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THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/christianequivalOOIyon 
 
THE CHRISTIAN 
 EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 D. Willard Lyon 
 
 Secretary of the Foreign Department ob 
 THE InternationalJCommittee oe 
 Young Men’s Christian Associations 
 
 New York : 124 East 28th Street 
 London : 47 Paternoster Row, E. C. 
 1915 
 
Copyright, 1915, by 
 
 The International Committee of Young Men’s 
 Christian Associations 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is meant to aid the fair-minded student in 
 his study of the problems involved in war. But war 
 will serve only as an illustration — tangible and vivid- — 
 of much that lies deeper. By seeking out the elemental 
 factors involved in the use of force, whether they mani- 
 fest themselves in international, civic, or social relations, 
 or in personal conduct, and by comparing them with the 
 principles of Jesus, we shall ever be discovering new 
 and far-reaching applications of these principles, and 
 thus new demonstrations of their validity and power. 
 
 The illuminating article which Professor James wrote 
 a few years ago on “The Moral Equivalent of War” will 
 be recognized as the source of our title, which, it is 
 scarcely necessary to say, is in no way intended to imply 
 that Christianity offers any possible equivalent for what 
 is evil in war. But if there is a moral equivalent for all 
 that is good in war, why may there not be a still more 
 perfect Christian equivalent which will include the moral 
 value in a greater spiritual good? Is there in the 
 teachings and spirit of Jesus any suggestion of an equiva- 
 lent which will produce in nations and races, as well as 
 in individuals, those virile and forceful qualities of char- 
 acter which war seems often to have brought to fruition ? 
 
 The underlying thoughts of Jesus have long been fer- 
 menting; in these latter days they refuse to be contained 
 within the wine-skins of commonly accepted international 
 
 3 
 
4 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 traditions. New wine-skins must be created if the good 
 wine is not to be lost. The call today is to larger and 
 more conclusive thinking regarding the application of the 
 principles of Jesus to modern international and inter- 
 racial relationships, and in response to this call we now 
 summon ourselves to a united study of present-day prob- 
 lems. 
 
 Thanks are due to all who have contributed to the 
 thought of these pages. I wish especially to acknowledge 
 my indebtedness to my associates, Gilbert A. Beaver, Fred- 
 erick M. Harris, and Harrison S. Elliott, and to my sister, 
 Mrs. H. B. Sharman, for their painstaking criticisms and 
 suggestions. 
 
 D, W. L. 
 
 New York, N. Y. 
 
 February 15, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I— WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? page 
 
 The justification of destruction ii 
 
 The immoralities of war 13 
 
 The burden of proof 14 
 
 A moral purpose 15 
 
 The springs of action 15 
 
 Selfish ambition 16 
 
 Greed 17 
 
 Hatred . 18 
 
 Retaliation 18 
 
 Who will cast the first stone? 19 
 
 Chapter H— WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF 
 
 FORCE? 
 
 Offense and defense 26 
 
 A double standard 27 
 
 The meaning of “unselfishness” 28 
 
 The underlying principle 30 
 
 The functions of force 31 
 
 The wider application ......... 32 
 
 The “frontier” stage 33 
 
 The law of cooperation 34 
 
 A federation of the world 35 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter III— WHY LOOK ESPECIALLY TO 
 JESUS FOR LIGHT ON THE WAR PROB- 
 
 A warlike race 42 
 
 Military hopes 43 
 
 The temptation to be a military leader ... 43 
 
 The crowning issue 45 
 
 A courageous decision 46 
 
 A fresh significance 47 
 
 A new world-empire 48 
 
 Universal values 50 
 
 Chapter IV— WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN 
 
 WAR? 
 
 The antidote for degeneracy 58 
 
 A promoter of culture 59 
 
 A test of national character 60 
 
 The fascination of war 61 
 
 The virtues classified 62 
 
 The case against peace 63 
 
 The demands of maturity 64 
 
 Moral equivalent of war 65 
 
 Conscription of labor 66 
 
 Work the great educator • 67 
 
 The impulse of a cause 68 
 
 A permanent cure 69 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 7 
 
 Chapter V— HAS JESUS A SOCIAL EQUIVA- 
 LENT OF WAR? PAGE 
 
 Jesus and the great social movement of the Jews 76 
 
 An antidote for war 77 
 
 The underlying principle 7^ 
 
 Invincible goodwill .... 79 
 
 The new movement 80 
 
 The Kingdom in modern life 81 
 
 The campaign ahead 82 
 
 Chapter VI— HAS JESUS AN EQUIVALENT OF 
 WAR FOR THE INDIVIDUAL? 
 
 The discipline of Jesus . 88 
 
 His fundamental choice ........ 89 
 
 His controlling motive ........ 90 
 
 His manliness 90 
 
 The followers of Jesus . 91 
 
 The discipline of the will ....... 92 
 
 The control of the emotions ...... 93 
 
 The development of the mind ...... 94 
 
 A spiritual conflict . . ....... 95 
 
 The influence of the Cause, . 96 
 
 The immediate duty ......... 97 
 
 The great adventure 98 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 105 
 
 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE WAR 
 
 PROBLEM 149 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 The world is now in a position as never before to appre- 
 ciate the inexorable destructiveness of war. Shells which 
 can annihilate battalions, machine guns that mow men 
 down by the acre, and engines of assault that can batter 
 a city to pieces at a distance of eight or nine miles, make 
 Napoleon’s little cannon, shooting across the narrow valley 
 at Waterloo, seem like mere toys. Property worth millions 
 is crumpled or sunk in less time than it afterwards takes 
 to tell the story, and priceless works of art are ruined by 
 the forward sweep of battle. Nor do the effects end at 
 the front: whole nations are bowed in sorrow and bear 
 an immeasurable load of suffering; even in the remotest 
 parts of the Orient, poverty pinches a little harder be- 
 cause the Occident is fighting. 
 
 The justification of destruction 
 
 But can the seriousness of these effects be considered 
 in itself a reason for condemning war? We are not in 
 the habit of regarding all killing as murder. The police- 
 man on his beat is expected to shoot the violent criminal 
 who offers complete defiance to the law. If circumstances 
 clearly indicate that in no other way could he reasonably 
 
 II 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 have hoped to check the criminal in his course and bring 
 him to justice, the policeman, far from being held guilty 
 of crime, is commended for his fearless and faithful dis- 
 charge of a perilous duty. If a band of desperadoes 
 comes crashing into a city -where the police force is 
 inadequate, and private citizens join in the attempt to 
 rout and capture them, no court of justice would hold such 
 intrepid citizens guilty of murder if, in the defense of 
 their homes, they should kill a raider. The right of per- 
 sonal self-defense is likewise upheld by common law, so 
 that a man who enters a private house by force may be 
 shot down like a dog. Since there are circumstances in 
 which the taking of the life of individuals is not con- 
 sidered wrong, we can scarcely escape the question 
 whether there may not sometimes be conditions which 
 will also justify the wholesale slaughter wrought by an 
 army. 
 
 To be sure this question has been answered in both 
 ways by men of conscience and intelligence, but the ma- 
 jority of thoughtful people would hesitate to give an 
 unqualified negative. The wasteful destruction of prop- 
 erty and the immense weight of human suffering inevita- 
 bly caused by war can hardly be cited as positive proof 
 that war is always wrong. Property is, after all, mere 
 matter, and men who count it as worthless for the sake 
 of spiritual gain are surely to be ranked above the world’s 
 time-servers. Human suffering, too, is essential to prog- 
 ress in the affairs of men, and the world would lose 
 much of its best heritage if enterprises were to be aban- 
 doned because of the pain they cause. How far, there- 
 fore, can we allow the external effects of war to decide 
 our attitude toward it? 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 13 
 
 The immoralities of war 
 
 Few would deny that many immoralities do follow in the 
 wake of war. Channing unhesitatingly declared war to 
 be “the concentration of all human crimes. . . . Un- 
 der its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, 
 perfidy, rapacity, and lust. . . . The field of battle is 
 a theatre, got up at immense cost, for the exhibition of 
 crime on a grand scale.” ‘ A sober and dispassionate esti- 
 mate of war has been placed on record by the English 
 historian, Lecky: “War is not, and never can be, a mere 
 passionless discharge of a painful duty. Its essence, and 
 a main condition of its success, is to kindle into fierce 
 exercise among great masses of men the destructive and 
 combative passions — passions as fierce and as malevolent 
 as that with which the hound hunts the fox to its death or 
 the tiger springs upon its prey. Destruction is one of 
 its chief ends. Deception is one of its chief means; and 
 one of the great arts of skilful generalship is to deceive 
 in order to destroy. Whatever other elements may min- 
 gle with and dignify war, this at least is never absent; 
 and however reluctantly men may enter into war, how- 
 ever conscientiously they may endeavor to avoid it, they 
 must know that when the scene of carnage has once 
 opened, these things must be not only accepted and con- 
 doned, but stimulated, encouraged and applauded.” ® Gen- 
 eral Sherman is said to have epitomized his experience 
 in these words : “I confess without shame that I am tired 
 and sick of the war. Its glory is all moonshine. . . . 
 War is hell.”* * Whether Sherman had in mind physical 
 or moral evils, it will generally be conceded that war gives 
 
 ^ William Ellery Channing, “Discourses on War,” p. 81. 
 ’ W. E. H. Lecky, “The Map of Life,” p. 92. 
 
 * Quoted in “The Passing of War,” p. 248. 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 men license, and stimulates them to commit certain acts 
 which in private life would be punished as criminal, such 
 as : deception, robbery, murder, and rape. 
 
 The burden of proof 
 
 But the question still remains. Are we willing to con- 
 demn war because of the immoralities which grow out 
 of it? The mere presence of these obvious evils is an 
 insecure ground upon which to base our condemnation. 
 While they establish a strong presumption against it, they 
 do not prove that war is wrong; for evil, or the tempta- 
 tion to evil, is to be found in every human activity. In 
 the service of mankind, for example, otherwise beneficent 
 enterprises sometimes become so honeycombed with ambi- 
 tion or jealousy as utterly to miss their mark. Even the 
 exalted practise of prayer, as James has pointed out, will 
 be made futile by a desire for self-indulgence, or, as Jesus 
 has shown, will be utterly degraded by a cherished hatred, 
 which is nothing less than murder.^ 
 
 Moreover, such terrible destruction of life and property, 
 and the opening up of such wide temptations to mean and 
 vicious action, forces us either to look for a justification 
 commensurate with the damage of war, or to seek the 
 elimination of the evils themselves. But can they be 
 eliminated ? Some of the evils are so bound up with war 
 as to seem inevitable; to eliminate the others would so 
 radically transform the code and conditions of strife as 
 to render its prosecution next to impossible. Must we 
 not, then, give candid attention to those who maintain that 
 war is only to be undertaken in the very extremity of in- 
 ternational difficulties ? Dare we be deaf even to those who 
 
 ^ Cf. James iv. 3 and Matt. v. 21-24. 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 15 
 
 feel that not a single reason ever offered for war is ade- 
 quate to justify the scattering of its evils abroad in the 
 earth? Surely the burden of proof rests with those who 
 would justify war. 
 
 A moral purpose 
 
 Specific wars of recent years have been defended 
 largely on the ground of their purpose. It is manifest 
 that the moral sense of men today revolts at the thought 
 of a war with a purpose avowedly immoral. No nation 
 that will wage war with reckless disregard of moral ob- 
 jective can long expect to remain in the esteem of the 
 world. History records no modern war in which the 
 moral purpose has not been put in the forefront of every 
 appeal for the cooperation of patriots or the sympathy 
 of neutrals. Sometimes the declared purpose has been to 
 establish a principle, or to overthrow an evil ; sometimes 
 to right a wrong, or to defend the helpless: but never 
 has it appeared as a desire to accomplish an unworthy 
 end. Where wrong purposes lurk, they are sedulously 
 kept from sight by plausible logic and shrewd diplomacy; 
 for only when the people are convinced of a worthy pur- 
 pose will they rise to that degree of courage and devotion 
 essential to the success of any war. 
 
 The springs of action 
 
 Difficulties multiply for the sensitive conscience. In 
 present-day warfare a moral purpose is claimed by each 
 nation involved. It is exceedingly difficult, even after 
 the lapse of time, to weigh motives justly; and during 
 the disturbance of war, this is quite impossible. More- 
 over, we no longer allow that the end justifies the means. 
 
i6 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Furthermore, the apparent flimsiness of many of the ex- 
 cuses offered for the wars of history is enough to arouse 
 a suspicion of insincerity; and the ultimate outcome even 
 of wars waged in behalf of some high end, shakes our 
 confidence in the ability of men to achieve altruistic ends 
 by the power of the sword. 
 
 It begins to appear, therefore, that the answer to the 
 great question of our chapter will not be found in any 
 categorical statement based on apparent effects or avowed 
 objects. The line which divides right and wrong is not 
 so easily visible to the unaided eye. We must go, as 
 Jesus did, to the springs of human action, and in this 
 realm He alone is a trustworthy guide. By the very con- 
 ditions which He laid down for human progress whether 
 in His Sermon on the Mount or in the principles which 
 controlled His own decisions. He has challenged all men 
 everywhere to test the moral values of life by inward 
 motive. What motives for war must we, therefore, in the 
 light of the teaching and example of Jesus, always and 
 unqualifiedly hold in condemnation? 
 
 Selfish ambition 
 
 As the disciples approached the period in Jesus’ life 
 which they thought would be the beginning of an earthly 
 reign of great glory, they quarreled among themselves 
 as to who should occupy the positions of highest honor 
 and greatest power.^ Two brothers, more politic though 
 perhaps younger than their associates, instigated their 
 mother to ask Jesus in their behalf for the two places of 
 chief preferment.'* Jesus, recognizing the motives not 
 only of the two but also of the remaining ten whose jeal- 
 
 ^ Luke xxii. 24. 
 
 2 Matt. XX. 20, 21; Cf. Mark x. 35-37. 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 17 
 
 ousy had been aroused, declared such ambition to be no 
 different from that which leads the rulers of the world 
 into ways of pomp and tyranny/ “Not so shall it be 
 among you He said, “but whosoever would become great 
 among you shall be your servant; and whosoever would 
 be first among you shall be your bondservant.” * * What 
 plainer proof do we need that the ambitious lust for power 
 is regarded by Jesus as utterly wrong? To the extent, 
 therefore, that war is due to such lust must all Christians 
 unite in condemning it. But here lies the insidious temp- 
 tation to misjudge the motives of others. It is so easy 
 to suspect rulers and statesmen of selfish ambition, that 
 we need constantly to be on our guard lest we do them 
 injustice. Yet we dare not fail to take an unequivocal 
 stand on the principle for which Jesus Himself firmly 
 stood, that the lust of power is essentially debasing. 
 
 Greed 
 
 The old law dearly declared it wrong for men not only 
 to disregard the property rights of others, but also to 
 cherish a desire to do so.® But it did not show why such 
 acts are sinful. Jesus revealed the social principle on 
 which the law against covetousness and theft was based, 
 when He said : “All things therefore whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto 
 them : for this is the law and the prophets.” * In this 
 age of interdependence the nations of the world are less 
 likely than formerly to pursue a war with such directly 
 selfish motives as would be implied in territorial aggran- 
 
 ^Matt- XX. 24, 2s; Cf. Mark x. 42; Luke xxii 25. 
 
 ** Matt. XX. 26, 27 (Marg. R. V.). ® Exodus xx. 15, 17. 
 
 * Matt. vii. iz. 
 
i8 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 dizement or the confiscation of property.’ But as the 
 natures of men have not changed, we must not be sur- 
 prised to find mingled in the spirit of modern warfare 
 these hurtful and selfish desires, which in the light of 
 Jesus’ teaching we can regard only as wrong. 
 
 Hatred 
 
 The old law said, “Thou shalt not kill.”* The Jewish 
 tradition added, “Whosoever shall kill shall be in danger 
 of the judgment.”* And yet both law and tradition justi- 
 fied the avenger in pursuing his enemy to the death.’ But 
 Jesus made plain that the sin of killing is not determined 
 by the overt act but by the motive lying behind the act. 
 With incisive clearness He said; “Every one who is 
 angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judg- 
 ment.” ’ Hatred, therefore, is the elemental evil. If ever 
 a war is waged without hatred then may it be truly said 
 to be a holy war. But how can a follower of Jesus con- 
 done the sin of hatred? Must he not without qualifica- 
 tion condemn all those elements in war which grow out 
 of this passion? 
 
 M Retaliation 
 
 The old law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a 
 tooth,” * was doubtless based on the ethical good of pun- 
 ishment, which in early days was necessarily entrusted 
 more or less to individual initiative. In the time of Christ, 
 however, retribution was no longer a private function. 
 In the hands of an individual, what may once have been 
 
 1 See Supplementary Note II on “Military Power and National 
 Wealth.” 
 
 2 Exodus XX. 13. ’Matt. v. 21. * Deut. xix. 11-13. 
 
 ’Matt. V. 22. ® Exodus xxi. 24; Lev. xxiv. 19, 20; Deut. xix. 21. 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 19 
 
 proper retribution, had long since become pure retaliation. 
 The ethics of punishment implies the highest good of the 
 whole community, including that of the one who is pun- 
 ished. Not so with retaliation. It is rooted in selfishness 
 and is therefore contrary to the Golden Rule. 
 
 So Jesus unhesitatingly declared: “I say unto you. 
 Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee 
 on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”^ And 
 Paul interpreting His Master’s meaning wrote, “Avenge 
 not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath 
 of God: for it is written. Vengeance belongeth unto me; 
 I will recompense, saith the Lord. But if thine enemy 
 hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for 
 in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. 
 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.’” 
 All resistance, therefore, which is purely retaliatory, as, 
 of course, all aggression that partakes of the same nature, 
 is wholly at variance with the spirit of Christ. Wherever 
 we find the spirit of retaliation, whether in war or busi- 
 ness, followers of Jesus must hold it in condemnation. 
 
 Who will cast the first stone? 
 
 These four evil motives, at least, whenever present in 
 war make it evil. But they are by no means confined to 
 the day of battle. Selfish ambition, greed, hatred, and 
 retaliation cannot exist in war unless they have already 
 had lodgment in the hearts of some of the people. Those 
 who would cast stones of condemnation at war must first 
 see to it that they themselves are without sin. No one 
 can consistently pronounce against the evil of war until 
 
 ^ Matt. V. 3p. 
 
 ^ Romans xii. 19-21. 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 he has personally purged his own heart of those very 
 motives which, when multiplied by the million, make war 
 possible. In so far, then, as there is in anyone ambitious 
 lust for power, inordinate desire for what does not belong 
 to one, uncontrolled hatred, or any spirit of retaliation, in 
 so far is he guilty of the same sins which make war evil. 
 
 Those who live in countries at peace need especially 
 to be on their guard lest they take the Pharisaic attitude 
 and thank God that they are not like the people of the 
 other nations at war. Is there no wrong ambition or sel- 
 fish desire, is there no hateful or retaliatory spirit, in 
 their own national attitude? Have they been whole- 
 hearted in their condemnation of the evil passions which 
 come to explosion in time of war? If not, does it not 
 behoove them to take their share in the task of purging 
 out of political and social life all those forces which tend 
 to make men choose place and power rather than service, 
 sel-f-aggrandizement rather than unselfishness, retaliation 
 rather than friendliness, and hatred rather than love ? 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 William Ellery Channing, “Discourses on War.” 
 Walter Walsh, “The Moral Damage of War.” 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter I 
 
 What is the effect of war on the soldier? 
 
 In what ways does war develop strength in the soldier? 
 What evil passions does war have the tendency to de- 
 velop ? 
 
WHAT IS WRONG IN WAR? 
 
 21 
 
 What is the moral peril to a young man from the 
 country in going to war compared with that of his going 
 to a large city? 
 
 Does war tend to make the morally strong man stronger 
 or weaker ? 
 
 Taking it all in all, have the soldiers of your acquaint- 
 ance either in books or real life been made better or 
 worse by war? Why do you think so? 
 
 What is the effect of war upon the people of the warring 
 nationsf 
 
 What is the effect of war on internal crime? How do 
 you account for this? 
 
 What feelings does war develop among the people 
 which they would be ashamed to own in times of peace? 
 Under what conditions could a war be waged without 
 producing such feelings? 
 
 To what extent was the American war of independence 
 a moral blessing or a moral curse to the Colonists? 
 
 When is war wrong? 
 
 To what extent is it possible to eliminate from war 
 the evils of suffering and immorality? How far should 
 these lead us to condemn war? 
 
 Are there issues which cannot be settled except through 
 war? (See Supplementary Note XIII on “War and Na- 
 tional Existence.”) When a war is over are the issues 
 settled which caused the war? To what extent is the 
 arbitrament of war accepted as just and final by the 
 combatants ? 
 
 How far is “my country right or wrong” the cause 
 of war? 
 
22 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 What is the relation of women to war? 
 
 Why are women generally not expected to go to war? 
 Why is it manly to fight but unwomanly? 
 
 Is a just war possible? 
 
 What are the four tests of Jesus which can be applied 
 to determine whether a war is justifiable? In the light 
 of these tests, discuss whether recent wars were jus- 
 tifiable. 
 
 When is it right to wish your own nation to get ahead 
 of other nations? (See Supplementary Note H on “Mili- 
 tary Power and National Wealth”; Note VHI on “War 
 and the Expansion of Trade”; Note IX on “International 
 Trade Not Organized in National Units.”) 
 
 Are there circumstances under which a war for ter- 
 ritory is justifiable? 
 
 Can a man be a patriot and yet have no feelings of 
 unfriendliness or contempt or suspicion toward other 
 nations ? 
 
 To what extent is retaliation for wrongs done to your 
 own nation justifiable? To other nations? 
 
 How far is it practicable for the Golden Rule to be ap- 
 plied in the relationships between nations? (See 
 Supplementary Note VH on “William Penn’s Ex- 
 periment.”) 
 
 To what extent are the relationships of different na- 
 tionalities in the United States of America a test of the 
 possibility of the application of the Golden Rule to inter- 
 national relations? 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF 
 FORCE? 
 
 Although the evil in war is plainly evident, we need to 
 go further in our enquiry to discover whether after all 
 there may not be an ethical justification for some appeal 
 to force. Force is actually in constant use in our lives. 
 We devote much of it to the conquest of nature for the 
 good of mankind, and in this realm we have a common 
 conviction that so long as it is applied to a worthy end 
 it is right and good. But the use of force against a 
 fellow man is beset with many ethical perplexities. We 
 acknowledge that it is sometimes right that children 
 should be compelled to obey. We also feel confident that 
 there is a proper use of public force against unruly in- 
 dividuals, whose actions are a menace, or merely a vexa- 
 tion to others. But as we approach the larger relation- 
 ships we seem to lose confidence. We do not all feel 
 equally sure, for instance, how far the state should go 
 in compelling men to abstain from indulging their physical 
 appetites; nor are we quite clear to what extent men in 
 business can be forced to be honest. 
 
 Our perplexity increases when we consider interna- 
 tional relations. Men shrink from war not merely on 
 account of those horrors that are so revolting to every 
 finer instinct, or because they do not like to see the larger 
 
 25 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 part of their hard-earned taxes devoted to the support of 
 a system dependent on short-lived battleships and ex- 
 pensive arms soon outclassed. Most men feel that a rea- 
 sonable justification for a certain degree of war prepara- 
 tion must somehow be discovered. They confess that 
 they would have a sense of insecurity if the army and 
 navy were abolished. 
 
 Offense and defense 
 
 In looking for such a justification many men find men- 
 tal relief in the commonly acknowledged right of self- 
 defense. They build their theoi’y of the use of force 
 on two apparently simple propositions : offensive force 
 is always wrong, while defensive force is always right. 
 If only the Gordian knot could thus easily be severed, we 
 should truly be saved a great deal of perplexity. But 
 our problem is too complex, as we may soon realize, to 
 admit of any such short-cut solution. It is true that deep 
 in every heart is the instinct of self-defense. Most 
 of us, too, would gladly suffer personal injury for the 
 sake of protecting the helpless or innocent; and seldom 
 does any violence equal in intensity that of a mother 
 defending her child. And yet, in trying to determine 
 the right use of force by repudiating aggression, while 
 upholding defense, is it altogether easy to distinguish 
 between the two? 
 
 In an ordinary fight between two men, for instance, 
 what constitutes aggression? Is it the first blow or is 
 it what was said and done before a single blow was 
 struck? Or, does it lie still further back? Also, what 
 constitutes defense? Is it the act of parrying the actual 
 blow, or may it include the prevention of an anticipated 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 27 
 
 blow? At what point, then, does the defender become 
 the aggressor? Furthermore, what are the legitimate 
 objects of defense? Granting that a man has a right to 
 defend himself against an attack on his life, how much 
 does that right cover? Does it apply to occasions of 
 imminent and utter peril only, or may it include situations 
 which probably involve only slight personal harm ? Then, 
 again, to what extent may one rightly appeal to force in 
 defense of such other objects as his property, his home, 
 his interests, or his honor? 
 
 Merely to ask these questions is to show that aggres- 
 sion and defense blend into each other so imperceptibly 
 as to make any ethical distinction between them an 
 unsafe basis for a philosophy of force. Moreover, a 
 quarrel rarely arises between individuals or classes in 
 which each party does not consider itself the victim of 
 aggression. This is especially true of wars; and if 
 each warring nation did not believe itself to be on the 
 defensive, the fighting would soon cease for lack of 
 men willing to fight. 
 
 A double standard 
 
 If the right of self-defense does not give us an effec- 
 tive key to unlock our perplexities, are we, then, com- 
 pelled to admit that the ethical standards of the indi- 
 vidual are not applicable in the larger social relations? 
 So far as individuals are concerned, we are fairly clear. 
 The man with the strongest arm is no longer permitted 
 to run loose in the land, taking what he can; we believe 
 it right to employ the power of the state to restrain him. 
 In social and commercial relationships are we to regard 
 the issues as more debatable? And in international af- 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 fairs is the Golden Rule not to be recognized as having 
 a determining value? 
 
 Lord Hugh Cecil ably represents an influential party 
 which conscientiously maintains that the action of a 
 state toward other states ought not to be determined on 
 the same basis as the action of an individual toward 
 other individuals. Although he confesses that a double 
 standard of morality places the national leader under a 
 severe temptation to do wrong for the supposedly altru- 
 istic purpose, of promoting the interests of his country, 
 and acknowledges that “conscience is drugged at the 
 outset, and allows to 'pass unchallenged much that on 
 enquiry its tribunal would condemn,” yet he urges that 
 “everything which falls under the heading of unselfish- 
 ness is inappropriate to the action of a state.” And his 
 reason is that we wrongly personify a state ; for it merely 
 represents a large aggregation of persons, and “those who 
 speak in its name and determine its policy act not for 
 themselves but for others. . . . No one has a right 
 to be unselfish with other people’s interests. It is the 
 business of every ruler to exact to the utmost every claim 
 which can both justly and wisely be made on behalf 
 of his country. He is in the position of a trustee of the 
 interests of others and must be just and not generous.” ^ 
 
 The meaning of “unselfishness'' 
 
 But is it impossible for justice and generosity to go 
 together ? What is “unselfishness” ? Does it mean merely 
 the giving up of self? If this were all, every hermit 
 buried in a cave, or every fakir reclining on a bed of 
 spikes, would be an incarnation of unselfishness. Such 
 
 1 Lord Hugh Cecil, “Conservatisai,” pp. 200-202. 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 29 
 
 acts, however, often accompany a most self-centered 
 spirit. Does unselfishness, then, imply the giving up 
 of self for others? We shall acknowledge this to be 
 nearer the true use of the word ; and yet the mother who 
 is slavishly unselfish in the interests of her child, in 
 serving ordinary needs, may wear herself out so com- 
 pletely as to fail to keep pace with the real development 
 of the child. Had she conserved her own strength, and 
 given herself to what might have seemed selfish acts 
 of personal culture, she might have fitted herself for a 
 longer and better service. Are we not forced, then, to 
 a still broader definition? Can a deed be unselfish that 
 does not take into consideration the ultimate good, as 
 well as the immediate pleasure of others? In the fullest 
 sense how can an act be truly unselfish unless it con- 
 templates the good, not merely of those immediately 
 concerned, but of all men who may ever be affected 
 by it? 
 
 In ■ such a sense the fundamental moral law, as ex- 
 pressed in the Golden Rule, is surely as binding on na- 
 tions as on individuals : both are under moral obliga- 
 tions to act for the highest good of all concerned. This 
 does not destroy the motive of self-interest, but purifies 
 it by subordinating such interest to the interests of 
 others. 
 
 Then, again, are we ready to follow out the implica- 
 tions of Lord Cecil’s declaration that no one has a right 
 to be unselfish with other people’s interests? While 
 trustees must decide what are the highest interests of 
 the people they serve, have they a right to serve these 
 interests selfishly? The best thought of the world would 
 justly condemn a ruler who deliberately led the people 
 into a great act of robbery. The citizens of the United 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 States did not think that the Government was playing 
 the traitor when it gave back to China the unused part 
 of the Boxer Indemnity. When has a truly unselfish na- 
 tional policy ever been given a fair trial without work- 
 ing out to the ultimate good of the nation projecting 
 it? What evidence is there to prove that the application 
 of the Golden Rule to international relations would work 
 disaster ? ^ 
 
 The underlying principle 
 
 If, then, we find it difficult to concede a standard of 
 morality for nations different from that for individuals, 
 and if the age-old instinct of self-defense provides an 
 insecure ground on which to justify such uses of force 
 as seem necessary in society, we are driven to seek a 
 more satisfactory solution of our problem in some other 
 direction. Whither shall we turn? 
 
 As will appear more clearly at a later point in the 
 discussion, the very perplexities we are now confront- 
 ing were consciously faced by Jesus on various occa- 
 sions in His career. When Jewish opposition had rip- 
 ened into the crisis of Gethsemane, the leader of the 
 apostolic band quickly drew his sword in defense of His 
 Master. But a quiet word from Jesus sent the sword 
 back into its sheath.® That this attitude was no tem- 
 porary expedient to avoid a conflict when His own re- 
 sources were limited is shown by the whole tenor of His 
 life. In fact, on this very occasion Jesus felt that He 
 had at His command twelve legions of angels who 
 would immediately have come to His rescue had He 
 
 1 See Supplementary Note VII on “Wm. Penn’s Experiment.’ 
 ^ Matt. xxvi. 52. 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 31 
 
 called them/ He must, therefore, have been acting 
 from principle. Can we discover any hint as to what 
 it was? 
 
 Imbedded in the Mosaic documents, as in a ball of 
 amber, Jesus had found a law which was but a dead stat- 
 ute; no one had yet been able to live up to it, and so 
 men explained away its deepest meaning. But, when 
 Jesus issued it as a “new commandment,” and called on 
 men to love one another according to the new standard 
 which He Himself had set, and in the power which He 
 had to give, it became the vital principle for an ultimate 
 social reconstruction. In its old form it read: “Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” ^ But the new form, 
 as recorded in the Gospel of John, was: “A new com- 
 mandment I give unto you, that ye love one another ; even 
 as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”* 
 Henceforth there could be no more quibbling over the 
 significance of the word “neighbor,” for by His matchless 
 example He had enlarged its content to include all men, 
 of all lands, in all ages, and under all conditions. Be- 
 cause of all that He knew to be involved, therefore, 
 Jesus resolutely refused to do anything which would 
 hinder the fulfilment of His law of love for all mankind. 
 No physical compulsion could ever bring the spiritual 
 victory in men’s hearts which He would gain. 
 
 The functions of force 
 
 Translated into the life of today, the law of love which 
 Jesus issued implies the cooperation of all for the high- 
 est good of all. This suggests a three-fold analysis of 
 the functions of force in society: (i) That which seeks 
 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 53. 
 
 ® Lev. xix. 18. 
 
 *John xiii. 34. 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 directly to promote mutual cooperation for the common 
 good; (2) That which seeks to destroy, attack, or im- 
 pede such cooperation; (3) That which seeks to neu- 
 tralize the destroying, attacking, or impeding force. The 
 second of these functions is plainly at variance with the 
 common good. The first and third should help us de- 
 termine what is the right use of force. 
 
 So long as police power is held strictly to its purpose 
 of ensuring order, it is a promoter of cooperation. The 
 law-breaker refuses to cooperate with society; and, were 
 his kind to increase, cooperation would ultimately be- 
 come impossible. Thus the good of the whole com- 
 munity requires that he be restrained, and in exercising 
 this function of restraint the policeman is the agent, 
 not of conflict but of cooperation.^ 
 
 In new and frontier communities each man is the maker 
 and defender of his own laws. As soon, however, as the 
 community becomes articulated and a common govern- 
 ment is established, the individual no longer finds it 
 profitable or prudent to be his own judge and sheriff. 
 In the interest of effective cooperation he yields to the 
 authority of common government, and so police protection 
 supersedes individual armament. Once this is effected 
 cooperation becomes the organizing principle of the com- 
 munity, and only thus are the rights of individuals ade- 
 quately protected, and the prosperity and advancement 
 of the community made sure. 
 
 The wider application 
 
 Thus we face immediately the great question: Can we 
 not apply this same principle among the nations? Not 
 
 1 For a full and graphic discussion see Norman Angell, “The Great 
 Illusion,” pp. 263, 264. 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 33 
 
 to do so means that we refuse to accept the greatest 
 good of all mankind as a purpose of life. For if we 
 are content to seek the interests of our own nation only, 
 these interests will, to some degree at least, conflict with 
 those of other nations, and cooperation will to that degree 
 become impossible. Moreover, unless the nations co- 
 operate, the people of different nations will find it dif- 
 ficult to realize their desires to live for the good of the 
 whole world. If we do not apply this principle of Jesus 
 to international relationships, how can we hope to find 
 any other foundation on which to build a universal 
 system of international ethics? On any narrower basis, 
 when national interests clash, as they inevitably will, 
 where shall we find any standards of justice which will 
 command the moral assent of the conflicting parties? 
 
 It is to be recognized that in the gradual erection of 
 a state out of the wilderness, each of the scattered set- 
 tlers first lives the life of a pioneer. Gradually as co- 
 operation becomes useful or necessary a spirit of mutual 
 sympathy and understanding develops. United effort im- 
 plies confidence, and also creates it. When interdepen- 
 dence has become the order of the day, there emerges a 
 system of social intercourse which makes possible a truly 
 corporate life. Individual sacrifices are necessary at 
 every step of the way; each man must give up some of his 
 rights, and, harder still, many of his prejudices. 
 
 The “frontier” stage 
 
 In their relations with one another the nations are 
 as yet in the “frontier” stage. They are not closely 
 enough articulated to make cooperation completely ef- 
 fective. Each one is still a law to itself; and whenever 
 
34 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 a dispute becomes sufficiently serious, the resort is to 
 arms. In the new world, as relationships become more 
 complex and intimate, the number of possible points of 
 friction will be greatly multiplied. While the forces 
 working for cooperation have constantly increased^ the 
 difficulty of maintaining high moral standards is also 
 much greater than ever. Now is the time to apply the 
 principles of cooperation. We may be at the Great Di- 
 vide of modern history; are we not now determining the 
 direction in which the river of progress is henceforth 
 to flow? 
 
 The law of cooperation 
 
 Shall not the nations consecrate force to the twin pur- 
 poses of promoting mutual cooperation for the common 
 good of all the world, and of neutralizing all force that 
 seeks to destroy, attack, or impede such cooperation? 
 The task will not be easy. But it has not been easy 
 to bring civilization out of frontier conditions. Man’s 
 progress toward liberty and order has been a hard road 
 to travel; it is dotted with the marks of pain, and sanc- 
 tified by the blood of heroes. All the faith, patience, 
 and wisdom that men possess have barely enabled us to 
 keep moving on. Struggle and conflict there has always 
 been, and yet we have gone forward. Our governments 
 are cumbersome, our laws are imperfect, and their ad- 
 ministration a perennial difficulty; but for all that we are 
 better off than the pioneers. And will the spirit that 
 has accomplished this own itself helpless now? 
 
 This law of cooperation requires that each government 
 
 1 See Supplementary Note VIII on ‘‘War and the Expansion of 
 Trade.** 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 35 
 
 shall make sure in all it plans to do what is for the good 
 not only of its own people, but also of all other peo- 
 ples. Everything which breeds suspicion must be avoided. 
 All racial or national prejudice must be resolutely over- 
 come, and mutual confidence cultivated. All existing 
 bonds of fellowship will need to be strengthened, and 
 friendly intercourse must be encouraged. Thus will there 
 develop such a mutual understanding and sincerity of 
 purpose among nations as always exists among friends. 
 
 A federation of the world 
 
 Nations must, of course, devise some method of pro- 
 tection from injustice and oppression. But so long as the 
 exercise of this function remains under the sovereign 
 control of each separate state there is constant danger 
 of its abuse, both because a party to a quarrel is never 
 qualified to act as an impartial judge on the merits of 
 the case, and also because the very power to defend one’s 
 own position by an appeal to force tends to render the 
 conscience less sensitive to the rights of others. 
 
 Until the poet’s vision of a Parliament of Man and a 
 Federation of the World is realized there may be oc- 
 casions when nations will feel it a conscientious duty 
 to use the bungling and exhausting methods of war to 
 stay the forces of injustice, or to defend the true and 
 right. That there is a more effective way to stop injus- 
 tice has been demonstrated in every other organic re- 
 lationship of life, and even in international relations — the 
 most complex of all — enough experiments have been 
 made' to give some confidence that the day will ulti- 
 
 1 See Supplementary Note X on “The Growing Desire for Arbitra- 
 tion.” 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 mately come when all men’s good shall be each man’s 
 rule 
 
 “and Universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea.” 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 William Leighton Grane, “The Passing of War.” 
 H. E. Warner, “The Ethics of Force.” 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter H 
 
 When is it wrong to defend one’s self? 
 
 Under what circumstances has a man no right to defend 
 himself when he is attacked? 
 
 Is there any insult which justifies the use of retalia- 
 tory force? What, for instance? 
 
 Is the principle underlying the words “Whosoever 
 smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
 also” (Matthew v. 39) practicable today? 
 
 How far is it right to use force to defend someone else? 
 
 If a “bully” attacks a person weaker than himself, 
 what should the bystander do? 
 
 What is it right to do to one who insults your own or 
 someone else’s sister? 
 
 If you see or hear a man acting brutally toward his 
 own wife or children, to what extent is it right for you 
 to interfere? 
 
WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF FORCE? 37 
 
 How far is the use of force right in business? 
 
 Why is it wrong to get a “corner” on any commodity? 
 
 When does it become wrong to “cut” prices? 
 
 Is a “boycott” right? Why? 
 
 When is a government not justified in placing a re- 
 straint on trade? 
 
 When is it right for parents to use force in dealing with 
 their children? 
 
 How far should the child’s reason be satisfied? Sup- 
 pose the child is too young to be reasoned with? Or, 
 suppose the conditions are such that there is no time to 
 reason ? 
 
 What should be the parent’s object in using coercion? 
 
 What feelings in the parent tend to nullify the value 
 of any discipline he may administer? Why? 
 
 What is the legitimate function of force? 
 
 Is all conflict war? (See Supplementary Note VI on 
 “Relation of Man’s Struggle with Nature to his Struggle 
 with Fellow-man.”) How far is conflict necessarily un- 
 friendly ? 
 
 How far would force be needed in an ideal state of 
 society? (See Supplementary Noto I on “The Sub- 
 sidence of Force in the Narrower Social Relations.”) 
 
 What are the legitimate duties of the state, the family, 
 and the individual in the use of force? 
 
 To what extent can the ethics of the individual in the 
 use of force be applied to nations? 
 
 Why do certain Christian bodies preach and practise the 
 policy of complete non-resistance? (See Supplementary 
 Note IV on “Do the Old Testament Sanctions of War 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Still Hold?”) Is it practicable and wise? (See Sup- 
 plementary Note HI on “Are the Best Armed Nations 
 the Most Prosperous Commercially?”; and Note V on 
 “Relation of the Economic to the Ethical Aspect of 
 War.”) 
 
 IVhat is necessary to make force effective? 
 
 What functions of the policeman of today would be 
 eliminated and what retained if force could be ideally 
 used? 
 
 What considerations should determine the strength of 
 the army and navy? How far should their size depend 
 merely upon actual present conditions and how far on 
 possible future emergencies ? 
 
 To what extent is armament necessary to the legiti- 
 mate use of force by a nation? Would there be need 
 for an army and navy if war were impossible? 
 
 What should he the attitude of the individual toward the 
 use of force? 
 
 To what extent can the principle of “cooperation of all 
 for the highest good of all” be used in relations 
 among nations? In relations among individuals? 
 (See Supplementary Note X on “The Growing De- 
 sire for Arbitration.”) 
 
WHY LOOK ESPECIALLY TO JESUS FOR 
 LIGHT ON THE WAR PROBLEM? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WHY LOOK ESPECIALLY TO JESUS 
 FOR LIGHT ON THE WAR 
 PROBLEM? 
 
 In discussing the moral issues involved in war, or in 
 any other appeal to physical force, we have, most nat- 
 urally, been turning to Jesus for light. But the question 
 will rise in the minds of some, why the “meek and lowly” 
 Jesus should in any special sense be regarded an au- 
 thority on war. 
 
 In frankly facing this question we shall need to re- 
 member that Jesus lived in a military age. For genera- 
 tions Palestine had been the meeting-place of the East and 
 the West. In the days when Jerusalem was a mere 
 collection of huts Judea was the buffer state between 
 Egypt and Babylon, and the commerce of these great 
 countries crossed its plains continuously. The powerful 
 nations preyed on the Jews, making war against them 
 on the slenderest pretexts. They repeatedly carried the 
 people into captivity; and, crowning insult of all, they 
 even fought each other on Israel’s fertile plains. 
 
 Alexander the Great had led his soldiers up and down 
 the land and had ousted the Persians from their control, 
 but the fiery Maccabees had thrown off the yoke of their 
 Greek overlords, thus winning for their nation a brief 
 
 41 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 independence. Then came the Romans, who operated 
 their armies from Antioch on the North and carried all 
 before them, making of Palestine but another province 
 of their world-empire. The Roman Empire was thus 
 the background of the life of the Jews in the first cen- 
 tury. From the hills above Nazareth Jesus could see 
 the Latin legions marching on the magnificent high- 
 way of Esdraelon from the sea to Damascus. Rome and 
 her armies stood for the crowning success of life. Had 
 she not conquered all that was worth conquering? Were 
 not her roads the highways, not only of commerce, but 
 also of thought and culture? Was not the throne of 
 David itself now occupied by a Roman governor, and 
 had not the legislation of Moses been put below Roman 
 law? 
 
 A warlike race 
 
 Jesus came also to a people of warlike passions. The 
 Jews did not accept the situation passively. In Judea the 
 exclusive Pharisees and their adherents remained silent 
 and sullen, looking with hate and scorn both on the Ro- 
 man and on every member of their own race who was 
 currying his favor. In Galilee, although the spirit of the 
 people was more liberal, although their minds were open 
 to the influences that played upon them, there was 
 smouldering an eternal revolt. Jesus grew up near the 
 home of the sons of Judas of Galilee, those brave pa- 
 triots who were to die soon after His death for taking 
 part in a struggle for freedom. The very air He breathed 
 was surcharged with revolution. These people had not 
 forgotten the heroes of their past. The idol of their 
 race, their own David, was a mighty warrior-king, who 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 
 
 43 
 
 had saved his people from their enemies. Had not the 
 might of her leaders throughout the centuries made 
 Israel rise to the highest heights? And was it not by 
 the might of her enemies that she was now plunged into 
 the very pit of degradation? 
 
 Military hopes 
 
 Jesus found among the Jews more than a military 
 spirit. He discovered a people looking for a great gen- 
 eral. Their prophets had led them to expect that some 
 day there would appear a worthy successor to the war- 
 rior David, who should lead them on to new and greater 
 victories. There were many, especially in Galilee, who, 
 thinking of their Messiah as the lion who was to deliver 
 them from the Romans, were ready, whatever the odds, 
 to rise at the first call of the Coming One. They looked 
 upon Him as a leader of armies, a Commander-in-Chief. 
 Surely He would free God’s chosen people from the hated 
 conqueror and reestablish the lost Kingdom of the great 
 David. Quite apart from the hopes inspired by prophets 
 it is little to be wondered at that the Jews felt strongly 
 the need for freedom. Simple patriotism would have 
 driven them to desperate schemes, and the world knew 
 but one path to liberty, the path which lay along dark 
 valleys of desolation and death. 
 
 The temptation to he a military leader 
 
 Jesus could not have been insensible to the grievances 
 of the age. He must have felt the wrongs of His coun- 
 trymen as keenly as any other descendant of David. 
 He belonged to a race with a noble history, which be- 
 lieved itself especially called to fulfil a divine mission. 
 
44 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 But the glory of the race had departed, and its oppor- 
 tunity to influence the world had seemingly passed. It 
 was no longer free to work out its destiny, but was tram- 
 pled under foot by powerful Rome — fearless, successful, 
 and implacable. The sword was Rome’s only title to 
 the soil of Palestine. The Emperor was a tyrant, the 
 Roman governors of the Jewish provinces were cruel, 
 and the Herodians and the Sadducees, their henchmen, 
 were objects of contempt. Was not the cause of Israel 
 a just one, and should not her liberation command the 
 courage and fidelity of every lover of righteousness? 
 
 The temptation to fulfil the popular ideal of a mili- 
 tary Messiah was one of Jesus’ great temptations. The 
 simple but graphic story has Him standing on the top of 
 an exceeding high mountain, where He views the King- 
 doms of the world in vivid panorama.^ The world’s way 
 to win these Kingdoms was through the worship of Force. 
 The popular leadership of a mighty commander had its 
 manifest advantages. A successful conquest under a 
 wise and indomitable leader had in the course of his- 
 tory often brought happiness to distracted peoples. Then, 
 too, there might accrue an enlarged opportunity for 
 spiritual influence when once His power had been estab- 
 lished ! The intense reality of His inner struggles is 
 hidden in His passionate reply : “Get thee hence, Satan : 
 for it is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
 and him only shalt thou serve.” To have yielded to this 
 temptation would have implied a denial of God. Jesus 
 realized that “deeper down than militarism lies the ma- 
 terialism out of which it springs. The whole idea that 
 armed force can overthrow false ideals or establish true 
 
 ^ Matt. iv. 8-io; Luke iv. s-8. 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 
 
 45 
 
 ones, rests upon an inadequate conception of God, and 
 a failure to rely fully upon the power of love and good- 
 ness to overcome evil.” ^ 
 
 The crowning issue 
 
 Jesus accepted, and indeed assumed, the Messianic title, 
 but positively rejected the conditions the Jews would im- 
 pose. He won many people to Him in the early days of 
 His ministry; but when the conditions of discipleship be- 
 came clear, they deserted Him in multitudes. When 
 they found that He had no thought of coming to blows 
 with Rome, that the Kingdom which He was about to 
 inaugurate was to be a Kingdom in which the material 
 success of the Hebrew nation had no place, and that He 
 had thus belied their hopes, they rose against Him in 
 fury. It is not to be wondered at that the ordinary Jew 
 could not understand what Jesus was about. Those who 
 were keyed up to a supreme sacrifice under the leader- 
 ship of the promised messenger of God were hardly in 
 a position to see the glory of a Kingdom founded, not on 
 force, but on brotherly love. The yearnings of a nation 
 burning with shame and indignation are not easily turned 
 aside, so they came to Him again and again to press 
 on Him what seemed to them the larger vocation. They 
 insisted that He become their great King, and it could 
 hardly have been an easy thing for Him to resist their 
 pleadings and hide Himself in seclusion, leaving a dis- 
 appointed people behind Him. At last their leaders de- 
 nounced Him to the Roman authorities as one who called 
 Himself the King of the Jews: had He been willing to 
 
 ^ Henry T. Hodgkin, “The Church’s Opportunity in the Present 
 Crisis,” pp. 6, 7. 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 be a King after their manner, they would doubtless have 
 followed Him into the presence of Pilate with swords 
 of defiance. The Romans cared little for the charge of 
 blasphemy, but they knew enough of Hebrew history to 
 take no chances with rising kings. 
 
 A courageous decision 
 
 Only an unbalanced estimate of character can suggest 
 that fear played any part in this decision. Where is 
 there the slightest hint in the early records of the ef- 
 feminate traits of later portrayals of Jesus? What did 
 the usurping money-changers think of Him? As they 
 crowded the outer court of the Temple they were numer- 
 ous enough to have thrown Him headlong into the street, 
 and His whip of cords would have been of little avail 
 against their assaults; but none of them could endure 
 the fearless indignation of His righteous soul. Did His 
 attitude to the Pharisees show lack of courage? They 
 were no mean enemy, and in going against them Jesus 
 took the first step toward His doom. But we do not 
 find that He minced matters. “Hypocrites,” “thieves,” 
 “blind leaders of the blind,” “whited sepulchers” — are 
 such uncompromising epithets as these consistent with 
 cowardice? The accounts of the trial of Jesus contain 
 not a single hint of any flinching on the part of the vic- 
 tim. In the cold morning hours, when courage drips out 
 at the icy finger-tips, dressed in the most hideous mockery 
 of royal garments, Jesus played the part of a king. The 
 Roman governor knew himself to be ridiculously power- 
 less in the face of such calm determination, and he ad- 
 mired it. What but real courage could have drawn the 
 admiration of the cruel and time-serving Pilate? 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 
 
 47 
 
 Not the least courageous act of Jesus’ life was His 
 turning away from the military ideal set up for Him by 
 the people. It required the supremest resolution. Was 
 He afraid that He might fail as a military leader? Did 
 He hesitate to take up the command of a distant and 
 difficult enterprise? Did He shudder from tying Himself 
 up to a forlorn hope ? Let history answer : He led a for- 
 lorner hope to a grander issue. Death “with honor” on 
 the battlefield would have been far easier than the hu- 
 miliation of the cross. Yet to this bitter end He set 
 Himself with no sign of swerving. The temptation was 
 not finally overcome in forty days. The tempter had left 
 Him only “for a season.” When Jesus came to Jeru- 
 salem to die it was still not too late to lead a revolution. 
 The people greeted Him with Hosannas ; and such Ho- 
 sannas were not intended for one who was to give Him- 
 self up to the Romans as a voluntary sacrifice, but for 
 the King who was to lead them to victory. Jesus, how- 
 ever, did not refuse to drink the cup to its dregs. He 
 counted it the climax of His career. His day of triumph. 
 The eager disciple, who would have defended Him in 
 the Garden of Gethsemane, was told to put up his sword, 
 and the Messiah chose to conquer through death. 
 
 A fresh significance 
 
 To appreciate the intensity of the struggle which Jesus 
 maintained against the military spirit and aspirations of 
 His day is to place His words in fresh and bold relief. 
 What striking authority they carry when considered in 
 connection with His personal experience ! His whole 
 life hangs together. Even those who are usually suspi- 
 cious of theorists know that He was one who “practised 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 what he preached.” Any who are tempted to dilute His 
 teachings are instantly checked when they realize the sig- 
 nificance of the decisive acts of His life, which illumi- 
 nate all His words. He thought and worked always in 
 the spirit of His Kingdom. 
 
 What word was oftener on His lips than this very 
 word “Kingdom,” and how much more it meant to Him 
 than to the prophets who had gone before ! He sought 
 to transform and enlarge its content. Much of His teach- 
 ing dealt with its principles, and the conditions to be 
 fulfilled in its realization. Long had He pondered before 
 He began proclaiming His ideals; but when He did begin. 
 He put His heavenly Kingdom ever at the forefront of 
 all He taught. Of the few petitions which He trained 
 His disciples to make to their Heavenly Father, the very 
 first was this : “Thy Kingdom come.” Above all other 
 quests, and especially above the imperative duty of pro- 
 viding for their creature needs. He placed this paramount 
 obligation : “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
 righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto 
 you.” ^ He indulged in no elaborate arguments, but His 
 declarations came with the authority of one who did not 
 speculate, but really knew. His sayings are sharp and 
 clear, sometimes uncomfortably plain, but they are not 
 easy to forget. They cut straight across the ideals of His 
 age, and are none the less opposed to many of the cher- 
 ished theories of our own day of boasted enlightenment. 
 
 A new world empire 
 
 Who does Jesus say are to be the possessors of world 
 empire? Will it be the armed battalions of ambitious 
 
 1 Matt. vi. 10 and 33. 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 
 
 49 
 
 Rome, whose dominion is now so nearly complete? Or, 
 will some unborn nation rise to claim by might a uni- 
 versal sway? Or, shall the chosen people, in a simi- 
 lar manner but under the leadership of a greater David, 
 fulfil their dreams of an earthly kingdom whose realm 
 shall stretch from sea to sea, and whose capital shall be 
 the center of power and influence to which all nations 
 will flow by a compulsion as inevitable as that which 
 urges the rivers onward in their course to the mighty 
 ocean? ^ Not at all; none of these shall gain the coveted 
 prize. Only “the meek” — that is, those nobly unselfish — 
 “shall inherit the earth.”® To such alone will come the 
 blessing of God and the ultimate sovereignty of all the 
 earth. 
 
 Then, who does Jesus say will become the world’s great 
 leader? Will it be the one who rules with a rod of iron? 
 Or, will it be the statesman who best understands the 
 strength and weakness of men and so shapes his political 
 policy as to keep himself in constant favor and in grow- 
 ing power? Or, will it be a new King on the throne in 
 Jerusalem whose astuteness and vision will enable him to 
 hold for Israel the monopoly of religion and righteous- 
 ness, and to enforce their restraints on all her Gentile 
 neighbors? Not at all, for Jesus says: “The kings of the 
 Gentiles have lordship over them ; and they that have au- 
 thority over them are called Benefactors. But ye shall not 
 be so: but he that is the greater among you, let him 
 become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that 
 doth serve.” * And in order to make men realize that 
 He speaks not in a theoretical way, but out of the deep- 
 est experience of His own life He adds the significant 
 
 ^ Isaiah ii. 1-4. 
 
 Matt. V. s. 
 
 ® Luke xxii. 25, 26. 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 words: “For the Son of man also did not come to be 
 waited upon, but to wait on others, and to give His life 
 as the redemption-price for a multitude of people.”^ 
 
 Universal values 
 
 Such teachings of Jesus, however, cannot be adequately- 
 interpreted except in the light of His life-long struggle 
 against opposing forces in His daily environment. The 
 calm serenity of spirit and steadfastness of purpose which 
 He always preserved, point to a fundamental secret. He 
 moved about under the commanding conviction that He 
 knew the will of God, and was following it in every 
 act of His career. The Gospel of John which lays such 
 persistent emphasis on the character of Jesus as unique 
 and wholly divine, bases His supremacy and His oneness 
 with God particularly on the fact of His unity in purpose 
 with God. Though there is much in this particular book 
 of what we are accustomed to call the mystical, yet we 
 find in it a never-failing insistence on the greatest of 
 realities, the active presence of God in the world. It 
 sets forth Jesus as a definite manifestation of this pres- 
 ence. He is one with God not only in thought, but also in 
 action. Then, as the Gospel advances to its majestic close, 
 the reader is reminded again and again that God will 
 not cease to work after Jesus has gone, but will con- 
 tinue to be ever-present with His people. 
 
 The spirit and teaching of Jesus is thus an exposition 
 of the purposes of His Father in Heaven. They involve 
 a reversal of many of the world’s estimates by empha- 
 sizing the infinite value of each human soul, the su- 
 
 1 Mark x. 45 CWeymouth). 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 
 
 51 
 
 periority of personal character to anything that a man 
 may own, the greatness of the power to serve as con- 
 trasted with the power to rule, the supremacy of the law 
 of love. These reversals of conventional standards are 
 challenges to every age. Nor are such valuations limited 
 to individual achievement; they suggest a new appraisal 
 of the whole round of life. 
 
 It is surely significant that Jesus accepted in His own 
 acts the validity of all these estimates. In fact, the values 
 themselves were first tested in His own experience. Nor 
 did He hesitate to call upon His own nation to abandon 
 the dreams of centuries, because they were contrary to 
 the better purposes of God. That those purposes would 
 prevail was to Him, of course, an absolute certainty. It 
 was His unchanging faith that all who work in harmony 
 with the principles He laid down would be channels 
 through which would flow the supreme power of the Uni- 
 verse. He went quietly to His own death confident that 
 the forces that were encompassing His end could not 
 prevent Him from taking His full share in accomplishing 
 the Father’s will. 
 
 All this must give us pause. The perennial question 
 is. What is the will of God? No scholastic reply will 
 suffice. It is the most practical of all practical questions, 
 for we must also ask : Are our actions in line with the 
 eternal plan, or are we opposing our narrow human pur- 
 poses to the rolling destiny of creation? 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 A. W. Hitchcock, “The Psychology of Jesus.” 
 Jane Addams, “Newer Ideals of Peace.” 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter HI 
 
 Was the appeal to Jesus to be a military leader a real 
 temptation? 
 
 To what extent would the Jews have rallied to Jesus’ 
 leadership of a revolution? 
 
 Did the Jewish national situation justify a revolution? 
 How far was the expectation of the Jews one of a mili- 
 tary Messiah? 
 
 What would have been the probable outcome of a mili- 
 tary revolution led by Jesus? 
 
 Why did Jesus refuse to lead a war party? 
 
 How far is the accusation that fear determined His de- 
 cision justified? 
 
 Did He base His decision on the thought that it would 
 be wrong or on the thought that it would be impolitic 
 to yield? 
 
 Why have we a right to look to Jesus for light on the war 
 problem? 
 
 What course did Jesus choose in place of a military 
 career? 
 
 Did His life show that He had the courage of the con- 
 viction expressed in His decision? 
 
 How far were Jesus’ teachings an expression of His 
 choice in place of a military career? (See Supplement- 
 ary Note XV on “Why did Jesus Order His Disciples 
 to Buy Swords?”) 
 
 In the light of His own life actions, what do His peace 
 
WHY LOOK TO JESUS FOR LIGHT? 53 
 
 teachings, especially those in the Sermon on the Mount 
 (Matt. V. vi, vii), actually mean? 
 
 To what extent do Jesus’ experiences in relation to the 
 war problem entitle Him to a hearing? 
 
 What other characters in history have dared to decide 
 to adopt a substitute for war leadership, and have gone 
 to the length of dying for their decision? Why should 
 we look to Jesus for light on the war question? 
 

WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN 
 WAR? 
 
 While it is true that “Peace hath her victories” as 
 well as War, Peace has also her devastating defeats. 
 Sometimes a great lethargy of selfishness grips the na- 
 tion whose borders are safe from invasion. Only war, 
 we are told, can deliver such a nation from a widespread 
 paralysis of character. Its trumpets call men from the 
 house of work, the field of play, and the den of sin, to 
 strenuous service, heroic action, and sublime self-sacrifice. 
 Francis Thompson, in celebrating the peace that followed 
 the South African war, makes startlingly vivid the shame 
 of a peace which only stimulates the greed for gain : 
 
 “And now, Lord, since Thou hast upon hell’s floor 
 Bound, like a snoring sea, the blood-drowsed bulk of 
 war. 
 
 Shall we not cry, on recognizing knees 
 This is Thy peace? 
 
 If . . . it be but to lay 
 
 The heavy head down the old heavy way; 
 
 Having a space awakened and then been bold 
 To break from them that had thee in the snare, — 
 Resume the arms of thy false Dalila, Gold, 
 
 Shameful and nowise fair; 
 
 57 
 
58 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Forget thy sons who have lain down . . . 
 
 Forget their large in thy contracted deed, 
 
 And that thou standst twice-pledged to being great 
 For whom so many children greatly bleed, 
 
 Trusting thy greatness with their deaths : if thou . . . 
 
 See in such deaths as these 
 
 But purchased pledges of unhindered mart. 
 
 And hirelings spent that in thy ringed estate 
 For some space longer now 
 
 Thou mayst add gain to gain, and take thine ease, — 
 God has made hard thy heart ; 
 
 Thou hast but bought thee respite, not surcease. 
 
 Lord, this is not Thy peace !” ^ 
 
 No patriot would choose to see his nation sunk in the 
 slough of inglorious ease, and if war be the only alter- 
 native for degeneracy, he would say with no sign of 
 faltering, “Then let us have war !” 
 
 The antidote for degeneracy 
 
 Thus it is, as Professor James has pointed out, that 
 the militarist feels justified in making the claim, that 
 “taking human nature as a whole its wars are its best 
 protection against its weaker and more cowardly self, 
 and that man cannot afford to adopt a peace-economy.” ^ 
 
 In the middle of the nineteenth century the brilliant 
 and keen-sighted Renan unhesitatingly declared war to 
 be fundamentally necessary to human progress. He held 
 that, in the peaceful pursuit of individual ends, the hu- 
 man race would degenerate to a degree almost beyond 
 the power of the imagination to picture, if the foolish- 
 ness, negligence, idleness, and shortsightedness of states 
 did not involve their occasional collision. Like him, 
 
 1 Francis Thompson, Peace in “Poems,” Vol. ii. p. 154. 
 
 ® William James, “Memories and Studies,” p. 276. 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 59 
 
 many have looked upon war as the sting which prevents 
 a country from going to sleep, and have prophesied that 
 the day of universal peace will be the day of humanity’s 
 greatest peril/ 
 
 A promoter of culture 
 
 Though Ruskin admits, “Yet truly, if it might be, I for 
 one would fain join in the cadence of hammer-strokes 
 that should beat swords into ploughshares” ; ““ still his 
 reading of history made clear to his own mind that the 
 kind of character which produces art is developed only 
 in war. “All the pure and noble arts of peace are founded 
 on war; no great art ever yet rose on earth, but among 
 a nation of soldiers. There is no art among a shepherd 
 people, if it remains at peace. There is no art among 
 an agricultural people, if it remains at peace. Commerce 
 is barely consistent with fine art; but cannot produce it. 
 Manufacture not only is unable to produce it, but in- 
 variably destroys whatever seeds of it exist. There is 
 no great art possible but that which is based on battle. 
 . . . The common notion that peace and the virtues 
 of civil life flourished together, I found to be wholly 
 untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish 
 together. We talk of peace and learning, of peace and 
 plenty, of peace and civilization; but I found that those 
 were not the words which the Muse of History coupled 
 together; that, on her lips, the words were — peace and 
 sensuality — peace and selfishness — peace and death. I 
 found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth 
 of word, and strength of thought, in war ; that they were 
 
 ^Ernest Renan, “La Reforme Intellectuelle et Morale,*’ p. m. 
 ^John Ruskin, “Crown of Wild Olive,” Sec. 130. 
 
6o THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 nourished in war, and wasted by peace; taught by war, 
 and deceived by peace; trained by war, and betrayed by 
 peace — in a word, that they were born in war, and ex- 
 pired in peace.” ^ 
 
 A test of national character 
 
 There are many who carry this general thesis further 
 and maintain that war is the supreme test of national 
 character. As military efficiency is founded, they say, on 
 uprightness of character, it follows that the nation most 
 efficient as a fighter is possessed of the highest moral 
 character. Furthermore, as the most efficient nation is 
 sure to be victorious, the victorious nation is, therefore, 
 the nation of highest morality. Thus war becomes the 
 supreme test of national worth, and “wars in our time 
 are vast natural forces, having their roots far down in 
 national character.” “ 
 
 This position is taken, for instance, by Baron von 
 Stengel: “War has more often facilitated than hindered 
 progress. Athens and Rome, not only in spite of, but just 
 because of their many wars, rose to the zenith of civili- 
 zation. Great states like Germany and Italy are welded 
 into nationalities only through blood and iron. Storm 
 purifies the air and destroys the frail trees, leaving the 
 sturdy oaks standing. War is the test of a nation’s politi- 
 cal, physical, and intellectual worth. The State in which 
 there is much that is rotten may vegetate for a while in 
 peace, but in war its weakness is revealed.”® 
 
 ^ John Ruskin, “Crown of Wild Olive,” Secs. 86 and 94. 
 
 2 See article in The Nineteenth Century for February, 1899, by N. F. 
 Wyatt, entitled “War as the Supreme Test of National Value.” 
 
 “ Professor Baron Karl von Stengel, in chapter on The Significance 
 of War for the Development of Humanity, in “Weldstadt und Friedens- 
 problem.” 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 6i 
 
 Ex-President Roosevelt has on various occasions re- 
 iterated his conviction, “that in this world the nation that 
 has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated 
 ease, is bound, in the end, to go down before the other 
 nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous 
 qualities.” ^ 
 
 Nietzsche has boldly declared his philosophy of war as 
 follows : “It is mere illusion and pretty sentiment to 
 expect much (even anything at all) from mankind if it 
 forgets how to make war. As yet no means are known 
 which call so much into action as a great war, that rough 
 energy born of the camp, that deep impersonality born 
 of hatred, that conscience born of murder and cold-blood- 
 edness, that fervor born of effort in the annihilation of 
 the enemy, that proud indifference to loss, to one’s own 
 existence, to that of one’s fellows, to that earthquake- 
 like soul-shaking which a people needs when it is losing 
 its vitality.”^ 
 
 The fascination of war 
 
 War unquestionably casts a spell over the human race. 
 It appeals to deep-seated human instincts. The milder 
 heroes of peace are completely overshadowed by the 
 great warriors. We have read our history in the light of 
 a philosophy of force. Our text-books present a series of 
 conflicts, and we seem to require a war to mark every 
 turning point in human progress. James has reminded 
 us, “Modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and 
 all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war’s 
 irrationality and horror is of no effect upon him. The 
 
 1 Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life,” p. 6. 
 
 ® Quoted in article on Peace, in “Encyclopedia Britannica,” nth edi- 
 tion, from “Menschliches Altzumenschliches,” No. 477. 
 
62 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life;^ 
 it is life in extremis; war-taxes are the only ones men 
 never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show 
 us.” ^ What is it which has produced all this fascination? 
 Does it furnish us a basis on which intelligently to es- 
 timate the good which war is said to produce? 
 
 A part of the fascination of war is the enthusiasm it 
 arouses. As in athletics, a common desire is raised to 
 incandescence by a supreme concentration of effort 
 toward its realization. Another element of fascination 
 is the way in which war calls out a man’s fullest powers. 
 The gifts of foresight and daring, the acquirements of 
 skill and strategy, the instinct for administration or ex- 
 ecution, the qualities of thoroughness and decision, the 
 capacity for assuming responsibility or for meeting an 
 unexpected situation, and the quieter graces of patience 
 and loyalty, all appear to come to fruition in war — and 
 nothing seems so fully to command a man’s devotion as 
 the chance to use his powers. 
 
 The virtues classified 
 
 Let us attempt to set down a plain list of the virtues 
 brought out by war. The strictly individual virtues may 
 be compactly grouped under seven heads : ( i ) Virility, in- 
 volving a high degree of activity, both physical and 
 mental; (2) Self-sacrifice, brought out both in subordi- 
 nation to authority and in sacrifice for the common cause ; 
 
 (3) Endurance, called forth through labor and pain; 
 
 (4) Courage, in the face of difficulty and peril; (5) 
 Resourcefulness, in the presence of perplexing and un- 
 
 1 William James, “Memories and Studies,” p. 269. 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 63 
 
 expected conditions; (6) Decision of character; (7) 
 Devotion both to present duty and to ultimate ideals. 
 
 Other evident virtues promoted by war are : ( i ) Co- 
 operation; (2) Cohesiveness; (3) Recognition of com- 
 mon good as paramount to individual interest; (4) Loy- 
 alty to social organization; (5) Sympathy in sorrow 
 and suffering; (6) Simplicity and frugality of life. 
 
 The case against peace 
 
 The case of war as a means of discipline against peace 
 as a source of enervation is impressively put, and many 
 of its arguments are addressed to our finer instincts. 
 But it rests heavily on certain assumptions which are 
 plainly perilous. 
 
 It is assumed that war brings a sure relief to the de- 
 bilitations of peace. We are bidden to view the sudden 
 transformation of the coward into a hero, and the evil 
 man into one who is pure and virtuous. War, the great 
 magician, is supposed to create virile qualities out of 
 nothing. In a previous chapter we have tried to show 
 the precariousness of this assumption.^ History does 
 not bear it out. Moreover, those who press the argu- 
 ment fail to make mention of the reverse process by 
 which men of poise and character are impelled, in the 
 heat of the conflict, to give way to passions which they 
 would blush to own. 
 
 It is also assumed that because certain qualities have 
 in the past been developed through war, therefore, war 
 alone can develop those same qualities in the future. 
 We must acknowledge freely that the advocates of mili- 
 tarism are “right in affirming and reaffirming that the 
 
 ^ See Chapter I. 
 
64 THp CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 martial virtues, although originally gained by the race 
 through war, are absolute and permanent human goods.” ’■ 
 But are we compelled to add that they can be kept only 
 by violence? Is it true that if we do not display our 
 heroism and loyalty by taking up arms, there is nothing 
 left for us but a lapse into the pit of selfish degeneracy? 
 
 If the qualities developed in war could be developed 
 by no other means, every conscientious statesman would 
 regard the condition of peace with horror and alarm, 
 and would certainly set about arranging a series of wars, 
 lest his people should be lost to light and honor. Here 
 we are at the heart of our problem. While the virtues 
 developed in war are not the only virtues of mankind, 
 they are necessary to a noble life. Is there no other 
 means by which they may be developed? 
 
 The demands of maturity 
 
 If in studying this question we should become convinced 
 that the courses of action which have been followed 
 in the past would now be wrong for us, we are not 
 thereby compelled to pass wholesale condemnation on 
 men who have lived before us. Developing experience 
 should mean a developing conscience based on broader 
 judgments, and we must march by our present light with- 
 out denouncing the illumination of other ages. With 
 characteristic discrimination Jane Addams has pointed out 
 that “in the curious period of accommodation in which 
 we live, it is possible for old habits and new compunc- 
 tions to be equally powerful, and it is almost a matter 
 of pride with us that we neither break with the old 
 nor yield to the new. We call this attitude tolerance. 
 
 1 William James, “Memories and Studies,” p. 288. 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 65 
 
 whereas it is often mere confusion of mind. . . . We 
 
 may admire much that is admirable in this past life of 
 courageous warfare, while at the same time we accord 
 it no right, to dominate the present, which has travelled 
 out of its" reach into a land of new desires. We may 
 admit that the experiences of war have equipped the 
 men of the present with pluck and energy, but to insist 
 upon the self-same expression for that pluck and energy 
 would be as stupid a mistake as if we would relegate the 
 full-grown citizen, responding to many claims and de- 
 mands upon his powers, to the school-yard fights of his 
 boyhood, or to the college contests of his cruder youth. 
 The little lad who stoutly defends himself on the school- 
 ground may be worthy of much admiration, but if we find 
 him, a dozen years later, the bullying leader of a street- 
 gang who bases his prestige on the fact that ‘no one can 
 whip him,’ our admiration cools amazingly, and we say 
 that the carrying over of those puerile instincts into 
 manhood shows arrested development which is mainly re- 
 sponsible for filling our prisons.” ^ 
 
 All that is asked is that we should face the future 
 unprejudiced. 
 
 Moral equivalent of war 
 
 Present-day facts are against the assumption that 
 we must have war before we can have the martial virtues. 
 Most nations enter war with many misgivings. No states- 
 man, however belligerent, denies the frightful price which 
 must be paid, if virtues are to be bought in this way. 
 It is our duty to find, if possible, some other way, or, as 
 Professor James suggests, a moral equivalent of war, 
 
 ’^Jane Addams, “Newer Ideals of Peace,” pp. 209-21 1. 
 
66 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 analogous to the mechanical equivalent of heat. Some 
 tell us that the nearest approach to this equivalent is 
 to be found in preparing for war. On cruisers and battle- 
 ships, in camp and barracks, in target practise and ma- 
 neuvers, and by sham battles and mock campaigns they 
 would develop in our young manhood many of the splen- 
 did qualities brought out by the more severe discipline 
 of actual war. But the question inevitably arises. Can- 
 not this end be attained without such preparation for 
 war as makes war itself almost inevitable? Must mil- 
 lions of the strongest be maimed or slain, and must all 
 suffer the attendant evils of war in order that some may 
 experience certain accompanying advantages? Is there 
 no simpler and less expensive way to train young men to 
 be prompt and obedient, faithful and thorough, gallant 
 and courageous? An attempt to answer these questions 
 is found in the modern enterprises to improve play- 
 grounds, enlarge the facilities for physical training, purify 
 sport, and popularize chivalry. A most fascinating illus- 
 tration is furnished by the Boy Scout movement, which 
 is unquestionably proving a useful means for promoting 
 the finer martial virtues among the youth of the world, 
 while giving them ideals of training and service as at- 
 tractive as the crude ideals of war. 
 
 Conscription of labor 
 
 The suggestion which Professor James himself made 
 was that instead of a military conscription there be a 
 conscription of labor, under the control of the nation. 
 The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be 
 wrought into the growing fiber of the people. No young 
 man could then come into the responsibilities of mature 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 67 
 
 life without first having learned through experience what 
 are his relations to the globe on which he lives. Thus, 
 James felt, all would get the childishness knocked out of 
 them and would “come back into society with healthier 
 sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid 
 their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial 
 human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth 
 more proudly, the women would value them more highly, 
 they would be better fathers and teachers of the fol- 
 lowing generation.” ^ 
 
 Work the great educator 
 
 Canon Grane has rendered a useful service in calling 
 attention to the truth that “Labor is the great Con- 
 queror. Not War, but Work, is the great Educator; and 
 the essential watchword of all permanent advance. When 
 the militarist tells us that Peace on earth is a mere 
 dream, and ‘not even a beautiful dream;’ when he sol- 
 emnly warns us that ‘without War the world would sink 
 in a morass of materialism;’ he appears to see no choice 
 open between perpetuation of murder on a grand scale, 
 and a state of demoralizing lethargy. But the world is 
 now too old to impale itself on the horns of this im- 
 aginary dilemma. The world is becoming aware that 
 ‘Peace hath her victories, not less renowned than War’ 
 and infinitely more productive. Proof is everywhere 
 that it is not the men that give up fighting, who lose 
 stamina and virility ; but the men who give up work. The 
 most ‘unfit’ are they who least cooperate in the great 
 struggle of their race against whatever in its environ- 
 ment obstructs real progress and development. And of 
 
 *• William James, “Memories and Studies,” p. 291. 
 
68 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 all such obstacles War is the greatest, as may at any time 
 be clearly seen from the condition of those peoples who 
 chiefly occupy their time in conflict, either with their 
 neighbors or among themselves. And it is these, and not 
 the prosperous, hard-working, peace-loving populations, 
 who reap the fruit of their transgression of primordial 
 Law.” ^ 
 
 The impulse of a cause 
 
 The really deadening influence in life is selfishness. The 
 claim made in behalf of war is that it draws men away 
 from just this condition of heart and mind. A great army 
 represents a vast number of human wills putting aside 
 personal interests for the common good. The cause 
 takes precedence over everything else. This is what 
 Francis Thompson evidently had in mind when he ex- 
 pressed the fear that many a man in doing his “con- 
 tracted deed” would forget the large sacrifice made by 
 others in the interest of all. 
 
 But there are other causes in life than those for which 
 war is waged. All the best enterprises of men call for 
 the great renunciation — the giving up of individual pref- 
 erences and aims in the interest of what is big and en- 
 nobling. Men and women may ally themselves with 
 causes which involve, not wholesale .destruction, but a 
 more perfect cooperation in life. The easy generalization 
 that industrial enterprises are developers of greed and 
 softness finds an emphatic denial in the career of men who 
 are trying to make their business serve the community 
 and the world. The very fact that such are as yet too 
 few in number emphasizes the demand for every quality 
 
 1 William Leighton Grane, “The Passing of War,” pp. 6i, 62, 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 69 
 
 brought out in war. Professional men need courage 
 to make their sacrifices, and all the larger movements 
 call for heroic leaders and stalwart followers. Even 
 the cause of peace has its martyrs. Each one of these 
 may have to bear a part many times harder than to face 
 the machine-gun or be exposed to shrapnel. 
 
 A permanent cure 
 
 Peace, it is true, has still to make its case. “Peace 
 without honor” might easily become the chronic state of 
 civilization. We have looked in various directions for a 
 possible “moral equivalent of war.” Our present objec- 
 tive, however, lies far deeper than any purely moral 
 equivalent. No superficial remedies will suffice. Men’s 
 hearts at this time are torn with grief and apprehension ; 
 in agony they are asking for a permanent cure. They are 
 not content to feel that the stability of civilization is 
 guaranteed by nothing surer than an appeal to arms. Nor 
 are they willing to contemplate a future in which the 
 world will ever be kept in dread anticipation of an ulti- 
 mate harvest of death and destruction. Many are asking, 
 Is there nowhere a power to prevent such devastation 
 and carnage as wq are witnessing today? 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 William James, Chapter on The Moral Equivalent of 
 War in “Memories and Studies.” 
 
 John Ruskin, “Crown of Wild Olive.” 
 
70 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter IV 
 
 What are the moral dangers which face a peaceful 
 country? 
 
 Has the comparative peace of the United States during 
 the last fifty years developed national qualities which 
 make that peace inglorious? 
 
 Why do selfish tendencies flourish in time of peace? 
 How far do you think Ruskin correct in his estimate of 
 the effect of war upon culture and the fine arts? (See 
 Supplementary Note XIV on “China and the Career of 
 Ignoble Ease.”) 
 
 Which do you consider the greater test of national char- 
 acter — war or peace? Why? 
 
 How far is it true in modern warfare that the “nation 
 of highest morality” wins? That the “fittest” survive? 
 (See Supplementary Note XI on “War and the Survival 
 of the Fittest”; and Note XH on “War and National 
 Solidarity.”) 
 
 What constitutes the fascination of war ? What activi- 
 ties of peace have a similar fascination? 
 
 What are the virtues developed by war? 
 
 Are the virtues classified in the chapter the most de- 
 sirable ? 
 
 To what extent is a man possessing these virtues fully 
 equipped for life? 
 
 What are some of the possible moral equivalents for war? 
 
 Can anything else than war develop the moral qualities 
 growing out of war? 
 
WHAT IS THE MORAL GOOD IN WAR? 71 
 
 How far can war be depended upon to eradicate the 
 debilitating effects of peace? 
 
 To what extent will “conscription of work” develop the 
 same qualities as “conscription of war”? What are its 
 disadvantages ? 
 
 What other causes develop the same qualities as the 
 war cause? To what extent are they equally potent? 
 
 Is a permanent cure for war possible? 
 
HAS JESUS A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT OF 
 WAR? 
 
% 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HAS JESUS A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT 
 OF WAR? 
 
 To many the present calamitous conflict seems to sig- 
 nify the breakdown of Christianity. That there has been 
 a collapse of much that was called “Christian” is to be 
 freely acknowledged. Should not the professed follow- 
 ers of Jesus, both as individuals and as corporate bodies, 
 go further and confess that this collapse has been, at 
 least in part, due to their failure to translate fully enough 
 into the life of society the spirit of their Master? After 
 such confession has been made there will remain with 
 a large number an abiding conviction that if the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus were only better understood and more 
 completely applied, the nations would discover other ways 
 in which to settle their disputes, and men would find 
 other methods of securing the discipline which war 
 brings. 
 
 The principles of Jesus have never yet been given a 
 controlling place in determining the policies of nations. 
 Their applicability to every other relationship of life hav- 
 ing been proved, it is to be expected that we shall in some 
 way find them also adapted to international relations. Let 
 us now seek to discover whether Jesus offers any way by 
 which the virtues developed in war can be brought to an 
 
 75 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 even fuller perfection by peaceful and more spiritual 
 processes. 
 
 Jesus and the great social movement of the Jews 
 
 When Jesus confronted the great question of His 
 career, He knew that He was dealing with a movement 
 recognized by the people as social. The Messianic hope, 
 the coming of the Kingdom of God, was no vague phil- 
 osophy; it was a “part of a national spirit.” Social 
 conceptions were not strange to the Hebrew. The nation 
 had long since made with God a national covenant. Her 
 great prophets had demanded national repentance, and 
 everyone agreed in looking for a corporate triumph for 
 the chosen people. Even the success of the Messiah seems 
 to have been considered secondary to the success of the 
 Kingdom of God.^ 
 
 It was the evident desire of Jesus to reshape this con- 
 fused social movement and direct it to the accomplish- 
 ment of the purpose of God. Otherwise there would 
 have been no value in His assuming the title of the Mes- 
 siah. The Gospels show clearly that His message made 
 more than a personal appeal to men ; it held up before 
 the eyes of the people a great national destiny. 
 
 At the very beginning, however. He had taken His 
 stand against the military ideal ; His Kingdom was 
 founded in distinct opposition to the kingdom of violence 
 which many Galilean patriots had in mind. It soon came 
 into quite as distinct opposition to the ideals of the Phari- 
 sees. Their narrow interpretations of religious zeal were 
 characterized by Him in perfectly plain language on sev- 
 
 ^ Cf. Shailer Mathews, “History of New Testament Times in Pales- 
 tine,” Chapter xiv. 
 
A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT FOR WAR 
 
 77 
 
 eral notable occasions. Two powerful lines of opposi- 
 tion, therefore, confronted Him, and these two helped to 
 compass His final end. 
 
 An antidote for war 
 
 Thus we see in Jesus, as He sends out His disciples to 
 preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, a real social reformer 
 endeavoring to turn a great national hope into a new 
 course, that its full power might be available for the 
 salvation of the world. In announcing this campaign 
 Jesus meant it to be, not an alternative, but a substitute 
 for war. By it He would fulfil the prophetic song of 
 the angels who announced His birth to be the bring- 
 ing of “peace on earth.” ^ He proposed, in fact, a new 
 corporate ideal for His people, and for all the world. 
 The new Kingdom He came to establish was to bring 
 men into a truer relationship with their Heavenly Father, 
 and a closer and more brotherly relationship with each 
 other. Thus the national mission was conceived as a 
 great opportunity for social service. 
 
 The Kingdom, according to Jesus, stands in sharp 
 contrast with many of our national ideals today. Was it 
 in better accord with the national ideals of His own day? 
 Early in His career He set forth the ideals of His King- 
 dom. Turning to one of Isaiah’s visions of Messiah’s 
 character He read one day in the hearing of His own 
 family and fellow-townsmen that beautiful portrayal of 
 the God-sent messenger who would bring good news 
 to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, 
 and liberty to the oppressed. There must have been 
 something unusual in His manner or in the tone of His 
 
 ^ Luke ii. 14. 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 voice, for as He closed the book “the eyes of all in the 
 synagogue were fastened on Him” and He proceeded to 
 show how in Himself this vision was now finding a com- 
 plete fulfilment/ He made it evident that He had come to 
 inaugurate no narrow program of religious propaganda. 
 The Jewish religion had become all but petrified by its 
 external forms. Its leaders had failed to appreciate God’s 
 passion for the fruits of religion. They had yet to learn 
 how disgusting were all their holy sacrifices when un- 
 accompanied by the perfume of mercy.* * They had failed, 
 in other words, to apply the principles of their faith to 
 their daily conduct. The campaign of the Kingdom would 
 introduce into society a force with a vitalizing power 
 sufficient to perform the miracle of miracles — the trans- 
 formation of selfish men into men of love. And He con- 
 templated giving this force right of way in every re- 
 lationship in the life of men. 
 
 The underlying principle 
 
 The vitalizing force was to be the law of love; it was 
 to be much more than a law of reciprocity. “If ye love 
 them that love you, what thank have ye?” He asked; 
 “for even sinners love those that love them. And if ye 
 do good to them that do good to you, what thank have 
 ye? for even sinners do the same.”* Jesus broke com- 
 pletely away from the accepted interpretation of the word 
 “neighbor” which Jewish casuistry had devised, by mak- 
 ing it plain that in His mind it included even the un- 
 congenial and despised members of society.* In fact, 
 these were the very ones who to His mind most needed 
 
 ^ Luke iv. 18-21. ® Hosea vi. 6; cf. Matt. xii. 7. 
 
 ^ Luke vi. 32, 33. 
 
 * Matt. ix. 10-12; Luke x. 29-37; John iv. 27, viii. 9-n. 
 
A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT FOR WAR 
 
 79 
 
 the ministries of love/ The application of His law, there- 
 fore, knows no limitations of race, color, or social rank. 
 It includes men of every stage of advancement in civili- 
 zation and culture, of every avocation and employment, of 
 every degree of influence, and of every grade of char- 
 acter. It contemplates fusing these diverse elements by 
 a common passion and the comradeship of a common 
 cause into an ever-expanding and increasingly irresistible 
 union, whose combined power will overcome all that hin- 
 ders the complete establishment of His Kingdom. 
 
 Invincible goodwill 
 
 All this Jesus saw as a great opportunity, at first for 
 His nation, and then for a faithful body of men to be 
 gradually gathered out of all the nations. He saw it 
 not merely as a struggle of individuals against adverse 
 circumstances, but as a united adventure of a large body 
 of strong and resolute souls. He gave His closest com- 
 panions to understand that the sway of this Kingdom 
 would some day be as universally recognized as the light- 
 ning’s flash, which “cometh forth from the east, and is 
 seen even unto the west.” “ 
 
 Suppose the Jewish people had accepted the vocation to 
 which Jesus had called them and taken on themselves 
 the task of practising as a nation a policy of invincible 
 goodwill? By charity of spirit and purity of life they 
 might have won the Roman and convinced the Greek; 
 their very unselfishness would have shamed the Sad- 
 ducee and the Herodian. For all ages they would have 
 stood as the first example of a people wholly dedicated to 
 the service of mankind. Their contribution to the world 
 
 * Mark ii. 17. 
 
 ® Matt. xxiv. 27. 
 
8o THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 up to this point was only a part of the truth. They had 
 shown the power of the monotheistic idea in developing 
 righteousness. What if they had risen to their oppor- 
 tunity to demonstrate to all nations the fuller ideal, not 
 only of one God, but of a Father God, of whom all men 
 are sons, and in whom all men are brothers? Even if 
 the nation had gone down, as Jesus did, under the pres- 
 sure of hate, would the sacrifice have been unavailing? 
 
 The new movement 
 
 The Jewish people declined to undertake such a mis- 
 sion. Jesus was then driven to turn to a body of faith- 
 ful disciples, and His later ministry was given up to 
 the training of this little band who were to form the 
 nucleus of the new Kingdom. For a long time they could 
 not grasp His larger ideal. They too were patriotic 
 Jews and thought of their nation and its great hopes in 
 terms of material prosperity. They evidently understood 
 but imperfectly their Master’s deliberate sacrifice, and 
 at His death their visions faded. But when they were 
 convinced that He was alive, see their eager hopes spring 
 up again as they ask the question: “Dost thou at this 
 time restore the kingdom to Israel ?” ^ The answer is a 
 call to service. 
 
 Afterward they came to learn the nature of the King- 
 dom, they came to know its spiritual significance and 
 to be convinced of the secondary place of material pos- 
 sessions. But, at the same time, they did not lose their 
 sense of the corporate ideal. They translated their con- 
 ception of Jesus’ message into social terms of great in- 
 timacy. Israel’s sense of mission is appropriated by the 
 
 ^ Acts i. 6. 
 
A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT FOR WAR 
 
 8i 
 
 Apostles for the Christian community. Paul continually 
 refers to his fellow-Christians as part of a new divine 
 race — the Israel of God;* * and Peter says: “But ye are 
 an elect race, ... a holy nation, a people for God’s 
 own possession.” ” The thirteenth chapter of First Corin- 
 thians and the Apostle James’ summary of true religion 
 as that which leads a man to visit “the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction,” ® are eternal witnesses to the 
 writers’ social habit of mind. Down through the cen- 
 turies there have been many who have seen more or less 
 clearly the vision of the larger Kingdom of God. 
 
 It is an encouraging sign that Christians today seem 
 to be thinking of this Kingdom more and more as a new 
 social order, a Kingdom of persons, not alone the ab- 
 stract rule of God in the human heart. May it not be 
 that when this conception takes a really strong hold on 
 the minds of Christians, it will be easier to let this cause 
 have first place in life? 
 
 The Kingdom in modern life 
 
 Who will take up the responsibility of fulfilling the 
 vocation of Jesus’ Kingdom today?’* Is the thought of 
 allegiance to this Kingdom commanding enough to place 
 it as a cause above other causes? 
 
 With a cause involving issues so vital, results so far- 
 reaching, and a claim so universal, can we not expect 
 the fullest development of all the social virtues which 
 the best wars have ever created, and look forward with 
 confidence to the expansion and multiplication of other 
 
 ^ Gal. vi. i6. Peter ii. 9. ® James i. 27. 
 
 * This chapter has been written in full recognition of the fact that 
 the Gospel is more than a social force, and that nothing must be allowed 
 to supplant or detract from the direct and personal sway of Jesus Christ 
 in the individual heart. 
 
82 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 virtues which no war could possibly produce? The estab- 
 lishment of the Kingdom is an exhaustless enterprise, in 
 the interests of the whole man, and of all men. Every 
 man has his place in its service. All good causes are 
 caught up into it : what really worthy cause is beyond 
 its scope? 
 
 First of all, this Kingdom is founded on the assumption 
 that goodwill is actually invincible, and that every moral 
 purpose entering into any national ideal may be realized 
 only through the power of friendship and brotherhood. 
 In the Kingdom scale of values things which must be won 
 by personal violence are not considered worth the win- 
 ning. Since the aim is to bring all men into one great 
 and free cooperative effort, men must be won to this 
 Kingdom. 
 
 When a man is loyal to this Kingdom, he is not dis- 
 loyal to any other Good. None of the finer loyalties of 
 his life need be sacrificed. National loyalty, love of 
 home, adherence to social movements — as long as such 
 ideals remain unselfish — do not conflict with the King- 
 dom. In the great cooperation of all for the good of all, 
 every helper is wanted at his best. 
 
 The campaign ahead 
 
 The task is still before us. What single nation has 
 ever conceived of a grander “national vocation” than this : 
 to subdue nature, not for the enrichment of individuals, 
 but for the service of mankind; to explore the field of 
 knowledge, that every truth which will help man to be 
 better and happier may be discovered and made avail- 
 able ; to remake our social life in every land so that there 
 shall be a free opportunity for every man to achieve his 
 
A SOCIAL EQUIVALENT FOR WAR 83 
 
 best for the good of all; to bring all men to understand 
 and appropriate the fundamental principles of justice 
 and freedom; to overcome evil with good; to smother 
 hate and prejudice under such an overflowing measure 
 of goodwill that the wrong is buried forever? 
 
 If such an ideal cannot stir the hearts of men then 
 they must surely wish for something lower. They must 
 wish to see one nation gain all the spoil, or one class 
 dominate their country, or one church get great wealth 
 and worldly influence, or deeply desire themselves to se- 
 cure from other men all that they can for their own use. 
 Such ideals seem not only wrong but petty, beside the 
 great call to make over this world here and now into a 
 place of free opportunity, surpassing brotherhood, and 
 boundless, active happiness. 
 
 In spite of all set-backs, the Kingdom of God is form- 
 ing out of all nations; and the commerce of goodwill 
 has begun. But the difficulties are many and the active 
 opponents are strong. Brotherly love is the only means 
 that will be ultimately successful; all things worth while 
 in the world can be won by friendship. The Sermon on 
 the Mount is the gauntlet flung down for all time to 
 those who say that the strong arm wins the day. No true 
 citizen need fear that a surplus of courage and devotion 
 will be left on his hands; he will be praying for powers 
 equal to his task. 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 Walter Rauschenbusch, “Christianity and the Social 
 Crisis,” Chapters I, II, and III. 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter V 
 
 How was the national movement of the Jews a social 
 movement? 
 
 When is a national movement a social movement ? Did 
 the Jewish national movement meet this test? 
 
 How far do just citizens insure a just state? Can you 
 have an unjust state made up of just citizens? 
 
 What are the characteristics of Jesus’ new Kingdom? 
 
 Was Jesus a Social Reformer? Why do you make this 
 answer? 
 
 How far would the acceptance of Jesus’ principles for 
 His Kingdom prove an antidote for war? 
 
 Why does the principle of love make the new King- 
 dom invincible? What is the difference between the 
 invincible principle of love and the conquerable principle 
 of force? 
 
 What determines the limit of the power of force in the 
 life of the individual and the world? What is the effect 
 of force upon free moral action? 
 
 If the adoption of the new Messianic Kingdom by the 
 Jews had not resulted in national freedom, would it have 
 failed of its purpose? 
 
 What differences would the inauguration of the new 
 Messianic Kingdom have made in the life of Pales- 
 tine? What differences would be found were it in- 
 augurated today? 
 
 What is the secret of the power of the new Messianic 
 Kingdom of Jesus? 
 
HAS JESUS AN EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR 
 THE INDIVIDUAL? 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HAS JESUS AN EQUIVALENT OF 
 WAR FOR THE INDIVIDUAL? 
 
 Terrible as war is we cannot close our eyes to the 
 fact that it tends to enlarge the social consciousness, uni- 
 versalize unselfishness, promote cooperation, strengthen 
 cohesiveness, and develop loyalty to a common cause. It 
 has often meant “a purification and elevation of the na- 
 tional life. A common purpose has lifted men above 
 themselves. They have found themselves ready to make 
 undreamed-of sacrifices for the sake of a worthy cause. 
 It is the power of war to evoke such efforts that makes 
 men tolerate an evil so hateful. War is nobler than 
 ease-loving materialism, and men are aware of it.” ^ 
 
 At the outset it will seem to some a hopeless search to 
 look to the quiet methods which Jesus used for an effec- 
 tive plan by which to produce an equivalent of the values 
 for the individual resulting from war. How can such 
 methods develop an enthusiasm for a common cause, 
 which will be as universal as that set ablaze by war and 
 fanned by preparation for possible war, and which will 
 be kept burning in the hearts of men who accept no 
 other discipline than that of the “meek and lowly” Jesus? 
 
 ^ In Papers for the War Time, No. 9, entitled “The Witness of the 
 Chiirch in the Present Crisis,” p. 13. 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 How can any peaceful cause be great enough to give 
 birth to the rough “martial” virtues ? The challenge is 
 a fair one, but does it not fail to take account of the fact 
 that the program of Jesus is both mild and militant, 
 and is as universal as it is individual? The only way in 
 which we can test the matter is by seeking to discover 
 the effects in the lives of men of the spirit and program 
 of Jesus. 
 
 The discipline of Jesus 
 
 Although, as we have seen, Jesus turned away repeat- 
 edly from the achievements and glory of a military career, 
 yet His unwillingness to “restore the Kingdom to Israel” 
 by force was due in no sense to any shrinking from the 
 perils or responsibilities involved.' He foresaw that the 
 course which He deliberately chose would end in a most 
 painful and humiliating death. Long before His cruci- 
 fixion He began to prepare His disciples for this apparent 
 ending of their hopes. Yet “He stedfastly set His face 
 to go to Jerusalem,” and there suffer the consequences 
 of what He believed to be His duty.* One who was im- 
 pressed by His resolute courage wrote that He “learned 
 obedience by the things which he suffered.” * 
 
 Are we to infer, then, that Jesus chose suffering as a 
 means of discipline? It is very clear that He was ex- 
 tremely sensitive to both joy and pain, and that His life 
 was rich in its emotional experiences. Undoubtedly these 
 experiences had a profound influence upon His life and 
 work. But is there any evidence that He consciously 
 sought either joy or pain as an end in itself, or for any 
 discipline that He might gain thereby? He deliberately 
 
 1 See Chapter III. ® Luke ix. 51; Mark viii. 31-33- ® Heb. v. 7-8. 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL 89 
 
 turned from the ascetic practice of John the Baptist. 
 He never lived the life of a recluse; nor is there any evi- 
 dence that He ever practised austerities for their own 
 sake, or for their effect upon Himself. He was “touched 
 with no ascetic gloom,” and entered joyously into the best 
 pleasures of those whom He loved. At the wedding 
 feast of His kinsman. He helped provide for the enter- 
 tainment of the guests. He was as much at home at the 
 tables of the rich as in the cottages of the poor, and was 
 constantly seeking opportunities of mingling with all sorts 
 and conditions of men. He seemed to select His paths 
 of duty irrespective of any enjoyment or suffering. 
 
 His fundamental choice 
 
 These facts drive us back of all His experiences of 
 joy or pain, to a fundamental choice on the part of Jesus. 
 Although as a boy of twelve He came to Jerusalem with 
 an unusually active mind and the consciousness of a 
 special mission, yet for many years longer He chose to 
 remain under the discipline of His humble Jewish home, 
 and to identify Himself with the common lot of His 
 fellowmen by learning a trade, and by submitting to the 
 limitations of life in one of the despised villages of His 
 country. By far the greater part of His life was spent 
 in this way; and even in the three short years of His 
 wider ministry He still preferred to share the common lot, 
 and to identify Himself in every way with the needs of 
 His brother men. His followers were evidently deeply 
 impressed with the significance of His adherence to this 
 way of living, for one of them wrote, with the memory 
 of His life still vivid, that “it became Him in all things 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a 
 merciful and faithful” representative of the people. 
 
 His controlling motive 
 
 By thus identifying Himself with all the interests of 
 His fellowmen, and living for their highest welfare, Jesus 
 found His life by His very willingness to lose it. Even 
 character and holiness ceased to be ends in themselves. 
 His disciples remembered His words: “For their sakes 
 I sanctify myself.”^ Emphatically He had told them: 
 “Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it : but 
 whosoever shall lose his life, shall save it alive.” ® Is 
 it not evident that what Jesus did and what He suffered 
 came from a larger motive than the desire for personal 
 development? Are we not compelled, therefore, to go 
 back of all external methods of discipline, and all de- 
 liberately sought experiences to the great controlling mo- 
 tive of Jesus’ life? He was constantly seeking the will 
 of His Father. This was the very sustenance of His 
 life.® He lived so consciously and so constantly in the 
 most intimate relations with His Father that the will of 
 God was to Him no arbitrary rule of conduct imposed 
 by external authority. On the contrary He found His 
 Father’s will through the deep consciousness of His own 
 Sonship, and of His Father’s purpose that all men should 
 love Him as their Father, and one another as brothers. 
 
 His manliness 
 
 Did His passion to do the will of God fail to call out 
 in Jesus those moral qualities which we have found are 
 
 *John xvii. 19. ® Luke xvii. 33 (Marg. R. V.). 
 
 ® John iv. 34. 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL gi 
 
 developed in -war? We have already noticed His un- 
 compromising courage in dealing with the faults of men, 
 and His calm resolution in the face of their active hatred/ 
 His self-control, too, was perfect, even when He ex- 
 perienced the extremes of hunger and weariness, and 
 when all about Him was in commotion. Where can we 
 find a sublimer illustration of endurance or of self-sacri- 
 fice than in Jesus? Who has ever shown greater re- 
 sourcefulness under conditions of extreme difficulty than 
 He, as when men sought to entrap Him in His words, 
 or to send Him headlong over a precipice? In whom 
 has decision of character and faithfulness to duty been 
 more fully exemplified? Is there a single trait of manli- 
 ness of which He is not the supreme example? Although 
 art has distorted our mental picture of the face of Jesus, 
 who in all the ages has called forth such universal ad- 
 miration both for the quieter virtues and for all the 
 vigorous qualities of strongest manhood? 
 
 The followers of Jesus 
 
 In the followers of Jesus we find that similar qualities 
 are reproduced in proportion as men have caught the 
 vision of the all-embracing mission of the Kingdom, and 
 of all that world-wide brotherhood really means; how 
 much has to be righted in personal habits and purposes 
 as well as in business, in society, and in politics, in order 
 to make it possible for men to live as brothers. 
 
 His early disciples were constantly reminded how 
 much greater reasons and incentives they had for physi- 
 cal development and self-control than had even soldiers 
 or athletes.* They were taught the vital relation be- 
 
 ^ See Chapter III. 
 
 Cor. ix. 2S, 26; Eph. vi. 10-17. 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 tween body and spirit, and the importance at any cost 
 of keeping the body in subjection/ Some who had 
 been too easy with themselves were rebuked: “In 
 your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted so 
 as to endanger your lives.” “ They were reminded of na- 
 tional heroes who had accomplished the impossible 
 through faith, and were summoned as by a battle cry to 
 more heroic exertion : “Let us fling aside every en- 
 cumbrance and the sin that so readily entangles our feet. 
 And let us run with patient endurance the race that lies 
 before us, simply fixing our gaze upon Jesus.”® 
 
 The discipline of the mil 
 
 The conditions of warfare are supposed to be especially 
 favorable for the discipline of the will ; but long before 
 modern writers pointed out the “central importance of 
 will and action,” Jesus had anticipated them by the con- 
 ditions of comradeship in His warfare. Religion and life 
 were to Him matters not merely of the affections or of 
 the understanding, but of the will. A fundamental con- 
 dition for discovering truth in His Kingdom is well set 
 forth — “If any man willcth to do his will he shall know 
 of the teaching.” * The religion of Jesus made no attempt 
 to satisfy merely curious intellects or purposeless emo- 
 tions; its teachings were addressed primarily to the will. 
 “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”® 
 Even prayer becomes, not only clear thinking and right 
 feeling, but both of these expressed in acts of will. Those 
 who consistently meet the conditions of Jesus discover 
 that “private prayer, when it is real action, is the greatest 
 
 ^ I Cor. vi. 19; ix. 27. 
 
 ® Heb. xii. i, 2 (Weymouth). 
 
 ® Heb. xii. 4 (Weymouth). 
 
 *John xiii. 17. ®John vii. 17. 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL 93 
 
 forge of personality. It places a man in direct and effec- 
 tive contact with God the Creator, the source of origi- 
 nality, and especially with God the Redeemer as the source 
 of our new creation.” ^ The early disciple who has most 
 profoundly impressed the world by his thinking, learned 
 through his own relationship with Jesus possibilities of 
 attainment for the human will such as he had never be- 
 fore realized.® 
 
 More effective in steeling the will than even the rugged 
 discipline of war is the strong and ever-present pull of this 
 divine loyalty which draws men with a power far beyond 
 the force of even the sternest necessity. 
 
 The control of the emotions 
 
 While it may be true that war has furnished an oppor- 
 tunity for the growth of the manly virtues, yet it must 
 be recognized that it also tends to unbridle the natural 
 passions of man. Little incentive is given by war for 
 curbing hatred, lust, or the passion for self-aggrandize- 
 ment. Jesus, on the contrary, makes provision for the 
 most complete control of man’s emotional nature. He was 
 constantly calling men to realize that the heart was the 
 fountain of life;® His disciples learned that “whosoever 
 hateth his brother is a murderer,” * * that the impure look 
 is in reality a gross sin.® Jesus knew that the human heart 
 of itself could not be emptied of these evil feelings, that 
 only “the expulsive power of a new affection” could keep 
 men pure. As the disciples saw the love of Jesus con- 
 stantly expressed in many ways, and marveled at its in- 
 
 ^ P. T. Forsyth, “The Power of Prayer,” p. in. See G. A. Beaver, 
 “Every Man’s Part in World Brotherhood.” 
 
 ^ See Romans vii. 15-25, and viii. ^ Mark vii. 14-23. 
 
 *I John iii. 15. ® Matt. v. 28. 
 
94 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 fluence upon proud and sinful men and women, they must 
 have been prepared for the larger social message, “A new 
 commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; 
 even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” ^ 
 
 The development of the mind 
 
 Although much can be said about the stimulating effect 
 of war upon the intellectual life of those who bear special 
 responsibilities, or who have unusual opportunities and 
 incentives for thinking, must it not be admitted that upon 
 the great mass of those who fight and those who suffer, 
 war has often had a stupefying or stultifying effect ? Jesus, 
 on the contrary, intends that every one who accepts His 
 conditions of discipleship shall have the best chance for 
 all the intellectual development of which he is capable. 
 This truth has been sadly obscured by the cupidity and 
 intolerance of many who have borne His name. But the 
 dealing of Jesus Himself with men always brought intel- 
 lectual freedom. “If you hold fast to my teaching, then 
 you are truly my disciples; and you shall know the Truth, 
 and the Truth shall make you free.”* 
 
 Instances could be multiplied of how minds of the most 
 diverse capacities have found their freest and fullest de- 
 velopment in the spiritual warfare of Jesus.® The epistles 
 of Paul, read with special reference to the life and charac- 
 ter which they reveal, show what the Christian equivalent 
 of war did for one of the most original and creative of 
 
 ^Tohn xiii. 34. _ “John viii. 32 (Weymouth). 
 
 ® In our own day the life as well as the writings of Phillips Brooks 
 are a most inspiring commentary upon this subject. See especially his 
 lectures; The Influence of Jesus on the moral, the social, the emo- 
 tional, and the intellectual life of man. John Woolman’s “Journal” 
 illustrates what Jesus can do for the intellectual life of a man with 
 quite different opportunities and capacities. 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL 95 
 
 minds. Paul found in Jesus a relationship to God and 
 to his fellowmen which changed his entire conception of 
 life and service. This is evident from the way he was 
 driven into Arabia to think, and from all his subsequent 
 life and writings. It was from a new intellectual point 
 of view that he wrote: “If any man is in Christ there 
 is a new creation : the old things are passed away ; be- 
 hold they are become new.” ' 
 
 A spiritual conflict 
 
 Such is the self-control and such the discipline of intel- 
 lect, feelings, and will which the Christian equivalent of 
 war offers to every individual who will enlist in the strug- 
 gle against evil. It “is not a conflict with mere flesh 
 and blood, but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces 
 that control and govern this dark world — the spiritual 
 hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly war- 
 fare.” ^ None of the fundamental evil motives of carnal 
 war can thrive in this warfare of the soul. It is not a 
 fight for material possession, nor is it a fight for great- 
 ness; so there can be no greed or selfish ambition. Still 
 less can there be hatred or retaliation.® And yet it is a 
 fight of supreme importance, for it is a question of life 
 itself. Jesus said He had come to bring this life more 
 abundantly. “What doth it profit a man,” He said, “to 
 gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?”'* * The con- 
 ditions which He laid down as essential for this life are, 
 therefore, no less exacting, and are far richer in in- 
 centives and rewards than is any discipline which war can 
 offer. He made it plain that there must be no slackening 
 
 ^ II Cor. V. 17 (Marg. R. V.). 
 
 * See Chapter I. 
 
 vi. 12 (Weymouth). 
 * Mark viii. 36. 
 
96 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 of discipline : “If thy hand ... if thy foot cause thee 
 to stumble, cut it off ... if thy eye cause thee to 
 stumble, cast it out.” ' Every man must be relentless 
 with himself even to the point of sacrificing whatever 
 might otherwise be both useful and needful, rather than 
 allow Jesus’ conditions of life to be violated. 
 
 The influence of the Cause 
 
 But, after all, the highest development is not to be 
 secured from any mere discipline or fight for charac- 
 ter. Is it not evident that any external regimen which 
 seeks to be a moral equivalent of war must fail, as 
 the Mosaic Law failed, because it does not have in it 
 the life-giving spirit ? Whatever the beneficent effects in 
 character accomplished by war, they arise, not chiefly 
 out of the discipline of military regulations, but out of 
 the spirit of sacrifice and devotion which leads men to 
 forget themselves in a cause that is far greater than any 
 individual or than any self-centered friendships or 
 merely local interests. If, therefore, we would seek from 
 Jesus a moral equivalent for the effect of war upon char- 
 acter, we must go with Him back of His ethical teaching 
 and of any external habits of His life, back even of His 
 principles and ideals, to the fundamental motive of His 
 life — His relationship to His Father in Heaven. If we 
 would thus follow Him to the only source of enduring 
 character, we must find and maintain the most favorable 
 conditions for the growth of this filial relationship with 
 our Heavenly Father, and of the consequent brotherly 
 relations with our fellowmen. We must learn like Him 
 
 ^ Mark ix. 43, 47. 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL 97 
 
 to find our lives by losing them in the larger life of the 
 great Kingdom which He came to establish among men. 
 
 Paul’s life and letters illustrate how essential the social 
 and world-wide program of Jesus is to the highest de- 
 velopment of the individual. Paul had no doubt that he 
 was spending himself in the one great undertaking in 
 which he could find his largest growth. Whether he was 
 sewing tents or writing letters, taking virtual command 
 in a shipwreck, or speaking to curious Athenians, it was 
 his life to serve those whom he would win for the new 
 brotherhood. Most of those whom he won likewise 
 counted no sacrifice too great for the common cause. 
 There is no doubt that their Father’s love, as they had 
 discovered it in Jesus, made better and stronger men of 
 them and of their fellow disciples than could any influ- 
 ence of war or any hopes of mere political freedom. 
 The human impossibility of their insignificant numbers 
 making any great impression upon the world, and their 
 common peril from both Jews and Romans, developed 
 not only daring faith, but loving unity and heroic sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The immediate duty 
 
 How are we to have the moral equivalent of these con- 
 ditions in the complex and luxurious life of our day? 
 And how is the hope of real brotherhood to be made as 
 compelling to us as it was to the Apostles? Doubtless 
 many things never before attempted must be undertaken 
 by the Church, and by various forms of Christian organi- 
 zation, to make our sense of brotherly obligation more 
 definite and imperative. National and community govern- 
 ments also have much to do in making the conditions of 
 
98 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 real brotherhood possible for all men. These new under- 
 takings in Church and State will bring to every individual 
 most important duties of which he is now but dimly 
 aware. Some of these duties have been touched upon else- 
 where. Many are too far reaching for discussion here, but 
 will be more fully disclosed as men of all nations reso- 
 lutely set themselves to establish righteous and enduring 
 peace. This enterprise, which individual Christians as 
 well as governments, and even the Church itself, have 
 too long neglected, offers a field where the virile qualities 
 are most necessary, and where they should be exercised 
 to the utmost. 
 
 But where and in what spirit shall the individual make 
 a beginning if he would find the best equivalent of war? 
 Must he not throw himself, as the Apostles did, into 
 the world program of Jesus with the completeness of 
 their devotion, before he can expect in his individual life 
 the effects which they experienced? The whole tenor 
 of the New Testament shows that all pride of race, posi- 
 tion, or achievement must be put away, and that the 
 teachable spirit, which Jesus alone can impart, must be 
 brought into all the relationships of life. How can this 
 be done except by the method which Paul found neces- 
 sary — the actual daily living of the Christ-like life? 
 
 The great adventure 
 
 No one can go far in this endeavor without* discovering 
 that it is the great adventure, that nothing else brings so 
 completely into play all that is best and strongest in human 
 nature. Our very failures in trying to bring real love into 
 every transaction of life, and into the winning of our 
 fellowmen to the hope and purpose of Christian brother- 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL 99 
 
 hood, will compel new discoveries of God’s resources as 
 our Father and their Father. We shall find that only as 
 the Spirit of Jesus dominates our thought and action can 
 His influence be exerted through us upon those whom we 
 would lead into His friendship and service.^ Then prayer 
 for others, as well as personal communion with God, will 
 take a new and larger place in our life and we shall trust 
 Him to do His work in His own way. As He thus works 
 through us the experiences of Jesus and of those who 
 knew Him best will be so repeated that the New Testa- 
 ment will become reenacted for our day. We ourselves 
 shall become a new creation ; old things will have passed 
 away; all things will become new.’ We shall see that 
 every one must come through the unity of the family of 
 God, as no individual or even race can come alone, to the 
 knowledge of the Son of God. He will be revealed more 
 completely to us, as men of every race and nation seek to 
 know and serve Him better, and as they are set free to 
 work out their own destiny within the larger unity of 
 faith. Thus each shall come, in the only way possible 
 for us, “unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ.” ’ 
 
 Supplementary Reading 
 
 Study carefully the Scripture references mentioned in 
 the footnotes. 
 
 W. M. Ramsay, “St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman 
 Citizen.” 
 
 Lives of militant leaders in the church, such as Martin 
 Luther, Francis Xavier, John Wesley, and David Living- 
 stone. 
 
 ^ Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 ® II Cor. V. 17. 
 
 ^ Eph. iv. 13. 
 
100 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Suggestions for Thought and Discussion 
 ON Chapter VI 
 
 What is the place of hard things in the development of 
 character? 
 
 What is the difference in the effect on character of 
 football, baseball, and golf? 
 
 How far is conflict necessary to the development of 
 character? What is the difference between conflict in 
 games and conflict in real life? 
 
 How far are difficulties essential to developing strong 
 character ? Why does a hard task make so strong an ap- 
 peal to young persons? 
 
 What is the difference in the effect upon character be- 
 tween self-inflicted hardship and sacrifice for a worthy 
 enterprise? Is it inevitable that sacrifice will be neces- 
 sary in following a worthy cause? Why, or why not? 
 
 What was the effect upon Jesus of devotion to His cause? 
 
 For your ideal of Jesus, what changes would be neces- 
 sary in His representation in religious art? 
 
 What “martial” qualities were developed in Jesus’ life 
 by His service in His cause ? 
 
 What was the effect of devotion to His enterprise upon 
 Jesus’ followers? 
 
 What effect did following Jesus have upon the cour- 
 age of the early Christians? How many of them can be 
 included in the roll of the courageous? 
 
 How far is war necessary if strong will power is to be 
 developed through devotion to a cause? 
 
EQUIVALENT OF WAR FOR INDIVIDUAL loi 
 
 What is the difference in the effect of stern necessity 
 and of voluntary loyal action for a worthy enterprise ? 
 
 What is the difference in the development of will power 
 between war and loyalty to the Christian enterprise? 
 
 What emotions does war develop? Do worthy or un- 
 worthy emotions predominate? 
 
 What is the difference in the effect upon the emotions 
 between devotion to a war cause, and to a peaceful 
 cause? Between war and the Christian enterprise? 
 
 What light does history throw upon the contributions 
 of war and of the Christian Church to the development of 
 the intellect? 
 
 What new qualities of leadership were developed after 
 Paul gave himself to the Christian enterprise? For what 
 qualities of leadership did he find no further use? 
 
 In which cause are motives and opportunities first ex- 
 hausted — a cause promoted by war methods or the great 
 Christian cause? 
 
 What is the real secret of the moral effects of war? 
 
 How far does the secret lie in the discipline and com- 
 bat, and how far in the spirit of devotion to the cause 
 represented in the war? In what ways is the secret of 
 the development of Christian character similar? 
 
 What are the opportunities in the life of today for 
 practical enterprises equal to war in their moral ef- 
 fects upon the individual? 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 • I 
 
 THE SUBSIDENCE OF FORCE IN THE NAR- 
 ROWER SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 A familiar illustration of the subsidence of the appeal 
 to physical force in individual relationships is furnished 
 by the almost complete disappearance of slavery from 
 modern life. In Rome’s palmiest days three-fourths of 
 the people were slaves, chained in the fields when at 
 work, chained at night in their dormitories, or chained 
 to the doorways as porters. Slavery was the foundation 
 of a type of society which has not had the vitality to 
 survive. It was discovered that free labor was more 
 profitable than slave labor because the free man took an 
 intelligent interest in his work. 
 
 Mr. Angell graphically illustrates it, “Here are two 
 men : one is digging ; the other is standing over him with 
 a whip or a weapon. We are apt to think of one as 
 bond, and the other as free; but both are bond. If the 
 man with the whip or weapon is thirsty, and wants to go 
 to the river to drink, he cannot; his slave would run 
 away. He is sleepy and wants to sleep, equally he cannot. 
 He would like to hunt; equally he cannot. He is bound, 
 tied to the slave much as the slave is tied to him. His 
 work of control, compulsion, watching, whatever you 
 
 105 
 
io6 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 care to call it, is not directly productive at all; it is only 
 indirectly productive, necessitated by the resistance of the 
 slave. If we can imagine the slave driver or owner, 
 wearied with this arrangement, saying to the slave, T 
 am going hunting, and if you will stay here and do this 
 task during the day, I will give you half of the proceeds 
 of my hunt,’ and the slave agreeing to this, you double 
 the productivity of the two men ; you have two producing 
 instead of one. Indeed, you have more, because if the 
 offer is such as really to involve a voluntary agreement 
 on the part of the slave — a desire to do the work in order 
 to get the reward — all the energy which the slave origi- 
 nally devoted to looking for a chance of escape is now 
 liberated for his task.” ^ 
 
 The economic argument for the abolition of slavery has 
 been everywhere reinforced by the moral motive which 
 has demanded the recognition of the rights of the indi- 
 vidual; in fact men have often been more prompt in 
 responding to the moral than to the economic appeal, as 
 was clearly the case when slavery was abolished from the 
 United States of America. 
 
 Another illustration of the subsidence of force is found 
 in judicial procedure. A century and a half ago torture 
 was largely resorted to in the trial of criminals. But it 
 was gradually realized that the use of force really de- 
 feated its own ends, for the prisoner was quite as likely 
 to lie as to tell the truth. Torture was, therefore, aban- 
 doned as useless as well as cruel. 
 
 Similarly with the physical punishment of crime. In 
 England branding and mutilation were common, and cap- 
 ital punishment was the penalty for many petty misdeeds. 
 
 * Norman Angell, “Arms and Industry,” p. 14. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 107 
 
 But violent crime ■was rampant. Though the highway- 
 men carried their lives in their hands, they swarmed 
 upon every road. When the excessive penalties were 
 abrogated, crime diminished ; and as our leaders are 
 learning that punishment should be the instrument of re- 
 form rather than retribution, moral force is gradually 
 being substituted for physical.^ 
 
 In the evolution of the modern science of education 
 there has likewise been a marked tendency to relegate the 
 use of physical force to the limbo of obsolete and dis- 
 carded methods. And yet it once held a very prominent 
 place in educational practice. There was a time when 
 the average school boy received constant thrashings. His 
 lessons were supposed to be thrashed into him, and his 
 faults thrashed out. But it was finally discovered that 
 such discipline did not always result in either scholarship 
 or character. Scarcely any one today would venture to 
 advocate the reintroduction of the harsh methods of 
 former generations, realizing that they tended to blunt 
 the feelings and thus to retard true progress. Present- 
 day methods are based on the assumption that the appeal 
 to reason and conscience is more effective and productive 
 of better and more permanent results than any form of 
 mere physical coercion. 
 
 II 
 
 MILITARY POWER AND NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 The underlying assumption of the militarist party is 
 clearly set forth by Frederic Harrison, who declared that 
 
 ^ Cf W. E. Wilson, “Christ and War,” pp, 154, 155. 
 
io8 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 if England allowed Germany to outrun her in the race of 
 armaments “famine, social anarchy, incalculable chaos in 
 the industrial and financial world would be the inevitable 
 result.” ' A similar attitude was taken by Professor von 
 Schulze-Gaevernitz, of Germany, who said : “We want our 
 navy in order to confine the commercial rivalry of Eng- 
 land within innocuous limits, and to deter the sober sense 
 of the English people from the extremely threatening 
 thought of attack upon us. . . . The German navy 
 
 is a condition of our bare existence and independence, like 
 the daily bread on which we depend not only for our- 
 selves but for our children.” ^ 
 
 The policy that regards national wealth as dependent 
 on military power has doubtless to a degree been justified 
 in the experience of the past. In the days of the Romans, 
 for instance, the conqueror often received material ad- 
 vantage from pressing his conquest. Government and 
 soldiers together shared the acquisition of land, loot, and 
 labor which accrued from their victories. In the middle 
 ages, too, economic conditions were such as to make war 
 profitable to the victors, who could often win possessions 
 and slaves without a disproportionate outlay of life and 
 treasure. Within comparatively recent times the con- 
 quest of uncivilized or only partially civilized races has 
 brought material advantage to the conquering nation and 
 to some extent to the world at large, for it has resulted 
 in the opening of new markets. 
 
 War in the past has also undoubtedly been stimulated 
 by trade. Competition for the trade of the Levant during 
 the period of the Crusades kept the cities of Italy in a con- 
 stant state of mutual antagonism. Spain and the Nether- 
 
 ^ Quoted in “The Great Illusion,” p. 6. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 109 
 
 lands fought for the trade of East India. England and 
 France were in arms against one another for a century 
 over problems of trade. Venice in early modern times 
 became more warlike as its commerce grew, and Eng- 
 land enlarged her equipment for war with the expansion 
 of her trade routes.'^ In view of such historical facts as 
 these it is of real importance to discover, if possible, 
 whether the power to wage war is still an economic ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 Even a superficial survey of the conditions which now 
 obtain make it evident that there remain but few direct 
 sources of gain from conquest. Generally speaking, there 
 have been three such sources in the past: confiscation, 
 tribute, and indemnity. Do any of these three avenues 
 lead to national wealth in the present age ? 
 
 In a day when private property is inviolable, except for 
 some fair equivalent, and little public property is portable, 
 it is difficult to discover wherein a modern power could 
 possibly gain any appreciable return from confiscation. 
 The only public wealth which could be seized is either 
 in the form of buildings, which cannot be transported, 
 or of paper tokens and contracts which lose their value 
 in proportion as the conditions of war prevail. The value 
 of stocks and bonds would rapidly depreciate if taken as 
 booty. Moreover, the panic caused by such confiscation 
 would so react on the business interests of the conquer- 
 ing power as to amount practically to economic suicide. 
 This is so evident that modern armies usually find it wiser 
 to pay for all supplies than to risk the economic diffi- 
 culties connected with confiscation. 
 
 ^ For a full discussion of this subject see a pamphlet published in 
 April, 1914, by the American Association for International Concilia- 
 tion, entitled “Commerce and War,” by Professor Alvin Saunders 
 Johnson, of Cornell University. 
 
no THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 The successful collection of tribute in the present day 
 from a conquered people has become equally difficult. In 
 proportion as the amount of tribute exacted is large, 
 burdensome, and humiliating, in that very proportion does 
 the commerce between the conquering and the tribute 
 nation become crippled. Thus a tribute tends to dry up 
 some of the otherwise active sources of national wealth. 
 Moreover, as the wealth of a modern nation does not in- 
 here in its government, which usually carries a heavy 
 debt, but in its people, any course of action which will 
 hinder or destroy the prosperity of the people must also 
 inevitably weaken the financial standing of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 As for indemnities, there are those who point to the 
 billion dollar indemnity exacted by Germany from France 
 at the close of the Franco-Prussian war as conclusive 
 proof that there are wars even in modern times which 
 are financially profitable to the victorious nation. But 
 several other facts will need to be taken into con- 
 sideration before we are quite ready to accept so sweep- 
 ing a conclusion.* It should be remembered, for instance, 
 that one of the direct results of the Franco-Prussian con- 
 flict was an immediate increase in the German army of 
 not less than one hundred thousand men. The cost of 
 maintaining this increase alone throughout the forty odd 
 years which have elapsed since the close of that war has 
 more than counterbalanced the enormous indemnity which 
 France paid. But what of the loss to German markets 
 from devastation of French territory and destruction of 
 
 For an interesting discussion of the economic relations between 
 Germany and France, see “Arms and Industry,” by Norman Angell, 
 pp. 119-124. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 III 
 
 French life, not to mention the general disturbance of the 
 markets of Europe?^ 
 
 No study of direct profits, however, would be complete 
 without a consideration of direct expenses. But the cost 
 of war is so obvious as to make statistical details su- 
 perfluous. The civilized nations of the world in time of 
 peace spend the enormous sum of two and a half billions 
 of dollars per year® on preparations for war, or about 
 two dollars per capita annually for every man, woman 
 and child in civilization. And what is more costly: mil- 
 lions of the strongest-bodied men are taken from produc- 
 tive labor to become the coolies of militarism, while the 
 talents of tens of thousands of the best trained minds are 
 diverted from a multitude of enterprises and activities 
 which make for human uplift, to be concentrated on per- 
 fecting the science and art of human destruction. Who 
 in the face of events now being enacted will venture to 
 claim that war is economically profitable in any direct 
 sense? 
 
 Ill 
 
 ARE THE BEST ARMED NATIONS THE MOST 
 PROSPEROUS COMMERCIALLY? 
 
 If strength of arms be the secret of economic prosper- 
 ity, the best armed nations should be the most prosperous, 
 and conversely those weakest in armament should be the 
 least successful in trade. The evidence here has been 
 well summarized by Mr. Angell as follows : 
 
 ^ For statistical and other evidence that Germany suffered greater 
 financial loss from the war than did her vanquished rival, see the 
 chapter on The Indemnity Futility, in “The Great Illusion,” pp. 88-106. 
 
 * S«e “The Great Illusion,” p. 190 . 
 
1 12 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 “The great nations of Europe do not destroy the trade 
 of the small nations for their own benefit, because they 
 cannot; and the Dutch citizen, whose Government pos- 
 sesses no military power, is just as well off as the Ger- 
 man citizen, whose government possesses an army of two 
 million men, and a great deal better off than the Rus- 
 sian, whose government possesses an army of something 
 like four million.” ‘ 
 
 The same illuminating writer says in another connec- 
 tion: 
 
 “If a great country benefits every time it annexes a 
 province, and her people are the richer for the widened 
 territory, the small nations ought to be immeasurably 
 poorer than the great, instead of which, by every test 
 which you like to apply — public credit, amounts in savings 
 banks, standard of living, social progress, general well- 
 being — citizens of small States are, other things being 
 equal, as well off as, or better off than, the citizens of 
 great States. The citizens of countries like Holland, Bel- 
 gium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway are, by every possible 
 test, just as well off as the citizens of countries like 
 Germany, Austria, or Russia. These are the facts which 
 are so much more potent than any theory. If it is true 
 that a country benefits by the acquisition of territory, and 
 widened territory means general well-being, why do the 
 facts so eternally deny it? There is something wrong 
 with the theory.” * 
 
 So far as physical comfort is concerned a prominent 
 statistician ranks the small and comparatively unprotected 
 States of Europe with England and France at the top 
 of the list, whereas he puts Germany, in spite of her great 
 
 * “The Great Illusion,” p. 35. 
 
 2 In “The Great Illusion,” pp. 47, 48. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 113 
 
 army, sixth, and Russia, whose army and territory is the 
 greatest of all, at the very bottom/ 
 
 No more conclusive evidence of the fact that armies 
 and navies do not constitute a sure guarantee of com- 
 mercial prosperity could be quoted than the actions of in- 
 vestors. As a class they are trained to act not from 
 impulse or prejudice but from a thoughtful weighing of 
 evidence: what is their verdict? They unhesitatingly 
 demand higher rates of interest from their investments 
 with nations which are heavily armed than from the 
 smaller and weaker nations. 
 
 IV 
 
 DO THE OLD TESTAMENT SANCTIONS OF WAR 
 STILL HOLD? 
 
 The convictions of those who interpret the teaching 
 of Jesus to imply an attitude of complete non-resistance 
 is well illustrated by the following: “As the church 
 under a former dispensation had divine authority for en- 
 gaging in war, it is important to ascertain whether this 
 authority was abrogated under the gospel dispensation or 
 not. That many things have been tolerated under one 
 dispensation of the church and prohibited under another, 
 most Christians allow. That the preceptive will of God 
 is to be our only rule of duty, few Christians deny. The 
 knowledge communicated to us of the preceptive will of 
 God to His Church, under the first dispensation, is very 
 limited. We find, however, no authority for taking the 
 
 ^ See Mulhall, in “Industries and Wealth of Nations,” p. 391. 
 
1 14 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 life of man in any case, not even for murder; but, on 
 the contrary, a sevenfold vengeance was pronounced upon 
 him who should slay the murderer. Under the patriarchal 
 dispensation he that shed man’s blood, by man was his 
 blood to be shed. In this, defensive war was tolerated. 
 Under the Mosaic dispensation, not only defensive but 
 offensive war was tolerated, and not only war was per- 
 mitted, but retaliation, as ‘an eye for an eye’; ‘a tooth 
 for a tooth’; ‘life for life,’ etc. 
 
 “The question to be decided is whether these regula- 
 tions are still in force, or whether they were disannulled 
 by the gospel dispensation? The life and precepts of 
 our Lord and His disciples while under the unerring 
 guidance of His Spirit must be our only authority in this 
 inquiry. That many things were done away by the gos- 
 pel dispensation, none will deny who believe the gospel. 
 The ceremonial part, which was only a shadow of good 
 things to come, vanished away when the substance ap- 
 peared; and not only the ceremonial part was abolished, 
 but many other practices. Polygamy was permitted under 
 the law, but forbidden under the gospel. Divorce was 
 allowed under the Mosaic but prohibited under the gospel 
 dispensation, except in the case of adultery. Under the 
 Mosaic dispensation the penalty for whoredom was 
 stoning to death. This penalty was not enforced under 
 the gospel dispensation, as may be seen in John viii. ii. 
 That all kinds of war, revenge, and fighting were utterly 
 prohibited under the gospel dispensation we think appears 
 evident, not only from the life of our glorious Mediator 
 but from His express precepts. Jesus answered, ‘My 
 kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of 
 this world, then would my servants fight, that I should 
 not be delivered to the Jews.’ No comment can add force 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 115 
 
 to this passage, for it is apprehended that no language 
 can be more explicit against defensive war. 
 
 “In Christ’s Sermon on the Mount he quoted a passage 
 from Exodus, ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An 
 eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto 
 you. That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite 
 thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ The 
 force of this passage has generally been obviated by say- 
 ing that we are not to take all the words of our Lord 
 literally. Although this is admitted, yet we are absolutely 
 bound to take the spirit of every word, if we can under- 
 stand them, by comparing Scriptures with Scriptures. 
 That the spirit of this passage is directly opposed to that 
 of the one our Lord quoted from Exodus, we think cannot 
 fairly be denied; and, of course, it disannulled it, for He 
 who had power to make laws under one dispensation had 
 power to abrogate them under another. 
 
 “The blessed Mediator did, in the most explicit man- 
 ner, command His subjects to love their enemies and 
 render good for evil. This command, we are of opinion, 
 is totally incompatible with resisting them with carnal 
 weapons. He says, ‘But I say unto you which hear. 
 Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, 
 and pray for them which despitefully use you.’ Let us 
 for one moment compare this precept with defensive war 
 and see if it can consistently be put into practice. Sup- 
 pose our country is invaded and a professed disciple of 
 the Prince of Peace buckles on the harness and takes 
 the field to repel by the point of the sword his enemy. 
 He advances amidst the lamentations of the wounded and 
 the shrieks of the dying to meet his foe in arms. He 
 sees his wrath kindled and his spear uplifted, and in this 
 trying moment he hears his Lord say, ‘Love your enemy 
 
ii6 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 and render to him good for evil’; and his kindness to 
 him is like Joab’s to Amasa; he thrusts him through the 
 heart and hurries him to the awful tribunal of his Judge, 
 probably unprepared. Dear brethren, be not deceived; 
 for God is not mocked. Who amongst our fellow-men 
 would receive the thrust of a sword as an act of kind- 
 ness? Only let conscience do its office, and there will 
 be no difficulty in deciding whether defensive war is in- 
 consistent with the gospel dispensation or not. Carnal 
 and spiritual weapons will no more unite under the gospel 
 dispensation than iron and miry clay. 
 
 “Our very salvation depends on being possessed of a 
 spirit of forgiveness to enemies. Tf ye forgive not men 
 their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your 
 trespasses.’ If men invade our rights and trespass upon 
 our privileges, is it forgiveness to repel them at the point 
 of the bayonet? The honest Christian will find no diffi- 
 culty in conscientiously deciding this question, notwith- 
 standing he may be slow of heart in believing all that is 
 written.” ^ 
 
 V 
 
 RELATION OF THE ECONOMIC TO THE ETHI- 
 CAL ASPECT OF WAR 
 
 Inasmuch as it deals not with the moral and spiritual 
 interests of man, but rather with his material well-being, 
 the economic argument is of subordinate importance to 
 the ethical and religious arguments. This concession, 
 
 David Low Dodge, “War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus 
 Christ,” pp. 141-144. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 117 
 
 however, does not imply that any discussion based on 
 man’s material interests is necessarily selfish. We are 
 dealing with a force in human society which has a direct 
 bearing on the comfort and well-being of vast numbers 
 of people. If war brings hardship and poverty to hun- 
 dreds of thousands of people, it is surely a social obliga- 
 tion to consider wherein and to what extent the economic 
 evils of war can be averted. If, on the other hand, war 
 stimulates the commercial prosperity of a nation, it is 
 equally a social duty to consider in what ways this pros- 
 perity may be increased without disproportionately in- 
 creasing the attendant suffering involved in war. 
 
 When economics is made to include the welfare of all 
 the people, it carries with it implications that are ethical. 
 Two extreme views, however, meet us at the outset of 
 our enquiry: that held by prominent pacifists of the 
 new school who consider the moral argument inadequate, 
 if not irrelevant ; and that taken by leading militarists, as 
 well as by a majority of pacifists, who regard the eco- 
 nomic argument as utterly unworthy, if not futile. 
 
 The former attitude is illustrated in Mr. Angell, who 
 declares that the common sense of ordinary humanity 
 does not follow the peace advocate who pleads that we 
 have no right to take by force. In proof of this Mr. 
 Angell cites the commonly accepted standards which ob- 
 tain in the commercial world, leading men to take advan- 
 tage of the weaknesses of their fellow-men to undermine 
 and undersell. Since competition in business causes as 
 real suffering as does war, and yet is justified in the eyes 
 of men generally, why should competition between na- 
 tions be ethically condemned? “I have never, indeed, 
 taken the ground,” Mr. Angell adds, “that the defender 
 of war is morally inferior to the defender of peace, or 
 
Ii8 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 that much is to be gained by emphasizing the moral su- 
 periority of the peace ideal. . . . The emotion of 
 humanity repelling it from war may be more than coun- 
 teracted by the equally strong moral emotion that we 
 connect with patriotism. The patriot admits that war 
 may occasion suffering, but urges that men should b* * 
 prepared to endure suffering for their country.” ‘ 
 
 The other view is held by such militarists as the late 
 Admiral Mahan, who said: “So far as the advocacy of 
 Peace rests upon material motives like economy or pros- 
 perity, it is the service of Mammon; and the bottom of 
 the platform will drop out when Mammon thinks that 
 War will pay better.” “ There are also many pacifists 
 who take a similar attitude, as, for instance. Canon Grane, 
 who declares, “I am convinced that the ethical and spir- 
 itual aspects of the paramount claim of Peace carry the 
 subject into deeper currents of our nature, come closer 
 to the springs of volition, and are more likely to be felt 
 finally imperative than the aspect which is mainly eco- 
 nomic.” “ 
 
 The conditions which have impelled some to think 
 deeply on the economic aspect of the case seem to be 
 the very ones which have driven others to more con- 
 clusive thoughts regarding the ethics of the subject. With 
 both classes the outstanding phenomenon has been the 
 greatly increased intimacy and complexity of human re- 
 lationships. This has meant to the one group a greater 
 economic interdependence and therefore the futility of 
 mutual fighting; and to the other group an intensification 
 of the ethical obligations between man and man; and 
 
 ^Norman Angell, “The Great Illusion,” p. 169; cf. also pp. g-ia. 
 “ Quoted in “The Passing of War,” p. 3. 
 
 • W. L. Crane, “The Passing of War," p. s- 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 119 
 
 therefore the conviction that “the outcome,” to use the 
 words of Professor Bosworth, “will be determined by 
 the character of the men concerned in the crisis.” * What- 
 ever view may be taken of the relative importance of the 
 economic and ethical arguments it is at least evident that 
 modern social conditions have greatly affected both as- 
 pects of the subject. 
 
 VI 
 
 RELATION OF MAN’S STRUGGLE WITH NATURE 
 TO HIS STRUGGLE WITH FELLOW-MAN 
 
 Man’s use of force has chiefly been in two directions: 
 in his struggle with nature and against his fellow-man. 
 Against nature he has developed an increased ability to 
 apply it effectively through the substitution of machin- 
 ery for mere muscle. Aristotle foresaw, though dimly, 
 the necessary connection between man’s struggle with 
 nature and his use of force against his fellow-man, when 
 he said: “If the hammer and the shuttle could move 
 themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.” But men 
 generally have failed at the time to realize the real bear- 
 ings of each step in their advance towards gaining con- 
 trol over natural forces. 
 
 Printing was at first looked upon as merely a new- 
 fangled idea by which a great many monks and scribes 
 were thrown out of employment. But did any then 
 realize that by the simple invention of movable type a 
 power greater than that of empires had been released? 
 Men in the mass could not rise above the limitations of 
 
 ‘Edward Increase Bosworth, "A Call for Character,” p. 8. 
 
120 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 superstition and ignorance until the accessibility of the 
 printed page made cooperation in larger things possible 
 by helping to usher in the day of individual liberty and 
 of democratic fraternity. In fact the more man has suc- 
 ceeded in his struggle with nature, the less has he con- 
 tended against his fellow-man, for the simple reason that 
 with each success in the struggle against nature human 
 society has become a completer organism. Each part 
 being, therefore, more dependent on the other parts, can- 
 not afford to inflict injury on them. This has meant a 
 steady impulse to redirect human pugnacity away from 
 men towards the complete subjugation of nature.* 
 
 VII 
 
 WILLIAM PENN’S HOLY EXPERIMENT IN CIVIL 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 In this connection the experiment of William Penn is 
 of real interest. The following are the words of Benja- 
 min F. Trueblood at a Public Commemorative Service 
 held in Association Hall, Philadelphia, December 14, 
 1894, on the occasion of the placing of the Statue of 
 William Penn on the City Hall: 
 
 “It was a ‘holy experiment’ because it was founded in 
 love, built up on the principles which love dictates, and 
 carried forward in the faith which is inspired and sus- 
 tained by love. . . . Not only is William Penn’s his- 
 tory incomparably clear, but it is also clearly unlike any 
 other piece of human history. In its grasp of the princi- 
 
 ^ Cf. Norman Angell, “The Great Illusion,” p. 279. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 I2I 
 
 pies of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, and of the 
 secret of their successful establishment among men, and 
 particularly in its heroic application of these principles 
 and of this secret in the constitution and government of a 
 Commonwealth, it stands apart an absolutely unique chap- 
 ter in the history of men and of States. . . . 
 
 “William Penn was born and reared a soldier. His 
 ancestry for two generations had been men of war. But 
 for the miracle of grace which converted him to pure 
 New Testament Christianity and subdued the fighting na- 
 ture within him, he would most probably have become 
 the admiral of an English fleet or the commander of an 
 army. He had, therefore, as the divinely appointed 
 prophet and leader of a new age, to break not only with 
 his time but also with his own flesh and blood. . . . 
 His purpose in buying of the king lands here in America 
 and in preparing a charter for the government of the 
 colony which he was proposing to plant, was that he 
 might establish a Christian State, based from the start 
 on Christian principles, created and directed in the spirit 
 of Christian love, a State in which the governing and 
 the governed might realize together the blessings of the 
 brotherhood taught by Jesus Christ. It is true that Penn 
 went further in the principles of pure democracy than 
 was the case in the other colonies, but he did this for 
 the same reason that led him to banish the sword, and 
 there were not a few occasions in the early history of 
 the colony when the absence of the sword proved to be 
 the greatest safeguard of the liberties of the infant 
 democracy. 
 
 “He loved his Commonwealth, and gave himself for it. 
 He might have built up a colossal fortune through his 
 proprietary rights, the granting of monopolies and re- 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 strictions on trade. But he resisted all the seductions of 
 wealth, that others might be free and happy and pros- 
 perous. He was true to his promise that the colony 
 should be free and self-governing. His powers as gov- 
 ernor he allowed to be gradually restricted that neither 
 he nor any of his successors might ever be able to work 
 mischief. . . . He kept his purpose that no soldier or 
 emblem of war should, by his authority, be seen in the 
 Commonwealth. Even his police, when there were any, 
 he did not arm. . . . 
 
 “The peace experiment was successful for seventy years, 
 though a considerable part of the colony always opposed 
 it and clamored for arms. Seventy years of peace in 
 the turbulent atmosphere of that time meant much more 
 than it would mean now, and is as near a demonstration 
 as anything short of actual trial could be that the same 
 thing might be done again by any State or nation whose 
 people were convinced that it ought to be done, and 
 which had the courage to try it. . . . Civilization is 
 plodding slowly, surely upward along the lines marked 
 out by him whose work we commemorate tonight, and 
 all nations will one day drop their armor, disband their 
 armies, call home their sea-dogs, and rule thereafter by 
 love and moral force alone.” 
 
 The Gentleman’s Magazine for October, 1902, contains 
 a detailed description by E. E. Taylor of William Penn’s 
 experiment : 
 
 “William Penn had three leading objects in essaying 
 this ‘holy experiment’: to set up an example to the na- 
 tions; to afford an asylum to his persecuted fellow- 
 religionists and to all unsettled Nonconformists in a 
 ‘free colony for all mankind’, and to exercise perfect 
 justice in his dealings with the poor Indians. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 123 
 
 “Various measures were at once taken to make the 
 new colony known, and in July, 1681, there appeared the 
 first ‘deed of settlement.’ . . . The document con- 
 sists of twenty short clauses, designed to guide the first 
 steps of the young colony without hindering legitimate 
 growth; it is remarkable for the Proprietor’s endeavor to 
 prevent large areas of land getting into the hands of a 
 few men who would simply hold and not develop, and 
 for his insistence upon the equal rights possessed by the 
 Indian and the white settler. . . . All differences be- 
 tween planter and natives were to be settled by six of 
 each class sitting together. Of himself Penn said: ‘I 
 propose to leave myself and successors no power of doing 
 mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the 
 good of a whole country.’ . . . 
 
 “In October, 1682, Penn landed at Newcastle amid 
 great demonstrations of joy. . . . Then the great 
 law of Pennsylvania was formally passed. . . . 
 Penn’s complete inability to discover the right men for 
 the responsible positions at the head of his government 
 seriously affected the progress of the new colony, espe- 
 cially during his long absences from it. . . . But the 
 final blow to the colony came as the result of the Quaker 
 objection to the provision and use of arms. The colony 
 was asked by the Crown to contribute money for this 
 purpose and refused. This, coupled with the unsettle- 
 ment consequent upon recent events . . . caused the 
 withdrawal of the government from Penn in 1692. Two 
 years later, however, the governorship was restored, on 
 the colony promising to provide money and men for the 
 defence of the frontiers. . . . He . . . returned 
 to Europe in 1701, in order to appear before the Lords, 
 who wished to convert the Provinces and Territories into 
 
124 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 Crown colonies. From this time, with exceptions, to 
 1718, when the Proprietor’s death occurred, the colony 
 proved a heavy weight on his shoulders. 
 
 “But Penn’s comparative failure proved the starting- 
 point for other notable achievements; while he showed 
 that ‘he belonged to the rarer and nobler type of gov- 
 erning men who see the golden side, who count faith, 
 piety, hope, among the counsels of practical wisdom, and 
 who, for political power, must ever seek a moral basis.’ * 
 Much might be said of the rapid growth of Pennsylvania 
 and of its capital by way of illustrating the sure founda- 
 tion Penn laid for his country’s prosperity.® 
 
 “From 1701 to 1719 there was little unsettlement with 
 the Indians. It is clear that the whole government of 
 Penn considered it their emphatic interest to maintain 
 warm friendship with the Indians, although when it 
 served their purpose they would grumble at the ‘great 
 expense’ caused their colony by the maintenance of the 
 alliance. 
 
 “The virtual termination of the covenant, with the 
 commencement of the Indian war in 1754, was due to 
 plain causes, the chief of which was no doubt the very 
 small representation in the government held by the 
 Quakers (they lost effective control in 1756) , , . 
 
 “The history of Penn’s relations with the Indians is 
 not complete without a reference to the estimation in 
 which they held him personally. This is, of course, most 
 eloquently shown by the seventy-four years of active 
 friendship existing between the two peoples. Indeed, this 
 
 ^ John Morley on Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 “ “Pennsylvania became the most consistently free colony in the 
 country, the most consistently prosperous, the most rapid in its growth 
 in freedom and prosperity. So nearly had the inhabitants everything 
 that they could desire that they hesitated to take up the revolutionary 
 cause in 1775.” “A Quaker Experiment in Government,” J. Sharpless. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 125 
 
 period may be indefinitely prolonged if the Quakers only 
 are concerned; for it is a striking fact that when a state 
 of war at last existed between the Indians and the colony, 
 no true Quaker was disturbed. If a so-called Quaker took 
 to a gun, why, then, not being acquainted with him per- 
 sonally, the Indians treated him as an enemy, knowing 
 ‘that the Quakers would not fight nor do them any 
 harm.’ ” * 
 
 Penn’s high policy of basing his relations with the na- 
 tive tribes of North America upon the natural rights of 
 all mankind — not upon the supposed interests of trade — 
 is thus shown, by a contemplation of its fruits, to have 
 been amply justified. For the times it was a bold and 
 original attempt; its final success is honorable to him 
 who conceived the project, and is pregnant with lessons 
 for the present generation. 
 
 VIII 
 
 WAR AND THE EXPANSION OF TRADE 
 
 The contention that a modern government can directly 
 profit by war is supported by evidence so palpably in- 
 complete that militarists themselves have largely ceased 
 to press it. They fall back, however, on the broader as- 
 sumption that war is necessary for the protection and 
 expansion of trade. Grand Admiral von Koster, of Ger- 
 many, expressed such a conviction, when he said: “The 
 
 ^ In 1776 Chalkley, an English Quaker, who travelled extensively in 
 and around Pennsylvania, was able to declare, from the evidence he 
 had gathered, that during the Indian raids in other parts of the New 
 England States, among the many hundreds slain only three Friends 
 were killed, and these because they took up arms. 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 steady increase of our population compels us to devote 
 special attention to the growth of our overseas interests. 
 Nothing but the strong fulfilment of our naval program 
 can create for us that importance upon the free-world-sea 
 which it is incumbent upon us to demand. The steady in- 
 crease of our population compels us to set ourselves new 
 goals and to grow from a Continental into a world power. 
 Our mighty industry must aspire to new overseas con- 
 quests.” ' 
 
 Comte de Gartden, of France, gave expression to a 
 similar sentiment in these words: “Every State in its 
 external relations has, and can have, no other maxims 
 than these: whoever, by the superiority of his forces 
 and by his geographic position, can do us harm is our 
 natural enemy; whoever cannot do us harm, but can, by 
 the extent of his forces and by the position he occupies, 
 do injury to our enemy, is our natural friend.”’ A dis- 
 tinguished American ambassador, whose service abroad 
 gave him peculiar opportunities to study political problems 
 declares : “The assumption which lies at the foundation 
 of classic diplomacy is that every State is seeking to 
 appropriate for itself everything in the world that pos- 
 sesses value, and is restrained from actually doing so 
 only by the resistance it may encounter.” * 
 
 The English author of a recent book entitled “The 
 Struggle for Bread,” puts the same doctrine still more 
 emphatically thus: “You cannot abolish war from a 
 competitive system of civilization; competition is the root- 
 basis of such a system of civilization, and competition is 
 war. When a business firm crushes a trade-rival from 
 
 * Quoted in “The Great Illusion,” p. 20. 
 
 ‘ Quoted in “Arms and Industry,” pp. 38, 39. 
 
 ® David Jayne Hill, quoted in “Arms and Industry,” p. 38. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 127 
 
 the markets by cut-prices there is exactly the same 
 process at work as when a business-nation crushes a 
 trade-rival by physical force. The means vary, but the 
 end in view and the ethical principles in question are 
 identical. In both cases the weaker goes to the wall; in 
 both cases it is woe to the vanquished.” ‘ The same 
 author says: “The teaching of all history is that com- 
 merce grows under the shadow of armed strength. Every 
 war which we have waged from the days of Cromwell to 
 the present has been to protect British commerce.” * 
 
 The claim that history proves that the commercial pros- 
 perity depends upon strength of arms, would be relevant 
 only if the arguments adduced gave full weight to the 
 revolutionary change in economic conditions which has 
 taken place within the past century. Science and inven- 
 tion have produced a mutual interdependence that is daily 
 becoming more complex. A banking system adapted to 
 the new conditions has been evolved which provides the 
 sensory nerves of internationalism, so that today a dis- 
 turbance of economic conditions in the remotest part of 
 the world is immediately felt everywhere else. It would, 
 therefore, be a digression to discuss any but the most 
 recent historical facts bearing upon the relation of war to 
 commerce. 
 
 The world has long recognized the fact that moral and 
 intellectual ideas are in no sense limited by political 
 boundaries. The discoveries of science become almost 
 immediately the common property of all men, and no 
 nation deems it to its interest to keep secret from other 
 nations the achievements of her scholars. In the moral 
 realm civilized nations tolerate no political barriers to 
 
 * Rifleman, “The Struggle for Bread,” p. 209. 
 ^ Rifleman, “The Struggle for Bread,” p. 145. 
 
128 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 the propagation of ethical and spiritual ideals. In like 
 manner, though not so promptly, have men gradually 
 come to realize that the boundary lines of commercial and 
 industrial prosperity also fail to coincide with the great 
 political divisions of the world. 
 
 The basic fact which has brought about this inter- 
 dependence of humanity is division of labor. Organized 
 society would be impossible without it. While at one time 
 communities were quite independent of each other, they 
 have gradually found it more advantageous to divide their 
 labor and thus exchange with one another the necessities 
 of life. And so no nation in the present day is entirely 
 self-contained, and to the degree that it is dependent 
 upon others, to that degree does it find it unprofitable to 
 injure its neighbors. 
 
 An American manufacturer may lose his trade by the 
 competition of another American as quickly as by that 
 of a German or British manufacturer. The business of 
 the world is so completely international that no single 
 nation can secure complete control over any line of busi- 
 ness through mere political influence. The capture of 
 trade is just as possible without political influence as 
 with it. As Professor Saunders, of Cornell University, 
 puts it, “There is no power in national governments suffi- 
 ciently great to hold in check the modern tendency toward 
 an order of universal economics.”* 
 
 If strength of arms were the secret of economic pros- 
 perity, the best armed nations should be the most pros- 
 perous, and those weakest in armament should be the least 
 successful in trade. But a study of statistics will show 
 that the citizens of the small and comparatively unpro- 
 
 ^ See “International Conciliation” for April -1914, article on Com- 
 merce and War, p. 3. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 129 
 
 tected nations of Europe had, up to the recent war, a 
 greater per capita wealth than those of Germany and 
 Russia/ Investors, too, have shown a decided preference 
 for securities in the countries with proportionately small 
 armaments/ 
 
 The facts of modern commercial life, therefore, reveal 
 the growing interdependence of mankind. No nation is 
 sufficient unto itself. War against a neighboring nation 
 is more than fratricidal; it is also, in part at least, a 
 suicidal act. The spirit of war is fundamentally opposed 
 to the trend of economic history. 
 
 IX 
 
 INTERNATIONAL TRADE NOT ORGANIZED IN 
 NATIONAL UNITS 
 
 The complexity of the world’s economic relationships 
 and their utter disregard of political boundaries is 
 graphically illustrated by Mr. Angell as follows : “A Bir- 
 mingham ironmaster sells his engines to a Brazilian 
 coffee-planter, who is able to buy them because he sells 
 his coffee to a merchant in Havre, who sells it to a 
 Westphalian town manufacturing rails for Siberia, which 
 buys them because peasants are growing wheat as the 
 result of a demand in Lancashire, which is manufactur- 
 ing cotton for Indian coolies growing tea for sheep- 
 farmers in Australia, who are able to buy it because 
 they sell wool to a Bradford merchant, who manufactures 
 it because he is able to sell cloth to a petroleum-refiner 
 
 * Cf. Mulhall, “Industries and Wealth of Nations,” p. 391. 
 ® Cf. Norman Angell, “The Great Illusion,” pp. 36-38. 
 
130 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 in Baku, who is able to buy clothing because he is sell- 
 ing petrol to the users of automobiles in Paris. How can 
 such an operation, which is typical of most international 
 trade, be described as the competition of rival units — such 
 as Great Britain, Germany, France, Brazil, or Russia?”* 
 
 X 
 
 THE GROWING DESIRE FOR ARBITRATION 
 
 Not alone in the more limited social relationships of 
 life is the progressive subsidence of physical conflict an 
 evident fact, but even in international relationships we 
 can scarcely fail to discover, in spite of the recent recru- 
 descence of war, many undeniable signs of advance in the 
 same direction. Chief among these signs are those which 
 illustrate in one way or another the rapidly growing sen- 
 timent in favor of arbitration. Many international dis- 
 putes have already been satisfactorily settled by arbi- 
 tration. During the nineteenth century two hundred and 
 twelve arbitral awards were made and not a single de- 
 cision was repudiated by either side in the dispute. While 
 it is doubtless true that many of these disputes, had they 
 remained unsettled, would scarcely have led to war, yet 
 some had already brought the countries involved to the 
 very verge of war. Arbitration between Great Britain 
 and the United States has at least twice in the past fifty 
 years prevented war; in the case of the Alabama claims, 
 settled in 1872, and the Venezuela intervention, settled in 
 1896, the passion for war in both countries was strong. 
 
 ^ Norman Angell, “Arms and Industry,” pp. 23, 24. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 131 
 
 Yet reason and conscience triumphed and both peace and 
 friendliness have prevailed. 
 
 A striking illustration of the changing sentiment in re- 
 gard to arbitration is shown in the attitude of Lord Salis- 
 bury at two different periods in his career. In speaking 
 of the Alabama arbitration, on March 3, 1873, he said: 
 “I am afraid that, like competitive examinations and sew- 
 age irrigation, arbitration is one of the famous nostrums 
 of the age. Like them it will have its day and will pass 
 away, and future ages will look with pity and contempt 
 on those who could have believed in such an expedient 
 for bridling the ferocity of human passions.” Less than 
 twenty years later the same leader in another speech dur- 
 ing the summer of 1892 said: “After all, the great tri- 
 umph of civilization in the past has been in the substitu- 
 tion of judicial termination for the cold, cruel, crude ar- 
 bitrament of war. We have got rid of private war be- 
 tween small magnate and small magnate. In this country 
 we have got rid of the duel between man and man. We 
 are slowly, as far as we can, substituting arbitrament 
 for struggles in international disputes.” ‘ 
 
 Professor Hull tells us that the history of arbitration 
 begins, practically, with the arbitration clauses in the Jay 
 treaty of 1794 between the United States and Great 
 Britain, in accordance with which the northeast boundary 
 line of the United States was submitted to arbitration 
 in 1796. During the century and a quarter which fol- 
 lowed, there have been settled by arbitration eight differ- 
 ent boundary disputes between the United States and Can- 
 ada, and all without a single fort at any point along the 
 nearly four thousand miles of frontier which divides the 
 two nations. Eleven other disputes between th« United 
 
 * Quoted IB “The New Peace Hovemeat,” p. 151. 
 
132 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 States and Canada have also been referred to arbitral set- 
 tlement, and brought to a successful conclusion, among 
 which have been several questions of grave importance, 
 affecting the honor and vital interests of both parties. 
 The settlement by the Hague Court of the North Atlantic 
 Coast Fisheries case in 1910 is a shining illustration of the 
 ease with which judicial procedure was able to put a 
 quietus upon a controversy which had vexed the chan- 
 nels of diplomacy for nearly three-quarters of a century.’ 
 
 More striking, even, than the successful submission of 
 many specific international disputes to arbitral judgment 
 is the fact that already over three hundred arbitration 
 treaties have been signed between the various nations. 
 While a number of them only apply to certain specified 
 kinds of difficulty, there are many others which cover all 
 disputes not affecting matters of vital interests or national 
 honor, and a few which make no exceptions. Chile and 
 Argentine were the first nations to adopt an unlimited 
 arbitration treaty, which was signed in 1903 and fittingly 
 commemorated by the erection high up in the Andes of a 
 colossal statue of Christ, cast from old cannon. The 
 inscription on its base with clear faith declares: “Sooner 
 shall these mountains crumble into dust than Argentine 
 and Chile break the peace to which they have pledged 
 themselves at the feet of Christ the Redeemer." * 
 
 XI 
 
 WAR AND THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 The biological argument in favor of war is based on 
 the law of natural selection. Although its advocates con- 
 
 ' Cf. W. I. Hull, “The New Peace Movement,” p. 153. 
 “Cf. “Christ and War,” pp. 164, 165. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 133 
 
 cede, of course, that other factors than war are at work 
 to ensure the survival of the fittest, yet they say that 
 modern life has tended to lessen the effective operation 
 of some of these very factors. Take disease, for ex- 
 ample: time was when it invariably slew the weakest; 
 this made for the survival, as in the case of China, of the 
 strongest and most immune. But the discoveries of mod- 
 ern medicine have made possible the survival and per- 
 petuation of the weak in percentages never known be- 
 fore. The race, therefore, it is claimed, needs a drastic 
 method, which will purge it of all that is unfit to survive, 
 and this method is found in war. 
 
 But what does history show as to the part which war 
 has played in promoting the survival of the fittest? 
 Primitive man was, of course, confronted, as were all the 
 animals with which he contended, by the problem of se- 
 curing his living without losing his life. His intended 
 victim might become his own sepulcher. This placed him 
 in active antagonism with all creatures, brute or human, 
 who sought his life or whose capture might be to him a 
 means of subsistence. It was a struggle for existence, 
 in which the determining factor was force. Survival was 
 based on the power to wage effective combat, and life 
 was the stake. 
 
 Because of his comparative unfitness for fighting, how- 
 ever, man was early compelled to resort to other than 
 purely physical means for attaining his ends. Without 
 claws, and with teeth unsuited for battle, he was a feeble 
 contestant in the presence of many of his antagonists. So 
 he discovered the use of weapons, crude at first, but 
 gradually shaped into effective forms for cutting and 
 thrusting. By his strength and skill in wielding these 
 weapons, and by acting in concert with his fellows, he 
 
134 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 often overcame his most formidable foes, as is shown by 
 the bones which have been found in the caves where he 
 dwelt. And so began the process in man’s development 
 by which he gradually came to learn the value of co- 
 operation. 
 
 That the laws of evolution, far from requiring a con- 
 stant appeal to force between man and man, emphati- 
 cally demand the progressive subordination of such ap- 
 peal to higher influences, was affirmed by Herbert Spen- 
 cer himself, who declared that “in social groups formed 
 by compounding and recompounding primitive hordes, 
 conduct remains imperfectly evolved in proportion as 
 there continue antagonisms between the groups and an- 
 tagonisms between members of the same group. . . . 
 Hence the limit of evolution can be reached by conduct 
 only in permanently peaceful societies. That perfect ad- 
 justment of acts to ends in maintaining life, which is ef- 
 fected by each without hindering others from effecting 
 like perfect adjustments, is, in its very definition, shown 
 to constitute a kind of conduct that can be approached 
 only as War decreases and dies out.” The same scientist 
 made the sweeping assertion that “advance to the highest 
 forms of man and society depends on the decline of mili- 
 tancy.” * 
 
 Among later scientists no less influential a man than 
 Sir E. Ray Lankester of Great Britain has voiced the 
 same opinion: “Neither the more ancient wars of man- 
 kind for conquest and migration, nor the present and 
 future wars for commercial privilege, have any real 
 equivalence to the simple removal by death of the unfit, 
 and the survival and reproduction of the fit, which we 
 
 1 Quoted in W. L. Crane’s “Th* Fassine of War,” p. 43. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 135 
 
 know as Natural Selection. . . . Knowledge, reason, 
 self-consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man. They 
 justify the view that Man forms a new departure in the 
 gradual unfolding of Nature’s predestined scheme. The 
 volition of Man has become a power in Nature which 
 has profoundly modified not only man’s own history but 
 that of the face of the planet on which he exists. . . . 
 At every step of his progress man has receded further 
 and further from the ancient rule exercised by Nature.”* 
 
 From the practical point of view it is plain that war 
 could, at the best, only tend to propagate a race fitted for 
 war. In ancient times when warfare was largely a matter 
 of individual contests, the struggle of armies doubtless 
 resulted in a survival of many of the best fighters. But 
 modern methods have changed all this. Except in guerilla 
 warfare the quality of the individual has become a less 
 prominent factor. The weak can kill the strong, and 
 machine guns mow down whole ranks impartially. There 
 is little opportunity in modern warfare for the operation 
 of the law of natural selection, except in the process of 
 enlistment. 
 
 Such selection is artificial, not natural, and accom- 
 plishes in the end the very opposite result from the one 
 which the law of Natural Selection should produce. It 
 “occurs chiefly before the fighting even begins, and re- 
 sults in the temporary or permanent removal from the 
 general population of a special part of it, and the de- 
 liberate exposure of this part to disease and death.” * 
 And those thus exposed are not only physically the fit- 
 test, but are also usually above the average of their fel- 
 
 ^ E. R. Lankester, “The Kingdom of Man,” p. 27. 
 s Vernon L. Kellogg in Tlie Atlantic Monthly tor July, I9i3> article 
 on “Eugenics and Militarism.” 
 
136 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 lows in other qualities. The greater the issues at stake, 
 the more does war prove attractive to men of character 
 and worth. For the elimination of such, rather than for 
 their survival, the law of war forever works. War thus 
 promotes the survival not of the strong, but of the weak, 
 not of the fit, but of the unfit. 
 
 XII 
 
 WAR AND NATIONAL SOLIDARITY 
 
 War is often defended on the ground that it is a neces- 
 sary means for inducing and promoting national solidar- 
 ity. Many examples are quoted in proof of this conten- 
 tion. In conquering all the nations lying about the 
 Mediterranean Sea, Rome successfully welded a hetero- 
 geneous mass of people into a united and powerful em- 
 pire. Great Britain’s solidarity was won through her 
 world-wide conquests. The American colonies were fused 
 into a united nation by their war for independence, and 
 Bismarck at the head of an army representing forty 
 millions of people belonging to many separate and more 
 or less unfriendly states, bound them together with bands 
 of steel by hurling their united battalions against a na- 
 tion whose ambitions he conceived to be inimical to the 
 growth of Empire. And so throughout the list, one can 
 find scarcely a war of which it has not been said that 
 it has stimulated national vitality and unity, and the con- 
 clusion is that war is an indispensable means to this de- 
 sirable end. 
 
 It may be conceded at the outset that national solidarity 
 has often followed in the wake of war. But does this 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 137 
 
 prove that war is the best means for promoting unity, or 
 that war is really the cause of the unity which accom- 
 panies it? 
 
 As the case of Germany is cited perhaps more fre- 
 quently than that of any other in this connection, we may 
 properly attempt an analysis of the situation at the time 
 of the Franco-Prussian war. What, for instance, were 
 the conditions which prevented the smaller German 
 states from coalescing more completely before the strug- 
 gle with Louis Napoleon began? The Zollverein, or Com- 
 mercial League, organized in 1834 and Irenewed rh 1841, 
 had already done much to cultivate a spirit of unity 
 among the German states. But it was the foolish desire 
 of the petty German potentates to retain the right to 
 make war on each other which prevented them from 
 achieving the very union which the Zollverein would 
 otherwise have brought to a high degree of strength.^ 
 No doubt, as Canon Grane has pointed out, “the forcing 
 heat of the crisis brought about by Bismarck caused the 
 tree of German Unity to burst into flower. But it might 
 have blossomed ages before, but for the retarding effect 
 of the militaristic spirit in the separate states.” ^ 
 
 Great Britain was able to begin the process of unifica- 
 tion at a much earlier date than Germany, because she 
 earlier saw the wisdom of eliminating military rivalry 
 among her component units. So that today she maintains 
 her solidarity, not because she has fought or intends to 
 fight, but because she has deliberately chosen to eliminate 
 the appeal to arms as between one part of her Empire 
 and another. 
 
 The more the trend of history is scrutinized the more 
 
 ' Cf. PerCT Ashley, “Modern Tariff History,” pp. 14-18. 
 ^ W. L. Grane, “The Passing of War,” p. 249. 
 
138 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 is one forced to the conviction that the inevitable tendency 
 “of war preparations, and the war-spirit, is to disinte- 
 grate, not to unite. Nothing has tended so much as war 
 to retard the development of those great national con- 
 federations which are the wonder of the modern world.” ‘ 
 Far from being a promoter of union and federation, war 
 is their greatest hindrance. If national solidarity must 
 be achieved by arms, by arms must it be maintained. 
 There is strength in union, but union will always prove 
 unstable when it is based on physical strength. 
 
 XIII 
 
 WAR AND NATIONAL EXISTENCE 
 
 There are those who believe that no nation can be sure 
 of a continued existence unless it is heavily armed. This 
 theory seems to us to involve such assumptions as the four 
 enumerated below : 
 
 (1) That each nation is so sovereign and independent 
 a unit as to have no responsibility for the welfare of any 
 other similar unit; this assumption disregards the unity 
 of all men as children of a common Father God, and the 
 increasingly recognized principle of the family of na- 
 tions. 
 
 (2) That every nation will, and inevitably must, act 
 from motives of self-interest only; this assumes that the 
 ethical standards which obtain in individual and com- 
 munal life are not applicable in the larger world-rela- 
 tionships. 
 
 (3) That for its own sustenance, and therefore for its 
 
 * W. L. Grane, “The Passing of War,” p. 250. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 139 
 
 very existence, each nation is forced to compete with 
 every other nation; this does not take into account the 
 fact that in modern life the industrial and economic boun- 
 daries, far from coinciding with those which are politi- 
 cal, cross and re-cross them at every conceivable angle, 
 so that the opportunity for an individual to make a liveli- 
 hood is controlled by forces other than those dependent 
 upon the mere existence or influence of his own par- 
 ticular government. 
 
 (4) That each nation is solely dependent upon its own 
 physical strength for the protection of its rights and in- 
 terests; this fails to admit the possibility of an effective 
 use in international relationships of such legal and judi- 
 cial agencies as have already proved successful in lifting 
 justice and truth to a place of determining influence in 
 many of the more limited relationships of life. 
 
 XIV 
 
 CHINA AND THE CAREER OF “IGNOBLE EASE” 
 
 Ex-President Roosevelt has appealed to his fellow- 
 countrymen to take warning from China and not be “con- 
 tent to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders,” 
 and to be assured that, unless we heed the warning, some 
 day “suddenly we should find, beyond the shadow of a 
 question, what China has already found, that in this world 
 the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike 
 and isolated ease, is bound, in the end, to go down before 
 the other nations which have not lost the manly and ad- 
 venturous qualities.” ^ Our ex-President has surely failed 
 
 ^ Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life,” p. 6. 
 
140 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 to read the history of China aright. True it is that 
 China’s progress has been hindered by her isolation, but 
 we may well doubt whether war was the only way to 
 have broken it up, and also whether it was in any sense 
 a wise method. 
 
 What is meant by the words “to go down”? Where 
 now are the Empires of Babylon and Assyria, of Greece 
 and Rome, which, coeval with China, were founded and 
 maintained by force? With all the handicap placed upon 
 the Middle Kingdom by her seclusion, what warlike na- 
 tion of the West can boast an ancient literature as 
 voluminous and as pure as that of peaceful China? What 
 long-lived nation reared by the “gory nurse that trained 
 societies to cohesiveness” can show the fundamental 
 democracy of spirit and unity of culture which the Chi- 
 nese people possess ? What other nation, ancient or mod- 
 ern, trained by war to “the manly and adventurous quali- 
 ties” has ever achieved a victory in social morality equiva- 
 lent in magnitude or difficulty, or in the brevity of time 
 in which it was achieved, to the abolition of the use of 
 opium? If only China can be protected from militarism 
 and the war-spirit, she will yet demonstrate to the world 
 the virility of a race which finds its discipline, not in 
 war, but in peaceful service, and will fulfil the promise 
 that the meek shall inherit the earth. 
 
 XV 
 
 WHY DID JESUS ORDER HIS DISCIPLES TO 
 BUY SWORDS? 
 
 Luke’s account of the instructions which Jesus gave 
 to His disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords is 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 141 
 
 variously interpreted/ The author of “Christ and War” 
 says : “It is probable that we no longer possess the means 
 of understanding this saying, but that it implies that Jesus 
 intended His followers then or later to resort to arms 
 seems unlikely, because: 
 
 (1) It is quite clear from the Gospels that Jesus 
 
 knew He was going to His death, and did not 
 attempt to evade it. 
 
 (2) Jesus also appears to have said that two swords 
 
 were enough (v. 38) : this they certainly were 
 not if intended for the defense of twelve men. 
 
 (3) When one disciple used his sword, Jesus sternly 
 
 rebuked him (Matt. xxvi. 51, 52). 
 
 (4) There is no trace in any account we have of the 
 
 early Church that its members defended them- 
 selves against persecutors. 
 
 “That the early Church was perplexed by this verse 
 may be seen by the passages in which the Fathers explain 
 away its evident discordance with the faith and practice 
 of the Church. . . . Generally it must be said of all 
 these passages that they can only be understood in the 
 light of the total impression of all that Jesus Christ said 
 and was.”* 
 
 Mr. Dodge’s interpretation of the same passage is very 
 suggestive : “All the conduct of our Lord has meaning 
 to it, and much of it was with an express view to teach 
 His disciples by way of example. A little before He was 
 betrayed. He ordered His disciples to take swords. The 
 object of this must have been either to use them for de- 
 
 * Luke xxii. 35-38. 
 
 ^ W. E. Wilson, “Christ and War,” pp. 17, 18. 
 
142 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 fense, or for some other purpose. The event proves that 
 they were not taken for self-defense. The question then 
 is, For what were they taken? The event appears fully 
 to answer the question, viz. : To prohibit, by way of ex- 
 ample, the use of them for self-defense in the most trying 
 situation possible. If any situation would justify self- 
 defense with carnal weapons, it must have been the situa- 
 tion in which our Lord and His disciples were placed at 
 the time He was betrayed. They were in a public garden, 
 and they were assaulted by a mob, contrary to the statutes 
 of the Romans and the laws of the Jews; and the object 
 was to take His life. This the disciples knew, and Peter 
 judged it a proper time for defense, and drew his sword 
 and smote a servant of the High Priest and cut off his 
 ear. As our Lord’s Kingdom was not of this world. He 
 would not suffer His subjects to use the weapons of this 
 world in any situation. He therefore healed the wound 
 they made and rebuked Peter for his mistaken zeal. 
 ‘Then said Jesus unto him. Put up again thy sword into 
 his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot pray to my 
 Father, and he would presently send me more than twelve 
 legions of angels?’ Here we see that our Lord not only 
 forbade His disciples to use the sword in self-defense, but 
 added a dreadful penalty to transgressors, — ‘all they that 
 take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ The disci- 
 ples did not then fully understand that His Kingdom was 
 not of this world. As soon as they were prohibited using 
 the weapons of this world they all forsook Him and 
 fled.” ^ 
 
 ^ David Low Dodge, “War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus 
 Christ,” pp. 144-146. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 143 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE CALL OF THE PRESENT CRISIS 
 
 Eight years ago Professor Bosworth, of Oberlin, wrote 
 the following significant and almost prophetic words : “In 
 this process of enlarging conception it has become in- 
 creasingly clear that this which at first was called the 
 Kingdom of God is a developing civilization of brotherly 
 sons of God in which two things will occur: first, every 
 personality will have opportunity for the development of 
 its latent powers, opportunity to become what God means 
 it to be; and second, all the forces latent in the natural 
 environment of these personalities will be brought out of 
 earth or air and placed by human effort increasingly at 
 the service of men. In this civilization of friendly work- 
 men, living in the presence of the God who is their Fa- 
 ther, the long unfailing aspiration of Jesus for humanity 
 shall be realized. 
 
 “In this process by which the Spirit of Jesus makes 
 men understand more and more clearly what is involved 
 in His revelation of God and God’s will for the life of 
 men, crises occur. It is a process with crises. Perhaps 
 there will finally be some great crisis comparable with 
 that in which the revelation of God was made by Jesus 
 Christ in terms of human life and death and resurrection, 
 human struggle and victory, two thousand years ago. 
 However that may be, lesser crises in the process cer- 
 tainly occur when men make swift advance in their under- 
 standing of God and of His will for the life of the world. 
 
 “The present is such a crisis. The crisis is due to the 
 fact that sociological conditions have suddenly brought 
 
144 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 men of widely different classes into unusually close rela- 
 tion to each other. The world has never before, in so 
 short a time, experienced changes comparable with those 
 that have occurred in the last few decades. Men have 
 been forced into such close contact that the welfare of 
 each is dependent upon the conduct of others to a degree 
 hitherto unknown. Men have been forced together geo- 
 graphically. A man, without rising from his office chair, 
 may, in a few moments, through telephone, telegraph, 
 and cable, interchange thought with a man on the other 
 side of the earth. It is as if he could almost hear his 
 voice and feel his hand. Men are being drawn together 
 industrially. The miner comes up the shaft with his 
 grimy face and looks the coal baron straight in the eye. 
 The two men are brought close together and must talk 
 it out face to face. Men are being brought together so- 
 cially. Within the lifetime of men still in active business 
 Chicago was a small village and in the village was a small 
 tradesman. The village became a metropolis, the small 
 tradesman became a merchant prince, and his daughter 
 became the wife of the Viceroy of India — all within the 
 limits of a single lifetime. Irresistible forces which no 
 man can control have been steadily bringing men closer 
 together and making the welfare of each dependent upon 
 the behavior of the other, as never before. 
 
 “The result of crowding men so close together may be 
 that they will fall upon each other in deadly hatred or 
 that they will be bound together with ties of mutual 
 respect and brotherly good will. If they come together 
 only to hate each other, they will fall apart, and civiliza- 
 tion will retrograde to a point from which it cannot come 
 again to the present point for some centuries. What the 
 outcome of the present crisis shall be depends upon one 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 145 
 
 thing, namely, the character of the men concerned in the 
 crisis. Can Jesus Christ have the kind of men He wants 
 to thrust down into the thick of life? Can He find His 
 type of man in sufficient abundance to bring the present 
 crisis to a successful issue? If so, they will be what He 
 called them of old, ‘the salt of the earth’ — that which 
 preserves civilization from decay and disintegration. 
 
 “The present crisis, then, constitutes a call for charac- 
 ter. The old words ring out with new meaning: ‘Re- 
 pent; for the kingdom of God is at hand’; change your 
 lives, for God’s new order comes swiftly on.”^ 
 
 ^Edward Increase Bosworth, “A Call for Character,” pp. 8-1 1. 
 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 L On the Historical Aspect 
 
 “A League of Peace.” By Andrew Carnegie, LL.D. A 
 Rectorial Address delivered to the Students in the 
 University of St. Andrews October 17, 1905. New 
 York. The New York Peace Society. 1911. pp. 48. 
 
 A very instructive survey of the historical development of 
 the ideas of peace. 
 
 “The New Peace Movement.” By William I. Hull, Ph.D., 
 Professor of History and International Relations in 
 Swarthmore College. Boston. World Peace Foun- 
 dation. 1912. pp. 218. 
 
 A collection of addresses delivered on various occasions, 
 chiefly on the achievements of the Hague Conferences and 
 the outlook for universal peace through the reign of justice. 
 Though scholarly and full of illustrative details these ad- 
 dresses are adapted to popular reading and are very in- 
 spiring. There is much repetition, due to the nature of the 
 circumstances under which the speeches were originally made. 
 
 “The Nemesis of Armaments.” By Charles Edward Jef- 
 ferson. Reprint from The Independent, New York. 
 Church Peace Union. 1914. pp. 14. 
 
 A discussion of the bearing of the present European war 
 on the question as to whether armaments, as militarists claim; 
 are really guarantees of peace, liberty, justice and interna- 
 tional order. 
 
 “The Blood of the Nation.” By David Starr Jordan. A 
 Study of the decay of races through the survival of 
 149 
 
ISO THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 the unfit, Boston. World Peace Foundation, 1912. 
 pp. 82 paper. 
 
 A graphic exhibit of the tendency of war to prevent the 
 survival of the fittest. 
 
 The Anglo-American agreement of 1817 for disarma- 
 ment on the Great Lakes. By Charles H. Levermore. 
 Boston. World Peace Foundation. 1914. pp. 28. 
 
 “Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory.” A Com- 
 parative Study of the Philosophy of Force and the 
 Moral Law as the Basis of Society. By George W. 
 Nasmyth, Ph.D. New York. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 
 In preparation. 
 
 Traces the manner in which the doctrines of “the struggle 
 for existence” and the “survival of the fittest” have extended 
 all through the social order from the classic diplomacy of 
 international relations to the conception of business as war- 
 fare and the use of violence in industrial relations to its 
 logical development in the ethics of personal conduct. The 
 biological and sociological errors of the philosophy of force 
 are made clear. The intellectual revolution in which men are 
 turning away from force as a futile instrument in modern 
 civilization, and are coming to rely more upon social and 
 international justice as the touchstone of all progress and 
 the expansion of life, leads to a discussion of the organization 
 of the world under a system of justice and law as the unify- 
 ing thesis of all social progress and the great constructive 
 movement of modern history. 
 
 11 . On the Economic Aspect 
 
 “The Great Illusion.” By Norman Angell. A Study of 
 the relation of military power to national advantage. 
 Fourth revised and enlarged edition. New York. G. 
 P. Putnam’s Sons. 1913. pp. xxii + 416. 
 
 A strong and influential statement of the economic argu- 
 ment against war. 
 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 151 
 
 “Arms and Industry.” By Norman Angell. A Study of 
 the foundations of international polity. New York. 
 G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1914. pp. 248. 
 
 A continuation and amplification of the arguments in the 
 author’s “Great Illusion.” 
 
 “Discourses on War.” By William Ellery Channing. 
 With an introduction by Edwin D. Mead. Boston. 
 World Peace Foundation. 1903. pp. 229. 
 
 Classic arguments appealingly set forth by a great peace 
 orator of another generation. 
 
 “Commerce and War.” By Alvin Saunders Johnson, Pro- 
 fessor of Economics, Cornell University. New York, 
 International Conciliation. New York. American 
 Association for International Conciliation. 1914. 
 No. 77. pp. 14. 
 
 “War and the Interests of Labor.” By Alvin Saunders 
 Johnson, Professor of Economics, Cornell Uni- 
 versity. Reprinted from Atlantic Monthly, March, 
 1914. New York. International Conciliation. 1914. 
 American Association for International Conciliation. 
 No. 80. pp. 22. 
 
 III. On the Moral Aspect 
 
 “Newer Ideals of Peace.” By Jane Addams, Hull- 
 House, Chicago, Author of “Democracy and Social 
 Ethics,” etc. New York. The Macmillan Company. 
 (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.) 1911. All rights 
 reserved, pp. xviii + 243. 
 
 “The Passing of War.” By William Leighton Grane. A 
 Study in things that make for peace. Fourth edition. 
 Macmillan Company. 1914. pp. xliv + 302. 
 
152 THE CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 An argument to show that war is essentially wrong. Not 
 opposed to Norman Angell’s contention that war is eco- 
 nomically futile, but complementary to it. 
 
 “The Double Standard in Regard to Fighting.” By Geo. 
 M. Stratton, Professor of Psychology at the Uni- 
 versity of California. International Conciliation, 
 1912. No. 59. New York. American Association 
 for International Conciliation, pp. 14. 
 
 A statement of the fact that international conduct is often 
 judged by lower standards than are the acts of individuals, 
 and of the grounds for hoping that ultimately there will be 
 but one ethical standard for all conduct whether individual, 
 communal or international. 
 
 “The Moral Damage of War.” By Walter Walsh. Gil- 
 fillan Memorial Church, Dundee. Boston. Ginn & 
 Company. 1906. pp. 462. 
 
 An impassioned argument against war because of the moral 
 damage it works on the nation, and its people. 
 
 IV. On Christianity and War 
 
 “The Christ Method of Peace Making.” By W. Evans 
 Darby, B.D., LL.D., Secretary of the Peace Society. 
 Addresses delivered at Bow Church, Cheapside, Lon- 
 don. London. Headley Brothers. To the Rev. A. W. 
 Hutton, M.A., Rector of St. Mary-le-bow, Cheap- 
 side, E.C. pp. 126. 
 
 “War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ.” 
 By David Low Dodge. With an introduction by Ed- 
 win D. Mead. Boston. For The International Union 
 by Ginn & Company. 1905. Contents pp. xxiv + 168. 
 
 “Missions and International Peace.” By Rev. Charles E. 
 Jefferson, D.D., Pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, 
 Centennial Meeting of the American Board in 
 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 IS3 
 
 Tremont Temple, Boston, Wednesday evening, Octo- 
 ber 12, 1910. New York. New York Peace Society. 
 1911. pp. 22. 
 
 “The New Testament as a Social Document.” By George 
 W. Nasmyth, Ph.D. New York. G. P. Putnam’s 
 Sons. In preparation. 
 
 Seeks to give a rational basis in terms of biology, eco- 
 nomics, and sociology, for the practical program of social 
 reconstruction which the author believes was the essence of 
 Christ’s message, judged by Christ’s text, “By their fruits ye 
 shall know them.” With our modern instruments of the so- 
 cial sciences we are now able to demonstrate those funda- 
 mental laws of human relationship which Jesus announced 
 2000 years ago. 
 
 “The Heart of the War.” By Julian K. Smyth, author 
 of “Footprints of the Saviour,” “Holy Names,” “Re- 
 ligion and Life,” etc. The War as a Challenge to 
 Faith — its spiritual causes — its call for a new al- 
 legiance to the prince of peace. New York. The 
 New Church Press, Inc. pp. 156+ Prayer. 
 
 “Christ and War : the Reasonableness of Disarmament on 
 Christian, Humanitarian, and Economic Grounds.” 
 By William E. Wilson, B.D., Lecturer at Wood- 
 brooke, Warden and Tutor of Kingsmead Hostel. A 
 peace Study text-book with a Prefatory letter by 
 Dr. Rendel Harris. London. James Clarke & Com- 
 pany. 1913. pp. 212. 
 
 The early chapters discuss war from the Biblical point 
 of view, followed by a rapid historical sketch of the growth 
 of the peace idea. Arguments for militarism are stated and 
 answered, and the facts in modern life which make for peace 
 are rapidly sketched. The book closes with an attempt to 
 answer from the point of view of a British subject, “What 
 shall we do?” The book assumes that the Biblical argu- 
 ment against war is final for the Christian, but declares that 
 the economic argument corroborates the Biblical view. The 
 author is a member of the society of Friends. 
 
154 the CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF WAR 
 
 V. General Discussions 
 
 “Armaments and their Results.” By Andrew Carnegie. 
 New York. The Peace Society of the City of New 
 York. 1909. pp. 8. 
 
 “Nava! Waste.” By David Starr Jordan. World Peace 
 Foundation. Boston. World Peace Foundation. 
 1913. pp. 18. 
 
 “What Shall We Say?” By David Starr Jordan. Being 
 comments on current matters of War and Waste. 
 Boston. World Peace Foundation. 1913. pp. 82. 
 
 “The Cause of the War.” By Charles Edward Jefferson, 
 Pastor of The Broadway Tabernacle. New York. 
 T. Y. Crowell & Co. 1914. pp. 64. 
 
 “The Causes of War.” By the Hon. Elihu Root. A 
 Speech delivered at a dinner given to him by the 
 New York Peace Society in recognition of his ser- 
 vices to international peace. New York. The Peace 
 Society of the City of New York. pp. 12. 
 
 “Addresses on War.” By Charles Sumner. With an In- 
 troduction by Edwin D. Mead. Boston. For the In- 
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 320. 
 
 “The Ethics of Force.” By H. E. Warner. Boston. 
 World Peace Foundation. 1905. pp. 126. 
 
 A statement of the ethical arguments from the biological 
 point of view. Discusses the ethics of heroism and of 
 patriotism, and attempts to answer whether the war can be 
 defended on the authority of Christ or of reason. 
 
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