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 THE CHALLENGE: 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW 
 WORLD ORDER
 
 By 
 Frederick Lynch 
 
 The Challenge : The Church and the 
 New World Order. I 2mo, cloth, net $1.25 
 A forward look taken by a man who is regarded 
 as a vigorous and liberal thinker. Dr. Lynch 
 contends that, with the coming of peace, the 
 Chmxh will be faced with some tremendous and 
 inevitable problems which she must meet with a 
 new application of Christian principles. If she 
 fails, the world will look elsewhere for solution 
 and readjustment. 
 
 The New Opportunities of the Min- 
 istry. With Introduction by Hugh Black, 
 M. A., D.D. izmo, cloth . net 75c. 
 " A veritable book for the times and call to 
 strong young men for the future. Dr. Lynch 
 makes it clear that the very things which make 
 the present work of the ministry look difficult, as 
 compared with the past, are its especial warrant 
 and glory." — The Continent. 
 
 The Peace Problem. The Task of the 
 Twentieth Century. Introduction by An- 
 drew Carnegie net 75c. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie commends this book in no 
 stinted terms. " I have read this book from be- 
 ginning to end with interest and proiit. I hope 
 large editions will be circulated by our peace 
 organizations among those we can interest in the 
 noblest of all causes."
 
 THE CHALLENGE: 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE NEW 
 WORLD ORDER 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK LYNCH, D.D. 
 
 Author of " New Opportunities of the MiniBtry," 
 
 "What Makes a Nation Great?" "The Last 
 
 War," etc., etc. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 MRS. ANDREW CARNEGIE 
 
 whose Friendship is always an Inspiration to 
 
 High Endeavour and to the Service 
 
 of Humanity
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book has been published for two 
 reasons. The first is that I might reach 
 the younger clergy of the country and 
 put before them the wonderful opportunity now ^ 
 facing the Christian Church, The second is 
 that the only way to meet the many requests 
 for some of the chapters of these books (all of 
 which have been published singly) was to 
 gather them into a book. Many of them, 
 have evoked much comment, some favourable, 
 some adverse. But they have evidently stirred 
 many to think upon the grave problems and 
 opportunities now facing Christianity, espe- 
 cially as it is embodied in the Church. 
 
 The book is an attempt to apply the teach- 
 ings of Jesus to the international problems now 
 facing the nations. Such a cataclysm as this 
 which the world is now witnessing must make 
 all serious men pause and think. Especially for 
 those who believe that Christianity is both pos- 
 sible and potent in the world, these are perplex- 
 ing days. It is vain and dangerous to deny 
 that the Church is on trial in any nation. One 
 has only to read the papers, the books, and the 
 letters that are being written in both Europe 
 5
 
 6 PREFACE 
 
 and America to realize the serious questioning 
 of the power of the Church to redeem the 
 world, that is going on in the minds of many 
 men. One cannot escape the fact that there 
 are great heart-failings in both Europe and 
 America, and in some countries a rather strik- 
 ing defection from the Church. A very dark 
 cloud of pessimism, born out of discourage- 
 ment and suffering, has settled down upon Eu- 
 rope. It has reacted upon America in the 
 minds of those who think. 
 
 I believe however — because I believe in God 
 — in evolution, and in the teachings of Jesus 
 Christ, that the Church, which should be the 
 voice of Christ in the world, has the power to 
 redeem the world from that most deep-rooted 
 of all curses, war. But it cannot do so unless 
 it dare believe its own gospel, and dare 
 to demand that the nations base their re- 
 lationships upon those same Christian prin- 
 ciples upon which the relationships .of all 
 Christian gentlemen are based. There is abso- 
 lutely no use of going back to the gospel the 
 Church had for the nations before this war, and 
 it is utterly futile to go back to the only bases 
 upon which international relationships previ- 
 ously rested. If the Church has no greater 
 gospel, no higher message for the world than 
 that now being offered by Security Leagues, 
 Defense Societies, Army and Navy Leagues,
 
 PREFACE X 
 
 Patriotic Organizations, Conscription Leagues, 
 and Preparedness Parades, then it might as 
 well confess its impotency to be the leader of 
 the world out of chaos into order. For none 
 of these organizations are offering anything 
 except the principles on which the old order 
 rested, toppling always, insecure, and at last 
 falling. It is this truth I wish to recall to the 
 Churches. But mostly I wish to reassure those 
 prophetic souls who have been writing me from 
 all over our great land — and there are many, 
 young, ardent, full of faith — that this is the 
 great day of the Church if it but go forth 
 with its Lord in a great venture far beyond the 
 power of those who are bound by habit of 
 thought and tradition, to go. To them belongs 
 yesterday and to-day in Europe — to-morrow 
 belongs to us. 
 
 All this material has been used in editorial 
 form in The Christian Work during the past 
 year. This accounts for some repetition and 
 some informality of expression not generally 
 expected in a book. But it seemed best not 
 to re-write them, and print them practically 
 unchanged. F. L. 
 
 NewYork.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Church on Trial . ii 
 
 II. Has the Church Lost the 
 
 Power of Venture? . 24 
 
 HI. Shall We Abandon the Im- 
 possibles? .... 35 
 
 IV. Militarism or Pacifism : 
 
 Which Will Win ? . . 47 
 
 V. The Present Condition of 
 Christianity in the War- 
 ring Nations ... 64 
 
 VL The Task of the Twenti- 
 eth Century ... 78 
 
 VII. A Nation's True Greatness 85 
 
 VIII. " Choose This Day Whom 
 
 Thou Wilt Serve " . . 93 
 
 IX. The Present Issue . . 102 
 
 X. Doctrine and Deed . .110 
 
 XI. The World's Incapacity to 
 
 Learn 119 
 
 XII. The League to Enforce 
 
 Peace 132 
 
 9
 
 10 CONTENTS 
 
 XIII. Why Not a League of the 
 
 American Nations? . 140 
 
 XIV. The World Court to Dis- 
 
 place World War . -147 
 
 XV. The Best National De- 
 fence 160 
 
 XVI. The Nation's Real Foes 
 
 Within Its Own Borders 169 
 
 XVII. The Leavings for Christ . 177 
 XVIII. America and the Rehabili- 
 tation OF Europe . . 185 
 
 XIX. Man's Relationship to God 192 
 
 XX. Man's Relationship to Man 199 
 
 XXI. Man's Relationship to the 
 
 World .... 207 
 
 XXII. Man, the Builder . . 213 
 
 XXIII. Two Philosophies of Life 221 
 
 XXIV. The Need of the Gospel . 232 
 
 XXV. What Does Christ Want 
 
 Us TO Do? . . . . 241 
 
 XXVI. Jesus' Test of Discipleship 249 
 
 XXVII. Some Rays of Hope . . 255
 
 THE CHURCH ON TRIAL 
 
 NO one can read some of the books which 
 are coming over from Europe without 
 noting a growing sentiment among 
 their authors that not much is to be expected 
 from the Church in the way of constructive 
 measures after this war is over. There are 
 three books before us as we write. All three 
 of them are having a very wide reading in 
 England, and all three are by authors who not 
 only are widely read, but who exert a very 
 wide influence and have large followings. All 
 three of these books, " What Is Coming ? " by 
 Herbert G. Wells; "What Is Christianity?" 
 by Bernard Shaw, and " Christ and Peace," 
 by a group of prominent young Englishmen 
 — representative of the different universities — 
 are attempts at forecasting the Europe that 
 must come after this war. These men see 
 that there must be a new order of things if 
 Europe is not to be plunged into this thing 
 again. And to be driven to this thing again 
 11
 
 12 The Challenge 
 
 means the bottomless pit. All of these books 
 are hopeful, too. They believe that many in 
 Europe have at last been pretty thoroughly 
 disillusioned as to the worth of vi^ar. They 
 believe that a new generation will come along 
 and demand both a new international ethic 
 and a new international political order. They 
 all quite unanimously say that this new ethic 
 will be the ethic of Jesus. Mr. Shaw devotes 
 his book to pleading for this ethic. He even 
 goes so far as to say that had Jesus founded 
 a state on His own teachings, we should have 
 the Christian society where there would be 
 no war. 
 
 But none of these men has any confidence 
 that the Church will lead in the establishment 
 of this new order. They look to socialism, to 
 unions for democratic control, to groups of 
 young college men, to the Fellowship of 
 Reconciliation, even to the labour unions. 
 They hardly mention the Church as a factor 
 in establishing the new order based on Christ's 
 law of love, good-will, forgiveness of the 
 enemy, service and mission the chief end of 
 life, forgetfulness of self in the salvation of 
 the world, discipleship to Christ above patriot- 
 ism. They rather go out of their way to 
 imply that there is no need of looking to the
 
 The Church on Trial 13 
 
 Church. They intimate that no one is so much 
 afraid of her own gospel as she, herself; that 
 if she began practising it to-morrow, she 
 would lose most of her " respectable " adher- 
 ents; that she has said nothing of any particu- 
 lar significance since the war opened, and there 
 was no sign of her making any preparation to 
 say anything ; that after the war she would go 
 on preaching " patriotism " as her greatest 
 message before a world that would need Christ 
 again almost in bodily presence to begin to 
 resurrect it, so has it mutilated its soul; and 
 would go on discussing trivial things — and 
 most great things are trivial before this greater 
 calamity — while scattered groups of prophetic 
 souls would be trying to lead the world back 
 to Christ — the real Christ, who has been lost 
 by both the Church and the world. 
 
 So discouraged have certain eager souls be- 
 come over the possibiHty of the Church lead- 
 ing the nations out of the present unchristian 
 order, that, without formally severing connec- 
 tion with the Church, groups of young, ardent 
 followers of Jesus, both in England and Amer- 
 ica, have come together in new Christian fel- 
 lowships, that they may proclaim to the nations 
 a new gospel commensurate to a new and 
 changed world. Thus in England, a group of
 
 14 The Challenge 
 
 Cambridge students, discouraged over the 
 silence of the Church in this time of awful 
 crisis, joined themselves together in a " Fel- 
 lowship of Reconciliation," which now num- 
 bers over four thousand young men and 
 women. (This movement has been quietly 
 but rapidly spreading over the United States. ) 
 It is a rallying point of those who believe that 
 the teachings of Jesus should be applied to 
 international relationships as well as to per- 
 sonal, and its confessed aim is " the enthrone- 
 ment of love in social, national and interna- 
 tional relationships." We mention it here 
 simply as a sign of the times. Here are four 
 thousand young men leaving the Church that 
 they may urge the teachings of Jesus upon the 
 world, and offer the nations a new rule of life 
 after this war is over. It means, of course, 
 that they do not have faith that the Church 
 will do it. The Roman Catholics of the 
 United States have recently been holding a 
 week's conference in New York, and there was 
 evidently not the slightest stirring in anybody's 
 heart of a great opportunity for the Church 
 to redeem the world from the awful calamity 
 upon it, and the only expressions on this great 
 theme that this great Catholic congress could 
 rise to were one or two to the effect that mili-
 
 The Church on Trial 15 
 
 tary training was good because it inculcated 
 obedience to authority. The foremost educator 
 in the nation has expressed himself as follows : 
 " At this moment none of the Christian 
 churches has had any influence to prevent the 
 catastrophe which has overtaken Europe . . . 
 so far as the advent of universal peace is con- 
 cerned, one form of Christianity is as good as 
 another — and all are helpless." Any one who 
 has carefully followed magazine, book and 
 paper during the last two years has seen this 
 sentiment echoed daily. Here is one of the 
 strongest of these statements, in the introduc- 
 tion to the book mentioned above : " Christ 
 and Peace " : 
 
 " While the Church hesitates, there are num- 
 bers outside her borders who have no doubt 
 that the present situation reveals a failure on 
 her part to understand her true function in so- 
 ciety. Many of these are not bitter critics, but 
 reverent and earnest seekers. They have looked 
 for light and leading, and have turned away 
 disappointed. It may be that some such will 
 welcome in this volume what is at least a seri- 
 ous attempt to face and state the full meaning 
 of the Christian demand in relation to war. 
 From them, not less than from the members 
 of organized Christian bodies, we have a right
 
 16 The Challenge 
 
 to expect help in the supreme task that opens 
 out before the race. Perhaps, by some such 
 united effort, we may find our way to a truer 
 conception of the Church, as well as to a mis- 
 sion more worthy of the high ideals which 
 have been committed to her. What the writers 
 of these papers desire is that the Church may 
 take her rightful place when the war is over, 
 and may at last proclaim a living message with 
 prophetic power, a message which shall direct 
 the minds of men to those great truths in obe- 
 dience to which the health of the nations is to 
 be found. What they fear is that she may lose 
 her chance of proclaiming that message then, 
 because now she has not spoken with the note 
 of reality and conviction, and because she has 
 not dared to face the full meaning of the prob- 
 lem involved in this war. If they can help 
 toward avoiding this danger, and preparing 
 for the new day — in however small a way — -. 
 they will be rewarded for taking a course 
 which they are well aware may cause misunder- 
 standing at a time of crisis like the present." 
 
 While this doubt of the Church is certainly 
 very widespread at just this time, there are on 
 the other hand, millions who love her still and 
 have faith, or, at least, have hope, that this 
 great war will be the occasion of her rising to
 
 The Church on Trial 17 
 
 a supreme height of leadership such as she has 
 not exercised since apostolic days, and of de- 
 claring the whole gospel of Christ regardless 
 of governments, powers and men. The trouble 
 has been that she has been dwelling too much 
 on the lesser things and neglecting the greater. 
 And now she has seen civilization slipping out 
 of her control. Will she see this? And will 
 she attack the greater evils and preach com- 
 mandingly the whole gospel of Christ? And 
 will she now get down to realities? It is her 
 testing time. She is on trial as never before. 
 If she does not do it the world will turn else- 
 where, for the good people of the world have 
 made up their minds that they do not want 
 this thing again. 
 
 As for us, we believe she will. Ten good 
 men would have saved Sodom, and we believe 
 the more than ten prophetic souls in the Church 
 will save her. These prophetic souls within her 
 bosom are increasing in numbers in spite of 
 the thousands of her leaders who have as yet 
 caught no vision. From every land, even 
 from the pulpits of the belligerent nations, are 
 coming voices in greater and greater numbers, 
 saying, " Surely Christianity is great enough 
 to save the nations, and the time has come at 
 last to preach it in its fulness, to accept all its
 
 18 The Challenge 
 
 implications, and to leave it to men either to 
 accept it or reject it." 
 
 The world might reject it again, as it re- 
 jected it two thousand years ago. But, some- 
 how, we believe it is at last ready to receive 
 it. We believe that should Christ come again 
 and repeat the Sermon on the Mount, men 
 would say : " Yes this is the better way. We 
 have called it foolishness and turned to our 
 own ways of force and guns, and suspicions 
 and revenges, and punishments, and doctrines 
 of right and honour, and nationalism and se- 
 curity, and competition and self-aggrandize- 
 ment — and it has all failed, utterly, absolutely, 
 unqualifiedly failed. Now let us try Thy way. 
 Perhaps after all Thou knowest better than we, 
 O Christ, the eternal laws and the foundations 
 of lasting happiness and strength." We said 
 that we believed the world might listen. Yes, 
 and we believe this so heartily that we believe 
 the world will not long listen to the Church — 
 His representative, His vicar. His appointed 
 voice for Him in the earth — unless she speedily 
 goes forth to say just this word. 
 
 The world is not much longer going to care 
 much for a Church that is simply an echo of 
 the world and the world order. What first 
 sowed the seed of distrust of the Church in
 
 The Church on Trial 19 
 
 Luther's mind was the fact that when he went 
 to Rome he found the Church Hving just as 
 the world did. What is sowing in many minds 
 the seed of distrust of the Church's power to 
 lead at this time is that they see her thinking 
 just as the world does. It was pungently ex- 
 pressed last winter by a gentleman who was 
 strolling up Fifth avenue, New York, one eve- 
 ning, when he saw a notice in front of a church 
 to the effect that the pastor was to preach on 
 *' Preparedness." " I went in," he said, " ex- 
 pecting to hear a sermon on the text * Prepare 
 to meet thy God,' and instead I found the 
 minister preaching on ' Prepare to meet the 
 Germans.'" "What did you do?" he was 
 asked. " I came out," he replied, " for when 
 the Church becomes simply an echo of the 
 Navy League — well, I'll take my New Testa- 
 ment and listen to Christ." Here, one has it all. 
 If the Church would rise to the great call- 
 ing that awaits her, lest it pass into the hands 
 of others, let her realize that she cannot save 
 the world if she is to be only an echo of it, 
 preaching only the gospel of the crowd, repeat- 
 ing the sentiment of the daily press, rising no 
 higher than the resolutions of conservative 
 chambers of congress, proclaiming the ethics of 
 the market place, and in her councils passing
 
 20 The Challenge 
 
 resolutions in face of the great world tragedy 
 that rise no higher than those passed by de- 
 fence societies. 
 
 Let her realize that she must preach a new 
 patriotism, a patriotism that is not so much 
 concerned with saving the nation as it is in 
 having the nation be a Christ-nation to the 
 other nations of the world. When Jesus Christ 
 said : " I think not of myself, but only of how 
 I can save my brothers," a dynamic was in- 
 jected into the world that has made it new 
 so far as human hearts are concerned. What 
 another renewing force would be liberated in 
 the world if the whole Church of Christ in 
 America would say : " Let America be not 
 tremblingly thinking of herself, but only how 
 can she save the other nations? " Ah, what a 
 glorious Church that would be, and how aghast 
 the world would stand before it, as did the 
 Romans and the Greeks before Christ! 
 
 Let her realize that if she is to be the world's 
 accepted one, she must preach the new — it is 
 as old as Christ — nationalism. The old na- 
 tionalism has always been the root of war. It 
 was the one deep-rooted cause of the present 
 war. Many in Europe are beginning at last to 
 distrust it, while in our own land our short- 
 sighted politicians and our backward-looking
 
 The Church on Trial- 21 
 
 statesmen and our preparedness advocates are 
 agitating it and using it as a slogan. If it is 
 the only gospel the Church has then the out- 
 look is truly evil. For how long will a dis- 
 illusioned world, a world in doubts, misgivings 
 over everything it has known, distrusting all 
 the past orders since they have landed it only 
 in hell, look to a Church that has no higher 
 gospel than " America only," " Deutschland 
 iiber Alles," "England forever?" But sup- 
 pose the Church should rise and say : " Now 
 for the kingdom of God ; now for the republic 
 of all good men ; now for the fellowship of all 
 believers; now for the communion of saints; 
 and let every disciple of Jesus Christ count 
 every other disciple nearer to him than any 
 member of his own nation who is Christ's 
 enemy; and let every Christian's allegiance be 
 first to Jesus Christ; and let every Christian say 
 that never will he kill his brother Christian in 
 any land or nation at the behest of governments 
 any sooner than he would kill his own child — 
 for this brother is his Christ's little child and in 
 killing him he makes Christ's and his heavenly 
 Father's heart bleed." Would there ever be 
 another war? There could not be. There 
 need not be, if the whole Church would insist 
 on obeying Christ first. We believe the very
 
 22 The Challenge 
 
 boldness of the Church should it thus say again 
 what its Lord said would draw all men to it in 
 holy wonder. 
 
 Finally, let her realize that a great stream of 
 testimony is coming out of Europe, from the 
 trenches, from impoverished villages, from 
 stricken homes, to the effect that militarism, 
 armament, war itself is all sham, abomination, 
 and futility. As was said rightly by a dis- 
 tinguished Englishman the other day, " The 
 future pacifists of Europe are in the trenches." 
 From all parts of Europe are coming echoes of 
 a determination "To try some better way." 
 From Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland 
 are coming plans for a permanent peace based 
 on other things than guns. In Sweden, the 
 mass meetings and acts of parliament calling 
 for disarmament are but indices of what thou- 
 sands are feeling in Europe. What a chance 
 for the Church to rise in majesty and say, with 
 its Lord of love and peace : " Let us put away 
 these old things now and forever. Let us 
 make a great venture. Let us make a great act 
 of faith. Let us all forgive our enemies and 
 start anew. Christ can make all things new. 
 Let all who call themselves Christians get to- 
 gether, as men and States have got together, 
 and form a compact, or a league of nations,
 
 The Church on Trial 23 
 
 or some sort of united nations of the world, 
 and lay down our arms, using courts in their 
 stead, and let us learn to love and help one 
 another, as children of the same Father, and 
 walk arm in arm together through a world that 
 calls for our united, spiritual warfare against 
 many evils; and let us remember that before 
 us all lies one destiny, one home. We must 
 live together then. Let us learn to live to- 
 gether here." Can the Church rise to say that 
 soon? If she cannot, others will. Is it not 
 significant that already the great novelist, Re- 
 main Rolland, a Frenchman, has just said it 
 in his wonderful letter, " Above the Battle " ? 
 It is an echo of Christ — but why is not the 
 Church unitedly saying the same thing?
 
 II 
 
 HAS THE CHURCH LOST THE POWER 
 OF VENTURE? 
 
 THE creation of the Christian Church was 
 a great venture. It was an act of 
 sublime and surpassing faith, A young 
 man was born into an age of convention, re- 
 ligious formalism and theological fixity. He 
 dreamed a dream of a new kingdom — a king- 
 dom of freedom and of the spirit. He con- 
 ceived a state to be founded on good-will. He 
 called together twelve men — it was the great- 
 est venture ever made — and established a 
 Church which was as far removed from the 
 existing Church as socialism is from feudalism. 
 It was its daring that saved it. The Church 
 would not have lived had it been only a little 
 way removed from the Jewish Church, only 
 one step beyond or above. It was because it 
 was so revolutionary, so radical, so impossible, 
 that it lived and attracted the attention of the 
 world. It arrested men. It put a new, glori- 
 ous, alluring ideal, a living, spiritual state, an 
 opportunity fit for gods before men. As a 
 34
 
 Has Church Lost the Power of Venture? 25 
 
 result, it won prophetic souls, and these pro- 
 phetic souls banded themselves together, held 
 by the inspiration of a great venture and by- 
 devotion to their Lord — the great adventurer 
 of history. 
 
 The primitive Church was a weak affair. 
 When Christ died, there were probably not 
 more than a hundred real members in exist- 
 ence. It was a little group of men and women, 
 none powerful, none famous, set in the midst 
 of a great Jewish religion and a Roman civili- 
 zation. The first discussion which agitated 
 this new Church was whether it should not con- 
 form to the Jewish faith, merely grafting on to 
 it a faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Everybody 
 knows now, that had the counsel of the conser- 
 vative Jewish members prevailed, there would 
 have been no Christian Church. Fortunately 
 they did not prevail. The prophetic members 
 had their way. The primitive Church decided 
 to make a great venture. It broke with Juda- 
 ism in one great bound. It broke with con- 
 temporary ethics. It broke absolutely with 
 Roman civilization. It broke with the current 
 Greek philosophy, which, at its core, was sim- 
 ply that life existed for self -protection, self- 
 development, self -security. To see how great 
 this break was, one has only to read the ser-
 
 26 The Challenge 
 
 mons of the first missionaries as recorded in 
 the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul 
 and John, and the sermons and treatises of the 
 Church Fathers. The gospel offered by the 
 early Church was as far removed from 
 the ordinary conventional religion as were the 
 stars from the haunts of men. It had nothing 
 in common with the ideals or ethics of the 
 crowd. Its idols had nothing in common with 
 the idols of the market place. In a world that 
 believed in revenge, it preached love. To a 
 society engrossed in pleasure, it preached duty 
 and purity. To a civilization based on force, 
 it preached good-will. To a civilization in 
 which war was the accepted and normal life, it 
 made direct protest against war. (Practically 
 every one of the Church Fathers say, " Chris- 
 tians must not bear arms against each 
 other.") ^ 
 
 In a social order where caste was fixed and 
 accepted, it said all men were equal. In an 
 autocracy, it preached democracy. In a world 
 that put nationalism above everything else, it 
 placed humanity first, and put citizenship in 
 the kingdom above allegiance to the State. In 
 
 * See Mr. Carnegie's exhaustive tabulation of the opin- 
 ions of the early Fathers in his pamphlet "A League of 
 Peace."
 
 Has Church Lost the Power of Venture? 27 
 
 a world which idolized forcefulness, physical 
 prowess, lordship over others, triumph in arms, 
 it proclaimed meekness, gentleness, forbear- 
 ance, and the spirit of lowly service as the most 
 admirable qualities of manhood. With a sub- 
 lime and unequalled confidence in its message 
 it went out into the world with that message. 
 It was a great venture and because it was 
 a great venture the Church soon commanded 
 the attention of the Greek and Roman world. 
 It was the very impossible of the early Church 
 that assured its life and growth. It not only 
 drew the prophetic souls of the ancient world 
 into its fold, but it commanded the admiration 
 of the crowd in due time simply because it had 
 a message. A Church without a message 
 would never have made any progress in either 
 Greece or Rome. But the great thing is that 
 it dared make the great venture. By its very 
 flight toward the stars it made itself seen of all 
 men. Only that which is lifted up can draw 
 men to it. The Church can lead only when it 
 is far ahead of the people — only when it dares 
 make the great venture. 
 
 Many are wondering to-day if the Church 
 has lost this power of venture? Does it dare 
 make the venture with Peter across the stormy 
 sea to meet the Lord where He stands? One
 
 28 The Challenge 
 
 has only even carelessly to read the secular 
 press of both Europe and America, together 
 with the many books that are being written, 
 to see how widespread the feeling is that the 
 Church, as an institution, has neither any 
 vision in this moment of a crumbling world, 
 nor any faith to make again the great venture, 
 even if she had the vision. One turns in vain 
 to the utterance of either Catholic or Protes- 
 tant Church in Europe for any prophetic word. 
 The Vatican has no great word for stricken 
 Europe; the churches of Germany and Great 
 Britain, after two years of war, have no new 
 word to say. There is yet no intimation that 
 they are planning any great venture after this 
 war is over, formulating any new, prophetic 
 word to speak to a world victimized by an un- 
 necessary and diabolic war. Perhaps there is 
 some excuse for the Church in Europe. It is 
 sorely vexed at this time. It has its hands 
 and heart absorbed in a work of immediate 
 ministry. Its resources are heavily taxed and 
 it is too hard pressed to find time for prayer 
 or to exercise vision. 
 
 But what shall we say of the Church in the 
 United States? What is happening in this 
 favoured land, where, far from the scenes of 
 war, we can contemplate it in right perspective,
 
 Has Church Lost the Power of Venture? 29 
 
 view all its terrible calamity, study causes and 
 effects, and speak some great healing, new 
 word ? Here is the greatest apostasy the world 
 has ever witnessed. Here is a denial of every- 
 thing for which Christ stood such as the dark- 
 est times of the Middle Ages never saw. Here 
 are millions of Christians bending all their 
 energies, resources and genius to slaughtering 
 each other, stopping at no diabolical method. 
 Here are millions of women and little chil- 
 dren being starved and driven crazy, so that 
 some nations — Poland, for instance — have been 
 absolutely decimated of children. Here are 
 fearful burdens being placed upon the shoul- 
 ders of the poor for succeeding centuries. 
 Here are institutions, social organizations, 
 charities, philanthropies that have taken years 
 to form, being all put aside for years. Here 
 are missions set back for a century. Here 
 are cities being devastated. But worst of all, 
 here are hatreds among Christians being en- 
 gendered that must make even the far-seeing 
 Christ despair of His kingdom of good-will 
 ever coming in the earth. 
 
 Now, whatever one may say about Chris- 
 tianity having not failed, because it has not 
 been tried — and it has not, neither has it been 
 preached — it is absolutely certain: that
 
 30 The Challenge 
 
 the Church was not able to stem the awful 
 flood of sudden passion that broke loose into 
 war; hardly raised its voice in protest; was 
 soon swept away by the mob in every country, 
 and has since become nothing but the cham- 
 pion of the arms in each land. Neither, with 
 the splendid exception of a few men and con- 
 gregations in Great Britain and Germany, has 
 the Church done or said anything in the last 
 century that could make this present holocaust 
 impossible or even improbable. There is no 
 utterance of any ecclesiastical council, Protes- 
 tant or Catholic, in Europe during the last one 
 hundred years that has anything of the nature 
 of venture in it or speaks out, as Christ would 
 speak, against the blasphemy and sin of war, 
 even of wars of conquest or for settling dis- 
 putes, taking for granted now that one might 
 have the right to repel direct invasion. When, 
 two years before this war broke out, certain 
 prophetic Swiss pastors drew up a really 
 Christian protest against war — one which was 
 praised by all prophetic souls, by poets and 
 authors, as lofty, dignified, and really Chris- 
 tian — and asked the churches of Europe to con- 
 sider it in conference together, they received 
 — and they were very eminent men — not only 
 the rebuff of the churches refusing to come to-
 
 Has Church Lost the Power of Venture? 31 
 
 gather to consider it, but intimations, especially 
 from Germany, that the churches could not 
 discuss such subjects as the passing of war! 
 That conference, with the official endorsement 
 of the churches, might have prevented this war. 
 But the Church had lost the power of venture. 
 It never can prevent such deluges as the world 
 is enduring, by anything it has yet said or done. 
 Everybody must have been convinced of this. 
 We were saying that surely the Church in 
 America, being uninvolved in the awful strife, 
 and seeing the absolute failure of the Church, 
 and the absolute inadequacy of anything the 
 Church has yet said or done to prevent this 
 awful daily crucifixion of the Lord, would rise 
 at last to make another great venture, have 
 some new word to say, at least be urged to 
 say for once what its Lord Himself said, do 
 some wonderful, compelling thing! But alas, 
 alas, no word has come and we have the spec- 
 tacle, with many noble exceptions, of the min- 
 isters in Christ's Church in America, with the 
 great world crisis, calling for new utterances 
 as great as those of Jesus, Paul, Luther or 
 Wesley to meet great opportunities, writing 
 letters to Washington asking for more guns; 
 signing calls to arms in newspapers ; marching 
 in military parades among rows of glistening
 
 32 The Challenge 
 
 bayonets; preaching " musket " patriotism; at- 
 tacking pacifists who are trying simply to apply 
 the principles of Jesus to international affairs. 
 This the only word a large section of the 
 Church has got to say to the world in this 
 awful crisis — this, which is the same old word 
 that Germany and England and France have 
 been saying for a hundred years — " We must 
 arm"; "self-defence"; "military prepared- 
 ness " — this the only word in the great crisis 
 of the world ; this the only word, when it is the 
 same word that has failed, as absolutely as 
 Mohammedanism has failed, to build a lasting 
 kingdom of good-will and love. 
 
 Has the Church lost the power of venture? 
 What an opportunity for the Church in 
 America to take a great venture and say the 
 big, new, healing word; to condemn forever 
 with one great unanimous voice the whole out- 
 worn, incapable, toppled, unchristian military 
 and political systems that preceded this war; 
 to proclaim the new gospel of love of the 
 enemy, good-will, forgiveness, redemption of 
 other peoples as the only mission of a nation 
 as the primitive Church took a great venture 
 and proclaimed it as the only mission of a 
 Christian man; to proclaim that the time has 
 come for the nation to bend all its energies to.
 
 Has Church Lost the Power of Venture? 33 
 
 establishing a kingdom of good-will among 
 nations as the early Church proclaimed this as 
 the mission of every soul; to demand that the 
 nation's patriotism be to humanity as the in- 
 dividual's was to the kingdom ; to demand that 
 national boundaries shall mean no more to 
 nations than local boundaries mean to Chris- 
 tians; to reaffirm Jesus' great teaching of real 
 brotherhood, that membership in His kingdom 
 constituted a closer tie than citizenship in the 
 same country; to proclaim that the time has 
 come for nations to rely on moral forces as 
 much as do Christian men ; to proclaim that the 
 old ethic, the old political system, the whole 
 old order of competitive armament has broken 
 down and has no place in the Kingdom of God, 
 and that the time has come for the Church to 
 take Jesus by the arm and have faith in His 
 teachings, and go forth bravely to apply them 
 to the world. 
 
 We might as well frankly face the fact that 
 there is no hope for the world until the Church 
 rises to this. But has it got any power of 
 venture left in it? Or is it to be, what it has 
 been for centuries, simply the echo of the opin- 
 ion of that crowd firmly entrenched in the 
 toryism which sees no sense or security ex- 
 cept in old things and old institutions? We
 
 34 The Challenge 
 
 do not know. Certainly it is showing no signs 
 of it yet. Perhaps the Church must pass, and 
 let some new organization of the young, pro- 
 phetic and venturesome, make the great ven- 
 ture. But we pray that the Church may rise 
 to it.
 
 Ill 
 
 SHALL WE ABANDON THE 
 IMPOSSIBLES? 
 
 THE Sermon on the Mount, as do most 
 of the other teachings of Jesus, bor- 
 ders on the verge of the impossible. 
 Indeed the Sermon on the Mount has been 
 called " Christ's Impossibles " more than once. 
 The Christian Church has recognized this in 
 all ages — recognized that it was hard "to be 
 perfect," " to love the enemy," " to forgive 
 those who trespass against us," " to return 
 good for evil," " to take no anxious thought of 
 self," " to worry not over the things of this 
 world," to believe " that our Heavenly Father 
 feedeth us, clotheth us, protecteth us," " to lose 
 one's own life in the service of others," " to 
 resist evil by love rather than by force." We 
 say the Christian Church has always recog- 
 nized that the words of Jesus verged on the im- 
 possible, that the sayings were hard. But never 
 
 until this year has a disposition manifested 
 85
 
 36 The Challenge 
 
 itself among Christians, even among ministers, 
 to set aside the words of Jesus as too high for 
 human needs, too impossible to be useful, too 
 far removed from possibility of human attain- 
 ment, too remote to guide us in times of stress, 
 too idealistic for a practical world, too un- 
 workable to be trusted and therefore to be set 
 aside, for the time being, and the ideals of the 
 Old Testament substituted for them, or even 
 more human, more primitive motives than 
 those of the Old Testament. 
 
 To be sure, suggestions to this effect have 
 come from outside Christianity. We remem- 
 ber one of the great Hindu writers remarking 
 that Christianity was too beautiful to work. 
 He would keep the New Testament in the 
 libraries, he said, along with the other Uto- 
 pian schemes of history — this one most 
 Utopian of all — then he would put the Ten 
 Commandments into the hands of the people 
 as the highest ideal, and expect nothing but 
 approximation to these. We remember his 
 naive remark, that " when you found a man 
 who loved his enemy, you could be sure he 
 had strayed from heaven or was about to go 
 there." Many of our readers will remember 
 that the eminent Chinese Ambassador to this 
 country of a decade or so ago, speaking in
 
 Shall We Abandon the Impossibles? 37 
 
 New York, remarked that Confucianism with 
 the Golden Rule as the light of its ethics, — 
 it will be remembered that Confucius gave the 
 Golden Rule as the summary of religion, put- 
 ting it in negative form — was much more 
 likely to become the world religion than Chris- 
 tianity with " its impossibles." Christianity 
 was too impracticable, too idealistic, a religion 
 for perfect men, for heaven, not earth, he 
 said. He went further, and said it was dis- 
 couraging because it set the standard too far 
 off. It was too high. He drew his conclu- 
 sions, he said, from watching Christians. And 
 none with whom he talked, with one or two 
 exceptions, ever seemed to be trying to live by 
 Christ's teachings or trying to reproduce his 
 real life in the world. He even intimated that 
 any government which might attempt to go 
 over on to a Sermon on the Mount basis to- 
 morrow would have to go out of business at 
 once. 
 
 In 1903 a little volume was published by 
 McClure, Phillips and Company entitled, 
 " Letters from a Chinese Official : An Eastern 
 View of Western Civilization." Curiously 
 enough it gives utterance to the same thoughts 
 Li Hung Chang spoke, and almost in the same 
 language. He observes : " I cannot see that
 
 38 The Challenge 
 
 your society is based upon religion at all; nor 
 does that surprise me, if I have rightly appre- 
 hended the character of Christianity. For the 
 ideal which I seem to find enshrined in your 
 gospels and embodied in the discussions of 
 your divines, is one not of labour on earth, but 
 of contemplation in heaven; not of the unity 
 of the human race, but of the communion of 
 saints." A distinguished Mohammedan has 
 made the same criticism of Christianity — its 
 ideals too high, its demands too great. And 
 even the Jewish rabbis have criticized it on 
 the same ground. 
 
 But never, until this year, have Christians 
 themselves showed any marked disposition to 
 acquiesce in these accusations, and exclaim 
 with the enemy : " These are hard sayings ; we 
 cannot hear them." The Church has clung to 
 them in spite of every discouragement, in spite 
 of attack of enemy and sceptic, in spite of the 
 criticism of those who find prudence the high- 
 est form of excellence, in spite of the scorn 
 of the worldly and the sinner, in spite of the 
 fact that the ideal is still far off. For she has 
 seen that a religion to be of any service must 
 be one in which aspiration is forever the chief 
 and commanding characteristic. As Brierley 
 once said, " Its call must be to the infinite
 
 Shall We Abandon the Impossibles? 39 
 
 within him, and the morality it offers must 
 partake of that infinitude." The moment re- 
 ligion is not an aspiration, but is an easy ful- 
 filment, that moment men abandon it as a 
 religion. Religion is a striving rather than 
 an easy attainment. And it has been just this 
 putting of an immediate impossible moral im- 
 perative before the world that has kept the 
 Church alive through two thousand years — 
 years that have seen other religions rise and 
 fall. It has been its great appeal and its power. 
 If history teaches one oustanding truth, it is 
 this : " Because Christianity in its ethic opens 
 this moral infinite it has been the inspiration 
 of the world." 
 
 The Church has also recognized that to get 
 man's mind off the commonplace and to lift 
 it out of the level of animal passion and 
 selfishness, an inspiration, an offer, an ideal, 
 a standard infinitely above where perhaps it 
 can immediately rise, is necessary. We have 
 to hitch humanity to a star even to pull it out 
 of the ditch, and set it on the level, or on a 
 little hill. And the world has been lifted by 
 slow stages, little by little, because of this 
 great ideal. Wherever there has been any 
 moral progress, it has been where this ideal 
 was never lowered. It was just those ages
 
 40 The Challenge 
 
 when the Church was tempted to lower it a 
 little, that we call " the dark ages." 
 
 Furthermore, the Church has recognized 
 that some men since Jesus have approximated, 
 through the grace of God and the power of 
 Christ, this very command of perfectness. 
 She has had her John, Paul, Augustine, Fran- 
 cis, Elizabeth, a Kempis, Elizabeth Fry, John 
 Fox, Drummond, Whittier, Phillips Brooks, 
 and many more who came near enough to this 
 ideal to make her believe that these impossibles 
 are possible for man, when he will take his 
 own gospel seriously and have faith in it. 
 And in spite of all the evil of the world, the 
 Church has had courage to believe Christ, and 
 that while these heights might, at present, be 
 unscalable. He intended that men should some 
 time live on them as their home. She would 
 not let the scientist have more faith in her 
 Lord than has she herself. For John Fiske, 
 predicting the time when the altruism of the 
 Sermon on the Mount should have become the 
 normal social principle, and referring to the 
 fact that Christ's doctrine was a foresight of 
 the moral world process and its result, asks, 
 in the light of evolution : " When have we 
 ever before held such a clue to the meaning 
 of Christ as in the Sermon on the Mount?
 
 Shall We Abandon the Impossibles? 41 
 
 * Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit 
 the earth.' In the cruel strife of centuries has 
 it not often seemed as if the earth were to be 
 rather the prize of the hardest heart and the 
 strongest fist? To many men these words of 
 Christ have been as foolishness and as a stum- 
 bling block, and the ethics of the Sermon on 
 the Mount have been openly derided as too 
 good for this world. . . . Man is slowly pass- 
 ing from a primitive social state in which he 
 was little better than a brute towards an ulti- 
 mate social state in which his character shall 
 have become so transformed that nothing of 
 the brute can be detected in it." 
 
 So the Church has stood firm for the New 
 Testament ideal. Never insisting that men 
 should live up to it, never expecting too much 
 of humanity — perhaps never expecting quite 
 enough — never quite daring to believe her own 
 gospel, never preaching Christ's ideal in its 
 entirety or with great courage, yet she has 
 never, and so far as we remember, none of 
 her leaders have, until this year openly denied 
 them as the guiding principles of Christianity 
 or hinted that they do not apply to the world 
 of strong and living men. To our mind it is 
 the most ominous thing the war has brought 
 forth. And, worst of all, it is manifesting it-
 
 42 The Challenge 
 
 self in America. One might expect the half 
 frantic leaders of the German and English 
 churches to desert the Sermon on the Mount, 
 but it is ominous when America, supposedly 
 still in her senses, should do so. Americans 
 were shocked when, a year ago, some German 
 theological professors began praising Moham- 
 medanism and pointing out its close affiliation 
 with Christianity, for the one thing of which 
 there is not a vestige in Mohammedanism is 
 the forgiving, merciful, loving spirit of the 
 teachings of Jesus. We were shocked when, 
 last summer, we heard German clergymen ar- 
 guing that nations should not be bound by 
 Christian ethics, indeed could not be. We 
 were shocked at the preaching of hatred as a 
 "holy thing" by certain German clergymen. 
 We were shocked when that same hatred was 
 preached from some English pulpits. We 
 were shocked when some English Christians 
 urged horrible reprisals against Germany after 
 the Zeppelin raids. We were shocked when 
 one of the most famous of English preachers 
 pictured Christ with a bayonet charging against 
 the foe. But now, in our own land, something 
 of the same spirit is suddenly beginning to 
 manifest itself, and Christian leaders, even 
 clergymen, carried away by the war fever, are
 
 Shall We Abandon the Impossibles? 43 
 
 beginning to preach sentiments utterly at vari- 
 ance with the words of Jesus. 
 
 We are not indulging in generalities. We 
 have been making a careful study of many 
 utterances by Christian pastors and laymen, 
 called forth by the discussion on " prepared- 
 ness " and President Wilson's course toward 
 Mexico and toward Germany. To take one or 
 two examples : A well-known doctor of di- 
 vinity, editor of a great paper, devotes one of 
 his leading editorials to prove that Jesus was 
 an apostle of force, and in the course of it 
 occurs this sentence : " John portrays Jesus as 
 going forth as a conqueror on horseback in 
 righteousness to make war! " What becomes 
 of the Sermon on the Mount in the face of 
 such an editorial? A militant clergyman on 
 the Pacific coast has been justifying war out 
 of the Bible. It is needless to say that he 
 used the Old Testament. The justifiers of 
 slavery used the Bible, it will be remembered. 
 In a recent speech, one of those who is urging 
 that this nation arm to the teeth, contemptu- 
 ously referred to the "other checkers." (It 
 will be remembered that the words are 
 Christ's.) If one should take the book just 
 published by the leading advocate of force, 
 in this nation, and print it in parallel columns
 
 44. The Challenge 
 
 with the Sermon on the Mount, he would im- 
 mediately see that they contradicted each other 
 in every sentence. Recently a distinguished 
 clergyman, in a company of ministers, raised 
 the question whether the United States might 
 not lead off, as the first nation to undertake 
 such a high, Christlike task, and practise the 
 Sermon on the Mount toward other nations, 
 and he was almost violently opposed by large 
 numbers of the clergy present. Many of these 
 sermons openly advocate that the chief duty 
 of a nation is to protect itself. (Jesus said, 
 in every instance, without any exception that 
 the chief duty in life was service to 
 others.) A man came forth from church the 
 other day remarking that the sentence which 
 lingered longest in his mind, out of a militant 
 sermon, was this : " We ought to be prepared 
 to lick any nation on the earth." The lesson 
 that day may have contained these words, 
 " Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 
 But I say unto you, Love your enemies." But 
 no, any one who suggests that the United 
 States act toward other nations as Christ asked 
 us to act toward our neighbours, act as Chris- 
 tian gentlemen act, is called a " pacifist " and 
 derided. But remember, when you deride the
 
 Shall We Abandon the Impossibles? 45 
 
 pacifists, you deride the author of the Sermon 
 on the Mount, for that is their creed. In a 
 recent debate on preparedness in New York a 
 well-known clergyman so held up the principles 
 of the Sermon on the Mount to ridicule (with- 
 out, of course, naming that fundamental pro- 
 nouncement of the Lord) that an eminent citi- 
 zen remarked the next day : "I believe 
 in preparedness in a slight degree above that 
 obtaining in this country. But I must confess 
 that that gentleman's remarks struck me as 
 disagreeable, coming from a clergyman." 
 
 We could multiply instances, but will quote 
 but one more, one which shows just where this 
 whole tendency to distrust the teachings of 
 Jesus, — love, good-will, mercy, character, what 
 we are rather than what we can do — as the 
 best defence of a nation, and to put our trust 
 in force and go forth to slay, logically ends. 
 It is a quotation from a journal edited by 
 Christians, " The Seven Seas," the organ of 
 the Navy League : "It is absolutely right for 
 a nation to live its fullest intensity, to expand, 
 to found colonies, to get richer and richer by 
 any proper means, such as armed conquests." 
 An apology for Germany? Oh no, for us. 
 For the next sentence reads : " In the case of 
 the United States, this is a particular duty."
 
 46 The Challenge 
 
 If we need more " preparedness " all right. 
 It is a question for experts to determine. But 
 in the eagerness of good church members and 
 some clergymen to get it are they really ready 
 to throw over the Sermon on the Mount and 
 other words of Jesus as the ethic of society? 
 God help the Church and the nation, too, if as 
 a Church she should do this. For the day we 
 leave Christ as our Lord and put Force in his 
 place we shall be — well, we may be where 
 Europe is ; but, anyhow, we shall sink back to 
 those who follow the easily attainable. And, 
 so far, in the history of the world, these have 
 never risen above their own base instincts.
 
 IV 
 
 MILITARISM OR PACIFISM : WHICH 
 WILL WIN? 
 
 THE militarist is one who believes that 
 his nation should go on making prepara- 
 tion to settle disputes with other na- 
 tions by the old methods of arms and force. 
 
 The pacifist is one who believes that his 
 nation, while supplying reasonable armament 
 for policing land and sea, should be making 
 preparation to settle disputes with other na- 
 tions by the new methods of judicial pro- 
 cedure, leagues of nations, world courts, and 
 councils of conciliation. 
 
 The militarist looks to the past and trusts 
 to the old methods. 
 
 The pacifist looks to the future and trusts 
 to the new. 
 
 The militarist, as a general thing, quotes the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 The pacifist uses the New Testament almost 
 exclusively, and finds basis for his gospel, that 
 nations should live by the same principles as 
 47
 
 48 The Challenge 
 
 those by which decent individuals live, in al- 
 most every word of Christ. 
 
 There has been an age-long strife between 
 militarism and pacifism since the first great 
 Pacifist, Jesus, enunciated His gospel of good- 
 will among men ; the brotherhood of man, the 
 forgiveness of the enemy; love, the test of per- 
 fection ; the saving of the enemy a higher vic- 
 tory than killing him; mission the doctrine of 
 life rather than rights. This, which is the 
 creed of the pacifist, fell into a world where 
 militarism only was triumphant. Curiously 
 enough it made a good many converts, even 
 in the midst of that world, saturated with mili- 
 tarism, and with no law but force. The early 
 Christians would not bear arms, and prac- 
 tically every one of the Church Fathers record 
 this fact. But militarism soon got the control 
 of the Church, and it has controlled it, as a 
 whole, ever since. Here has been its great 
 apostasy, and not in the realm of theology. 
 
 But there have always been enough prophetic 
 men in the Church to keep pacifism alive. 
 Erasmus spent his life studying the New Tes- 
 tament, and he was driven to the conclusion 
 that the settlement of disputes between nations 
 by war was contrary to the whole word of 
 Christ. He said it was " the method of cats."
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 49 
 
 Grotius studied the gospels and became con- 
 vinced that they were opposed to war and he, 
 the first great constructive pacifist, suggested 
 a world court. Emanuel Kant, the first pacifist 
 among philosophers, wrote his great Christian 
 tract " Eternal Peace," in which he insisted 
 that courts must supplant war, federations of 
 nations supplant selfish individualism, treaties 
 supplant guns, democracy supplant dynasties. 
 
 Ever since the days of Erasmus, each gen- 
 eration has had a witness for the Christian 
 doctrine of justice and good-will as the law 
 of international relationships. There is not 
 time to mention them here, except those of our 
 own land. For the strife between militarism, 
 that is, the doctrine of armament, and pacifism, 
 that is, the doctrine of judicial methods, con- 
 ciliation and good-will, has suddenly reached 
 an acute stage in our own land. Early in our 
 history, pacifism, the Christian method, had 
 its noble advocates. They did not represent 
 the Church as a whole, for, until within the 
 last twenty-five years the Church in America 
 has stood for militarism as it has in Germany 
 and Great Britain. But they represented the 
 Christian teaching and the doctrine of the 
 early Church on this point. They are a noble 
 list. To mention only a few of the dead:
 
 60 The Challenge 
 
 there were Ladd, Burritt, Sumner, Whittier, 
 Garrison, Channing, Dodge, Worcester, Cuy- 
 ler, Justice Brewer, Edward Everett Hale, 
 Brooks, Robert Treat Paine, Josiah Strong 
 and Smiley. The living number many more. 
 They have made a brave fight and have grad- 
 ually seen their efforts bear fruit, and have 
 won many converts to their cause. They 
 played a large part in bringing the nations to- 
 gether in Hague conferences; they have se- 
 cured wide international organization; they 
 were largely responsible for the securing of 
 arbitration treaties, and they have successfully 
 resisted all attempts to militarize the nation. 
 
 Then came the European war with all its 
 horrors. The acts of some of the belligerent 
 nations and the disposition manifested induced 
 a semi-hysterical state in large bodies of the 
 people which the militarists were quick to put 
 to advantage. They entered upon a campaign 
 for vast armament with all the energies and 
 means at their disposal. All kinds of defence 
 leagues were organized and the word " pre- 
 paredness " chosen as a slogan. The leaders 
 are the same men who have been behind the 
 movement for the last ten years. They have 
 become alert to the opportunity. As one of 
 them remarked : "If we don't put our pro-
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 51 
 
 gram over now, we never can." They have 
 carried many sincere people with them, but 
 one who has studied the movement for years 
 knows that it is the same group who ten years 
 ago were trying to force upon Congress just 
 the same program they are urging now — four 
 battleships a year, a standing army of 500,000 
 men, payment of the State militia and National 
 Guard, military training in the public schools. 
 The only thing they have added is the demand 
 they are making now for universal military 
 training. 
 
 Up to this time the pacifist movement has 
 been able to progress with little opposition. 
 The only opposition came from men like Mr. 
 Roosevelt and the militarist group, who, with 
 him, opposed the passing of the Taft arbitra- 
 tion treaties wherein the United States agreed 
 to settle disputes with Great Britain and with 
 France by arbitration. But the war had not 
 long been in progress before the contagion of 
 militarism, fanned and whipped up by the 
 leaders of the militarist movement, who saw 
 their chance, seized upon certain classes of 
 people. And now the fight is on between the 
 militarists and the pacifists in our country in 
 dead earnest. 
 
 The pacifist element is no smaller nor
 
 62 The Challenge 
 
 weaker than it was. Indeed, it is much larger 
 and much stronger than ever. It is doubtful 
 if there were ever one one-hundredth as many 
 people in this country who hated war and all 
 preparation for it as there are now. It is 
 simply that those who believe in the old way 
 of war as over against the new way of judicial 
 processes have been urged into action. Vast 
 sums have been spent, popular catchwords, 
 such as patriotism, nationalism, and Ameri- 
 canism, have been played upon, and mis- 
 representations of the pacifist movement spread 
 far and wide. Any man who, to-day, dares 
 utter a word in favour of even a constructive 
 peace program is immediately held up before 
 the people by the preparedness leaders as un- 
 patriotic, un-American, and as lacking in hero- 
 ism and courage. 
 
 The fight is on, and less and less is there any 
 middle ground. Everybody can see that dur- 
 ing the last few months the men who are lead- 
 ing the preparedness movement are dropping 
 the word anti-preparedness, and using the 
 simple term " peace people " or " pacifists " 
 when they refer to those who do not favour the 
 United States following the old and European 
 ideals. It is also noticeable, on the other hand, 
 how the press is referring to the advocates
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 53 
 
 bf armament not as preparedness people, 
 but as " militarists." It is patent to the most 
 casual reader that the great dailies are more 
 and more using the word military in place of 
 the word preparedness. Thus the country is 
 rapidly falling into two groups : those who on 
 the one hand advocate military preparedness, 
 the old, European, Napoleonic, Prussian ideal ; 
 and those who advocate judicial prepared- 
 ness, the new, Christian, twentieth century 
 ideal. 
 
 Which will win? We believe the new will 
 win, because we believe that the ultimate vic- 
 tories are always with the forward-look- 
 ing men, not with the backward. It may 
 seem, for a moment, that the old is winning. 
 But it must be remembered that the "pre- 
 paredness " movement is the most highly en- 
 gineered movement of modern times. It has 
 back of it military forces, salaried men, some 
 of the best press agents, and large sums of 
 money. Its promoters rest not night nor day. 
 They go from one city to another organizing 
 meetings and parades. The peace advocates 
 have neither money nor organization. It must 
 also be remembered that every step toward 
 preparedness means millions of dollars for 
 munition manufacturers, battleship builders,
 
 54. The Challenge 
 
 makers of guns wherewith to arm our new 
 soldiers, clothing trades — many more. But in 
 spite of all the immediate money gain — the 
 greatest appeal to most men — we believe the 
 idealists, the pacifists, those who wish to see 
 America the moral leader of the world, the 
 protagonists of the new order, will win, be- 
 cause they are forward-looking men, and 
 because the ideal always triumphs in the 
 end. 
 
 There are some encouraging signs right 
 now. When the Union against Militarism 
 ^saw President Wilson, Miss Wald asked him 
 if there was not an attempt being made to 
 stampede this nation into militarism. He 
 seemingly took it for granted that there was, 
 and answered : " But it is not working." In 
 spite of everything it is not working. Con- 
 gress is, evidently, going to be satisfied with an 
 army of 200,000 — a mere fraction of what the 
 militarists want. All the " preparedness " or- 
 ganizations and their newspapers are frantic 
 over it. Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood, one of 
 the chief leaders of the militarist group, said 
 on May 15, 1916, "the Army bill is only a 
 makeshift and is wholly inadequate," and on 
 May 18 came out with a long declaration for 
 Colonel Roosevelt for President, as " the only
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 55 
 
 hope of the nation," that is, the only hope for 
 universal conscription and the Germanizing of 
 the people. The editorials of the " New York 
 Times" and the "New York Tribune" ad- 
 mit that the movement for the great army is 
 lost and are now turning toward a big navy. 
 Mr. Roosevelt said, under date of April 26: 
 " Twenty-one months have passed since the 
 great war began, and during all this lime we 
 have not prepared in even the smallest degree 
 in order, if possible, to avert war from us." 
 
 There are more battleships to be built this 
 year than last; but the peace sentiment of the 
 nation was so strong that it insisted that a 
 rider be added to the Naval Appropriation Act 
 which declares " the policy of the United States 
 to settle its international disputes through medi- 
 ation or arbitration " and authorizes the 
 President to call a conference of the nations 
 to consider a World Court and general dis- 
 armament and if action leading in this direc- 
 tion is taken, to suspend construction of battle- 
 ships called for by this act. 
 
 The Ford votes were interesting. They 
 were no joke. They have opened the eyes 
 of both Republicans and Democrats. They in- 
 fluenced the planks of both parties. The mili- 
 ,tarist movement is largely local and largely
 
 56 The Challenge 
 
 tory. It is a local and caste movement. The 
 workers, the farmers, the industrial classes 
 take no interest in it. Neither is the Great 
 West much concerned over it. C. M. Sheldon, 
 author of " In His Steps," writing from 
 Omaha, says the sentiment is strongly the 
 other way, and calls attention to the resolu- 
 tions passed at the great mass meetings in that 
 section. The votes for Mr. Ford were pro- 
 tests against it. 
 
 But, by far, the most encouraging thing to 
 those who are working for the substitution of 
 good-will for war, judicial processes for battle- 
 ships, the new order for the mediaeval, is the 
 frank confession made by Mr. Roosevelt in his 
 last public utterance, his famous letter of April 
 24, in which he pledges all his family to go to 
 war with Germany and in which in an unwise 
 moment his indignation at those who are work- 
 ing for the new internationalism gets the better 
 of his wisdom and he bursts out with this re- 
 markable confession, " The pacifists and anti- 
 preparedness people have had their will, and 
 our rulers at Washington have bowed to them 
 and left us helpless." This is high testimony 
 coming from such source. It claims more than 
 the peace people have even dared claim. 
 
 We must not let the even seeming victories
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 57 
 
 of the militarists disturb us too much. They 
 have wars and rumours of wars, hysteria and 
 fears to help them. The war will close soon. 
 Our people will then calmly review it and see 
 that the cause of this misery was just this 
 militarism " preparedness " groups are advo- 
 cating. They will hear from Europe a call for 
 a new order, for Europe is getting fearfully 
 wearied of just this thing the reactionary 
 groups are advocating. Our people will see this 
 and will turn from these reactionaries to follow 
 the prophetic and forward-looking men of both 
 Europe and America in the endeavour for the 
 new preparedness of World Courts, Leagues 
 of Nations, Alliances of the Churches of the 
 World for Good-will, Unions for Democratic 
 Control, Councils of Conciliation, Hague Con- 
 ferences — all of those things for which the 
 pacifists stand and for which they are contend- 
 ing while the militarists are parading for the 
 old things — the things that will pass away. 
 " Old things are passed away : behold I make 
 all things new." 
 
 One closing word : Recently we received a 
 letter in which this line occurred : " Is it not 
 discouraging to see a hundred ministers parad- 
 ing for guns and shrapnel as the basis of the 
 civilization of their Prince of Peace? Can
 
 58 The Challenge 
 
 they be sincere? Do they endorse the utter- 
 ances of the men and societies which got up 
 that parade, such as an army of a million, all 
 our boys taught to shoot, i.e., to kill their 
 brothers of other lands, universal conscription, 
 and the utterance of the Navy League's paper 
 that the Government should take new terri- 
 tory by force as it needs it — the creed we have 
 been condemning in Germany?" In answer 
 let us say, we believe these men sincere, and 
 we do not think that all of them would en- 
 dorse the whole platforms of the militarist 
 groups. It must be remembered that the min- 
 istry is no exception to other professions. 
 There are always in it those who follow the 
 crowd, who are easily stampeded, who are al- 
 ways looking backward, who lack the prophet's 
 vision, who rest in the old and are distrustful 
 of the new. It has been in every movement, 
 from the anti-slavery movement down, that 
 many ministers were on the side of the old and 
 passing order. Some one remarked to us, the 
 day after the one hundred ministers paraded 
 in what the " New York Times " called " The 
 Military Parade " : " The ministers were there, 
 but not the ministers the young men of Amer- 
 ica are following, not the leaders in the new 
 social gospel, not the leaders in the new inter-
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 59 
 
 nationalism that is rising on the world." We 
 offer no comment, but it is significant that the 
 ministers in the parade were just the ministers 
 who did not come to Garden City to take part 
 in the World Alliance Conference called to 
 enlist the churches of this nation in an attempt 
 to substitute good-will in international rela- 
 tionships for suspicions and jealousies, and to 
 see what the churches could do to help the 
 world find some better way than war for the 
 settlement of international disputes. 
 
 In this connection we would quote the fol- 
 lowing words from Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, 
 pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, New York: 
 " We are on the threshold of a new age. 
 Some nation must lead. That nation ought to 
 be the United States. If the United States is 
 to lead, then Christian men must show the 
 way. If Christian men are to show the way, 
 then the Christian pulpit ought to sound the 
 note of advance. It is useless to expect the 
 whole world to advance with all the nations 
 abreast. One nation must move ahead of the 
 others. It is foolish to expect all branches of 
 the Christian Church to advance shoulder to 
 shoulder. One branch must be ahead of the 
 others. It is unreasonable to expect all the
 
 60 The Challenge 
 
 ministers to agree. Some must go ahead of 
 the others. There will be a difference among 
 them now as there was in the days of slavery. 
 The signatures of those for slavery and the 
 signatures of those against slavery now fur- 
 nish interesting reading. The ministers who 
 to-day apologize for war, and who see no sure 
 defence for a nation except in howitzers and 
 dreadnoughts, and who think that America at 
 the present crisis can do nothing better for the 
 advancement of humanity than to increase the 
 thickness of her armour, are as intelligent, 
 and learned, and honest, and conscientious, and 
 pious as the ministers who do not agree with 
 them. Somebody must be mistaken. A high 
 ecclesiastical position is no guarantee of spirit- 
 ual insight. Every man must walk by the 
 light he has, and it is not until generations 
 have passed that the world can see clearly 
 which prophets were false and which were 
 true, which leaders were foolish and which 
 were wise. Every man must stand by the 
 right as it is given him to see the right, and 
 leave the result to God. In the fifties the 
 Tabernacle had a pastor who always, with 
 boldness, wrote his name down among the 
 abolitionists, and in the year of our Lord 1916 
 the Tabernacle has a pastor who, with glad-
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 61 
 
 ness, writes his name in the list of those who 
 denounce war as stupid and cruel and wicked, 
 who condemn armed peace as a policy that is 
 mistaken, and mischievous and fatal, and who 
 advise our Government to wait until the war 
 is ended, before committing itself more fully 
 to the disastrous program which has over- 
 whelmed Europe with ruin." 
 
 Neither must we fall into the habit of think- 
 ing New York City leads the nation. While 
 the ministers of the New York churches were 
 signing the letter endorsing the call to arm 
 made in a speech before the New York Cham- 
 ber of Commerce, the following really Chris- 
 tian resolutions were being passed by three 
 great bodies of ministers on the Pacific Coast 
 ("Westward the course of empire takes its 
 way"), the California State Church Federa- 
 tion, the Los Angeles Ministerial Union, and 
 Southern California Methodist Preachers* 
 Meeting : 
 
 " Whereas, There is in this world-Wcir crisis 
 a recrudescence of the spirit of militarism, 
 which has attempted to drag the United States 
 into the world war, or, failing in that, to 
 stampede our lawmakers, under the guise of 
 preparedness, into an elaborate plan of mili- 
 tary enlargement, calling for not only an im-
 
 62 The Challenge 
 
 mediate expenditure of billions of money, but 
 the inauguration of a plan involving us in end- 
 less further appropriations of money and 
 necessitating compulsory military service of 
 vast numbers of our men for such military 
 duty; and, 
 
 " Whereas, It is the duty of God-fearing men 
 to increase in the world the stock of good- 
 will, and to devise means by which the recur- 
 rence of the present world tragedy may be ren- 
 dered impossible; and, 
 
 " Whereas, The United States, because of its 
 position and power and traditions, is under 
 bonds to do what it can toward the shaping 
 of the opinion of nations and the moulding of 
 a new and nobler world policy ; 
 
 " Be it resolved, That we look with disfavour 
 upon any plan to increase the army and navy 
 at this time beyond what would be the regular 
 accession to their strength by the application 
 of the prevailing appropriations, which would 
 seem entirely adequate, amounting to over 
 $300,000,000 annually. 
 
 ''Be it further resolved. That we call upon 
 all Christian citizens and upon our representa- 
 tives in Congress to keep in mind that the Re- 
 public is the friend and brother of all contend- 
 ing nations, and that we wish to manifest to
 
 Militarism or Pacifism 63 
 
 them the spirit of brotherhood in this trying 
 hour of human history." 
 
 It is for every young minister to decide at 
 once whether he will throw in his lot with 
 the militarists who are looking backward and 
 urging the old method of arming to settle in- 
 ternational disputes or with the pacifists who 
 are looking forward and urging the new and 
 Christian method of conciliation, judicial proc- 
 esses, all mankind one's countrymen. There 
 is no via media any longer. There is no more 
 doubt to which side will come the victory in 
 the future than there was to which side it 
 would come in the years when Wilberforce, 
 Whittier, Theodore Parker, and Garrison said 
 slavery must end. and some ministers said 
 " no; it is Scriptural."
 
 V 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF CHRIS- 
 TIANITY IN THE WARRING 
 NATIONS 
 
 THIS is not a topic on which one should 
 be too dogmatic, at just this time. Of 
 all times in the world, the present 
 would be hardest to define, to describe, or even 
 to see as it really is. All conditions are ab- 
 normal. Nations are half mad, frenzied, 
 keyed up, and no expression, either of faith or 
 hate, should be given too much credence. 
 Nations are intoxicated and say things, as 
 intoxicated men always do, which are exag- 
 gerations of the belief or feelings of the nor- 
 mal man. One has a striking illustration in 
 Lissauer's " Hymn of Hate " against England. 
 He and all Germany sang it heartily a year 
 ago. Now they are all — even the author — 
 ashamed of it, and disavowing it. Then, too, 
 the war has reacted in two utterly diverse di- 
 rections upon the masses of Europe, and the 
 end is not yet. We shall try to show, from 
 64
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 65 
 
 what testimony we can gather, these two re- 
 actions on the rehgious faith of Europe. One 
 has been of agnosticism, the other of deeper 
 faith. 
 
 The war has produced thousands of agnos- 
 tics both in Europe and America. We have 
 watched the European and American papers 
 with much interest to find letters and articles 
 on this subject, and we have an interesting col- 
 lection. This reaction is not confined to 
 Europe only, but has found wide expression 
 in America. It is an agnosticism toward man 
 as well as toward God. A well-known New 
 York physician remarked to us not long ago: 
 " I have lost my faith in humanity. I can- 
 not see that these millions of men now en- 
 gaged in blowing each other's heads off, and 
 hating each other with a hatred not found even 
 in wolves, are one whit better than our old 
 cave-dwelling ancestors. The only difference 
 is, the modern savage has guns, while the 
 ancient had only clubs." Perhaps the most 
 striking expression of this reaction that has 
 been uttered in America has come from ex- 
 President Eliot. He writes in a letter to the 
 " New York Times " as follows : " For nine- 
 teen hundred years the ethics of Jesus of 
 Nazareth have been in the world but have had
 
 66 The Challenge 
 
 no effect to prevent or even reduce the evils 
 of war, the greatest of the evils which afflict 
 mankind. The ethical doctrines of Christian- 
 ity in regard to justice, humility and mercy 
 have not found expression in the relations be- 
 tween Christian nations, whether in peace or 
 at war, or indeed in the history of institutional 
 Christianity itself. At this moment none of 
 the Christian churches has had any influence 
 to prevent the catastrophe which has over- 
 taken Europe. They are all alike in this re- 
 spect — Greek, Roman, Lutheran and Angli- 
 can. Each national church supports the 
 national government, and every ruler is as sure 
 of his God's approval as ever Israel was of 
 Jehovah's; and within each nation all the re- 
 ligions represented — Hebrew, Catholic, Prot- 
 estant and Mohammedan — unite in the sup- 
 port of the national government gone to war. 
 So far as the advent of universal peace is con- 
 cerned, one form of Christianity is as good as 
 another; and all are helpless." 
 
 If President Eliot stood alone it would be 
 different; but he represents a great number, 
 as the widespread evidence shows. Only the 
 other day a great man said : " Christianity can- 
 not stand this sort of thing many times more." 
 We recently opened a copy of one of the most
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 67 
 
 widely circulated weeklies in America, " Life," 
 and the first words that met our eyes were 
 these : " This war has stunned a good many 
 people. They think it is not a Christian exer- 
 cise, and they ask themselves what Christianity 
 has been about — what good it is — if such a war 
 can tear up the most Christianized continent on 
 the globe." In the " New York Sun " for 
 several weeks a discussion on this question of 
 the effect of the war upon Christianity was 
 conducted on the correspondence page, and 
 this feeling found an echo in almost every 
 letter. 
 
 In Great Britain, the instances of distrust 
 of the capacity of organized Christianity to 
 effect any vital regeneration have assumed 
 more an agnosticism toward the Church than 
 toward the Christianity of the New Testament. 
 The common cry is that the Church has turned 
 its back upon the Christian teachings and there 
 is no hope in it, but that real Christianity has 
 never been tried. If tried, it would redeem 
 the nations. There are many striking inci- 
 dents of this reaction. Thus Rev. Richard 
 Roberts, one of the most brilliant of the 
 younger English preachers, has resigned his 
 fine Presbyterian church on just this ground. 
 His letters of resignation take the ground that
 
 68 The Challenge 
 
 the Church has failed of her great mission and 
 has no word to say in the great crisis. In a 
 recent essay on " Christian Duty in War 
 Time," he says : " This world order in which 
 war is inherent the Church exists to transform. 
 Consequently when the Church ranges itself in 
 support of the method of war it is not only 
 proclaiming its own failure, but it is hauling 
 down its own flag and hoisting instead the 
 flag of the world. It is giving its case away 
 and ' queering its own pitch.' Christian lead- 
 ers who have given their blessing to this war 
 will be hard put to it at the close of the war 
 to meet the arguments of the militarists. 
 They have in this instance subscribed to the 
 doctrine of force, and it will be used in evi- 
 dence against them." In this same essay Mr. 
 Roberts utters words on the truth of which 
 we believe lies the whole possibility of ever 
 getting rid of war: "If the New Testament 
 view is to be retained it is plainly contained 
 in it that a British Christian should be sen- 
 sible of closer kinship with a German Christian 
 than with a Briton who is not a Christian. 
 That this is not actually so is simply an ad- 
 ditional piece of evidence of the modern 
 Church's failure to realize all the implications 
 of its basal principles. If the avowed Chris-
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 69 
 
 tians of Germany, Great Britain, Austria, 
 France and Russia had been really conscious 
 of their unity in Christ, and had declined to 
 go forth to kill one another, there would have 
 been no war." 
 
 A preacher in Oxford recently used these 
 words : " It is impossible for any honest 
 clergyman to avoid preaching about the war. 
 Strictly speaking, there is nothing else to 
 preach about. The war affects all the great 
 topics of religion and all the great problems 
 of philosophy, throwing them into a new light 
 and setting them in a new context. Whatever 
 we might say about these things, the war 
 would make comments and perhaps challenge 
 the truth of our words. If you mention the 
 name of God, the War replies, * What do you 
 mean by that name?' If you talk of Love 
 and Peace, the War says, * What has become 
 of them? ' If you announce the ultimate tri- 
 umph of Good over Evil, the War answers, 
 * Wait and see.' If you introduce the name 
 of Christ, the War asks, 'What right have 
 you to call yourself His disciple?' If you 
 mention Atonement or Sacrifice, the War re- 
 minds you that an opportunity is waiting to 
 put your doctrine into practice. If you decry 
 the wickedness of war, the War decries the
 
 70 The Challenge 
 
 greater wickedness of those who stay at home 
 and enjoy the blessings for which others are 
 fighting. And so it goes on." 
 
 In an article in the " Yale Review " of April, 
 191 5» by Professor L. P. Jacks, of Oxford, 
 editor of " The Hibbert Journal," in which he 
 discusses the fact that Europe is at last up 
 against " The Real Thing," he uses these sig- 
 nificant words : " I think it no exaggeration 
 to say that the Real Thing is bringing many 
 of us to a condition of mind which is favour- 
 able to some kind of spiritual rebirth. An 
 unaccustomed honesty is being forced upon us. 
 Fain as we are to go on repeating our amiable 
 generalizations about ' Life,' we find that we 
 cannot repeat them. The Real Thing places a 
 finger on our lips, and the words simply can- 
 not be spoken. It is not that we are threat- 
 ened with universal scepticism ; the atmosphere 
 is too keen and the spirit too exalted to per- 
 mit of any such outcome. But we are shed- 
 ding our shams and our sophisms and our 
 empty phrases. It is only a question of time, 
 and we shall surely find something to say 
 which we can utter with a full heart. The 
 Real Thing is teaching us. But, once more, 
 shall we remember the lesson ? ' Quick, thy 
 tablets, memory ! ' "
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 71 
 
 Not to multiply such testimonies, of which 
 there are many, let me mention only one more 
 — John Galsworthy's passionate outcry in 
 " Scribner's Magazine," entitled, " Thoughts 
 on This War." Thus it begins: 
 
 " Three hundred thousand church spires 
 raised to the glory of Christ ! Three hundred 
 million human beings baptized into His serv- 
 ice ! And — war to the death of them all 1 Let 
 your hearts beat to God and your fists in the 
 face of the enemy ! * In prayer we call God's 
 blessing on our valiant troops ! ' 
 
 " God on the lips of each potentate, and 
 under three hundred thousand spires prayer 
 that twenty-two million servants of Christ 
 may receive from God the blessed strength to 
 tear and blow each other to pieces, to ravage 
 and burn, to wrench husbands from wives, 
 fathers from their children, to starve the poor, 
 and everywhere destroy the works of the 
 spirit. Prayer under three hundred thousand 
 spires for the blessed strength of God to use 
 the noblest, most loyal instinct of the human 
 race to the ends of carnage! God be with us 
 to the death and dishonour of our foes! 
 (Whose God He is, no less than ours.) The 
 God who gave His only begotten Son to bring 
 on earth peace and good-will toward men ! "
 
 72 The Challenge 
 
 We have quoted enough. We could quote 
 the same things from private German letters, 
 although the government would not, of course, 
 allow such sentiments to be printed in the 
 German press. We will not quote any more, 
 but close this side of the discussion with re- 
 calling the fact that over four thousand young 
 men and women in England have practically 
 withdrawn from the churches on the same 
 grounds given by Mr. Roberts and banded 
 themselves together in the Fellowship of Rec- 
 onciliation, whose basis of membership is the 
 teachings of Jesus and whose principles are 
 that love is the great weapon and that disci- 
 ples of Christ cannot make war under any cir- 
 cumstances. Here are the words of the 
 founder of this group (Henry T. Hodgkin, 
 who stands to the students of England some- 
 what as John R. Mott stands to the students 
 of America): "What we desire is that the 
 Church may take her rightful place when the 
 war is over, and may at last proclaim a living 
 message with prophetic power, a message 
 which shall direct the minds of men to those 
 great truths in obedience to which the health 
 of the nations is to be found. What they fear 
 is that she may lose her chance of proclaim- 
 ing that message then, because now she has
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 73 
 
 not spoken with the note of reality and con- 
 viction, and because she has not dared to face 
 the full meaning of the problem involved in 
 this war," 
 
 But if one of the reactions of this war has 
 been scepticism toward both God and man 
 there is no doubt but that the war has reacted 
 for a real and deeper faith in thousands of 
 men, both those engaged in it and those watch- 
 ing it. The seriousness of life has come over 
 the men at the front. They are face to face 
 with terrible things, and death runs back and 
 forth among them, their most familiar com- 
 rade. It is no wonder that these poor fellows, 
 who had no part in starting the war, many of 
 them mere boys not knowing what it is all 
 about, pawns in the hands of the player safe 
 in Petrograd or Berlin — we say it is no won- 
 der that to these boys there should come a new 
 sense of their dependence on God, of their 
 nearness to eternal things. Rev. R. J. Camp- 
 bell has beautifully described this rebirth of 
 Christian feeling among the soldiers with 
 whom he has been working in Northern 
 France, Dr. Adolph Deissman in his " Prot- 
 estant Weekly Letter " to Americans gives the 
 same testimony from young Germans at the 
 front. The French papers have had remark-
 
 74 The Challenge 
 
 able stories of the renewed interest in religion 
 displayed by the thousands of young men at 
 the front who have previously evinced no in- 
 terest whatever in religion. 
 
 What is true of the soldiers at the front is 
 also true of the nation as a whole. It has been 
 more in evidence in the German and French 
 nations, because they have suffered most. In 
 Germany the churches have been filled with 
 people bowed in deep grief and looking for 
 relief to God. Dr. Deissman in one of his 
 letters says : " The strong revival of religious 
 interest that the war has brought about with 
 us has deeply stirred our church life through- 
 out the whole of evangelical Germany. Quite 
 a number of our clergymen have told me that 
 now it was a pleasure to be a pastor. . . . 
 To-day I would like to draw your attention 
 to the fact that the strong desire for God's 
 Word and constraining brotherly love has 
 been the cause of new arrangements and the 
 creation of a number of organizations in our 
 congregations which did not exist before the 
 war. Externally regarded, the most remark- 
 able feature is a new type of service, the so- 
 called ' Kriegsgebetstunde,' the prayer meet- 
 ing on behalf of the country and the soldiers. 
 From the beginning of the great conflict until
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 76 
 
 up to this day these hours for prayer and de- 
 votion have been greatly in demand both in 
 our cities and in the rural districts. The num- 
 ber of regular hours of worship proved too 
 few, and consequently these prayer meetings 
 were arranged. The people usually gather on 
 week-day evenings either in the churches or 
 in halls; the service is short but intensive, 
 song and prayer occupy first place ; an address 
 is not always given, but, if so, brief and to the 
 point." Dr. Deissman, again speaking of 
 some of these services which he attended, says : 
 " I must confess that they belong to the most 
 impressive religious services I ever attended. 
 The small church building, dimly lit by can- 
 dles, was crowded to the door with worship- 
 pers, most of whom could not be recognized, 
 but the great common feeling of humbling 
 oneself under God's will, of joyful confidence 
 and patriotic devotion, united all of us." 
 
 Paul Sabatier has the same story to tell of 
 France. France has found her religious self, 
 her real soul, in this war, he tells us in a letter 
 to the English papers. Stephen Graham in his 
 book, " Russia and the War," reports the same 
 feeling of religious fervour as having swept 
 over Russia, taking there, as would be nat- 
 ural, a more mystical form. In England, in
 
 76 The Challenge 
 
 the great training camps, the workers for the 
 Y. M. C. A. report such a responsiveness as 
 they had never found among young men be- 
 fore. A note in an English magazine, calling at- 
 tention to the fact that Cambridge has lost 
 more than half of its students, says that the 
 whole question of Christianity and the present 
 world struggle has assumed a new and intense 
 interest. Mr. G. W. Hoyland, author of the 
 note, says : " About a month ago some twenty 
 men, among them four or five Dons, met to 
 take counsel together and discuss difficulties. 
 This group has developed into an informal and 
 so far nameless society, touching in all per- 
 haps thirty persons, who meet together for an 
 hour every week. Quite spontaneously this 
 hour has taken the form of a prayer meeting 
 for worship, in which we together wait upon 
 God and seek the guidance of His spirit. 
 What these meetings will develop into next 
 term remains to be seen, but already many of 
 us have found in them inspiration and clearer 
 conviction, and we believe that we shall be 
 shown, as time goes on, what policy we must 
 adopt and what definite work we must do." 
 
 It would not surprise us to see arising out 
 of this war a great revival of religion. Men 
 will be driven back upon God as the only sure
 
 Present Condition of Christianity 77 
 
 and unfailing refuge. Guns and powder have 
 brought no security or peace. Diplomacy 
 has proved a miserable failure. Even Hague 
 Tribunals and international agreements fail 
 when beneath them there is not a chastened, 
 Godlike heart. Millions of people are be- 
 ginning to feel all over Europe that there is no 
 sure, unfailing thing but God; that in this 
 world are vicissitudes, demoniac and ungov- 
 ernable forces, wars as uncontrollable as vol- 
 canoes, floods and earthquakes. Only the 
 eternal is a sure refuge. Men will shortly be 
 saying, perhaps as never before, " To whom 
 else shall we go? Thou only hast the words 
 of eternal life, of lasting peace."
 
 VI 
 
 THE TASK OF THE TWENTIETH 
 CENTURY 
 
 SOCIETY is composed of several units. 
 First there is the individual, then the 
 family, then the city, then the state, 
 then the nation. These units all stand over 
 against each other in certain relationships. 
 Man has relationships with man, family with 
 family, city with city, state with state, nation 
 with nation. The relationships between man 
 and man, home and home, city and city, state 
 and state have been lifted up on to a plane that 
 is fairly Christian. For instance: respectable, 
 decent men do not steal from each other, do 
 not kill each other, do not make suspicion to- 
 ward each other the basis of life, do not settle 
 their disputes with fists and clubs, guns and 
 swords. This relationship has, on the whole, 
 been fairly well Christianized. It has at last 
 been brought to that point where he who falls 
 short of it is no longer considered either a 
 Christian or a gentleman. Indeed, he becomes 
 
 a criminal, if he sinks below this high level. 
 78
 
 Task of the Twentieth Century 79 
 
 Millions of men are not only hot killing each 
 other, not fighting each other, not stealing 
 from each other, but are forgiving each other, 
 practising charity in their relationships to each 
 other and moving toward that goal set them 
 in the Sermon on the Mount. Even all decent 
 individuals, to say nothing of gentlemen and 
 Christians, settle such disputes as have to be 
 adjudicated in courts of law or before con- 
 ciliation groups. All this is true of families, 
 except in some regions where family feuds 
 still persist and these are fast disappearing. 
 Families live toward each other in Christian 
 spirit. States have reached the same high 
 level. A fight between New York and Con- 
 necticut is so unthinkable that to mention it is 
 ludicrous. 
 
 But while the relationships between man 
 and man, family and family, state and state 
 are approximating a Christian basis, those be- 
 tween nation and nation are still pagan, 
 heathen — in many cases barbarous. Nations 
 live in suspicion, jealousy and distrust of each 
 other, almost without exception. Nations 
 steal from each other, and are not condemned. 
 Rather, do we not praise those nations as 
 great nations, " empire builders," who can 
 steal the most? A big nation can go out and
 
 80 The Challenge 
 
 destroy, take the life of a little nation, and 
 hardly any one will protest. (To be sure, 
 we have advanced in this regard, as witness 
 the protest over Germany's destroying Bel- 
 gium. But it is doubtful if there would have 
 been much protest over Germany's destroy- 
 ing Belgium, had she not been party to a 
 treaty guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality.) 
 Nations still settle their disputes on brute 
 levels, with slaughter, cruelties, guns, powder, 
 shrapnel, poisonous gases, bombs, torpedoes, 
 drownings, with every conceivable invention 
 of devilish imaginations, and it is all consid- 
 ered civilized and proper. Many even plead 
 that it is admirable, excellent and Christian. 
 We ask God's blessing on it, praise it in song 
 and verse, build statues to the men who can 
 kill the most. 
 
 So there we have it — one set of command- 
 ments for men, families and states, another 
 for nations. " Thou shalt not steal," for men ; 
 " Thou shalt steal all thou canst lay thy hands 
 upon," for nations. " Thou shalt not kill," 
 for men ; " Thou shalt kill and destroy any- 
 body and everything within thy reach," for 
 nations. "Thou shalt not covet," for men; 
 " Thou shalt covet everything," for nations. 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness," for in-
 
 Task of the Twentieth Century 81 
 
 dividuals ; " Thou shalt lie about other coun- 
 tries all thou canst and pervert their every 
 word and action into enmity," for nations. 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," 
 for individuals ; " Thou shalt hate thy neigh- 
 bour with all thy heart," for nations. " Thou 
 shalt take thy quarrel to the brethren," for 
 the individual ; " Thou shalt take thy quarrel 
 to the battlefield," for nations. " Thou shalt 
 forgive thine enemy," for the individual; 
 " Thou shalt take revenge upon thine enemy," 
 for nations. 
 
 This is the double standard of ethics in the 
 kingdom of God. This is where we are : an 
 individual morality on one side, a totally op- 
 posing group morality on the other. Individ- 
 uals living as Christians and gentlemen; na- 
 tions living as heathen and pagans. 
 
 The great task confronting the twentieth 
 century is to Hft up the relationship between 
 nations to that high Christian level now per- 
 taining between individuals. Thus will the 
 great consummation of the divine plan of 
 creation be realized, and peace come between 
 nations as it has between individuals and 
 states. And it will come in the same way. 
 Once individuals stole from each other, killed 
 each other promiscuously and settled all their
 
 82 The Challenge 
 
 disputes by force. Once a state of feud ex- 
 isted between families which led to continual 
 bloodshed. (Read Scott's novels and see how 
 it was in Scotland in the old days.) But in- 
 dividuals under the influence of the Gospel, 
 the growth of law and the development of the 
 social conscience gradually passed through 
 such stages as trial by battle and the duel, un- 
 til they established courts, and finally settled 
 all their disputes by judicial methods and lived 
 toward each other in mutual helpfulness and 
 peace. The states once settled their disputes 
 by war; now they take them to the Supreme 
 Court. Now is the time — as soon as this great 
 war is over — (but let us be thinking of it 
 now) for America and the American Church 
 to demand that at last the nations leave their 
 pagan past and do what men and states have 
 done — establish a World Court, bind them- 
 selves by a League or by Treaties to take 
 their disputes to this Court, and use methods 
 of conciliation where disputes arise that are 
 not justiciable. 
 
 We say America should lead in this. Europe 
 is too stricken to lead in anything for many 
 years. Each state must bend its energies to 
 self -restoration. Suspicions and hatreds will 
 exist that will make one nation mistrust any
 
 Task of the Twentieth Century 83 
 
 Utterance of another. But we are whole, and 
 we can speak without being mistrusted by any 
 nation as having some ulterior end in Europe. 
 All of us who have any heart and who want 
 to make this holocaust impossible again ought 
 to be studying and thinking over these things. 
 Study the program of The League to Enforce 
 Peace, of which Mr. Taft is the head; study 
 the program which The World Court League 
 is putting forth ; study the various suggestions 
 that are coming from Holland and other neutral 
 states ; study the propositions for Pan- Ameri- 
 canism that are filling the press ; study all these 
 plans carefully, so that you may be ready at the 
 close of the war to support any great proposi- 
 tion this Government might make to Europe, 
 or to put your influence behind the Third 
 Hague Conference, where there is no doubt 
 that some of these proposals will be considered 
 — taken up where they were left at the Second 
 Hague Conference. The world of Europe will 
 never be content to go back to the old order. 
 Let us, as a people, be ready to help it into the 
 new. 
 
 And, as for the Church, what a task, what 
 an opportunity! Let it begin to proclaim, in 
 voice that shall be irresistible, that there can 
 be but one morality in the Kingdom of God — :
 
 84 The Challenge 
 
 that killing is just as much murder when done 
 by a nation as when done by a man ; that steal- 
 ing does not become anything better than steal- 
 ing when a nation does it ; that nations become 
 brutes when they fight with guns and gases, 
 just as much as a man does when he fights with 
 knives and pistols; that revenge is wrongful, 
 hatred despicable, suspicions mean, whether 
 found in a man or a nation ; that the gospel of 
 good-will, co-operation, brotherhood was 
 meant by Jesus to apply to nations as well as 
 men, and that Jesus' gospel, that a truly great 
 man was not thinking of rights but duties, was 
 equally the test of a great nation.
 
 VII 
 A NATION'S TRUE GREATNESS 
 
 THE chief reason this terrible war is 
 sweeping the world is this : When we 
 act as individuals toward other individ- 
 uals we act as Christians, when we act as gov- 
 ernments toward other governments we act 
 as pagans. Individuals are largely living by 
 Christian principles, governments by pagan 
 principles. What we call vices and crimes in 
 men we praise as virtues and noble deeds in 
 nations. We hang men for committing the 
 deeds for which we crown nations. We con- 
 demn in all decent men conduct which we exalt 
 in nations. When we ask : What makes a man 
 great ? we mention those qualities which as na- 
 tions we despise, throw aside and revile. 
 When we ask : What makes a nation great ? 
 we name the very things that make men small, 
 vile and cast-offs from all respectable society. 
 It is this double standard of ethics, one for 
 men, one for nations, that is largely responsi- 
 ble for the persistence of war. It will cease 
 85
 
 86 The Challenge 
 
 between nations when we demand of them the 
 same high rules of conduct that we demand 
 of gentlemen. Fights between individuals 
 stopped when men became gentlemen. To-day 
 men are gentlemen and nations are rowdies. 
 
 We say that it is wrong for men to steal 
 from each other, but we praise the nation that 
 can steal the most. Most of the colonies of 
 nations were deliberately stolen, and no one 
 ever thought of condemning the nations doing 
 the stealing until very recent years. Even now 
 there are thousands of Christians who will 
 justify a nation going to war for expansion 
 who would shoot a man who began killing his 
 neighbours on that plea. Stealing is a crime 
 for men, a virtue in nations. 
 
 We say that it is wrong for a man to kill his 
 neighbour, we say it is wrong to do so even in 
 revenge, or to get certain rights even when 
 greatly provoked. We make it the most hein- 
 ous crime. In many places we take the life of 
 a man who kills another man. But, even if 
 we do not praise the nation which destroys 
 another, as once we did praise, yet millions of 
 good Christian people condone it and uphold 
 by their lives laid down the nation which does 
 it. We have the spectacle in Europe to-day of 
 millions of Christian people supporting cer-
 
 A Nation's True Greatness 87 
 
 tain nations in a deliberate act of destruction 
 for which they would have imprisoned any in- 
 dividual for life. Wrong for men to kill each 
 other; perfectly right for nations to destroy 
 each other ! 
 
 We say that it is disgusting and disgraceful 
 for men to settle their disputes with fists, 
 knives, daggers, razors, pistols. Only rowdies, 
 toughs and savages do it. In most civilized 
 lands even the duel is under condemnation. 
 But almost all Christians in the world believe 
 that this is just the way nations ought to set- 
 tle their disputes, and see nothing wrong in 
 nations flying at each other's throats on the 
 slightest provocation. When a difference 
 arises between two men, we all think of con- 
 ciliation, law and courts; when a difference 
 arises between two nations, the first thought 
 of these same Christians is war. When a man 
 makes certain claims against his neighbour 
 and his neighbour makes counter claims, we 
 think of arbitration ; when two nations cannot 
 agree upon a question, our first thought is that 
 they should seek justice through trying to kill 
 each other. 
 
 We praise the man who forgives. The 
 books on which we base our religion have for- 
 giveness running through them like a thread
 
 88 The 'Challenge 
 
 of gold. He whom we call Master practised 
 it, even to death. But whoever conceived that 
 a nation might forbear and forgive? We 
 smile at the thought. We would be indignant 
 at the act. Many of us were indignant be- 
 cause Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan even sug- 
 gested forbearance and investigation when 
 the Mexican trouble began. Our only cry 
 was : " Let us go into Mexico. Let us re- 
 venge ourselves for the lives of American 
 citizens. Our honour has been insulted." 
 This cry was in religious newspapers, in 
 Christian pulpits, to say nothing of the mouths 
 of mobs and demagogues. But we can have 
 no lasting peace until we can get nations 
 which will act like Christian gentlemen when 
 affronted. Perhaps the greatest lesson of 
 modern history has just been taught us in this 
 regard, when the President of the United 
 States by acting toward Germany with reason, 
 good-will and forbearance won the greatest 
 victory of the present war. It is a much 
 greater victory to convert a man than to kill 
 him. 
 
 We are forever singing hymns about the 
 meek and lowly, and these are the qualities 
 which the Church has demanded in its saints. 
 But we call the same qualities in a nation weak
 
 A Nation's True Greatness 89 
 
 and pusillanimous. We call that nation great 
 which is mighty, overwhelming, imperial, ir- 
 resistible in its brute strength, which by force 
 of arms can conquer, subjugate, force other 
 peoples to serve it. 
 
 We call that man greatest who serves his 
 fellow men, and those who are greatest of 
 all in our Christianity are those who have 
 practically forgotten self in the service of the 
 world. But whoever heard of a nation exist- 
 ing first of all for the service of the world? 
 The thing we call meanest in men, selfishness, 
 we exalt in nations. The highest duties of a 
 really great man are toward others; the high- 
 est duties of a nation, toward itself. From 
 many high Christian sources we are hearing 
 this : " The first duty of a nation is the pro- 
 tection of its citizens " ; " the nation must 
 brook no insult"; "the nation must uphold 
 its honour." What would you think of a man 
 who thought his chief duty in life was self- 
 protection or avenging his honour? Would 
 we call him great? And yet notice, when 
 President Wilson, rising above this low and 
 universal conception of national greatness, 
 and carrying it up into that level where we 
 judge great men, insisted that the first duty of 
 the United States was not retaliation, not re-
 
 90 The Challenge 
 
 venge, not protecting her honour, not even 
 seeking reparation, but was in the securing of 
 safety on the seas for all innocent people, and 
 the rescuing of Germany from her mad 
 course, how many Christian men in high 
 places excoriated him and spoke with sneers 
 and jeers. When men put self first, they 
 fought day and night. When they learned to 
 put service first, they had peace. The same 
 law will hold with nations. There can be but 
 one greatness, whether it be of men, gods, 
 angels or nations. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere is this contrast more 
 widely outstanding than is the doctrine of 
 rights. No Christian lives by a doctrine of 
 rights. He lives by a doctrine of duties. He 
 is not worried over getting his rights. He 
 does not go about clamouring for them, any 
 more than did his Master. Even if he did be- 
 lieve he had certain rights which ought to be 
 maintained he will not, if he is a gentleman, 
 insist on obtaining these rights at the expense, 
 hurt or death of others. The State considers 
 him a criminal if he attempts it and condemns 
 him. 
 
 The question then immediately arises : Has 
 the time not come when nations should be 
 compelled to respect these same laws? Has
 
 A Nation's True Greatness 91 
 
 one nation a right to plunge all Europe into 
 hell, or even to make all the other peaceful 
 nations suffer — for all nations suffer vastly 
 from the war of even two — simply to secure 
 its own rights, even where it is recognized by 
 all that the rights have been violated? Has 
 any nation the right to go to war to-day with- 
 out first consulting all the other nations and 
 exhausting every existing means of securing 
 justice when such a course invariably means 
 the ruin of thousands of disinterested and in- 
 nocent people, and may mean the drawing of 
 many other nations into the war? What Mr. 
 Taft said at the dedication of the Pan-Ameri- 
 can Peace Palace in Washington must be ap- 
 plied to all nations. He said that no two na- 
 tions on the American Continent had any right 
 to go to war and disturb all the others, and 
 that he hoped the time would soon come when 
 the nineteen nations would say to any other 
 two considering war, ** You must stop." It 
 is time this came in all the world. 
 
 Any nation which to-day, with the present 
 oneness of the world, declares war against 
 another country, thereby declares war against 
 every other country, and the time has come to 
 recognize this fact. No nation can go to war 
 to-day without going to war against all hu-
 
 92 The Challenge 
 
 manity. Has not the time come to say to na- 
 tions, just as we say to individuals : " If the 
 securing of justice, the obtaining of your 
 rights, the upholding of your honour, prom- 
 ises in any way to disturb the peace of the 
 rest of the world and make all the innocent 
 nations suffer, you must refrain from individ- 
 ual action and do as individuals do: try your 
 case before some competent judicial body by 
 orderly processes of law." As a matter of fact, 
 this is the surest way to get justice in the end. 
 For instance, what is Austria getting now? 
 What might she not have had if she had taken 
 her dispute with Serbia to The Hague, as 
 Serbia was willing to do ?
 
 VIII 
 
 "CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM THOU 
 WILT SERVE" 
 
 TO every nation there come crises when 
 a choice has immediately to be made of 
 a course of action, a plan of life, a 
 philosophy of conduct, on which hangs the 
 whole future, and v/hich determines the char- 
 acter of the nation for years, if not forever. 
 Such a crisis was that when the nation had to 
 choose between whether it should be " all 
 free " or " half free and half slave." It chose 
 to be " all free," and the united, free, pros- 
 perous country was determined by that choice. 
 We should have been an absolutely different 
 sort of nation had we made the other choice. 
 But the point is that a crisis came and we 
 had to meet it immediately. " This day choose 
 whom thou wilt serve." How thankful every 
 American is that the nation chose the course 
 which it did. 
 
 This nation is now very rapidly being forced 
 into another crisis where another great choice 
 93
 
 94 The Challenge 
 
 has got to be made, and made immediately. 
 The issue is being so emphatically pushed 
 that to us again come the words of the old 
 prophet, " Choose you this day whom ye will 
 serve." And we are not sure but that the 
 choice is as momentous as that made sixty 
 years ago. We have got to choose, and that 
 at once, whether we shall be a nation devoted 
 to the arts of peace, cultivating industry and 
 education, developing our great resources of 
 both men and materials, and relying largely 
 upon our character and good-will toward all 
 people as a means of defence, or whether we 
 shall follow in the paths of the toppling 
 European nations and become imperialistic, 
 base our civilization on the sword and trust 
 in great navies and armies for national de- 
 fence. 
 
 That choice is being very rapidly forced 
 upon us, and all men to whom the future of 
 their country is dear should be seriously con- 
 sidering on which side they are going to throw 
 their vote. The crisis is being forced by four 
 classes of people. First and chiefly, big men 
 interested in military matters, men who are 
 immersed in militarism and who have no faith 
 in any other basis of civilization than force 
 or any other kind of defence than guns. The
 
 " Choose . . . Whom Thou Wilt Serve " 95 
 
 second group is composed of politicians who 
 are seizing this opportunity to try and dis- 
 credit President Wilson, who has already in 
 his superb message called upon the nation to 
 choose the American ideal rather than the 
 European. The third group is composed of 
 those who profit by war and preparation for 
 war. How active this particular group has 
 been in America we do not know. It is well 
 known that they had much to do with bring- 
 ing this present awful war upon Europe. It 
 is hard to believe that there are men in the 
 world who would plunge the nations into hell 
 to make money ; but, as Dr. David Starr Jor- 
 dan and others have shown, there is incon- 
 trovertible evidence that this is so. There is 
 undoubtedly a group in America interested in 
 securing " adequate " preparation for war. 
 The fourth group is composed of those admir- 
 able but timid people who have been fright- 
 ened by this European war, and who have not 
 the logical ability to see that it is just what 
 they are urging that caused the war in Europe. 
 Nothing truer has been voiced in a long time 
 than some words of Mr. Bryan's, uttered at 
 Richmond, where, referring to the fact that 
 it was the preparedness for war that helped 
 Europe into war, he said, " Preparedness will
 
 96 The Challenge 
 
 almost with absolute certainty lead us into 
 war." But many good people forget this in 
 their fear that Japan or Germany, if she is 
 victorious, will invade America. Of these 
 good people, in their hysterical state, we can 
 only say what Mr, Carnegie said in his New 
 Year's message : " Meanwhile let us pity and 
 forgive those who urge increased armaments, 
 for ' they know not what they do.' " 
 
 This company of men, composed of these 
 four groups, have begun an active campaign 
 to force this nation to abandon the American 
 ideal and to adopt the European ideal of big 
 armies and navies. They are organizing 
 groups throughout the country, holding mass 
 meetings, have a body of trained agents at 
 Washington, and are carrying on an energetic 
 agitation in the press. They have prominent 
 men going up and down the country who are 
 trying to frighten the nation by vivid pictures 
 of invasion by imaginary foes. They are call- 
 ing for investigations of the army and navy 
 and our coast defences. Some want a vast 
 army on the basis of Germany's. Some have 
 even urged conscription. Many are urging the 
 introduction of military training into our 
 schools and colleges. All are interested in in- 
 creasing armament and following after the
 
 «* Choose . . . Whom Thou Wilt Serve " 97 
 
 European ideal of basing national defence 
 upon force; all are urging "preparedness for 
 war," forgetting the European lesson that 
 " you always get what you prepare for." 
 
 Before making the choice every American 
 ought to consider well what it would mean. 
 Great and lasting issues are bound up in it. In 
 the first place, it means that two other nations 
 are going to have their suspicions aroused 
 against us. Let no one be deceived; this sud- 
 den desire of arming America is directed 
 against Japan and Germany. Indeed, those 
 who are urging it openly say so. At the first 
 meeting of the National Security League in 
 New York one of the leaders of the move- 
 ment spent ten minutes graphically picturing 
 what might happen to America if a certain 
 nation won, and everybody knew he meant 
 Germany. Already this movement has had 
 effect in Germany, and she has not liked it. 
 It therefore means that when this war ceases 
 two nations, Japan and Germany, will not be 
 as friendly to our mediation as they might 
 have been. Of all times in the world to have 
 begun this insane agitation for armament, this 
 present critical, sensitive, nervous hour was 
 the worst. 
 
 It means plunging other nations into a com-
 
 98 The Challenge 
 
 petitive armament immediately. America has 
 so far kept out of the armament race. If 
 now the Navy League and the militarists 
 plunge us into it, it means that Japan, Brazil, 
 Argentina, Canada and the rest are all going 
 to build just as hard and fast as do we. And 
 why should they not, inasmuch as they know 
 it is directed against them? 
 
 A part of the program of this ardent group 
 of militarists on which great stress is laid is 
 the introduction into our public schools and 
 colleges of military training and instruction in 
 shooting. Do the parents realize what that 
 means? If they do not, let them go to the 
 psychologists. It means that all our boys are 
 to grow up with their imaginations turned 
 toward war. It means that they are to grow 
 up in the atmosphere of the camp, and learn 
 martial music, martial terms and martial prin- 
 ciples. It means that guns are going to hold 
 first place in their thoughts as a means of set- 
 tling international disputes, instead of justice 
 and arbitration. It means that they are going 
 to grow up with the constant thought before 
 them that men of other lands are not their 
 brothers, but natural enemies. For when boys 
 are trained to shoot, you have got to train 
 them to shoot something. As a matter of fact.
 
 " Choose . . . Whom Thou Wilt Serve " 99 
 
 in military training human forms are used as 
 targets. Professor Vernon Lee Kellogg, of 
 Leland Stanford University, says in " Beyond 
 War " that he found the soldiers among the 
 California woods shooting at targets made in 
 the form of men and remarkably resembling 
 Japanese. That is what military drill is going 
 to mean. It is going to change the whole 
 character, the whole idealism of the next gen- 
 eration. It is going to give us a new type 
 of American — the military, Prussian type, 
 instead of the industrial, cosmopolitan, demo- 
 cratic type. 
 
 Again, let us never forget that militarism is 
 the eternal foe of democracy. Every increase 
 of army or navy is a direct blow in the face of 
 democracy. Democracy is the diffusion of 
 power among the people. Every increase in 
 armament centralizes that power in the hands 
 of the government; in most countries in the 
 hand of a few officers of the government. 
 Many who are urging vast navies and big 
 armies on the country know this, and it is their 
 fear of democracy more than their fear of out- 
 side enemies that actuates their frenzied ap- 
 peal. It is time for the United States to take 
 warning. Every battleship, every soldier, 
 means so much more autocracy, so much less
 
 100 The Challenge 
 
 democracy. Militarism and democracy can- 
 not exist together. Remember how helpless 
 the German people were in the Zabern incident 
 three years ago. We happen to have a Presi- 
 dent at Washington who believes in diffusion 
 of power. We can conceive of a man being 
 President centralizing the national power in 
 himself. If he has a great army and navy 
 what can the people do or say? Every sol- 
 dier means an advance toward that. 
 
 Finally, remember that in the making of 
 this choice America settles for good, or for 
 long time at least, whether she will pursue 
 the new way in which she has been walking, or 
 shall choose to follow in the footsteps of the 
 old world and become as Germany and Russia 
 and the rest. For here again we should not 
 be misled. Most of these men who are urging 
 adequate armament mean armament like 
 Europe's. Also, the thing grows. A begin- 
 ning means a tendency. A tendency soon 
 swells into a fulfilment. We have been free 
 from the whole accursed business over here. 
 We have put our trust in our justice to all 
 people, our good-will, our desire to be friendly 
 and steal no one's country or possessions. 
 Our defence has been our character, and our 
 armament the friendly treaties of arbitration
 
 " Choose . . . Whom Thou Wilt Serve " 101 
 
 with all people. Our energies and ambitions 
 have gone into industry, education, social bet- 
 terment, agricultural development, the making 
 free and happy a great people, building up a 
 brotherhood, in kindliness, out of all the races 
 and nations in our midst. This is not only our 
 defence; it is our uniqueness. It is what 
 makes us truly great in the eyes of all the 
 nations. The choice which the Navy League, 
 the National Security League, the militarists, 
 the people who are crying for " adequate " and 
 increased armament are forcing upon us is 
 between this new American ideal and the 
 ideals and ways of Europe. And let us have 
 an eye to what thing the ways of Europe have 
 brought her, when we make our choice.
 
 IX 
 
 THE PRESENT ISSUE 
 
 THE world is witnessing to-day, as never 
 before in its history, a conflict between 
 two great principles — that of individ- 
 ualism on the one hand, and that of human 
 interdependence on the other. It is an old 
 battle, for it was the battle between the Greek 
 ideal and the Christian, as long ago as when 
 Paul visited Corinth. But it has never be- 
 come the great issue that it has in our day. 
 Indeed, it is the one fundamental issue. For 
 the great war on in the world is between these 
 two principles, not between Germany and the 
 Allies. The war in Europe has really grown 
 out of the conflict of these principles, as we 
 shall see later. All our literature is centring 
 about it. Our novels are but pleas for one or 
 the other principle. One novel is written to 
 preach that a man has a right to live his own 
 life regardless of the world. The market is 
 full of these books. Another novel preaches 
 that a man should be willing to renounce every- 
 
 102
 
 The Present Issue 103 
 
 thing for the common good. Our dramas all 
 reflect the same conflict. Most of them preach 
 that individual happiness is the norm of right 
 or wrong. A man has the right to the woman 
 he loves, no matter how many homes or souls 
 he wrecks. On the other hand, there is a 
 group of powerful dramas preaching the social 
 gospel, the gospel that man is bound up in an 
 organic social body, and cannot do either 
 good or evil without affecting the whole 
 organism. 
 
 All our religious discussion is concerned 
 with this question. Not on theories of the 
 atonement are men writing, but upon ethical 
 theories. Nietzsche writes that a man lives 
 for himself alone, and that is right for him 
 which he can get. He has no obligations to 
 society, and society has none to him, except as 
 he can wrest them from it. A really great 
 book is Professor Royce's recently pub- 
 lished " Problem of Christianity," It goes 
 clear over to the very opposite principle from 
 Nietzsche — indeed, goes as far over as St. Paul 
 went — and in masterly writing claims that 
 there is no real life by oneself, not even any 
 salvation. Self-fulfilment comes only through 
 loyalty to the community; salvation through 
 finding one's place in the group. It is the
 
 104. The Challenge 
 
 eternal theme in all our economic and indus- 
 trial problems to-day — has a man got the right 
 to do what he pleases with his own, regardless 
 of the rest of the world? Just at present the 
 issue has been taken up on to the plane of na- 
 tional relationships, and the thinkers of the 
 world are, as in the case of men's relationships, 
 divided. One group says the nation lives unto 
 itself alone and is in no wise bound to take 
 other nations into consideration in seeking its 
 ends, and up to this present time has openly 
 urged that the nation should seek these ends 
 by force. Others are urging that each nation 
 must act as a member of a world family, and 
 act in consideration of the common welfare, 
 even as gentlemen do in individual relation- 
 ships. 
 
 The whole contention has been assuming 
 the form recently of a discussion of rights and 
 duties. It comes back to the same thing. 
 Shall one strive for his own rights, or for the 
 rights of others? Shall one make the doctrine 
 of rights so supreme that he shall insist on 
 them, no matter what harm it brings to others 
 in securing them, or shall he waive his own 
 rights, satisfaction, revenge, reparation for 
 honour insulted, for the sake of the common 
 good?
 
 The Present Issue 105 
 
 Here is the great contention of to-day, and 
 many are feeling that it is according as one 
 views this question that his right to be called 
 a Christian is determined. Not long ago a 
 well-known religious teacher was asked, 
 " What makes a man a Christian ? " He re- 
 sponded, " The fact of whether he stood with 
 Jesus Christ for the saving of the world as 
 over against those who stood for saving their 
 own lives." However this may be, there can 
 be no doubt as to the position of the two 
 founders of Christianity, Jesus and Paul. The 
 Gospels and the Epistles are all woven around 
 this one thought, as around a golden cord. 
 The fundamental law of nature on which the 
 Gospel is built up is that no man liveth to him- 
 self alone. 
 
 Taking this as a basis, both Jesus and Paul 
 rear the great structure whose one central prin- 
 ciple is the free, spontaneous, eager acknowl- 
 edgment that one belongs to a society and that 
 the life both of the society and of himself 
 rests on his faithfulness to this principle. 
 There are men who teach that the individual 
 has a right to his own life regardless of others, 
 but there is no vestige of such teaching in the 
 New Testament, neither can one find it in the 
 great teachers of the ages. For they, with
 
 106 The Challenge 
 
 their Master, have seen, as any one must see 
 who stops and thinks, that there can be no so- 
 ciety built up on that principle, no civilization. 
 We are just witnessing great civilizations tum- 
 bling to pieces because nations have been living 
 by that philosophy. If the war stops and na- 
 tions go back to this same anti-Christian basis, 
 it will all come again. It must come. It comes 
 among individuals whenever the law of strict 
 individualism prevails. Every colony that has 
 ever been founded by dreamers, where every 
 one did what he pleased, has gone to pieces. 
 Our modern cities are wholesome or evil just 
 to the extent that the Christian principle of the 
 community prevails, or the old pagan ideal of 
 individualism. If every one should begin to- 
 morrow to live as he pleased, considering the 
 present tendencies in human nature we should 
 have a hell in every town within a month. 
 Some people scorn conventions, but conven- 
 tions are not arbitrary things. They are 
 fences built up to keep the savages from de- 
 stroying the city. One man says he will not 
 be bound by marriage, but, being an individual, 
 will live as he chooses. He may not wreck 
 the city, because the fences are too strong for 
 one man to break. But suppose every man in 
 New York began to live on that basis, where
 
 The Present Issue 107 
 
 would we be in a year? It is of that we have 
 to think. 
 
 It is a striking fact that one of the great- 
 est teachers of modern times built up his whole 
 ethical system on just this principle. We re- 
 fer to Emanuel Kant. Kant said that the con- 
 duct of the individual must be regulated by 
 its contribution to the welfare of society. 
 Whatever contributed to the preservation and 
 upbuilding of the community was good; what- 
 ever contributed to its misery and downfall 
 was evil. He called his principle the Categor- 
 ical Imperative. It may be expressed as fol- 
 lows : So live that the principle of your life 
 may be worthy of being made a universal law. 
 In other words, every man ought to live so as 
 to make his example fit to follow. Let each 
 one of us ask: What kind of a world would 
 this be if all men lived as I live? Dr. Amory 
 H. Bradford, of sainted memory, once gave 
 this principle some direct and particular appli- 
 cations. The result was so suggestive and 
 striking that we cannot forbear quoting the 
 questions here as he gave them : 
 
 " Suppose all the citizens of this community 
 were to take the same amount of interest in its 
 affairs, and give to them the same amount of
 
 108 The Challenge 
 
 time and effort that we do, and no more, what 
 kind of a community would this be? " 
 
 " Suppose that all men were to do as much 
 to help the deserving poor to get work as we 
 do, and no more, how many of them would 
 have work? " 
 
 " Suppose that all our people should give 
 as much of their property, in proportion to 
 their ability, to missions and to moral reform 
 as we give, what would be the condition of the 
 world?" 
 
 " Suppose that all who attend church, who 
 are able to be prompt, should be as prompt 
 in attendance as we are, and no more, what 
 time would our church services begin?" 
 
 " Suppose that all who buy and sell property 
 should be as anxious that those with whom 
 they deal should get their full rights as we 
 are in our dealings, would there be more or 
 less harmony in society ? " 
 
 " Suppose that all the whites in the country 
 should treat the coloured people as you and I 
 do, would this be a better and a happier na- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Suppose that all who profess and call 
 themselves Christians should keep as near to 
 the example of Jesus Christ as we do, would
 
 The Present Issue 109 
 
 it be easier or more difficult for others to be 
 Christians ? " 
 
 " Suppose that all men tried to live by the 
 Golden Rule as earnestly as we do, and no 
 more, would brotherly love be promoted? " 
 
 " Suppose that all other Christians were as 
 anxious that sinners should be saved as we 
 are, and no more so, how many would be 
 reached by the Gospel? " 
 
 We said above that just now the world was 
 beginning to ask this same question in regard 
 to nations. Has a nation any more right to 
 try to live for itself than has a man for him- 
 self? It was just because Austria acted on 
 this impossible doctrine of individual rights, 
 and undertook to avenge her honour by at- 
 tacking Serbia, that all Europe has been 
 plunged into hell. Has a nation any right to 
 live and act unto itself when such action must 
 destroy the peace and happiness of all other 
 nations? The world is beginning to see the 
 impossibility of this doctrine when practised 
 by nations as it has seen its impossibility 
 among persons. It is seeing that no nation 
 can to-day wage a war against another nation, 
 without waging war against all humanity.
 
 X 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DEED 
 
 IF there was one thing that the outbreak of 
 the present war taught the world, it was 
 that it made all the difference in the world 
 what a man believed. Gone forever is all that 
 shallow talk to the effect that it mattered not 
 what doctrines a man held, what creed he 
 avowed, what theology he assented to — that 
 action, life, deed, was all that counted, that 
 deeds were rarely logical consequences of any 
 doctrine behind them. 
 
 As a matter of fact the one thing this war 
 has revealed, in its outbreak and in its long 
 and awful course, is that deeds, actions, in 
 every case, when a great test came, were the 
 immediate fruits of a widely held, thoroughly 
 elaborated, tenaciously clung to, system of 
 theology or philosophy or article of faith. 
 The one thing written in outstanding letters 
 against the whole background of the conflict 
 is " as a man's faith, so his actions ; as a man's 
 doctrine, so his deeds." Consciously or un- 
 110
 
 Doctrine and Deed 111 
 
 consciously a man or a nation acts out a creed 
 when the crisis comes. Deeds spring out of 
 doctrine. 
 
 It is an interesting fact, that more than a 
 year before the present war broke out, a stu- 
 dent and admirer of modern Germany pointed 
 out the fact that the Kaiser in his many ser- 
 mons and addresses to his people never used 
 the word Christ, but always the word " God," 
 and he raised the question whether the Kaiser 
 did not hold the Old Testament conception of 
 " Jehovah," God of battles, Lord of Hosts, 
 rather than the New Testament conception 
 of the Father, the forgiving, gentle, com- 
 panionable Spirit revealed in Christ. If this 
 were true, our writer went on to say, it did 
 not promise well for the future peace of 
 Europe or for gentleness as the prevailing trait 
 of the German character. We have before 
 us the collection of the Kaiser's many ad- 
 dresses and what our friend says is true. 
 " God " is the word always used, never 
 " Christ." Furthermore, in many instances 
 the following conjunction of words appears : 
 " God and our trusty sword." When these 
 words are used, they are used as the security, 
 the safety of the German people. Recall in 
 connection with this Tolstoy's frequent state-
 
 112 The Challenge 
 
 merits that the God of the Russian Church was 
 only a magnified general, a warrior, often con- 
 ceived, he imagined, in panoply of steel. 
 
 May it not be that it is because of this 
 thought of God as warrior, King commanding 
 great hosts, imperial Judge and Ruler, with 
 might and wrath as attributes, rather than the 
 forgiving Father revealed in Christ, whose 
 love is all-inclusive, whose tenderness is over 
 all, and knows no race or nation ; who accom- 
 plishes His purposes by gentle, mysterious mov- 
 ing of His Spirit, rather than by cohorts, is 
 largely responsible for that spirit which be- 
 lieves in might and arms and domination by 
 force as the methods of a nation's expansion 
 and influence in the world? This attitude of 
 things has so impressed one of our well-known 
 and widely trusted thinkers that in a book he 
 has just published he raises the question 
 whether it might not be wise to drop the word 
 " God " altogether for a few years, and use 
 the word " Christ " instead ? Seemingly his 
 thought is that the only really Christian idea 
 of God is the one we get in Christ, while the 
 war lords mean the Jehovah of the Book of 
 Kings when they say " God." However this 
 may be, according to our conception of God 
 will be our acts and deeds. If we believe in
 
 Doctrine and Deed 113 
 
 a severe, martkl God, with lightnings and 
 thunderbohs in His hand, intent only on His 
 own glory, power and His own way, we shall, 
 both men and nations, act as those acted who 
 rushed to war for revenge and to inflict pun- 
 ishment and to gain their own ends. If we 
 believe in the Father as revealed in the life, 
 death and teachings of Jesus Christ we shall 
 act, both men and nations, as those who believe 
 that good-will toward all men is the weapon 
 of the Christian. 
 
 Again, nothing is more evident than that the 
 present conflict has grown out of a doctrine, 
 a creed, a philosophy, an ideal, as directly as 
 an oak grows out of an acorn. So long as 
 men and nations hold this doctrine, this ideal, 
 just so long then will be wars and strifes. 
 This doctrine is expressed so trenchantly by 
 the great historian Treitschke that we quote 
 his own words : " The end-all and the be-all 
 of the State is power, and he who is not man 
 enough to look them in the face should not 
 meddle with politics. The advancement of the 
 power of the State must be first and foremost 
 the object that guides the statesman's policy. 
 Among all political sins the sin of feebleness is 
 the most contemptible; it is the political sin 
 against the Holy Ghost," There is one philoso-
 
 114 The Challenge 
 
 phy of life. It is held by thousands, not only in 
 Germany, but in Russia, England, France and 
 America. It is that power is the chief end 
 of the State — and of man also. It puts the 
 nation above righteousness, and anything 
 is right which is done for the nation. In the 
 individual it puts success above the methods 
 of its achievement. It puts nationalism above 
 humanity; a frenzied kind of patriotism above 
 the kingdom of God; racial superiority above 
 brotherhood. It made the war in Europe; it 
 will always make it when men hold it as a 
 creed, for their acts will grow out of their 
 faith. On the other hand, if man or nation 
 holds the opposite conception of State and in- 
 dividual, the Christian conception, the one al- 
 ways on the lips of Christ and always dominat- 
 ing his every action, that of service, not power 
 the chief end of life; ministry, not domination, 
 the glory of a man or nation; humanity above 
 nationality; all the world one's fatherland; 
 good-will for all the brethren; a desire to co- 
 operate with all good men everywhere in re- 
 deeming and reclaiming the earth; the State 
 existing for the world and for its people ; then 
 we shall find men acting as brothers and not 
 as rivals, and we shall have the beautiful 
 Christian peace in the heart and in the world,
 
 Doctrine and Deed 115 
 
 the peace that comes simply from beheving 
 the Gospel. 
 
 Again, the absurdity of saying that it 
 matters not what doctrines one holds, what 
 theories underly the State, is being made mani- 
 fest in every morning newspaper of the world. 
 Read any page, it matters not what the subject, 
 and it is full of actions that spring out of 
 convictions as deep-rooted as are the bases of 
 the mountains. Whether it be the slaughter 
 going on in Europe, the cruelty in our prisons, 
 the conflicts between capital and labour, the 
 invasion of Mexico, the trials in our courts, 
 they all go back to a doctrine which all nations 
 and millions of men hold both tenaciously and 
 conscientiously, namely, the doctrine of rights. 
 It is a pagan doctrine, and it is producing 
 pagan results. So long as men and nations 
 hold it we shall have wars, quarrels, cruelties 
 and injustices in every department of life. 
 Fundamentally it is the doctrine that self is 
 the first consideration of life. It carries with 
 it innumerable implications, such as, the de- 
 fence of honour; the seeking of revenge for 
 wrongs upon oneself or against the nation; 
 punishment to be retaliatory and quid pro quo 
 instead of redemptive and reformatory; size 
 and force the basis of judgment; might makes
 
 116 The Challenge 
 
 right; self-protection the chief concern of life. 
 It is this that made the war in Europe; it is 
 this doctrine that urges so many to cry for war 
 with Mexico ; it is this theory that makes much 
 of the strife between capital and labour; it is 
 this that brings our people into court ; it is this 
 that creates most family dissension; it is this 
 that makes men and nations enemies instead of 
 co-operative factors in the world. 
 
 Now Jesus Christ simply abhorred the whole 
 thing. He condemned it every time He 
 opened His mouth. His death was a protest 
 against it. All His teaching is of another 
 doctrine, and until men and nations, yes even 
 the Church itself, come to believe it more 
 heartily than they do, we shall have all these 
 old evils going on forever. And this doctrine 
 is that of duty as the chief end of man and 
 nations instead of rights. Men are here not 
 for rights, but for duty, service, ministry. 
 The implications of this doctrine are good- 
 will, forgiveness of the enemy, redemption of 
 one's foes. The chief end of man, not re- 
 venge, not retaliation, not reparation; the at- 
 titude of a man or nation not how can I pro- 
 tect my honour, avenge insults, uphold my 
 rights, but what service can I render the
 
 Doctrine and Deed 117 
 
 weaker man, how can I win the friendship of 
 the nation that hates me? 
 
 Now, whatever one may think about the 
 taking of the teachings of Jesus Hterally, we 
 defy any one, taking them at all, to get any- 
 thing else out of them than these doctrines. 
 Jesus' whole teaching cannot be made other 
 than this without throwing Him away — which 
 is just what Bernhardi urges and what all 
 the militarists do. It was only the other day 
 that a clergyman deliberately remarked to us 
 that the teachings of Jesus were not meant 
 for our age. Certainly a great number of so- 
 called Christians in our age shut their eyes to 
 them. A friend recently returned from 
 Europe said : " It is noticeable how little the 
 German pastors read the Sermon on the Mount 
 in the churches these days; and I think I de- 
 tected a tendency in the British Free Churches 
 to stick to the Old Testament." We should 
 think it would trouble the conscience of some 
 ministers to read the Sermon on the Mount or 
 even the Parables at this time. The words 
 of Jesus do not make comfortable reading to 
 many just now. Again remember Tolstoy's 
 story of hearing the priest read the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount with its " Love your 
 enemies," and then closing the Bible and pray-
 
 118 The Challenge 
 
 ing that God would send the Japanese to hell. 
 We have had some instances of the same thing 
 in our own country while the Mexican crisis 
 was on — and when we were in delicate situa- 
 tion with Germany, some ministers forgot all 
 Jesus ever said. But this is our point: until 
 we believe with all our heart that Christ's doc- 
 trine was the right doctrine, and let this doc- 
 trine permeate every fibre of our being, rise 
 through every thought and feeling, we shall 
 never have brotherhood, good-will, co-opera- 
 tion, happiness, righteousness, peace; and we 
 shall never have even the beginnings of that 
 heavenly kingdom, for which Christ yearned, 
 prayed, lived and died.
 
 XI 
 
 THE WORLD'S INCAPACITY TO 
 LEARN 
 
 PERHAPS the most discouraging thing 
 about man is his seeming incapacity to 
 learn from his own experience, or from 
 that of others. Something more than two 
 years ago one of the nations of Europe, in 
 spite of the protest of England and France, 
 in spite of their request that the difficulty be 
 submitted to an impartial tribunal, rushed off 
 to punish one of the little Balkan States for 
 the crime of one of its citizens. Another great 
 nation, also turning its back to England's plea 
 for arbitration, backed Austria in this deed, 
 and thus all Europe was plunged into blood- 
 shed. And yet it was only two years before 
 this that all of these Balkan States, of which 
 Serbia was one, had been engaged in slaugh- 
 tering and butchering one another, absolutely 
 to no purpose, and with a ferocity unequalled 
 in any war, except this war in which the na- 
 tions are now engaged. This protracted Bal- 
 119
 
 120 The Challenge 
 
 kan war had been carefully studied. The re- 
 port was well known in every European na- 
 tion, namely, that nothing but slaughter, 
 misery, hatred and poverty had come out of 
 the first half of the war, when the so-called 
 Christian States were arrayed against the 
 Turk; and that nothing but more slaughter, 
 misery, hatred and poverty had come out of 
 the second war, when the so-called Christian 
 States, not having their blood-lust sated, 
 rushed at each other's throats. All this Aus- 
 tria had before her. All this she knew. Also 
 she might have known that to go to war with 
 Serbia meant war with Russia, and that that 
 meant Germany's coming in, and that that 
 meant a general European conflagration. Yet 
 in spite of all these terrible lessons right before 
 her eyes, in spite of all these certain possi- 
 bilities, in she rushed and the end is, prac- 
 tically, suicide. 
 
 Suicide, or partial suicide, is coming more 
 and more to be the outcome of all war. For 
 there can be no more confined war, no more 
 wars between two nations. The world has be- 
 come such a neighbourhood, become so in spite 
 of those who dislike it, who cry " national- 
 ism " in a world where their own inventions 
 make their kind of nationalism impossible, that
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 121 
 
 all wars must, in the nature of things, be world 
 wars. The end of the Balkan wars was sim- 
 ply partial self-destruction for all who entered 
 them. The end of the present war is prac- 
 tically self-extinction for the one which be- 
 gan it. It has meant self-impoverishment for 
 all who have taken part in it, but the two great 
 Powers who were most responsible for it have 
 been the two to suffer most. They, too, are 
 the two who have most believed in war; the 
 two which have refused to ardently support 
 the growing movement in the world to support 
 arbitration and a world court. And the nation 
 which deliberately began the war has suffered 
 most of all. 
 
 In the face of the absolute failure of the 
 awful Balkan wars to settle anything; of the 
 inanity of it all; of the terrible suffering as 
 the only end of it, Austria rushes at Serbia, 
 with the result that nearly two and a half years 
 after, while the world pauses on this anni- 
 versary day, the only result is millions of dead 
 young men, millions of widows, orphans and 
 heartbroken mothers ; millions of starving chil- 
 dren; billions of debts; billions of property 
 destroyed; industry paralyzed; long, deep 
 hatreds engendered; seeds of future strife 
 sown as dragon's teeth by the way; Austria
 
 122 The Challenge 
 
 herself crippled, impoverished, made ten times 
 more impotent than ever. All because of 
 seeming inability to learn the plainest lessons 
 history ever proved. How infinitely better off 
 Austria would have been to-day had she asked 
 The Hague Tribunal to appoint a commission 
 carefully to investigate the whole Serbian- 
 Austrian situation, and then to have made a 
 decision fair to all concerned. She might have 
 found this tribunal bringing certain unpleasant 
 facts to her own attention. It might even have 
 recommended that Austria, for her own good 
 as well as justice to Serbia, relinquish cer- 
 tain Slavic territory. But how happy Aus- 
 tria would have been to-day, compared with 
 her present desolation! How the causes of 
 future strife would have been removed — 
 judicial settlements are apt to remove them, 
 while war only makes more! How all of 
 Europe would have been saved this terrible 
 visitation ! How the use of courts instead of 
 war would have been encouraged in the future I 
 What an impetus would have been given to 
 international Christianity! But, alas, she 
 could not learn! 
 
 The question many are asking as the war 
 drags wearily along is : Will the world learn 
 even out of this terrible calamity the lesson of
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 123 
 
 the futility of this whole war business? A 
 good many are saying : " This will be the last 
 war. The world will be so sick and tired of 
 war that it will never want another. The 
 people will forbid it, even if the governments 
 want it." Well, we do not know. We have 
 seen so much of the inability of people to learn 
 lessons out of terrible experience that we do 
 not feel sure they will learn out of this. We 
 heard these things said of Bulgaria after her 
 fearful sufferings of only five years ago; and 
 yet see with what eagerness she rushed into 
 this war almost as though for the fun of the 
 thing. There are rumours that even now cer- 
 tain nations are talking vengeance if they are 
 defeated in this war. Another nation is talk- 
 ing of a trade war to be continued after the 
 war with arms is over. But they know that 
 such a trade war inevitably leads to a war of 
 guns. And as for the people — well, we think 
 many have lost confidence in the People — 
 spelled with a capital P. No one ever spoke 
 bigger than the " people " before this war. 
 We ourselves heard them at one of those great 
 meetings in Stuttgart ten years ago, when Ger- 
 man and French workingmen fell on each 
 other's necks and swore that never would 
 they bear arms against each other at the behest
 
 124 The Challenge 
 
 of kings and governments; they would all 
 strike at the first rumour of war and paralyze 
 the government. It was big, brave, beautiful 
 talk, but all these German Socialists rushed to 
 invade France at the very first word from the 
 Kaiser. We fear they would again. As a 
 matter of fact, one of the things this war has 
 emphasized, as the Balkan wars did before it, 
 is that racial instincts, nationalism, patriotism 
 are much more instinctive, deeply ingrained 
 qualities of humanity than is religion of any 
 kind. Only in the elect few in every nation, 
 those who have got as close to Christ as did 
 Paul and John, does Christianity rise above 
 nationalism or racialism when the stress comes. 
 No, the hope is not yet in the people. But no 
 one hopes more eagerly than does the writer 
 that this war may open their eyes to the fact 
 that they are but the pawns of a false game. 
 
 And the evidences are not altogether en- 
 couraging in our own land. Many came home 
 from Europe two years ago saying : " Surely 
 America will learn the great lesson this sud- 
 den collapse of civilization in Europe plainly 
 teaches, namely, that militarism is a delusion 
 and inevitably ends in catastrophe, that arma- 
 ment as a means of keeping the peace is a 
 sham, that nationalism provokes strife in the
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 125 
 
 family of nations just as does individualism in 
 the family of persons, that contiguous nations 
 cannot live happily side by side while suspicious 
 of each other any more than can suspicious 
 families ; that war costs more than it can bring 
 in this era of civilization, and, finally, that any 
 nation which wages war against another na- 
 tion wages war against humanity, for all the 
 others must suffer more or less, and will prob- 
 ably be drawn into the struggle." All this 
 many who had been in Europe when the war 
 broke out thought that America would surely 
 learn. As one who returned from Europe 
 said : " America ought surely to see the futility 
 of this whole war business." And many 
 thought that surely America would now be- 
 come a great peace society preaching peace to 
 the warring nations and bending all its ener- 
 gies to evolving some plan for permanent 
 peace, some substitute for war. But it is the 
 same old story. America has seemed just as 
 incapable of learning as has any nation of 
 Europe, and instead of turning from the path 
 down which Europe has rushed, has, in a blind 
 frenzy, rushed right into the same path. The 
 war has proved militarism a delusion and the 
 precursor of the direst calamity the world has 
 ever witnessed, and yet never was America
 
 126 The Challenge 
 
 so crazy over militarism as just now — all sorts 
 of camps for drilling soldiers, military drills 
 in schools and colleges, many urging universal 
 conscription and some States having already 
 got it for boys, and even the girls have gone 
 off to learn how to shoot somebody. We are 
 just like a man who, having seen another man 
 killed by drinking too much whiskey, ran right 
 off and began drinking it night and day. 
 
 If the European war has taught anything 
 it is that the whole theory of keeping peace by 
 competitive armament is a sham and a hum- 
 bug. And yet never has America been so 
 rushed into the competitive armament race as 
 now, and at this writing we are even con- 
 sidering a navy that must be large enough to 
 beat Great Britain. And, curiously enough, 
 our Senators have been using the very sen- 
 tences we heard in the Reichstag debate some 
 ten or twelve years ago. 
 
 The European war has taught us that ex- 
 treme emphasis on nationalism precipitates 
 just such strife as we are now witnessing. 
 Many thought that America would see this 
 and become the great protagonist of a new and 
 larger conception of nationality, especially 
 since she has so many strains of blood within 
 her veins. But no ! Strange to relate, the air
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 127 
 
 is full of just such Germanic phrases as all the 
 world was condemning before this war. We 
 are everywhere hearing " Americanism," " na- 
 tionalism " " America first " — all these phrases 
 used in just the same sense that Germany has 
 been using " Pan-Germanism " and " Deutsch- 
 land iiber Alles." The United States may be 
 pro-Allies in its sympathy. But it has been 
 conquered by Germany. We are having her 
 militarism urged upon us and her conception 
 of nationalism and the State. There is a re- 
 markable resemblance between Roosevelt's 
 speeches and Treitsche's. 
 
 Many had thought, seeing that the syste- 
 matic cultivation of suspicion on one nation 
 of another by press and public utterance had 
 much to do with bringing on the war, that the 
 United States would learn a lesson and turn 
 in a new direction. But no ; to get big armies 
 and navies it is necessary to have a foe. So 
 never has there been such a campaign of sus- 
 picion carried on as since this war broke out. 
 At first Germany and Japan were chosen. 
 Then it was Canada. Now it is England 
 against whom we are being urged to arm (see 
 speeches in United States Senate urging naval 
 appropriations). Will nations never learn?
 
 128 The Challenge 
 
 Finally, one would think that this country, 
 seeing the horror, the devastation, the suicidal 
 slaughter of this war, would hate war and with 
 one mighty voice of sustained unanimity cry 
 out: " No more of this forever. We will find 
 some new way. We will lead the world out of 
 this morass. Not only do we see how contra- 
 dictory it is to every word of Jesus Christ, but 
 we see how absolutely futile it is." The Bible 
 itself is no more explicit in any of its revela- 
 tions than is this war. It is a second Bible. 
 But seemingly this nation cannot read it, can- 
 not learn its lessons. For there never was so 
 much crying after war. Republicans are cry- 
 ing for it, and some Democrats. Generals are 
 praising it, as well as are some clergymen. 
 We are being told as never before that it is 
 the mother of all virtues (witness its ennobling 
 effect on the Russian soldiers in Poland and 
 the German soldiers in Belgium and Turkey). 
 Even Vice-President Marshall has had to go 
 out of his way to warn people that peace may 
 be worse than war. (Can any one imagine any 
 kind of peace being worse than war in Poland 
 just at present?) Everywhere there seems to 
 be a real yearning to get into war with some- 
 body. When the Mexican trouble came thou- 
 sands thought the chance had come and howled
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 129 
 
 for war. Mr. Roosevelt started out frantically 
 to raise a regiment to go off to slaughter the 
 already distracted Mexican people. (Did any 
 one ever hear of Mr. Roosevelt showing any 
 such enthusiasm over raising a regiment of 
 one thousand to go over and feed the starving 
 Belgians or Poles? Or did any one ever hear 
 of Mr. Roosevelt spending his time during the 
 last two years contriving anything to save 
 Europe from this horrible scourge again?) 
 It was only at the last moment, and then be- 
 cause the much maligned pacifists got behind 
 the President, that America was diverted from 
 Europe's fate. Is it not strange we cannot 
 learn the lesson of events? Austria had a 
 hundred times more reason to punish Serbia 
 than have we to punish Mexico. We condemn 
 her, and we see the result of her attempt. 
 And yet we want to do the same foolish thing 
 — and do it facing the same very imminent 
 probabilities. For can any one doubt that if 
 we went to war with Mexico that before the 
 year was up all this continent, Canada and the 
 South American States, as well as Japan, 
 would be in the war ? 
 
 These things are all worthy of careful 
 thought on this anniversary day. After all, it 
 may be that the hope of the future is not with
 
 130 The Challenge 
 
 governments, not even with the people. Both 
 seem quite incapable of learning life's sim- 
 plest lessons. Perhaps the only hope is with 
 the little minorities which have always created 
 the new orders. Ever since Jesus and twelve 
 men began the great revolution it has been 
 the little group of prophets who have brought 
 in the new worlds. It has never been the gov- 
 ernment, the people, not even the Church, but 
 the prophets in all these groups. It is so now. 
 There is our hope. Just as it was the half 
 dozen prophets who got torture out of the po- 
 litical and ecclesiastical systems of the Middle 
 Ages, against the opposition of Church and 
 State, so it will be the little group who, un- 
 swayed by the popular clamour, undismayed 
 by seeming failures, find war and all prepara- 
 tion for war absolutely at issue with every 
 word of Jesus Christ and His whole life, who 
 will ultimately save the world from war. And 
 even the promoters of the League to Enforce 
 Peace will find that when it comes to asking 
 this nation really to join a federation of 
 European States, thereby abrogating some of 
 its own rights for the sake of a new co-opera- 
 tion, putting humanity above nationalism, it 
 will be only the " pacifists," and the most 
 thoroughgoing ones, who will stand by them
 
 The World's Incapacity to Learn 131 
 
 at that time, with their gospel that the nation 
 should lose part of its own life for the sake 
 of the world. For this is its logical issue. 
 And only the little minorities see that this way 
 — the way of Christ — is the only way to peace.
 
 XII 
 
 THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 
 
 PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JOR- 
 DAN has recently published an inter- 
 esting little book, " Ways to Lasting 
 Peace," in which he enumerates and interprets 
 the thirty proposals now before the world for 
 securing lasting peace after the present war is 
 over. It is a very valuable and interesting 
 book. It should be in the hands of everybody 
 who is interested in the effort to substitute 
 judicial processes for war, a stable civilization 
 for one subject to frequent relapses into bar- 
 barism. Of all of these thirty plans now oc- 
 cupying the attention of the world that pro- 
 posed by the League to Enforce Peace (called 
 in England the League of Nations) has at- 
 tracted the attention of the American people 
 most widely and aroused most enthusiasm. 
 The recent conference held in Washington at- 
 tracted nation-wide attention, enlisted many 
 recruits and raised a sum of money perhaps 
 thirty times larger than any peace organiza- 
 132
 
 League to Enforce Peace 133 
 
 tion known to history ever raised at one meet- 
 ing — a sum approaching $400,000. In con- 
 nection with this the President of the United 
 States practically endorsed the idea, and ex- 
 pressed, in a speech that has gone around the 
 world, the hope that the United States would 
 urge this League of Nations and enter into it 
 with the other Powers. 
 
 The idea is not new. As far back as the 
 sixteenth century Henry IV elaborated a fed- 
 eration of the European States, with a central 
 senate, and a proportionate contribution from 
 the various nations to a common international 
 army and navy. The Great Design of Henry 
 aimed directly at the substitution of judicial 
 processes for war. Just after the Pilgrims had 
 sailed from Holland for America a young 
 Dutch scholar, Hugo Grotius, wrote his famous 
 *' Rights of War and Peace," which looked 
 toward a World Court with some common 
 agreement of the nations, and only fifty years 
 afterward William Penn suggested a general 
 alliance of the European nations to form a 
 Diet or Congress of Nations. A century and 
 a quarter ago the great philosopher, Immanuel 
 Kant, in a tract called " Eternal Peace," 
 pleaded for the political organization of the 
 world. Since his day this plea for some form
 
 134 The Challenge 
 
 of federation has had advocates both in 
 Europe and America : such men as Victor 
 Hugo, Cobden, Bright and WilHam Ladd, 
 Elihu Burritt and David Low Dodge. 
 
 The plan for a League of Peace came promi- 
 nently before the world again when Andrew 
 Carnegie made his famous address at St. An- 
 drew's University as Lord Rector in 1905. 
 He chose " The League of Peace " as the title 
 of his address and advocated the association 
 of the great Powers in a league which should 
 agree to submit all disputes to a common court 
 and should combine all their forces into one 
 common army and navy. Where Mr. Car- 
 negie's program went further than the present 
 League to Enforce Peace goes was that he 
 would have the League keep the peace of all 
 the world, prohibiting by its combined force 
 any two nations anywhere going to war, on the 
 ground that no two nations can go to war 
 without seriously affecting all the nations of 
 the world. Ever since Mr. Carnegie's famous 
 address, which was circulated in all languages 
 up into the millions, the idea of such a League 
 has found champions both in England and 
 America. 
 
 Curiously enough, the recent movement has 
 been simultaneous in America and England.
 
 League to Enforce Peace 135 
 
 A little over a year ago Dr. Hamilton Holt 
 asked a little group consisting of ex-President 
 Taft, President Lowell, Ambassador Marburg, 
 Professors Giddings, Clarke and Willoughby, 
 Mr. John Hays Hammond, Mr. Short, Mr. 
 Heuston and others to meet at an evening con- 
 ference at the Century Club, New York. The 
 writer of this page was included in the number. 
 At that gathering the present movement so far 
 as America is concerned was initiated. This 
 group continued to dine together monthly at 
 the Century Club, and there the present plat- 
 form of four brief articles was practically de- 
 termined upon. This group then voted to call 
 a national conference in Philadelphia to bring 
 the plan before the people. Meantime a sim- 
 ilar series of conferences was being held in 
 England. There such men as Lord Bryce, G. 
 Lowes Dickenson and John A. Hobson were 
 leading it, and they chose the name " A League 
 of Nations." Our New York group kept in 
 constant touch with the English group, and 
 some of the group have had interviews with 
 the British leaders, much correspondence has 
 been carried on, and Mr. Dickenson has met 
 the American group several times. Both Mr. 
 Asquith and Sir Edward Grey have openly en- 
 dorsed the movement. The English name is
 
 136 The Challenge 
 
 better than the American, and it is too bad that 
 the American group did not adopt that name, 
 as it defines the main purpose better than the 
 term " League to Enforce Peace." For any 
 league of nations must have many functions 
 beyond merely enforcing or maintaining peace. 
 What is the aim of those in America and 
 England who would have the nations enter into 
 a League? Exactly the same aim in principle 
 as our own nation had when it made a federa- 
 tion of the States. They would make a sort 
 of United Nations of the World, based on the 
 United States of America, except that they do 
 not expect a centralized government. Origi- 
 nally the thirteen States of our own nation 
 had its own army and its own navy. When 
 they federated these armies and navies were 
 combined, and this combined force acted as 
 sheriff and defence for all. It could be much 
 smaller, too, than were all the separate armies 
 and navies added together. The League to 
 Enforce Peace and the League of Nations 
 would have the Powers form a sort of federa- 
 tion, each nation pledged to carry its dispute 
 with another nation to a Court of Nations, a 
 World Court, as the States carry their disputes 
 to the Supreme Court, the National Court, at 
 Washington, and all the armies and navies
 
 League to Enforce Peace 137 
 
 being combined into an international army 
 corresponding to the national army for the 
 States. And just as our national army will 
 not allow a State to break the peace, so this 
 international army will not allow a nation in 
 the League or Federation to break the peace. 
 We are often asked how can a pacifist en- 
 dorse the League to Enforce Peace or the 
 League of Nations? Perhaps we can answer 
 this question with some authority, inasmuch 
 as we were one of the originators of this 
 League and helped to write its platform. We 
 are ourselves a pacifist; that is, we believe in 
 the substitution of judicial processes for war, 
 and we believe that wars as a means of set- 
 tling international disputes are archaic, futile 
 and unchristian. But we welcome the 
 League because ultimately it makes for the 
 peace of the world just as did the league of 
 States make for the peace of the United 
 States, and because it will ultimately make for 
 reduced armaments, just as federation of the 
 States calls for an infinitely smaller armament 
 here than would we have if every State of our 
 fifty was in the rivalry of State armies and 
 navies. Mr. Holt used an illustration in 
 Washington that is, to our mind, a very close 
 analogy. He said that in the frontier days
 
 138 The Challenge 
 
 a community of forty cowboys existed. Every 
 one was armed to the teeth. Every one was 
 his own sheriff, and there was continual war- 
 fare among these individuals. One day they 
 organized into a community and appointed 
 two sheriffs. All the guns and knives were 
 pooled, and these two sheriffs only allowed to 
 carry arms. They, with two guns over 
 against the former forty, preserved the peace 
 of the community and brought any breaker 
 of it before the local court, or the justice of 
 the peace. This is what the originators of the 
 League want the nations to do. 
 
 Two unfortunate things have somewhat 
 frightened many pacifists away. First was 
 the placing of the word enforce in the name. 
 This was not originally in. It was put in at 
 the Philadelphia meeting with a very large 
 opposition vote, in which we took part. As 
 we said before, it would have been much bet- 
 ter to have taken as a name " The League of 
 Nations." The other has been the utterly un- 
 warranted use of the ideal of a League of 
 Nations in which the United States should 
 take part by the militarists to urge a huge in- 
 crease in the army and navy of the United 
 States, on the ground that we need it as our 
 contribution to the international army and
 
 League to Enforce Peace 139 
 
 navy. As a matter of fact, the League to En- 
 force Peace has never taken any stand on 
 this matter. Its members number many who 
 think our army and navy are large enough, 
 many who believe they should be increased. 
 At an early meeting of the officers of the 
 League a resolution was passed to the effect 
 that the League take no stand on this matter 
 and that men of all shades of opinion should 
 be received into its membership and be eligible 
 for official positions in it. Only the other day 
 when an ardent militarist wished to link up 
 the League with a movement for increased 
 defence he was told he could not do so. 
 Nothing in the platform of the League bears 
 in any way upon the question of " prepared- 
 ness." Indeed, the two men who had most 
 to do with originating it entered upon the 
 movement because it seemed the only and the 
 shortest road to gradual disarmament to the 
 lowest point possible for the world before the 
 millennium shall have come.
 
 XIII 
 
 WHY NOT A LEAGUE OF THE 
 AMERICAN NATIONS? 
 
 liLMOST annually some distinguished 
 /"% American visits all the South American 
 States as an ambassador of our good- 
 will. Such men as Messrs. Roosevelt, Root, 
 Shepherd, Bryan and Burton have made this 
 tour and been most cordially received. 
 Through the Pan-American Union the rela- 
 tionship of all the American nations has been 
 growing more and more intimate. Our ac- 
 ceptance of the offer of Argentina, Chile and 
 Brazil to mediate in the Mexican problem 
 created most favourable impression in South 
 America. The European war has developed 
 a new community of interest among the na- 
 tions of this continent. It seems as if the 
 Mexican problem was on its way to a solu- 
 tion that will ensure the good-will of that un- 
 fortunate country toward the United States. 
 In view of this growing community of in- 
 terest, this new co-operation being manifested, 
 140
 
 A League of American Nations? 141 
 
 this fact that the destinies of all the peoples on 
 this continent are more or less bound up to- 
 gether, has not the time come for the creating 
 of a League of the American Nations? 
 
 We believe that now is the opportunity and 
 the time for the President of the United States 
 to do one of the greatest constructive acts of 
 history. Let him ask every State on this con- 
 tinent to send official delegates to a Congress 
 of American Nations to be called in Washing- 
 ton and then let him propose to the nations 
 represented that they all unite in a League of 
 American Nations, a real official Pan-Ameri- 
 can Union, for mutual prosperity, mutual 
 peace and mutual defence. 
 
 Let this League, as its first act, establish an 
 All- American Court of Justice at Washington 
 or some city to be decided upon, this court to 
 consist of nine judges to be chosen by the 
 nations party to the League. 
 
 Let all the nations in this Pan-American 
 League then agree to carry all disputes of a 
 justiciable nature that might arise between 
 them to this court. 
 
 Let all the nations in the League then agree 
 that where a case is not capable of being set- 
 tled in a court it shall be submitted to a 
 Council of Conciliation to be selected by the
 
 142 The Challenge 
 
 nations, or to an arbitration board to be 
 chosen by the nations involved. 
 
 Let all the nations then agree that if any- 
 one nation of the League is attacked from 
 without all the other nations will unite in 
 resisting the offending or invading power. 
 
 Let the nations of the League hold frequent 
 official congresses, which shall have such legis- 
 lative and executive powers as the various na- 
 tions may empower them to exercise. Their 
 conventions might be subject to the ratification 
 of the various States of the League. 
 
 We believe the time is ripe for this creation 
 of this League of American Nations. We 
 will go further and say that the time calls for 
 it. 
 
 Europe is involved in a catastrophe which 
 will absorb all her powers of recovery for 
 many years. She will have great questions of 
 readjustment of her own States, in which we 
 shall have little say. While we wish to enter 
 at once into plans for permanent peace in the 
 whole world, it will be some time before we 
 can do much in Europe. Meantime this war 
 has driven all American States into a neces- 
 sarily closer unity. This unity should at once 
 be conserved by a still closer unity. It should 
 be a real unity. It might easily be a unity that
 
 A League of American Nations? 143 
 
 would ensure peace forever between the na- 
 tions of this continent, 
 
 Europe is now crippled, and there is no need 
 that fear should possess any nation's heart. 
 But fear works not by reason, but by wild 
 imaginings. So, let it be granted that some 
 European nation might cast envious eyes on 
 some American republic, might be inclined to 
 purposely pick a quarrel as excuse for inva- 
 sion; let it even be granted that some crisis 
 might arise where some great Power in re- 
 sentment or revenge might feel bound to en- 
 gage in war with some State of North or 
 South America. Our Monroe Doctrine binds 
 the United States to enlist upon the side of 
 any nation attacked, but it does not bind the 
 remaining nations to rush to the aid of the 
 United States. But with this League of 
 American Nations we are all bound up together 
 in common peace and common war if it come 
 from the outside. Then whoever would make 
 war against any nation on this continent 
 would make war against them all. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, all would be involved in it as mat- 
 ters stand, so real is the unity. But let us 
 have an official unity that we may stand be- 
 fore all the world as one. It would be our 
 great defence.
 
 1441 The Challenge 
 
 This Union of American Nations would 
 bring about that adaptation of the Monroe 
 Doctrine that has sooner or later got to come. 
 Reduced to its simplest terms, the Monroe 
 Doctrine is a protectorate of the United States 
 over the Central and South American States. 
 It guarantees the integrity of American terri- 
 tory so far as foreign invasion is concerned. 
 It was a paternalism which was greatly appre- 
 ciated by the South American States in their 
 days of weakness. But it is paternalism, and 
 some of the greater Powers are rather resent- 
 ing it. They feel that the United States occa- 
 sionally assumes a dictatorial power she would 
 not display were it not for this sense of being 
 the guardian of the Western world. But sup- 
 pose the League of American Nations came; 
 then we should have, not the United States 
 guardian of all the other nations, but all 
 banded together in a new Monroe Doctrine of 
 mutual defence of all by all. 
 
 Such a League would also vastly simplify 
 the whole question of national defence for 
 each nation in the League. It is a great prob- 
 lem for many of them now. How much shall 
 Brazil and Argentina arm to defend them- 
 selves against each other? What navy shall 
 Peru have to defend herself from Chile? All
 
 A League of American Nations? 145 
 
 this problem would be greatly simplified, 
 would, indeed, eventually pass away, if the 
 League were formed and an agreement to set- 
 tle all disputes by judicial methods signed. 
 Besides this there would be all the force of all 
 the League lined up against the offending 
 State. The question of armament would then 
 become for all the States this: What arma- 
 ment is our share toward the collective force 
 of all against an offending State within the 
 League or an attacking or invading nation 
 from without? How much simpler the de- 
 fence problem the United States is now con- 
 sidering would become in the light of such a 
 League; at least, how much more logical it 
 would become! 
 
 Perhaps some one may say : But this League 
 of American Nations with its own court will 
 retard that larger world movement for a 
 league of all nations with a World Court at 
 The Hague! No, it will hasten it. There 
 will be the example and model of twenty sov- 
 ereign nations having solved the problem of 
 settling disputes by judicial methods instead 
 of wars. And a Pan-American League with 
 its American Court will be no more hindrance 
 to a World League with a World Court than 
 is the Supreme Court for the States within
 
 146 The Challenge 
 
 the United States — which is a model League 
 of States — to the proposed Pan-American 
 Court. Again, we ask, has not the time come 
 for a League of American Nations? Is it not 
 the great opportunity of America at once to 
 call a congress looking toward this League?
 
 XIV 
 
 THE WORLD COURT TO DISPLACE 
 WORLD WAR 
 
 IT is a very significant thing that a congress 
 to promote the estabhshing of a World 
 Court at The Hague should have been held 
 in Cleveland, Ohio, just as the most terrible 
 and repugnant tragedy of the war — the sinking 
 of a ship full of women and children, giving 
 them no opportunity to escape — should have 
 taken place. It has made the whole world 
 shudder. More than this, it has made the 
 whole world say, " There must be some other, 
 better way." But the whole series of events 
 during the last half year has been compelling 
 men to feel that some new way of settling 
 international disputes must be found, for the 
 sinking of the Lusitania is but one incident 
 in a long succession of horrors. The civilized 
 world has been growing afraid of its own 
 barbarities : Belgium devastated, with unspeak- 
 able suffering of millions of women and chil- 
 dren; millions of the best men of eight nations 
 147
 
 148 The Challenge 
 
 engaged in blowing each other's heads to 
 pieces with shrapnel; Poland a frightful hell 
 of unmitigated suffering, its cold, bleak deserts 
 covered with thousands of naked children wan- 
 dering about seeking holes in the ground; 
 Serbia one big, plague-ridden victim of typhus; 
 the best young men of Germany all being 
 slaughtered, leaving the weaklings and incapa- 
 bles to breed the next Germany; heartbreaks in 
 a million homes, and millions of little children 
 to grow up to know no fathers ; cities, cathe- 
 drals, colleges, farms, homes burned by scores 
 and scores; industries crippled; poverty a 
 gaunt spectre, claiming every land; posterity 
 burdened with a debt that shall demand half 
 the productive labour of centuries; and, with 
 all this, religion made a mockery, Christianity 
 set back a century, agnostics bred by the 
 thousands, and millions of hearts of men filled 
 with deadly, lasting, blasting hatreds. This 
 is what the world has been witnessing, and it 
 really is beginning to feel the futility as well 
 as the wickedness of it all. Never before, at 
 any time in history, have so many men been 
 doubting force as the basis of a true civiliza- 
 tion. This last act, the sinking of the Lusi- 
 tania, is not an isolated irruption of barbarism 
 through the thin crust of our civilization; it
 
 The World Court 149 
 
 is a product of militarism, an inevitable con- 
 comitant of a civilization based on force, a 
 normal feature of war. War itself is the 
 great barbarity, the supreme atrocity, the final 
 relapse into savagery. 
 
 For forty years Europe has been basing her 
 civilization upon force. She has said that 
 force, guns, armament, dynamite, powder and 
 shells were the only things that gave a nation 
 a power in the world, or made its voice listened 
 to; the only defence of a nation against its 
 enemies. They have all said that armaments 
 were the only things that " could preserve the 
 peace of Europe." Everywhere one turns in 
 Europe guns are more conspicuous than pulpits, 
 soldiers more conspicuous than school teachers, 
 arms more in evidence than churches. One 
 nation has spent twelve dollars on preparation 
 for war to every dollar on religion and educa- 
 tion put together. As a result of this philoso- 
 phy of defence and peace, Europe became a vast 
 powder magazine and, as a consequence, when 
 a half-crazed Serbian threw a match into it, 
 it went off. Powder always does go off one 
 time or another. A great Englishman re- 
 marked to us that he had come to feel that 
 when armament reaches a certain point, it 
 goes off by spontaneous combustion. It has
 
 150 The Challenge 
 
 gone off in Europe. If, after this war, the 
 nations go back to the same business, it will go 
 off again. 
 
 Very many of us in America are losing our 
 faith in force and violence to accomplish either 
 peace or justice. We are saying, " Some new 
 way must be found." We are asking, " What 
 is that new way? What shall we substitute 
 for war? " 
 
 The World Court Congress answered that 
 the only substitute for war was an International 
 Court of Arbitral Justice. We already have a 
 World Tribunal established by The Hague 
 Conferences. The Second Hague Conference 
 unanimously voted for the establishment of 
 a permanent court before which nations might 
 try their cases. Had a Third Hague Con- 
 ference been held the question of the constitut- 
 ing of this court would probably have been 
 one of its chief tasks. The Cleveland Congress 
 called upon the nations to make the establish- 
 ment of this court the first great task of the 
 nations after the close of this war. It would 
 have as many nations as will become signa- 
 tory to it, and then they shall proceed to select 
 judges — perhaps fifteen — who shall sit in 
 permanent session as does the Supreme Court 
 at Washington. Indeed the court recom-
 
 The World Court 151 
 
 mended by this congress to the nations was 
 based upon the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. While this congress was debating 
 the court, another group of men meeting in 
 New York were debating a federation of 
 the Great Powers, and as many of the others 
 as care to come into a League of Peace which 
 shall be bound together by a mutual agreement 
 to submit disputes to this court, and to furnish 
 whatever power might be necessary to enforce 
 its decisions. (It is very doubtful if much 
 power would ever be needed.) 
 
 We believe that the world is ready to try 
 this World Court as the battlefield of the 
 future. We believe that many in Europe are 
 seeing the futility of war and are ready to 
 try the court. What we wish to do here is 
 to point to some signs that indicate its pos- 
 sibility and its success. 
 
 First of all, the history of the evolution of 
 judicial processes in individual relationships 
 confirms us in believing that the principle of 
 evolution from force to reason will hold good 
 among nations. Once individuals settled all 
 their disputes by force, by that free fighting in 
 which nations are now indulging, by swords, 
 by killing each other, by extermination. After 
 a while they worked out of this up into the
 
 152 The Challenge 
 
 " trial by battle." Then they passed on to the 
 stage of the duel. This was an advance, be- 
 cause the principle of " regulation " entered in- 
 to the duel. But civilized men have passed be- 
 yond the stage of the duel. They have come up 
 into the world of courts. No gentleman now 
 settles disputes by fists or swords or guns. Many 
 men have even passed beyond courts and are 
 settling disputes by arbitration, by conference 
 and by Christian forbearance and forgiveness. 
 " Come now, let us reason together," has be- 
 come the principle of all good men. 
 
 The States within the nation have passed 
 through the same stages of evolution and 
 reached the same high level. Once the States 
 within the United States were disposed to go 
 to war with each other and to settle their dis- 
 putes by force. Then the Supreme Court of 
 the United States was established, and gradu- 
 ally the States acquired confidence in it until 
 now war between any two States of the United 
 States is unthinkable. And, for encourage- 
 ment, it should be remembered that the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States waited 
 longer for a case than did The Hague Tribunal 
 which was established in 1897. 
 
 We believe that this same principle of evo- 
 lution will work among nations. Indeed there
 
 The World Court 153 
 
 are encouraging signs of its beginnings. There 
 have already been over two hundred and fifty- 
 settlements of disputes by arbitration. Sixteen 
 disputes have already been carried to The 
 Hague Tribunal. The nations have all been 
 thinking of a World Court and have all voted 
 for it. One of Europe's leading men said to 
 us last summer, " If a permanent court had 
 been in existence in Europe, with representa- 
 tives chosen by the Great Powers, in whom 
 they had confidence, sitting on its bench, I 
 sometimes think this present war would have 
 been averted." It might have been if the 
 nations had not all been so heavily armed. But 
 the point is this: the evolution from force to 
 reason has worked in all other relationships; 
 it has begun in international relationships ; may 
 we not confidently believe it will fulfil itself 
 there, and the court house supplant the gun ? 
 
 But the most hopeful sign is the rapidly 
 growing sentiment that there can be only one 
 standard of ethics in the world — the same for 
 groups as for individuals, for nations as for 
 men. It is a new ethical idealism for nations 
 although it has long been the idealism of all 
 decent men. The trouble has been that we 
 have been living under two standards of ethics 
 • — Christian for individuals, pagan for groups,
 
 154. The Challenge 
 
 communities, nations. We have demanded that 
 individuals live as Christians toward each 
 other, but have complacently allowed corpora- 
 tions and nations to live as pirates toward 
 each other. But there is no such thing as a 
 double standard of ethics in the kingdom of 
 God, That which is right for a man is right 
 for the State; that which is wrong for a man 
 to do is wrong for a corporation or nation 
 to do. Taking things or land that do not be- 
 long to one is just as much stealing when done 
 by a nation as when done by a man. If it is 
 wrong for a man to take revenge, it is wrong 
 for a nation to take revenge. If it is wrong 
 for a man to settle his difficulties in the street 
 with his fists, it is wrong for the nations to 
 settle their difficulties on the seas with gun- 
 boats. Nations are under the same law of 
 charity and forgiveness as individuals in any 
 system of ethics that can last. The law of our 
 country toward Japan is the law that governs 
 us in our relations with our brother in our 
 town. If it is wrong for a man to kill his 
 brother on the streets of his city, it is just 
 as wrong for a nation to destroy a brother 
 nation in this beautiful world. Both the 
 Church and the nation have been full of this 
 spurious, double, unchristian morality. It has
 
 The World Court 155 
 
 been largely responsible for the unchristian 
 relationships of nations. It is passing very 
 fast, and the most hopeful augury of a new 
 internationalism is this arising in the race 
 conscience of a morality really Christian and 
 single, in which communities and nations are 
 accountable at the same bar of righteousness as 
 is a man. 
 
 Finally, there is a rapidly growing sentiment 
 that the time has come for nations to live by 
 a doctrine of duties rather than of rights, as 
 all good Christian men do. The Christian 
 gentleman has long ago ceased thinking all 
 the time about getting rights or avenging his 
 honour. He considers his life as a mission, as 
 did his Master. He is one sent to lift up the 
 world, not to get his own rights. But grant- 
 ing that this ideal may be too high for any but 
 the saints, that it may be asking too much of 
 even the average good Christian to abnegate 
 contention for his rights at all times and under 
 even the most provoking circumstances, even 
 granting that at times he may be fairly justified 
 in standing up for his rights, every Christian, 
 even the most indififerent one, has reached the 
 stage where he will not insist on obtaining his 
 own rights at the expense of the discomfort and 
 suffering of the whole neighbourhood. Even
 
 156 The Challenge 
 
 the State, which does not technically call itself 
 Christian, takes this matter into its own hands 
 and sees that no single citizen undertakes the 
 securing of rights and justice or the defending 
 of his honour in any way that may work injury 
 to others. The community is above the in- 
 dividual, and no matter how just our own 
 grievance may be we have no right to set about 
 righting it or punishing our enemy if it is 
 going in any wise to make others suffer. This 
 is recognized in every civilized town. One 
 must not take justice into his own hands, not 
 only because no man is a good judge of his 
 own case, but chiefly because he is sure to 
 disturb the welfare of the community. One 
 may say he has a right to do as he will in his 
 own house and grounds. If by adhering to 
 those rights he violates the common laws of 
 health and threatens the town with typhoid 
 fever, he immediately finds he has no right at 
 all to do these things. Individual rights may 
 never be secured at the expense of the common 
 rights. This is so recognized in civilized lands 
 that it is rare that even the worst types of men 
 will jeopardize the lives of women and chil- 
 dren in the pursuit of their seeming rights. 
 
 The question then immediately arises : has 
 the time not come when nations should be com-
 
 The World Court 157 
 
 pelled to respect these same laws? Has one 
 nation the right to plunge all Europe into hell, 
 or even to make all the other peaceful nations 
 suffer — for all nations suffer vastly from the 
 war of even two — simply to secure its own 
 rights, even where it is recognized by all that 
 the rights have been violated ? Has any nation 
 the right to go to war to-day without first 
 consulting all the other nations and exhausting 
 every existing means of securing justice when 
 such a course invariably means the ruin of 
 thousands of disinterested and innocent people, 
 and may mean the drawing of many other 
 nations into the war? What Mr. Taft said 
 at the dedication of the Pan-American Peace 
 Palace at Washington must be applied to all 
 nations. He said that no two nations on the 
 American Continent had any right to go to 
 war and disturb all the others, and that he 
 hoped the time would soon come when the 
 nineteen nations would say to any other two 
 considering war, "' You must stop." It is 
 time this came in all the world. We believe 
 many are thinking of it. 
 
 Anything similar to the affair of Austria- 
 Hungary demanding her rights from Serbia 
 should never again be possible in a civilized 
 world. It has long ago been rendered impos-
 
 158 The Challenge 
 
 sible among civilized individuals and com- 
 munities. Nations should live by the same 
 ethical standard regarding the question of 
 rights. How utterly insignificant is the ques- 
 tion of Austria's satisfaction and future 
 guarantees from Serbia compared with all 
 Europe plunged into purgatory, as we see it 
 now! And yet this unspeakable agony of the 
 nations, this overthrowing almost of civiliza- 
 tion, is due to one nation insisting on getting 
 her rights, regardless of the rest of the world. 
 Even though Austria had not foreseen a 
 European conflagration, and believed that no 
 other nation would interfere with her punish- 
 ment of Serbia, she had no right, in our modern 
 complex and intertwined civilization, to pre- 
 cipitate the general disturbance of Europe's 
 orderly progress that even a war confined to 
 the two nations would create. But there is 
 every reason to believe that Austria had 
 general warning that this course of inflicting 
 punishment on Serbia and protecting her future 
 rights would draw other nations into the con- 
 flict. Such a course was nothing more than a 
 crime against all humanity, regardless of the 
 justice of the cause. 
 
 Any nation which to-day, with the present 
 oneness of the world, declares war against an-
 
 The World Court 159 
 
 other country thereby declares war against 
 every other country^ and the time has come to 
 recognize this fact. No nation can go to war 
 to-day without going to war against all 
 humanity. Has not the time come to say to 
 nations, just as we say to individuals: " If the 
 securing of justice, the obtaining of your 
 rights, the upholding of your honour, promises 
 in any way to disturb the peace of the rest of 
 the world and make all the innocent nations 
 suffer, you must refrain from individual ac- 
 tion and do as individuals do: try your case 
 before some competent judicial body by orderly 
 processes of law." As a matter of fact, this 
 is the surest way to get justice in the end. 
 And many are thinking this way and demand- 
 ing that there be a court where those who 
 insist on rights may obtain them, without in- 
 volving all the rest of the world.
 
 XV 
 THE BEST NATIONAL DEFENCE 
 
 ON the morning following last Memorial 
 Sunday the report appeared in many 
 papers that on the previous day hun- 
 dreds of churches took up an offering for the 
 victims of the war in Europe. Whereupon 
 we said to ourselves: If the United States 
 needed defence from European invasion, as 
 the various leaders of the preparedness move- 
 ment say she does, these offerings to Europe's 
 starving women and children are better pro- 
 tection than all the gunboats we could build. 
 
 It is this thought we should like to develop 
 a little here. It is very evident that there is a 
 more or less widespread feeling of bitterness 
 toward the United States in Germany, Great 
 Britain and France. As we have already said, 
 it is not fundamentally due to our sale of muni- 
 tions to the Allies, nor to our refusal to take 
 part in the war. The real reason is that our 
 brothers feel that we are growing rich out 
 of their poverty, becoming commercially great 
 160
 
 The Best National Defence 161 
 
 out of their distresses, and while thus prosper- 
 ing mightily are hardly bearing any of their 
 burdens upon our hearts, are not entering into 
 their sufferings, are not making any sacrifice 
 even distantly approaching theirs. They do 
 not blame us for getting rich. We cannot help 
 that. The new commerce we have gained was 
 commerce Europe was forced to drop. The 
 vast supplies South America was buying from 
 Germany she must now buy from us. Our 
 own factories must supply what once we im- 
 ported. On the other hand, the factories of 
 the warring nations being closed, their fields 
 not yielding sufficient food for great armies, 
 there not being sufficient men to till these fields, 
 they must buy great cargoes of meat and grain 
 from us. For none of these things do they 
 blame us, but they do feel that while we are 
 becoming rich, we are becoming correspond- 
 ingly hard-hearted; they do feel that even if 
 we were not willing to share our comfortable- 
 ness with their suffering, we ought, at least, to 
 be ready to give greatly out of our superfluity. 
 And we are not. How can impoverished 
 France help feeling some contempt for us when 
 she is bringing thousands upon thousands of 
 Serbian women and children to her war-bur- 
 dened country to support until the war is over ?
 
 162 The Challenge 
 
 And how can Britons help feeing bitterness 
 toward us when they are doing seven times as 
 much for the Belgians as are we? Now, 
 these memorial offerings, could they be mul- 
 tiplied until they had come from every church, 
 could they mount up into millions, poured into 
 Europe would do more than anything else 
 America could do to remove this natural and 
 just bitterness the great peoples entertain 
 toward us. 
 
 We are not alone in this opinion. Among 
 several others, three eminent Americans have 
 visited Europe, and they have all come home 
 to say just what we have been saying. In a 
 recent address at Garden City, Dr. John R. 
 Mott dwelt, at considerable length, upon the 
 bitter feeling he had found in Europe upon his 
 first visit; how he found that where that bitter- 
 ness had decreased, as it had in some places, 
 it was because of our gifts and our splendid 
 work in the prison camps. He then said, that 
 what would give America commanding prestige 
 in the days when peace terms came to be de- 
 bated would be great sacrificial gifts to starv- 
 ing, suffering, sorrowing Europe. Professor 
 Benjamin F. Battin, the international secretary 
 of the World Alliance, who has talked with 
 almost everybody in authority in Europe dur-
 
 The Best National Defence 163 
 
 ing the past year and a half, says the same 
 thing. We will let Dr. Charles S. Macfarland 
 speak for himself. We quote from his report 
 of his recent visit to the European churches : 
 
 " The one thing which has been our strong- 
 est asset of influence has been the relief work 
 of America and the American churches. But 
 it has not been adequate or proportional. I 
 learned in conference with Edgar Rickard, 
 honorary secretary of the Belgian Relief Com- 
 mission, that, while men like Mr. Hoover had 
 rendered the greatest service, our contributions 
 of money had been disproportionate as con- 
 trasted with Canada and Great Britain, al- 
 though, of course, this is offset by our gifts 
 of food and supplies. Indeed, our most seri- 
 ous weakness is due to the reproach in which 
 we are held because of the allegation, more or 
 less made among all the nations, that we are 
 utilizing the war for our economic and com- 
 mercial gain. Our best counteracting in- 
 fluence is and will be our work of relief. Again 
 and again, men who criticized our Government 
 and our commercial interests declared that our 
 common people and high-minded men of 
 wealth had largely rectified mistakes in other 
 quarters." 
 
 It is to be greatly hoped that every Christian
 
 164. The Challenge 
 
 in America will send something to Europe not 
 only to help them in their suffering, not only 
 to save them from starvation, but also to show 
 that his heart is with them and also to make 
 his own country able to go to the table where 
 the nations shall soon gather to discuss peace 
 terms, as one welcomed and as one who has 
 taken some part in their mutual tribulations. 
 
 We wish now to make a suggestion about the 
 best national defence. We do not believe with 
 Senator Chamberlain that this country is in 
 danger of invasion from England after this 
 war is over, nor with Mr. Putnam that it is 
 in danger of invasion from Germany, nor with 
 Mr. Rea that it is in danger of invasion from 
 Japan. If we ever are invaded, it will be be- 
 cause we have not behaved ourselves. Further- 
 more, no nation in Europe will be in any posi- 
 tion to invade anything by the time this war is 
 over. But for the sake of argument let us 
 suppose there is some dim, remote possibility 
 of some desire upon the part of some European 
 nation to invade America. What is the best 
 form our defence can take? Most will say 
 at once, " Submarines, cruisers, dreadnoughts, 
 aircraft, these are the first line of defence." 
 We do not think so. We believe there is a 
 much better, surer, infallible first line, a mode
 
 The Best National Defence 165 
 
 of defence not like the old, but new, unique, 
 yet we believe most practical of all. We wish 
 this nation would try it. It is this, namely, 
 that the United States appropriate the cost of 
 a few battleships, appropriate about one-tenth 
 of what the preparedness leaders are asking for 
 armament — the sum of one hundred million 
 dollars — and offer it to Europe on condition 
 of her repentance and desire to arrange a peace 
 that shall be permanent, for the rehabilitation 
 of her ruined homes, her devastated cities, her 
 fallen temples, her impoverished peoples ! 
 
 We would put fifteen millions into Belgium, 
 rebuilding the little homes of her peasants and 
 industrial workers and advancing capital to her 
 business men. 
 
 We would put ten millions into Serbia, rein- 
 stating it as a nation and bringing back her 
 scattered peoples, also reimbursing France for 
 her care of the Serbians on her home soil. 
 
 We would put thirty millions into Poland, 
 both Russian and German Poland. It would 
 not go far, fifteen millions in each, but it would 
 save some from starving, would reinstate some 
 in homes, help some begin to till the soil; any- 
 how it would awaken an everlasting gratitude. 
 
 But would we give to Germany and Austria, 
 France and England, the countries which are
 
 166 The Challenge 
 
 at war? Yes, to the peoples. None of these 
 gifts should be made to governments, but to 
 the people. For it is not the people who make 
 the wars, it is they who suffer from them. Only 
 this week we saw a letter from an Austrian at 
 the front in which he said : " What is it all 
 about, anyhow ? " The women and children, 
 at least, have had no part in it, and it is for 
 them we would give. We would have our 
 Government spend fifteen millions in each one 
 of these warring countries to put the people 
 on their feet again and to relieve their suf- 
 fering. One hundred millions altogether, a 
 small fraction of what the militarists are ask- 
 ing, a sum this rich nation would never miss. 
 We believe it would be better defence, more 
 efficient preparedness than one billion spent on 
 armament. 
 
 For the gratitude of these peoples would be 
 so great, such a sense of our good-will would 
 sweep through their hearts, that all thoughts of 
 war would be impossible for generations. Any 
 enmity they now cherish would be utterly an- 
 nihilated. You cannot cherish hatred toward 
 him who has saved your life. No govern- 
 ment, however it might wish to attack us — and 
 we cannot believe that even any government 
 would ever wish to — could move its people to
 
 The Best National Defence 167 
 
 take arms against the United States. A nation 
 that would attack us after such an act of 
 good-will would be made up of men who would 
 kill their own mothers — and there is no such 
 nation. After such an act of mercy to Europe 
 the United States would not need a gunboat 
 for fifty years so far as Europe is concerned. 
 
 Impractical? Just as impractical as the 
 Gospel. It is just what Jesus commanded as 
 the one workable philosophy of life for in- 
 dividuals. And it has been the one philosophy 
 that has worked with them. It would work as 
 well with nations had any nation the faith once 
 to do it. And what might not come out of it 
 beyond even this great thing of which we have 
 been speaking ? It would be a new thing in the 
 world. It would set a new standard of na- 
 tional greatness. It would raise the United 
 States to a height of influence and power that 
 an army of millions and a navy covering all the 
 seas could never give her. She could say 
 almost anything to Europe when The Hague 
 Conferences met. All suspicions of her na- 
 tional ambitions would be allayed, for they 
 would all say, " This is her ambition : to do 
 good." It might be the beginning of eternal 
 peace, for it would generate a new spirit of 
 good-will in the world. Any nation in ex-
 
 168 The Challenge 
 
 istence would sign arbitration treaties with us, 
 any nation would agree to join with us in build- 
 ing a World Court. Futhermore, the nations 
 of Europe might say to one another after such 
 a testimony that a nation could be Christian, 
 " Perhaps we also might try this new and 
 Christian way ! " 
 
 What an opportunity for a President of the 
 United States to immortalize himself forever 
 by doing this great thing! Not Constantine, 
 not Charlemagne, not William of Orange, not 
 Gustavus Adolphus, not even Lincoln, would 
 stand higher than he in all history. And we 
 believe the American people would rise to such 
 a call from its President.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE NATION'S REAL FOES WITHIN 
 ITS OWN BORDERS 
 
 NOT Germany, not England, not Japan 
 are the real enemies of the United 
 States, but certain evils within the 
 nation's own borders. It is interesting to note 
 that Congressman Richmond P. Hobson, who 
 has been one of the most ardent advocates 
 of increased armament, in his recent speech 
 in New York City, should have said nothing 
 about armies and navies as instruments of pre- 
 paredness, but should have made the keynote 
 of his address the fact that a sober nation 
 was the best prepared nation. His exact 
 words, as reported in the " New York Times," 
 are worth quoting: "The first real element 
 of preparedness is to be sober. This is the 
 chief basis of German efficiency. It is no 
 longer a mere question of sentiment or of 
 religion alone concerning the use of alcohol as 
 a beverage. Emperor Wilhelm, long before 
 the war, discovered through science the danger 
 169
 
 170 The Challenge 
 
 of alcohol in the national life, while other na- 
 tions have given it special attention mainly 
 since the war began. 
 
 " In his speeches at the naval and military- 
 academies the German Emperor placed the ban 
 upon alcohol as a beverage, even including the 
 national drink, beer, the consumption of which 
 has been greatly reduced and is gradually being 
 lessened throughout the empire. It is well 
 known that the Kaiser had long ago banished 
 liquors from his own table. 
 
 " But now, more than ever, the war has 
 taught the people of Europe the danger of 
 alcohol. For years Germany has dealt with 
 the subject scientifically. At the birth of every 
 child there the attending physician is required 
 to give an ' alcohol card ' to the mother or 
 some other member of the family at the time, 
 which contains a warning to guard the infant 
 from all effects of alcohol. 
 
 " The war has simply promulgated this 
 good and lasting effect on the future genera- 
 tions of all those countries. According to the 
 official Russian reports on the suppression of 
 the liquor traffic in that country the non-use 
 of liquors has already saved more lives than 
 war has destroyed.
 
 The Nation's Real Foes 171 
 
 *' Scientifically we now know that alcohol 
 produces degeneracy. One child in every five 
 of drunkards and drinking parents shows 
 symptons of degeneracy, if it is not actually a 
 degenerate. And in every seventh birth where 
 both parents are addicted to the use of liquor 
 one child will be deformed. But where both 
 parents are abstainers nine children in ten will 
 be normal. 
 
 " People who use alcohol furnish the only 
 species in all creation which does not rise and 
 develop naturally, while animals and other 
 growing things thrive according to nature's 
 rules. Through the evil of alcohol many cen- 
 turies have brought down degeneracy on the 
 heads of men. That is why nations have per- 
 ished and left only bleaching bones by the 
 waysides." 
 
 As a matter of fact, there is not one one- 
 thousandth as much thought in the minds of 
 Germany of conquering the United States as 
 there is in the mind of the Liquor Trust; there 
 is not one one-thousandth as much plotting 
 against America in Japan as there is in the 
 councils and conventions of the distillers and 
 the brewers; there is not in all the world any 
 enemy the United States need fear one one- 
 thousandth as much as the saloons which have
 
 172 The Challenge 
 
 our cities in their grip. While we are going 
 into hysterics over invasions of Germany and 
 Japan, they are busy fighting their own battles, 
 and are giving us but slender thought. Not so 
 the real foe, the liquor interests. They are 
 taking advantage of this foolish fear, and 
 laying deep plans, and organizing as never 
 before to seize the nation and get it into even 
 a tighter grip. That is the pity of it, that 
 we should be bending all our energies to pre- 
 pare against imaginary foes, and neglecting the 
 enemy in our midst, and the enemy is not slow 
 to seize the opportunity. It was only the other 
 day that one who knows said to us: "The 
 liquor interests are seizing this opportunity, 
 while the nation is crazy over this prepared- 
 ness business, to regain what they have lost 
 and make securer that which has not been 
 taken from them." Yes, Congress, which 
 should have taken up the issue of national 
 prohibition, must spend the whole session 
 wrangling over defence programs. The coffers 
 of the societies fighting the saloon must remain 
 empty while the defence societies, security 
 and navy leagues get all the people's money. 
 What a pity we let ourselves become so blinded 
 to the fact that our real enemies are in our 
 own national household, and while we are
 
 The Nation's Real Foes 173 
 
 arming against fancied foes outside, leave them 
 to sack the house ! 
 
 Again, while we are making such dreadful 
 stew over the loss of lives of a few Americans 
 in the course of international strife, and going 
 into frenzies over two or three crimes of 
 Germany against United States citizens, we 
 forget all about the thousand times more 
 crimes against United States citizens being 
 daily committed within our own borders. 
 Great corporations perpetrate unspeakable 
 atrocities and injustices against our citizens in 
 every State, acts to make the blood boil hap- 
 pen in Colorado and Lawrence strikes, scores 
 of lives are burned up by shops that violate the 
 fire laws, as recently happened in New York, 
 thousands of little children are dwarfed in fac- 
 tories violating child labour laws, thousands 
 of men are killed by preventable accidents in 
 shops that will not install safety appliances, 
 thousands of men and women have their lives 
 sapped away by having to work in unsanitary 
 conditions — and we forget all these things, 
 turn away from them now to cry for repara- 
 tion from an outside foe, which, in a state of 
 madness, takes a few American lives. It makes 
 one wonder, seeing what we have described 
 above, whether this sudden hue and cry pro-
 
 174 The Challenge 
 
 ceeds from a real concern for the lives of 
 American citizens or from a desire for a quar- 
 rel or a fight. Else why this indifference to 
 the continued taking of life within our own 
 borders? A society has just been formed to 
 protect American rights. Will it turn its at- 
 tention to the daily innumerable violations of 
 those rights in our own country? Who are 
 our real enemies, the Germans or the Ameri- 
 cans who killed the innocents for greed ? 
 
 What a pitiable sight it is to see a desperate 
 man seeking work while at home a wife and 
 several little children have no fire or bread! 
 We saw it just the other day, some little chil- 
 dren shivering from cold and with no food. 
 We put ourselves in the father's place for a 
 moment, and it maddened us! In all our 
 cities families are living in rooms not fit for 
 pigs. In our city streets boys are learning to 
 be criminals, and our jails cannot hold the 
 graduates. Our school teachers are telling us 
 that half the pupils are under nourished. Our 
 whole economic system is out of joint and full 
 of injustices. Girls are driven into supplement- 
 ing too meagre incomes by solicitation on the 
 streets. And with all these awful facts facing 
 us, with anarchists and revolutionaries bred
 
 The Nation's Real Foes 175 
 
 by them, we turn from their healing and 
 amelioration to put all our thought and all 
 our money into preparedness against some 
 foreign foe, whom even the most eager ad- 
 vocates of preparedness cannot agree upon. 
 Colonel Thompson tells us it is the Germans, 
 but his ardent co-labourer. Senator Chamber- 
 lain, has just told us it is the English, and 
 some one else says it is the Japanese. 
 
 There is a fine passage in Dr. Charles S. 
 Macfarland's new book, " Christian Service 
 and the Modern World," which we might 
 much better heed just now than the cries of 
 the frantic advocates of preparedness against 
 outside enemies: " Our age and generation call 
 for a solemn, searching, fearless utterance of 
 solemn, searching and fearful truths. The 
 greatest prophet of the Old Testament, without 
 one hesitating utterance or deviating line, 
 declared that the protection and peace of Israel, 
 in her international relations, were to be se- 
 cured only zvJien within her ozvn borders op- 
 pression ceased and justice found its way to the 
 abode of her children, and not until then could 
 the sword be beaten into the ploughshare. Oh, 
 if the nations of Europe had only thought less 
 about their foes without and more about their 
 foes within! We blame them because they
 
 176 The Challenge 
 
 are not democratic either in form or in fact, 
 but perhaps there is still greater danger to the 
 nation that has the form without the fact; that 
 raises hopes before its people which it does 
 not enable them to realize, and ideals before 
 the world, which it sadly fails to demonstrate 
 within itself. Ours is as yet a bewildered and 
 confused democracy."
 
 XVII 
 THE LEAVINGS FOR CHRIST 
 
 THE other day a friend, commenting on 
 the struggle of a certain church to keep 
 ahve, remarked : " I have a friend in 
 that church who could subscribe $10,000 a 
 year for its work and never miss it. He spends 
 twice that sum on his yacht every summer. 
 As it is, he subscribes about $200 a year to 
 the church." It is not an uncommon situa- 
 tion. The church in so many cases gets simply 
 the leavings. If one should go through some 
 of the streets where our wealthiest people live 
 he would find that in very many homes the 
 proportion of money devoted to the service 
 of God to that spent on self and home would 
 be about one or two per cent, to ninety-eight or 
 ninety-nine. There are exceptions. Mr. 
 Carnegie's proportions were recently added up 
 and stand nine times as much of his income 
 devoted to service as that applied to self. 
 Others would show the same high scale of 
 service. But how true it is that in the great 
 majority of families the church and the phil- 
 anthropies get simply the leavings. And yet 
 177
 
 178 The Challenge 
 
 Christ put the service first. He devoted all 
 His life and income to service. On His first 
 apostles and disciples He made the same de- 
 mand. All His words — words which we read 
 in church every Sunday — seem to imply that 
 His followers were to leave all and follow 
 Him. Of course, in our present civilization, 
 which, poor as it is, must yet be carried on, 
 few can be expected to leave all business and 
 follow Christ as did the disciples of old. But 
 there can be no denial that Christ expected 
 every disciple in all ages to put His service 
 first. What a revival of religion would come, 
 how mightily the Church would rise to rule 
 the world ! The trouble with many of our 
 churches is that only the leavings go to the 
 Church. Food, pleasures, extravagant clothes, 
 luxurious surroundings get the great part of 
 our incomes, and what is left over goes to 
 Christ's service. There are many Christians 
 spending a thousand dollars a year on clothes 
 alone who subscribe perhaps twenty-five dol- 
 lars a year to the Church. Christ's work is 
 never going to be done by leavings. It is not 
 going to be done by churches whose pastors 
 and officers have to spend much of their ener- 
 gies in keeping the Church alive. What we 
 need is a reconsecrated, primitive Christianity
 
 The Leavings for Christ 179 
 
 which gave all it had to the Church, conceiv- 
 ing of it as a great, powerful instrument to 
 serve the world. The true Church is the group 
 of those who, as nearly as is possible in modern 
 conditions, leave all to follow Him, which 
 simply means that they make all else secondary 
 tc the service of Christ. How many are doing 
 this? 
 
 The Christian Church has always been a 
 missionary Church. The first Christians found 
 Christ such a joy that they could not keep Him 
 to themselves. They had to share Him. His 
 presence overflowed their hearts. Indeed, they 
 would not have counted any one a Christian 
 who was not eager to share Christ with all the 
 world. Even before Christ died they made 
 long journeys to give Him to other men. 
 After His death they started in all directions 
 with the glad tidings. They went to Asia 
 Minor, Greece and Rome. This missionary 
 spirit pervaded the Church for years. It is 
 what kept Christianity alive and spread it 
 throughout Europe. They gave themselves 
 and their substance. To-day it would look 
 as though missions were getting only the leav- 
 ings. What a piece of news this is that has 
 come from London, that with all the wealth 
 of the United Kingdom enough money cannot
 
 180 The Challenge 
 
 be raised to avoid shutting up the Calcutta 
 Mission, one of the most strategic stations in 
 the East? To be sure, England has a great 
 war on her hands. But there is money enough 
 for dinners, theatres, cigars, fine clothes and 
 such things. The letters sent out by the 
 London Missionary Society are pitiable in 
 their appeal. But our own missionary 
 societies here in prosperous America are always 
 appealing for funds to wipe out deficits. And 
 as the deficits mount up enough money is 
 squandered by Christians in one night to wipe 
 out all these deficits. The extravagant personal 
 expenditures by Christians, those far beyond 
 comfort and rational enjoyment, would triple 
 the receipts of missions. But no, missions can 
 have only the leavings. And yet Christ waits 
 for His disciples to carry His glad tidings to the 
 vast areas of the undiscipled East. Suppose 
 that Christendom should once get possessed of 
 Christ as was the early Church, we would live 
 upon the leavings and give the great balances 
 now spent on pleasure to Christ's kingdom. 
 One who is in the hotel business in New York 
 gave the writer an estimate of how much was 
 spent on the annual New Year's eve dinners 
 in the restaurants of the great city. (It has be- 
 come the habit for thousands to dine that
 
 The Leavings for Christ 181 
 
 night at the restaurants and hotels and cham- 
 pagne flows Hke water.) The figures would 
 save the Calcutta Mission and pay every deficit 
 of every missionary organization of this nation. 
 Yet many of these diners are church members. 
 We are witnessing Europe in the throes of 
 mortal anguish. Nations are being drained of 
 their very life blood. Millions of men are 
 trying to blow millions of their brothers to 
 pieces. MilHons of women are being widowed 
 and having their beloved boys killed or sub- 
 jected to unutterable sufferings. Millions of 
 children are being orphaned and starved to 
 death. Unspeakable misery and poverty is 
 being inflicted on millions of innocents. And 
 all this by Christians and members of Christ's 
 Church. Why is it? Because for fifty years 
 militarism has had the money and the thought 
 of Europe, while Christ has had but the leav- 
 ings. Unless we are to read the gospels with 
 blindest eyes and perverted senses, they preach 
 from cover to cover good-will. Who, in his 
 sane moments, ever thinks of Christ as any- 
 thing but the Prince of Peace, the Teacher of 
 Love? What can any one get out of the 
 gospels but that all of His disciples are brothers, 
 and that membership in His kingdom is more 
 than citizenship in any earthly country? But
 
 182 The Challenge 
 
 twenty times more energy has been put upon 
 encouraging nationalism than in preaching the 
 oneness of Christ's followers. Twenty times 
 more energy has been put into preparation 
 for war than upon devising Christian methods 
 for settling international disputes. And as 
 for money — Christ has had to take the most 
 meagre leavings. Millions have been spent on 
 armies, navies and armament, on instruments 
 of destruction, to hundreds upon educating the 
 peoples in good-will or establishing Hague 
 courts and other Christian means and methods. 
 Had Christ's ways had the thoughts and 
 money, and war's ways the leavings, we should 
 not have had this awful mockery of Christ. 
 But, alas, Christ got only the barest leavings. 
 (For several years a few Christians tried to 
 get the countries of Europe to set aside one 
 per cent, of their war expenditures as a fund 
 to promote good-will and the establishment of 
 a World Court. At last little Denmark did do 
 something. But even here Christ got only the 
 leavings — $i,ooo, if we remember rightly; 
 perhaps $2,000 — an infinitesimal part of the 
 war budget. ) 
 
 And is Christ to get only the leavings in 
 America ? It looks so. It did not for a while. 
 When the war first broke out for a few months
 
 The Leavings for Christ 183 
 
 our nation did talk a little of what it might 
 do to reinstate stricken Europe. It talked of 
 conferences of neutral nations. It talked of 
 working out plans for permanent peace to 
 offer Europe. It looked as though Christ was 
 going to have the enthusiasm of this great 
 nation. It looked as though this nation was 
 going to take the greatest opportunity that has 
 ever come to any nation in history to do, as a 
 nation, a great, superb, Christian act. The 
 President talked of it, and strove to keep the 
 nation out of the war that it might render this 
 service. Everywhere the people were talking 
 of it. The President even said it was no time 
 to urge increased armament. We were rather 
 to be thinking of the service we could render 
 humanity. It really looked as though Christ 
 was to get our enthusiasm, our thought, our 
 money, rather than the militarists. And now 
 all this has changed. As in Europe before the 
 war, armament is to get the substance, Christ 
 the leavings. Have not our readers noticed 
 how all talk of what this nation could do for 
 Europe after the war has ceased since the cry 
 for " preparedness " has grown ? Have they 
 not seen one journal after another drop all 
 constructive planning for methods of perma- 
 nent peace and join the cry for vast navies and
 
 184 The Challenge 
 
 armies? Have they not noticed how even 
 ministers, who a little while ago were talking 
 of the Messianic opportunity of this nation 
 to go to Europe after this war was over and 
 plead disarmament, good-will as best defence, 
 courts for nations as we now have them for 
 States and people, have now ceased preaching 
 this beautiful gospel — the gospel Christ 
 preached — and begun preaching guns? And 
 does it not look as if our President himself 
 had turned about? And has it not even come 
 to pass that those who are still trying to put 
 Christ's claim first for the nation, and trying 
 to turn its mind to think of what it can do 
 for Europe, are ridiculed? Alas, it looks as 
 though here, as in Europe, Christ, the Christ 
 who thought not of protection but of service, 
 was to get only the leavings. And the pity of 
 it ! For we can no longer go to the nations of 
 Europe as we could a year ago and say, " Try 
 our way," For an armed nation cannot preach 
 disarmament, and a nation turning to Caesar 
 cannot go and preach Christ. How aptly Lord 
 Rosebery put the whole thing the other day: 
 " It is a disheartening prospect that the United 
 States, so remote from the European conflict, 
 should voluntarily in these days take up the 
 burden which, after the war, will be found to 
 have broken, or almost broken, our backs."
 
 XVIII 
 
 AMERICA AND THE REHABILITA- 
 TION OF EUROPE 
 
 THE war drags on its weary way. But 
 there are signs of its becoming a spent 
 force. The papers of the last few 
 months have had rumours almost daily of 
 ominous uprisings of the people in Germany. 
 Such rumours doubtless have behind them 
 much more fact than finds expression. Recent 
 travellers in Germany bear testimony to these 
 facts. The recent note from Berlin dealing 
 with submarine warfare significantly begins 
 with a confession of Germany's desire for 
 peace. Many statesmen are even intimating 
 that this peace paragraph was inserted as a 
 direct bid for President Wilson's mediation. 
 This view gains farther credence from the 
 fact that the Pope's letter to the President, 
 with its plea for efforts from the United 
 States for peace, followed close upon the Ger- 
 man note. While there are no signs given 
 out by the British or French governments there 
 185
 
 186 The Challenge 
 
 are frequent expressions from many sources 
 that the British and French people are getting 
 tired of the seemingly fruitless fighting. The 
 British government is no longer talking of 
 crushing Germany. They are now content 
 simply to gain such a measure of victory that 
 they can demand the restoration of Belgium, 
 the evacuation of Northern France, and the 
 overthrow of the Potsdam militarism — a con- 
 summation many Germans wish as well as the 
 rest of Europe. The terrible destruction of 
 life at Verdun impressed both the German and 
 the French people. The war may drag on 
 for several months yet, it may end suddenly. 
 No one knows ; but there is a growing feeling 
 that it will not last so long as some have been 
 prophesying. 
 
 Whenever it may end, the question is — ^What 
 part will America play in rehabilitating Europe 
 after it is over? Of course, there are many 
 who have no interest in doing anything for 
 Europe, and who are urging that America 
 should be devoting all her energies to fortify- 
 ing herself against the nations now at war, who 
 will be so tempted by our wealth that they 
 will not hesitate to inaugurate predatory move- 
 ments against us as soon as they recover 
 breath. This is the attitude being taken by
 
 America and the Rehabilitation of Europe 187 
 
 the various leaders of the defence movements, 
 and was well voiced by the gentleman who 
 recently in the New York Chamber of Com- 
 merce moved to lay upon the table a resolution 
 to take steps toward constructive peace meas- 
 ures after the war, on the ground that such 
 things belonged to the millennium, and that 
 the chief business of the United States was to 
 look out for itself. But that is not a Chris- 
 tian point of view, and those who are truly 
 Christian are anxious to have the United States 
 become the saviour of impoverished, distracted, 
 disrupted, groaning Europe, after the war is 
 over. The more Christian a man is, the more 
 his mind is brooding upon this thing. He 
 realizes that the greatest opportunity his 
 country has ever had will then present itself, 
 and there are many such real Christians left 
 in the land. 
 
 The welcome the United States will have 
 from Europe when she offers herself for this 
 great task will largely depend upon what she 
 does before the war closes. There is no deny- 
 ing the fact that, at just this time, there is 
 something of a feeling both of scorn and of 
 bitterness in all the European nations toward 
 our country. It is not due to the fact that we 
 are selling munitions, because it is just as
 
 188 The Challenge 
 
 prevalent in England as in Germany. It is 
 not due to the fact that we did not join the 
 Allies in the defence of Belgium, for it is as 
 strong in Germany as in England. It is as 
 strong in France as in either England or Ger- 
 many, and France has never severely criticized 
 our failure to protest against the invasion of 
 Belgium. All of these things enter into it a 
 little, but they are not the real cause, nor the 
 things mentioned when one talks with Euro- 
 peans. 
 
 The real source of this feeling is that we are 
 not realizing very seriously the awful suffering 
 they are undergoing; are not expressing any 
 very great concern over their annihilation; are 
 not showing any very marked sympathy; and 
 not sharing in any measurable degree the great 
 sacrifices thousands of brave men are making 
 in Europe. The above words are almost tran- 
 scripts of the letters and messages that are 
 coming from Europe and of the words we 
 have heard from the lips of Europeans them- 
 selves. 
 
 There is thus a very prevalent feeling in 
 Europe that we are taking the war very lightly ; 
 our merchants taking the opportunity to grow 
 rich; our munition manufacturers taking the 
 opportunity to get great contracts; our
 
 America and the Rehabilitation of Europe 189 
 
 militarists taking the opportunity to put 
 through their long cherished programs; 
 our politicians taking the opportunity to 
 create that cheap nationalism which always 
 serves the demagogue's purpose; but none 
 of us forgetting self as millions of brave 
 men in Europe to-day are doing and making 
 sacrifices with them for the sorrowing world. 
 Their contempt is due to the fact that we are 
 piling up great wealth, prosperous beyond 
 measure — a prosperity coming to us because 
 of their discomfiture — and keeping our pros- 
 perity to ourselves. We even leave the feed- 
 ing of Belgium to the nations that can hardly 
 feed themselves. This feeling is perfectly 
 natural when one remembers that New Zea- 
 land, which is bearing her share in the support 
 of the British cause, has given $1.25 per capita 
 for the feeding of the Belgians to our little 
 seven cents per capita. 
 
 The very first thing for the United States 
 to do then is to remove this feeling from the 
 hearts of her European brothers, by showing 
 some of that sacrificial spirit they are showing, 
 and as Christ did for us, " enter into their 
 sufferings," We are pleased beyond measure 
 to learn that the Federal Council of the 
 Churches of Christ in America has recently
 
 190 The Challenge 
 
 issued an appeal to the Christians of America 
 — an appeal signed by its national committee, 
 representing practically all the Protestant de- 
 nominations — calling upon them to make, be- 
 fore the winter comes, a great sacrificial offer- 
 ing through the various relief agencies that 
 shall not only relieve millions of starving 
 women and children, but shall convince Europe 
 that we, in our prosperity, desire to enter into 
 their dire necessity. 
 
 Nothing will do so much to win for us the 
 somewhat dampened affection of Europe as 
 some such great sacrificial act, nothing can so 
 pave the way for our offering our services 
 when the great war stops. Those who have 
 carefully read the reports of Drs. C. S. Mac- 
 farland, John R. Mott and Benjamin F. Battin 
 upon their experiences in Europe have noted 
 that they continually recur to this fact, that it 
 was the relief that we had rendered Europe 
 that immediately awakened kindly response 
 from every man they met. It is what we al- 
 ready have done for Belgium, Poland, Serbia, 
 Albania, Armenia, that has tempered the bit- 
 terness. Could we now increase these gifts 
 twentyf old ; could we all give to the point that 
 Europe felt we were " touching the sacrificial 
 point even slightly," a wave of good-will, of
 
 America and the Rehabilitation of Europe 191 
 
 gratitude, of admiration would sweep over 
 Europe for us, that would make us welcome 
 in the reconstruction of the new order over 
 there ; that would make the churches of Europe 
 feel that the churches of America really bore 
 them upon their hearts.
 
 XIX 
 MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO GOD 
 
 IN these days when men are thinking of 
 the reconstruction of the world after the 
 great war the teachings of Jesus are being 
 examined as never before. It is our purpose 
 to review these teachings, especially as they 
 bear upon the relationships of the soul. What 
 has Jesus to say upon the relation of man to 
 God; of man to his neighbour; of man to 
 humanity at large? 
 
 What is the relation of man to God? 
 Many are saying at this time that he has no 
 relation to God at all. The war has bred a 
 great revival of agnosticism, which is reflected 
 in the press and literature of every land. Per- 
 haps Professor Haeckel has summed this point 
 of view up better than any one else in a recent 
 article in which he says, in substance, that one 
 thing this war has done is to banish forever the 
 nonsense of the good, heavenly Father, who 
 watches over His children, cares for them and 
 preserves them from all evil. On the other* 
 192
 
 Man's Relationship to God 193 
 
 hand, if the war has produced a great crop of 
 unbelievers, it has at the same time driven 
 thousands of men who previously had thought 
 little of God to seek in Him the only unfailing 
 refuge in the uncertainties and welter of the 
 present world. As one such has expressed it : 
 '' I find no safety or certitude in human insti- 
 tutions. Governments, world tribunals, inter- 
 national organizations, socialism, the Church it- 
 self seemingly has no power to guarantee 
 security against the sudden plunging of the 
 most happy and peaceful peoples into misery 
 and chaos. There is no security in this world. 
 I am driven to find it in God." 
 
 When one turns to the words of Jesus one 
 finds that it is just the truth expressed by this 
 second writer that He is continually emphasiz- 
 ing. Again and again He is saying to His fol- 
 lowers that in this world they shall have tribu- 
 lations; they shall be persecuted, mocked and 
 beaten; but they are not to fear. " Fear not, 
 for I have overcome the world." " Fear not, 
 for it is not the will of your Father which is 
 in heaven that one of these little ones shall 
 perish." Yes; there is little security in this 
 world. Human institutions ofifer no security. 
 They are just as liable to collapse as volcanoes 
 are to erupt, or earthquakes to shake the earth,
 
 194 The Challenge 
 
 or floods to sweep the plains. Wars, pesti- 
 lences, famines are sure to come. But these are 
 only passing things, cruel for the moment, in 
 an eternal order. You belong to that eternal 
 order. Rise up into that. God is there. Be- 
 come a citizen of this kingdom of heaven. 
 Then you will not escape the calamities of this 
 world, but you will meet them as a citizen of 
 another world, a world above them and be- 
 yond them, a world in which they are but in- 
 cidents, days in an unending time. Find 
 God, repose in Him, make Him your refuge, 
 then you shall endure in undisturbed peace all 
 this world may send; endure them as He en- 
 dures, endure them with Him. He is the only 
 unfailing refuge. 
 
 What is to be the nature of this relationship 
 between man and God, when the soul shall thus 
 seek Him? The Old Testament makes this 
 relationship one of a subject to a king. The 
 Roman Catholic Church, creating its theology 
 under an imperialistic political order, conceives 
 of the relationship in much the same way. 
 John Calvin never quite got rid of this con- 
 ception. (One cannot help wondering some- 
 times how different the great theologies might 
 have been from what they are had their authors 
 lived in a democratic rather than a monarchic
 
 Man's Relationship to God 195 
 
 world.) When one turns to the teachings of 
 Jesus all this has changed. There the relation- 
 ship is always that of a child to a father; 
 a soul to its shepherd; a friend to a friend. 
 Jesus always speaks of God as the Father. 
 He always speaks of His followers as children 
 of the Father or asks them to become such. 
 His most beautiful parable, told purely to ex- 
 press this relationship, pictures a father stand- 
 ing with open arms of love toward his son. 
 He tells of the shepherd who seeks one lost 
 lamb; He says the Father even knows His sheep 
 by name, so intimate is the relationship, and 
 no one can pluck them out of His hand. He 
 said to men who supped with Him and leaned 
 upon His breast that their relationship to the 
 Father was to be as intimate as their relation- 
 ship with Him. The Father was as He was — 
 and they all knew what He was toward them. 
 Henceforth they were not even to be servants 
 — they were to be friends of God. It is all 
 nearness, intimacy, comradeship. It is not 
 strange that some souls who dwell much upon 
 the holiness and absoluteness of God are afraid 
 of Jesus' teaching about God — afraid that it 
 takes reverence and awe out of man. But 
 there it stands, and Jesus has said it finally and 
 forever.
 
 196 The Challenge 
 
 Growing out of this intimacy of the soul 
 with God, Jesus teaches that there can be the 
 most intimate conversation between the Father 
 and His child. The Father will speak to the 
 child; the child can speak to the Father. This 
 act Jesus calls prayer. And it is just as natural, 
 considering this relationship, as conversation 
 of a child with its mother. (It was not 
 irreverence that used to lead Theodore Parker 
 to pray to " Our Father-Mother God." It 
 was this image of child and mother in his 
 mind.) To Jesus it was just as natural to 
 speak to His father as it was for the child He 
 once took upon His knees to speak to Him while 
 He stroked its curls. He is always trying to 
 present prayer in this light to His followers. 
 It was the most natural thing in the world. It 
 required no times and seasons. One can speak 
 to God at any time. God will speak to us any 
 time we will stop and listen. And this act of 
 prayer He considers as chief means of 
 establishing this intimacy of the soul with God. 
 Agnosticism never thrives among a praying 
 people. 
 
 The great aim of life according to Jesus, as 
 far as personal religion is concerned, is to 
 achieve oneness with the Father, and to attain, 
 as nearly as possible, the Father's chatacter.
 
 Man's Relationship to God 197 
 
 His exhortations are " Be ye perfect, as your 
 Father in heaven is perfect." His aspirations 
 for His followers are that they may be one 
 with the Father as He is one. We are to be 
 merciful as God is merciful. We are to for- 
 give because God forgives. The peacemakers 
 are children of God. He, the incarnation of 
 God, demands service of His followers because 
 it makes them, like Him, Godlike. Jesus no- 
 where makes this achievement of oneness, this 
 attainment of perfection, easy. But it is the 
 chief end of life so far as the soul in its 
 relation to God is concerned. And all help is 
 offered — prayer. Himself, the Holy Spirit. 
 This teaching of Jesus cannot be too much 
 emphasized, for it is the one thing that dif- 
 ferentiates His religion from all the others. 
 An eminent Chinaman, once Ambassador to 
 the United States, pointed this out. He said 
 the one thing that distinguished Christianity 
 from all other religions was its demand of holi- 
 ness in the individual and the love of the 
 enemy. He thought neither of these was 
 possible to man; therefore he could not become 
 a Christian. Confucianism was adjusted to 
 human nature, and he preferred it. But he 
 was right in his diagnosis of Christianity. Sal-
 
 198 The Challenge 
 
 vation, according to Jesus, is oneness with God 
 and the striving for His perfection. 
 
 Finally, Jesus recognized that man was weak 
 and had certain primal impulses in his soul, 
 which would turn him from this pursuit to the 
 quest of his own ends and to the gratification 
 of the baser instincts of his nature. This 
 turning from God, this seeking the world, this 
 opposition to the will of God He called sin. 
 But nothing stands out more gloriously in all 
 His words than the forgiveness that is in the 
 heart of God. God so loves His erring child 
 that, although the child may forget God, God 
 never forgets him. He yearns for him, follows 
 him and finds him, suffers for him, gives His 
 own Son for him, heals him, goes forth to meet 
 him the moment he comes to himself and turns 
 again home. It is the most beautiful thing 
 this world has ever known; the most gracious 
 word it has ever heard, this of the forgiving 
 love of God. So, no matter how far the man 
 has gone, no matter how low he has fallen, 
 no matter how he has sinned against the 
 Father, he can find forgiveness, be given an- 
 other chance, be restored to his sweet relation- 
 ships with the Father, find peace again, simply 
 by repenting and seeking again oneness and 
 perfection.
 
 XX 
 
 MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN 
 
 IN our last chapter we studied the words of 
 Jesus to see what He had to say about the 
 relationship of man to God. In this chap- 
 ter we want to examine His words to see what 
 He teaches concerning the relationship of man 
 to man. For while half the Gospel deals with 
 personal religion, the other half is concerned 
 with practical religion. In every sermon Jesus 
 always talks both about the soul and God, and 
 the soul in its human relationships. 
 
 The first thing to notice as we come to this 
 study is that Jesus begins by putting the re- 
 lationships of men to each other on an entirely 
 different basis than any before taught in the 
 world. The relationship in the older, ethnic 
 religions is inevitably on a utilitarian basis. 
 In Confucianism we are to treat our fellow- 
 men justly and with kindness because in the 
 long run it pays. It may pay in a very high 
 sense, but still it pays. Even in the Old Testa- 
 ment the writers never got far away from the 
 199
 
 200 The Challenge 
 
 tribal conception of human relationships. The 
 member of your tribe should be treated as your 
 brother. But not so the Philistine, the Baby- 
 Ionian, the Assyrian. In Mohammedanism 
 there is no relation of man to man outside of 
 the Holy Faith. In the Greek religions the 
 element of pity for one's fellow rises here and 
 there, but it is always purely pity for an un- 
 fortunate creature. The Greek would help a 
 poor fellow much as one of us would stop to 
 take a thorn out of the foot of a dog. As usual 
 Jesus transcends all other motives and bases 
 His teachings regarding human relationships 
 on a high, sublime, spiritual doctrine that revo- 
 lutionizes our whole conception of society. 
 Here is His first and fundamental word : Every 
 man is a child of God. He is my brother and 
 your brother. I am in his heart, and so there is 
 something of Christ in every human being. 
 " Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of these ye 
 do it unto me." You are all of one family, 
 one blood, one origin, one destiny. You should 
 act toward every man as you would act toward 
 me — or as I would act toward him. Remem- 
 ber, too, that you are serving an immortal soul 
 whenever you serve any man — not a mere 
 animal. It is impossible to overstate this, be- 
 cause it cannot be put in stronger terms than
 
 Man's Relationship to Man 201 
 
 Jesus used, or than Paul and John used in 
 their emphasizing it. 
 
 Basing His teachings on this high conception 
 of manhood, what has Jesus to say to His 
 disciples about their relationship to their fel- 
 low-men? His teachings are very explicit. 
 First of all, we are to conceive of ourselves as 
 in this world primarily to help the other man, 
 and of every man we meet as some one to be 
 helped. This is a very lofty conception of 
 our place in this world, but one cannot escape 
 it if he believes what Jesus Christ taught in 
 Galilee is to be the rule of life in all ages. We 
 are not here to get things from the other man, 
 and we are not here to get our own rights. We 
 are here to contribute something to the lives 
 of other men, and have not arrived at full 
 Christian discipleship until we think of our life 
 in the terms of mission and every man we meet 
 our charge. Suppose we began to apply that 
 in our modern life: It would mean that the 
 great industrial lord who employed thousands 
 in his great mines or factories would not be 
 thinking first of what he could get out of them 
 in work, but what he could do for them. It 
 would mean that the owners of shops and 
 stores would think of them as their parishes. 
 It would mean that the school teacher would
 
 202 The Challenge 
 
 be chiefly concerned in rearing her pupils into 
 worthy men and women. It would mean that 
 instead of running around asking how we 
 can protect ourselves from the immigrant, the 
 foreigner, we should be concerned, as Christ 
 was, in how we might shepherd him. The 
 teachings of Jesus have far-reaching implica- 
 tions when one really discovers them. That is 
 the reason we are so afraid of them. 
 
 The next word that is forever on Jesus' lips, 
 based on this fundamental concept of man as 
 God's child and of every man our brother, is 
 that service is to be the highest honour in the 
 Christian fellowship. This is very wonderful 
 and beautiful. Everywhere else office, high 
 rank, kingship, lordship, wealth, success, hav- 
 ing many rendering service to one is the high- 
 est honour, the coveted place, the niche of fame. 
 It is not so with Jesus. Not only does He 
 directly teach that service is the badge of great- 
 ness; not only does He tell exquisite stories 
 to enforce it; but He goes out of His way to 
 impress it forever upon the world by an act 
 of lowliest service possible. Think of the Lord 
 of Life at whose name every knee should bow 
 and every tongue should speak, taking a bason 
 of water and going around washing His fol- 
 lowers' feet — most menial service Jesus could
 
 Man's Relationship to Man 203 
 
 think of ! But it has settled forever who is 
 greatest in the company of the true followers 
 of Jesus. He is greatest who serves and who 
 spends his life in ministry. 
 
 But Jesus goes farther still and imposes 
 something harder than any of these things 
 upon His followers. Men must live together 
 in this world, and, being human, there will 
 be friction. Interests will clash; misunder- 
 standings will arise; evil men will inflict injury 
 upon the good; the Christian will be sinned 
 against as much as will be the man of the world. 
 It is impossible to live in our world and not be 
 wronged — sometimes cruelly wronged and at- 
 tacked. Jesus knew this well. Had He not 
 continually experienced it? And to it He 
 directed His attention, for this attitude toward 
 our enemies, toward those who have wronged 
 us, is one of the real problems of life. It is 
 always with us. Jesus met it by flying straight 
 into the face of all the philosophy of the 
 world. The world has always said : " Get 
 even with the enemy. Revenge yourself upon 
 him." Jesus turns to His disciples and says, 
 in substance: The aim of your Christian life 
 is to be perfect as God is perfect. Therefore 
 you must do what God does. He forgives, 
 therefore you must forgive to be Godlike; He
 
 204 The Challenge 
 
 forgives you, His enemy, therefore you should 
 forgive your enemies; He seeks peace, there- 
 fore you must be a peacemaker in the world 
 if you would be His children; He is merciful, 
 therefore you should be merciful; He seeks the 
 salvation of all men, therefore you must seek 
 the salvation of the enemy, not your own 
 revenge; your enemy is God's child, although 
 he is mean and evil, and God loves him, there- 
 fore your thought should be, not how to wrong 
 him or hurt him in return, but how can you 
 please God by winning this erring child back 
 to him. 
 
 Now this is very radical, — the world has al- 
 ways said fantastical, impracticable, impossible 
 doctrine, — but it is the very core of Christ's 
 teachings, and if we abandon it we might just 
 as well leave Him out of account for good, 
 take His name off our churches, out of our 
 books and off our lips. But, curiously enough, 
 much to the confusion and dumfounding of 
 the so-called practical men, it always works 
 when it is tried, proving itself to be the 
 most practical teaching in the world. For 
 is not the saving of a man's soul the most 
 practical thing in the world? And does it 
 not almost always follow that the result of 
 your sincerely forgiving a man saves him to
 
 Man's Relationship to Man 205 
 
 his higher self? This is probably one of the 
 reasons Jesus talked so much about it to the 
 apostles. It was a method of redemption, the 
 great opportunity to save. Forgiveness is also 
 the great healing angel of the social order. 
 Revenge disrupts it; forgiveness constructs it, 
 makes for harmony and peace. But most of 
 all, perhaps, Jesus was thinking of the effect 
 upon the life of him who practised it. It re- 
 acted on him and made him beautiful, great 
 in graciousness, benevolent, merciful, as is God 
 Himself. 
 
 We cannot leave this subject without noting 
 that Jesus recognized that even with the high 
 motive given at the beginning, these command- 
 ments were hard, almost impossible to unas- 
 sisted human nature, incapable of efficient 
 exercise in a heart untouched with a divine 
 quality of love. So He takes every opportunity 
 to say to His followers : The way to practise 
 these rules of the Christian life easily and 
 naturally is to get love in your heart for every 
 human soul. When you love men it is easy to 
 sacrifice for them, easy to forgive. How easy 
 it is to serve your little boy, to forgive him his 
 affront! Now get this heart of good-will, and 
 it will be easy to serve and forgive all others. 
 And that means that we are simply to get the
 
 206 The Challenge 
 
 mind and heart of Christ. It is possible to 
 us because it has been possible to so many. 
 All along the way of history there have been 
 these beautiful souls whose hearts have glowed 
 as did Christ's with universal benevolence — 
 St. John, St. Francis, St. Elizabeth, King Al- 
 fred, John Woolman, Elizabeth Fry, Lord 
 Shaftesbury, Peter Cooper, Whittier, Josephine 
 Shaw Lowell, Phillips Brooks, innumerable 
 others — candles of the Lord. It is for us all, 
 said Jesus, to get that overflowing heart of 
 love that He had for everybody, saint and 
 sinner, if we would serve, sacrifice and forgive 
 easily.
 
 XXI 
 
 MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO THE 
 WORLD 
 
 IN our two previous studies of the words 
 of Jesus on human relationships we have 
 examined His teachings concerning man 
 and God, and man and man. In this chapter let 
 us see what Jesus has to say about man's rela- 
 tion to the great world in which he lives. For 
 every word of Jesus implies, if it does not 
 explicitly state, that every man has a respon- 
 sibility toward the whole world. Indeed, we 
 might begin right here and say that Christ's 
 fundamental teaching on this great subject is 
 that the Christian is a citizen of all the world. 
 There is nothing provincial about Christianity. 
 Mohammedanism may be an Arabian or Turk- 
 ish faith. Buddhism an Indian faith, Con- 
 fucianism a Chinese faith, and Judaism a 
 Jewish faith; but Christianity was never con- 
 nected with any tribal name or national 
 boundary. Jesus gave it out as a world re- 
 ligion, and He took pains to impress upon His 
 207
 
 208 The Challenge 
 
 disciples that when they became Christians they 
 became citizens of His world-wide, universal 
 kingdom and that all men became their 
 brothers, all men became their wards, and they 
 were to place their citizenship in His kingdom 
 above all national ties, and were to be more 
 closely bound to the members of His kingdom 
 than to the members of their own country. 
 
 It is true that we have never realized this in 
 practice, and that is why we have wars between 
 nations made up of men who are professed 
 disciples of the same Lord, children of the 
 same father, brothers of one another, members 
 of the same kingdom. The present war is 
 really a family quarrel, and could not be did 
 not Christians put their allegiance to kings 
 and kaisers, countries and states above their 
 allegiance to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. 
 Did we make even a pretence of taking Jesus 
 at His word it would be much harder to shoot 
 a Christian of another country than a non- 
 Christian of our own. And in either case we 
 would be shooting one of Christ's brothers, 
 which is what war means, if we believe Christ. 
 
 Let us see how explicit Christ was on this 
 point, for we have some very direct statements. 
 When some of those who first sought citizen- 
 ship in His kingdom showed tendencies of
 
 Man's Relationship to the World 209 
 
 manifesting a divided allegiance He uttered 
 words which to some have seemed the harsh- 
 est words He ever uttered, but which are 
 strong because they were meant to settle for- 
 ever the question of where the Christian's 
 chief allegiance lay. He said that allegiance to 
 Him must even come before that to father and 
 mother, brother and sister, home and kindred, 
 to say nothing of the nation. When the test 
 came the Christian would desert everything 
 else in the world for Christ. It might even be 
 that for the sake of peace in the kingdom there 
 would have to be strife between brothers and 
 sisters, but His kingdom came first. What else 
 can the passages in Matt. 10:37 rnean but 
 this? What would happen in Europe if after 
 this war German, English, French and Russian 
 Christians got together and, in the light of 
 Christ's words, should say : " We are Chris- 
 tians first, before we are Germans, English, 
 Frenchmen and Russians. Our chief alle- 
 giance is to Jesus Christ. We are all citizens 
 of His kingdom; our chief interest is that king- 
 dom. We are brothers in Him. All this 
 slaughtering and killing of each other, all this 
 hatred and cursing of each other, is denial of 
 this higher allegiance for lower ones. Chris- 
 tians are supposed to love one another, and the
 
 210 The Challenge 
 
 fact that we live under different governments 
 and on different spots of land should make no 
 difference in this love. The strongest ties 
 should be the Christian tie. All Christians are 
 of our own household. All other men are 
 potential Christians and should be the object 
 of our redemptive effort rather than our mur- 
 dering guns. Let us say to our ambitious war 
 lords, our covetous merchant princes, our proud 
 noblemen, *' Henceforth we Christians will 
 not bear arms against each other, for we are 
 Christ's before we are yours, and the success 
 and peace of Christ's kingdom means more to 
 us than any national glory or achievement." 
 What would happen ? we ask. Nothing except 
 that Christians would at last be doing just 
 what Christ asked them to do, would be at 
 last meeting the one test He explicitly gave: 
 " By this shall all men know that ye are my 
 disciples, that ye have love one toward an- 
 other." 
 
 Again, Jesus endeavoured to impress this 
 same truth upon His disciples by enlarging their 
 idea of neighbourhood. The Jewish thought 
 of the neighbour was one who was of the same 
 sect. The modern world has got beyond this, 
 although not very far, and thinks of all those of 
 his own country as having claims upon him.
 
 Man's Relationship to the World 211 
 
 To a German, a German is a neighbour ; to an 
 American, an American. But Jesus was so 
 insistent upon the truth that the bounds of 
 neighbourhood were humanity alone that He 
 went out of His way to tell one of the most 
 exquisite stories the world has ever known, a 
 story which, with the parable of the Prodigal 
 Son, contains almost the whole of religion in 
 both its manward and its Godward sides. The 
 parable of the Good Samaritan is simply the 
 final truth that neighbourhood is world-wide, 
 that every man who has needs, no matter 
 whether he be in Mexico, Japan, Belgium or 
 Armenia, is our neighbour — just as much our 
 neighbour as the sick man next door. Applied 
 for a moment to the nation, it means that our 
 task in Mexico is to be a national Good Samari- 
 tan, whatever we do there being done, not to 
 avenge insults, not to protect American citizens, 
 but to bind up the wounds of the unfortunate 
 country and set it upon its feet. It means that 
 the United States when it goes into Belgium, 
 Poland and Armenia with millions of healing 
 dollars is Christian — infinitely more Christian 
 than when she is discussing her rights and her 
 honour. 
 
 Once again: That this idea of the world 
 being the Christian's fatherland lay funda-
 
 212 The Challenge 
 
 mental in Christ's mind appears in His 
 frequent demands upon His followers that they 
 consider everybody in all the world as their 
 charge, every man as the object of redemp- 
 tion. Remember how explicit Christ was in 
 this matter; how He directly commanded His 
 disciples to go into all the world preaching His 
 gospel to every creature. Remember also how 
 this implication ran through His general utter- 
 ances. When the woman anoints Him, out of 
 her beautiful devotion, He exclaims that the 
 exquisite deed should be known forever in all 
 the world. He tells His disciples that He will 
 be with them always wherever they may go 
 in the world. He sees Satan falling as light- 
 ning out of the heavens. If He be lifted up — 
 that is, made known — He will draw all the 
 world unto Him. And almost the most perfect 
 exhibition of real Christianity the Church has 
 yet displayed has been her foreign missionary 
 work. For here she has caught the real vision 
 of Christianity, found the real heart of Christ. 
 Does any one suppose there would be any more 
 wars in Europe or America if we should sud- 
 denly put the able secretaries of the great 
 foreign mission societies of each country at the 
 head of the governments? Believe us, the 
 world would hear no more talk of war.
 
 XXII 
 
 MAN, THE BUILDER 
 
 THE first thing man began to do, when he 
 appeared upon this earth, after securing 
 some food, was to build something. 
 He is the great builder. St. Paul used this 
 as a designation for his work. It is true of 
 every period of man's life. 
 
 The first thing he built was a house. It was 
 a poor sort of house, but it broke the winds and 
 sheltered him from the storms. It was square, 
 and built of clay, or mud, or stones, or logs. 
 But it was prototype of every house that has 
 since been built. The palace follows the 
 lines of this hut. 
 
 The next thing man built was a boat. It 
 was a crude affair, a dug-out or skins over a 
 frame of boughs. But it extended his world 
 and he took a new step in civilization with the 
 building of this boat. This primitive boat was 
 the prototype of the present ocean steamer. 
 .They are built on the same lines and principles. 
 
 Then man began building roads. With the 
 213
 
 214 The Challenge 
 
 first road built, civilization took a long leap 
 forward. Civilization is largely a process of 
 extending boundaries. With roads the 
 boundaries were pushed far back, Man 
 passed out of pure provincialism. The ex- 
 change of goods and thoughts took place. All 
 races were enriched by this exchange with their 
 neighbours. Later books and objects of art 
 were carried over these roads and the enrich- 
 ment was hastened. It was a momentous day 
 when man built his first road. 
 
 Probably the next thing he built was a 
 church of some sort. In Egypt, Greece, 
 Rome and England there still remain evidences 
 of temples built in the beginnings of man's 
 existence. In every town in Christendom to- 
 day there is at least one church which man 
 has built. This was a great day for man, 
 the day he built a temple. For it linked him 
 to a higher world, put aspiration and immor- 
 tality into his nature, and with this vision of 
 God came a new vision of his fellow-man as 
 brother. His growth went forward by leaps 
 and bounds, when he thus put himself in touch 
 with God in his temple. And right beside the 
 temple, in later years, he always built a school- 
 house or college where God's truth could be
 
 Man, the Builder 215 
 
 taught. To-day man never neglects to build 
 these two things wherever he may settle. 
 
 But above and beyond these physical and 
 necessary things, these things built out of 
 wood and stone, houses, roads, boats, temples, 
 schools, man soon began building vaster, loftier 
 structures, temples not built with hands but 
 of the mind and of the soul. Perhaps the first 
 of these was the nation. Humanity has always 
 been a company of nation builders. The na- 
 tion assumed various forms, although it was, 
 probably, always the same at the beginning. 
 But it was a great day when man began to 
 build states, nations and empires. At first a 
 structure reared on absolutism, the nation being 
 only a king with his dependents; later a king 
 with a constitution; later still a democracy 
 where the king or president, as he is always 
 called, becomes a servant of the people, rather 
 than a ruler; but always a structure where 
 men are co-operating toward a common end. 
 The significance of this building of nations 
 lies in the fact that man is now living for the 
 community rather than for himself. 
 
 Early in his career man began rearing other 
 of these invisible temples of the soul. Among 
 the greatest of these were the eternal poems
 
 216 The Challenge 
 
 that have come down to us. David, Homer, 
 Virgil, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare — they col- 
 lected all the aspirations, emotions, griefs, vic- 
 tories, ideals, imaginings of the world and out 
 of them reared such structures as the Psalms, 
 the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, 
 Faust and Hamlet. It will be remembered 
 how beautifully Longfellow, in his introduction 
 to his translation of Dante, compares the 
 Divine Comedy to a majestic temple. In the 
 same way the philosopher collected the 
 thoughts and imaginings of man, and Plato 
 builds the Phaedro; Kant his Metaphysics; 
 Lotze his Microcosmus; and Berkeley his 
 Idealism. The theologians collect the thoughts 
 of God men have thought, the experiences of 
 God men have felt, the revelations of God in 
 the world, and build up great structures of 
 theology, and we have Augustine building his 
 " City of God " ; Thomas Aquinas building 
 the " Summa Theologise"; John Calvin rear- 
 ing the huge structure of "The Institutes"; 
 Jonathan Edwards piling up a structure of 
 closely cemented masonry, " The Freedom of 
 the Will." 
 
 But with the coming of Christianity into the 
 world, man's building assumed a new and 
 higher direction than any we have mentioned
 
 Man, the Builder 217 
 
 yet. The first thing Christ did was to gather 
 about Him a dozen men and say to them that 
 He wanted them to be builders with Him. 
 There were two structures that they, working 
 with Him, the master builder, were to build — 
 character in men and the kingdom of God in the 
 world. And they began rearing these two struc- 
 tures at once. And they have never stopped. 
 Every real Christian has been a builder of 
 character in himself and in his brethren, and 
 also a builder of the kingdom of God in the 
 world. And it is a high and holy task. The 
 man who has built a structure of supremely 
 noble character is a master builder, ranking 
 with him who built the great cathedrals. It 
 is an ever present opportunity. Every young 
 man should begin at the age of reason and try. 
 to build a firm and beauteous character for 
 himself and should strive to build character 
 in other men. This is the glory of teaching, 
 whether in day school or Sunday school, and 
 likewise of preaching — that the teacher and 
 preacher are engaged in the task of building 
 characters. We wonder how any one can ever 
 refuse an opportunity to help build a new char- 
 acter in the world. Of course, it is the 
 supreme calling of parents. 
 
 We should here like to call attention to the
 
 218 The Challenge 
 
 wonderful opportunity this particular time 
 presents for the building of the kingdom. The 
 work of missions has been seriously injured 
 by the great war. Missions are simply the 
 building of the kingdom of God in non- 
 Christian lands. Let some of our readers who 
 are anxious to help Christ build His kingdom 
 begin at once to study the whole mission situa- 
 tion. Learn all about Roberts College and the 
 American Girls' College in Turkey, the Prot- 
 estant College in Syria, the Christian College in 
 China, Doshisha in Japan, and all the others, 
 so you may be ready, the moment the war 
 stops, to help rear this part of the kingdom to 
 proportions never before dreamed of. Let 
 others study the mission stations in these 
 countries and in India, so the building may 
 proceed with an energy it has never known 
 before. 
 
 Christian civilization has nearly fallen to 
 ruins in Europe. Europe will never be content 
 with the old, fallen, structures. A new inter- 
 national order has got to be reared. Never has 
 there been such a call for builders of the King- 
 dom of God to supplant the false, unstable 
 kingdom of the world as there will be the 
 moment this war stops. We wish every young 
 Christian man and woman in America would
 
 Man, the Builder 219 
 
 begin at once seriously preparing to have some 
 part in this building. The building of a fair, 
 beautiful, Christian world structure that should 
 house only justice and good-will. Already 
 the prophetic souls are drawing plans. Leave 
 the question of " preparedness " to the old 
 men — it is an old men's movement, and is 
 mostly being fostered by old men, men who 
 live in the old and passing order — and throw 
 in your lot with those who are eager to rear 
 Christ's kingdom in all the world. There is 
 the League of Peace Movement, for instance, 
 of which Mr. Taft is the leader, which aims 
 at a group of nations which shall league them- 
 selves together to settle all disputes by judicial 
 processes. Learn of that. There is the World 
 Court Movement, which many eminent states- 
 men are leading, which aims at establishing 
 a World Court at the close of this war, 
 where nations may take their disputes for ad- 
 judication. Learn of that. There is the 
 World Alliance of the Churches, which is en- 
 deavouring to unite all the churches of the 
 world in a movement to establish international 
 good-will to supplant the present international 
 suspicions, jealousies and strifes — a rapidly 
 growing movement. Learn of that. Throw in 
 your life with these great movements and have
 
 220 The Challenge 
 
 some part in building the new " Civitas Dei," 
 —the " City of God." 
 
 Once more, there is a great movement afoot 
 for Christian unity. Everywhere men are 
 striving to build a new church, which shall 
 combine all the sects in one glorious temple 
 where Christ's prayers that they might all be 
 one shall be fulfilled. It is going to be one 
 of the great tasks of the twentieth century. 
 Learn that and have some part in the rearing 
 of this divine and holy structure.
 
 XXIII 
 TWO PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE 
 
 NO one can listen to the voice of the age 
 as it is expressing itself in literature, 
 the drama, the press, even in the pulpit, 
 and especially in men's living, without soon 
 becoming aware that two sharply contrasting 
 philosophies of life are clamouring for ac- 
 ceptance to-day, , one the world's, the other 
 Christ's. 
 
 The very attempt that so many good men, 
 including ministers, are so frantically making 
 to reconcile them — always a vain task, for they 
 are forever irreconcilable — is only another 
 index of the fact that the crisis is acute, that 
 the world faces either such a reconciliation or 
 an out and out choice of Christ. But to the 
 average man the straight choice of Christ's 
 philosophy of life with all it implies is almost 
 as much to be dreaded as the frank choice of 
 the world's. We have even had clergymen 
 warning the people against it. But the dif- 
 ference is too wide to be bridged — as it always 
 
 221
 
 222 The Challenge 
 
 has been. The world's view and Christ's afQ 
 antipodal, antithetical, diametrically opposed, 
 as unrelated and irreconcilable as God and 
 Mammon. And the greatest danger to the 
 Church to-day is that she may forget this. 
 There are signs. 
 
 Let us look at some of these contrasting 
 views. The philosophy of the world is to get. 
 That man or nation is greatest which can get 
 most, and the chief business in life for either 
 of them is getting. A man is here to turn 
 all the streams into his own heart, whether of 
 wealth, learning or power. The successful 
 man, in the average magazine, is he who has 
 made the world yield most to him, who has 
 used the world to his own advantage. The 
 business of the nation is to get all she can 
 from other nations, and that nation is greatest 
 which can get the most. The nation should be 
 thinking of its own enrichment first. 
 
 Now Christ's philosophy of life is opposed 
 to all this, at every point. The word 
 get never occurs in the Gospels. That life 
 was a place to get things would sound 
 as foreign in the New Testament as Nietz- 
 sche's Ten Commandments. The word forever 
 on Christ's lips is that life is a place to give. 
 He who gives most, contributes most to life,
 
 Two Philosophies of Life 223 
 
 blesses humanity most, spends most, loves 
 most, sacrifices most, is the great and success- 
 ful man — the Christian. Whenever any one 
 asked Christ how to pick out a Christian He 
 said : " By this shall men know ye are my 
 disciples, that you have love one toward an- 
 other." The world says the man who gets 
 the most is greatest; Jesus says the man who 
 gives the most is greatest. Whatever else one 
 may believe or have, or do, he is not Christian 
 unless his philosophy of life is giving, not 
 getting; contribution, not acquisition; serving, 
 not being served. And a nation which makes 
 any pretence of being Christian must take 
 this same philosophy of life — that its great- 
 ness depends upon its service to the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 The world is always looking for the evil in 
 both men and nations. Its attitude is one of 
 suspicion. It lives in constant expectation of 
 finding evil in men. It sees the evil rather than 
 the good, when both exist. Expecting evil, evil 
 comes. Looking for evil it finds it. And men, 
 knowing that other men are expecting evil 
 from them, are led to be more evil. Suspicion 
 is the philosophy of the world. It is equally 
 true when one gets among the nations, and per- 
 haps this world philosophy of life — suspicion
 
 224 The Challenge 
 
 — has had as much to do with bringing on the 
 European war as have militarism and greed. 
 Every nation must live in suspicion of other 
 nations. Germany has been suspicious of 
 England, and England of Germany. This 
 mutual suspicion has been the atmosphere of 
 these two nations. And it is growing here. 
 We recently attended a " preparedness " meet- 
 ing where, before the evening was over, we 
 were urged as a nation to arm to the teeth on 
 suspicion of Germany, England and Japan. 
 All three countries were our enemies, and the 
 speakers urged suspicion of them all. Now 
 this is all utterly foreign to the sweet atmos- 
 phere of the Gospels. As one walks up and 
 down Galilee with Jesus, one finds Him looking 
 into the face of every soul He meets seeking 
 the good there. And he finds it in Zaccheus, 
 in the woman bathing His feet — in one after 
 another. Never does He look for evil, always 
 for the good. He seemed to believe that the 
 good was there to be found, nurtured, per- 
 fected. Surely He would never say, " Think 
 evil of all men." Surely the going about in 
 suspicion of all men, looking at all men with 
 distrustful eyes, is unthinkable of Jesus Christ. 
 So, too, does that nation throw aside a Chris- 
 tian attitude toward the world and toward
 
 Two Philosophies of Life 225 
 
 the future when it begins to cultivate sus- 
 picions of other nations, sees only the evil in 
 England, France, Japan or Germany, lives in 
 eternal mistrust of them. It is the world's 
 way, not Christ's. 
 
 The world's philosophy of life is that a man 
 shall be measured by what he does. He may 
 live a good and kindly life for years, and then 
 if under the stress of severe temptation he com- 
 mits one sin — in the world's judgment that 
 places him forever. He may have many rather 
 praiseworthy and beautiful qualities, but one 
 weakness yielded to brings him under total 
 condemnation. And if a good man is judged 
 for one evil deed, a bad man is sainted because 
 of one good deed. The world's whole idea of 
 judgment is based on doing. In the same way 
 character is measured by achievement, success 
 by accomplishment. It is very reassuring when 
 one turns to the Gospels to find that Jesus has 
 a totally different standard of judgment. 
 When one listens to Him it is all, not what has 
 one done, but what one is. This man has 
 sinned. Yes, but what is he in his heart, 
 vicious or good? This man did an evil thing 
 in a moment of great temptation — a crime per- 
 haps. Yes; but is he evil all through, all the 
 rest of the time? Let us take that into con-
 
 226 The Challenge 
 
 sideration. So Jesus would have us look at 
 the man's ideals, his aspirations, his longings, 
 his ambitions, his general tendencies. If these 
 are not evil they must be taken into considera- 
 tion in judging men. So success from Jesus' 
 point of view, as witness in the parables of 
 the Talents and the Pounds, is not achieve- 
 ment, so much as faithfulness. He who tries 
 and fails may be as good a man as he who 
 succeeds and accomplishes. What one is, 
 rather than what one does or says, is Jesus' 
 estimate of manhood. 
 
 The world's philosophy of life is revenge. 
 " An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," 
 would pretty well sum up the universally ac- 
 cepted philosophy of the world, and of a 
 considerable portion of Christ's Church, except 
 that the rule is not quite strong enough. For 
 generally revenge insists on more than a quid 
 pro quo. It wants a bigger eye and a bigger 
 tooth in return. If a man strikes you, strike 
 him back, only harder. If he steals, take away 
 from him more than he stole, or put him in 
 jail as punishment. Whenever a man com- 
 mits a crime the world's first thought is punish- 
 ment. Throw him into prison. Yes, perhaps 
 this is necessary. But for what purpose? 
 Punishment, revenge, to get even with him,
 
 Two Philosophies of Life 227 
 
 says society. The world holds the same 
 philosophy for the nation. If a nation wrongs 
 us, let us fly to war at once, is the universal 
 instinct and philosophy. Retaliation, repara- 
 tion, defence of honour, revenge, chastisement 
 — these are the only words the world knows 
 when it comes to international affairs. When 
 one turns to the gospels what a new world he 
 enters! Here revenge is compared to murder. 
 Here the world's great slogan of " revenge " — 
 the motive of most of our dramas — never oc- 
 curs. Here there is nothing about punishment 
 as a law for humanity, here there is nothing 
 about reparation. No it is all gone and in its 
 place, on every page, running through Jesus' 
 words like a great undertone, shining out of 
 His life as light colouring everything He said 
 and did is the thought " redemption of the 
 enemy, forgiveness of the enemy, love of the 
 enemy, desire to save the enemy." This is the 
 philosophy of Christ. The world laughs at it, 
 the Church only half believes it, the preachers 
 preach it in generalities, but balk at applying it 
 when the hard event comes, but it is there and 
 you can no more take it out of the New Testa- 
 ment than you can take Hamlet out of " Ham- 
 let." Take it out and nothing is left. Not 
 even Jesus is left, for it is His one distinctive
 
 228 The Challenge 
 
 teaching, His one original contribution to the 
 philosophy of human relationship. When the 
 disciples would call down fire He would have 
 none of it. He had come to save. 
 
 Now any one who believes Jesus Christ and 
 really wants to follow not afar off must get 
 completely rid of this whole idea of revenge, 
 reparation, punishment as mere punishment, 
 and live by Christ's principle. Even his 
 thought of his enemy must be to save him. 
 His thought of punishment must be always 
 redemption. His thought of prisons must be 
 reformatory. His thought of one who wrongs 
 him must be forgiveness where it is possible, 
 because through forgiveness one may save. 
 And some day we shall be big enough to see 
 that no nation can lay any claim to be con- 
 sidered Christian which cannot see that she 
 too must put the salvation of other nations 
 above retaliation or revenge. Which is the 
 Christian policy toward Mexico; to invade her 
 for punishment, retaliation or revenge, or to 
 preserve as a nation the helpful, patient course 
 Christ pursued toward His enemies, and per- 
 haps save the unfortunate nation to itself? 
 So too in all our relationships with the stricken 
 nations of Europe at this time. What we can 
 do for them will be the first thought rather;
 
 Two Philosophies of Life 229 
 
 than reparation, revenge or upholding national 
 honour. (Where does any one find Jesus talk- 
 ing about defending his honour?) 
 
 The world says force, might, iron, is the 
 basis of civilization. The strong man is he 
 who has the biggest muscles, or added force, 
 by which he can awe men. The best defence 
 for either man or nation is impregnable sur- 
 roundings; vast, threatening, awe-inspiring 
 might; the surest civilization that which has 
 most force behind it. When one turns to the 
 Gospel the whole idea of force is strangely 
 absent. Jesus seemingly would have nothing 
 to do with it. He would not even defend Him- 
 self; he would not let Peter interpose force be- 
 tween the marauders and Himself. He does 
 not ever talk about it. It does not seem to have 
 ever been any part of His world. His thought, 
 His word. His acts, all speak another language, 
 namely, the love of others, good-will toward 
 men, service, mercy and justice. 
 
 These are a man's chief defence. Ultimately 
 they may be a nation's best defence, Jesus 
 never spoke on this particular phase of politi- 
 cal righteousness. But, while it is not fair to 
 say on what evidence we possess that Jesus 
 would counsel nations to refuse to use force 
 against malicious attack or invasion, one must
 
 230 The Challenge 
 
 say, in the light of His whole life and teaching, 
 that He would insist that eager, enthusiastic, 
 devoted service of other nations, with serene 
 trust in them, love and good-will for all, would 
 be securest foundation of the nation, most 
 impregnable defence. Suppose our Govern- 
 ment at the close of this war should set aside 
 $2,000,000,000 (two billion dollars) and give 
 it to the depleted nations to reinstate them- 
 selves, does any one really suppose that any 
 nation in Europe would ever think of waging 
 war with us? Be sure that the people would 
 not permit it, even if governments were un- 
 human. 
 
 Once more : the philosophy of the world is 
 protection. The world is all the time con- 
 cerned with shielding itself. The thousands 
 who hold it are always asking: How can we 
 protect ourselves from the unclean people, the 
 ignorant people, these swarms of foreigners 
 who are coming into our beautiful old towns 
 and cities, from the evil women, from the 
 negroes, from the criminal who threatens our 
 lives and properties? And the world acts on 
 its philosophies. It segregates the evil women 
 and the negroes; it keeps the Italians and 
 Slavs in colonies in the midst of the city; it 
 builds high walls around its houses, gets away
 
 Two Philosophies of Life 231 
 
 from the crowd; it puts the criminal behind 
 iron bars; it passes laws against immigration. 
 When one turns to the gospels it is never 
 protection. When Jesus faced any of the 
 so-called threatening classes of society His only 
 thought was opportunity. What a chance to 
 render service, for here are those who need 
 it most. Jesus seemed never to be caring for 
 Himself, to be thinking of His rights. He had 
 no doctrine of rights, only of duties. He was 
 not here to protect Himself, He was here on a 
 mission. One of the most characteristic words 
 about Him is His standing over against the 
 crowd — the great unclean, unfortunate, dis- 
 agreeable mob — and weeping because He could 
 not serve and save them all. Mission, oppor- 
 tunity, service, duty, love — never protection — 
 was Christ's philosophy of life. " We who are 
 Christians have the mind of Christ," said the 
 chief apostle.
 
 XXIV 
 THE NEEiD OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 WE have been hearing much during the 
 last fifty years of forces other than 
 the Christian Gospel which were to 
 elevate and redeem mankind. Indeed, some 
 have gone so far as to tell us that the Gospel 
 was outgrown and that these other forces were 
 to supplant it: character, the development of 
 the higher qualities of being, the banishment 
 of injustice, strife, crime, social sin, the estab- 
 lishing of brotherhood as the rule of life — all 
 these were to be secured by these new panaceas 
 — these new gospels suited for an age that 
 had outgrown Christianity. 
 
 First came the prophets of science. From 
 Huxley's " Lay Sermons " of 1870 to 
 Haeckel's last fulmination we have been hear- 
 ing that science was to be the saving force, the 
 Messiah, the eliminator of all evil, poverty, 
 disease, crime and sin and the harbinger of 
 good-will among all peoples. " Let us teach 
 the children science instead of the old outworn 
 fables of the Bible."
 
 Need of the Gospel 233 
 
 Then came the prophets of education and 
 from Herbert Spencer's famous essay on this 
 subject down to the last commencement ad- 
 dress we have been told that education was the 
 panacea for all ills. Educate the youth suf- 
 ficiently and they will flee all evil. Educate the 
 people as to what is best and they will choose 
 the best. Show the world how much more 
 beautiful virtue is than vice, unselfishness than 
 selfishness, co-operation than competition, 
 brotherhood than strife, and they will choose 
 the good. 
 
 Then came the prophets of culture. We 
 have been hearing the word a good deal lately. 
 For the last twenty-five years it has been on 
 everybody's lips. We have been hearing that 
 all that was necessary to bring in the millen- 
 nium was the diffusion of art, literature, music, 
 philosophy. The mastery of the world by 
 supermen is to be the religion that shall create 
 the strong and virtuous nation. Not meek 
 men, not suffering Christs, but giant men, 
 commanding men and nature out of universal 
 knowledge, together with perfect efficiency. 
 
 With all these came the prophets of eco- 
 nomic reform. If we could get an eight-hour 
 day, one day's rest in seven, a good wage.
 
 234i The Challenge 
 
 plenty to eat and model tenements, the whole 
 problem of morality would be solved, we 
 would be over the threshold of the millen- 
 nium, the redemption of mankind into the 
 kingdom of God would be at hand and religion 
 as ordinarily conceived from the point of the 
 Church would be outgrown and superfluous. 
 
 Thus, during the last twenty-five years, have 
 we been offered these four gospels as a suf- 
 ficient religion, a substitute for Christianity, 
 a panacea for all evils, a potency requiring no 
 supernatural sanction, but sufficient to redeem 
 the world. And what a failure it has all proven 
 in the light of the past two years! There 
 never was so much science in all previous cen- 
 turies put together as in the last half century. 
 Every school child grew up on it, his primers 
 being fairly tales of science. It has driven the 
 classics out of our colleges, and has bid fair 
 even to become the text-books of our Sunday 
 schools. It is in every magazine, and on every 
 table in cheap editions. Yet somehow it has 
 not worked great improvement in the morals 
 of mankind, and it is just now being prostituted 
 largely to inventing machines and chemicals 
 wherewith to slaughter men. It is even some- 
 thing of a question whether many of our great 
 inventions have not done us more harm than
 
 Need of the Gospel 235 
 
 good. Airships so far have been used chiefly 
 for dropping bombs on playgrounds and 
 nurseries. 
 
 Education has never reached such a height 
 as in the last century. Everybody goes to 
 school, and everybody who wants to goes to 
 college. Education has been the chief con- 
 cern of government in Germany, next to the 
 army. In America the educator is the prophet. 
 The president of a college stands next to 
 the President of the nation. We are even 
 turning to the colleges for our nation's rulers. 
 And yet somehow education does not seem to 
 have had much power to stop this awful col- 
 lapse of civilization we are witnessing. The 
 men who did most to bring it on had been 
 trained in the greatest universities in the world. 
 Our own cheap politicians, grafters, corrupt 
 legislators are educated men. Yes, education 
 seems to have belied its promise. When they 
 were running some plays in New York to show 
 young men the horrible physical consequences 
 of vice, a wise physician remarked to us: 
 " Knowledge does not keep people from sin." 
 
 As for culture, it has become universal. 
 Every town has a library. All the women be- 
 long to literary clubs and study everything 
 from Confucius to John Masefield. Every
 
 236 The Challenge 
 
 other home has its hundred-best-books library, 
 and institutions similar to our nation-wide 
 Chautauqua system prevail in every country. 
 Everybody goes to lectures as regularly as to 
 meals. Every home has reproductions of the 
 great masters, and the best music is heard in 
 all the cities. Germany has boasted of her 
 culture, and we are proud of ours. But some- 
 how culture has failed to civilize us, and seems 
 to have done little more than veneer the bar- 
 barian in us. 
 
 As for economic reform, social betterment, 
 the latest all-sufficient gospel, how absolutely 
 it has failed. All its high-sounding talk has 
 proved but vanity. Those milHons of German, 
 French and English Socialists who had ban- 
 ished war — in their speeches and at banquets 
 — were the first to rush at one another's 
 throats. Never had social reform gone so far. 
 In Germany everybody had been brought under 
 an excellent system of insurance. England for 
 the last ten years has been perfecting an old 
 age pension system. Wages had gone up 
 everywhere. The people had shorter hours, 
 better homes, more luxuries. But somehow 
 it did not save them, and there has come over 
 Europe a pretty general distrust of social 
 alleviation as a moral agency. " Be happy and
 
 Need of the Gospel 237 
 
 you will be good," is not the great slogan of 
 redemption after all. 
 
 We think that if there is any one thing the 
 great war is teaching us, it is the utter insuf- 
 ficiency of these things to hold men's passions 
 in leash, or to establish that brotherhood for 
 which the weary world waits. They not only 
 lack power to establish that kingdom of right- 
 eousness, justice and beauty which Jesus longed 
 for, but they have failed even to make the 
 world a decent or safe place in which to live. 
 There is only one thing big enough to work 
 these miracles and transform the world, and 
 that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is time 
 to give that Gospel a real chance. These other 
 things having failed; let us now give this 
 Gospel a trial. But it must be a larger Gospel 
 than we have hitherto preached. The world 
 will be a new world after this war is over and 
 we must give it a new Gospel. Men will need 
 the Gospel they have always heard — the Father- 
 hood of God, Christ's revelation of that 
 Fatherhood, the grace of God for every soul, 
 the forgiveness of sin through Christ, and 
 Christ the way of approach of the soul to 
 God. But with all this there must be more. 
 
 There must be emphasis now on the teach- 
 ings of Jesus. Christ must not only be be-
 
 238 The Challenge 
 
 lieved in, but we must believe Him. Not only 
 must we trust in Him for individual redemp- 
 tion, but we must live toward men as He lived. 
 Not only must we accept Him as our individual 
 Saviour, but we must believe that the Sermon 
 on the Mount was given to be a law unto the 
 Christian. Not only must we accept His Gospel 
 on the soul's relationship to God, but also on 
 man's relationship to man. 
 
 There must be a new emphasis on Christ's 
 Gospel of the unity of mankind. " All ye are 
 brethren " must be our great message, and it 
 must be preached not as a sweet and pious 
 generalization, but as a real truth to be accepted 
 as a test of Christian faith. 
 
 This unity must be dearer to us than pa- 
 triotism, the love of the brethren more than 
 the love of our fellow countrymen. The king- 
 dom of Christ should be the real country of, 
 every Christian, to this should be his chief al- 
 legiance. Members of that kingdom, Christ's 
 brothers, Christ's " little children," no mat- 
 ter in what nation found, should be dearer to 
 us than citizens of our own country who are 
 not members of that country. To quote the 
 recent remarks of a famous English preacher : 
 " If the New Testament view is to be retained 
 it is plainly contained in it that a British
 
 Need of the Gospel 239 
 
 Christian should be sensible of a closer kin- 
 ship with a German Christian than with a 
 Briton who is not a Christian. That this is 
 not actually so is simply an additional piece 
 of evidence of the modern Church's failure to 
 realize all the implications of its basal princi- 
 ples. If the avowed Christians of Germany, 
 Great Britain, Austria, France and Russia had 
 been really conscious of their unity in Christ 
 and had declined to go forth to kill one another, 
 there would have been no war." 
 
 The so-called " hard sayings " of Jesus must 
 be much more emphasized in the preaching of 
 the future. Either Jesus meant what He said 
 when He taught " Love your enemies," " For- 
 give the enemy," " By this shall men know ye 
 are my disciples, that ye have love one toward 
 another," and meant them for the only law 
 of life, or He did not. But they are the core 
 of His Gospel, and if we are to call ourselves 
 Christians we must preach them and practise 
 them. 
 
 Finally, the Gospel must be so widened as 
 to include nations as well as individuals. This 
 has been our weakness. We have preached, 
 " Thou Shalt not steal," " Thou shalt not kill," 
 " Thou shalt not hate," " Thou shalt not settle 
 thy disputes by brute force," " Thou shalt not
 
 240 The Challenge 
 
 live by rights, but by duties," "Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour," " He is greatest among 
 you who serves others" for the law of the 
 Christian. We have never preached it as the 
 law of the nation. Hereafter it should be 
 preached from every pulpit with the same em- 
 phasis that the Gospel for individual relation- 
 ships receives. 
 
 The world needs the Gospel if it is to be 
 saved — this new, enlarged Gospel. Happy that 
 young man who, having caught this prophetic 
 vision, is called upon to be its preacher.
 
 XXV 
 
 WHAT DOES CHRIST WANT US TO 
 DO? 
 
 THIS is a very searching question. It is 
 a question which many are asking in 
 these perplexing days. It is a little dif- 
 ferent from the question which Dr. Sheldon 
 raised in his famous book, " In His Steps," 
 for there the question was, " What would 
 Jesus do were He in my place ? " That was a 
 presumptuous question, for no one has a right 
 to say what Jesus would do, were He here, 
 at any particular time or before any perplex- 
 ing problem. It is permissible, on the other 
 hand, to ask one's self at any time, " What 
 would Jesus have me do? " But even in this 
 case one would, in the last analysis, have to 
 answer the question for himself. One mis- 
 take we ministers often make is to try and 
 be the conscience for those who look to us 
 for guidance. Yet, in a broad sense, it is 
 perfectly legitimate to indicate, with Christ's 
 words before us what He would have us all 
 241
 
 242 The Challenge 
 
 do in these trying times. Let us then, recalling 
 His life, death and teachings, ask ourselves 
 what He would have us do. 
 
 Christ would, first of all, have us keep very- 
 close to Him in these days. We should not act 
 hastily, we should not judge too quickly, we 
 should not speak immoderately, but live so 
 closely to Him that we may become absolutely 
 imbued with His Spirit, should know His will, 
 yes, even hear from Him just what we should 
 think, say and do. If there ever was a time 
 when the Christian should possess his soul in 
 patience and live hourly in most intimate com- 
 panionship with his Lord it is just now. All 
 things are in confusion and chaos. Old things 
 are passing away, many things are becoming 
 new. During this chaos of civilization the 
 world is passing over into a new order. The 
 world will never be the same after this war. 
 He who speaks out of his own heart may fall 
 into great error. Surely Jesus would have 
 us seek His will in every word we speak. He 
 would have us invite Him into our hearts as 
 our monitor and guide. 
 
 Surely Jesus would have us look out upon 
 the world through His eyes and take His atti- 
 tude toward all men. And His mind toward 
 men is not hard to know. He walked before
 
 What Does Christ Want Us to Do? 243 
 
 the world three years, and His picture is very 
 plainly drawn in the gospels. Look and see; 
 He thought of all men, bad men as well as 
 good, as His brothers. Roman and Greeks, 
 Jews and Gentiles, friends and enemies, were 
 His brothers. None of them did He wish to 
 harm, all of them He wished to save. In 
 several recorded instances He refused to yield 
 to the popular clamour to destroy His enemies. 
 He said He came to save them. In the light 
 of this surely He would not have us destroy 
 our enemies, but yearn to save them. This 
 means, or else it is all a farce, that He would 
 have us strive, not to destroy Germans, Mexi- 
 cans, Englishmen, Japanese, Austrians or any 
 others, but try to save them. Is this our pres- 
 ent thought toward Germans? Surely His 
 words apply to nations as well as men. Is 
 this the thought of our nation at just this 
 moment? He surely would have us as in- 
 dividuals think only of saving all men, as a 
 nation think only of saving all nations. 
 
 What would Jesus have us do? He always 
 loved His enemies and forgave them. He 
 taught this explicitly as a law of life for all 
 people and all peoples. His last act, an act 
 when men were killing Him, was to forgive His 
 enemies. One of His first disciples, Stephen,
 
 244. The Challenge 
 
 did the same thing. Are we breathing thoughts 
 of forgiveness toward our enemies? Are we 
 trying to face our national enemies with 
 thoughts of forgiveness? In one of the morn- 
 ing papers we are urged to go to war with 
 Germany and help destroy her. In one of 
 our evening papers is an editorial and a cartoon 
 trying to stir our hatred toward Japan. Are 
 these the thoughts Jesus would have us think 
 toward the nations ? What would Jesus have us 
 do ? The life of Jesus was one of reconciliation. 
 He lived to reconcile men to God and to 
 each other. He died for that same holy pur- 
 pose. His Gospel was a gospel of reconcilia- 
 tion, " First be reconciled to thy brother." St. 
 Paul found only that meaning in His words, 
 His life, and His death : " And hath committed 
 unto us the word of reconciliation/' Is our 
 chief aim in life the reconciliation of our 
 enemies with ourselves, of men with each 
 other? Is our nation at this time thinking 
 chiefly of the God-given opportunity of recon- 
 ciling the hating nations of Europe with 
 each other, or is the nation chiefly con- 
 cerned with seizing the opportunities for self- 
 enrichment the war offers, and making its own 
 self secure? Was Henry Ford a fool or a 
 Christian when he started for Europe to see
 
 Wliat Does Christ Want Us to Do? 245 
 
 if he could begin his process of reconciliation ? 
 We met a great-hearted soul to-day who is 
 just starting for Europe, paying his own ex- 
 penses, to see if he could begin reconciling 
 some Germans and Englishmen who used to be 
 beautiful friends. Is he a fool or a Christian? 
 Is he doing what Jesus would have us all do ? 
 
 What would Jesus have us do? He came 
 into a world where everything was based on 
 force. He spoke against force as a human 
 instrument again and again, and told men to 
 supplant it by love. He practised this teach- 
 ing all His days. To be sure it ended disas- 
 trously for Himself; but it released a power 
 that has transformed billions of lives. Can 
 any one read His words and follow His life 
 and death and not say that one thing He would 
 have us do is to infuse love into all the rela- 
 tionships of men, base civilization upon it, 
 and practise it in our own life? "It is im- 
 practicable," even many who bear the name 
 of Christians, are saying. Yes, Wu Ting Fang 
 said this, when in our country, and advised us 
 to take Confucianism as a religion. Are you 
 sure it is impracticable? Europe has tried 
 force for 2,000 years, and what a spectacle 
 the result is! A well-known preacher said, 
 not long ago, that if all the lunatics in all the
 
 246 The Challenge 
 
 asylums of Europe had been in the cabinets 
 of Europe, they could not have dragged 
 Europe into a worse hell than that in which 
 her cabinets have landed her. Does it look 
 as if the world's doctrine of force is very 
 practicable? Suppose we should do as Jesus 
 would have us do, and try love for a 
 while, could it possibly be more impracticable 
 than force has been? It certainly could not 
 land the world in any worse hell than force 
 has made, for there is none. 
 
 What would Jesus have us do? He would 
 have us devote our life to the ideals He has 
 given us, and without compromise. There is 
 no compromise in His life. He had an ideal 
 of action and He adhered to it. Here again 
 it ended disastrously to Himself, but it gave the 
 world the only ideal worthy the name that it 
 has had for two thousand years. Everywhere 
 about us to-day compromise is being urged. 
 We are being told Christ's ideal was all right 
 for the twelve to whom He gave it, and is 
 all right for the millennium which is far off, 
 but we must accommodate it to our times. 
 Societies are even being formed, based on this 
 principle of compromise and accommodation. 
 The ideal must be attenuated to weak human 
 nature, to the world as we find it. We heard
 
 What Does Christ Want Us to Do? 247 
 
 this urged by a Christian minister the other 
 day. He used the dignified phrase that the 
 Christian must " stop chewing the ohve branch 
 and chew brass tacks." The " New York 
 Evening Post " for April 26 reports that when 
 a resolution was offered in the Chamber of 
 Commerce, on the day before, to indicate a 
 willingness to meet representatives of other 
 governments in a convention to promote the 
 future peace of the world, one of its mem- 
 bers, in criticizing the resolution, said that 
 " the millennium was a long way off, and that 
 it would be enough to forward preparations 
 for national defence without setting out to do 
 away with war." Needless to say the prepared- 
 ness resolution was passed and the other 
 " referred back to the committee." It is this 
 Chamber of Commerce gospel many ministers 
 are advocating to-day, as against the Christian 
 Gospel contained in the spurned resolution. 
 With compromise of the ideal Christ had 
 nothing to do. Surely in this time of com- 
 promise Christ would have the Christian stand 
 for the ideal without flinching. Happy they 
 who have strength to do it. It is they, not the 
 accommodators, who shall stand with the 
 immortals. 
 
 Once more: What would Jesus have us do?
 
 248 The Challenge 
 
 He would have us devote our lives not to care 
 for them, not to protecting them, not to de- 
 fending them, but to high service of all man- 
 kind in His name, and to allegiance to His 
 kingdom. There are many to-day thinking 
 first of self-preservation. There are many 
 to-day who put allegiance to their country 
 or race above allegiance to humanity, which 
 is His kingdom. But Christ took no thought 
 of self. He never worried about defending 
 Himself. His chief allegiance was not to 
 Jerusalem nor to the Jewish race. His only 
 thought was the service of His brothers. His 
 chief allegiance was to humanity. Above all 
 nations was the kingdom. Surely He would 
 have us follow Him in a self -forgetful service. 
 Surely He would have us love His kingdom 
 first. What an opportunity to all brave souls 
 to do what Christ would have us do!
 
 XXVI 
 
 JES.US' TEST OF DISCIPLESHIP 
 
 IT is with a profound sense of relief that 
 one sometimes turns from the tests of 
 Christian faith which have been set up 
 by the churches to the test which Jesus Him- 
 self imposed upon those who would enter the 
 kingdom. We recently had occasion to ex- 
 amine the creed of a famous Church, to which 
 creed, until recently, every one joining that 
 Church was supposed to subscribe. It is really 
 a treatise on systematic theology — an able one, 
 too, but quite as far from the words of Jesus 
 as one could conveniently go. Neither was it 
 greatly concerned with the facts of Christ. It 
 was concerned with interpretation of those 
 facts. But when one turns from the creeds 
 and confessions to the Gospels he finds himself 
 in quite another atmosphere. Here is all sim- 
 plicity, although all is greatness. Again and 
 again Christ affirms the test of disciple- 
 ship. " By this shall all men know that ye are 
 my disciples — that ye have love one toward 
 249
 
 250 The Challenge 
 
 another." In the world, he is greatest who 
 rules and lords it over others and gets the most 
 for himself. But in Christ's kingdom he is 
 greatest who serves, he is chief who lives in 
 lowly ministry. The m.eek, lowly, merciful, 
 pure man is blessed and enters His kingdom. 
 " Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect" is Jesus' ideal for the soul. The 
 Father in heaven who loves, comforts, for- 
 gives and helps men realizes this perfection is 
 His gospel. His good news. It is all so simple 
 that a child can grasp it, although it is as great 
 as suns and seas and stars. And when he 
 would sum it all up and give illustration, He 
 turns to a little child. There is no more signifi- 
 cant fact in all history. The greatest religion 
 the world has known, the religion many of us 
 think absolute and final, is focussed in a little 
 child on a man's knee. Jesus sets the child on 
 His knee, and as He strokes its hair says, " Ex- 
 cept ye be converted, and become as little 
 children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of 
 heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble 
 himself as this little child, the same is greatest 
 in the kingdom of heaven." To become a 
 Christian is to become as a little child ! 
 
 What did Jesus mean? Of course. He 
 meant that one had got to rid himself of all
 
 Jesus' Test of Discipleship 251 
 
 sham, hypocrisy, pride, self-conceit, self- 
 righteousness, self -consciousness, and become 
 before God as a little child. A child is guile- 
 less, innocent, single-minded, transparent as 
 glass. Whatever else children may be, they 
 are not hypocrites; they do not lead double 
 lives; they do not pose, A child is not self- 
 conscious, is never puffed up, conceited, proud, 
 overestimating himself, thinking himself 
 great. This is just what men are doing all 
 the time. Jesus says the first step into His 
 kingdom is to get rid of all this self-esteem, 
 this vanity, this pride, this complexity of mo- 
 tive, this duplicity, and become in God's eyes 
 again as a little, guileless, teachable child. 
 
 Jesus must also have been thinking of the 
 faith element in childhood, for faith was the 
 fundamental article of His philosophy of life. 
 And faith in his parents, in men and women 
 everywhere, in the general goodness of the 
 world, is the foundation of the child's life. 
 This faith is so absolute that it is unconscious, 
 as most great truths are. Jesus says that this 
 simple, childlike faith in the heavenly Father 
 — absolute trust in His providence, so that one 
 can go out and do His work in the world as the 
 little child does his work and play, believing 
 that the Father will feed one as the child knows
 
 252 The Challenge 
 
 his parents will feed him — this is the first great 
 article of faith in the Christian's creed. To 
 the child the world is good, and moves out into 
 goodness. It is not an easy faith to keep, 
 especially in these days. But Jesus kept it, and 
 those who can keep it are the happy folk. 
 Beware the day when, through disillusion- 
 ment, one becomes blase, sceptical of life's 
 goodness, and old. 
 
 One of the most outstanding traits of the 
 child is his zest for living, the eagerness with 
 which he greets the day. New every morning 
 is the world, and brighter and fresher than it 
 was yesterday. Life is an alluring thing. 
 Each day holds out more promise than any 
 day that has ever been. There is no living in 
 the past, no thought that life has yielded its 
 best. The child's golden age is never behind it; 
 it is always in to-morrow. Jesus knew that 
 this general attitude toward life was absolutely 
 necessary to any rich, full, advancing life. 
 That it was not only the only joy that lasted, 
 but was the one thing that kept the world 
 young and sweet. Such men are the salt of the 
 earth, the light of the world. What a joy it 
 was to know Munger, Smiley, Collyer, Cuyler, 
 Hale — men who kept this childlike zest of liv- 
 ing to the end ; men who at seventy and eighty
 
 Jesus' Test of Discipleship 253 
 
 were as interested in the moving world and 
 taking as much part in it as those of thirty and 
 forty ! 
 
 There are other traits of childhood one 
 might mention which were undoubtedly in 
 Christ's mind at this time. The child is eager 
 to learn, full of curiosity, which, kept through 
 later life, becomes eagerness for knowledge. 
 The child is always creating something. Did 
 one ever know a child who was not building 
 castles with his blocks, whole towns and walled 
 cities when on the beach, tunnels and railroads 
 out of scraps of wood and iron? This creative 
 instinct persists in some men, and they are the 
 world's benefactors. Most of us lose it, and 
 live half-lives. 
 
 But one thing Jesus must surely have been 
 thinking about when He put the little child upon 
 His knee and said, " Here is the real Christian." 
 The child believes in brotherhood — real 
 brotherhood. He does not talk it, as we do, 
 bue he lives it, as we do not. There is no trace 
 of race prejudice in the child. He plays with 
 Italian and Japanese children, with rich and 
 poor, dirty and clean, and they are all one to 
 him. Race prejudice, class distinctions, na- 
 tional animosities are all educated into the 
 child. It is the parents who make of the
 
 254. The Challenge 
 
 children haters of their brothers. If all the 
 parents could be killed off and the children left 
 to grow up uninstructed by them, there would 
 probably not be a vestige of ill feeling left 
 between Germans and French, Japanese and 
 Americans. A great Frenchman said to us 
 on the eve of the European war : " This hatred 
 between Germans and French is all a cultivated, 
 artificial, imparted thing. I have watched 
 German and French children playing together 
 in Alsace on the border line, and they were 
 all unconscious of any hatreds whatever. But 
 as soon as they are old enough to understand 
 anything, the governments and the parents of 
 both nations begin systematic endeavour to 
 instil hatred of their neighbours in their 
 breasts." Neither race nor nationality had any 
 interest for Jesus. He knew they were arti- 
 ficial things and provocative of strife. He 
 wanted His disciples to rise above all these 
 things into the kingdom, into the brotherhood 
 of all aliens, and it is just there that the child 
 lives.
 
 XXVII 
 SOME RAYS OF HOPE 
 
 THERE is no doubt but that a great 
 despondency rests upon most people 
 who are doing any thinking in these 
 days, or who have any heart, or who are 
 concerned over the estabhshment of the king- 
 dom of Christ. The Dark Ages could not 
 have been any darker than are ours. We can- 
 not blame any one for feeling discouraged, 
 neither have we any of those words of shallow 
 optimism which come from certain preachers 
 and editors who lack both vision and capacity 
 to enter into the sorrows of the world. Who 
 can help feeling despondent who really pauses 
 and thinks : Europe committing physical, politi- 
 cal and moral suicide; hatreds drowning out 
 all true religious sentiment and instinct; all 
 the money both of to-day and the future in 
 Europe being taken from religion, education 
 and reform to be used in human slaughter; all 
 the papers from England deploring lack of 
 interest in religion ; in our own land the con- 
 
 255
 
 256 The Challenge 
 
 tagion of war and militarism from Europe 
 possessing us, so that we have ministers of the 
 Lord of love, forgiveness, good-will, brother- 
 hood, screaming as loud as have our European 
 brothers for the last ten years for arms and 
 war and revenge; along with this the hunger 
 and crying of a million starving children of 
 Europe, whose sufferings apparently have no 
 deterrent effect upon the war makers and war 
 lovers of the nations. ' 
 
 But in the midst of all this darkness now 
 and then a ray of light shines, a sign of hope, 
 a little triumph of Christianity that makes one 
 feel that darkness is not over the face of the 
 world forever, and that those who stand for 
 righteousness, justice and good-will still have 
 some grounds for faith. There are two or 
 three of these rays of hope, which are just 
 now shining and which should greatly cheer 
 us who are striving for the kingdom. 
 
 The first of these is the triumph of the prison 
 reform movement. For that is what the rein- 
 statement of Thomas Mott Osborne as warden 
 of Sing Sing really means. The dastardly 
 attack upon Mr. Osborne by the old prison 
 ring, the group of those who saw graft, fat 
 contracts and big commissions passing from 
 their hands, and by the other group of those^
 
 Some Rays of Hope 257 
 
 who believe in the old, vindictive eye-for-eye- 
 tooth-for-tooth punishment of criminals, was 
 not chiefly or solely an attack upon Mr. Os- 
 borne, but upon the whole idea of Christian 
 treatment of criminals. Indeed, sooner or 
 later, all these attempts to check and hinder 
 the new ideals of redemption as over against 
 revenge, whether it be in application to in- 
 dividual or national relationships, are blows 
 at the introduction of Christ methods into 
 human affairs. There is nothing that is ever 
 so much resisted, nothing that so angers the 
 stand-pat, respectable portion of society so 
 much, as the endeavour to apply the teachings 
 and ideals of Christ to a new realm of life, 
 a new sphere of human activity. Progress 
 largely consists in adding the triumph of these 
 ideals to one sphere of life, and then going on 
 to fight for them in another. 
 
 The fundamental philosophy of the prison 
 system has been threefold : first, that the crimi- 
 nal should get back what he gave, punishment 
 to fit the crime; secondly, that punishment 
 should be of such a nature as should deter 
 others from crime ; thirdly, that society should 
 be protected from the criminal. The first 
 principle is, of course, utterly barbarous, that 
 of revenge; the second has never worked, for
 
 258 The Challenge 
 
 there is not the slightest indication that the 
 severe punishment of one man ever kept other 
 men from criminal acts; and the third principle 
 has, instead of protecting society, been its 
 worst menace, for our prisons have invariably 
 succeeded in sending out their inmates more 
 hostile to society than when they entered. 
 
 Now along comes a group of people, such 
 leaders as Samuel Barrows, Thomas Mott 
 Osborne, George W. Kirchwey, Madeleine Z. 
 Doty and John Galsworthy, who demand 
 nothing more nor less than that the Christian 
 principles be applied to the treatment of 
 prisoners. What these principles are can be 
 determined by one glance at the Gospels. 
 Jesus' every word expresses them; in every 
 contact with sinful people He expressed them, 
 namely : that the duty of society to the criminal 
 was to redeem him, and that the only way to 
 protect society was to make the evil people 
 over into good members of it. The first prin- 
 ciple has come to be recognized as the essence 
 of religion; the second as good common sense 
 and the only practical method of protecting 
 society. Mr. Osborne started in to apply these 
 methods at Sing Sing with a thoroughness 
 never before exemplified, although experiments 
 had been begun in many quarters. Mr. Os-
 
 Some Rays of Hope 259 
 
 borne's success was wonderful. It was too 
 great. It stirred the resentment of the old 
 crowd who had lived on the prisons; it awoke 
 the antagonism of the politicians, it frightened 
 those who always resist the application of 
 Christianity to a new sphere of life. But the 
 new ideals have triumphed. Mr. Osborne was 
 merely the representative of a great cause. It 
 was the cause which was on trial and the cause 
 has won. More widely than ever the redemp- 
 tive idea will be applied, and Mr. Osborne's 
 contention that prisons are churches, hospitals 
 and schools, not charnel houses, and that the 
 best way to protect society is to send out men 
 with good-will toward it, will be maintained. 
 Another ray of hope is the stand the Presi- 
 dent has taken on the Mexican situation and 
 that so many of the American people stood so 
 splendidly behind him. Mr. Wilson has taken 
 the same attitude toward Mexico that Mr. 
 Osborne has taken toward Sing Sing, the 
 Christian attitude, that the thing to do to the 
 criminal is not to lambaste him, not to starve 
 him, not to kill him, not to punish him simply 
 for the sake of punishing him, but to redeem 
 him and win his good-will. Certain Mexicans 
 — of the irresponsible part of the population 
 — ^have made raids into this country. A few
 
 260 The Challenge 
 
 Americans have lost their lives in Mexico. 
 Some American property has been unprotected. 
 It has been difficult to persuade Mr. Carranza 
 to work in concert with the American army to 
 capture the brigands and restore order. As a 
 result of all this, the exploiters, the yellow 
 journals, the militarists and the war-lovers 
 about the country have been working night and 
 day to get us to go to war against Mexico, 
 and have spared no toil and no lies to bring 
 about invasion. 
 
 Such invasion would, of course, work 
 for Mexico just what the old Sing Sing did 
 for its inmates — harden the heart, arouse last- 
 ing and bitter hatred, fasten the resolve upon 
 Mexico to get even with us at the first oppor- 
 tunity, and help no one but the grafters back 
 of the invasion. Mr. Wilson has seen this 
 in regard to Mexico just as Mr. Osborne did 
 for Sing Sing and has come out splendidly for 
 the Christian procedure just at a time when it 
 looked as though nothing in the world would 
 hold us back from war. His superb words 
 have been the greatest encouragement of any- 
 thing in these dark days. The fact, too, that so 
 many ministers — one would naturally suppose 
 that all ministers would take the Christian 
 point of view, but they have not, for some have
 
 Some Rays of Hope 261 
 
 been silent, and some have even upheld the 
 war crowd — teachers, business men and work- 
 ingmen immediately wrote and wired the 
 President to remain firm in his Christian 
 course was a great encouragement in these 
 days, when the war fever holds the whole 
 world in its grasp. The " New York Evening 
 Sun " of June 29, on the day the freed Ameri- 
 can prisoners reached the border, said: 
 " Hundreds of telegrams were delivered to the 
 White House this morning urging the Presi- 
 dent to take all possible steps for peace with 
 Mexico. Many of the telegrams suggested that 
 the United States ought to be willing to arbi- 
 trate the questions in dispute. White House 
 officials seemed tO' regard the great bulk of 
 telegrams as a pretty marked indication of the 
 feeling of the country." Several delegations 
 went from mass meetings held in New York 
 to see the President and hundreds of the leading 
 clergymen of the nation wrote Mr. Wilson. 
 We hear that the President was very grateful 
 for all this backing, and that it has greatly 
 encouraged him in the determination to do the 
 Christian thing in Mexico instead of the old 
 military, futile thing. What a throb of hope 
 went through the heart of the Christians of 
 the country when Mr. Wilson uttered those
 
 262 The Challenge 
 
 great words before the New York Press Club 
 at one of its recent meetings! What an en- 
 couragement to all believers in the new way 
 and in the application of Christianity to inter- 
 national affairs are the equally great words 
 recently uttered at Detroit: 
 
 " I was trying to expound in another place 
 the other day the long way and the short way 
 to get together. The long way is to fight. 
 I have heard some gentlemen say that they 
 want to help Mexico, and the way they propose 
 to help her is tO' overwhelm her with force. 
 That is the long way to help Mexico, as well 
 as the wrong way. Because after the fighting 
 you have a nation full of justified suspicions 
 and animated by well-founded hostility and 
 hatred. And then will you help them? Then 
 will you establish cordial business relationships 
 with them ? Then will you go on as neighbours 
 and establish their confidence? On the con- 
 trary, you will have shut every door as if it 
 were of steel against you. What makes 
 Mexico suspicious of us is that she does not 
 believe as yet that we want to serve her. She 
 believes we want to possess her. And she has 
 justification for the belief in the way in which 
 some of our fellow-citizens have tried to ex- 
 ploit her privileges and possessions. For my
 
 Some Rays of Hope 263 
 
 part, I will not serve the ambitions of those 
 gentlemen, but I will try to serve all America, 
 so far as intercourse with Mexico is concerned, 
 by trying to serve Mexico herself." 
 
 That is real Christianity! There is no more 
 justification for a nation living to itself than 
 for an individual, and the individual who lives 
 for himself is not a Christian, whatever else 
 he is! How these words stand out amid the 
 welter of the world, amid the sordid voices of 
 selfish kings. How infinitely above such a 
 sentence as " The first duty of a nation is to 
 protect the lives of its citizens " stands this 
 word of Mr. Wilson, " I will try to serve all 
 America ... by trying to serve Mexico 
 herself." 
 
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 A frank, earnest inquiry into, and discussion of, the prob- 
 lems of religious creed and conduct which vex and peiplcA 
 believer and unbeliever alike. The author displays a marked 
 ability to take up these questions and examine them with 
 sagacity, impartiality and an optimistic, triumphant faith.
 
 PRAYER, DEVOTIONAL, Etc. 
 
 /■ STUART HO LP EN, M.A. Auth.r.fTh.uuof fuIUtPut. 
 
 fit," "The Prici 0/ Pnvtr," tic. 
 
 The Confidence of Faith 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 A choice body of sermonic material, the general trend and 
 theme of which is the necessity that has arisen in these later 
 days, for a steady, deeply-rooted confidence in things that are 
 eternal. The troublous days through which the world is now 
 passing, has brought perplexity and sorrow to many loving 
 hearts. For all such, as well as for believers everywhere, Mr. 
 Holden's new book breathes a message of solace and enheart- 
 enment. 
 
 fF. H. GRIFFITH THOMAS, D.D. Wyeliffe ColUee 
 
 —————— ^~-^—~—^~~——— ~~ Toronto, Canada 
 
 Grace and Power 
 
 Some Aspects of the Spiritual Life. Cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "A thoughtful, well written body of devotional writing. 
 The ground covered js that of the possibilities of the Chris- 
 tian life, of the provision made for their realization, and of 
 the protective grace flung around the believer, enabling one 
 to hold fast to his ideals. — Christian Work. 
 
 AUGUSTA ALBERTSON 
 
 Through Gates of Pearl 
 
 A Vision of the Heaven Life. Cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "A fountain of fresh spiritual strength. It is a book big 
 with promise, large with the foundation of a great hope; it 
 appeals to the reason as well as to the heart, and it interprets 
 Scripture in a satisfying way accomplished by few books writ- 
 ten by lay-writers." — Book News. 
 
 J. M. C AMPBELL , D.D. Author of" Cnw OU AUne with Mt" 
 "Thi Heart of the Gospel," itc. 
 
 Prayer in Its Present-Day Aspects 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Here is a book written to meet a situation unparalled in 
 history, to restate certain aspects of an eternal truth in the 
 light of the conditions and demands of these perilous times. 
 Prayer as related to the conception of God, the conception of 
 m.an, bodily healing, spiritual force, natural phenomena and 
 war, are some of the issues dealt with by Dr. Campbell. A 
 timely and valuable treatise on the highest function of the soul. 
 
 JAMES G. K. McCLURE, D.D. 
 
 Intercessory Prayer a migh^ty meansot 
 
 New Edition. i2mo, cloth, net 50c. 
 
 A new edition of this helpful work of glowing faith whidi 
 shows the power and potency of prayer, furnishing examples 
 of Christian experienpe and convictions. "Above all, it is 
 true, practical, useful and inspiring."— C/wirtiow Work.
 
 SERMONS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 / H JOWETT DD Fifth Avenut Presbyterian church 
 
 — : New Yori 
 
 The Whole Armour of God 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 "This popular preacher is, not only by his own people, but 
 also by large ntimbers of others, considered the very greatest 
 preacher. He is possessed of a rare and perhaps unequalled 
 combination of the very qualities which captivate. _ His 
 thoughts are always expressed in the simplest possible diction, 
 so that their crystalline clearness makes them at once appre- 
 hended." — Christian Evangelist. 
 
 EDGAR DE WITT JONES Author ./ "The Inner CircW 
 
 The Wisdom of God's Fools 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 A volume of discourses, displaying the same facility for the 
 right word and fitting phrase which marked the author's pre- 
 vious work. Mr. Jones preaches sermons that read well — a 
 not at all common quality. He is a thinker too; and brings 
 to his thinking a lucidity and attractiveness which make his 
 presentation of great truths an artistic, as well as an inspiring 
 achievement. A note of deep spirituality is everywhere mani- 
 fest. 
 
 FREDERICK F. SHANNON Pastorof the Reformed- Church-on. 
 — — — ^ the-Heiehts, Brooltlyn, tf, Y. 
 
 The Enchanted Universe 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Mr. Shannon's reputation as an eloquent and forceful 
 preacher is still further enhanced by his new volume of ser- 
 mons. The fervid, glowing character of the popular Brooklyn 
 pastor's appeals, make the reading of his latest book, not only 
 an inspiring, but a fascinating exercise. 
 
 GEORGE JV. TRUETT,D.D. Pastor First Baptist 
 
 ' • ■ Church, Dallas, Tex. 
 
 We Would See Jesus and Other Sermons 
 
 Compiled and edited by J. B. CranfiU. Net $1.00. 
 
 "One of the greatest — many would say the greatest — of all 
 the world's preachers to-day. It ranks high among the ex- 
 tant books of sermons, past and present, and deserves a place 
 in millions of homes." — Biblical Recorder. 
 
 BISHOP CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 
 
 A Neglected Power 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Thoroughly evangelical in spirit, refreshing in Biblical 
 tTuth and abounding in helpful ministrations for every day 
 life." — Evangelical Messenger.
 
 SERMONS— LECTURES— ADDRESSES 
 
 JAMES L. GORDON, P.P. 
 
 All's Love Yet All's Law 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 "Discloses the secret of Dr. Gordon's eloquence — fresh, 
 and intimate presentations of truth which always keep close 
 to reality. Dr. Gordon also seems to have the world's litera- 
 ture at his command. A few of the titles will give an idea 
 of the scope of his preaching. 'The L,aw of Truth: The 
 Science of Universal Relationships'; 'The L,aw of Inspiration: 
 The Vitalizing Power of Truth'; 'The Law of Vibration'; 
 'The Law of Beauty: The Spiritualizing Power of Thought'; 
 The Soul'* Guarantee of Immortality." — Christian Work. 
 BISHOP tRANCIS J. McCONNELL Cole Lectures 
 
 Personal Christianity 
 
 Instruments and Ends in the Kingdom of God. 
 I2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 The latest volume of the famous "Cole Lectures" delivered 
 at Vanderbilt University. The subjects are: I. Tie Per- 
 sonal in Christianity. II. The Instrumental in Christianity. 
 III. The Mastery of World-Views. IV. The Invigoration 
 of Morality. V. The Control of Social Advance. VI. 
 "Every Kindred, and People, and Tongue." 
 NEWELL D WIGHT HILLIS, P.P. 
 
 Lectures and Orations by Henry Ward 
 Beecher 
 
 Collected by Newell Dwight Hillis. i2mo, net $1,20. 
 
 It is fitting that one who is noted for the grace, finish and 
 eloquence of his own addresses should choose those of hia 
 predecessor which he deems worthy to be preserved in a 
 bound volume as the most desirable, the most characteristic 
 and the most dynamic utterances of America's greatest pulpit 
 orator. 
 
 JV. L. JVATKINSON, D.D. 
 
 The Moral Paradoxes of St. Paul 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "These sermons are marked, even to greater degree than 
 is usual with their talented preacher, by clearness, force and 
 illustrative aptness. He penetrates unerringly to the heart 
 of Paul's paradoxical settings forth of great truths, and il- 
 lumines them with pointed comment and telling illustration. 
 The sermons while thoroughly practical are garbed in strik- 
 ing and eloquent sentences, terse, nervous, attention-com- 
 pelling." — Christian World. 
 
 LEN G. BROUGHTON, D.D. 
 
 The Prodigal and Others 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "The discourses are vital, bright, interesting and helpful. 
 It makes a preacher feel like preaching once more on this 
 exhaustless parable, and will prove helpful to all young people 
 — and older ones, too. Dr. Broughton does not hesitate to 
 make his utterances striking and entertaining by the intro- 
 duction of numerous appropriate and homely stories and illus- 
 trations. He reaches the heart." — Review and Expositor.
 
 ESSAYS, STUDIES. ADDRESSES 
 
 PROF. HUGH BLACK 
 
 The New World 
 
 i6mo, cioth, net $i.oo. 
 
 "The old order changeth, bringing in the new." To a re- 
 view of our changing world — religious, scientific, social — Hugh 
 Black brings that interpretative skill and keen insight which 
 distinguishes all his writings and thinking. Especially does he 
 face the problem of the present-day unsettlement and unrest 
 in religious beliefs with sanity and courage, furnishing in this. 
 as in other aspects of his enquiry, a new viewpoint and clari- 
 fied outlook. 
 
 S. D. GORDON 
 
 Quiet Talks on John's Gospel 
 
 As Presented in the Gospel of John. Cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Mr. Gordon halts his reader here and there, at some pre- 
 cious text, some outstanding instance of God's tenderness, 
 much as a traveller lingers for refreshment at a wayside 
 spring, and bids us hearken as God's wooing note is heard 
 pleading for consecrated service. An enheartening book, and 
 a restful. A book of the winning Voice, of outstretched 
 Hands. 
 
 ROBERT F. HORTON, P.P. 
 
 The Springs of Joy and Other Addresses 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Scholarly, reverent, penetrating, human. The product of 
 a mature mind and of a genuine and sustained religious ex- 
 perience. The message of a thinker and a saint, which will 
 be found to be very helpful." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 BISHOP WALTER R. LAMBUTH 
 
 Winning the World for Chri^ 
 
 A Study of Dynamics. Cole Lectures for 1915. 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 This Lecture-Course is a spirited contribution to the dy- 
 namics of Missions. It presents a study of the sources of in- 
 spiration and power in the lives of missionaries, native arid 
 foreign, who with supreme abandon gave themselves utterly 
 to the work to which they were called. 
 
 FREDERICK F. SHANNON, P.P. 
 
 The New Personality and Other Sermons 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Mr. Shannon, pastor of the Reformed Church on the 
 Heights, Brooklyn, is possessed of lofty ideals, is purpose- 
 ful, more than ordinarily eloquent and has the undoubted 
 gifts of felicitous and epigrammatic expression. This new vol- 
 ume by the popular preacher is a contribution of distinct value 
 to current lermonic literature.
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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