Religion and the War Part 1

Religion and the War.

by Various.

PREFACE

Religious interests are quite as much involved in the world war as social and political interests. The moral and spiritual issues are tremendous, and the problems that arise concerning "the mighty hopes that make us men,"--hopes that relate to the Kingdom of G.o.d on earth,--are such as not only to perplex our most earnest faith, but also to challenge our most consecrated purpose. It is the sincere hope of those who have contributed to this volume that it may prove helpful in the solution of some of these problems.

E. H. S.

Yale University, August 21, 1918

I

MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FORCES IN THE WAR

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN

In one of our more thoughtful magazines we were favored last February with an article ent.i.tled, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself." It was a bitter, undiscriminating arraignment of the ministers and churches of the United States for their alleged lack of intelligent, sympathetic interest in the war. It was written by an Englishman who for several years has been vacillating between the ministry and secular journalism, but is now the pastor of a small church in northern New York. The vigor of his literary style in trenchant criticism was matched by an equally vigorous disregard for many of the plain facts in the case. His tone, however, was loud and confident, so that the article secured for itself a wide reading.

"What became of the spiritual leaders of America during those thirty-two months when Europe and parts of Asia were pa.s.sing through Gehenna?" the writer of this article asked in scornful fashion. And then after listing the enormities of the mad military caste which heads up at Potsdam, he asked the clergymen of the United States, "Why were you so scrupulously neutral, so benignly dumb?" His main contention was to the effect that the religious leaders of this country had been altogether negligent of their duty in the present world struggle, and that the churches were small potatoes and few in a hill.

It has been regarded as very good form in certain quarters to cast aspersion upon the ministers of the Gospel. When the war came men began to ask, sometimes with a sneer, and sometimes with a look of pain, "Why did not Christianity prevent the war?" It never seemed to occur to anyone to ask, "Why did not Science prevent the war?" No one supposed that Science would or could. It was the most scientific nation on earth which brought on the war.

It never occurred to anyone to ask, "Why did not Big Business, or the Newspapers, or the Universities prevent the war?" No one supposed that commerce or the press or education could avert such disasters. These useful forms of social energy are not strong enough. They do not go deep enough in their hold upon the lives of men to curb those forces of evil which let loose upon the world this frightful war. It was a magnificent tribute which men paid to the might of spiritual forces when they asked, sometimes wistfully, and sometimes scornfully, "Why did not Christianity prevent the war?"

The terrible events of the last four years have taught the world a few lessons which it will not soon forget. They have shown us the utter impotence of certain forces in which some shortsighted people were inclined to put their whole trust: The little toy G.o.ds of the Amorites--Evolution, with a capital E, not as the designation of a method which all intelligent people recognize, but as a kind of home-made deity operating on its own behalf! The Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age, all in capitals! The "Cosmic Urge," whatever that pretentious phrase may mean in the mouths of those who use it in grandiloquent fashion! The "Stream of Progress," the idea that there are certain resident forces in the physical order itself which make inevitably for human well-being and advance quite apart from any thought of G.o.d!

All these have shown themselves no more able to safeguard the welfare of society than so many stone images. They broke down utterly in the presence of those forces of evil which now menace the very fabric of civilization. The forces of self-interest unhallowed and undirected by any finer forms of spiritual energy have covered a whole continent with grief and pain. They have written a most impressive commentary upon that word of the ancient prophet, "The wicked shall be turned into h.e.l.l, and all the nations that forget G.o.d." Men are saying on all sides that unless hope is to be found in religion, in the action of the spirit of the Living G.o.d upon the lives of men, then hope there is none. What other guarantee have we that the greed and the l.u.s.t, the hatred and the ambition of wrong-hearted men may not again wreck the hopes of the race!

But still that question presses for an answer--Why did not these spiritual forces for which Christianity stands prevent the war? I have my own idea about that. It was because we did not have enough of Christianity on hand in those fateful summer days of 1914, and what we had was not always of the right sort. In certain countries the churches had been emphasizing the personal and private virtues of sobriety, chast.i.ty, kindliness and the like; they had been preparing the souls of men for residence in a blessed Hereafter. But they had not given adequate attention to the organized life of men in political and economic relations. They had not sufficiently exalted the weightier matters of justice, mercy and truth in the social organism.

These things they ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone.

The founder of our faith in the first public address he gave there in the synagogue at Nazareth struck the social note clearly and firmly.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to proclaim"--in all the high places of the organized life of the race--"the acceptable year of the Lord."

This was the platform on which he stood. This indicated the spirit and method of his mission. Organized and corporate righteousness was to be an essential element in the Gospel of the Son of G.o.d. The leaders of our Christian faith should have been voicing that same demand for social righteousness all the way from Berlin to Bagdad, and from London to the uttermost parts of the earth. The only Christianity which can avert similar disaster in the future is that Christianity which, like the Apostles of old, goes everywhere, preaching and practising the Gospel of the Kingdom, the sway and rule of the Divine Spirit in all the affairs of men.

It was highly significant, however, that the one nation in Europe which had gone farthest toward an atheistic materialism, toward a philosophy of force, a complete reliance upon physical efficiency and mental cleverness quite apart from any moral considerations, toward a flat indifference to all those manifestations of the religious spirit which are found in public worship, in missionary effort, and in the cultivation of a humble, devout spirit--it was the nation which had gone farthest in that direction which did more than any other nation to bring on the war.

And, conversely, it was that nation which had gone farther than any other nation in Europe toward making the religion of Jesus Christ a power for good in public and in private life which did more than any other single nation in those fateful July days to avert the war, and when war came it was that same nation which did more than any other nation to resist the encroachments of lawlessness and crime as we have seen them in Belgium and in northern France. We have had abundant reason to thank G.o.d for the Christianity there was in the lives of such men as Herbert H. Asquith, Arthur J. Balfour, and David Lloyd George, and in the lives of the brave men and women who have n.o.bly sustained them in their righteous contention. We could only have wished that the world had been possessed of a hundred times as much of that sort of Christianity; that would have prevented the war.

And when war came these spiritual forces still had something to say for themselves. Christianity had been pressing home upon the hearts of men those more vital principles until nine-tenths of all the earth was ashamed of the war. Not a single nation was willing to stand up and accept responsibility for bringing it on--not even Germany. That military caste in Potsdam has tried by all manner of intellectual shuffling to save its face by seeking to make it appear to its own people that the war was one of self-defense thrust upon them by unscrupulous enemies. The claim was so absurd that the whole world laughed it to scorn, even before the striking revelations were made by Prince Lichnowsky, the German amba.s.sador at London in the summer of 1914. The effort did, however, serve to make plain the fact that the German Government has not entirely lost the power of being ashamed of itself.

One hundred years ago it was not so. The Napoleonic wars dragged out their weary length for twenty-two sad years, but it never occurred to Napoleon or to France to apologize for those wars which were, for the most part, frankly wars of aggression and conquest. War was taken as a matter of course. It was costly, irrational, inhuman, then as it is now, but it did not have arrayed against it the moral sense of the race as that moral sense has come to be arrayed against this method of settling international difficulties in this twentieth century. In these days war is looked upon by all right-minded nations as the devil's own business, only to be accepted by right-minded nations as a last dire necessity when thrust upon them by governments which scruple not at either honor or right. It is something for the spiritual forces of earth to have accomplished that.

Moreover, when the war came never before in all its history had the world seen so much done in the way of humane service. It has been done to relieve the pain of wounded soldiers and to meet the necessities of those helpless people whose homes have been destroyed by the ravages of war. It has all been done in the name of the Red Cross--the name is significant, as is the spirit behind it. It is the flowering out, not of Buddhism or Mohammedanism, not of some fancy brand of atheism or some philosophy of force--men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs from thistles. It is the flowering out of the religion of him who died for men upon a cross.

The people of this country alone came forward and in a single week by voluntary contributions gave one hundred millions of dollars for this humane service. Then within less than a year the same people contributed a further fund of one hundred and seventy millions of dollars for the relief of wounded soldiers and for the relief of stricken people in Belgium and Poland, in Serbia and Armenia, whose names we do not know, whose languages we cannot speak, but whose sufferings we have made our own in warmest sympathy. It was the response of a nation to the words of its Master--"I was hungry and ye fed me. I was naked and ye clothed me. I was sick and in prison and ye visited me. I was a stranger and ye took me in." It is something for the spiritual forces to have thus enthroned the spirit of humane service in the hearts of men.

More than that, never before in military history has so much been done to safeguard the moral welfare of the young men who have been called to the colors. The officers of our own army and of those armies with whom we are allied have by personal example and by public utterance struck a clear, firm note for sobriety and clean living, which cannot be matched in the history of any other war.

The Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation by its work for the soldiers has leaped at a bound into a place of national and international significance. And the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation is simply the Christian church functioning in a particular way. Its honored head, John R. Mott, was converted in and is now a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its secretaries and other workers are drawn, all of them, from the membership of our churches. And the money which makes possible its world-wide activities is given mainly by the people of the churches. The people of this country were asked for thirty-five millions of dollars, and in a single week they oversubscribed the request, giving fifty millions of dollars to carry on this fine form of Christian effort. It was the act of a nation saying to the young men under arms, "Fight your good fight but keep your faith, and finish your course with honor, that there may be laid up for every man of you a crown of rejoicing."

And more than that, the spiritual forces at work in this broad land have kept the motives of our country high and fine. We have not entered into this war with any selfish desire for conquest--as G.o.d knows our hearts, we do not covet an acre of territory belonging to any other power on earth. We have not entered this war with any sordid desire for material gain. We were already becoming disgracefully rich in the manufacture of munitions and in furnishing supplies to the belligerent nations. If they could have fought it through without our help, it would have been money in our purse to have stayed out--as it is, it will cost us no one can say how many billions of dollars. We have not entered this war in any spirit of touchiness because our national honor has been offended--it has been offended most grievously, but we are too strong and too sane to plunge a whole country into war for that.

We are not undertaking to punish Germany, greatly as we believe the present government of Germany needs punishing. We remember who it was who said, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord," and we are content to leave the matter of penalty in his powerful hands. We are not undertaking to dictate to the German people what sort of government they should have. We are willing they should have any sort of government they like, so long as they keep it for home consumption.

We believe here that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We confess to a frank preference for the methods of democracy, and we could wish no happier lot for any land than to live under the reign of the common people. We like to remember that in the year of our Lord 1815, Great Britain and her Allies put a certain island on the map--they put the island of St. Helena on the map by banishing to that island the disturber of the peace of Europe.

And if in the year of our Lord 1919 the United States and her Allies should in similar fashion put some other island on the map by banishing to that island the present disturber of the peace of Europe, nine-tenths of all the human race would rise up and thank G.o.d.

We entered upon this war because we were not willing to stand by and allow other nations to be crippled and broken in the resistance they were offering to lawlessness and crime, and in the defense they were making for those principles of justice and freedom which are the glory of our own national history. And so we have come forward to do our part and to fill up that which is lacking in the sacrifices which other nations have been making for the sake of principle.

As I move about among my fellow citizens, north, south, east and west, these are the questions which I find engaging their minds: Is might to be allowed to usurp the place of right, or are we here to see to it that in the long run right is the only might? Is international good faith only an empty phrase, or is it a magnificent reality in the moral world to be upheld at any cost? Is that body of usages and agreements slowly built up by centuries of effort, which const.i.tutes our international law, to be trampled under foot by any nation for the sake of some immediate advantage, or is it meant to be obeyed? Is the whole world to be permanently at the mercy of any military caste which may undertake to impose its will upon the rest of mankind by the practice of frightfulness, or is there possible some such World League of Nations as shall have both the mind and the power to keep the peace and good order of the world?

These are moral questions. They are religious questions, where there is a will of G.o.d to be ascertained and realized. And because our people have vision for the full recognition of the place spiritual forces have in the making of history, this struggle enlists the complete moral support of the nation.

It was the moral idealism of the war which brought Great Britain and all her distant colonies promptly into line the moment the moral quality of the German Government stood revealed in all its hideousness by its outrage upon Belgium. It was the moral pa.s.sion of Britain which enabled her to raise by voluntary enlistment an army of more than five millions of men.

It was the moral idealism of the war which brought all sections of our own country strongly to the support of the President when the fact was made plain that it was a fight for the right of free peoples to live and move and have their being in honor. It was the moral idealism of the war which brought the choicest youth of our land, the sons of good fortune and the sons of toil, the young men of the colleges and the young men less privileged, to stand shoulder to shoulder in this struggle for righteousness. We have seen it on the Campus here at Yale, as other men have seen it in all the colleges and universities of the land. The spirit of our youth has been n.o.bly expressed in those lines on "The Spires of Oxford":

I saw the spires of Oxford As I was pa.s.sing by, The gray spires of Oxford Against the pearl-gray sky; My heart was with the Oxford men Who went abroad to die.

The years go fast in Oxford, The golden years and gay.

The h.o.a.ry colleges look down On careless boys at play; But when the bugles sounded war They put their games away.

They left the peaceful river, The cricket field, the quad, The shaven lawns of Oxford To seek a b.l.o.o.d.y sod; They gave their merry youth away For country and for G.o.d.

G.o.d rest you happy, gentlemen, Who laid your good lives down, Who took the khaki and the gun Instead of cap and gown.

G.o.d bring you to a fairer place Than even Oxford town.

It was a great Christian statesman, it was William Ewart Gladstone, prime minister of Great Britain, who said more than thirty years ago, "The greatest triumph of the twentieth century will be the enthronement of the idea of public right as the governing idea in the affairs of Europe." We are here this day to a.s.sist with the last ounce of our strength and with the full might of our moral purpose in the enthronement and the coronation of that idea of public right as the governing idea in the affairs of the whole world.

The moral values which are at stake in all this national and international action have been made so clear in the fierce red light which has beat upon the world that the very conscience of the country has put on khaki. The moral sense of the whole nation has become militant. The brave men and women of this land are working and fighting for human betterment with their eyes upon that social order which hath foundations whose builder and maker is G.o.d. And because we feel that our cause is just, we feel in our arms and in our hearts, each man of us, the strength of ten.

May we not believe that this country, strong and brave, generous and hopeful, is called of G.o.d to be in its own way a Messianic nation in whose mighty unfolding life all the nations of the earth may be blessed? Hear these words of an ancient prophet and make them your own! "What people has G.o.d so nigh unto them as the Lord our G.o.d is in all things that we call upon Him for? Has G.o.d a.s.sayed to take him a nation from the midst of another nation by signs, by wonders and by war, as the Lord hath done for you? Did ever a people hear the Voice of G.o.d speaking out of the midst of the fire as thou hast heard? What nation has statutes and judgments so righteous as the law which I set before you this day? Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding among the nations."

It is for this country to keep its motives high and fine, to set its affections upon those principles of action which are above the dead level of self-interest, and to so bear itself in the service of the higher civilization that in its purposes and methods all the nations of the earth may be blessed.

O beautiful my country, ours once more, What were our lives without thee, What all our lives to save thee!

We reek not what we give thee, We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else and we will dare.