I GIFT OF MICHAEL REESE THE FORKS OP THE ROAD THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE FORKS OF THE ROAD BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN AUTHOR OF *' LIVE AND LKAEN," " COMMENCBMENT DAYS," ETC. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 All rights reser'^ed COPTEIGHT, 1916, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1916. J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. ^. CONTENTS OHAPTER I. The Scandal of the Centu- RIE8 1 11. The Real Thing 9 III. The Organic Law of Human Society 23 IV. The Blessing and the Curse 34 V. The Kingdoms of Antichrist . 42 VI. The Theology of Militarism 62 VII. The Forks of the Road . 87 VIII. Where is the Church? . 112 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/forksofroadOOgladrich NOTE This book has been awarded the prize, offered by the Church Peace Union, for the best essay on War and Peace. vii THE FORKS OF THE ROAD THE SCANDAL OF THE CENTURIES THE outbreak of the present war was greeted by a chorus of ex- clamations over the failure of Christian- ity. That such an eruption of violence should occur in the midst of a civiliza- tion claiming to be Christian seemed to onlookers in the neutral nations some- thing unnatural and shocking. Such a reaction of the popular mind against the phenomena of war was a little surprising. Was the world ever before shocked to an equal degree, by B 1 ^ . TJ[E FORKS OF THE ROAD the outbreak of any war? I cannot answer with assurance, but I do not recall any record of a similar revulsion of feeling at the imminence of warfare. The gates of Janus, not often shut in past centuries, have generally been flung open with a shout. We may count it a note of progress that they were opened this time with a groan that was audible all round the world. Former generations have accepted war as a matter of course ; this generation was inclined to regard it as something anomalous and mon- strous. And this revulsion of feeling was directed toward the coexistence with Christian civilization of a war as fierce and deadly as this was sure to be. That such horrible enginery of hate and de- struction as the nations had been making ready, should be let loose, in the twen- tieth century after Christ, to ravage our fertile fields, and lay waste our homes. THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 3 and destroy our fairest works of art, and strew our plains with the mutilated corpses of millions of our young men, — while, on every side church spires were lifting crosses toward heaven, and men baptized in the name of Christ and going forth armed to kill one another, were praying to the universal Father in the words that Jesus had taught them — all this was a spectacle so ghastly, so revolting, so utterly insensate that the world held its breath in horror. It was the scandal of the centuries. It was not true that Christianity was in any direct way responsible for the present war. The organizations which assume to represent Christianity have been, indeed, responsible for many bloody wars. From the days of Constantine down to modern times the church, led by popes and bishops and inspired by monks and missionaries, has often been on the 4 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD battle-field. Some of the fiercest wars of history, like the Crusades and the Thirty Years' War, have been fought by direct command of church officials and under their leadership. It is not so with the present war. It does not appear that ecclesiasticism, in any of its forms, had anything to do with inciting this outbreak. The interests involved were not connected in any obvious way with the Christian churches. The moral sense of mankind did not blame the churches for bringing on the war; the world was shocked, first, because of the coexistence of Christianity and war, and second, because of the promptness with which the Christians in all the belligerent nations rushed into the war. The moral sense of mankind — or what some of us would like to recognize as the moral sense of mankind, in its highest expres- sion — appears to have reached a phase THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 5 of development at which it regards the coexistence of Christianity and war as a grotesque anomaly. The two insti- tutions would seem to be mutually exclusive. Yet here is war, on the most stupendous scale known to history, spreading itself over a large part of the civilized world, and the Christian churches, in all the countries immedi- ately affected, are not only offering no effectual resistance to it, but are giving to it, in sermons and prayers and the consenting voices of great congrega- tions, their heartiest approval and sup- port. I think that "the moral sense of most" has a right to be shocked and scandalized by this state of things and to call for an explanation. Let us look at the fact of war as it is reported in the consciousness of the nation most closely allied to our own. We will not attempt the dreadful recital 6 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD of the physical facts of carnage and de- struction, we will only listen to the report of what is going on in the minds of the people. These are the words of Professor L. P. Jacks, a teacher of Philosophy in Oxford University, and editor of "The Hibbert Journal": "Only a year ago we looked out into a future which was comparatively assured. We were laying our plans, buying, selling, marrying and giving in marriage, like the men of old before the Lord rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Our sons were growing up and we were arranging their careers. Today our sons are in arms and under orders from the front, and as they gather round us for the parting feast we thank God that we cannot raise the veil of the future. Our families are threatened with possibilities of which we dare not think. Thus, at the very center of our life the menace begins, and it runs out- THE FORKS OF THE ROAD ^ ward until every idea, every habit of mind, every interest, every conviction has received its share of the shock — If you would conceive the state of our national psychology you must imagine how you yourself would feel and think if everything you had taken for granted and reckoned as secure, — your country, your home, your family, your property, your life, your ideals were suddenly menaced and bidden to defend them- selves from destruction. A frontier set- tlement, in the old days, which had just received intelligence that a powerful tribe of Red Indians was on the warpath in the immediate vicinity; a populous city feeling the tremors of an earthquake which had already shattered its next neighbor — these are images which may help the reader to understand the psycho- logical disturbance of England at the present hour. I do not mean that there 8 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD is panic; for there is none. England is calm, resolute, and prepared. Her teeth are set and she has braced herself to meet a tremendous shock." ^ If we who dwell in the neutral coun- tries have less reason for such disturbing terrors, there is still, for us, abundant cause for solicitude and alarm. We, also, are confronting the wreck and over- throw of all that is sacred and precious. When nearly all the civilized nations, comprising two-thirds of the popula- tion of the globe, are in a death grapple, and the ideas and institutions on which our own national existence rests are fighting for their lives, it does not require a prophet to convince us that we also are facing the most tremendous reality that the human race has ever been called to encounter. 1 " Yale Review," April, 1915. n THE REAL THING WHAT is this dread reality, this " Real Thing," which the Oxford professor finds us all "up against"? He does not define it, except by its effects. It is a profound dislocation of the exist- ing order of things. It is a threat of devastation and chaos. Nay, it is more than a threat, the work of ruin is in relentless progress ; millions of men have been slaughtered, hundreds of towns and cities destroyed, thousands of homes razed to earth, noble temples and monu- ments of art defaced or demolished, millions of acres of fertile lands laid waste, and, worse than all, the seeds of murderous hate have been sown in 9 10 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD the hearts of men, which threaten a dire harvesting. It will take the world long years to recover from the economic losses which it has suffered already, and the work of devastation goes on, with no end in sight. And who can predict the abatement of the enmities which make useful human intercourse impossible. Such are the effects of this Thing which we are confronting, but what is the cause? Is there not a cause? Is it something occult, unaccountable, pre- ternatural? Is it some elemental phe- nomenon, like an earthquake or a cyclone ? No: that indolent assumption must not be entertained. This "Real Thing'' is a historical fact ; it is nothing magical or mystical; it must have historical causes, and we can find them if we search for them. Professor Jacks ventures one explana- tion. "The cause of the present war THE FORKS OF THE ROAD H is quite simple; some nation or nations ^wanted to fight. And I venture to think that so long as any powerful nation wants to fight, no human arrange- ment, no scheme of federation or international peace will prevent it from fighting." 1 But this is too simple. The wanting to fight must be explained. There was a tremendous accumulation, somewhere, of inclination to fight, — an inclination that had been fed and nourished for long periods. Besides this there were, in all these nations, vast preparations for war, billions of dollars' worth of arms and implements of war in readiness for use, millions of men who had been trained in the arts of war. What needs to be accounted for is this aggregation of murderous hate and murderous machin- ery. This is not a mere impulse or 1 Op, ciL, p. 435. 12 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD sentiment, it is a product. It is an effect ; what is the cause? The universal belief of all the nations that all the other nations are actual or probable enemies, is the procuring cause of the armaments by which war is made, and of the wars in which the armaments logically issue. This belief in the uni- versal enmity of nations — how is it engendered? One theological answer is that enmity is the central principle of human nature ; that it is natural for men to hate one another. This was the basis of the philosophy of Hobbes — that the nat- ural state of man is a state of war. Not many theologians or philosophers put their theory quite so baldly as this ; most of them shrink from saying that God made men to hate one another; but the assumption is general that after the fall of Adam the natural relation of THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 13 human beings became one of enmity. Among the regenerate, social and fraternal relations might be looked for, but noth- ing of the kind could be expected of the unregenerate ; among them the only logical relations must be those of an- tagonism and strife. They are naturally "opposed to all good," and the central good of life is agreement and unity. Of course, then, they would be opposed to that on principle. Not only so, "mankind by the fall lost communion with God and are under his wrath and curse." It would seem to be logical on this ground for the re- generate and the unregenerate to hate each other. The unregenerate are the enemies of God ; can the friends of God be expected to be the friends of his enemies? It is true that it has never been possible to work out this theory; regenerate parents have not generally 14 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD been able to follow their logic and hate their unregenerate children, and there have been many beautiful friendships among kindred and comrades and neigh- bors where a stringent orthodoxy would have forbidden all such relations. Hu- man nature will sometimes revolt against the most rigid theories; it refuses to be as inhuman as theology requires it to be. No doubt it thus furnishes addi- tional proof of its own depravity. While the theological theory of the natural enmity of human beings has sometimes been hard to believe, the theory of their natural selfishness has been readily accepted. That every hu- man being will make his own interest central and supreme, and will seek it at the expense of the interests of his fellows, is generally accepted and approved as the natural law of human conduct. This is not regarded as the result of the THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 15 fall; it is supposed to be the normal action of the average man. God did not make men to hate one another, but he made them to look out, each for himself, and to keep the interests of others always subordinate to his own. ''The great Author of Nature," said Malthus, Christian minister and polit- ical economist, "with that wisdom which is apparent in all his works," has made "the passion of self-love beyond comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence." And he proceeds to ex- plain why it is that by pushing our own interests with no concern for the inter- ests of others, we most surely promote the universal welfare. This is the philosophy which has ruled our civilization hitherto. The centrality and supremacy of the individual has been the keynote of our political economy and our politics, until a very recent day. 16 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD Not less thoroughly has it dominated our reUgion, putting the stress of its hortation on the primary obHgation of looking out for ourselves. All this was a grievous mutilation of the Christian morality, but it fell in with the prevail- ing theology and was supposed to reflect the Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest; and thus it held its own, not only in the church, but in the school and in the senate and in the mart. It is evident that from a church nurtured in doctrines like these no effective opposi- tion to war could be expected. Until the last half of the nineteenth century this theory of the centrality and supremacy of the individual held nearly undisputed sway over the thought of Christendom. In the last decades of that century its domination began to be questioned. A remarkable increase in the study of the New Testament THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 17 brought into clearer light the ethics of the Christ, and made it impossible for some of us to worship the infinite Ego who was central in the systems of indi- vidualistic theology. It became evident that he could not be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. A revision of Darwinism also made it plain that the law of the ape and tiger was modified by the advent of humanity, and that Nature, when the facts were all in, did not warrant the individual in seeking his own, in disregard of the welfare of his neighbors. Herbert Spencer proved from the study of the lowest orders of life that altruism is not less primordial than egoism ; that self-sacrifice is just as natural and just as necessary as self- assertion; and Henry Drummond and Prince Kropotkin have shown us how the struggle for life even among the grasses and the flocks and the herds is 18 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD lifted up and transfigured in " the strug- \ gle for the life of others." Thus we hear the first note of a posi- tive reaction against that philosophy of individualism which has dominated West- ern civilization until a recent day. It has gained enough control of the world's thought to make itself audible in the outcry against war which was heard at the outbreak of this infernal conflict; but it has yet by no means become the ruling idea in the minds of those who direct the policy of the nations. Nor is the popular mind of Christendom by any means purged of these notions. The mind of the multitude, even of those supposed to be educated, is not at all clear upon the fundamental laws of life. You' will hear thousands of in- telligent men contending in the streets today that the old law of eat and be eaten is regnant in human society and THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 19 must always be; that the big fish have always devoured the little ones and always will; that it is only silly senti- mentalists who blink at these hard facts. It is not Bernhardi or Treitschke alone who propagate the gospel of force; there are plenty of Americans who profess their faith in it, most of whom, thank God, would be ashamed of living up to it. Social theories, like the tails of snakes, often keep on wiggling long after life has gone out of them. But there is still enough of vitality in these individualistic theories to muddle the heads of millions. The outstanding fact is that there has been no clear and co- herent teaching respecting the founda- tions of the social order by the Christian church; the law of love has been preached, but for the most part it has been regarded as having a partial and rather esoteric application to human 20 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD relations; it was not supposed to be a practical rule in trade or business of any sort; it could not be followed in politics; it was a counsel of perfection rather than a rule of conduct. Thus the kind of morality for which the Christian church has stood sponsor has been a very equivocal rule; it could not furnish any adequate guidance for human society. Not many of those who profess and call themselves Chris- tians have any consistent theory of human conduct. Handling ordinary so- cial relations so timidly and with such vacillation, how could it be expected to deal efficiently with international relations? If it cannot make its influ- ence felt in the suppression of strikes, in the exploitation of the weak by the strong, in the growth of monopoly in democratic society, what reason have we to expect that it would make an effectual THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 21 protest against war? The fact which this war has brought most strongly to light has been the inadequacy of the moral leadership of the Christian church, which is due to the feebleness of its grasp upon the fundamental laws of life. This is the fact which the preced- ing sketch of the relation of the Chris- tian church to the moral development of society most strikingly reveals. The business of the church is to teach men how to live. The present condition of the world both within and among the na- tions of the earth is evidence that this business has been but indifferently done. Would it not be well for those who are called to the leadership of the churches to consider carefully, at this juncture, some of the simpler elements of the social order, to which, hitherto, they have given but indifferent attention. Such a study will show us what the church 22 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD could do, what it has done and what it has failed to do, and it will bring us near to the sources of that enmity of nations which is the root of all our wars. Ill THE ORGANIC LAW OF HUMAN SOCIETY HUMAN beings are made to live together upon this planet and to find in mutual co-operation a large part of the good of being. The law of life is therefore love or good will. They are sharers in one another's welfare; each one is largely dependent for his happi- ness on the well being and well doing of his fellows. This is the organic law of human society, which it is the main function of the church to understand and apply; it is as truly a natural law as gravitation or chemical affinity ; it is not dependent on any positive enactment, human or 23 24 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD divine; men are so made that if they recognize this principle of soUdarity and conform to it in their conduct they have health and prosperity and peace. This is known as Christ's law. It is his because he gave it form and currency ; his disciples gratefully and reverently connect his name with it; but all in- telligent Christians know that he simply formulated the principle which was im- pressed upon human nature by the Author of our being. Jesus declared it and incarnated it; but it has been the law of human conduct ever since hu- manity existed upon this earth, and it always will be, in every world inhabited by men. But this law is constantly violated by those who insist on dis- criminating their own interest from and exalting it above that of the community, on preferring their individual good to the common good, and on using their THE FORKS OF THE ROAD ^5 fellows, as far as they can, as means to their own ends. The natural and inevitable consequence of this violation of the natural law of life is the cultivation of the spirit of ill will, in those who practice it and in those who are the victims of it. " What- soever a man soweth that shall he also reap." To sow ill will is to reap ill will, thirty, sixty, an hundred fold; for this is seed which rarely fails to catch. Every man who seeks his own interest at the expense of his neighbors naturally becomes their enemy and makes them his enemies. Unless his egotism is well concealed they soon learn to hate him. Out of this sowing spring the animosities and the hostilities which infest our social life, and often break out in destructive conflicts. These social disturbances are apt to be considered merely as causes of social loss or injury. We shall never 26 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD make much headway in dealing with them until we have learned to regard them as consequences, as penal conse- quences, of violated law. Every strike is a retribution inflicted upon the com- munity for its sin. It is the direct and inevitable result of the violation of the law of good will. It is evidence that groups of men have been seeking their own interests at the expense of their neighbors. When large groups com- bine in such struggles the consequences are apt to be serious. But these conse- quences are simply retributive — they are the natural results of disobedience of the law of life. When men refuse to obey the law of life they must suffer the penalty. And no penalties are more swiftly paid than those by which the law of good will is armed. It brings not only immediate and serious injury to the individual transgressor, but it THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 27 introduces into society inflammations and conflagrations of the most destruc- tive sort. There are few practical questions which are so Uttle understood by the people of the churches, and by those outside the churches, as this matter of the primary law of human conduct. There has been no lack of preaching of law and penalty in orthodox pulpits, but it has been largely the darkening of counsel by words without knowledge. The law, as it has been preached, was simply the requirement of moral per- fection, and the effort of the preacher has been to prove that such a law could never be obeyed and that the penalty of the law was eternal punishment. The one great business of men in this world as the pulpit has enforced it, is to escape from this threatened penalty by accepting the substitute provided. 28 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD When they have done that, their anxieties about law and penalty are at an end. As for the law of love, it is, of course, regarded as the idealization of the moral law which men are required to obey; but, for practical purposes, it is consid- ered as a bit of mild counsel, with no assignable sanction; of course we all break it every day and always shall, but the penalty of such disobedience is simply eternal punishment; and if we have secured ourselves against that by the substitutionary arrangement referred to, all is well with us, and if we have not, it is not inflicted until after death, and there will be abundant time to avert it by prudently repenting. In fact, how- ever, nobody seems to believe much in hell in these days; the orthodox minis- ters are always joking about it; and it is difficult to believe that a good God would consign to everlasting and reme- THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 29 diless suffering his own creatures. And since this is the only kind of penalty they know anything about, the multi- tude see no reason why they should greatly trouble themselves about it. In fact (so they often argue) we are con- stantly told that Christianity is a reli- gion of love, and if this is so all violation of its law will be leniently dealt with. If the Christian law is the law of love how can there be any penalty? Such is the mental muddle in which the current orthodox teaching is apt to leave the minds of those who listen to it. Of the real nature of the law of love as the law of life, of the ways that it has of enforcing itself, of the deadly reactions of disobedience to it in the soul and in society, how dim are the conceptions of the multitude! What shall be said of the teachers of morality who permit the generations to grow up 30 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD under the delusion that the law of good will is only a sentimental counsel of per- fection or pious advice, and that infrac- tions of it are punished, if at all, in some remote and semiconjectural futurity? How can they conceal from the sight of men the terrible facts which are daily transpiring before all who have eyes to see? We often hear orthodox teachers sneer- ing at the law of love as a mere senti- mentality — "gelatinous" is the term by which they are apt to characterize it. It is sentimental in just the same sense that the laws of hydrostatics or electro-dynamics are sentimental; it is derived from a book in the same way that the law of gravitation is derived from a book ; it is an induction from the facts of life; and its sanctions no more depend on any positive injunction than do the sanctions of the law of dietetics. THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 31 If you eat poisonous or indigestible food, the retribution is not deferred until after death and the judgment, nor is there any scheme of substitution by which you may evade the penalty; it follows the transgression instantly and inevi- tably. Not less swift and certain are the consequences of every violation of the moral law. The reaction of the evil deed upon the mind, the heart, the will of the evil doer is utterly inescapable. Transgressions of the law of love register themselves instantly in the character of the transgressor. They darken his judgment; they inflame his passions, they mar his relations with those from whom he has withholden the good will which is their due. We hate those whom we have injured, so long as the injury is unrepented of and unforgiven. We cannot help it, we are made that way. Not only is every selfish act a 32 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD manifestation of an unsocial nature, it tends to make the man who does it more unsocial. Selfishness breeds hate, and hate, as Jesus has told us, is incipient murder. Such is the penalty of the law of love in its reaction upon the individual. Upon society its effects are no less deleterious. Every violation of the law of love sets up irritations, resent- ments, suspicions, jealousies, which dis- turb all human relationships, which tend to break out in quarrels and colli- sions of will, and to make helpful human relationships difficult or impossible. The enmities and fightings which keep hu- man society in turmoil are thus perfectly explicable; there is nothing occult or mysterious about them; if they should cease we should know exactly how to go to work to reproduce them ; if we should conclude that they are undesirable we know how to get rid of them. THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 33 About all this how much do the people know who are led into the churches by the current popular evangelism? Not so much as they ought to know. Some of them have gained an inkling of it; to not a few among them these deeper and larger meanings of life have been revealed; but by most of those who magnify and extol what they call "the good old gospel/' truths of this nature are but dimly apprehended. What the real forces are which are shaping their own lives and the life of the society in which they live, they very imperfectly understand. And they do not see that be- cause of their failure to understand these things, they are cherishing influences and habits of thought and speech and action which can only result in filling the earth with bitterness and strife and contention. That they understand them so imperfectly is mainly the fault of Christian teachers. IV THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE TO a considerable extent modern civilized society has got rid of enmity and conflict. Life is not all strife and contention; in the lives of most of us there are many serene and restful days ; we prosecute our callings in a fair measure of peace and find our- selves gladly co-operating in many use- ful and harmonious ways with our fellow men. Within the boundaries of the great nations these relations of amity between individuals have been gradually strengthening; the fact of our interde- pendence has been forcing itself upon our thought; the sense of solidarity has been deepening; in constantly en- 34 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 35 larging groups we have been learning the value of co-operation. That this is due in considerable part to the influence of Christianity can hardly be gainsaid ; in spite of its utterly defective administration, the teaching and spirit of its Founder have to so great an extent leavened society that egoistic conduct has been measurably discredited, and many have learned to praise and not a few to practice the principle of good will. Doubtless, also, the lesson of experience has been learned by many with whom the precepts of Christianity have had little weight; for wherever the law of love has been given a fair trial it has demonstrated its practicality. Thou- sands of traders have found, by actual trial, that it is more profitable for them to work together than to make war on one another, and the merchants and manufacturers in nearly every line of 36 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD business have formed associations, and are meeting, constantly, to consult about their mutual interests. The change in this respect which has taken place within the last twenty-five years is significant. The great consolidations which have appeared in industry are also due in part to the same discovery. And the unions and federations of labor are witnesses to the truth that the good of life is found not in isolation, but in co-operation. The recognition of the regnancy of this truth is, however, still very partial. Many who profess to believe it have never fully grasped it, and there are multitudes as we have seen who frankly and even scornfully repel it, denying the possibility of making good will the su- preme motive of conduct; affirming the centrality of the egotistic motive and basing upon it their entire philos- THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 37 ophy of conduct. The impossibility and even the absurdity of disinterestedness, the certainty that every man will make his own interest the ruling motive of all his choices is the professed creed of a mul- titude. The man in the street affirms it somewhat less confidently than once he did, but he keeps affirming it. Such a philosophy has been en- couraged by much of our popular reli- gion which has presented God as the infinite Egoist, doing everything for his own glory, and has made its strongest appeal to the self-interest of men. It can hardly be a matter of wonder then that the central law of conduct has been so feebly grasped by the great majority of men ; and that there are so many who, though accepting it in some of their human relations, contemptuously reject it in others ; — business men, for ex- ample, who have come to believe rather 38 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD enthusiastically that good will and co- operation are most valuable in their relation with other business men, but regard them as quite out of the question in their relations with their employees; and wage-workers who have discovered that it is a good thing to be friends with other wage-workers, but who cannot regard those who pay them their wages in any other light than that of enemies. So it comes about that while good will to some extent controls the relations of many individuals, it is often entirely ruled out of the relations of classes. Our bitterest and most destructive social conflicts arise from this source; they are the penalties inflicted upon society for its failure to apply the principle of good will to all human relations. Thus it appears that human society is yet but imperfectly organized; a large share of the individual wills of which it THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 39 is composed yield an imperfect obedi- ence to its organic law; many groups are in concerted rebellion against it. There is enough respect for it and volun- tary obedience to it to keep society from chaos, and to produce large and precious results of social welfare; but there is also enough of disobedience to it to fill the best society which we have yet seen with strife and confusion. Wherever it is obeyed it brings peace and welfare and happiness ; wherever it is disobeyed it brings disturbance and conflict and fear. Thus "the Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness" is seeking to educate mankind into the obedience of the law of life. What an old prophet reported Him as saying a good many years ago, he has been saying to every generation in the reactions of the laws which are impressed on human nature : "Behold I have set before you life and 40 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose Hfe." But Hfe must be chosen; it is a good that cannot be ours unless we choose it, and therefore the education of mankind proceeds slowly. The good can well afford to wait. "He that in- habiteth eternity" is never in a hurry. It goes slowly, but it goes. The reign of good will is wider and stronger far than it was one thousand years ago, or even one hundred years ago. Many of us have rejoiced to see its empire broaden- ing and deepening within the nations even in our own day. Within the nations its great conquests have been won in the social life and the political life of the great nations. It has abolished slavery. It has lowered the barriers of caste. It has led in democracy. It has lightened the bur- dens of the poor and opened to them the door of opportunity. It has given THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 41 honor to women, and is now proceeding to clothe her with poHtical power. It has widened the range of human sym- pathy and deepened the springs of pity. All this has been done for the hmnaniza- tion of the relations of men within the nations. Even from such partial ac- ceptance as has been given to the law of good will by the individuals and the groups which make up the life of the several nations, such benefits as these have resulted. Between the peoples, also, of the several nations, many bonds of amity, many co-operative relations have been established. Commerce has been weav- ing the ties of mutual service; travel and migration have been promoting ac- quaintance and friendship. We have even been hoping for a world common- wealth in which we might all be fellow citizens. THE KINGDOMS OF ANTICHRIST THE new elements which have entered into human thought during the last half century are cer- tainly significant. Such revisions of the old theology as have found acceptance in the churches, with the corrections which the later thinking has compelled, of the first crude inferences of Darwin- ism have resulted in those humanizing influences which are reviewed in the last chapter. These meliorating tenden- cies have by no means worked them- selves out into the popular belief; it takes time to knead the leaven of rational good will into the lump of the popular intelligence ; but there are signs 42 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 43 that the old individualism which so long dominated human thought and ruled the current theology is yielding to a larger view in which the individual, instead of discriminating his interest from that of the community and seeking first his own salvation, shall identify himself with the community, and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, finding himself, and securing his own welfare, not by struggle against his fellows, but by co-operation with them. This, un- deniably, is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; and if the Christian church had been loyal to it, in its simplicity, strife and warfare would have disappeared from the earth long ago. How much has been accomplished even by such qualified and apologetic credence as the Christian church has given to it we have seen in the last chapter. It would seem that with such fruits in sight the Chris- 44 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD tian church might have been emboldened to accept the teachings of its Founder and commit itself unreservedly to the doctrine of the Kingdom. This it has never yet done, and accordingly we find intrenched in Christian society and tolerated if not cherished by the Chris- tian church, strong influences and in- stitutions which are distinctly and de- fiantly anti-Christian. Industry, politics and war are all out- side the pale of Christian ethics; the principles which rule in them are in direct and flagrant opposition to the principles laid down by Jesus Christ as fundamental for human society. The Kingdom of God for which we daily pray can never come until these institu- tions are revolutionized; that is to say, the Kingdom could not come without destroying or undermining the founda- tions on which they rest. THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 45 Let us consider what this means. I have said that industry as at present organized, is on an anti-Christian basis. Trade, as we have seen, has felt the influence of Christian ideas, and shows signs of responding to them. Mer- chandising no longer wishes to associate itself with piracy or plunder. The idea prevails that trade may be of mutual advantage both to buyers and to sellers. Not only so, the merchants themselves are learning to co-operate; friendly as- sociations among them are multiplying; it is beginning to be evident that the good of life may be shared among them. No doubt there is still in this realm sufiicient selfishness, but the fact is that the spirit of good will has a far larger recognition among traders than it had twenty-five years ago. Respecting the organization of industry so much cannot be said. The industrial 46 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD world is divided into two distinct classes, and the relations between these are not friendly but antagonistic. Despite all the arguments by which economists have sought to prove that the interests of employers and employees are identical, the practical fact is that as classes they are arrayed against each other and are seeking to gain their ends, not by co- operation, but by strife. There are employers who wish to promote the in- terests of their workmen, and there are employees who cherish kindly feeling toward their employers, but individuals of both these classes who cultivate such pacific sentiments are apt to be under the suspicion of their associates ; to be a friend of *^ capital," or to treat it with con- sideration, is to be regarded by "labor" as an enemy, and vice versa. The rela- tions between employers and employees are maintained by a series of struggles, THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 47 very destructive of life and health and happiness, in which each side seeks, by inflicting suffering and loss upon the other, to gain the advantage. The agreements on which such struggles are brought to an end are generally regarded as truces; the conditions presuppose the renewal of the conflict at no distant day. The last phase of this warfare is the proposal of the laboring class to exterminate the employing class, and by force or economic pressure to take into their own hands all the instruments of production. Clearly this is war; it is a direct repudiation of the law of life ; it is a distinct refusal to recognize good will and mutual service as the foundations of human society. There are those, as I have said, who struggle against these forces which make for antagonism and strife in industrial society and who seek to bring in a better day, but the prevail- 48 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD ing tendencies are still unsocial and anti- Christian. Of party politics the same thing must be said. Party politics is, confessedly, warfare. Parties are not organized to co-operate with each other, but to defeat and thwart and cripple each other. Each gains its end by disparaging and hindering the work of the other. Any measure proposed by one party will be likely to be criticized, in no sympathetic temper, by its adversaries. Any man nominated for office by either party may expect to have his misdeeds and defi- ciencies mercilessly brought to light by his rivals. There is much less of this now than once there was ; but the tradi- tions of the ape and tiger period in politics still linger, and any one who lives in a region where politicians are active be- comes painfully aware of the fact that there is a large realm of human activity THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 49 in which the law of good will is flouted as utterly impractical. These antago- nisms of politics are not always deadly; the wrath which they invoke is often more humorous than terrifying, and is rehearsed derisively the day after elec- tion; but they are, nevertheless, suffi- cient to keep alive many a root of bitter- ness and to prevent or hinder the friendly co-operations in which neighbors might unite for the common good. The spirit which animates party politics gener- ally, with the slander and detraction "which do either accompany or flow therefrom,'' is as far from Christian- ity as the East is from the West; and it furnishes another instance of the fail- ure of the church to enforce its message in the great realms of human activity. Of all the kingdoms of anti-Christ, however, the most powerful is the realm of international relationships. Here the 50 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD principle of good will has found but scant recognition. Between nations no such obligation has been acknowledged, or if in any sense it was admitted, it was at once distinctly consigned to a subordinate function. Reciprocity be- tween states has not been provided for by the laws and usages of nations; it was distinctly a new note when John Hay, in his negotiations with China, declared that the United States in- tended to govern itself, in its dealings with other nations, by the Golden Rule. That each state will make its own in- terest paramount is the nearly uniform assumption. That a nation should love its neighbor nation as itself, would be regarded by the average diplomat as an extremely sentimental proposition. Each nation must, of course, love it- self supremely ; international relations are founded, ultimately, on THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 51 "The good old rule, the simple plan, That he should get who has the power. And he should keep who can." Good will may be permitted to play some subordinate part in national inter- course, but the fundamental assumption of every nation is that every other nation is a probable enemy. Every armament is the advertisement — the proclamation by the nation — of its lack of faith in the existence of good will on the part of its neighbors; of its unwillingness to trust in the law of love as the basis of national relation- ships. Every fort, every battleship, every regular army regiment, every militia organization, is a confession of the national faith in force rather than in good will. If it is not a declaration of its own purpose to invade and overpower weaker 52 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD peoples it is an accusation against other nations, — a confession of its suspicion that some or all of them are likely to invade and plunder it, unless it is armed against them. Such is the state of mind in which we find the leading nations of the earth, the nations which call themselves Chris- tian. It is a state of mind with which all intelligent Christians should make themselves familiar, and should endeavor to understand and explain. This state of mind is the one important fact with which the world, at this crisis, has to deal. It is the spirit of militarism which is now before the world's judgment seat, and the Christian church is deeply concerned in this inquiry, because the spirit of militarism has entered into and taken possession of what we call Chris- tian civilization. For the health and sanity of the ideas which control Chris- THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 53 tian civilization, the Christian church is responsible. What then is this spirit of militarism to which we owe the pres- ent condition of the world? On the threshold of this inquiry, ques- tions will be raised as to the rightfulness of defensive wars. It is assumed that national self-defense is justifiable and it seems to be easy to prove that all war is defensive. That claim is con- fidently set up by all the combatants in the present war. When all other sub- terfuges fail the "preventiv Krieg" is a convenient contrivance for cushioning the national conscience. If you can only convince yourself that an enemy is getting ready to strike you, it is only self-defense to strike first. Such devices are amply furnished by the philosophers of militarism. Seriously, however, the rights of self- defense are not to be questioned, and the 54 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD duty of using force to prevent injustice may sometimes be imperative. An inno- cent nation may sometimes be dragged into war. That the Belgians were con- strained to resist the invasion of their territory is no sure proof that they had not been cultivating the sentiment of brotherhood. But when the nations of the earth are visibly engaged year after year in build- ing forts and forging cannon, and launch- ing fleet after fleet of battleships, each bigger and deadlier than all which have gone before, and inventing more and more hellish implements of destruction, — some of them forcing their young men to give years of their lives to study of the art of killing, it seems well-nigh certain that they do not hold themselves subject to the laws of the Kingdom of heaven. Those nations of which it can be truly said that this is a large part of THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 55 their occupation must surely be in a state of mind out of which war is bound to come. Those nations which are ex- pending the larger part of their revenues in preparing for war cannot be in a Christian state of mind. Say what we may about the justifiability of defensive war, the mental and moral condition of the nations which in times of peace are deliberately getting ready to kill each other, cannot be in accordance with any precept or principle of the Christian religion. This preparation cannot pro- ceed, as it has been proceeding during the last half century in all the nations which call themselves Christian, with- out the most flat repudiation of all that is central and vital in Christian morality. It cannot proceed except upon the as- sumption by each nation that some or all of the other nations are bent on attacking and destroying a friendly and 56 THE FORKS OF THE ROAD defenseless nation. For itself each na- tion, of course, claims to be free from all such predatory purposes. Equally of course it must accuse some or all of the other nations of being governed by such predatory purposes, else its herculean labors of preparation for defensive war would be absurd. For some or all of the other nations which it thus accuses it must therefore be cherishing fear and suspicion and consequent enmity. \ Those who are inciting this work of preparation for war must needs be cultivating in the minds of the people such fears and suspicions toward some nation or other as alone could warrant so heavy a drain upon its revenues. Of course, under such conditions, the rela- tion of this nation toward the other nations of whom it entertains such suspicions must be more and more strained. No nation can thus suspect THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 57 another without the other's knowing it and resenting it. Between nations thus regarding each other, an occasion for war will easily be found. N This is the psychology of war. It originates in a state of mind. <