Religion and the War Part 5

When a nation, patient and forbearing until her enemies scoffed and her friends grieved, found herself compelled to defend her unquestioned rights against lawless and brutal pirates, minds which approved of preparedness for war would naturally, almost inevitably, approve of war. Nor was it our rights only. We entered the struggle not through pride or greed or hatred, but as the champion of international law, righteousness, liberty, democracy, and a world peace that shall be abiding and just for all.

To the few pacifists among the clergy all this seems quite unnecessary. Why should not America walk in the footsteps of Jesus, set her face steadfastly toward her Jerusalem, and for the world's salvation suffer Germany and Austria and Turkey to drive the spikes through her hands? Why not permit the Central Powers to seize and possess our country, even though they dealt with those of us, who could not and would not submit to the ethics of Nietzsche and the diplomacy of Bernhardi and the rule of von Hindenburg, as they treated the fathers and mothers and little children of Armenia and Belgium and Poland? "Resist not evil!" The cure of Christ's time is the cure of our time! The age of Judas and of Pilate, of the scribes and brutal Roman soldiers, has never pa.s.sed.

This is not the place to attempt to settle the dispute between the champions of peace at any price and those of a war which, rightly or wrongly, they regard as righteous and unavoidable. It certainly will never be decided by calling all pacifists cowards and slackers, and all defenders of the course pursued by President Wilson, the son of a clergyman, exponents of Prussian militarism. The plain fact is that there is no path open to us which presents no moral difficulties. It is not a choice between absolute right and absolute wrong, but between the preponderance of right and the preponderance of wrong. As some one has phrased it, "War is a moral enterprise, if it redeems a state from a condition worse than war"; and that--so it seemed to thousands of ethical and religious teachers--was the situation in America. To have watched the violation of Belgium, the ma.s.sacre of Armenia, the destruction of England, France and Italy, the absorption of Russia, and ultimately the forging of the chains of our own servitude, without striking a blow to protect the world against the unspeakable barbarism of a megalomaniac would have been ethical madness. Granting the culprit's sanity, it would have been a kind of religious paranoia not to bring the international butcher and brigand to terms. The man who stands by, while a thug robs his neighbor's house and murders the wife and children, practically cooperates with the criminal. If he is a saint, he is a saintly Raffles. Though he never strike a blow, he bears the mark of Cain. Leaders like the Rev. Charles A. Eaton, D.D., of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, have ventured to characterize our partic.i.p.ation in the struggle as "our Christian duty." Many even of our Quakers vigorously champion it. Mr. John L.

Carver, the head of the Friends' School in New York and Brooklyn, writes: "First and last, let us have no compromise or suggestion of compromise as to the justice of the American cause--no admixture of false pacifism in relation to one of the few absolutely just and unavoidable wars that the world has ever seen, unmarred by fanaticism, mistaken hatred, or l.u.s.t of gain. Let us permit no confusion of ideas between old time wars of aggression or revenge, and this present war of unselfish sacrifice to save humanity from the reign of the beast."

With this it is safe to say the great majority of Christians, lay and clerical, heartily agree. War is always bad; but there are situations when to decline to give battle, permitting the foe to work his immoral will, is not only still more terrible in its cost but more awful in its moral degradation. To kill is always an evil; but it is less of an evil, both for society and for the evil doer, than to permit a band of deluded a.s.sa.s.sins to run amuck in the ranks of civilization and to practice their marksmanship on the gentlest of women and the n.o.blest of men. Almost to a man the leaders of thought in the allied countries, with unwilling minds and breaking hearts, have reached this decision. Rightly or wrongly, it is the answer which has come to their agonized pet.i.tion, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

But there is a still more striking fact. Not only are our ministers like Sir George Adam Smith in khaki and Dr. Henry Van d.y.k.e in the uniform of the navy, toiling as spiritual specialists for our soldiers and sailors. Not only are teachers like Princ.i.p.al Forsyth and ex-President Taft proclaiming our moral duty and legal right to partic.i.p.ate in the greatest and most terrible of wars. After careful deliberation an ever-increasing number of ministers, especially among those of draft age, both in the pastorate and in the seminary, have given up their distinctive work, donned the uniform of the soldier, and sailed for the trenches of France. To some minds this seems incredible folly, a species of ministerial madness. War is so tigerish in its ruthlessness, so demoniacal in its treatment of ethical principles, so un-Christian in matter and in method, that it appears impossible to characterize any partic.i.p.ation as righteous. It is, no doubt, the minister's duty to play the role of Good Samaritan when, with nations as his victims, the modern Hun repeats the parable. But can he still bear the t.i.tle of minister if he joins the police force and attempts, even at the cost of killing the robbers, to clean up the Jericho road?

The answer of these men has been an enthusiastic affirmative. To them their clerical exemption was something more than what Dean Shailer Mathews called it, "an insult or a challenge." No doubt there were good reasons why certain trained specialists, and themselves among them, should be set to work with tools other than bayonets. The physician, the engineer, the munitions expert, the ship-builder and the chaplain will all have their part in the triumph. Mr. Hoover, Mr.

Schwab and the Archbishop of York will do more in their present positions than they could behind a machine gun or in an aeroplane.

They, and millions of men and women in lowly stations, can fight at home for peace and for freedom; and when the burden is heaviest and the strain almost unendurable, call cheerily, as Harry Lauder did to the Scotch Highlander: "No, man, I'm no tired! If you can die fighting for me, I can die working for you!"

But this patent plea did not satisfy some militant ministers. Their religion as well as their patriotism carried them beyond Dean Mathews'

interpretation of the phrase. Grant that their exemption is an insult if it "implies that ministers are not as ready to serve their country as any other citizens, that they are slackers, or that they are so effeminate that they would not make good soldiers; that if they go about their work with no increase of labor or of sacrifice, making an excuse out of their holy calling, they accept their exemption as an insult to their calling." Grant that, if this is not true, it comes to them as a great challenge to do and to dare as much in their spiritual work as the soldier does in his, toiling to the limit of costly sacrifice, possibly to overwork and to death. They are quite ready to burn out, and that quickly, when the age demands the heat and light of their lives. But there was still in their hearts a service unexpressed, an intense desire ungratified. One hears the call in the following letter from a minister, who is now a lieutenant with a Canadian regiment in France:

"I expect to go to the front in Europe in the near future," he wrote to the editor of the _Outlook_. "For six years I was a Presbyterian minister, although a Canadian, in the Presbyterian Church of the United States. When the cause of liberty and the ideals of democracy were at stake, I could not withstand the 'call'--not so much of my country as of civilization--any longer. I resigned my charge and came to Nova Scotia, my boyhood home. It seems strange, but true nevertheless, that today I am a happy man.

I hate war and know something about it--I served through the South African War and saw its results--but there are things worse than war. I am going, as I find many of my comrades going, not because we hate the German people, but because we believe that Prussian militarism would be an intolerable system for the world to live under."

"Is this a psychological and moral paradox?" comments the editor. "We think not. Every man who really grasps the meaning of the words righteousness, justice and peace, and their true relations, will understand the state of mind of this Canadian clergyman." It is the decision of one who loves and honors the calling of the ministry, and yet feels that in this crisis there is a place where he, whatever may be true of his fellows, is more greatly needed. It is the confession of faith on the part of a Christian who knows war and hates it, and yet is happy to make it because he loves peace, and believes, rightly or wrongly, that if the world is to possess it in our time, it must be won with the sword. It is the deed of a brother of all men who declines to be limited by his cloth, who cannot preach to the soldier without drinking the soldier's cup and being baptized with his baptism of mud and of blood. It is the spirit of a true Christian preacher, who cannot urge Christian laymen to "go over the top" unless at least some Christian ministers go with them. It is the jubilant response to the call of the heroic, the comradeship which knows no secular and no sacred, and which covets the most intimate fellowship in the life and sufferings of brave men.

The same att.i.tude is being increasingly taken by the peace-loving Friends. "The young Quaker of the present day," writes one of them, "is so true to his inheritance--that of being allowed to act as his conscience dictates--that there are already many in the service, and that, too, with the fervent cooperation of their Quaker parents....

When one of these young Friends--now a trusted officer in the American infantry, who enlisted before war was declared by our Government--was challenged by a Quaker friend, he promptly replied: 'I am showing my regard for my Quaker ancestry and training in the fact that I cannot and will not allow war to stalk upon the earth unchecked. Only by meeting the Devil face to face can we hope to crush him.'"

Sir George Adam Smith in an American address stated that in Scotland 90 per cent of the ministers' sons of military age entered the army before conscription. Would it be strange if some fathers decided to go with them? He also said that of the sixty thousand Catholic priests engaged in war work in France, twenty-five thousand are fighting in the ranks. Some Chinese missionaries are serving behind the lines as officers of detachments of Chinese artisans and laborers. Other missionaries, however, and sons of missionaries are reported to have gone directly into military service. Our country's Roll of Honor contains the names of men like Captain Jewett Williams, an Episcopal rector and the son-in-law of Dr. David J. Barrows, Chancellor of the University of Georgia, who declined a chaplaincy, trained at Fort Oglethorpe, and was killed in action. Of recent graduates and members of the Yale School of Religion, forty-four are now in khaki. Of these nineteen are chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers, while eighteen are in the regular army, one each in the British and Canadian armies, two in the Ambulance Corps, one in aviation and one in the navy. Already the School Roll of Honor bears one name, that of a young Englishman of rare promise, who died in the hospital from wounds received on the battlefields of France.

These men are following in the footsteps of ministers of other generations. Yale's records show that there is scarcely a campaign of note, or an important battle in American history, in which her sons among the clergy did not share the hardships and dangers of the soldier's lot. Besides the more than one hundred and thirty who served as chaplains, in the thick of the fight as well as in camp and hospital, are those who fought shoulder to shoulder with their parishioners. When the news of the approach of the enemy reached Thomas Brockway (1768) during service, he dismissed his congregation, shouldered his long gun, and marched away. Of John Cleaveland (1745) it is said that he preached all the men of his parish into the army and then went himself. They helped to take Louisburg in the campaign against Cape Breton Island. They marched in the Crown Point Expedition, fought at Ticonderoga, and shared with Wolfe the hardships of the campaign against Quebec. The record of the Revolutionary days is a stirring one. Edmund Foster (1778) joined the Minute Men on the sounding of the alarm in Lexington. Ebenezer Mosely (1763) enlisted in Israel Putnam's regiment, and with Joseph Badger (1785), who served with General Arnold in Canada, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

They were in the ranks at Germantown and at Monmouth. Samuel Eells (1765) was elected the captain of a company formed among his parishioners to aid General Washington, who was then retreating through New Jersey. Elisha Scott Williams (1775) crossed the Delaware in the boat with Washington, and is so depicted in Trumbull's painting. He also fought at the battles of White Plains, Trenton and Princeton, and shared with William Stone (1785) and Benjamin Wooster (1790) the hardships and sufferings at Valley Forge. Levi Lankton (1777) was present at Burgoyne's surrender.

In the Civil War this record is repeated. The ministers of Yale fought at Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. They rode with Sheridan's cavalry in the Army of the Potomac; they marched with General Sherman to the sea. Several, like Erastus Blakeslee (1863), well known for his services to the work of the Sunday school, rose to the rank of general. Moses Smith (1852) entered in 1865 with the first troops into Richmond, while Samuel W.

Eaton (1842), after fighting in some of the hardest battles, was present at Appomattox Court House on the surrender of General Lee.

In all this there is no thought of glorifying war, or of haloing the head of the minister who lays down his Bible to take up his bayonet.

Quite the contrary. These fighting chaplains condemned war and hated it. They never proclaimed that organized slaughter was a sane method of settling international disputes or ethical questions. They would have marched to their own Calvaries gladly if this would have saved them from the horror of the task of the soldier and at the same time helped to bring in the Kingdom of G.o.d. But to their minds there was a time when a Christian ought to put up his sword, and another when his duty was to buy one. Devilishness is not usually overcome by allowing the Devil to have his way. If the powers of evil attempt by force to overthrow righteousness, righteousness may well by force oppose and thwart them; not that it may escape martyrdom, or vent its anger, but with the clear purpose of rescuing the evil doer from his devastating delusion, and of saving the most precious treasures of civilization from the axe of a vandalism, which can and ought to be restrained. The thought finds a crude but characteristic expression in Kipling's poem of Mulholland, the coa.r.s.e sailor, who, in fulfilment of the vow made during a storm on the cattle-ship, goes back to preach religion to the brutal and unsympathetic crew:

I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should get, An' I wanted to preach religion, handsome an' out of the wet; But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, and I done what I was set.

I have been smit and bruised, as warned would be the case, An' turned my cheek to the smiter, exactly as Scripture says; But following that, I knocked him down an' led him up to grace.

An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the sea is calm, An' I use no knife nor pistol, an' I never take no harm; For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my fighting arm.

It is devoutly to be wished that it was never necessary for the preacher to use knife or pistol; but at present apparently there is no other means by which the smiter may be knocked down.

This teaching is what might be called, in Dr. Van d.y.k.e's phrase, "Fighting for Peace." It is the kind of militant pacifism which Paul hints at. "If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men." Sometimes it is not possible. It is neither wise nor saintly to attempt to negotiate with a tiger. It would be something worse than folly to allow the I. W. W. to dictate the economic policy of our country, or to suffer philosophical and practical anarchism to work its will with the law and order of the world. War as mere war deserves all the vitriolic epithets which have been heaped upon it. It is the scourge of scourges, the father of piracy and of murder, the mother of havoc, desolation and woe. It stands clearly revealed as "a monstrous crime, man's crowning imbecility and folly." But when through war the attempt is made to tear down law, overthrow justice and shackle the world's liberty, shall not war be met by war in order to preserve these priceless possessions, and perchance end all wars by rendering its mad champions powerless? No minister can be called Christian who does not hate war. But most of them hate still more the sinking of the Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the ma.s.sacre of the peaceful people of Armenia. They cannot with clear conscience sit still and watch the fulfilment of the plot of "the Potsdam gang"

without striking a blow. Peace proposals from the successful marauders sound to them too much like Dr. Van d.y.k.e's imaginary conversation between an outraged householder and his triumphant pacifistic burglar.

It is not a question of Christ or Caesar. There is something of the Sermon on the Mount in pacifist and militarist alike. But in the choice our ministers in the army have registered their vote for what seems to be by far the lesser of two evils. They with their fellows have chosen to tread the new Via Sacra, as the road is now called which made the salvation of Verdun possible; and today they stand facing the forces of autocracy, greed and military oppression, uttering that great battle cry which broke from the heart of France, "They shall not pa.s.s!"

Whatever the verdict of history upon this decision of brave men in the ministry, certain effects of the war upon them and upon their work are sure. These again are both good and evil. On the debit side of the ledger will be the loss of many in whose future service lay much of the hope and strength of the church. A large proportion of the best men, who were looking forward to the ministry, are in the training camps and trenches. Some may now be diverted to other callings; some will never come back. Their vacant places in the ranks will be saddening and for a time crippling. Great tasks which might have been done must needs be left undone. New Elishas will wear the prophet's mantle; but the memory of many a vanished face will waken the old cry upon their lips: "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the hors.e.m.e.n thereof!" If the church does not begrudge them, it will mourn them among its mult.i.tude of sons who

laid the world away; poured out the red, Sweet wine of youth: gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene That men call age; and those who would have been Their sons they gave--their immortality.

A second regrettable result in the minds of some will be the discrediting of the ministry. There have been too many un-Christian utterances from the pulpits of all lands, though we are naturally especially sensitive to those "made in Germany"; too many petty, superst.i.tious prayers addressed to tribal deities as little like the G.o.d of Jesus as Moloch and Mars; too reckless dealing with "high literary explosives" on the part of preachers possessing neither the wisdom of Solomon nor the restraint of Paul; too flamboyantly patriotic utterances from orators who apparently forgot their obligations as citizens of heaven and makers of a new world. So far as the writer knows, there have been no blasphemies from the pulpits of the Allies equal to the saying of Pastor W. Lehmann: "The German soul is G.o.d's soul; it shall and will rule over mankind"; or that still more brutal and unblushing p.r.o.nouncement of Pastor D. Baumgarten: "Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the 'Lusitania,' whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty to unnumbered innocent victims, and give himself up to the honest delight at the victorious exploit of German defensive power--him we judge to be no true German." But if none have descended to these depths of theological blindness and ethical madness, there has been a certain kinship with the spirit of the imprecatory psalms, used as convenient and refreshing outlets for pent-up tempers, together with more or less pagan treatment of ethical and religious questions, camouflaged with felicitous phrases, which lulled the listener with the a.s.surance that the preacher was quoting from the Litany. All this has not redounded to the respect of the thoughtful for the pulpit, or for the leadership of men supposed to be specialists in the rules of right and teachers of the counsels of a fatherly G.o.d.

Furthermore, while the ma.s.s of Christian unity and cooperation has been unprecedented, there have been here and there expressions of denominational rivalries. It is not an inspiring spectacle when a few--and fortunately only a few--bigoted denominationalists are seen storming certain camps, not because the religious welfare of the soldiers is not being amply cared for, but because the accredited purveyor of their ecclesiastical shibboleth is not teaching his patois and peddling his wares. Neither our best laymen nor our wisest religious leaders have either patience or sympathy with modern denominational Pharisees. They recognize temperamental, psychological and national differences among fellow Christians, and are content that Quaker and High Churchman, shouting Methodist and dignified Scotch Presbyterian, Salvation Army la.s.sie and devout Romanist should choose their own liturgy and polity, and go to heaven each in his own way.

But to their minds, in everyday life usually and in camp life always, sectarian squabbling and doctrinal hair-splitting are merely rocks of stumbling and stones of offense; and whenever they witness, especially in war time, such wrangling in the porch of the sanctuary, they discount the utterances and even the calling of the minister, and, instead of entering the edifice and joining in the service, pa.s.s by on the other side.

Still more d.a.m.ning will be the accusation, made even by loyal sons of the church's own household, that not only has the ministry failed to prevent war, but that it neglected to ma.s.s its forces and measure its might in the great task. To reply to the charge in its undiscriminating, blunderbuss form is easy. Many ministers gave up their lives to the cause, notably in the various forms of the peace movement. Others proclaimed and urged a cure, which the laity declined to put into operation and the governments ignored. The prevention of war should have been the work of the educator, the lawyer, the scientist, the promoters of commerce and the prophets of international socialism as well as of the minister. If he is blameworthy, so are they. Men who love to sit in the seat of the scornful and jeer at Christianity should enlarge the scope of their humor. If, as G. K. Chesterton puts it, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried,"

it is equally true that the ministry has not been trusted and found incompetent; it has been the herald of an unwelcome message and ignored. No one cla.s.s in the community could work the miracle of a world-peace; it could be wrought only through the faith and works of all. To attribute to the ministers the failure to achieve it is in part fair; some of them are guilty. As Dean Hodges said of the much-discussed article, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself," the charges are richly deserved by those by whom they are deserved. In part, however, it is manifestly unfair; mult.i.tudes honestly tried.

In part it is one of the greatest compliments ever paid them; for it suggests their power, acknowledges their leadership, and honors their task as the constructive statesmen of the world. No one ever before hinted that the clergy ought to have stopped the wars of Charlemagne or of Napoleon. During the Civil War neither the conflict nor the cause was laid at the minister's door. But in our day many clamor for priests after the order of Joshua as well as of Moses, men at the head of great bodies of Christian soldiers, who shall partic.i.p.ate vigorously in domestic politics and international relations, until they actually bring in the reign of righteousness and of love and truth among men. As ministers we accept the compliment while we confess our sins and shortcomings. The burthen of having done the things we ought not to have done and of having left undone the things which we ought to have done is one that we carry shamefacedly but not exclusively. It is shared by all mankind.

But if the war kills some and discredits others, the credit page in the ledger looms large. The experiences and tasks of the present can hardly fail to make the manliest among us still more virile and vigorous. They will purge the leaders in every profession of all softness and sentimentalism, and lift them above a great danger in peace times, that of living a

ghastly, smooth life, dead at heart.

No sane and unprejudiced mind, possessing first-hand knowledge of the ministry, accepts as a representative of the profession the clergyman of the stage comedy and the popular novel. He may be a "sport," in the biological sense; but it would be equally easy to find as ludicrous and despicable examples in law, medicine or business. So far as the average, normal type is concerned, this popular clerical clown is a wretched caricature, possessing humor because endowed with the exaggeration and distortion of a political cartoon. But removing all such weaklings from the discussion, and granting that there are no more lax fellows, lolling through life, in the ministry than in any other profession, there is, as Donald Hankey points out, a certain directness and sternness in camp and military life which is singularly invigorating and even Christ-like. It stiffens a man's back to shoulder heavy burdens, trains the eye to face steadily and without flinching disagreeable and terrifying duties. It tenses muscles with great and glorious resolves. It girds up the loins for a race the issues of which are life and death, throttles any idea of sneaking sinuously through the world avoiding large and costly obligations, and at the end of the day's labor demands visible and tangible results. If any minister was in danger of becoming what Horace Greeley called "a pretty man," or what Holmes described as "a wailing poitrinaire," his experience as chaplain and as soldier will effectually cure him. We should have more prophets after the order of Amos as well as of Hosea when the men who have been under fire come home.

Such men will increasingly merit and possess the respect of laymen and of soldiers. Their lives have been knit together in the fellowship of suffering. Their bodies are inured to the same hardships, their faces lined with the same grim marks of dangers laughed at and of conquered pain. In the democracy of the trenches the sons of the Pilgrims and the immigrant sons of the slums have come to know and to understand one another. The pagan, illiterate dock-hand has fought shoulder to shoulder with the teacher of religion, trained in the first universities of our own and other lands. When such laymen attend plays like "The Hypocrites" or read novels like "The Pastor's Wife," they will never be persuaded that the clerical cartoons represent reality.

Each will recall days in the dugouts and nights in the hospitals, when they came to know a different type of minister, a "beloved captain,"

who marched through the mire with song and laughter, and crept with them through the darkness and shadow of death in No Man's Land. An almost irresistible attraction will draw them to the churches of such ministers. To their leadership they will be inclined to render obedience; to their messages they will listen with respect. No scoffing jests at the minister will be allowed to go by them unchallenged. For the first time in their lives they have been brought into touch with the preachers of religion, and their hearts have burned within them while they talked with these disciples of Jesus by the way.

Furthermore, they will seek them out in the intercourse of ordinary fellowship. For the ministers have shown themselves friendly, approachable--no wan ascetics, no unhuman monks or superst.i.tious other-worldlings, but jolly good fellows in camp life, sane and wholesome counsellors in times of perplexity, comforters in the hours of sorrow, efficient and tireless fellow workers; in brief, the best type of men among men. With such a minister there will be no social uneasiness, no camouflaged conversation during a pastoral visit or upon his entrance into the club. When he opens the front door, the father will not be so apt to call, "Mother, the dominie has come to see you!" It will be no longer the pastor who wishes to meet and to know the male parishioner; the male parishioner will be equally eager to meet and to know the pastor. One soldier phrased the difference in this way: "Well, sir, I like our services out here, and the church is all right; but our parson at home, sir--! You couldn't go to church or have anything to do with him!" All this will come to the minister as a reward for having realized the picture as painted by an English chaplain. "I like to think of the parish priest as fulfilling the Shakespearean stage direction--'Scene: a public place. Enter First Citizen';--for his ministry should mostly be spent neither in church nor in the homes of the faithful, but in public places; and he should be the First Citizen of his parish, sufficiently well known to all to be absolutely at home with each.... And so the word 'parson' will revert to its old proud meaning of 'persona,' and the priest will take in his parish a position a.n.a.logous to that of the best chaplains in the army." That is the gift which true ministers have always coveted.

Many have already won it, turning from the fascination of their studies "to waste time wisely in the market-place, gossiping like Socrates with all comers." After the war many more will possess it, having gladly paid the price.

To the spiritual pract.i.tioner, moreover, will have come increased skill in that most difficult of all arts, personal work. He will have had daily hospital training in ministering to the souls of men. He will speak their language, even their lingo, rather than what is to mult.i.tudes the unintelligible patois of the seminary Canaan. He will know not only his own theories but their difficulties and experiences in regard to a belief in immortality and the practice of prayer. Like Jesus at the well, he will have learned the method and value of gaining a point of contact in teaching. Formerly it was easy to discourse from the pulpit concerning the being and nature of G.o.d and to champion theories of the atonement. The prophet of the regiment will have learned what is far more difficult and more necessary--to persuade a man to follow the teaching and to practice the friendship of Jesus. That is his task, and he will have become efficient in its accomplishment--so to bring modern prodigals to themselves that they loathe the far country, and arise, and go home to their Father's house.

Another gain will be that of a deeper appreciation of denominational cooperation and an enlarged scope for the practice of it. Sectarian rivalries and ecclesiastical trivialities vanish in the trenches.

Man-made walls between Christian brethren are crumbling. Petty partisanship becomes first ridiculous and then wicked in the light of the universal church's ambition. "We need a standard so universal,"

writes H. G. Wells, "that the plate-layer may say to the barrister or the d.u.c.h.ess, or the Red Indian to the Limehouse sailor, or the Anzac soldier to the Sinn Feiner or the Chinaman, 'What are we two doing for it?' And to fill the place of that 'It' no other idea is great enough or commanding enough, but only the world Kingdom of G.o.d." The same buildings are now serving congregations of Jews, Protestants and Romanists. Instant calls come when rabbis, priests, rectors, and representatives of every hue in the rainbow of Protestantism minister to men of other creeds and of no creed. Partisan politics in the field of pure religion are seen to be essentially irreligious; and chaplains of every ilk and kirk are working together like "Bill" and "Alf," two c.o.c.kney soldiers, one of whom had lost a right arm and the other a left. They always sat side by side at the C. C. S. concerts "so as we can have a clap," as "Alf" put it. "Bill puts 'is 'and out, an' I smacks it with mine." Such men cannot come home and take part in the heresy trials and ecclesiastical hecklings of men whom at heart they recognize as Christian brethren. It is perfectly safe to prophesy that there will be more of church unity, and possibly more of uniformity, so far as this is desirable, when these apostles of hundreds of churches come home from the war.

With this enlarged cooperation will come also an enlarged ambition.

The pastor who has been plodding along the familiar ways of an uninspiring parish will never be content to suffer his people to travel in the old ruts or to countenance out-worn and inefficient methods. That way, he now knows, lies ministerial melancholia and the present situation, something far worse than Lear's madness. His task, and that of his people, is nothing less than to transform their portion of the world into heaven. Singing and praying about it are good and necessary; but in the words of the old negro spiritual, it is perfectly patent that "Eberybody talks 'bout heaben ain't a-gwine dah," and the work of the church is to see to it that they go. Some of the strongest and most venturesome among the clergy, unwilling to turn back to the safe life after the thrill of the trenches, will seek adventure in pioneer work in our own land and abroad. Home missions will come as a challenge to men inured to danger and hardship. Foreign missions will have a new and poignant meaning for all the world. We knew before that the bubonic plague in Calcutta was a menace to San Francisco; we know now that the cult of militarism in a single group in Germany can crucify mankind. No chaplain will ever settle down into a parish as if it were a "pent-up Utica." No cultivation of individual piety will atone for the failure to Christianize society, leaven industry with the principles of Jesus, and convert from its Machiavellian heathendom and Bismarckian brutality the diplomacy of the old-time state. Nothing less than the ambition to take the world and its kingdoms for Christ can ever satisfy his soldiers; not, like the Central Powers, in order that they may be enslaved and exploited, but that they may know the fullness of joy and of freedom, and possess the true riches of that divine life which is life indeed.

Almost of necessity the experience at the front will simplify and vitalize the minister's message. For many all discussion of the future of unbaptized infants, and premillenialism, and the verbal inspiration of the Pentateuch had long ago lost interest. In the minds of others, matters regarded by some earnest Christians as of vital importance, like the Virgin Birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus, had ceased to function. To them Jesus would still be the unique Son of G.o.d, the divine Saviour of the world, whatever the method of his human generation; and he would still be alive, their unseen friend and present helper, whether or not his body had remained in the tomb.

Belief or disbelief in such articles of faith would never transform a demon into a saint or a saint into a demon. Even to those accepting them, they had no visible effect upon character or upon the course of ordinary daily life. No soldiers ever asked about such scholastic problems as they faced going over the top on the morrow. In the hospital they never mentioned them, as they lay lonely and fearful on their beds of pain. But they did ask, or long to ask, had shyness not prevented them, about the treasures for which the heart hungers and to which religion alone holds the key.

"Dear Sir," wrote a wounded soldier to the chaplain of his battalion; "I often used to wish that you would talk seriously and privately to me about religion, though I never dared to ask you, and I must admit that I seemed to be very antagonistic when you did start." "I wish you'd tell me what you think about it, padre," said another. "Is there anything really afterwards?... I'd like you to tell me as man to man what you really think about it. Do we go on living afterwards in any sort of way or--!" He struck a match to light a cigarette. A gust of wind, which carried a gust of snow round our legs, blew the match out again. I daresay it was that which suggested his next words: "Or do we just go out? I know the creed," he went on. "... But that's not what I want. I want to know what you really believe yourself, as a man, you know."

Is there a G.o.d, and can we actually lead men to experience him and to grow like him? Is there any power in Jesus to save a brute and a drunkard, a selfish worldling and a contented prig, not from a h.e.l.l of fire after death from which he is s.n.a.t.c.hed by some theological transaction, but from his degradation and meanness in the present, until he is fit to be a husband and a father, a patriot and a friend?

Are the fruits of the Christian spirit "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, meekness, faithfulness, and self-control,"

the qualities of character which alone can make heaven anywhere, and without which a potential Paradise would be transformed into an actual h.e.l.l? Are the wages of sin death, or does the good man simply lose a deal of fun and prove himself to be a foolish prig and superst.i.tious other-worlding? Does death end all, or are there many mansions in the Father's house? Such are the great questions; and to them Christianity has very definite answers, capable of being tried out in experience.

In the past much of so-called religion has seemed to thoughtful minds remote from the facts of life, unreal, a bit queer if not abnormal. If the flames of war are purging it from such unrealities and abnormalities, the facts which lie at the heart of the world's faith are being saved, yet so as by fire. The Christianity of the camp is no pious sentimentalism, no sweet dream or unvirile worship of a "gentle Jesus." It is a living, indubitable experience, full of strength and of joy. Men are fighting to the death a thought and a purpose in the German armies which Prince Lichnowsky, their own amba.s.sador to the British Court, characterized as "perfidy and the sin against the Holy Ghost"; and in that fight they hunger and thirst for the power of a religion of the Spirit, which--however the battle of bodies and of brute force may be decided--in G.o.d's good time is bound to win the day.

The last effect of the war upon the work and message of the minister will be to furnish it with a new dynamic. As he returns from the battle with sin in the trenches, he will find in the same battle at home William James' "moral equivalent for war." The call to arms has revealed the fact, seen in the success of the Student Volunteer Movement, that the church has not sufficiently appealed to men's latent heroism. The ordinary individual has revealed an enthusiastic readiness for high adventure and an almost limitless capacity for self-sacrifice, qualities upon which the work and preaching of the average parish made practically negligible demands. There was a contrast as noticeable as it was lamentable between the pompous phrases of certain militant hymns, sung chiefly by the choir, and the lack of ethical pa.s.sion and aggressive righteousness on the part of the pews. There was too little doing of brave deeds and too much flabby irresolution and orthodox laziness. Christianity seemed to act as a narcotic rather than a stimulant. Any preacher might say to any congregation with perfect safety, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

For the chaplain fresh from the front all this will be changed. Not only will he be the flaming apostle of a new enthusiasm; his church will have been saved from the old lethargy and lukewarmness of Laodicea, the minds of his people purged from the _dolce far niente_ pietism, which dreamed sweet dreams while the wreckers of the world prepared for war. For today religion stands revealed as the greatest of all adventures. Christianity is history's crowning crusade. The greed, the brutality, the imbecile and devilish lawlessness, which have revelled in an orgy of spiritual vandalism, are not peculiar to war. They have long been with us, in city and in country, in the slums and on the avenue, among peoples supposed to be civilized and enjoying the blessings of an era of prosperity and of peace. It was an amazed world, rudely roused from its comfortable slumbers, which found these forces organized for battle; it will be a b.l.o.o.d.y and dishevelled but determined and aggressive world that, when our men have laid aside their khaki, will strive to hold them in the ranks of an equally fearless and fighting army, which will never retreat from its trenches until these enemies of the world's peace and happiness are driven from the field. Men who hated dirt and discomfort, blood and vermin, have endured and laughed at them for the sake of their cause and their country. When the call comes to carry on the same fight in the homeland, such heroic souls will scarcely decline to sacrifice something of their peace and comfort, or to attack the forces entrenched in saloon and dive and political cave of Adullam, because in the struggle they may be shorn of delights and dollars, know the shame and agony of temporary defeat, and as victors find themselves with mire upon their garments and blood upon their hands. "Never was there a religion more combative than Christianity,"

wrote Bernhardi. That is false as the apostle of carnage meant it; but it is true to the disciple of Jesus, who has heard Paul's summons to don the full panoply of the Christian armor, and who so loves the Lord as to hate evil with the just but terrible wrath of the Lamb. Here is a new dynamic, an irresistible appeal, which should and must be utilized by the minister. If the Christian Church is an army with the greatest of fights on its hands, there will be a place for the soldier. With the church service of the religious slacker he may be pardoned if he declines to have anything to do.

T. R. Glover in "The Jesus of History" has said that the Christian conquered because he out-lived and out-thought and out-died the pagan.

It is beginning to dawn upon the ministry that we must out-fight him, if he is to be conquered in our day. The clergy have seen their opportunity pictured in the words with which John Masefield in "Gallipoli" has told the story of the final attack upon Suvla Bay.