Mi ! pi » iilSl uaWuM Hi! imv iiiiitllliHil^^ K^- ^^ ^<^. :'>c. . /"*^. -'lip.' •^^''^/' -0^ a: ■>^ ^- .0 'o. >^^. O, ''^'-v '^c ^:\,^%_ 'v. V V ^-i <- ^ ■^^ I- <^. \ p^. ^^ ■'^^ V ^ ^^ ^ ,i^ ■<•>> * ', V • .-^^ , '■ . -^ ^ * * ^ A ^ V 1 /i . A BETTER WORLD TYLER DENNETT A BETTER WORLD BY TYLER DENNETT FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AUTHOR OF "the DEMOCRATIC MOVE- MENT IN ASIA," ETC. NEW ^^9S^ YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY APR 2 1 1S20 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ©CU56690? FOREWORD As these words are written, it is yet doubtful whether the United States is to enter the League of Nations or not. The decision is not impor- tant to the argument of the following pages. The world becomes neither better nor worse by the mere setting up of any political institution. Surely the time is here when mankind is weary of legalistic debate and quibbling phrases. A bet- ter world does not hang on a word or phrase of law but on a better public opinion. Back of all this tiresome disputation is the blunt question, sp often overlooked in the debate, as to the present moral and spiritual resources of mankind for peaceful, cooperative living. This is the question which we cannot dodge or hide from, and even though the League of Nations were func- tioning in full panoplied power, the quality of the public opinion supporting it would be the ab- solutely fundamental question to which we ought to address ourselves. The so-called Christian nations are approach- ing moral and spiritual bankruptcy as is clearly revealed by the apathy of public opinion on the great moral issues which underlie the Treaty and the League. While the Christian people of the vi FOEEWORD world do not think straight and feel straight on moral questions, there is small chance that any political institution will function righteously. The moral foundations of the world have not been shaken because the Treaty and the League are not received with more joyous acclaim. On the contrary, the actions of the Peace Conference were what they were because the moral founda- tions of the world have not yet been established. Nowhere has the doctrine of laissez faire been so thoroughly discredited as in the matter of re- ligion. Religious faith is as much subject to con- scious direction, change and improvement as any intellectual, political or industrial condition. This book, therefore, argues boldly and without evasion that the day is already here when the Christian peoples of the earth must, in self-de- fense if for no nobler motive, definitely set before themselves the task of bringing all mankind, themselves included, to the acceptance and prac- tice of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Unfinished Task 13 II The League and a Changing World . . 39 III Christianity, Democracy, and Interna- tionalism 66 IV Europe, the V/ar, and Religion ... 89 V Christianity and the Non-Christian Races 111 VI Christianity and the Next Century . . 135 VII The New Patriotism 154 mi A BETTER WORLD S A BETTER WORLD CHAPTER I THE UNFINISHED TASK I THE SPIKITUAIj PICTUKESQUENESS OF THE PEACE CON- FERENCE *^A LIVING thing is born in this document/' said President Wilson in quiet, level tones, in the few remarks with which he concluded the reading of the first draft of the covenant of the League of Nations. "Here, sitting around these tables, are dele- gates of fourteen States,'' he said, "and I have calculated that we represent more than twelve hundred millions of people. When you think of the variety of circumstances among these four- teen nationalities there is great significance in the fact that we have reached a unanimous result." ' ' Armed force is in the background in this con- stitution," continued President Wilson. "If the moral force of the world will not suffice, physical force shall, but only as a last resource." 13 14 A BETTEE WOELD An American correspondent, in one of those dull days of the early part of the Peace Confer- ence when news was scanty, sat down and dashed off a dispatch which was published under the cap- tion: ^*Why is the Peace Conference not Im- pressive?" It was a most amazing question. True, the Peace Conference did not contain much gold lace, not much pomp and circumstance, but man alive! the Peace Conference was the most spectacular, the most spiritually spectacular, con- ference which was ever staged in the history of the world. ''The arrangement of the tables,'' wrote the correspondent, ''suggests a luncheon for some sixty or seventy business men, except that in place of the linen and dishes and silverware the tables are covered with green cloth and there are writing pads and racks for stationery. There is a head table from which two long side tables project the length of the room, leaving a well in the center. Every minute it seems as if the waiters ought to come trooping in with the oysters." But think who were seated at those tables, dele- gates from Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British Em- pire including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, China, Cuba, Czecho- slovakia, Equador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Eumania, Serbia, Siam, and Uruguay, as well as the United States. THE UNFINISHED TASK 15 Or, to view it less from a national and more Tom a racial point of view, where before in the 'listory of the world did you ever see the legally accredited representatives of the government of ;he black man, the brown man, the yellow man and he white man all sitting down in conference to- i^ether with their feet under the same table ? The ?eace Conference was spiritually the most pictur- esque assembly which was ever staged. It was vorth all that it cost just to put it up before the (yes of the world. The Peace Conference, and the proposed ^eague of Nations, was more than a conference: t was a symbol, it is a symbol, of the hopes and ispirations of the world. We may make a legitimate distinction between he object which we are viewing, the Conference, ind the symbolism which attaches to it. Objects s symbols are chiefly to be judged by what they uggest to the imagination. In themselves they aay be even crude and ugly, as a tawdry and bat- ered crucifix, and yet they may speak to the soul -nd stir the heart to purposes sublime and ex- [uisitely beautiful. Thus may be judged the Peace inference. To those who grubbed around in the auck and dirt of a Paris winter, encountering day ly day all the unlovely and despicable traits that Luman flesh is heir to, the Conference was often [isillusioning, disappointing, heart-breaking; and ^et the symbolism remains. All that the Peace Conference promised to be, and hoped to be, but 16 A BETTEE WOELD failed to be, the world may yet become — yes, must become, if civilization is not to destroy itself. A living thing was born, a visible symbol of a democracy which shall be not merely nation wide and nation deep, but international, yes, and even' inter-racial. Inadequate and disappointing as it was, the Peace Conference approached more nearly than the world has yet seen to being the visible political sign of the Kingdom of God. That it did not come nearer only shows ns how far the world is still removed from that ideal of which the ancient prophets dreamed and of which the Master spoke. We shall never have a better Peace Conference, or a better League of Nations, until we have a better world. DEFICIENCY OF IDEALISM It is easy to criticize the Peace Conference, the Treaty of Peace and the League of Nations. It is particularly easy to criticize on the basis of wrong presuppositions. *^I must say," said President Wilson in his Metropolitan Opera House speech, in March, just before returning to Paris, 'Hhat I have been puzzled by some of the criticisms — not by the criticisms themselves : I can understand them per- fectly, even when there was no foundation for them — but by the fact of the criticism. I cannot imagine how these gentlemen can live and not live THE UNFINISHED TASK 17 in the atmosphere of the world. I particularly can not imagine how they can be Americans and set up a doctrine of careful selfishness, thought out to the last detail. I have heard no counsel of generosity in their criticism: I have heard no constructive suggestion. I have heard nothing ex- cept, ^^Will it not be dangerous to us to help the world r' But it is easy, especially easy without the facts which reveal the choices that were presented in Paris, to criticize on the constructive side, to measure the work of the Paris conference by a moral ideal of absolute justice, and to find both Treaty and League very deficient. Such criticism should not be discouraged. It would indeed be de- plorable if the world were now to settle down and assume that the Treaty of Peace has taken the place of the Bible, and the League of Nations is a school of the prophets. The embarrassments which faced the Peace Conference were of three kinds. It was of the ut- most importance, first of all, to lay down as a base-line a moral ideal according to which the new world should be built. Secondly, it was necessary to gain the assent of the nations to those princi- ples. Thirdly, the military, geographical, politi- cal and economic terms of the treaty must be fixed. *^What we seek is the reign of law based upoK the consent of the governed, and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind,'' said President 18 A BETTER WORLD Wilson. This, in its simplest form, was tlie base- line. It was, so far as the ^^Big Powers" were concerned, exclusively an American contribution, for no other one of them came to Paris either will- ing or free to accept it. The opinion of mankind was not organized and it had meager representa- tion at the Peace Table. The ideal was not ac- cepted in its integrity. In the resulting treaty it is therefore difficult to recognize any underlying <;onsistent, moral principle. It is barely possible that more of the principle of ^* consent of the governed," the moral ideal of democracy, might have been imposed upon the Peace Conference, and through it upon the world, if sufficient force had been applied. But the ap- plication of that force, in itself, would have been an even greater transgression of morality than any of the compromises which were adopted. A moral ideal is violated and vitiated when it is im- posed upon those unwilling to accept it. Democracy does not begin at the top and work down. It works up from the bottom or it does not work at all. The unfinished task of the peace is the transcend- ing moral task of organizing the opinion of man- kind in support of a world social order which rests on the consent of the governed. This is es- sentially a religious task, the Christianizing of the world order. ^^Thus it comes back," writes Herbert Croly of the New Republic in an article on The Obstacle to THE UNFINISHED TASK 19 Peace (April 26, 1919), **to the amount of idealism wMch the democratic peoples bring to the new task. . . . The richest source of the needed ideology is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The west- em democracies have ahead of them a perfectly plain although an extremely difficult task. They have to stop dogmatizing about Christianity and to stop practicing it merely as a vehicle of per- sonal salvation. They have to begin the im- mediate application of it to the anarchy produced in their own moral sanctuary by the existing dis- tribution of industrial and political power. **In its social aspect Christianity consists, first, in the repentant recognition by Christians of the sin of their past bondage to selfish preoccupations, and secondly, in their redemption not by enforc- ing penalties for breaking the law but by active faith in the inexhaustible possibility of human de- liverance and regeneration. The practice of such a belief in human nature will create the Great Society which can heal the wounds and repair the losses of the war. After their prolonged recent in- dulgence in the morality of taking a life for a life, the salvation of the western peoples can only come from a great outburst of humanism. They can no longer meet their needs with the rule of live and let live upon which liberal capitalism of the Victorian era prided itself. They must reach towards the peremptory gospel of human brother- hood which demands here and now that we live in order to enhance life.'' The Peace Conference 20 A BETTER WORLD was embarrassed by a deficiency of that sort of idealism. Ill THE PKEACHING AlTD PEACTICE OF WAR SLOGANS The war was the most colossal vindication of Christian ethics which the world has ever seen. It demonstrated again that we cannot violate the moral law without suffering the penalties. We cannot be even a silent and inactive member of a group which violates the law and expect that when the punishment falls upon the group we can be spared. The largest group to which, we belong is mankind, and no one escapes individual responsibility even for the sins of that largest group. Everyone is called on to bear his part of the penalty. Thus, if in no other way, are we compelled to recognize our widest social re- sponsibilities. If the war has not taught us to stand in awe and reverence before the great truth that we must live in order to enhance life, then are we miserable indeed. Ours is the unpardon- able sin of being unwilling to learn. No military measures in the future, as in the past, are ade- quate to defend us from the penalties which are | visited upon those who ignore their social re- sponsibility. Even the most loyal defenders of the Peace Conference would not attempt to argue that every nation represented there was content to take the lowest seat until it was urged to come up higher, THE UNFINISHED TASK 21 nor did any nation appear in Paris as esteeming others better than itself. The idea of a nation at the service of the world, a servant in the human brotherhood, eager to confer favors, regardless of receiving them, was jeered at. And yet, it is very doubtful whether the war could have been won without that great appeal to the Christian ideal which was voiced so often by President Wilson. We know perfectly well that the American people would have repudiated the cause of the Allies even as they judged the cause of the Central Powers if, instead of appealing to the American people l;o save democracy. President Wilson had asked us to send ^ye million men to Europe to add one acre of territory to any im- perial domain in Europe, Africa, or Asia. It is even questionable whether Italy, France and Eng- land could have kept their soldiers in the trenches through the year of 1917 if the governments had published their secret treaties or made an honest statement of their war aims with reference to Eussia, China, Africa, Asia Minor, and certain parts of Eastern Europe. The world is now faced with the gravest of moral crises. The peoples of the world were deeply stirred to moral earnestness and to action. The Peace Conference, a conference of govern- ments, repudiated the application of the prin- ciples to which the peoples of the world had given their assent. On the one hand governments themselves stand convicted before their own peo- 22 A BETTER WORLD pies, and on the other hand stand revealed as disqualified for moral leadership before that two thirds of the world, eight or nine hundred millions of people, whose rights to consent in their own government were all but ignored. The crisis is the more grave because of the fact that the appeals of President Wilson will not soon be forgotten by the peoples who accepted them and if history teaches us anything it is that the will of the people cannot be thwarted eternally, i If the Treaty of Peace is the best and the last word which existing governments have to offer on the consent of the governed, racial equality, the color question and the rights of weak nations and races, then the question of government itself is up for discussion and even the wildest anarchist may always be sure of a most attentive audience. The general *' Social Revolution'' may be post- poned a year or even five years in Europe and the race war may not come for fifty years or even for a century but Christian faith and Christian culture are doomed. Fortunately the last word on moral questions is not delivered by governments or by diplomatic representatives. It comes from the people, and the people of the world have not repudiated the moral ideal of Christian liberty or the kindred ideal of Christian democracy. It is safe to say that these ideals never claimed so many adherents as they do today. The unfinished task of the war THE UNFINISHED TASK 23 is to organize and extend the number of believers until their will becomes the law. And what is this task but that of Christian discipleship, the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the extension of it, and then the applica- tion and extension of it again, until it includes under its righteous and peaceful sway the entire world? The slogans under which the war was fought and won, ^ ' The defense of weak nations, " ^ ^ respect for treaties,'' ^'Government by consent of the governed,'' ''autocracy must go," and "make the world safe for democracy" aroused many hopes in the hearts of mankind which the Treaty of Peace did not fulfil. They were legitimate hopes, too, and these unfulfilled yet legitimate hopes of mankind bound the unfinished task which is upon us. The greatest question before the world is not how much Germany will pay, but rather how much these nations and races and social classes which were so little represented at Paris will have to pay. And for what they do have to pay, these backward, ignorant, unrepresented, oppressed peoples, the "under dogs" of the world, will they get value received? IV liberty's frightful, mien Angel Eye-lash made a speech in Barcelona one night in December just as the delegates were hurrying across the world to form the Peace Con- 24 A BETTEE WOELD f erenee. Angel Eye-lash, or to leave the name un- translated Angel Pestana, is not less picturesque than his name would indicate. He is a Spanish anarchist. Addressing a group of kindred spirits in one of the Liberal Clubs with which Spain is generously supplied, he demanded, working up to an impassioned climax: ^^Why are our children not permitted to sit down at the feast of the good things of life!" Everyone waited, breathlessly wondering how he would define the ' 'good things" of life. Would they be diamonds, wine and auto- mobiles? No. He continued: ''We want for our children the schools, the art and the music which now only the rich people enjoy. ' ' A woman in the Casa del Pueblo (Peoples' House: the Madrid Socialist Headquarters) was asked what the women of Madrid desired most. She replied: "Education for the girls and day- nurseries where we may leave our babies when we go out to work." Not a very revolutionary re- quest it would seem, but a few days later, when the bread-shop riots broke out in Madrid, she was not only one of the first to reach the center of the disorder but later proudly boasted that although most of the looting was very conservative the sol- diers had to call out the fire department to stop the fires that she set. A few weeks later I was interviewing a group of radical leaders in Barcelona, seeking to dis- cover whether there is any likelihood that the numerous liberal parties, now largely local and THE UNFINISHED TASK 25 quite separated in their leadership and aims, would unite on any single moderate program of reform such as the establishment of a republic. They were only mildly interested. ^^Of course,'' they said, ^^we would favor a republic, although we would not expect much from it. We would husband our energies, try to get as much out of the change as we could ; but we are really waiting for the Social Eevolution to begin." ^^And when do you expect the Social Eevolu- tion T' I asked. *^ Within three or four years. It will probably start in either Italy or France. Then we shall join it. It would be useless for Spain to start the Social Revolution now, for the forces of the League of Nations would be immediately mobilized against us and we would be crushed." Sehor Maura, recently Premier, the chairman of the Spanish Commission appointed by the gov- ernment to study the idea of the League of Na- tions, included in his official report a reconnnenda- tion that Spain increase the size of her army. This fact was offered to me by one of the very mod- erate leaders of Spain as an evidence that ^Hhe ruling classes of Spain are still living in the Mid- dle Ages. ' ' Then he added : * ^ No one knows when the change will come, but come it will. The merchants and the laboring classes have not failed to note what is passing in the world north of the Pyrenees. ' ' In every country where misgovemment is en- 26 A BETTEE WOELD throned and where the masses of the people are denied the right of self-expression and seK-de- termination you will find similar groups of peo- ple, the intensity of whose convictions vary di- rectly with the degree of their poverty, the un- equal distribution of wealth and the rigor of mili- tary control. ! It is interesting to see that this demand for self-determination has already invaded Japan, a country which until very recently has been closed to such ideas. * * It is inevitable that Japan should be a:ffected by the world-wide tide of liberalism, but I hope that a critical situation can be averted by granting the people universal suffrage — ^for the men, that is — and improving the condition of the laboring classes." Thus speaks Yukio Ozaki, formerly Japanese Minister of Justice and also former mayor of Tokio, as quoted by the New York Evening Post, April 18, 1919. The dis- tinguished speaker is also reported as being dis- appointed over the fact that the Japanese Diet, which recently reduced the property and tax qualifications so that the number of voters is about doubled, did not increase the extent of suffrage very much more. He reported that un- dercurrents of Socialism and labor agitation are appearing in Japan. It was perhaps such facts as one can gather in Spain, or Italy, or Japan, or even in France, that President Wilson had in mind when he spoke of '* economic serfdom" and when he wondered THE UNFINISHED TASK 27 where some of the leaders of American public opinion have been living that they do not under- stand what the masses are thinking and what they are demanding for the new world which has been promised. The League of Nations, in creating machinery to prevent the outbreak of war between states, cre- ates machinery which could be used also, so far as armies can be controlled, to prevent the outbreak of this new war against economic serfdom. This is one of the grave questions arising out of the deliberations and action of the Peace Con- ference. The world longs for peace ; those of us who are not hungry, whose children are not de- prived of the **good things of life," who share the privileges which the rich enjoy, incline to feel that peace is a supreme consideration. But if this general war-weariness, this yearning for peace, are the very trenches behind which feudalism seeks to protect itself, if the maintenance of peace means also the sustaining of an unrighteous social order in Europe for Bourbons who ^^ never learn,'' how then shall we vote to utilize the League of Nations, or what measures shall we consent to its employing^ The war against the Central Powers was sustained year after year, and was won after the most persistent appeals to democracy and ex- plicit promises repeated over and over again that democracy must win. Now that the war has been won the common people have discovered that 28 A BETTER WORLD autocracy was not confined to Germany, even as the governments have discovered that Bolshevism cannot be confined to Russia. As a direct result of the appeal which was made to democracy new hopes and aspirations were born in every country in the world. But Liberty, as she comes nearer, proves to wear a terrifying mien. We draw back in alarm. We have granted the premises : we hardly dare draw the conclusion. We tremble before the fact that the world is not yet prepared for the liberty which is promised. This is the first disillusionment and the first chal- lenge. V THE EIGHTS OF WEAK NATIONS But the democratic aspirations stimulated by the war are not confined to the internal economic and political concerns of individual states of either Europe or Asia. There has been an un- paralleled resurrection of the spirit of nationality and a demand for the recognition of what may be called the democracy of nationalities. This de- mand, like the voice of the depressed masses of Europe, comes from the bottom. The little nationalities, the weak and forgotten ones, demand democratic liberties in the world by the side of the master nations. *^Ten new States have sprung into existence," reported Lloyd George, toward the end of the Peace Conference. ^'Some of them are inde- THE UNFINISHED TASK 29 pendent, some of them are dependent, some of them may be protectorates; and, at any rate, al- though we may not define their boundaries, we must give indications of them. Boundaries of fourteen countries will have to be recast/' But this enumeration by no means gives adequate in- dication of the extent of the problem, such a large part of which was not made the concern of the Peace Conference at all. The Koreans, having waited a dozen years for a favorable opportunity, have now appealed their case to the court of the world. *^For ten years we have been oppressed by a militaristic and im- perialistic Government. With no more right than Germany when she crushed Belgium under her heel and brought down upon herself the condem- nation of Christendom, the Japanese Government has not only robbed us of our national liberty, but has deprived us of those rights which were the heritage of every human being. It has deprived us of justice, of freedom of thought, of our lan- guage, of the right to educate our children accord- ing to our ideals, imposing upon us a system of education destructive not only of our national ideals, but imperilling the very foundations of the Christian religion." Thus runs the appeal. One of the most notable features of the Korean outbreak has been the outspoken Japanese dis- approval, voiced not only in America but in Japan, of the prevailing policy in Chosen. Yukio Ozaki stated in the interview quoted above that ^*the 30 A BETTEE WOELD cause of the revolution, if it may be so called, is another instance of the evils of military control in Japanese affairs. The Governor-Generals of Korea, as well as of Formosa, always have been military men. Men from civil life have been given little opportunity in colonial control and the na- tives have resented it. It is time, too, that the Koreans be given a stronger voice in their Gov- ernment." The immediate initiation of reforms in Korea which have followed the exposure of the situation is still further proof of vitality of the new democratic movement in Asia. In Japan, I have heard distinguished citizens argue earnestly that Japan ought to relinquish entirely the con- trol of Korea even as the United States has prom- ised to relinquish control in the Philippines, al- though the speakers dropped their voices and spoke hardly above a whisper when they expressed such convictions. But that was several years ago. '* What right have the Japanese to look down upon the Koreans r^ they asked, contemptuously. Within two months after the first draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations was published the Nationalists of Egypt were throwing vitriol, and the same day we read of Indian riots in Amritsar being quelled from the sky by aero- planes. It is crude, criminal stupidity to think that such movements can be dismissed from atten- tion under the general term Bolshevism, and it is equally crude to drive them underground by bringing out the machine-guns. THE UNFINISHED TASK 31 Yet, we again find ourselves facing the fact that the granting of all the unrestricted liberties and freedoms which may logically be deduced from a doctrine of national self-determination would not enthrone liberty and would extend a frightful chaos. Koreans must admit that the alleged mis- government of Korea by Japan represents an im- measurable improvement over the misgovernment which Korea administered to herself before the Japanese annexation. The demand of the radicals of India for absolute self-government, even within the Empire, will not stand examination as a meas- ure likely to increase either justice or happiness among the vast and ununified millions of India. The world is ill prepared for uncompromising democracy. It would be hardly more successful in many places than in a kindergarten. VI THE INTEBNATIOFAL COLOK-LINB Another sore spot in the Peace Conference was the color question. The Pan- African Congress, the first, I suppose, in the history of the world, held a three-day session in Paris during the second month of the peace de- liberations. Its presiding officer was M. Diagne, Senegalese representative in the French Chamber of Deputies. Prof. W. E. B. Du Bois was the lead- ing representative from the United States. The resolutions which were adopted bear in every line 32 A BETTER WORLD the marks of the inspiration and hope which have come to the colored peoples because of the war and because of their participation in it. The Con- gress was agreed that the condition of the black race in America is far more serious than in any- other country. Not much ground for American pride in that ! But the resolutions bearing on the relation of the subject black races to the govern- ments over them are worth recording as the first Negro Declaration of Rights : ? ''The Governments of the Allied Powers and their associates ought to establish a law of inter- national protection for the natives, as they estab- lish an international law for the working world. ''In the League of Nations a permanent secre- tary's office ought to be engaged, especially with the political, social and economic measures which comprise the status of the natives. The negroes of the world demand that henceforth the natives of Africa and the people of African origin shall be governed according to the following principles, wherever they are not already applied: ^* Lands: the soil and the natural resources shall be reserved and safeguarded for the natives. Ownership of the land shall be extended to those who are able to improve it. '^Capital: the law of concessions must be regu- lated so as to prevent the exploitation of the na- tives, and the draining of the natural riches of the country. These concessions, which must al- ways be temporary, must function under the con- THE UNFINISHED TASK 33 trol of the state. The growing needs of the na- tives must be considered. A portion of the profits from the concessions must be nsed for the moral , and material welfare of the natives. ^^ Labor: abolition of slavery and of corporal punishment: abolition of forced labor except in the cases of punishment for crimes ; promulgation of labor laws. ^'Education: all native children must be in^ structed, not only in their mother tongue, but also in the language of the protecting nation. There must be professionally qualified teachers. ^^ Medical assistance and hygiene: it should be recognized that human life in the tropics requires special safeguards as well as a system of public scientific hygiene. The states should be held re- sponsible for the care and the sanitary conditions without decreasing the initiative of missionary societies and of individuals. A service of medical assistance provided with doctors and hospitals ought to be created by the state. '* State: the native Africans ought to be ad- mitted gradually to a part in the administration of public aif airs, in proportion to their intellectual development, by virtue of the principle that gov- ernments exist for the people and not the people for the governments. ' ' The Pan-African Congress did not fail also to note that color discrimination is directed against the yellow as well as the black races and is there- fore of world-wide proportions. 34 A BETTER WORLD The Peace Conference dodged the color question when it came to matters of legislation, although the covenant of the League of Nations, in the in- structions to mandatory nations, takes cognizance of the dependence of the black man. But if we are honest with ourselves and in our professions of brotherhood and democracy, must we not frankly look forward to the time when the black races of the earth shall have representatives in the League of Nations in proportion to their numerical economic and political strength? One must ad- mire the declaration of negro rights not only for the self-respect which breathes through it but also for its restraint. Just now the world is concerned with other mat- ters, but the day approaches when we shall recog- nize the color question as the fundamental inter- national problem of the world. The divine right of kings has happily passed, the divine right of the people is accepted, although with many reservations, but the divine right of the white man to rule the earth still remains almost un- challenged, save among those to whom the Al- mighty has given black or tinted skins. t I vn j THE FEAE OF DEMOCRACY The appeal to internationalism was as necessary to winning the war as was the appeal to de- mocracy. The expectation that an Allied victory THE UNFINISHED TASK 35 would make possible the clearing away of national suspicions and distrusts, to make way for an ef- fective League of Nations, nerved many a man and nation to take up the fight and carry it on. The actual establishment of not merely a League of Allied Nations but an actual Allied Superstate became a matter of the simplest necessity as a military, political and economic measure. One of the big moral by-products of the war was this new feeling of international responsibility so studi- ously cultivated in every AUied country. But it was already apparent, even before the Peace Conference met, that internationalism as a term was fast passing into disrepute and the dif- ficulties in its application at the Peace table were insurmountable. These difficulties were of two kinds. The sudden appearance of victory immediately loosed the bonds of union which had kept the Allied nations together in an enforced inter- nationalism. One could see this falling apart by comparing the newspaper comments of the various countries or, better still, by talking with the sol- diers. Every nation began modestly to admit that its action had been the sole or decisive part in winning the war. Italians, French, British, Belgians and Americans alike assumed it as a mat- ter of course. Probably not at any time during the war were the various governments so far apart and so opposed one to another as when they gathered at the Peace table. Some came to Paris 36 A BETTER WORLD ifirmly resolved to stand without yielding for ful- fillment of every pledge and the application of every moral principle, the enunciation of which had nerved the nations to victory. Others came with instructions from their governments which amounted to a repudiation of every idealistic policy. Under such conditions democracy even at the Peace Table was exposed to as many inhibi- tions as it is in divided, caste-blighted India. Thus the actual league of nations quickly reduced itself to an oligarchy of five nations, which in turn was resolved into a dictatorship of four or per- haps even fewer men. Why? The fear of democracy. VIII AN AGENCY OF PEIVILEGE 1 The nations of the world gathered in Paris in no humble and contrite mood. They were morally quite unprepared to handle the holy issues of brotherhood and democracy. War breeds pride, revenge, cock-sureness ; it does not accomplish moral regeneration in individuals and least of all in nations. And yet the world owes an inestimable debt to the Peace Conference of 1919 for the precious symbolism which it did not entirely destroy. The League of Nations is born. The League, in spite of all the critics may say, offers the most effective organization now in view for maintaining peace THE UNFINISHED TASK 37 and extending justice throughout the world. It is not the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom of God is bom not in victory but in surrender. The moral regeneration of the world, of states as well as of men, is the unfinished task of the war, and we do not need to be ashamed of the jeers and jibes of so-called ^^practicar' men when we frankly rec- ognize it. **If the moral force of the world will not suf- fice, physical force shall, but only as a last re- source." But except as a most temporary make-shifty physical force never can suffice. The League of Nations may be damned on the ground of its parentage or it may have our con- fidence based on the belief that it is a ^^ living thing'' which will be responsive to a changing world. The League is the creature of those who framed the Treaty, and until the opinion of man- kind becomes more coherently organized and bet- ter able to express itself in representative govern- ment, the administration of the League will prob- ably remain largely in the hands of men similar in their conceptions of political and economic ex~ pediency to those who framed the Treaty. To re- pudiate the League, even after frankly recogniz- ing this danger, is, however, to vote a lack of con- fidence in the moral idealism or effective political power of the mass of citizens in America, Europe and Great Britain, to control their political des- tinies. 38 A BETTER WORLD The League of Nations came into being to correct the confessed moral delinquencies of the Treaty of Versailles. It now remains for those portions of mankind which, by their representa- tives, are charged with its administration to make it effective, not as an agency of Privilege, which would thwart the growth of a changing world, but as a moving expression of a commonwealth of na- tions shaping its policies according to laws of justice and right. CHAPTER II THE LEAGUE AND A CHANGINa WOELD I THE LEAGUE AS A LIVING THING The only ground on which the League of Nations can claim the moral support of enlightened conscience, in view of the atmosphere of moral compromise in which it and the Treaty of Peace were bom, is that the League is to be the living thing which President Wilson called it, regarding both itself and the affairs of the world as moving, not static. Before outlining in later chapters how Christian public sentiment may vitalize the new inter- national relationships, we wish to indicate with plainness the equally great possibilities of ossifica- tion with which the League of Nations is threat- ened. If the League actually becomes, as some of its liberal critics say it will, an effort to put the final seal of approval upon settlements which are iniquitous and plainly dishonest, with a view to suppressing every effort to correct the mistakes which have been made, armed efforts if necessary; if the League regards itself and the world as 39 40 A BETTER WORLD static, it will not last very long. If, on the other hand, the League regards itself, or rather if its component parts regard it, as an agency the tradi- tions and spirit of which are yet to be established, it is compelled by the same logic to look both at home and abroad, to survey its weak founda- tions and immediately initiate the efforts to strengthen them. The signatories of the League of Nations are hardly farther apart in political, social, economic and religious ideals than were the original signa- tories of the American Declaration of Inde- pendence and the Constitution of the United States. Every cooperative movement entails the voluntary restriction of some of the individual liberties of the cooperators and nowhere is the willingness to compromise more necessary than in political experiments. The great asset of popu- lar government both in Great Britain and in the United States has always been that the people have, in spite of all obstructionists, insisted upon regarding their constitutions as living things, progressively changing and eternally adaptable. Thus do these governments survive in a changing world, and in the same manner the League of Nations may not merely maintain itself but progressively extend itself in a sphere of righteous influence. The signing of the Treaty at Versailles does not mark the definition of an unalterable world, or of an unchanging world. The processes of social LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 41 change go on, treaty or no treaty, League of Na- tions or no League of Nations. There are four fundamental respects in which the nations and races of the world will continue in the process of change as they have in the past. Populations change. Great migrations of peo- ple from one area and one continent to another are continually changing and modifying the char- acter of the people inhabiting any given area, and dj the change of life the migrating people are themselves greatly changed. Nations will gain or lose in relative power and .nfluence; backward nations become forward na- :ions and forward nations decline. Forms of government change, and are likely to change even more rapidly in the future. Lastly, peoples change their religious faith and changes of faith profoundly modify every social, 3Conomic and political institution. n POPULATIOl^S CHANGE We may be sure that the day of popular migra- tions has not passed when we look at the map of the world and note the present great inequality in the distribution of population with reference to the physical resources and climatic conditions of the earth. The North American continent is meagerly populated as compared with Europe, India or China, and South America, broadly 42 A BETTER WORLD judged, is sparsely settled. Indeed, is the world not now in the very midst of its greatest period of westward migration? The European War has punctuated the period with a slight pause but no one can doubt but that the current of European migration to Canada, parts of the United States, Mexico and South America will resume within a very few years. ^ Likewise Africa is sparsely settled although very rich in natural resources and holding vast areas where high altitudes temper tropical climates and invite settlement. Already the stream of migration from crowded India to thinly popu- lated Africa has begun and the Indian immigrant along the east coast of Africa is beginning to modify political, economic and religious condi- tions, as well as greatly to be modified himself. Malaysia also offers another large area of the world fabulously rich in natural resources, where the population is relatively meager. There is a, steady stream of immigration to Malaysia both from India on the one side, and from China on the other. A new civilization is developing in Borneo and in such places as the Malay Peninsula. Who can doubt that such migration will as pro- foundly modify the world of the future as the migrations from Asia Minor and later from Europe modified the world of the past! Nor should we forget that in the past as new races formed and new countries were settled and de- veloped, the resulting political and economic LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WOELD 43 changes were won, in almost every case, in the face of great opposition from older and better established governments and peoples. The League of Nations must not overlook this fact. Ill NATIONS CHANGE How difficult is it to define at any given moment the backward races! Fifty years ago Japan would presumably have been classified as among them but would the classification have been cor- rect, judging her in the light of the amazing vi- tality which she has displayed in the last half century? The Japanese now look upon the Koreans as a backward race, but there was a time not so many centuries ago when the Koreans looked down upon the Japanese as a backward race and the Chinese, in turn, looked down upon both. Likewise there was a time when the Indian races were more forward than the ancestors of the British who now rule over them. And where shall we classify, for example, such a nation as Portugal, which was once the most forward look- ing nation in all the western world? He would be a rash man indeed, who, in the light of history, would place the map of the world before him, and venture with his pencil to draw the lines which will separate for all time the back- ward from the forward peoples of the earth. There is certainly no reason for supposing that 44 A BETTER WORLD those lines will always remain where they are now. We have, rather, to contemplate a world where the relative power and influence of states and races will go on changing until the end of time. That it is now even difficult to draw an exact line between the backward and the forward na- tions is nowhere in history more clearly illustrated than in the recent war and the ensuing peace. If we have been accustomed to draw the line between the *^ powers" and the *' backward nations'' geo- graphically, putting it somewhere a little east of the Adriatic and north of the Mediterranean and always east of the Pacific Ocean, we have been disillusioned. If we have been disposed to identify it with the world's color-line we were equally mis- taken. The role which each nation played in the Peace Conference is not an absolute guide as to the relative strength of its power, but a little sum- mary is illuminating. Russia, Prussia and Aus- tria, the creators of the Holy Alliance of one hun- dred years ago, were not even represented. At that time Italy, Belgium and China, Japan, Aus- tralia, South Africa — mentioning only some of the peoples who exercised very important influences at Quai d'Orsay — had not even appeared on the horizon, and the United States of America did not have more influence at Vienna in 1815 than Spain or Portugal had at Paris in 1919. Some of the most serious problems with which the Peace Conference had to deal, perhaps the LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 45 most delicate of all, were not only undefined but iinlieard of a centnry ago : the disposal of portions of Africa and the islands of the Pacific; the pro- tection of China; the international color question and the Monroe Doctrine. With the exception of Great Britain and the United States the balance of power in the Peace Conference was held by Japan. Her withdrawal and refusal to sign the Treaty would have created j^reater new obstacles to peace than the with- Irawal of any other power. If Japan had with- drawn, and had allied herself with Germany or j[taly the combination would have been profoundly iisturbing. . Nor can we forget the debt which the world owes o China even though it was a debt which China yas quite willing to pay. If China had appeared ^it the Peace Conference as Japan wished her to lippear, as a silent partner of the yellow race, icquiescing in the program which Japan had ramed, the world of tomorrow would be already aced with a most formidable Oriental Imperial- 3m, for the control of China involves the eventual ontrol of India, Malaysia, Tibet and Siberia; in act, of Asia and the Pacific. The cause of China ;s it was presented at the Peace Conference and eferred to the League of Nations concerns much jiore than China; it involves the destinies of the rorld. , Who would have believed, a century ago, that he fate of the world could rest even to the present 46 A BETTEE WOELD extent with two non-Christian peoples, at that time all but unknown 1 It is very evident that those groups of peoples! which may be gathered under the general classifi-j cations of the non-Christian, the backward and thej colonial races, are going to bulk very much larger; in the economy and polity of the world in thej twentieth century than they did in the nineteenth.: The war gave to many of them a new dignityl both in their own estimation and also in the eyes of the western nations. No less than twenty non- Christian races participated in the war in Europe, Africa or Asia. They represented almost everj form of government from absolute despotism to republics, from almost independent colonies to ab- solute possessions. They included one of the *^Five Powers," as well as some of the most back- ward of races. Practically all species of religion were there. There were fourteen non-Christian delegates at the Peace Table, representing five non-Christian peoples. These various peoples have been brought under influences which were for them most liberalizing and stimulating both to individual and to national aspirations. Many a Chinese cooly, Senegalese soldier, and Hindu or Mohammedan trooper is go- ing back to revolutionize the whole mental and political outlook of his village. For his family, his tribe or his clan he will be the window through which the others look out upon a hitherto un- dreamed of world. He will have an influence upon LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 47 he industry of his people, for he has been intro- luced to the value of motor power and of labor- aving machinery. He has been taught the uses if sanitation, and quite possibly he has been cared or in a military hospital under the direction of Mlful physicians and trained nurses. Not long .go I visited such a hospital in France where at Bast a dozen different colored or tinted races were 11 associating together and being cared for by t^omen. It is difficult to imagine limits to the ofluences which are thus released by the war upon he continents of Africa and Asia. The signing of peace promises to usher in an ra of railway building across the frontiers of ivilization similar to that which led the western evelopment of the United States, following the lose of the Civil War. This will be accompanied ,y the establishment of new maritime shipping outes, new cables, new telegraphs, telephones, jdreless, and aeroplane service. The great barrier to international communica- [Lons of all sorts has in the past been lack of in- .3rnational confidence. Both Asia and Africa were ivided up and segregated into parts as much by ,3ar as by geographical configuration. Governments blocked governments in the build- ig of railways and in the development of harbors. )ne nation did not dare to build or permit an- ther nation to build an artery of travel which light eventually be used for the invasion by a ostile army. The Treaty of Peace, the League of 48 A BETTER WORLD Nations, and more especially the urgent needs o1 tlie great powers for the development of ne^^ economic resources, to aid them in paying off th( huge war debts, are already conspiring to brin| about the opening up of these new communications which up to now have been impossible. These new lines will have two main influences They will bring the backward nations closer to th( doors of the western powers than they have eve] been before, but more important still is the fad that they will bring the backward races closer t( each other. New perceptions of unity will emerge Some years ago Siam decided that she musi have some railways. This was a very importani step for this little isolated people tucked away ai the head of a long gulf and far removed from the line of trade routes. The contract for buildin the railway was let to a British firm. This wa very acceptable to the British Government, fo. Siam bordel's on the Federated Malay States and the British protectorates of the Malay Peninsula But the German Government immediately pro- tested to Siam that it was unfair to Germany t put the Siamese railways exclusively in the hand of the British. The Siamese Government, there fore, to satisfy the Germans, agreed to appoin German inspectors to supervise the British con tractors. I It was not long before the British firm waj ready to give up in despair, to relinquish the coi tract. It was found to be impossible, or ui LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 49 profitable, to build the road in the way the German inspectors required. A German firm immediately took up the contract, finished the railway and be- gan to operate it for the Siamese Government. The next logical step for Siam would have been to build a connecting link down toward the rail- ways of the Federated Malay States which reach up from Singapore. The connection would be ex- tremely advantageous to Siam, for it would go far toward connecting the nation with the outside world. The arrangement would be equally ad- vantageous to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula but for the single fact that the Siamese lines were in the hands of the Germans. The British authori- ties did not dare to expose the north-eastern bor- ders of Malaysia to such a danger. During the war the German influence in Siam was eliminated, the connecting road was immediately begun. It IS now possible to get on the train at Singapore and go by rail to Bangkok. The present very circuitous water route from India and the West to China and Japan by way of Singapore can be very much shortened by building a railway up through Burma, into south- western China. Having crossed the borders of China, a difficult but by no means impossible engineering feat, such a railway would connect up with the French line already built from French Indo-China up to Yunnan-fu; it would communi- cate directly with Hong-Kong and Canton through the West River Valley and it could also be ex- 50 A BETTER WORLD tended across Western China to join the upper Yangtse Valley, and thence to Shanghai. These routes have often been discussed, surveys have been made, but the lines have not been built. Why? Because the Powers have been afraid of each other, and no one was sure that some Power would not eventually get exclusive possession of China. England is not likely to take any steps which will facilitate communications between India on the one hand and China and Japan on the other so long as there is no assurance that such communi- cations may not expose to military attack another flank of the Indian Empire. Today they will tell you in Delhi that they soon expect to see the travelling time between Delhi and London reduced to eight days by way of the Persian Gulf, the Bagdad Railway, Constantinople and Europe. Only a few miles of track, relatively, remain to be laid. Why was not this line built long ago? Lack of international confidence, the fear of German imperialistic aggression. In the same way Africa is being united, not only to itself but also to Europe, by railways, the vari- ous segments of which are already built or planned, and the connections delayed until the es- tablishment of international confidence. In the dizziness which comes when we contem- plate the annihilation of distances which is upon us, we must not miss the immeasurable significance of these things in the certain modification of the ideals and purposes of hundreds of millions of LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 51 people, and in their relations political, economic and spiritual with the states which now look down upon them as backward peoples. The unity simi- lar to that which is coming to India as a result of the wonderful Indian railway system is drawing near for the entire world. Not only is that two-thirds of the world which was little articulate at the Peace Conference soon to be placed at the very doors of the western na- tions, multiplying a hundred-fold the points of contact between them, but the representatives of these same western nations are going to be thrust out more and more along the old and new trade routes into the midst of these hitherto little noticed peoples. It will become a matter of in- creasing concern to many fathers and mothers even in America to know that the land to which their sons and daughters have gone is a safe place to live in. I The war has set free the imaginations of the 'young people of the western world even as the j voyages of discovery released the mind of Europe I in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The i soldiers are home-sick now and glad to return home. But will they remain, contented with the ! humdrum, in-door life of industry? Certainly !not all of them. In France they met men from ithe four corners of the earth, the modem fron- Itiersmen of the world from Africa, Asia and the ! islands of the sea. They now have many windows- I in their horizon which they did not have before. 52 A BETTER WOELD and there are going to be plenty of positions open for such men in the immense commercial and in- dustrial development which is already starting. A strong emigration movement has already begun in England where we might expect it first to ap- pear, but the movement will not be confined to any single country, and the United States will surely share in it. The non-Christian races have already acquired not only a new political but also a new economic importance in the life of the world. Even if we assume that with the assistance of the League of Nations the political and military struggle of the future may be avoided or allayed, we have to recognize that the economic conflict must be met. The bulk of the world's supply of raw materials lies quite outside the confines of either Europe or North America: the great labor markets of the world are in Africa and Asia where there is a population of close to a billion people. Those markets are now nearer to New York, measured by cost of transportation and time involved, than St. Louis was a century ago. j Coincident with the new political and economic importance of the non-Christian races in the life of the world is the development of the nationalist spirit and the demand for self-government on the one hand, and, on the other, resentment at the paternalism of the Powers toward weak nations now independent but not sufficiently strong to de- fend their sovereignty or integrity. This is both LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 53 alarming and reassuring. If it were to receive its Pull measure of immediate satisfaction it is un- likely that there would be a net gain either to Deace or to justice in the world. So long as there is iouble dealing among the Powers, the throwing of a, multitude of new rich and defenseless states into the arena would precipitate such mad stampedes ^or possession as the world has never yet seen, ft must also be remembered that independence md democracy are not necessarily averse to im- perialism. Small independent states might be- 5ome the victims of other small states. What lations in all the world's history have ever fol- lowed more consistently imperialistic policies in ; :he last century than Great Britain and the United I States, the two leading democracies of the world? I Let not our love of country blind ourselves to the I "act that the nation, in extending its sovereignty .vest, south and north, has seldom paused to ask I'or the consent of the governed when necessity for imnexation arose. Pew nations have more un- lovely chapters than ours in our relations with \he red-men. Nor did we ask for the consent of :he governed when we occupied the Philippines. But even assuming that by international agree- ifnent the independence of such new states as ; Egypt, India, Java, and what was formerly Ger- jnan South-west Africa could be guaranteed, we l^annot fail to see that these peoples are too hope- jiessly disunited, inexperienced in the art of gov- ernment, ignorant, and too deficient in a sense of 54 A BETTER WORLD social responsibility, to maintain a just govern- ment resting on the consent of the governed. On the other hand, in this desire for independ- ence and self-government lies the hope of the world's peace. This assertion strikes too many responsive chords in the hearts of Americans to require elaboration. Government by the consent of the governed is a truism. We believe in it, at least for ourselves, with our whole hearts. Ameri- cans know that no power can eternally thwart the desire of a people for self-government, nor can the will of the majority be forever defeated. Per- haps we ought to add that this conviction also fairly throbs in a literature which we have in- herited largely from the British Isles, and to a less degree from France, Germany and Western Europe. ! The future of the Western Powers rests with how they meet this desire for self-government and independence which is now appearing among the weaker nations so long dormant. If the Western Powers deliberately encourage it and meet it fairly, well and good. If they unite to suppress it, then shall the world be miserable indeed. IV FOEMS OP GOVERNMENT CHANGE We may see the proof that the world is chang- ing not only in the advancing and receding line which separates the backward and the master na- LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 55 tions, but also in the changes which occur within the master nations themselves. Surely we must be struck with the force of that majestic hymn **0h where are kings and empires now, of old that went and came, ' ' when we glance at the continent of Europe. Forms of government are among the most constantly changing of human institutions. Pew care to assert that any nation has yet achieved the ultimate best and we do not have to look too carefully over the map of the world to see that some of the worst forms of government still sur- v^ive. At the present moment the governments of the ioUowing countries of the Eastern hemisphere are in peculiarly unstable condition: Eussia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, China, all of the Balkan States; and then we have to consider all of the new states which are now beginning to re- form government which has been suppressed for generations, or are now for the first time in the modern age to lift their heads as free peoples. Many of these new governments are taking on new forms the exact nature of which we cannot yet foresee. Nor can we forget that Mexico and the Latin- American States are still in a condition of 3ux in which new changes may appear at any mo- oaent. We note that the trend is always toward a I larger sphere for democratic control. Dr. Cor- aelius H. Patton in *^ World Facts and America's Responsibility," (Association Press; New York) 56 A BETTER WORLD lists no less than thirty-eight events in the years 1917 and 1918 in which important steps were taken towards democracy, and the year 1919 may possi- bly produce almost as many more. The process of change which is now going on in Great Britain, which will be directly communicated to India and to every British colony and dominion marks this age as one of the most unstable and unpredictable as well as the most democratic that the world has ever seen. Are not all colonial governments especially, in a state of transition ? The holding of a backward people as a colonial possession is now recognized to be far from the asset which a colony was once assumed to be. A colony is always a military lia- bility in time of war, and in times of peace it is not inevitably a source of profit. Germany's African colonies were not profitable. Morocco is not a source of profit to Spain. Many Spaniards even will tell you that the possession of Morocco is one of the greatest obstacles to Spanish progress, for it supplies the sole excuse for the continuance of a system of militarism which thwarts internal reforms. The public sentiment of the world is rapidly reaching a point where it will be a reproach to any nation to make a profit out of a colony which rests on military force. It is possible to build up a very strong argument to show that a colonial possession is always de- moralizing to a nation. The decline of all the great nations of the past began immediately after LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WOELD 57 the time when they reached the maximum point in colonial expansion. Eome, Spain and Portugal are examples of nations where there was a very- direct connection between the exploitation of the colonies and the moral weakening of the possessing nation. We may seriously doubt whether any modern power is morally stronger, whether its national culture is more secure, or whether its national existence is better insured because it has colonial possessions. The Treaty of Versailles brings us to a new phase in the life of the world. New political theories are taking shape and finding assent where before they have been unknown. The great west- ern powers have already accepted the doctrine that government exists by consent of the governed. To vindicate this principle the greatest war in the history of the world has been fought and won. The principle has failed of legal incorporation in the treaty of peace as applicable to subject peo- iple, but it has been incorporated in their hearts jand in ours as well. One fancies that a man who ! would stand up before an American audience to defend the principle that subject races ought to be kept permanently in subjection would have a jcool reception. I Is it not quite plain that the theory of the con- jsent of the governed must be applied eventually I in Asia and Africa even as the United States is Qow applying it in Cuba and in the Philippines? And if these races are to govern themselves some 58 A BETTER WORLD day, either with the consent of those who now govern them or without it, what form of govern- ment will they adopt! It is not likely that they will consent to despotism and it seems hardly possible that the western powers would permit despotism to be thrust upon them. Despotic gov- ernment in the future would menace the peace of the world even as Russia and Turkey threat- ened it in the past. Indeed there is little safety in a world where huge masses of people are un- able to declare whether they will make war or have peace. The whole world is moving toward some general form of democratic or delegated government, and the peace of the world can not finally be assured until nations and races have all learned to march to the same tune and to keep step with the principles of ordered liberty. The day is fast approaching when we shall recognize a backward race of people or a back- ward government as as much of an intolerable nuisance in the world as we now recognize a back- ward family to be a nuisance in the neighborhood. In fact one cannot now point to a single backward people or a nation unable to maintain a stable government which is not a menace to the peace of the world, and also a menace to the character of her neighbors. So long as Naboth has a vineyard Ahab will want it, even in spite of the attached liabilities, physical and moral. Expediency as well as justice would seem to indicate that the only way in which the world may LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 59 have any assurance of ultimate peace is for the colonial nations now to declare frankly to their colonies, as the United States promised the Fili- pinos, that self-government and independence await every people the moment they give evidence that they are capable of sustaining them. Many naively hoped that the Peace Conference would lay down such a principle, but the Conference was in no mood for such declarations. Perhaps it is as well that the subject was avoided, for such self- denying ordinances, to be effective, must be passed by the nations who make the denials, not by some one else in their behalf. V PEOPLE CHANGE THEIE BELIGION Lastly, there is religious change. We shall re- serve extended treatment of this subject for later chapters. It is sufficient, at the moment, for the completion of the present statement, to draw at- tention to the fact that the 635,250,000 people who now comprise the Christian section of the world's population are not in any way the direct descendants of the original twelve disciples whom Jesus called, as would seem to be assumed by those who argue that religions are unalterable. The re- ligious map of the world changes with tremendous rapidity. 60 A BETTEE WORLD VI THE WRECK OF THE **HOLY ALLIAITOE" The League is not tlie first institution of its kind which has been created to prevent future wars. At the end of every war for the last three centuries raen have dreamed of some effective con- cert of powers by which individual nations could be restrained from again disturbing the world's peace. On September 26, 1815, near Chalons, France, at a grand review of the Allied troops who had just defeated Napoleon for the last time, the Tsar Alexander of Eussia proclaimed to the world the so-called *^Holy Alliance" which had been given the dignity of a treaty twelve days be- fore, signed by Eussia, Austria and Prussia. France was later admitted to the agreement.' Prof. J. A. E. Marriott, the Oxford historian, calls' the Holy Alliance ^^the only practical attempt to apply the principles of Christianity to the regula- tion of international politics.'' The text of the Alliance states that it *^has no other object than to publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution (Tsar, King of Prussia and Em-j peror of Austria) to take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Eeligion — namely, the pre- cepts of Justice, Christian Charity, and Peace — which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence upon the counsels of Princes and guide all their steps. . . . Conformably to the words of the Holy LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 61 Scriptures, the three monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fra- ternity. ' ' *^We may well recall the situation," writes Prof. Marriott, in The European Commonwealth (The European Commonwealth: Problems His- torical and Diplomatic; Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1918). ^^The Allied Armies were for a second time in occupation of the French Capital. The dra- matic episode of the * Hundred Days' had reached its climax at Waterloo ; Napoleon was a prisoner in English custody, and the Sovereigns and Gov- ernments of Europe were engaged upon the dif- ficult and delicate task of arranging the terms of what they hoped might be a durable peace for Europe and for France. For nearly a quarter of a century, with very brief interludes, Europe had been at war. There had been fighting in France, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in Germany, in Portu- gal and Spain, in Eussia, in Egypt, in India, in South Africa, in North America and on every sea. The European Stated-system was in ruins : houses, fields and cities were laid waste ; a whole genera- tion of the peoples of Europe had groaned under the horrors of perpetual war, under the economic privations they were compelled to suffer, under the burdens, military and financial, which were laid upon them. No statesman whose heart was not utterly cold and hard could look without pro- found emotion upon their sufferings and sacri- fices.'' 62 A BETTER WOELD The Holy Alliance was built on two unstable foundations which had been incorporated into the Treaty of Vienna — the primary interests of rul- ing families and the theory of the balance of power. It was wrecked by modern liberalism and the new-born spirit of nationality. It became a league of autocrats bent on protecting autocracy. Only five years later the Holy Alliance was father- ing an invasion of Spain to suppress a revolution for republican government, and a similar invasion of Naples to defeat both republicanism and nationality. The Holy Alliance failed because it did not recognize a changing world. Specifically, it ig- nored that drift toward democracy which had already begun. The League of Nations might easily fail for similar reasons. The world has moved forward between the days of the Holy Alliance and the League of Nations. How far it has moved we can see from the fact that the rights of royal families are not even an issue and the theory of nationality is honestly recognized although its application is circum- scribed. But the League, like the Alliance, rests on foundations hardly stable. The color question is dodged, the rights of races under subjection to colonial governments which survived the war are ignored, and there is instead of democracy be- tween nations an oligarchy of Powers. More unsettling still to the peace of the world is the fear that the machinery of the League of LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 63 Nations can be used to suppress revolution in those belated countries of the world which have not yet been able to share fully in the republican revolutiojis of the last century. Furthermore, every indication points to the nearness of an- other revolutionary movement, economic rather |than political, which will cut across national lines and unite millions of people in a protest against the ^^ economic serfdom," to borrow President Wilson's phrase, in which they are now held. *^What we seek,'' said President Wilson, ^4s the reign of law based upon the consent of the governed, and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind. ' ' What we actually have, as a rapid glance over Africa, Asia and many portions of South America, as well as over Europe shows, is something quite the reverse. ^^The League of Nations is already dead," an- nounced an American newspaper, even before the final draft of its first covenant had been pub- lished. That was a hasty verdict for the League was not at that time even born. But it is true that the only life the League of Nations will ever have is that which it may be able to draw from the lively international interests of the nations which are leagued together. In practice, the life of the Tifiague will be merely the average of the life of its corporate parts. Averages, be it remembered, \v hile higher than the lowest in the series of which the average is taken, are also lower than the high- est. So will it be with the League. As with Pro- 64 A BETTER WORLD hibition, its effectiveness depends on pnblic senti- ment, and unorganized pnblic sentiment gathered from all over the world and then averaged up is apt to be rather low. The *^ public opinion of mankind," so far from being ''organized" by the war, or the peace, in support of ''a reign of law based on the consent of the governed," is quite disorganized. The com- plexity of the problems of a reconstruction now presented has frightened multitudes into reaction, with the cry that no price is too great to pay for the maintenance of peace. Thus we get a new type of pacifist — the man who fears change. And, strangely enough, he is the very man who during the war was the most ardent of jingoes and militarists. On the other hand very many of those who were the most ardent pacifists in 1914 and before have now quite reversed themselves. The League of Nations, as an effective and adaptable instrument for the protection of de- mocracy, the preservation of peace, and the pro- motion of international amity, will exist solely by the grace of public sentiment. It is, at least it may be, a ''living thing," if a living public opinion, a world opinion, supports it. If we had a better world we could already have a better League. We do not have to be taken into the confidence of the diplomats who framed the League to know why it, and the peace treaty with which it is associated, fall so far short of justice and the high ideals by which the world was roused ; LEAGUE AND A CHANGING WORLD 65 to the battle. The moral responsibilities of mem- bership had, of necessity, to be let down or there would have been no league at all. We may wish that the League had made a declaration of principles more consistently in line with the democratic aspirations of the people of the world. We know why it did not ; but there is no reason why the Christian people of the world should not make such a declaration of principles and adopt a program which will look definitely towards its accomplishment — no reason, that is, save timidity and ignorance. If every Christian Church in the world would place sincerely above its doors the legend : THIS CHUECH EXISTS THAT THE WORLD MAY BE FREE, it would not only be putting itself in line with the words of the Master whom it exalts, but it would also be putting the world within sight of freedom it- self. We do not have to conclude that the League of Nations will be an instrument of evil, although we may well be alert to see that it does not become just that. The new international relationships of the world are still in the hands of those who create public opinion. With the right sort of public opinion supporting it the League may in- deed be the herald of a new day. CHAPTER III CHEISTIANITY, DEMOCRACY AND INTERNATIONALISM I DOES CHEISTIANITY CEEATE DEMOCKACY? The affirmation in the preceding chapter, that the world would be within sight of freedom if only the Christian church willed it, rests on an assumption which is subject to challenge. Before one can ac- cept the statement that the Christian Church has it within its power to put the world almost im- mediately within sight of freedom or of de- mocracy, he must feel assured that Christianity actually contributes to or creates democracy. Not everyone feels that assurance and it must be ad- mitted that not all of the facts within our view point in that direction. In the discussion of the relation between Chris- tianity and democracy we have to recognize sev- eral divisions of the subject. Not every one starts to argue this case with the same set of facts in mind, and w people trouble to have all the facts in front of them before they begin to draw their conclusions. Many will prefer to start with what 66 CHEISTIANITY 67 lies closest to their own immediate experience, that is, with the average American individual Protestant church or denomination. Others will draw their conclusions from their observations of the Koman Catholic Church as it is at the present time. Those who are fresh from a study of the European conditions which preceded the European war may ignore almost entirely the American and Canadian Churches, both Catholic and Protestant. A few will pass by both Europe and America and study the fresh evidence of the influences of Christianity on social and political institutions when Christian faith begins to work under an alto- gether new set of conditions, as in China, India or Africa. Even all of these partial views when taken together will hardly suffice until they are re- lated to a historical survey of the development of Christianity through the centuries, from the days of its beginning among a subject race in Palestine. II I THE VICES OF IGNOKAN^CE AKD INDOLEITCE My friend who has just been baptized into the spirit of the social revolution (I use the term broadly, not in the special sense of the Social Revolution which the extreme radical is expecting to appear shortly in both Europe and America) looks upon the average American Protestant church either with indifference or with contempt. He regards the Church as the agent of the ^^rul- 68 A BETTER WORLD ing classes,^' by which he means those who own or control large blocks of property, money or vested interests, and he says that the Church is being nsed to mislead the masses of people and to thwart their will. He asserts that the pri- mary purpose of the church is to transfer the center of attention from the evils of the present to the prospect of future blessedness in heaven and thus to dull the edge of poverty, injustice and oppression as they now exist even in America. To my radical friend the Church is a gigantic lobby for Privilege in the innermost chambers of the Court of Public Opinion. My other friend, whose consuming earnestness is limited to some individual social, political or economic reform, reports that he does not receive the hearty support of the Church and that he notes a far more vigorous moral response from a large and constantly increasing group of citizens who are all but entirely detached from any relation to the Church. Before attempting to verify the truth of these assertions or to fix responsibility we may well recognize certain indisputable facts with refer- ence to American Protestantism. The discussion should be prefaced by a defi- nition of terms. When we use the word ** Church'' in the following pages we have in mind only one of the common usages. We mean merely the church as a social organization with rules of discipline and direction for its members. In this CHEISTIANITY 69 respect we distinguish the use, on the one hand, from that which identifies it with a building used for religious purposes, and on the other, from its use as applied to an invisible union of the spirit of those who have been admitted to the circle of Christian discipleship. A Protestant church or a Protestant denomina- tion in the United States or Canada is a purely voluntary organization. Even the most radical critic must admit that this is a free country to the extent that membership in no church is compul- sory. Any person who does not like a church is per- fectly free not to join it, or, if he finds himself al- ready a member he is entirely free to withdraw. Indeed there are very few churches which even teach that theirs is the exclusive way of salva- tion, and there is no law which can compel a mem- ber of even such a church to believe such a doc- trine when it is taught. The church, in our usage of the term, is a voluntary organization; this means that it is entirely dependent upon the good- will of its members and of the community gen- erally. When the church loses the good-will of its members, and eventually that of the commu- nity, it is reduced to impotence. The church au- tomatically loses its life when it loses its support. In this fundamental respect the American Prot- estant Church is the very expression of democ- racy itself. There is no other social institution where such direct and immediate action can be ob- tained as in any free Protestant church. If the 70 A BETTER WOELD church does not represent the will of its members they can do either one or both of two things. They can cancel their subscriptions to its support or they can withdraw, leaving it an empty, idle hulk. Only the indolence of the members of a free church thwarts its democracy. That indolence often exists, but it is common to all organization. I have sat in a labor union council and heard the members upbraided for failure to appear and cast their votes at a meeting in which delegates were elected to represent the unions in a higher body with legislative powers. A small clique had ob- tained control of the union simply by their fidel- ity in attending meetings. The next week after I attended the labor meeting I went into a church where exactly the same thing had happened. A small group had obtained control of the church, not by any strong-arm methods, but merely by ex- ercising the fidelity which was actually the neg- lected duty of all the members. A rich man or a group of rich men can control the teaching within a given church only when the majority of the members of the church, if op- posed, are too indolent or indifferent to express themselves. If, when the majority express them- selves, the rich man withdraws, it is, of course, incumbent upon the majority to make up to the church treasury the financial loss which falls upon the church. The only way any man, rich or poor, can thwart the will of the majority is through their unwillingness to assume the responsibility CHRISTIANITY 71 for equal financial obligations or equal fidelity to its work. Indolence, not autocracy or bureau- cracy, is the great charge to be made against the Church. There are thousands of people in the church who are not only too indolent to express themselves in its management, but too indolent even to withdraw their names from the church rolls. Furthermore, we must remember that there are no other public assemblies in the entire world where the appeal is so persistently made to the hearers to follow the promptings of the awakened conscience, and it is in the functioning of the awakened conscience that democracy has its birth and daily nourishment. The great indictment to be brought against the Church is not that it fails to attempt to awaken the conscience of the indi- vidual, but that it often fails to set before the awakened conscience the facts from which a cor- rect moral purpose may be framed. Ignorance and indolence are the two great vices of church- members, but they are also the great vices of lodge-members, corporation-members, labor-un- ion-members, and political-party-members. In short, they are the besetting sins of democracy itself, and the church shares them because the church is democratic. 72 A BETTER WORLD III SECTS AS THE EXPEESSION OF SELF-DETERMINATION" On the other hand we must not appraise the be- setting sins of indolence and ignorance in the church as greater than they actually are. The multitude of denominations and sects within Protestantism are not so much its shame as its glory. Critics of the Church on the score of its failure to be democratic are curiously inconsistent at this point, for they frequently join that charge with another one, viz., that Protestantism is hope- lessly divided. They forget that denominations are merely examples of '^self-determination'' within the church, and that the fact that we have them and that Protestantism finds it so difficult to get together is itself a proof that indolence of conscience and ignorance of mind are not all-per- vasive. It is possible to call together the nations of the earth and to frame a Treaty of Peace in which great moral principles are compromised or ig- nored. This is possible because of the political and moral indolence and ignorance of the great masses of people who make up the nations which are represented in the treaty. It would be ut- terly impossible to call together an equally large number of the representatives of divided Chris- tendom and get them to sign any treaty of peace whatever, much less a contract to unite. Even if the churches could agree on a statement of the- CHEISTIANITY 73 ology, wMch they cannot do because theology rests ultimately on moral convictions and the validity of individual conscience, they would ut- terly fail to agree on a host of non-theological matters which also rest on the convictions of en- lightened conscience. I have in mind doctrines ranging all the way from the celibacy of the clergy, the authority of the episcopate, the use of the sacraments, the obligations of religious education and the scope of its work, to the prac- tice of using Moody and Sankey hymns. Even the matter of women's hats in churches reaches pretty deep when one begins to discuss it in a congress of Christendom. If the delegates to such a hypothetical conference set their signatures to a peace pact of the kind indicated the members of the churches represented would repudiate their representatives. Before the delegates even reached home the armistice would be discontinued and the war would be on again — a war not with machine-guns, submarines, blockades and big Ber- thas, but with renewed appeals to the individual conscience and with newly formed battalions of facts. The Christian Church had its birth in separa- tion, extended itself from age to age by divisions as well as by union and, wherever the Gospel of Christ is preached the rights of division grow apace. Self-determination appeared as an ec- clesiastical theory long before it was recognized in politics. Hierarchies, Protestant as well as Eo- 74 A BETTER WOELD man and Greek, have risen only to fall. Where ecclesiastical organizations have lost contact with the people who supported them, or have attempted to thwart the popular will, they have been dis- placed. IV THE LOST IN'TERN'ATIONAIi AND INTER-RACIAL IDEAL The Roman Catholic Church is only a little farther removed from the popular will than is the Protestant Church. A purely congregational form of ecclesiastical government is the extreme Left of which the Catholic organization is the extreme Right, if we may be allowed to use terms borrowed from European politics. No one ought to fail to recognize that cross-currents of influ- ence leading to fundamental modifications of atti- tude travel back and forth between these two ex- tremes. The Roman Catholic Church, when jux- taposed with Protestant Churches, especially with Free Protestant Churches, never occupies the po- sition of the extreme ecclesiastical Right of au- tocracy. The Roman Catholic Church is not a little responsive to the spirit of democracy, for in the last analysis it must make its appeal to the same court of public opinion which determines the character of every church. The old affirmation ^*Rome never changes" is . not borne out by facts, if by it we mean that the Roman Catholic Church never changes. It has changed in the United States from what it was in CHEISTIANITY 75 the old world. It is changing in Mexico, and in the last two decades in the Philippines it has be- come an altogether different institution from what it was in Spanish days. The Roman Catholic Church in Spain today is quite different from what it was in the days of the Inquisition and from what it is in modern England. It is the fashion for Protestants smugly to criti- cize the Eoman Catholic Church for its lack of democracy. Lack of democracy in organization and administration there surely is; yet it some- times happens that the Eoman Church adjusts it- self more quickly to popular aspirations than do Protestant denominations. In France at the pres- ent moment the Catholic Church is more deeply committed to improved labor conditions through the Catholic syndicates or industrial unions, than is the French Protestant Church. Nor can we overlook the fact that the Eoman Catholic Church in the United States, through the National Cath- olic War Council, has recently gone on record for a form of social ownership of the means of production which is far more explicit and more in line with the democratic movement of the age in industry than many a Protestant denomination can claim: ** Nevertheless the full possibilities of increased production will not be realized so long as the ma- jority of the workers remain mere wage earners. The majority must somehow become owners, or at least in part, of the instruments of production. 76 A BETTER WORLD They can be enabled to reach this stage gradually through cooperative productive societies and co- partnership arrangements. In the former the workers own and manage the industries them- selves; in the latter they own a substantial part of the corporate stock and exercise a reasonable share in the management. However slow the at- tainment of these ends, they will have to be reached before we can have a thoroughly efficient system of production or an order that will be se- cure from the danger of revolution. It is to be noted that this particular modification would not mean the abolition of private ownership. The instruments of production would still be owned by individuals, not by the state." The Protestant Church owes, and democratic nations in general owe more to the Roman Cath- olic Church than is always recognized. Protes- tantism, in maintaining the democratic right of schism for centuries lost the international and in- ter-racial ideal which was as essential to the Gos- pel as was the spirit of democracy. It still re- mains for Protestantism to recognize this lo^s in any whole-hearted way and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Protestantism is more democratic than Catholicism but it is far less in- ternational and inter-racial. There is no Prot- estant Church organization which can fairly claim to be international or inter-racial except in a most limited degree. Even Protestant systems like Presbyterianism, Congregationalism and Metho- CHRISTIANITY 77 dism are divided by national boundaries and often change their names in different countries. If the ecclesiastical Right of Christendom would write over its doors the motto mentioned in the preceding chapter— THIS CHURCH EXISTS THAT THE WORLD MAY BE FREE— it would be compelled by logic to alter its internal organ- ization, while if the ecclesiastical Left were to adopt a similar slogan it would at once be com- pelled to revise its external relations and pur- poses, in a word, to become catholic. V THE CHUBCH AND INTERNATIONALISM It is idle to discuss the possible contribution of North American Protestantism to a new world or- der until this fact is clearly recognized. The Protestant Church has been accused of having *'one doctrine for the rich and another doctrine for the poor." This has sometimes been true of individual churches and even of denominations, but the only place where such a double-code sur- vives the appeal to awakened conscience is in its application to the man with a black or tinted skin who happened to be born or whose ancestors were born in Africa or Asia. The doctrine does sur- vive, or has survived, in the hearts of most Prot- estant believers. It is even more vigorous among those radical critics who charge the church with having failed to recognize and to fight for de- 78 A BETTER WORLD mocracy. The international Socialist who wishes to plant Socialism in Japan is the last to recog- nize that it is equally desirable to plant Chris- tianity there also. But Protestantism still further limits its scope by assuming, generally speaking, that an indi- vidual denomination cannot, or ought not to cross national boundaries. The intense nationalism which the war has stimulated and promoted re- veals the outline of this fact with startling clear- ness. Any denomination with a German origin which has retained close spiritual affinity with the land of its birth has met with most serious obstacles in the United States in the last two years. Do we forget that if Scotland had been on the side of the Central Powers the Presbyteri- ans might have been in the same case? At the time of the American Revolution the Anglican Church in America went through a similar pe- riod of conflict. The war however has revealed how very important for the promotion of interna- tional amity is the intimate relation between those very churches which have shut themselves up be- hind national frontiers. If it was useful in sus- taining the war to create these numerous ecclesi- astical and religious visiting deputations, why is it not equally useful to maintain similar fraternal relations for the sustaining of the peace? If these agencies were so valuable that governments spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on them during the war, why would they not be equally CHEISTIANITY 79 valuable in the future in putting bridges across the Pacific and Mediterranean as well as the At- lantic? The prejudices which thus limit Protestantism and restrain it from crossing national and racial boundaries rest on logical absurdity. Aside from the fact that Christ claimed exclusive and abso- lute authority in religious matters and that every creed contains acknowledgments of this author- ity, there is a practical dilemma. If Christian faith is the final and exclusive faith, then it is just as important for every other human creature as it is for me, and if it is not the absolute faith, then I am impelled by my own moral integrity to find a better one. A religious faith which ceases to be missionary and ceases in its efforts to convert the world to its beliefs, has ceased to have a fine regard for truth itself — a negation of religious conviction. When a church ceases to present its case for judg- ment in the court of public opinion, whether the court is white, yellow or black, it has either lost faith in its own claims or it has lost faith in de- mocracy. It must either argue that its faith is so superior that another nation or race is too in- ferior to appreciate it, or the faith is too inferior to make an appeal. Lest someone may reply that I am offering an out-worn argument which broke down when religious warfare became discredited centuries ago, it ought to be added that Chris- tianity violates itself when it ceases to try its 80 A BETTER WOELD case by any method save that of an appeal to the facts of personal and social experience and to the conscience. Not long ago a Spanish university student was lecturing to some peasants on the theory of So- cialism when one of them interrupted him to ex- claim: *'We don't want theory: we want bread and dynamite.'' Possibly someone is moved to interrupt this discussion to exclaim that he wishes a little less theory and more facts to prove that Christianity actually does create and nourish the democratic spirit. Some of the most convincing and indisputable facts are to be gathered,, strangely enough, from Asia, from Korea, China and India. These facts have a certain advantage for study in that they can be more easily isolated than can the facts about the influence of the church in American democracy. VI THE GERM OF DEMOCRACY I have in mind a village in Northern India. The village contains three main sections, Mo- hammedan, Hindu and ' ' untouchable. ' ' The ^ ' un- touchables" of India, of whom there are perhaps fifty million, about one-sixth of the population, are Hindu outcasts who, although excluded from the castes, are practically a caste, or a group of castes, by themselves. Their name suggests their relation to the Hindu social order. They are not CHKISTIANITY 81 only not to be touched by the caste people, but usually they are compelled even so to order their lives, their goings-out and their comings-in, that their shadows shall not fall across the sacred per- sons of caste people. Their relation to the social order necessitates, of course, their living in a sepa- rate section of the village. It so happened that some of these '* untouch- ables ' ^ in this village heard from some * ^ untouch- ables ' ' in a near-by village about Christianity, as it was being preached by an American mission- ary in a neighboring market town. They sent to the missionary and asked for a teacher. The teacher came, opened a school for them and their children, conducted preaching services, and started a singing-class in which Christian hymns were sung to old Indian tunes. By thus fitting words and music together. Christian doctrines were taught to the illiterate and those too old to learn to read. In time the entire village of ** un- touchables" decided that they wished to become Christian. The missionary came, examined the candidates, with the help of the teacher and the village council of elders, such as persists from patriarchal times in many Indian villages, and the people were baptized. A year later I visited the village in company with the missionary. The leaven had begun to work. The headman of the Hindu caste section of the village was waiting for the missionary. The headman was very angry. Last week his 82 A BETTER WORLD cow had died. According to Hindu religion lie could not touch the cow carcass but the hide was valuable. According to the same Hindu code it was the duty of the ^^ untouchables'^ to skin the carcass in return for which they were allowed to retain the carrion for food. But the '^untouch- ables'' had now become Christians and when the headman's cow died they declined to remove the hide unless the headman would pay them for their labor in money. They did not eat carrion. They believed in the fatherhood of God and they be- lieved in the brotherhood of man. They believed that they were brothers together with the head- man himself. If carrion was not fit for him to eat it was unfit for them. No, they could not be moved by threats of the wrath of angry Hindu gods. They were Christians. Their deity was a Heavenly Father. He did not punish his chil- dren for refusing to eat carrion or for declining to work for no money. \ Not long afterwards I came to another village. The teacher whom the missionary had sent to in- struct the children and the young men not only in religion but in reading and in arithmetic had been so severely beaten by the caste people that he had spent ^ve weeks in a hospital. In short, Christianity, by introducing the Christian doctrine of the fatherhood of God into those villages, was stimulating a democratic as- piration which in turn was wrecking the whole ^existing autocratic economic order. When the CHEISTIANITY 83 '^iintoucliable'' discovered Ms equality before God he also discovered his equal rights before men. When he learned to read his Bible he also possessed enough knowledge to read the contracts which he was compelled to sign for the landlord and the money lender, and to figure his own ac- counts. Christianity, as taught by the Protestant mis» sionary, I care not how circumspectly he teaches it or how carefully he is watched and restrained by governments which fear the result, puts a di- vine discontent in the heart of the oppressed, and the learner and convert seldom fails to draw the logical political, economic and social conclusions from the faith in the fatherhood of God. **They (the missionaries) make bad the hearts of the peo- ple, and teach them democracy," said a Japanese newspaper recently in comment on the Korean revolutionary movement. But is not Protestant- ism merely repeating in the East the history of the West ? Where else has there been such a store- house of democratic idealism as the Bible ! Wher- ever the open Bible has gone and men have been free to read it, there political democracy is al- ready established unless the people are too in- dolent to claim it, and economic democracy is al- ready farthest advanced. 84 A BETTER WOELD VII THE CHURCH DEFENDS BUT DOES IsTOT LEAD The clinrches of Christ all but floundered suc- cessively on the rocks of paganism and supersti- tion, temporal power and class privilege, national and racial prejudice. They survived the second vi^reck because of the inherent democratic spirit of the Gospel; they can survive the third wreck for a similar reason, and the most certain way to free Christianity of what degree of paganism and superstition it has acquired is to put it into the freest possible contact with pagan religions, that is to say, by still further extending its demo- cratic principles. If what I have is good for me it is equally good for the other man, and if in of- fering it to him I discover that my truth is mixed with error, then mine is the gain as well as his. Christianity has made all its advances from the days of its beginning by appealing first to the *^ under dogs.'' Or, if you will, while the chal- lenge of faith has been uniformly to all classes it has usually been those lowest in the social and economic order who have made the first response. At any rate Christianity has gathered its first re- cruits for every advance from among unprivi- leged classes. As the new form of faith has made its way up through the various levels of social strata, often carrying with it the class in which it had its beginning, it has released a new demo- cratic spirit approximating, more nearly than the CHEISTIANITY 85 old order which was being changed, a real hu- man brotherhood. This new order, in turn, re- ceived a certain moral sanction from the religious institutions which were contributing so largely to the change. Christian faith has always been creative, modifying and changing the world as it found it ; organized Christianity, the Church which eventually grew out of the faith, has, like all or- ganizations, been more a conserving than a creat- ing influence. It has held the advance which faith has achieved, but as an institution it has not been marked by the spirit of adventure or of initia- tive. But even organized Christianity which cast out its prophets and stoned them has been the great conservator of the victories they have won. The Church, like the League of Nations, repre- sents an average. Its spirit and purpose are only the average of the spirit and purpose of its mem- bers. While this average is considerably higher than the spirit of one part of the constituency it is also very much lower than the spirit and pur- pose of the most sensitive consciences and best in- formed minds within its circle. American Protestantism has reached a phase in its development where the spirit of initiative and adventure is greatly in demand. But the larger the body the greater the inertia, and American Protestantism is very large, comprising twenty- five million souls. There are two methods by which to gauge the utility of this immense group of people in advancing the cause of democracy S6 A BETTER WOELD both at home and abroad. Such a vast mass of people will not and cannot develop initiative. They are like an army, and an army, strictly speaking, never takes the initiative. An army ac- cepts leadership and the leadership takes the initiative. If one sets up as a standard the often- repeated demand, ^^ the leadership of the Church,'' then one will find the Church sadly deficient as a leader of the new democracy. The Church does not lead, cannot lead, and collectively, it repre- sents a vast amount of inertia which may be mis- taken for opposition to anything new. On the other hand, one may regard this huge mass of people as a collection of voluntary as- sociations in which the spirit of liberty runs very high, and in which awakened conscience is the strongest bond of union. Considered as such the churches must be regarded as a tremendous asset for any forward movement which rests on moral principles. vin INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIANITY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS The League of Nations is the projection of a great moral ideal. It comes as an answer to the dumb longings of inarticulate humanity for free- dom and liberty. Its charter is disappointing be- cause it stops so far short of the ideal. So also is the Christian church disappointing. The Christian Church is not yet entirely Chris- CHEISTIANITY 87 tian. We have frankly to recognize that no sec- tion of it has completely appropriated the Chris- tian ideal either of faith or of practice. The Protestant churches in particular have been de- ficient in that they have failed to apply the demo- cratic ideal internationally and inter-racially with any marked enthusiasm. But the fact re- mains that the Christian Church does possess the ideal, and if all the world had reached the level of moral attainment already achieved by the Church a real Commonwealth of the States of the World could be inaugurated tomorrow. Of no other institution or organization may this claim be made. The Christian Church is unique. Is it not clear, then, that the greatest asset which the world today possesses for making effective the League of Nations, for keeping it from de- generating into another Holy Alliance, for con- stantly lifting the moral average of its constitu- ent parts, and for preparing the nations and races not now included for membership, is the spirit of Christianity, and the organization of the Church? In the following chapters it will be our purpose to analyze still further the resources of the Chris- tian faith and the religious organizations of the world for this broad purpose. We must study them not merely in the light of their pre-war his- tory and functions but also in the light of how the war has affected their operation and influence. We may divide this subject into three parts : Eu- 88 A BETTER WORLD rope, the war and religion; Christianity in the non-Christian races, with special reference to Asia ; and American Christianity as related to the new world order. CHAPTER TV EUEOPE, THE WAE AND EELIGION I THE KELAXING OF KESTRAINT It is, of course, much too soon for exact state- ment. The spiritual chaos of Europe was in- creased rather than diminished by the signing of the Armistice. The relaxing of the strain of the war, the loosening of military and government discipline and the beginning of demobilization re- leased the souls of men to a freedom which they had not known for years. We do not know, we dare not guess, how this return to freedom will affect the voluntary association of the European peoples in religious organizations or how the new ideals which the war has stimulated in the com- mon mind will influence religious convictions. Probably ideas will travel much more rapidly than they did after the French Eevolution, owing to the higher literacy of the masses and the greater facilities for communication. Nevertheless, years must elapse before we can chart accurately the new currents. On the other hand, there are some facts already clear. For convenience in thinking we may accept a 89 90 A BETTER WOELD primary classification which was already becom- ing necessary even before the war. We mnst dis- tinguish between religion and ecclesiastical or- ganization. At the present moment it appears as though the immediate effect of the war had been to strengthen the church as an organization, at least in all the Allied and in many of the neutral countries, but at the same time there seems to have been a weakening of religious convictions and a cooling of spiritual fervor. n THE MOEAL DEVASTATIOIT OF THE WAR The war did not reveal itself as a spiritualizing force. We may hold to this conclusion even after taking into account all the heroism and the noble sentiment which it inspired and sustained. A dis- tinguished French religious leader said to me: *^The war has illustrated the truth of the saying that Ho him that hath shall be given.' Those who went into the war with lofty moral and religious convictions came out of the conflict with those ideals increased. Those who entered the war without such convictions came back with even less than they had when they entered.'' There were few revivals in the trenches. The atmos- phere of military discipline and of the army camp is not favorable to the quickening of moral or spiritual sense. Soldiers going through a bay- onet drill of three movements in which they are EUEOPE, THE WAE AND EELIGION 91 instructed to yell in unison, with accent synchro- nized to the motions, ^^God — Damn — You," ren- dered a glorious account when they hurled them- selves down into an enemy trench, but there was little in such a drill to feed the spiritual hunger of home-sick souls. Most people have drawn their conclusions as to the spiritual stimulus of the war from such choice spirits as Donald Hankey. Such men were among those who *'had'' when they entered the trenches. Those who ^'had less" and lost even the little they did possess were not articulate, but in appraising the net spiritual effects of the war this latter larger class must also be considered. **Some of your countrymen came over here early in the war," continued the French gentle- man quoted above, ^ ' and went back reporting that all Europe was on its knees. They had merely gone into a few Paris churches and seen them full. It is estimated that in peace times about three per cent of the population of Paris attended church on Sunday as compared with twenty per cent of the population of Switzerland and thirty per cent in England. Supposing that as much as six per cent of the people of Paris went to church at the beginning of the war. That does not indi- cate a revival, does it! *^The army reeked with filth as all armies do," continued this gentleman, and he occupied an ex- ceptionally favorable position for observation, ^^and the blight of this corruption spread every- 92 A BETTER WORLD where." He who writes the chronicle of this phase of the European war has before him a dis- agreeable and thankless task. What he writes will not be pleasant reading, and the facts themselves might better be left unrecorded were it not that the demand for conscription and compulsory mili- tary training dies hard. Militarism is a nasty, filthy, stinking thing in spite of all the nobility which it enlists. The war has set loose in Eu- rope demoralizing influences which will remain to corrupt even to the third and fourth generation. War is de spiritualizing to every human relation. The following paragraph taken from an article by W. J. Rose, of the World's Christian Student Federation, who spent the years of the war in far- off forgotten Silesia, Austrian Poland, gives one a glimpse of this influence as viewed from behind the German lines. The article appeared in The New Statesman (London), February 1, 1919. '^The complete collapse of the one-time fabric of morals is nowhere to be studied better than in the domestic relations ; but one must be prepared for no end of tragic discoveries. It is not alone that neither husband nor wife has been expected, where the rank and file even of educated men are con- cerned, to be true to one another; that has, of course, brought the breaking-up of untold thou- sands of homes. But the fact is this : the emanci- pation of women has become a fact, under condi- tions which beggar description. Man away, wife takes charge of the farm, or trade, or calling. She EUROPE, THE WAE AND RELIGION 93 has a new freedom, has money where she never had it before;, learns how to manage, and finds pleasure in it. Or if she is incompetent, lets everything go to the dogs. In either case she doesn 't want her husband home in a hurry. How often have I heard women say, ^Ach, wait till the men come home ; then the war will begin ! ' " If this emancipation of European women had been accompanied by the development of cor- respondingly vigorous ideals one might find here a compensation for the war, but alas! such was not the case. And can anything compensate for the corruption of venereal disease which the last five years have spread through Europe? Mr. Rose goes on to say: *^When one realizes how the men have been debauched, how their sense of self-respect, among such as had it, was tram- pled on; how the children ran wild in the days when the schools were full of soldiers, or the teachers were serving at the front; in general how a grim fatalism came over one and all, which often gave rise to the uttered conviction that the war never will end, that the earth has fallen on evil days to last indefinitely — one sees that a state of mind was reached where the negation of all moral sanctions was bound to come, and nihilism as a theory should pass into nihilism in prac- tice." Such vivid description of moral chaos was only a little less true of one European country than of another during the war. One makes the state- 94 A BETTER WORLD ment reluctantly, not to ^x individual responsi- bility, for such an attempt would be grotesque and contemptible, but merely in order that one may fairly face the stubborn fact which has to be con- sidered in any moral stock-taking for the future. One may enumerate the exceptions without limit and yet the bare fact stands out that the war has corrupted European life, physical and intellec- tual as well as spiritual. The demoralization through life in military camps has been hardly less than the more subtle corruption of logical thought and generous sentiments among the very men and women at home to whom the various na- tions looked for moral leadership and spiritual guidance. This latter statement also stands in spite of the numberless exceptions which may be adduced of those who refused to offer this last tribute of supposed patriotic devotion. ni OTHEE LOSSES TO THE CHURCH In the early months of the war I happened to be spending some days in one of the famous univer- sity towns of Europe where I had opportunities to study the first reactions of the war on an aca- demic group. One day I fell into conversation with a professor of Church History on the Chris- tian aspects of the conflict. I was especially in- terested by the ingenious logic which he applied to the facts as we then understood them. The EUROPE, THE WAR AND RELIGION 95 argument was substantially as follows : The war appears to be primarily one for the defence of the principle of nationality. It is difficult to find an explicit justification for war in the teachings of Jesus but one must remember that ethics as taught by Jesus were always related to His expectation of an early ending of the world. Jesus did not include in His teaching any doctrine of nationality because He seemed to foresee in the near future the cataclysmic end of all mundane things. But the world did not come to an end as Jesus had evidently expected that it would, and in the Provi- dence of God the conception of nationality became one of the most potent means by which the King- dom of God was actually extended over Europe and throughout the world. Doubtless if Jesus had foreseen the development of the following cen- turies he would have included in His gospel more explicit teaching with reference to the rights of nationalities. At the outbreak of the war there was unques- tionably a certain amount of quickening of the religious life of all the warring nations. Church services were more frequent and better attended than in former times. People came to the churches both for assurance and for instruction. The war was a stupendous fact which the mind could not apprehend; it was demanding hazards and sacrifices which the heart made reluctantly. In the face of inexplicable mysteries souls cried out to God and sought a social refuge from the 96 A BETTEK WOELD solitude of doubt and then of bereavement. This first wave of emotion did not for long sustain it- self in the form of its original expression. Faith often drifted into grim fatalism and the search for assurances of immortality led to study of the occult. * ' There is no doubt but that the war has made many people very thoughtful on religious sub- jects," said an Oxford professor to me the other day, speaking of present religious conditions in England, ^^but the most noticeable expression of this new interest in religion is an increase of su- perstition and the new popularity of spiritualism. The two big questions which have been raised are about prayer and immortality. Almost every cot- tage in England is now a monument to unanswered prayer and every home is searching for assur- ances of immortality. No one knows how deeply the plowman is thinking about these subjects which are supposed to interest only the educated people. On the other hand the habit of church- going has been broken by the necessity for seven- day labor in the war industries and such habits are not easily remade.'' A few days later in Paris I asked the cure of one of the largest Eoman Catholic parishes how the war had affected religion as he observed the situation. Did more people actually attend his church than before the war? ^^No,'' he replied, ^'more people do not come to my church for I am in an industrial district, but this is easily ex- EUEOPE, THE WAE AND KELIGION 97 plained. Before the war I had eight assistants. Seven of them went into the army either as chap- lains or as soldiers, and the man who remained with me would have gone also but for the fact that he was a semi-invalid. It was impossible to care properly for the parish with so little help. And then you must remember that Socialism is very strong in such a parish as mine. The Socialist newspapers which are always abusing the Church circulate everywhere. You ought to come out there and see the crowds in the street with the newsboys crying ^Le Populaire! Le Populaire!' (one of the Paris Socialist newspapers) above the noise of the crowd. But I know of one parish in Paris where the number of confessions has in- creased from 125,000 a year to nearly 300,000 dur- ing the war.'' Indeed, one may set. down as another great ad- verse effect of the war on religion in Europe, by the side of its de spiritualizing influence on its inhibitions of logical thinking, the actual losses in both men and property and income which all religious organizations have sustained. Between twenty-five and thirty thousand French priests and students were mobilized and nearly half of the total Protestant ministry. The increasing strain of the war subtracted more and more men, old as well as young, from the service of the churches and proportionately diminished the financial resources by which the church work had been sustained. The signing of the Armis- 98 A BETTER WORLD tice left the churches of every creed weakened, as compared with the beginning of the war, by huge losses of men, both clerical and lay, diminished resources and reduced incomes, and in the war areas still further weakened by the actual destruc- tion of property and the disruption of parishes. Thus at the very time when the religious organ- izations ought to have been prepared for the im- mediate adoption of new programs and the im- mediate launching of new enterprises their per- sonal and physical vitality was at its lowest point. At the same time the training for the ministry and the priesthood had been almost completely suspended for four years and the reinforcements so greatly needed to fill the depleted ranks of the clergy are not only not at hand but are not even in training. rv CHURCH AND STATE In spite of these losses in personnel both lay and clerical, and in spite of the losses in prop- erty and in diminished physical resources, both of which must weaken the Church at least tem- porarily, I believe that the churches have made compensating gains as organizations. There are, however, exceptions to this general statement which are mentioned below. All religious organizations took on a new im- portance in the eyes of government shortly after the war began. The churches, like the press, of- EUEOPE, THE WAE AND EELIGION 99 fered direct and open channels for commnnicat- ing with the people, for stimulating patriotism, and for education in war aims. They also of- fered exceptional facilities, through existing fra- ternal relations with the religious groups in other countries, for international propaganda. One may note in this connection that this com- plete enlistment of the Church in the service of the State marked a new phase in the historical struggle between the two. Once the supremacy of the Church over the State was unquestioned; then came the conflicts resulting in a general ten- dency toward the separation of the two, and as the States gained the ascendancy, the establish- ment of Free Churches. The last five years in Europe have been marked by the absolute su- premacy of the State over the Church. The for- tunes of the one as an organization have thus been almost inseparably bound up with the fortunes of the other. The withholding of information by the governments has made it impossible for the re- ligious leaders of the various countries to frame any moral judgments except those which the gov- ernments wished to have framed. The moral leadership of the Church has therefore been con- fined to the giving of moral support to the moral leadership which the State has assumed. This holy alliance which really began long before the outbreak of the war has already cost the Eussian Orthodox Church practically all that it possessed and it would appear that the fortunes of those 100 A BETTER WORLD ecclesiastical organizations both Catholic and Protestant which lent their services in the interest of the German State are now very closely tied np with a cause which has been defeated and with a moral leadership which has passed even among its own peoples. On the other hand, the fruits of the Allied vic- tory have been shared by the ecclesiastical organ- izations of the Allied countries. This is particu- larly evident in France. At the outbreak of the war the government ignored the Church both Catholic and Protestant. There were not even chaplains for the army, but the government quickly saw the mistake and appointed a Catholic chaplain for each regiment and a Protestant for each brigade. These chaplains, as well as the clergy who served in the ranks, have often made brilliant records, and it is not unusual to see a cure or pastor with his decoration proudly worn striding down the streets of a French city. The mingling of the clergy and the laity in the army was good for both and did much to reestablish friendly relations which had been almost sus- pended between the Church and the masses. The Catholic Church particularly gained a great deal of prestige and influence among the soldiers not only by the personal contact of the priests but also by the grand and stately services, flags wav- ing, drums beating and officers in attendance. Meanwhile the government was appealing di- rectly to the people through the clergy to surren- EUEOPE, THE WAE AND EELIGION 101 der their hoarded gold and to support the other vital measures touching the concerns of civilian life. This service also was most effective and was greatly appreciated. In the invaded districts it was often the cure and the pastor who were the last to leave, if indeed they left at all, and many are the stories of clerical heroism in the devas- tated areas which are being retold throughout France. Again the churches were useful as relief organizations and in caring for orphans and war victims. The relief funds which were contributed in America were often administered through the churches greatly to the profit not only of those who received the help but also of those who gave it. Again, the Union Sacree in which all the de- nominations joined at the beginning of the war not only put a stop to wranglings but actually brought the various sects together on a more friendly basis than had hitherto existed. Likewise the war greatly promoted friendly re- lationships between the churches of the different nations. The facilities for travel and for the sending of literature provided by the governments made possible such an interchange of thought and sympathy as will be of inestimable benefit not only to the churches but also to friendly interna- tional relations of the future. Today there is a more lively sense of kinship and sympathy be- tween the churches of the various Allied nations than ever existed before, although international ecclesiastical organization has not been advanced. 102 A BETTER WORLD It is more than likely that the churches will share with the various Socialist groups the first respon- sibilities in the ministry of reconciliation with the peoples of the nations with whom the Alhes have been at war. THE PKECAKIOUS PKESENT A brief tabulation of the pre-war religious forces of Europe related to some of the great out- standing facts of the war will show at once that the condition of organized religion in Europe is, in spite of the gains, very precarious. The Russian Orthodox Church went down to defeat in the fall of the old political and economic order with which it was allied. If it ever returns to a place of influence in Russia it is evident that it will come back as a democratized, disestab- lished, free church. Even assuming that highly improbable event of a reestablishment of an ab- solute monarchy in Russia it is clear that even a despot could not restore a discredited church to the reverence and affection of the masses. The State Churches in the Central Powers have seriously suffered in the defeat of the governments to which they were joined. The restoration of their leadership also lies along the line of democ- ratization and disestablishment. The reluctance of Germany to disestablish the church indicates how much inertia and reaction has been carried over from the old order. Five hundred Catholic EUEOPE, THE WAE AND EELIGION 103 clergy of Czecho-Slovakia recently gathered in Prague and decided that hereafter the bishops shall be nominated directly by the joint action of the clergy and the people; that the Slav rather than the Latin language shall be used in the church services; compulsory celibacy for both priests and bishops should be abolished. More than seven hundred other members of the clergy also gave their approval to these reforms. Such decisions as well as the logic of the correlated events look toward measures of ecclesiastical de- mocracy and religious liberty hitherto unknown in these regions. The Roman Catholic Church appears to have come out of the war in better shape than many of her critics predicted. Her gains in France and Belgium are undoubted and may go far toward compensating for immediate losses in Austria and the East. The Allied victory cost the Spanish church a certain loss of prestige, but the Church is still well entrenched in the Peninsula. Not long ago I asked a radical Socialist in Madrid this ques- tion: ^*In case Spain were to have a revolution or were to establish a republic do you think that the Catholic Church would be disestablished?'^ **I hardly think we would go as far as that/' he replied, soberly, ^^ although we would most cer- tainly secularize the cemeteries and establish ab- solute rehgious freedom." The questionable loyalty of the Vatican to the cause of the Allies has not been forgotten in Italy, 104 A BETTER WOELD and one hears of more discontent with the Chnrch there than in Spain or France. The matter of the taxation of Chnrch lands is being mnch dis- cussed in view of the increasingly high taxes which the masses are called upon to pay. If the often promised revolution comes in Italy the Church is in for some more losses. The Vatican has re- cently approved of the organization of a Church political party in which priests can run for po- litical offices. When I asked a French cure whether the al- leged pro-German sympathies of the Vatican were going to affect the influence of the Catholic Church in France, he replied by pointing out that if the Vatican had inclined toward Germany and Aus- tria, it was to be explained on the ground that Germany has maintained the most intimate diplo- matic relations with the Vatican before the war whereas France has declined to have such rela- tions. He is hopeful that the return of peace will bring about the establishment of a French Ambas- sador at the Vatican. The Free Protestant Churches of the Allied countries do not appear to have suffered as or- ganizations from the war, sharing rather, as has been indicated, in the fruits of victory. French Protestantism has been reinforced by the addition of enough Alsatian Protestants to bring its total numerical strength up to at least a million. Prot- estants have not failed to utilize the cause of President Wilson's popularity among the masses EUKOPE, THE WAR AND RELIGION 105 by drawing attention to the fact that he is a Prot- estant. Before me lies a Spanish newspaper, in which a raessage of President Wilson to Germany is featured on the front page with a two column head, and on turning over the page my eye falls on a two column advertisement inserted by the British Bible Society featuring the commendation of the Bible which President Wilson wrote for the fly-leaf of the American soldiers' Bibles. But Protestantism which was so closely allied with government in Northern Europe has shared in the defeat of the order it defended. VI ETJKOPEAN- CHRISTIAlsriTY AND THE 1>0PIILAB MOVEMENT As we list these various religious forces of the Continent and note the different conflicts which they are facing or have faced we see that the fate of the Church hangs not upon any thing which the war, now past, has done to it or for it, but rather upouriow the Church is going to meet these new forces which the closing of the war has released — the democratic and popular movements. The churches of Europe have been recognized as pow- erful factors in the direction and control of pub- lic opinion during the war and they are now rec- ognized as suitable bulwarks of order and con- servatism to be placed in front of the radical cur- rents now beginning to flow southward and west- 106 A BETTER WORLD I ward over the Continent. The Church has imme- diately before her the choice between conserva- tism and liberalism as applied to politics and industry. The choice is not nnlike that which was offered to the Vatican between the Central and the Allied Powers. Those who feel that the sign- ing of the armistice was not the end of the strug- gle for democracy but the beginning of mighty ef- forts to establish real and effective popular gov- ernment throughout Europe, must, if they are at all concerned for the future of the present Euro- pean ecclesiastical organizations, regard this choice now presented to the Church as the most crucial test of many centuries. At the present time the Church is most secure among the women and among the members of the aristocratic and ruling classes. Already the Church has lost its grip on the mass of working men in every coun- try. They are firmly convinced that the Church is one of the great organs of reaction. The radi- cals do not seem to view the fact so much with bit- terness as with confidence that when the day ar- rives the Church will be so weak that it can be swept away with little effort. One of the most amusing as well as illustrative stories I have heard in Europe was in the Casa del Pueblo, the office and club of the Radicals of Madrid. A woman, the wife of a working man, was commenting on her recent change of atti- tude toward the Church. *'When our first babies came,'' she said, '^I wanted them to be baptized. EUROPE, THE WAR AND RELIGION 107 My husband did not believe in it and used to make fun of the high charges which the priests made for baptism but he always consented, because he thought it would make me feel better. But by the time the last baby came I had seen the light. I did not have her baptized, but we named her *Fratemidad' (Brotherhood)." Almost from the first moment when one begins to discuss the Church with any European it be- comes evident that the content of the word is very different in Europe from what it is in America. To most Europeans the Church is an institution which has an ax to grind rather than a service to render to the people. On the one hand it has been made the agent of the State for the suppres- sion of nationalities and the extension of political influence and on the other hand, it has been the organ of a hierarchy which sought to thwart pop- ular movements. The content of the word as we have it in America, where a State Church has not been permitted to exist, — where religious freedom is sure, and where no sect or denomination is su- preme, is all but unknown. A French lady asked me not long ago, ^^ Just what is the Y.M.C.A. in America? What does it do in peace times?" I thought the question could be most easily an- swered by sketching the history of the origin of the organization. I spoke of the little group of drapers' clerks gathering for a prayer-meeting, and then I paused, wondering whether she knew 108 A BETTER WOELD what a prayer-meeting is. *^Mais oui,'' she re- plied, *^c'est confessional.'' I have heard one man intimately familiar with religious conditions in one large section of Eu- rope state that before any spiritual religious or- ganization can establish itself there it will be nec- essary for it to discard every term, even the name of Christ itself, which has been carried over from traditional Christianity. The traditional Chris- tian terminology, in his judgment, is so abso- lutely identified with unchristian practices that to retain it would be like trying to discuss a color scheme with a man who is firmly convinced that red is blue and brown is green. VII INFLUENCE OP AMEKICAN CHEISTIANITY In view of present unsettled religious condi- tions on the Continent the entrance of American Christianity into Europe in force in the immedi- ate future must be watched with great interest. The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Metho- dist Episcopal Church South already have plans which call for the spending of more than $15,000,- 000 within the next five years for the establish- ment of new Protestant churches and social serv- ice institutions, and also for the assistance of ex- isting Protestant organizations. Other Protes- tant bodies are planning similar enterprises though on a less expensive scale. These organiza- EUEOPE, THE WAE AND RELIGION 109 tions will take with them the traditions of a con- servative yet democratic country, a definition of the Church which is now practically unknown in the larger part of Europe, a passion for the ex- pression of Christianity in social service and a demand for complete religious liberty. A deter- mined effort will unquestionably be made to build up a new Protestantism in the countries in which the old Protestantism was so nearly destroyed by the Inquisition, and to establish a new type of Christianity among peoples where the very Gos- pel itself has been discredited by its older ec- clesiastical expressions. American Christianity in going to the Continent will not, however, escape the same choice which is now before the churches of Europe between reaction and liberalism in poli- tics and industry. In the estimation of Europe this choice will transcend in importance all ques- tions of dogma, creed or polity. Every indication of present conditions is that the future of religion in Europe lies with churches which have been disestablished from all control by the state, and which have drunk deep from the springs of democratic inspiration — the teach- ings of Jesus. One may remember also that from the beginning of Christian history until now the first phase in the history of any new Christian movement has always been intensely democratic and even radical. It can easily be seen that the war has left the European Churches very ill prepared to make 110 A BETTER WORLD any immediate notable material contribntions to the cause of world-wide Christian democracy. Broadly speaking, it seems as though the net re- ligious idealism of Europe had been diminished and the financial resources of the churches have suffered even more. We may count very little on the help of organized European Christianity in sustaining the League of Nations as a ^'living thing/' and we can count very little on it for cre- ating and nourishing in the non-Christian world that moral and spiritual idealism which makes possible an extension of the principle of govern- ment by the consent of the governed. For the present the burden of extending Chris- tian democracy in the world falls almost entirely on Great Britain and the United States. Hap- pily British Christianity has come through the war less weakened than her Continental sister, and there are already signs of a new and prom- ising vitality. But the bulk both of ideas and* funds for the extension of Christian democracy in Asia, Africa and South America will come, for the next generation, if they come at all, from those twenty-six millions of Americans who are the Protestant Church of the United States and Canada. CHAPTER Y CHRISTIANITY AND THE NON-CHRISTIAN RACES I ASSETS AND LIABILITIES The religious resources of the non-Christian world for sustaining an effective and adaptable League of Nations — is not this a fair topic for discussion! Surely we do not wish to assume that the non-Christian world is forever to be a dead weight on human progress, or on the extension of stable democratic institutions. And if Asia and Africa are some day to be counted as assets for democracy, instead of as liabilities, their religious resources are worth considering. But in order that we may approach the subject with all the facts before us, let us return for a mo- ment to the discussion which was begun in Chap- ter Two, *^The League and a Changing World.'' Nations and races change in their relative political and economic power and importance ; governments rise and fall, and governments change. Religion also changes. Ill 112 A BETTER WORLD II THE MAECH OF CHEISTIANITY At the beginning of the Christian Era the entire Western Hemisphere seems to have been inhab- ited by people who were animistic or pagan ; Eu- rope and Africa likewise were under crude pa- ganism, and only parts of Asia possessed highly developed and moralized faiths. Buddhism was just beginning to sweep across India and onward toward the East. A thousand years later, Europe had almost entirely changed its faith; Buddhism had begun to disappear from the land of its birth ; Mohammedanism had swept around the Mediter- ranean, invaded Europe from two sides, and firmly planted itself in Africa. Confucianism had become a tremendous force in the Far East, and Buddhism had reached Japan. In the next centuries the changes were even more rapid than in the earlier period. Today we find the Western Hemisphere almost entirely Christian, Europe wholly Christian, while Africa and Asia have experienced great changes. The Christian settlements in North Africa have sur- rendered to Islam, which is rapidly crowding down through the continent past the equator. Mean- while, Christianity has occupied South Africa and has crowded the primitive animism of the black man a thousand miles up from the Cape. The Christianity which in the apostolic age spread eastward from Palestine became lost for centu- THE NON-CHRISTIAN EACES 113 ries, and fragments of it were discovered fifteen hundred years later on the west coast of India, where it persisted from the days of the Syrian migration. Buddhism has practically disappeared from the Indian peninsula, while the work of the early Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in the Far East has borne fruit in the largely Chris- tianized Philippine Islands. ** Following the most recent authority," says Dr. Cornelius H. Patton in *' World Facts and America's Responsibility" (Association Press, New York) (Atlas-Hierarchus, 1913), ^Hhe dis- tribution of the world's population religiously is as follows : Population of the Globe 1,650,000,000 Christians 635,250,000 38% Confucianists and Taoists 257,400,000 15.6% Hindus 222,750,000 13.5% Mohammedans 221,100.000 13.4% Buddhists 133,650,000 8.1% 'Animists 100,650,000 6.1% Shintoists 52,800,000 3.2% Jews 11,550,000 .7% Unclassified 14,850,000 .9% Certainly there is little ground, after studying the above table, together with the religious map of the world in successive centuries, for the as- sumption that the religious boundaries of the world are fixed and insurmountable. The assumption that Christianity has no right to attempt to extend itself beyond the boundaries of those nations which are now nominally Chris- tian is a purely Protestant one. The Eoman 114 A BETTEE WOELD Catholic Cliurch has never held it. Probably it could be traced back to those same nationalistic and racial prejudices which have done so much to prevent Protestantism from becoming in any large way an international faith. Those who hold these prejudices overlook the fact that the Founder of Christianity and those who first projected its ecclesiastical form upon the world did not belong to any western race. The membership of every Protestant Church is de- scended from racial stocks which were pagan for centuries after Christ. There is no fact more evi- dent in all history than the march of the Chris- tian Church across national and racial boundaries, one after another, until now, after nineteen cen- turies, Christianity claims no less than 635,250,000 adherents under more than fifty different inde- pendent governments. Indeed Christianity has extended itself so widely and has modified to such a marked extent the stock of national ideals in many countries, and has likewise been so modified in many places by the national and racial ideals of the peoples among whom it has sent down its roots, that the terms *^ Christian" and ^^non-Christian" races are almost as relative and as little fixed as is the term ^ ^backward" nations. No nation is absolutely ** Christian"; some so-called Christian nations shade off into a borderland where they are hardly to be distinguished from some of their non-Chris- tian neighbors and races. THE NON-CHEISTIAN RACES 115 III THE *'kEAE-CHEISTIAI5'S" The distinction between Christian and non- Christian nations and races is breaking down. Russia, whose Tsar only a century ago proposed to the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Aus- tria the Holy Alliance ^Ho take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion/^ would now officially disclaim that she is a Christian na- tion. On the other hand, non-Christian China was represented in the Peace Conference by one delegate who, when I wanted to go and see him one day in Peking two years ago, postponed the appointment in order that he might fulfill his en- gagement to teach a Bible class in a Chinese Christian Church. The African negroes of the world were represented in the Peace Conference by the Secretary of State from Liberia, an ardent Christian, while some of the most Christian na- tions sent to Paris delegates who were evidently frankly instructed, if they had any Christian prin- ciples as applied to other than their private lives, to leave them at home. While Christianity has never yet entirely cap- tured the governments of Christian nations, on the other hand, it is not now entirely excluded from shaping the policy of non-Christian nations. One of the largest undefined assets of the non- Christian races is what may be called their ^'near- Christians." The term may be challenged. 116 A BETTER WOELD Christianity may be so defined as to rule it out, but there will still be a great many people in the world whose purposes and attitude toward life and social responsibility are characteristically Chris- tian, even though the people themselves do not subscribe to Christian dogma and cannot be counted as members of the Christian Church. Asia has a very large number of such people, par- ticularly among those classes which possess most authority and leadership. In such countries as Japan, China, and India they are a tremendous asset for peace and international understanding. When we add them to the more than fifteen mil- lion Christian converts both Eoman Catholic and Protestant and the nearly six thousand mission- aries we find an already considerable Christian influence both in the direction of internal affairs and in international relations which is definitely and actively Christian. IV DEMOCRACY AliTD THE NON-CHEISTIAN EELIGIONS There is no blinking the fact that the non-Chris- tian religious faiths of the world are now in the midst of very great changes. Some of them have been very definitely affected by the war and the peace settlements, and all of them have been greatly influenced by the new spirit which is abroad among the non-Christian peoples. Islam has been shattered by the defeat of the THE NON-CHRISTIAN EACES 117 Central Powers. As a political power of impor- tance it is gone never to be restored. The fu- ture of Mohammedanism as a religious system cannot be predicted accurately, but there is noth- ing to indicate the appearance of a new vitality. In India, which has a Mohammedan population of sixty-seven millions, the present tendency is for the Mohammedan to unite with the Hindu on a political platform of nationalism in which the old religious zeal now finds its expression in the new patriotism. Mohammedan leaders themselves told me that their religion has entirely lost its missionary spirit and that the number of new converts hardly equals the loss as Mohammedans become either Hindus or Christians. Western civilization has been for a long time a disintegrating force on Mohammedanism. The opening of the Suez Canal, the partition of Af- rica, the building of railways and now the new political influences which have been set loose by the war, are productive of marked changes on the spiritual and intellectual as well as the political life of Islam. Neither spiritually nor intellec- tually is the Mohammedan prepared to withstand these new influences, and fanaticism is a weak weapon of defense. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer is au- thority for the statement that 95% per cent of the Mohammedan men of Egypt are illiterate and only three in a thousand of the women can read. Out of a Mohammedan population of eleven and one-half millions in Egypt 560,000 are blind. 118 A BETTER WOELD Islam lowers the moral vitality of tlie people, weakening them for progress. The educated Mo- hammedan in Asia Minor, as well as in India and Africa, becomes either a rationalist or a mystic. *'The old order has passed. The Moslem World is in the melting pot," says Dr. Zwemer. The animistic faiths, such as one encounters in Africa, always weaken and disintegrate as they come into contact with western civilization as rep- resented by the railway and the trading-post. There religions belong to the infancy of mankind. They are survivals. They have been unable to stand even before the better culture of the Mo- hammedan trader. Much less can they hold to«- gether as their adherents learn to read and write and to understand the simple laws of physical sci- ence. The primitive races both in Africa and Asia are soon to see railway trains passing their doors every day and in a thousand ways they are to be thrown in contact with superior cultures. Their religion will go, as it is already going, the way of the medicine man and of all primitive, childish superstitions. Hinduism is more formidable, for it is related to a strong and rich culture. I have travelled rather widely through India, and have often been in remote villages, the degradation of which can hardly be described, but I never saw a Hindu who even remotely resembled a savage. The most de- graded always bears the marks of a civilizing culture. The gulf which separates him from the THE NON-CHEISTIAN RACES 119 most finished Christian is narrower than the gulf which lies between him and the animist. We shall do well to recognize this fact, for it is all too com- mon to assmne that non-Christian peoples are savages, if not cannibals. Yet Hinduism is weakening notably. It is los- ing its hold at the top, among the most cultured, among the university group and the leaders of public opinion. Rules of caste are relaxed or ignored. At the bottom, among the *^ untouch- ables ' ' Hinduism is losing even more rapidly. The Mass Movements of these outcaste people are among the great social movements of the world. They represent the desire of the outcaste for emancipation from the miserable social, economic and religious fate to which Hinduism assigns him. He is aflame with the desire for liberty. There are literally hundreds of thousands of *^ untouch- ables'' today who according to the Anglican Bishop of Madras, an authority* on the subject, are ready to repudiate the religion of their fathers. The increase of facilities for education and com- munication among these fifty milHons of unhappy people will greatly accelerate this movement. Hinduism is inextricably bound up, through caste, with a tyrannous economic order which operates in favor of the upper-caste man. It is, in fact, as much an economic as a religious sys- tem, and economically it is out of step with the democratic movement of the world. The Hindu who is seeking emancipation from his economic 120 A BETTER WOELD bondage finds that Ms religion stands squarely in the way. It not only exacts enormous tribute in the way of contributions to its temples and priests but it also restricts his choice of employment, his place of residence, his freedom of travel. A new economic order is appearing in India, the factory system is coming, there is a marked movement from the rural districts to the large industrial centers, and at the same time educational facilities are increasing. All this is weakening Hinduism considered either as a social or as a religious system. In one other respect Hinduism stands in the way of the national development. It is a divisive system, shutting people off from union with each other and also from union with those of another faith like the Mohammedans. And the strongest current in India today is toward national unity and patriotism. In the face of these disintegrating influences there is little hope for Hinduism until it effects such a complete transformation as to leave it with slight resemblance to its present form. There are some signs of this transformation but there are more signs of its collapse before the transforma- tion can be completed. The religion of China is difficult to define. My Chinese boatman starts up the river. His rela- tions to me and to the oarsmen whom he takes along are based on the teachings of Confucius. He bums joss to the spirits when we come to the THE NON-CHEISTIAN EACES 121 rapids, thus placating the Taoist deities of ani- mistic descent. His marriage and his father's funeral were attended by Buddhist priests. Gen- erally speaking, the Chinese are not ardently re- ligious, certainly not so religious as the Indians. Eeligion in China is not a supremely effective force of any sort. Confucianism, like Hinduism, lies in the way of the achievement of a sense of national unity and of patriotism, though for a different reason. Hinduism divides the nation into innumerable castes: Confucianism divides into families. It creates marvelous filial loyalty but it does not stimulate public spirit. It is singularly lacking, as one sees it in practice, in the spirit of the Good Samaritan. The Chinese are a race of families and in one sense the Chinese are very democratic. Each man appears to be able to mind his own business, but as a citizen of a nation, sharing a social responsibility for minding everybody's business he is a conspicuous failure outside of his own family. China's weakness before Japan in the last few years has not been due to the in- dividual inferiority of the Chinese, and it is obviously not due to lack of numbers. China has been weak because the average Chinese really hasn't cared what happened to China if only he and his family could be left in peace to grow rice and to trade. Confucianism will leave its mark on China, for it has many elements of great moral strength, but it will never make of the peo- 122 A BETTER WOELD pie a self-conscious, imified, patriotic nation. It is at this point that Christianity is able to make its greatest contribution. The Shinto religion of Japan is just the reverse of Confucianism. Japanese religion is identified with patriotism, with the person of the Emperor. Here lies its greatest weakness as a religion. It is identified with a social, political and economic system which is autocratic, in theory a despotism. Autocracy and despotism stand in the way of the consent of the governed, of democracy. When they fell in Europe the religion which had given them the benefit of its sanctions also fell. It is very difficult to see how democracy could make its way in Japan without the practical overthrow of Shintoism. And it is equally difficult to see how democracy can sweep the rest of the world and pass by Japan. In fact there is abundant evidence in the present popular discontent in Japan, in the increased volume of criticism directed against the government, that Japan has already been deeply infected with the democratic spirit. Professor John Dewey, of Columbia University, writing in .^^The DiaP' (May 17, 1919) states, after a visit to Japan : *'The cause of liberalism in Japan has taken a mighty forward leap — so mighty as to be almost unbelievable. The causes which produced it can sustain it. If they do sustain it, there will be little backward reaction. If they do not continue in force to sustain it, they will betray it. To speak THE NON-CHRISTIAN RACES 123 more plainly, the release of liberal forces that had been slowly forming beneath the lid was due to the belief that democracy really stood for the supremacy of fairness, humanity, and good feeling, and that consequently in a democratic world a nation like Japan, ambitious but weak in many respects in which her competitors are strong, could afford to enter upon the paths of liberalism. The real test has not yet come.'' In fact the present instability of the non- Christian religions throughout the world is di- rectly related to the even greater instability of the social, economic and even political institutions of the respective countries. The non-Christian faiths stand in the way of the social progress that their adherents are determined to attain. They cast their sanctions over practices and customs which have survived from the despotic days of tyrants. As the new spirit of self-determination in politics and industry undermines the confidence of the people in existing social orders, the re- ligions which bless those orders also lose their hold upon the believer. The situation is, in this respect, similar to that in Russia and in some other parts of the Christian world, although with a vast difference. Christianity is essentially a religion of brotherhood and of democracy, which not only survives the corrupt expressions of the faith that are used to give an odor of sanctity to unchristian political and economic arrangements, but even supplies the new vitality and power by 124 A BETTER WORLD which the old orders are destroyed. The history of Europe for a thousand years contains illustra- tions of how the Gospel, in a purified form, rose up to smite both the Church and the society which had corrupted it; whereas the non-Christian faiths are found to be essentially lacking in some one or more qualities with the aid of which adjust- ment to the democratic demands of the modern age might be possible. The non-Christian religions are being weighed by the demands of the new day and are found wanting. Not one of them offers us an effective religious resource which may be martialled for the defense of the League of Nations as a ^ living thing," nor do these religions offer us a sufficient basis on which to build a new temple of inter- national and inter-racial amity. THE TIITTED EACES AGAIE^ST THE WOELD « On one of the dull days in Paris during the Peace Conference I called on C. D. B. King, the Secretary of State for Liberia, the first negro, probably, in the history of the world to sit in an international political conference and to use a vote in behalf of the political future of his race. Mr. King is a rather slender, carefully dressed, quiet- spoken gentleman. Only by the color of his skin would he be distinguished from any group of average citizens in any Christian country. The THE NON-CHEISTIAN EACES 125 gulf which yawns between him and his black brother in the kraal of the equatorial jungle would seem to us uncrossable were it not for the fact that Mr. King, with the help of his forebears, has already crossed it. ^ ' They say that we are too religious in Liberia, ' ' said Mr. King, ^^but our faith in the mercy and justice of God has been abundantly justified. It is quite true that Liberia has depended not on armies and navies but on God. We believe sin- cerely that the nations of the earth are in the hands of Almighty God." Then Mr. King gave an illustration of how Liberia's official religious faith has been vindicated. In 1913, four German warships suddenly ap- peared in the port of Freetown and at the same time the German Consul waited on the govern- ment and presented a bill for $85,000, on behalf of some German merchants. The bill must be settled immediately, an apology must be offered by the government and other humiliating demands must be complied with. There was even a threat to pull down the Liberian flag. Liberia did not lose heart. Negotiations were begun, a commission was ap- pointed to examine the claim, the claim was re- duced to $5,000 and paid. The Liberian flag did not come down, and when the war broke out, Free- town was the only neutral port on all that coast of Africa where German citizens could breathe the sweet air of liberty, as Mr. King took occasion to remind them. 126 A BETTER WORLD ^^ Liberia became the stone which the builders had rejected, '* said Mr. King, smiling quietly. Now Liberia sends one of her sons, a black man, to the ancient halls of royal Versailles to sit in judgment with the nations of the world upon the crimes of autocracy. Truly the mighty had been cast down and the lowly exalted to high estate. You may smile if you will, and attach little im- portance to the fact that the Liberian Secretary of State sat as a delegate in the Peace Confer- ence, but you cannot smile away the fact that the bridge over which he and his forebears walked out of the jungle and up to Paris was Christianity. If Africa can produce one Mr. King, it can, by the same methods, produce them by the hundreds of thousands. And will any one venture to promise that the destinies of the great continent of Africa, with its more than one hundred million people, can ever be settled in a way which is alike satisfactory to them and safe for the world, until Africa is able to send not one but as many dele- gates as are needed adequately to represent Africa in the Commonwealth of Nations of the v/orld! Notwithstanding the fact that there is no color line in the Gospel of Christ, the Christian nations have a bad record for color consciousness and color discrimination, the United States the worst of all. It was a shocking comment on democracy that the inclusion of a clause guaranteeing racial equality in the covenant of the League of Nations was prevented by the United States, and by Aus- THE NON-CHEISTIAN EACES 127 tralia, where democratic principles are assumed to have been even more completely applied under a Labor government. Let Americans frankly ad- mit with shame that the American record on the color question is the blackest blot on our Christian professions. Let it be admitted that we shall be able to contribute little to its solution as an inter- national question until we have cleared our record at home. Let us also remember that the matter lies with the public sentiment, and the churches more than any other agency have it within their power to direct public sentiment on the color ques- tion. But the color question contains more than a challenge to the sincerity of our Christian profes- sions of brotherhood. It contains a threat. The man with the black or tinted skin cannot forever be suppressed. There is enough distrust of the white man's fairness and justice when it comes to dealing with racial equality to make Africa and particularly Asia the armed camps in the next century that Europe has been in the last. The Japanese are the acknowledged leaders of the colored races. For the time being the Japanese have chosen to cast in their lot with the white races and play the white man's game. They have played it extremely well, too. But there is noth- ing to prevent Japan in the future from placating the tinted races and accepting their support to play the yellow man's game. There will be little hope for a Commonwealth of Nations to include 128 A BETTER WORLD the world, if the white races thus force the tinted races into the arms of Japan. yi [THE EACE QUESTION AND STAND AEDS OF LIVING But the color question is not simple. It is joined with the question of maintaining superior standards of living, and with economic competi- tion. Even the leaders of the tinted races recog- nize this fact and are willing to make concessions in the interest of protecting higher living stand- ards. The matter of race equality cannot be surely settled until the standards of living among the tinted races have been brought to the level of those among the white races. Thus the color question leads to an industrial question not dis- similar to that which is now faced in Europe. We shall not see a secure League of European Na- tions until the low standards of living of some countries have been lifted to the level of the high- est. This fact was recognized in the industrial recommendations which are in the covenant of the League of Nations. The international ques- tion is similar. When the Japanese and Chinese and Hindu workmen have the same standards of living, education and political rights that the American v^^orkmen on the Pacific Coast have, the legitimate American opposition to the recognition of race equality will have disappeared. In the same way it will disappear in Australia. THE NON-CHEISTIAN RACES 129 Asia is now beginning to undertake tlie indus- trial revolution. In Japan and in the larger cen- ters of China and India the old household system of hand production and the primitive methods of agriculture and mining are being replaced by methods borrowed from the western world. The production of wealth is increasing, wages are ris- ing, rising very rapidly in Japan and India, and the standard of living is pulling up. The great- est aid to such a process, as we know from a study of European history, is democracy in both govern- ment and industry. If Christian democracy ad- vances hand in hand with the industrial revolution in Asia and Africa, not only will the color ques- tion largely solve itself but these continents will also be spared the horrible penalties which an unchristian industrial and economic system has brought upon the western nations. The western world will also be spared a possible terrible con- flict in which the cheap labor of the world is thrown into competition with the more highly paid white labor. VII INTER-EACIAIi PEACE What attitude, then, shall Christianity adopt toward the non-Christian subject races? The League of Nations contains no promise that every subject race shall be free as soon as it demon- strates its ability to defend that freedom, but is there any other basis on which the world may 130 A BETTEE WOELD come to international and inter-racial amity and understanding! The question is tliis : Shall we at- tempt to keep the subject races in subjection, shall we ignore them, or shall we give ourselves heartily to helping them to political, economic and moral standards similar to our own? We cannot suppress them, except for a time; they will not be ignored; we can lift them up. If we accept this last choice we shall have be- fore us three lines of action. First we must se- cure for the policy the public sentiment of the Christian nations. The non-Christian nations which are now groping their way toward that goal must be both helped and protected. And when a nation arrives we must see that the public sentiment of the world, as expressed in govern- ment and in economics, is prepared to receive her. In all of this work the Christian Church may, nay must, take a leading part. The Church must ex- tend her spirit of democracy to apply to inter- racial and international relations. She must set out in earnest upon the Christian conquest of the world for Christian democracy, carrying with her a political and economic as well as a personal and spiritual Gospel. **The democracy of the Methodist movement,'' writes a recent historian of modern religious movements, ^'was founded upon the eternal possi- bility before every man." Wesley preached this doctrine to the masses, the unchurched, unshep- herded crowds of Britain whose social, economic THE NON-CHRISTIAN RACES 131 and political rights were even fewer tlian their religious privileges. It was, to a large degree, in the chapel, nnder the leadership of the lay- preacher, that the masses of England came to self- consciousness. And not a little because this move- ment was primarily religious, and therefore con- servative and controlled, England turned, in the following half -century without a revolution, an acute political and economic corner in her develop- ment. What Wesley did for the neglected classes of England a century and more ago the Christian Church of today can do for the neglected classes of the world. And just as the Wesleyan Move- ment in England, by rousing the industrial classes and making them articulate and accustomed to democratic methods, contributed to saving Eng- land from bloody class and industrial conflicts such as are now sweeping over Europe, so by the same methods Christianity can save the world. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the hope of democracy and in Christian democracy is the hope of the world. i VIII I CHEISTIANITY, ALSO, MUST CHANGE It is not an accident that the nations which have already achieved self-government are Christian nations. Nor is it an accident that the nations which have most completely incorporated demo- cratic principles into their government are those 132 A BETTER WORLD nations in which the Christian Chnrch has been freest and Christ most exalted. Those European and South American nations, nominally Christian, in which government is now most insecure, are the very nations where religious liberty has been most suppressed and where the principles of Christian freedom have been most impeded in their expression. At the present moment the races of the world which are least free, whether under despotism or paternalism, are also the races which are non-Christian. This also is not an ac- cident. But in measuring the resources of Christianity in the non-Christian world, as an effective agency for undergirding such a League of Nations as we may hope some day to see realized, with an effec- tive world wide democracy of Christian brother- hood, we do not overlook the fact that organized Christianity is at present ill prepared for the task. Like all religions it, too, must change. The Church which is false to its trust, as was the Rus- sian Church, is liable to disappear over night, and it cannot return until it has been greatly modified. The Roman Catholic Church in some European countries is living over a volcano. It is liable to the most profound changes at any moment, for it may have to adjust itself to a new set of social, economic and political conditions in a moment as it has adjusted itself in a century of peaceful adaptations to the ideals of American democracy. We must admit more;, the Protestant Church, THE NON-CHRISTIAN RACES 133 or to be more concrete, the Americaii Protestant cliiirclies, will be compelled to change. Probably they will eventnally undergo still further con- solidations of kindred polities, although church union at the expense of liberty would be deplor- able and is unlikely. But in one fundamental re- spect they must change their attitude toward humanity. They must cease to be sectional, racial or national. I refer not so much to changes of ecclesiastical organization, although that may in part be involved; I have in mind a change of spirit. It is necessary for them to become as inter-racial and as international as the Gospel itself. In a word, they must become democratic on a world wide scale, even as they are now demo- cratic within their own relatively restricted groups. Lest someone may feel that this implies too little regard for the fact that every American denomination already sustains a large amount of inter-racial and international work through its missions, perhaps I ought to explain that I do not forget this fact, nor do I forget that this work, while relatively large and of tremendous influence, is carried on in spite of the extreme apathy of perhaps nine-tenths of the church members and the openly expressed dissympathy of hardly less than a majority. At best it is invested with the spirit of patronage rather than brotherhood. The spirit of the American Protestant Church has not yet become, within the great mass of the member- 134 A BETTER WORLD ship, either inter-racial or international. Senti- ment is rapidly changing, but one may venture a guess that in the average American church even today it would be possible to secure more votes for the ideals of the League of Nations, limited and compromised as they are, than for the uncom- promised ideal of foreign missions to convert the entire world to Christ. The Church which avoids this change or escapes it is as certain to go down in the new world as did the Russian Church which refused to become democratic on a national scale in the old Russia. CHAPTER VI CHEISTIANITY AND THE NEXT CENTUEY I THE END OF RELIGIOUS ISOLATION The time is obviously long overdue to make the teachings of Jesus the subject of free debate in every market-place and every capital in the world. The issue is clear-cut. If the Gospel is wrong, reject it; if it is right, accept and apply it. Apply it in government, in industry, in the ordinary re^ lations of daily life of which the social fabric, both political and economic, is made. Note the qualification: it is free debate — ^no compulsion, no threats of force. It is not academic, either, but a simple and direct appeal to reason and to conscience. Do we not see at once that this appeal is in it- self the very essence of democracy? The moment it is made we create a spiritual liberty, an acknowl- edgement of freedom, an acceptance of freedom, and a joint recognition of both individual and social responsibility to discover and to apply the truth. To start such a debate simultaneously in the market-place and the capital, among the master 135 136 A BETTER WOELD nations and tlie subject races, among near- Christian nations and non-Christian nations alike, is at once to underwrite both Treaty of Peace and League of Nations with the assurance of success, as well as utterly to transform them. American Christians may recognize three prac- tical phases in the challenge. There is one problem which is peculiarly, though not exclusively, American — ourselves. Is the United States Christian! Is it a Christian democracy! How about our international, our inter-racial, our world-wide relations'? More im- portant still, what of our own mind and heart? We shall return to this phase of the challenge in the next chapter. We have, secondly, to take into consideration the various forms of Christianity and of ec- clesiastical expression which we find among the other so-called Christian nations of the western hemisphere and of Europe. Many Americans will think they detect Pharisaism and impudence in even recognizing that these nations need our help while we have failed to correct ourselves. Until we have solved our own problems, they argue, we have no right to mix up in the problems of other nations. Such an argument, applied to political matters, was put forward to defeat the League of Nations. Yet all broad-minded Americans recog- nized, however they felt about the precise form of covenant under discussion, that the United States can no longer live in political isolation. No more CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 137 can we live in spiritual isolation from the balance of Christendom. II AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY IN EUROPE Up to the present, American Christianity has drawn very liberally from European Christianity, and has given very little in return. We have taken over the ideal of religious liberty and the free church separated from government; we have taken from Europe our various forms of church polity and our theologies. American Christianity has become a vast reservoir into which has flowed, borne by the tides of immigration, the great treas- ures of an old-world faith. We have appropriated not only the ideas but the progressive sons and daughters who brought them ; we have made them our own, but have we not all but ignored the corre- sponding obligations which the acceptance of such rich gifts involves? Now the force of events has turned the tide of immigration in the opposite direction. The United States was compelled to send two million of her finest men, as well as billions of treasure, back to Europe to join in a struggle to save the world. We had by no means solved all our problems at home before we sent them. We could not even send a perfect army. We gave our men, our money, our ideas and our ideals. They were all thrown into a common fund in which each nation was both giving and receiving, and out of the com- 138 A BETTER WOELD mon effort came victory. How illogical, how ab- surd that we should now close our doors again as the boys come home. We freely shared with Europe our secrets for making submarines and poison gas, and we freely borrowed secrets from them. Shall we not now share with Europe our secrets for making men? We set up in Europe an international, and to some extent an inter-racial, court of law, where every nation may have a right to come, try its case, debate its merits, and we hope through adequate publicity appeal to public opinion. Is it not equally right, and equally a spiritual neces- sity, that we set up not merely in one capital of Europe but in every one, and in every market- place as well, a debate as to the merits of the Gospel? Or, if you will, make it a debate not only of the Gospel but of all religious truth. Let England state her case; let Italy, Russia, the United States, the South American re- publics state theirs; let India, China and Japan take up the debate. Let it be open to all for each to make his appeal. Surely the state of religion is as much a matter of concern to American Christians as the state of government and political treaties is to American citizens. If European Christianity still has gifts to make to America — and beyond a doubt it has — ^we ought to accept them as quickly as we accepted any military de- vice or plan of campaign. If American Christian- ity has a contribution to make to Europe we are CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 139 bound to make it. How else shall the League of Nations have the spiritual vitality and idealism without which it will surely become a second Holy Alliance^ backward not forward looking? There is no more certain way to carry to Europe and to South America the democratic spirit which is now so sorely lacking than to reopen the dis- cussion of tlie claims of Christian brotherhood. Let American Christians cease from their isolation and freely make their contributions. How about a Free Church? How about a Free School? How about the free and open Bible ? Then let European Christianity challenge us with its searching ques- tions. How about an international, an inter- racial Grospel? As we debate these questions shall we not, as citizens not merely of states but of the world, come to that very recognition of social ob- ligation, of Christian faith, for the lack of which the war was visited upon us? Such a program does not involve a repetition of the old error upon which the temporal power of the Church was erected. No principle is more securely won than that the Church must go out and keep out of politics. But when the Church goes out, the Christians must come in. The separation of Church and State does not involve the separation of the Gospel and Life. The sovereignty of a state is not violated by an ap- peal to reason and to conscience, even when the appeal originates outside the boundaries of the state. On the contrary, it is the very essence of 140 A BETTER WORLD the practice of peace that every citizen of every state shall enjoy not only a government which is by consent of the governed, but also a church which is by consent of the believer. The temporal power of any Church has all but passed. The political and industrial power of the individual believer, expressing himself in democratic fashion as a citizen, has all but arrived. How important then to reopen the discussion in Europe as well as in America of the Gospel as the charter of human brotherhood. And has not America something to contribute to that discussion in Europe, even as Europe has always contributed to its discussion in America? There is a further reason why Americans must be concerned with the state of religion in other Christian nations. The non-Christian world has its contracts with Christendom almost exclusively through these other Christian nations. To Africa, to Asia, to non-Christian South America Christianity is largely European Christianity. To them European Christianity is the Gospel. The European nations are the master states, the colonizing nations. These colonial arrangements between Europe on the one hand and Asia and Africa on the other contain elements of great political instability in which the United States from now on must be greatly interested. There is little hope for permanent peace in the world until those contacts of Europe, Asia and Africa have become fraternal where they are now either CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 141 paternalistic or even despotic. It is a matter of tremendous concern to America tliat Europe adopt the principles of Christian brotherhood in its re- lations to the non-Christian world. I believe that the American Protestant Churches ought in a spirit of Christian brotherhood to adopt an adequate program of friendly church extension in Europe and in South America, which is so dis- tinctively the daughter of old Europe. Every European country represents as free a field for the extension of Protestantism as the average American city. Let America carry the spirit of the free Protestant Church to those countries where such a spirit is all but unknown. Let her bring back In return that spirit of international- ism in faith which old Europe has retained. Ill WHY FOKEIGN MISSIONS? The third phase of the challenge to American Christianity is the non-Christian nations and races. Among the non-Christian races we have about two-thirds of the population of the globe, nearly a billion people. These people are now surging forward toward self-expression, toward self-de- termination. Some of the strongest of them are becoming maddened at the unwillingness of the Christian races to recognize racial equality. They possess unlimited stores of raw materials and un- 142 A BETTER WORLD limited labor supply, and they are now entering, or are about to enter, an industrial revolution similar to that which the western world passed through in the last century. These races are already marvelously rich in spite of their poverty. A century hence they will be indescribably richer. Considerations of national security, of humani- tarian feeling, and the consistency of our own Christian profession make it necessary that Christianity be immediately introduced into every market-place in the non-Christian world. In spite of facts cited in foregoing chapters this assertion is certain to be challenged. Probably this long existing apathy or opposition of the average American Christian to so-called foreign missions is due largely to ignorance of what for- eign missions are, and what they do. In spite of all that has been accomplished in the last genera- tion in the way of educating Americans as to the methods of the foreign missionary work, it is still uncommon, the moment one gets outside a small circle within any given church, to find any one who argues against foreign missions except from mis- taken facts. The Christianizing of non-Christian peoples rests on a tripod of hospital, school and church. The hospital represents the ideal of mercy and the conservation of human life. The school stands for literacy, for vocational training, for modern methods of agriculture, for professional skill as a substitute for superstition. The Christian Church CHRISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 143 is there to form character, to teach individual and social responsibility, love of neighbor, love of country, and human brotherhood. The purpose of foreign missions is not the establishment of an institution or a church but the inculcation of an ideal. The method employed is the very practice of democracy. When I say that we must set up a debate as to the merits of the Gospel in every market-place and every capital of every non-Christian race of peo- ple I do not mean a theological disputation. The fundamental claim of the Gospel, considered in its practical aspect, is the infinite value of every human soul. That is the question which must be debated in America, Africa, and Asia, as well as at the capital of the League of Nations. Nor will it be an academic debate. Before the end of the next century it will mean an infinite difference to America, as well as to the other western nations, whether the present non- Christian world is organized on the basis of the value of human life, or on the basis of its cheap- ness. To begin with the crass issues, it will mean the difference between high and low productivity, between good and bad markets, between high and low standards of living for western working-men. So long as human life in Africa and Asia is held so cheap that it does not make any difference how poor a hut a man lives in, what kind of clothes he wears, what kind of food he eats, or how much wages he receives, the economic stability on which 144 A BETTER WORLD the League of Nations must rest is precarious. If life over there is so cheap that millions are per- mitted to die each year of plague and preventable^ disease, and millions more are permitted to live a lingering death because of needless physical in- capacities, the productive capacity of the world and its net wealth are thereby diminished. And we shall never know when some epidemic or plague like influenza may not leap the borders of a non- Christian race and spread over the Christian na- tions. Epidemically the world is already one. The cheapness of human life is the basis for militarism. You cannot subtract men from their homes and industry to make cannon-fodder for imperialism when once they believe in the Christian doctrine of the infinite value of the human soul. A belief in the cheapness of life is the open door to war. The non-Christian world now stands hesitating between the choices pre- sented : militarism or new definitions of the value of human life. The corollary of the belief in the infinite value of the human soul is equality of privilege. But equality of privilege is the most anarchistic, divisive, dangerous doctrine in the universe when separated from the doctrine of social responsibil- ity and brotherhood. A desire for equality of privilege may lead to democracy; it may also lead to despotism. No, the foreign missionary does not deal in academic disputations over theological CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 145 formulas. He deals with the very stuff out of which war and peace are made. The Christian world in general, and the mis- sionary world in particular, long ago outgrew the notion that the supremely important purpose of preaching the Gospel is to make more Methodists, or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or to add to the numerical strength of any sect. Indeed, one may translate the missionary purpose into popular language, and say, without any misstatement, that the purpose of foreign missionary work is to make good citizens, effective citizens of the new order which is now forming, Christian citizens. I quote from what the author has previously written on this subject. (The Democratic Movement in Asia ; Association Press ; New York) : *' Glance for a moment at what the missionary- does: first he asks for religious liberty, and then proclaims the inclusive and sweeping doctrines of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. He establishes schools which not only teach the elementary branches, but set the example of equality by opening their doors to the poorest and most oppressed. The missionary hospital places a new value on the human body and sets standards for the conservation of life. It teaches charity and mercy. Through these channels go out the very in- fluences which create the ideals of brotherhood and democracy. ''The missionary does not force conflicts with existing laws. He appeals to something far more 146 A BETTER WORLD fundamental and persuasive — to public opinion; and, just in proportion as he gains the support of public opinion, the old order begins to crumble. *'When the missionary makes a convert, he makes a radical. With all the tact he possesses, and he usually has a good deal, he says in effect: the re- ligion of your father and mother was wrong. "When the convert accepts baptism he must, as it always has been, forsake his father and his mother. He must also repudiate the entire social system which lias been the meat and drink of his family, clan, nation, and race. What wonder, then, that the Christian convert is a man with capacities for radi- cal thought and action? **The young men and women then enter the mis- ;sionary school, and there fashion and sharpen the weapons that become their superior equipment for the spreading of the new ideas they have acquired. The student learns to care properly for his body, thus finding an effective instrument to support his new convictions. His mind is trained and disci- plined, so that he goes back to his people better able than they to think clearly, and to reach sound con- clusions. He carries with him a vast fund of idealism drawn from all the deposits of a more efficient civilization. His very presence and su- perior accomplishments are sources of worthy .discontent among his less favored brothers. *'It is evident that the missionary commands the approach to the backward races. The Bishop of Calcutta said to me not long ago, when we were discussing the unrest in India: *For thirty years I taught Greene's English History to students in a CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 147 mission college. I always said to myself, after fin- ishing the course, ^'If these boys don't get some of these ideals into their heads, it will not be my fault." ' Today India is beginning to be vibrant with the ideals, the development of which Pro- fessor Greene recorded. "Equally evident is the fact that, in future, the missionary must carry forward the work to make these ideals safe for the peoples who have adopted them. Until they are safe in Asia, they will not be secure in Europe or in America ; for in this modern world we are all neighbors. There is no one of the backward nations not nearer to the United States to-day than were the red men of the Dakotas to New York a century ago.*' IV JUSTICE TO THE TINTED KACES We may dwell for a few moments on the present Oriental Problem for purposes of illustration. One* ought not to convey the impression that the mis- sionary problem, or the problem of Christian democracy in the non-Christian races, is ex- clusively an Oriental matter, for such is far from the truth. We select the Oriental Problem in the first place because the writer happens to be more familiar with it than with that presented either in Africa or in the Near East, and also because the present Home Eule movement in India and the disputed claims for Shantung have clothed the 148 A. BETTEE WOELB Far Eastern Question with a new interest for American readers. The Treaty of Peace leaves the world ill as- sured as to the next century in the Pacific Ocean. Y^e are not justified in panic over the possible uses which Japan may wish to make, or may be able to make, of her growing ascendency in Far Eastern affairs. Neither should we be justified in ignoring the fact that here is a nation which is rapidly building up a political, military and economic power in the East which more or less resembles the power that Germany was not long ago building in the West, and by much the same methods. We must calmly face the facts. The peculiarity of the Oriental Problem, often overlooked, is that it is not exclusively Oriental; it is also European and American. Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Russia and America are directly interested. Any disturbance in the or- derly development of affairs, whether the causes are due to instability in China, Korea, Java, the Philippines or India, or whether they lie in the aggression of some outside power, concern almost immediately the entire world. Any development in Asia which tends to restrict the freest possible cultural and commercial intercourse between the East and the West, any arrangements which look toward the growth of a militarism in which Asia and the western world may be pitted against each other, are alarming. The present political and economic condition of Christianity and next century 149 the Orient is highly unstable. The government of hundreds of millions of people does not rest on the consent of the governed and is maintained, ultimately, by armed force recruited in the West. The economic relations of these hundreds of mil- lions, likewise, do not rest altogether on the will- ing assent of Asia. Just now these facts are over- shadowed by troubles of an internal nature, the encroachments of Japan on Chinese territory and sovereignty. The existing acute irritations will probably be moderated in the near future. England is con- templating administrative and fiscal changes in India which, when settled, will allay a consider- able amount of the present discontent in that coun- try. These changes, together with the American policy in the Philippines, will set up standards of colonial arrangements which are quite likely to have an excellent influence in the French, DutcK and Japanese possessions. Between China and Japan there is not likely to be any armed clash in the near future. But these prospects do not meet the fundamental issue involved: Shall the relations between the various Oriental races and between them and the western powers rest in the future, as in the past, on the preponderance of military power and the threat of violence 1 The existing situation gathers a mantle of ex- cuse from the present proved political incapacities of the subject and oppressed nations. India is still a long way from being able to administer her 150 A BETTER WORLD own affairs with efficiency and with justice to the .governed. China has made thus far a botch of her efforts at republican government. It is un- likely that either Korea or Java could do better for themselves than is now being done for them. But what of the future? The choice is obvious. The government of the Asiatic races will continue to rest ultimately upon force, upon the armies .and navies of the master nations until such a time as the subject races qualify for independent self- government. Meanwhile, the master nations may either adopt a frank policy of preparing these nations for self-government or they may, as already with Japan, set them the example of, and teach them the lessons of, a militarism which would some day most certainly rise to smite the world on an international color-line of battle. Has Christianity, have the Christian forces of the world, nothing to say on this issue? If they have not, then we may as well admit that the Gospel of Christ, the message of human brotherhood, has passed, so far as it applies to subject people, to the International Socialists and to the Bolsheviki, for they do not remain silent. The Conference of the Socialist and Labor Par- ties of the Allied Nations declared, February 14, 1915: '^This Conference cannot ignore the pro- found general causes of the European Conflict, it- self a monstrous product of the antagonisms which tear asunder capitalist society, and the policy of colonial dependencies and aggressive imperialism, CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTURY 151 against which International Socialism has never ceased to fight, and in which every government has its share of responsibility. ** Satisfied that we are remaining true to the principle of the International, the members of the Conference express the hope that the working classes of the different countries will before long find themselves united again in their struggle against militarism and capitalistic imperialism. The victory of the Allied Powers must be a vic- tory for popular liberty, for unity, independence,, and autonomy of nations in the peaceful federa- tion of the United States of Europe and the world. ' ' The draft Eeport on Eeconstruction, prepared by a sub-committee of the British Labor Party and submitted in January, 1918, introduces the ques- tion in the following manner : *^ Count Okuma, one of the oldest, most experi- enced and ablest of the statesmen of Japan, watch- ing the present conflict from the other side of the globe, declares that it is nothing less than the death of European civilization. Just as in the past the civilization of Babylon, Egypt, Greece,, Carthage and the great Roman empire have been successively destroyed, so, in the judgment of this detached observer, the civilization of all Europe is now receiving its death blow. We of the Labor Party can so far agree in this estimate as to recognize, in the present world catastrophe, if not the death in Europe, of civilization itself, at 152 A BETTER WORLD any rate the culmination and collapse of a dis- tinctive industrial civilization, which the workers will not seek to reconstruct. At such times of crisis it is easier to slip into rnin than to progress into higher forms of organization. That is the problem which presents itself to the Labor Party. ^^If we in Britain are to escape from the decay of civilization itself, which the Japanese states- man foresees, we must ensure that what is presently to be built up is a new social order, based not on fighting but on fraternity; not on the competitive struggle for the means of bare life, but on a deliberately planned cooperation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who will participate by hand or by brain ; not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a systematic approach towards a healthy equality of material circumstances for every person born into the world; not in an enforced dominion over subject nations, subject races, subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject sex, but, in industry as well as in government, on that equal freedom, that general consciousness of consent and that widest possible participation in power, both economic and political, which is characteristic of democracy. ' ' It is rather disappointing not to be able to find equally clear-cut pronouncements of opinion on the relations of the master to the backward na- tions in the reports of equally important Christian groups and assemblies. CHEISTIANITY AND NEXT CENTUEY 153 The Christian forces of the world ought to have something to say on this subject. In brief, there are two words, one to the nations and govern- ments of which they are a part, the other to the peoples whose political and economic destinies they now so largely control. In the government of so-called Christian nations they should express themselves very positively for the adoption of a definite policy looking toward the complete emancipation of the subject races and the abolition of militaristic government over them. To the subject races they should say: ^^You and we are human brothers in the liberty wherewith Christ has freed mankind, and we promise to you heartily our utmost cooperation and help in the establish- ment of effective democracy, both political and economic. ' ' Looking toward this end the Christian forces of the world owe it to themselves, as well as to their human brothers of dark or tinted skins, to set up in every market-place in the non-Christian world a debate as to the merits of the Gospel of Christ as the charter of human liberty. And they owe it to set up not merely a debate but a demon- stration as well, showing the proof by hospital, school and church, that Christianity is the great step to human liberty. CHAPTER YII THE NEW PATRIOTISM I THE EELIGIOUS EESOUKCES OF THE WORLD FOR PEACE This book rests on the assumption that the re- ligious forces of mankind are of immeasurable value in determining public action. We do not pause to argue with those who hold that economic, more than religious influences, are decisive in fixing the purpose of a group of people, whether that group be a nation or a league of na- tions. It is true that men will fight because of hunger; but the nature of their religious convic- tions will modify the purposes of the battle and its methods. It will make a vast difference to the world in the next century, as it has in the last, what kind of a religious faith is most influential. Generally speaking, a church does more to sustain a wholesome public spirit in a neighborhood than a golf -club, a factory or a police station. But when we think of the religious forces of mankind we have in mind something deeper and more pervasive than their ecclesiastical expres- sion. Indian religion is something bigger and finer than the average dirty Hindu temple with 154 THE NEW PATRIOTISM 155 its ignorant, dissolute priests. Chinese religion is more vital than the average deserted Chinese joss which one may see in any village. European and American religion is larger and more human than ever the Eussian, the Eoman, or any sect of the Protestant Church has made it appear. The religious nature of man is a powerful dynamo of energy, and the direction in which that energy is exerted is an immense factor in determining whether people live in actual, or potential, war with one another, or whether they live together in sympathetic cooperation to achieve a common good. To what extent can the League of Nations, con- sidered either as it actually is, or as a symbol of the Commonwealth of Nations which is the object of such general human aspiration, draw on these religious forces of the world for the ideals and for the life which will make it a *^ living thing"? If we distinguish between the present religious institutions and the religious nature of man which underlies them, and measure the resources of the former only, the answer is not encouraging. The religion of Europe, which will largely supply the spiritual atmosphere in which the League of Na- tions does its work, has been formalized, ec- clesiastic! zed, governmentalized, commercialized. Over large areas its institutions have been de- stroyed. Among very large numbers of working people it has been repudiated as the agent of Privilege. What vigor has been left to European 156 A BETTER WOELD religion has been sadly crippled by the losses of the war. At the present moment it is ill prepared either with leaders or with active ideals to adjust itself to the new economic and industrial strife which is replacing the battle of the nations. The religious organizations of the non-Christian races are relaxed or relaxing. They have largely lost their missionary spirit. They do not possess the fundamental ideals of human liberty and social responsibility. Animism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, — none of them offers the ideals or the energy out of which to build a Commonwealth of Nations based on freedom or brotherhood. The religion of the Western hemisphere shares to a limited degree in the defects of European re- ligion. Where it has preserved the spirit of lib- erty it has often sacrificed the international and the inter-racial spirit. Yet even in the face of these facts we may still believe the religious forces of the world are an important consideration in the creation of a new spirit of liberty and of international amity. In fact we must consider them, for as they stand, they may prove a positive hindrance; they may do much to thwart the coming of a day of uni- versal brotherhood. THE NEW PATEIOTISM 157 n THE POWER OP RELIGIOUS CONVICTIOISrS We do not complete our summary of the re- ligious forces of the world until we take into con- sideration the more fundamental religious nature of man. One of the primary characteristics of the African is his religious sensibility. As for the Asiatics, they have, from the dawn of history, been the great creative religious folk. They have given religion to the world: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Mohammedanism. A Eoman or an Anglo-Saxon may be the organizer, but it takes an Oriental to write a psalm or to make a prophecy. And the religious resources of Europe and America are immensely greater than the power of any church organization would indi- cate. There is nothing fixed about the religion of the western world except the Gospel which it accepts and yet applies with so many limitations. As the Gospel of Jesus is projected into the non-Christian world it will meet, as it is already meeting, the religious nature of the non-Christian peoples. When Christianity is restored to the Orient from which it came it uncovers energies and vitalities such as were characteristic of the Apostolic days. When the Oriental becomes an evangelical Christian he is likely to become a very superior one, fearless, uncompromising, a martyr to death as so many of them have been, or a martyr to daily persecution. If we were to take the rela- 158 A BETTEE WOELD tive sincerity and vigor of the Christians of the United States and of Asia as standards, I would say without any hesitation that twenty-five mil- lion Christians in India or China or Japan would exert ten times the influence on public affairs that twenty-five million Protestants in the United States are now exerting. The present body of Christian believers in non- Christian lands already amounts to more than fifteen million souls. For every baptized Christian I am convinced that there are not less than ten whom we may call *^ near-Christians," people who have accepted the Christian ideals of conduct as the best. The best known book in all the world is the Bible, and the Bible, be it remembered, has always been the forerunner of both liberty and social responsibility, the two qualities of heart without which peace is never more than a truce. Nor can we forget the nearly ten thousand mis- sionaries already in non-Christian lands. They are, individually, the most effective agents which civilization now possesses for the interpretation of the non-Christian races to the master nations, and the interpretation of the idealistic side of western civilization in both Asia and Africa. in CHEISTIANITY A WOBLD-WIDE NECESSITY Because the religious forces of the world are SO supremely important in determining public THE NEW PATRIOTISM 159 action we hold that world-wide Christianity is a logical, political, economic, and biological, as well as a personal necessity. It is a logical necessity, because if among any race of people it is not a necessity, it is not a necessity anywhere. Its claims do not admit of distinction between races or eras. Men are chil- dren of God and therefore brothers. The human soul is of infinite value: it contains measureless capacities for regeneration through the exercise of faith. Christ was the perfect revelation of the Creator's purpose, the Way. These claims, with many related ones, are not geographical, or racial. The moment one admits them for oneself and at the same time denies their equal imperativeness for one's neighbor, or for the African, or for the Asiatic, one is involved in logical absurdity. Christianity is logically a missionary religion. When it ceases to be missionary it ceases to be Christian. The vigor of Christian faith can al- ways be exactly gauged by its missionary zeal. It is a political necessity, because the principles I noted above are the only ones which offer a stable basis for a government by consent of the governed. Government without the consent of the governed rests ultimately on the preponderance of military power. It involves constant potential or actual war. The only alternative of an appeal to force is the appeal to reason and conscience on the basis of the universality of human brotherhood. War is anarchy, the negation of government itself*. 160 A BETTJ^E WOELD Christianity is also a biological necessity. ' ^ The teachings of Jesus," says Professor George J. Pierce, of Stanford University, in The Nation (May 10, 1919), *'are not alone the noblest doc- trines for the guidance of human conduct and the satisfaction of the aspirations of the human heart. They are the expression, in terms of noblest senti- ment, of biological necessity. As rehgion as senti- ment, they have encompassed the world. They are convictions, but they have not convinced it. Biological reflection leads only to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. It leads to a realization that only man has attempted to exist in places and numbers beyond the adequate supply of food and water, and that the only chance of his succeeding in this attempt lies, not in the destruction of his weaker fellows, but in his com- bining and cooperating with them that the earth may be forced to produce more than its spon- taneous yield of food." The personal necessity of world-wide Christian- ity lies in the fact that it will not suffice for our salvation from fratricidal war or international anarchy that we merely possess these convictions for ourselves. It is necessary to persuade the other man and the other nation of their rightness. Crusoe may believe in the principles of Christian brotherhood for himself, but if Friday does not accept them, a resort to arms will not make him accept them, and woe to Crusoe to the end of time. THE NEW PATEIOTISM 161 Armed force is the background of the League of Nations, and not very far in the background, either, as Germany, Russia and China already know. Armed force is to be used only if the moral forces of the world fail, but what chance is there for the moral forces of the world to succeed in a world where even the Peace Conference was un- able to agree on a moral ideal? The League of Nations itself is not committed to either the moral ideal of racial equality or the ideal of the consent of the governed. The League of Nations cannot be enforced upon the world, except temporarily; it can be trans- formed and then supported by the organized opin- ion of mankind. The League is very far from being the Kingdom of God of which prophets dreamed and of which Christ taught but it can rest on the Kingdom of God, on a world-wide fel- lowship of all those whose hearts have been moved by the spirit of Christ to acknowledge the human brotherhood with its compelling obligations. A missionary Christianity is the biological necessity of civilization. Without it civilization will destroy itself. IV THE USE OF MILITANT MINOEITIES To meet this tremendous challenge organized Christianity is not very well prepared. American Protestantism in particular is unready and per- 162 A BETTER WOELD haps most of all unprepared because of the pos- session of the very spirit which is its greatest con- tribution to world-wide Christianity, its independ- ence and its democracy. No hierarchy can control its efforts, no denomination can speak for it. American Protestantism is, speaking broadly, in spite of all the facts to the contrary, ignorant, in- dolent, divided, inarticulate. The organizations which might be presumed to be able to speak for it are entirely dependent upon public opinion which, in turn, is apathetic and ill informed. Division is the blessed heritage of Protestant- ism, the proof of its liberty but also its weakness. It is the instrument of ^^ direct action,'* what the I. W. W. is to economic reform. It is the ec- clesiastical expression of disrespect for the or- derly processes of republican government, the recourse of minorities. American Protestantism is always in especially grave danger of division. In fact, we may say that it is always in the process of schism, and that process is especially notice- able today. There is an ignorant, indolent major- ity and an aggressive, impatient minority. The minority often represents, as it does now, the strongest kind of power and leadership. The ques- tion always presented to that minority is, ^ ^ Shall we stay by the Church, or shall we leave it, cast- ing on our energies with other smaller groups which can be more quickly informed and more easily stirred?" Some answer this question one way, some another. It cannot be denied that for THE NEW PATEIOTISM 163 more than a decade Protestantism has been in the process of this schism. There has been a steady stream, not large perhaps, but of immense power, which has been withdrawing* its strength from the Church, either to dissipate it or to spend it in other agencies of reform. The peculiarity of the present schism is that it does not result in the organization of still another denomination. It gives to us rather merely a large Christian penumbra, as it might be called, an outer circle of Christians, believers in the gospel, generously disposed toward the Church, but ineffective and undependable as members for the leavening of the lump. This schism would be immeasurably larger than it is were it not for the appearance, within the last half century, of a new tendency. It was only within that time that Protestantism learned how to utilize its militant minorities — an art which the Eoman Catholic Church had discovered centuries before. It has been characteristic of the Catholic Church, whenever new vitality appeared within the organization in response to new social or per- sonal needs, to permit the creation of new orders, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Jesuits, the Eedemptorist Fathers, the Christian Brothers, the St. Vincent de Paul and the Father Matthew So- cieties. These orders did not have to wait for the Church to be leaven; they remained within the Church and became the leaven. In the same way Protestantism has come to provide for similar 164 A BETTER WORLD situations by organizing young people's societies, Young Men's Christian Associations, Young Women's Christian Associations, Laymen's Mis- sionary Movements, Missionary Education Move- ments, and other representative or federated or- ders for the aggressive prosecution of some spe- cial phase of Christian work. But even these great organizations, effective as they are in their selected fields, do not entirely stem the tide. The majority of the Church may be indolent and ignorant, but the minority is not, and it is demanding not merely that the Church be iemocratic, but that it also become a more effective democratizing force, in the community, the city, the state, the nation, the world. The desire of the minority for more direct action persists; the de- sire has been immeasurably stimulated by the events of the last five years. The most promising new agency which has ap- peared to take up this insistent task which the European War has revealed is the Interchurch World Movement of North America. It does not seek church union, nor does it operate to restrict the liberty of any believer or any denomination. But it does pffer to every church and every Christian, while retaining his precious ideal of liberty, a world vision, a world-wide purpose and a program of definite action looking toward the cure of those ills of the world which are now especially conspicuous. The Interchurch World Movement began, in a THE NEW PATEIOTISM 165 business-like way, not with exhortation but with a careful survey of the present resources of or- ganized Christianity both in America and abroad, as well as with a measurement of the need. It asks of American Protestantism, ^^What do we have? What do we need? How can the Church become a more effective, aggressive instrument in the Christianizing of the social order, the national order and the world-wide order ? ' ' No movement of equal breadth and depth has ever before been proposed. None, in the light of the present bewilderment, confusion and ani- mosity of the world, is more timely. The plan meets exactly the crucial needs of an ignorant, indolent, divided Church. It also offers an op- portunity of adequate service to those who are so impatient that the Church become a more active force for Christian democracy. V A NEW GOSPEL FOE A NEW AGE But the indolence of the Christian Church, as we well know, is not due merely to ignorance and division. Nor is it due to its great mass. Every age has, to a large extent, selected its own Gospel. No age has ever taken the entire Gospel as the object of its faith and practice. The modem age has been particularly neglectful of that part of the teachings of Jesus which deal with the rela- tion of property to life. It has been equally un- 166 A BETTER WORLD mindful of the social obligations of liberty. We thought the great War had brought a moral awakening in which the true relation of property to life and the true relation of men to men had been discovered. The Treaty of Peace has been a rude awakening, for in it property is frequently elevated above life, and selfishness is crowned again with the sanction of international law. To be sure, our government is less responsible for this than are some others, but who shall say that our cleaner hands are not due more to geographi- cal location than to our better hearts. We do not have a better, a. more Christian treaty, because we do not have a better, a more Christian world. We shall not have a better world until the Christians of the world return to the Gospel of Christ as it relates, not to dogmas or polities, but to the obligations of living and the relation of property to life. To these truths the Peace Treaty is hardly more blind than is the public sentiment of the average American com- munity. The ^^pork-barreP' legislation of the Peace Conference is matched by the ^^pork-barreP' spirit of our own ward, or even of our own church. We owe to the late Professor Rauschenbusch an analysis of what might be called the Law of Diminishing Power of the Christian code. He pointed out the diminishing application of Chris- tian ethics as we pass from the smaller to the larger circles of social organization. It has become commonplace to assert that THE NEW PATEIOTISM 167 Christianity has never been applied except as a personal religion. Those who repeat the asser- tion often overlook the fact, which Prof. Rausch- enbusch pointed out, that Christianity has been applied, very widely applied, as a social code in the family. Among Christian peoples the insti- tution of the family has been largely, if not com- pletely. Christianized. ^^ Blood is thick," we say, by which we mean that the family is a social group in which each individual tends to find his great- est contentment and satisfaction, not by a selfish policy of individual aggression at the expense of the other members of the family, but in coopera- tion with them for the common satisfaction of the entire group. The family has largely incorporated the ethics of Jesus. The school, likewise, has a large degree of the Christian purpose, although not so much as the family. The school is organized on the basis of securing the maximum of benefits for every pupil. There is cooperation, and the good which one pupil obtains is not at the expense of a competitor. The benefit which one has is not a loss to another. The neighborhood also is often very much Christian- ized. Families join together to seek the common good, helping each other, waiving selfish com- pensations to be obtained at the expense of the group. But already we see the effect of this law of diminishing power. The neighborhood does not possess a Christian spirit so strong as that of the home. The village or the city shows even 168 A BETTEE WOELD less of the spirit of cooperation, of common ef- fort for the common good, but they in turn usually sustain a higher social conscience than the state, considered as a unit, or the nation. The larger the group, the lower the average of application of the Christian doctrine of living to enhance life rather than to make a profit out of it. It has usually been assumed, and the facts of the world have seemed to justify the assumption, that patriotism, the love of country, is the abso- lute maximum application of Christian ethics. To place any love above that, as civic love is placed above neighborhood love, and civic love is in turn crowned by love of nation, is to pass over into the category of the polygamists who possess two wives and attempt to love them equally. The fallacy of the comparison is obvious, but to point it out is not to clear up the confusion in many minds. How can patriotism be related to inter- nationalism in such a way that one does not be- come liable under the laws of treason? Who will draft for us a new philosophy of patriotism, in which love of country finds its proper place in that larger circle of love for the human brother- hood? The European War, like all wars, has greatly stimulated love of country; it has also aroused a deal of hatred of other nations. The war has even identified hatred of other nations with love of one^s nation, and this hatred, unhappily we have to admit, has even been preached with smug sane- THE NEW PATRIOTISM 169 timoniousness from Christian pulpits. Public opinion has been poisoned and it has been more often bewildered. What are the limits of pa- triotism? Has patriotism any limits at all? What is its relation to the Kingdom of God, to a re- generated, world-wide society? *^The new religion of the world is patriotism," said a Jewish professor in a Spanish university to me with a smile, several months before the Treaty was signed, when I asked him about re- ligious conditions in Spain. **The new faith has the good as well as the bad qualities of the old. It gathers all sorts of people together, gives them unity of purpose, and stimulates them to defend their homes and their culture. It also brings out their peculiarities and causes many needless irri- tations.'' **I have great confidence, however," he said, '*that the United States will correct this shallow patriotism. The moral example of America's en- trance into the war has been tremendous. The intervention of the United States saved the moral- ity of the world. Before the American interven- tion there was grave danger that even though the Allies might win, they would win at the expense of liberty and justice. The reactionary forces of the Allied nations were gaining the ascendency. For a time it looked as though an Allied victory would be merely a victory for Allied junkerism and imperialism. As soon as the United States entered the war, the very purposes for which the 170 A BETTEE WOELD war was being waged were changed. Immedi- ately the idea of revenge and the total destruction of Germany began to disappear. Never before in the history of the world did armies behave in con- quered territory as the Allied armies are now con- ducting themselves in Germany. Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson made a great trinity; one for revenge, another for justice, and the third for clemency." A Spanish journalist put it this way: ** Spain wrote *Don Quixote;' but it remained for the United States to put its principles into practice.'' The neutral nations of Europe found it impossible to believe that the United States would enter the war. It was evident to them that America had only to remain neutral, supply the warring nations with the instruments of destruction, stand by and see them destroy each other and then become the greatest power in the world. The spectacle of such a great nation throwing away its selfish advantages for the sake of a principle has been to the world one of the moral compensations of the cataclysm. Nevertheless we cannot blink the fact that the United States also entered the war in self-defense. If the Allies had been defeated our turn would have been next. In self -protection we were com- pelled to fight for the restoration of an even mod- erately moral order among the Christian nations. The resulting victory has brought us even some advances in international moral law, but the most THE NEW PATRIOTISM 171 important gift wMoli it has bestowed on the United States is a comprehension of the fact that America can no longer be isolated. We are our- selves a part of the international moral order. This order is not yet perfect. The new law con- tains injustices and possibilities of trouble almost equal to those of the old. The same law of self- defense which compelled us to fight for even the modest victory we have obtained, likewise com- pels us to fight, peacefully, we believe, to lift that law to a still higher level. VI THE INESCAPABLE PATH TO PEACE The war was the great demonstration of the integrity of the moral order of the universe. Now we know that there is a moral order. We know it by ten million graves and ten million broken homes, by veral times ten million starving peo- ple and by dying boys and girls. The moral law of the universe is Christian brotherhood. That law, and it alone, is humanity's defense, its first trench and its last one. It is not discreditable that the United States went to war in self-defense. Her self-defense is the same as that of every other nation and race, if they did but know it, the law of human brother- hood. We fought for love of men; we fought in fear of the penalty which would come upon us if the moral order were defeated. We fought as 172 A BETTER WOELD every man mnst live from day to day, in love of brothers and in fear of God. In the realization of this integrity of life in- dolence disappears, just as it disappeared so uni- versally throughout the nation for a full year and one-half. There was no indolence in the American army in France, or in the camps at home. Rather there was impatience that the opportunities for giving were so reluctantly extended. Nor was there indolence in the homes from which the sol- diers came. There was **war work," there was incredible generosity, there was voluntary re- striction of gasoline, of fuel, even of food. The nation was no longer ignorant, no longer dis- united, no longer indolent. In that great period we caught the vision of human brotherhood, the very vision for the lack of which a Christ was crucified. This is the new patriotism in which love of home, of city, state and nation finds its fulfill- ment — ^love of the Christian brotherhood, nation deep and world wide. To die for one is to die for all ; to live for one is to live for the others. You and I are not the units, self-sufficient, self- defending; we are but parts of the unit — the brotherhood. We were born into the world as individualists, assuming that we were, each one of us, the all important desire in the universe. The primitive impulse, which still persists in in- dividuals, in nations, is to take the most direct THE NEW PATRIOTISM 173 road to the satisfaction of our desires, even when that road leads through a country not our own. We were bom individualists ; we must be bom again, both men and nations, born into the world of social obligation and responsibility. In the making of this discovery of the inescapable Gos- pel of Jesus Christ lies the hope of peace for the world. 4oa ^ ,0 w ^v -..v*^ =^-^ ^ ^^ ^^ Sr' 4-7* ^ r \ ,•?- o 0^ >'" ,* O 5 »iv^ ^ "^ o. c:^ -0-^ \ ■ . "> ^ -v Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide '^. \\' 1 r^ .-is Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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