether it refer to the objects which 
 
76 THE 0HEISTIA:N' IK WAR TIME 
 
 his country seeks or to the means by which it 
 strives to achieve them. This often requires a 
 touch of the patience as well as of the courage of 
 Christ, and the self-denial which forbids the break- 
 ing of Heaven's laws even for the attainment of 
 Heaven's ends. 
 
 The Christian patriot rejoices when his service 
 to God is consistent with service to country, and he 
 believes that there are many kinds of service even 
 in war-time which have this highest kind of con- 
 sistency. Thus, he believes that home and foreign 
 mission work, increasing and distributing the food 
 supply, maintaining unimpaired the education of 
 the young, and the varied moral, and religious 
 service of men which have made the last century 
 illustrious in time of peace, must all be prosecuted 
 with increased vigor amidst the clash of arms. For 
 such service is of the very essence of patriotism, 
 since it ministers unto the soul of the nation ; and 
 it is service which God needs to have done pre- 
 eminently in war-time, if He is to bring good out 
 of the evil of war and to sow the seeds of future 
 spiritual harvests in the lives of men and nations 
 which are to be gathered after the war is over. 
 
 Finally, as the Christian must ever have before 
 his inner eye the vision of the Celestial City as 
 he pursues his earthly journey, so in his loyalty to 
 the highest interests of his country he must keep 
 ever bright within his mind his Master's ideal of 
 the brotherhood of men. Hence, in war-time he 
 
THE CHKISTIAIT IN WAR TIME TT 
 
 must strive constantly to mitigate tlie evils of war- 
 fare wliicli the enemy is compelled to endure; lie 
 must insist tliat the standards of humanity adopted 
 at The Hague for the conduct of war shall be fully 
 lived up to by his own country's armies, even 
 though they be disregarded by their opponents. 
 He must devote his money, and, if possible, his 
 personal service to protecting noncombatants from 
 the rigors of war, and to reconstructing the homes 
 and lives of war's victims. Above all, he must 
 look steadfastly beyond the war to the peace that 
 is to follow it, and strive his uttermost to make 
 tha,t peace come at the earliest possible moment 
 and to organize it so that it will endure forever. 
 For that purpose, he must influence his country to 
 go into negotiations in the spirit of whole-hearted 
 goodwill and, if need be, of self-sacrifice, and thus 
 incline the other countries to justice and mutual 
 regard. And he must k6ep ever foremost in the 
 negotiations, neither the solution of the knotty 
 problems of past diplomacy, nor the gratification 
 of present national ambitions, — his own nation's 
 included, — but the development of that interna- 
 tional organization in which all forward-looking 
 men see the chief hope of the future. That inter- 
 national organization which prophets like Isaiah 
 and Ladd have foreseen, which statesmen like 
 Penn and Wilson have outlined, and which the two 
 conferences at The Hague have inaugurated, is 
 not only the chief hope of humanity's international 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAI^ IN WAR TIME 
 
 future, but it is by unmistakable signs the God- 
 given task of this generation to achieve. Hand in 
 hand with the world's forward-looking statesmen, 
 all upward-looking Christians will strive to make 
 this dream a reality, to create this element of the 
 Kingdom of God here on earth and in this our 
 time. 
 
cheistia:n' feiendship aeter war 
 
 By Rev. Ekancis E. Clakk, D.D. 
 (Reprinted from The Congregationalist) 
 
 AS a source of possible comfort to tlie timor- 
 ous souls who believe that the people of 
 the world are permanently rent in twain 
 by "the greatest war of history/' may I relate an 
 incident that occurred in Cape Town at the close 
 of the Boer War ? 
 
 It was my fortune to be in South Africa shortly 
 before the war began, and to see something of the 
 officials of both sides who soon afterwards were 
 engaged in one of the bitterest, if not one of the 
 greatest, of wars. Eeeling ran high among both 
 Boers and British. The Boers felt that they were 
 being pushed to the wall and that there was noth- 
 ing left for them but to fight. Old President 
 Kruger was so incensed that though (I was told) 
 he knew English perfectly, he would not speak it 
 in the interview with me, but demanded an inter- 
 preter to translate what he said into English. This 
 was only an example of the bitterness of feeling 
 on the part of the Boers at that time, which was 
 not to be wondered at. 
 
 Within a very few months after the war closed, 
 
 79 
 
80 THE CHEISTIA^ IN WAE TIME 
 
 I was again in South. Africa, and attended a meet- 
 ing of the Dutch and English Christian Endeavor 
 Unions in the Adderley Street Dutch Church in 
 Cape Town. I was surprised and greatly pleased 
 to see mottoes of welcome and good cheer on the 
 wall, in both the English and Dutch languages. 
 The President of the Dutch Union gave the ad- 
 dress of welcome and the President of the English 
 Union presided over the joint meeting. 
 
 In the audience were many young Bo^rs who 
 had been imprisoned in St. Helena and Ceylon, 
 where they had formed many Christian Endeavor 
 societies. They had been released from their is- 
 land prisons but a few weeks before. In the same 
 audience were many young British soldiers who 
 had also belonged to Christian Endeavor societies, 
 in Great Britain or in South Africa. But the ut- 
 most good feeling prevailed. The young men of 
 both races and of both languages took part in the 
 meeting and they united in repeating, each in his 
 own language, the Twenty-third Psalm and the 
 Lord's Prayer, and in singing, before the meeting 
 was over, the familiar hymn, "Blest be the tie 
 that binds our hearts in Christian love." 
 
 This was the first meeting of the sort which took 
 place in South Africa after the war when both 
 races met together, and, though the guns were 
 hardly cool and the memories of the war still 
 rankled in many hearts, yet reconciliation had al- 
 ready begun, and it came about through the com- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN m WAR TIME 81 
 
 mon principles and common religious aims and 
 methods of the young men in both armies. 
 
 This experience and one or two others that are 
 not dissimilar, have given me reason to believe 
 that the enmities of this present war, bitter as they 
 are, and accompanied by nameless cruelties, will 
 not last forever. The average human heart does 
 not cherish grudges so long as we sometimes think. 
 There are many organizations common to the 
 Allies and to the Teutonic forces which will make 
 for friendship, and not the least of these will 
 be the interdenominational religious organizations 
 which have bound together the hearts of so many 
 younger people and older people in the past, and 
 whose ties are not readily broken. These organi- 
 zations will have a great work to do when the war 
 is over, and I believe that they are. preparing to do 
 it to the very best of their ability. 
 
THE DUTY OF THE CHUECH m THIS 
 HOUR OF E"ATIO]SrAL N'EED 
 
 A Message from the Federal Council of the 
 Churches of Christ in America, in Special 
 Session Assembled at Washington, D. C, May 
 8 and 9, 1917. 
 
 I. OuK Spirit and Purpose 
 
 AFTER long patience, and with a solemn 
 sense of responsibility, the government 
 of the United States has been forced to 
 recognize that a state of war exists between this 
 country and Germany, and the President has 
 called upon all the people for their loyal support 
 and their whole-hearted allegiance. As Ameri- 
 can citizens, members of Christian Churches 
 gathered in Federal Council, we are here to 
 pledge both support and allegiance in unstinted 
 measure. 
 
 We are Christians as well as citizens. Upon us 
 therefore rests a double responsibility. We owe 
 it to our country to maintain intact and to trans- 
 mit unimpaired to our descendants our heritage 
 of freedom and democracy. Above and beyond 
 this, we must be loyal to our divine Lord, who 
 
 82 
 
THE CHEISTIA:N" in WAE time 83 
 
 gave His life tliat the world might be redeemed, 
 and whose loving purpose embraces every man and 
 every nation. 
 
 As citizens of a peace-loving nation, we abhor 
 war. We have long striven to secure the judicial 
 settlement of all international disputes. But 
 since, in spite of every effort, war has come, we are 
 grateful that the ends to which we are committed 
 are such as we can approve. To vindicate the 
 principles of righteousness and the inviolability of 
 faith as between nation and nation; to safeguard 
 the right of all the peoples, great and small alike, 
 to live their life in freedom and peace; to resist 
 and overcome the forces that would prevent the 
 union of the nations in a commonwealth of free 
 peoples conscious of unity in the pursuit of ideal 
 ends — ^these are aims for which every one of us 
 may lay down our all, even life itself. 
 
 We enter the war without haste or passion, not 
 for private or national gain, with no hatred nor 
 bitterness against those with whom we contend. 
 
 No man can foresee the issue of the struggle. It 
 will call for all the strength and heroism of which 
 the nation is capable. What now is the mission of 
 the church in this hour of crisis and danger ? It 
 is to bring all that is done or planned in the 
 nation's name to the test of the mind of Christ. 
 
 That mind upon one point we do not all in- 
 terpret alike. With sincere conviction some of us 
 believe that it is forbidden the disciple of Christ 
 
84 THE CHKISTIAK IIT WAK TIME 
 
 to engage in war under any circumstances. Most 
 of us believe that the love of all men which Christ 
 enjoins, demands that we defend with all the power 
 given us the sacred rights of humanity. But we 
 are all at one in loyalty to our country, and in 
 steadfast and whole-hearted devotion to her service. 
 
 As members of the church of Christ, the hour 
 lays upon us special duties: 
 
 To purge our own hearts clean of arrogance 
 and selfishness ; 
 
 To steady and inspire the nation ; 
 
 To keep ever before the eyes of ourselves and of 
 our allies the ends for which we fight; 
 
 To hold our own nation true to its professed 
 aims of justice, liberty and brotherhood ; 
 
 To testify to our fellow-Christians in every land, 
 most of all to those from whom for the time we 
 are estranged, our consciousness of unbroken unity 
 in Christ; 
 
 To unite in the fellowship of service multitudes 
 who love their enemies and are ready to join with 
 them in rebuilding the waste places as soon as 
 peace shall come; 
 
 To be diligent in works of relief and mercy, not 
 forgetting those ministries to the spirit to which, 
 as Christians, we are especially committed ; 
 
 To keep alive the spirit of prayer, that in these 
 times of strain and sorrow men may be sustained 
 by the consciousness of the presence and power of 
 God; 
 
THE CHRISTIAiN' IK WAR TIME 85 
 
 To hearten those who go to the front, and to com- 
 fort their loved ones at home ; 
 
 To care for the welfare of our young men in the 
 army and navy, that they may be fortified in 
 character and made strong to resist temptation ; 
 
 To be vigilant against every attempt to arouse 
 the spirit of vengeance and unjust suspicion to- 
 ward those of foreign birth or sympathies; 
 
 To protect the rights of conscience against every 
 attempt to invade them; 
 
 To maintain our Christian institutions and activ- 
 ities unimpaired, the observance of the Lord's Day 
 and the study of the Holy Scriptures, that the soul 
 of our nation may be nourished and renewed 
 through the worship and service of Almighty God ; 
 
 To guard the gains of education, and of social 
 progress and economic freedom, won at so great 
 a cost, and to make full use of the occasion to set 
 them still further forwarcj, even by and through 
 the war; 
 
 To keep the open mind and the forward look, 
 that the lessons learned in war may not be forgot- 
 ten when comes that just and sacred peace for 
 which we pray ; 
 
 Above all, to call men everywhere to new obe- 
 dience to the will of our Father God, who in Christ 
 has given Himself in supreme self-sacrifice for the 
 redemption of the world, and who invites us to 
 share with Him His ministry of reconciliation. 
 
 To such service we would summon our fellow- 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN IIlT WAR TIME 
 
 Christians of every name. In this spirit we would 
 dedicate ourselves and all that we have to the 
 nation's cause. With this hope we would join 
 hands with all men of goodwill of every land 
 and race, to rebuild on this war-ridden and deso- 
 lated earth the commonwealth of mankind, and to 
 make of the kingdoms of the world the Kingdom 
 of the Christ. 
 
 11. OuK Practical Duties 
 
 "Army and Navy. For the moral and spiritual 
 welfare of the army and navy the churches are in 
 chief measure responsible. They should therefore 
 cultivate a close relationship to the Army and 
 Navy Chaplains who are the accredited ministers 
 of the churches and should dignify and strengthen 
 their service. They should cordially sustain and 
 reinforce the work of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, which is an especially equipped and 
 well-tried arm of the church for ministering to men 
 in the camp. They should also sympathetically 
 support the plans of the American Bible Society to 
 make the Scriptures available for every soldier and 
 sailor of the army and navy. 
 
 "The Liquor Traffic. In this time of crisis the 
 Federal Council urges the churches to use their 
 utmost endeavors to secure national prohibition as 
 a war measure, demanded alike by economic, moral 
 and religious considerations. The liquor traffic 
 
THE CHEISTIAK m WAE TIME 87 
 
 consumed last year foodstuffs sufficient to feed 
 7,000,000 men for a year, required the toil of 75,- 
 000' farmers for six months to furnish these food- 
 stuffs, engaged 62,920 wage-earners needed in 
 legitimate industry and exacted a heavy toll of life. 
 The nation cannot afford this economic and moral 
 waste. 
 
 ^'The Social Evil. War increases lust and its 
 deadly consequences. The efforts of the govern- 
 ment, of the Federal Council and of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association to prevent its develop- 
 ment in mobilization camps will not fully succeed 
 unless the nearby churches and allied organizations 
 see that vice and liquor are repressed in their 
 communities and unless they assist in providing 
 wholesome social and recreational activities for the 
 men. All the churches will need to watch lest 
 the excitement and strain of the hour lower the 
 sex standards of the community. 
 
 ^'Belief Work. The increased suffering of war 
 time demands increased gifts and service. The 
 churches should organize themselves to strengthen 
 the American Red Cross by membership and the 
 preparation of supplies, to care in friendship for 
 all the needs of the families of men in national 
 service, to increase their gifts to foreign war re- 
 lief and to those European religious bodies which 
 the Federal Council is already assisting. 
 
 " Child Welfare. To meet the depletion of war 
 the vitality of the rising generation needs to be 
 
88 THE CHKISTIAK m WAE TIME 
 
 conserved and developed. It is more important 
 than ever for tlie churches to aid in removing the 
 community conditions that make for defective 
 lives, and in securing sound measures of health 
 and sanitation, of housing and nourishment, of 
 recreation and education. The mobilization oi 
 youth for increased food production affords a 
 starting point for permanent community provision 
 for the recreational and vocational needs of young 
 people. 
 
 "Increased Production of Food. The world is 
 short of food. The safety of the nation and the 
 outcome of the war depend largely upon our ability 
 to increase the crops. This is an urgent national 
 duty. The suburban and rural churches may well 
 call the people together to consider community 
 plans to this end. 
 
 ''Prevention of Waste. In face of the world 
 need, extravagance and luxury are criminal, but 
 productive business should be maintained at its 
 fullest possible capacity. The simple life, which 
 is a permanent obligation for the followers of 
 Jesus, becomes in this emergency an imperative 
 necessity. The women of the churches may well 
 get together to consider and recommend sound 
 economics in food and clothing. 
 
 "Industrial Standards. The labor power of the 
 nation must be conserved or the needed increase in 
 production cannot be secured, as England has dis- 
 covered. The industrial standards set up by the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN" m WAR TIME 89 
 
 Federal Council and its constituent bodies must be 
 maintained. All cases of seven-day work, of 
 lengthened working day, of the employment of 
 children and young people under sixteen, or of 
 women in the new hazardous industries, should 
 at once be reported to local authorities or to the 
 l^ational Council of Defense. 
 
 ''Justice in Distribution. The churches should 
 stimulate the community conscience to demand 
 that all speculation in the necessities of life be 
 eliminated, that all attempts to secure unjust 
 profits be checked and that the hoarding of food- 
 stuffs be prevented. Government action to this 
 end should be heartily supported. 
 
 "The Cost of War. The burden of war cost 
 must be evenly distributed. The principle of uni- 
 versal service has been applied to life in the rais- 
 ing of troops. It should therefore be applied in the 
 same manner to wealth and ability. 
 
 "Safeguarding Democracy. If we are to ad- 
 vance democracy throughout the earth we must 
 first exemplify it in the nation. It must not be 
 denied, either in industry or in government. Even 
 in the strain of war, the abuse of free speech is 
 not so dangerous as its suppression, and nothing 
 should be permitted to destroy the dearly bought 
 right of freedom of conscience. One of the 
 patriotic duties of the Christian pulpit is contin- 
 uously to develop in the people the determination 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN" IN" WAR TIME 
 
 that this war shall end in nothing less than such 
 a constructive peace as shall be the beginning of a 
 world democracy." 
 
 By order of the Council, 
 
 Feank Mason IsToeth, 
 
 President, 
 
 Chaeles S. Macfaeland^ 
 General Secretary. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May 10, 1917. 
 
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