The Church 
 
 - I , , __ _ 
 
 and 
 
 International Peace 
 
 A Series of Papers by the Trustees of 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 
 VI 
 
 The Church’s Mission as 
 to War and Peace 
 
 by 
 
 Junius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 70 Fifth Avenue 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
The Church and International Peace 
 
 A uniform series of papers by the Trustees of The 
 Church Peace Union, treating the problems of war and 
 peace from the point of view of religion, and especially 
 emphasizing the message the Church should have for the 
 world in this time of war. 
 
 ALREADY PUBLISHED 
 
 1. The Cause of the War, by Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. 
 
 2. The Midnight Cry, by Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D. 
 
 3. The Scourge of Militarism, by Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D. 
 
 4. Europe’s War, America’s Warning, by Rev. Charles S. Mac- 
 
 faiiand, Ph.D. 
 
 5. The Way to Disarm, by Hamilton Holt. 
 
 6. The Church’s Mission as to War and Peace, by Junius B. 
 
 Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 IN PREPARATION 
 
 1* The Breakdown of Civilization, by Rev. William Pierson Mer- 
 rUl, D.D. 
 
 2. After the War—What? by Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 
 
 3. Our Grounds of Hope, by Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D. 
 
 4. The United Church and the Terms of Peace, by Rev. Frederick 
 
 Lynch, D.D. 
 
 5. Adequate Armaments, by Prof. William I. Hull. 
 
The Church’s Mission as to 
 War and Peace 
 
 Junius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Church and State, with the Family, are held by sociological 
 writers to be the pillars of society. Upon these rest all our 
 social institutions. Each has indeed a distinct sphere. But 
 their co-relations and interdependences are of the closest 
 character. They mutually support one another. And when 
 either one fails in its duty, violates its obligation to the other, 
 then society is injured, deteriorates, and civilization comes to 
 a standstill, or relapses toward barbarism. 
 
 It results therefore that Church and State, if not formally 
 connected, as in Europe, still have a vital organic relation. The 
 sphere of the Church is spiritual. Yet, in the discharge of this 
 spiritual fashioning of the motives, aims and work of the souls 
 entrusted to her care, it is the distinct duty of the Church to 
 make good citizens, to inculcate a loyal support of the State. 
 The Church has a responsibility to see to it that there be a 
 Christian State. While she must avoid politics as such, yet 
 her voice should be heard upon the moral aspect of public 
 questions. And her testimony should ring out sharp and clear 
 against policies which injure the public welfare, and trample 
 upon the essential principles and maxims of morality and 
 religion. 
 
 It is on these grounds that the Church has a special 
 mission with respect to zvar. War is a resort to physical 
 force to adjust the differences between nations. This method, 
 as between individuals, the Church by its infusion of Christian 
 ethics, has banished, as belonging to the sphere of barbarism. 
 And none the less does the Church place war (as between 
 nations) in the same category. 
 
 Now, at the present juncture, we find ourselves confronted 
 by two ideals, in direct opposition. One is that of what we 
 
 3 
 
may call the the world-empire spirit. The several races of 
 men, separated partially by blood, by language, historical 
 traditions and national boundaries, look upon each other as 
 rivals, and seek the leadership, to one another’s hurt, with 
 a great ambition to wield the sceptre over the world. This 
 aspiration and effort are held to develop the virile virtues of 
 the race, and to call forth those energies which form the 
 noblest type of manhood. 
 
 This ideal is set forth in the famous book of Treitschke, 
 for many years the most popular of professors in Germany, 
 instilling his theories into the youth of that country. And no 
 less distinctly has it been urged in England by the distinguished 
 Professor Cramb. To get a vivid conception of it I quote 
 from the brilliant book of the latter: 
 
 “I have described the attitude of the youth of Germany, soldiers, 
 students, professors, politicians, writers of books. Their position is 
 clear. ‘Are we to acquiesce,’ they ask, ‘in England’s possession of 
 one-fifth of the globe, with no title deeds, no claim except priority 
 in robbery? Our greatest teachers so describe it.’ With what thoughts 
 are they to read the history and the literature of their country? If, 
 from love of peace or dread of war, Germany submits, it would 
 seem as if her great soldiers had fought in vain, as if the long roll 
 of her battles had passed like an empty sound, as if the Great Elector 
 and Frederick, Stein and Scharnhorst and Bismarck had schemed 
 in vain, as if her thinkers had thought their thoughts and her poets 
 had dreamed their dreams not less in vain. But if, on the other hand, 
 Germany has not declined from her ancient valor the issue is certain, 
 and a speedy issue. 
 
 “It is war. 
 
 “And if the dire event of a war with Germany—if it is a dire 
 event—should ever occur, there shall be seen upon this earth of ours 
 a conflict which, beyond all others, will recall that description 
 of the great Greek wars: 
 
 “ ‘Heroes in battle with heroes, 
 
 And above them the wrathful gods.’ 
 
 And one can imagine the ancient, mighty deity of all the Teutonic 
 kindred, throned above the clouds, looking serenely down upon that 
 conflict, upon his favorite children, the English and the Germans, 
 locked in a death struggle, smiling upon the heroism of that struggle, 
 the heroism of the childern of Odin the War God!’’ 
 
 When such thoughts, so in harmony with that spirit of 
 ambition, rivalry, and yearning for glory, inspiring the natural 
 man—a reminiscence of the brute instinct—are inculcated in 
 
 4 
 
such stirring phrases, shall we wonder that the slightest spark 
 leads to a world-wide conflagration! 
 
 Opposed to this ideal, so largely ruling the State in all 
 history, and unexpectedly coming to the front at present, as 
 dominant in Europe, is the Christian ideal —that of the Church. 
 The Church takes for its standard of moral authority the 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Here it finds the 
 holy and perfect will of God, as expressed in precepts, statutes 
 and ordinances. And here it finds that God “hath made of 
 one blood all nations of men to dwell upon the earth,” that 
 He is their “Father,” and that as His children, they are to 
 be brothers; that the dominant law of their mutual conduct 
 is to be that of love; that selfishness is the bane of social 
 life, and that it is to be resisted and overcome. And the great 
 , Teacher and Master, when He saw His disciples in a con¬ 
 tention as to which should be the greatest in His kingdom, set 
 them an example of humility by washing their feet, and then 
 gave them this precept: “Let him that is chief among you, 
 be as he that doth serve.” So, in the Old Testament it is 
 said of the Almighty One, as He looks down upon strife and 
 confusion in the world: “He maketh tvars to cease unto the 
 end of the earth”; and, when the new Christian era is 
 inaugurated, it is with the angelic song, “On earth, PEACE, 
 good will to men.” 
 
 Now it is clear as the light of the sun that there can be 
 no agreement between these two ideals. They are as far 
 apart, and as direct opposites, as the poles. One means 
 Selfishness, the other Charity. One means Love, the other 
 Hate. One means Peace, the other War. War is antagonistic 
 to Christianity for many reasons, but chiefly on account of 
 the ugly passions it excites, and the untold misery it inflicts, 
 and that upon those almost wholly if not altogether innocent 
 of bringing it about. 
 
 Imagination can easily enough conceive of the terrors 
 of the field of battle. But having enlisted at his country’s 
 call, while a young student at college—to which he afterward 
 returned—the writer would, to show how immeasurably 
 
 5 
 
reality transcend? imagination, give here a description of his 
 personal experience and observation in one of the bloodiest 
 fields of our civil war, viz. : Fredericksburg. It depicts a 
 phase not often described, i. e., the field during the lull in a 
 yet undecided battle. 
 
 Crossing the Rappahannock River, which lay between 
 the town and the fortified Confederate lines, on a narrow, 
 frail pontoon, it was a harrowing sight to see one’s comrades 
 torn from his side by the bursting shells from the enemy’s 
 heavy guns. Having ascended the river bank, we were on 
 a level plain immediately in front of the rifle pits and earth¬ 
 works, from which poured so deadly a hail of bullets that 
 we could only escape death by falling flat on our faces, and 
 as we lay there for hours, the air screamed with the hiss of 
 millions of bullets so close to our heads, that to raise them a 
 few inches meant certain death. At last the sun, which seemed 
 to hang for an eternity a lurid red ball on the edge of the 
 horizon, sank, and under cover of darkness we retired from 
 the field. Utterly exhausted with marching, with intense 
 excitement and hunger, we lay down to sleep. 
 
 And then it was that our senses awakened to such a 
 sound as we never before had dreamed of, and as altogether 
 beggared description. This came from the cries and shrieks 
 of the wounded and dying on the field we had just left. It 
 seemed to arise from a hundred thousand throats from one 
 end of the field to the other. And infinitely awful it was! 
 It was a concourse of all mianner of horrible cries. Screams 
 of agony that rent the very skies; appeals to God for pity 
 and help; occasional shrieks, as if from pent-up, unbearable 
 pain, rising louder than all the rest; and deep, bawling moans 
 from- those evidently made insane by suffering. Yet, dis¬ 
 cordant as were these wails and shrieks, their number and 
 incessant continuity made them seem to blend into one great 
 symphony of agonized sound—one mighty Niagara of woe 
 and despair! 
 
 It was absolutely appalling. One might conjure up all 
 the cruelities he had ever heard practiced by barbarous races. 
 
 6 
 
or all that he had ever heard of the horrors of a physical hell, 
 but this pandemonium of tortured cries surpassed them as 
 reality exceeds imagination, as fact pales fiction. 
 
 And such are the pitiless rules of the undecided battle, 
 that all these calls for help must be utterly disregarded. 
 During the long winter night this wretched multitude must 
 lie on the field with no tender hand to ease the aching head, 
 no medical skill to staunch the life-blood’s flow, no anaesthetic 
 to relieve the intolerable pain, not even a drop of water to 
 moisten the parched tongue or glazed throat. 
 
 As the writer lay there that weary, awful night, sleep 
 banished from his eyes, with the consciousness that on the 
 morrow the same fate might be his, these sounds and that 
 scene were burned into the core of his memory like a hideous 
 nightmare whose spectre will not down life-long. 
 
 And then and there he learned a lesson as to war. He 
 was a Christian, and those deliberately inflicting upon one 
 another these awful mutilations were men of a civilized land, 
 fellow Americans, confessors of a religion whose basal tenet 
 was brotherhood, disciples of a Master Whose maxim to His 
 followers was; “Forgive your enemies,” “Love one another,” 
 “Peace I leave with you.” 
 
 And he received a lasting conviction that war between 
 Christian peoples was utterly indefensible. And that, could 
 statesmen and clergymen witness such a holocaust of horror, 
 they would hesitate before making flaming call to arms, and 
 would find terms of amicable and honorable adjustment. 
 
 But there are other horrors of war beside the actual 
 sufferings of the field. These were vividly depicted by the 
 trenchant pen of good old Dr. Samuel Johnson thus: “War 
 has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon 
 and sword. Of the thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands 
 tbat perish, very small part ever feel the stroke of the enemy, 
 the rest languish in tents and ships, amidst damps and putre¬ 
 faction ; pale, torpid, spiritless and helpless—gasping and 
 groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long con¬ 
 tinuance of hopeless misery; and are at last whelmed in pits. 
 
 7 
 
or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without 
 remembrance. By incommodious encampments and unwhole¬ 
 some stations, where courage is useless and enterprise 
 impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies 
 sluggishly melted away.” 
 
 And then there is the Aftermath of War, widows and 
 orphans mourning for the non-retuming husband and father, 
 homes once bright and happy, now saddened and desolate, 
 and burdened with crushing and grinding poverty. Then, 
 the demoralization of young men, and the brutalizing 
 influences in a bloody strife, which almost makes necessary 
 all sorts of heartlessness and cruelty. What a derangement, 
 too, and setback of religious work, missionary enterprise, 
 and all forms of spiritual activity! Then Schiller’s line sums 
 up the result as to the deterioration of the quality of the male 
 sex: “Always war devours the best.” The very flower of 
 the youth and those of middle-age go into the war at the 
 beginning, and of these a large part die before the end. 
 “This,” as says Chancellor Jordan of Stanford University, in 
 his late book on the Effects of War, “produces a change in 
 the balance of society by reducing the percentage of the better 
 types without a corresponding reduction of the less desirable 
 types; a condition which is projected into the next generation 
 because the inferiors live to have progeny and the others 
 do not.” After each war comes the paucity of genius, the 
 failure of personal initiative, a great decadence in literature. 
 War also costs millions for each day that it is carried on. 
 This the present peoples are quite unable to pay. And so 
 the burden is placed upon coming generations, who are so 
 bowed down under oppressive taxes that they are practically 
 slaves for centuries. The war debts of Europe now amount 
 to the inconceivable amount of $30,000,000,000, and as long 
 as war continues, go on increasing at the rate of $300,000,000 
 a month. 
 
 When war is thus considered in its manifold aspects of 
 evil, misery, bitter passions and tragedies, can there be doubt 
 as to where the Church, bearing the Gospel, and preaching 
 
 8 
 
the spirit and imitation of her Lord, should stand Txnth regard 
 to it? The only question, then, is not as to her uncompro¬ 
 mising attitude, but as to how she shall most efifectually 
 oppose, limit the destructive sphere, and cause the final over¬ 
 throw of, this monster of barbarism. 
 
 First, by always and everywhere hearing witness against 
 it. The Church is not true to her divine mission and message 
 when she justifies the war conducted by her own country, 
 while only condemning that of others. In the great European 
 war we have the spectacle of each church declaring that her 
 own nation is perfectly right in resorting to the barbaric 
 method of war. The respective churches of England and 
 Germany, for example, are supporting and issuing prayers 
 for the bloody work of their armies, as if they could expect 
 the blessing of the “very God of Peace” to rest upon them. 
 The position of the Church should be, “Your cause may be 
 absolutely just, but Christianity demands that you submit it 
 to the arbitrament of the International Court of the Hague, 
 and not seek to settle it by the brutal and unjust tribunal of 
 force.” If the churches of all the great warring nations 
 united and stood firmly upon this basis, we feel sure that, 
 seconded by the peoples themselves, who are bearing the 
 awful results in personal and financial losses, the various 
 rulers would shortly be compelled to establish peace. 
 
 The Church, further, will contribute most effectively to 
 peace when she exposes the real cause of war, when she 
 diagnoses truly the root of the disease. One of the most 
 encouraging signs of the present, as indicating an advance in 
 the influence of Christianity, is the appeal of the warring 
 nations to Christendom for a favorable verdict. Each feels 
 that it is a terrible crime in the esteem of civilization for the 
 one who bears the responsibility of inciting the war. But the 
 Church would make a fatal mistake if she adjudged one of 
 the parties the prime aggressor, and ascribed all the blame to 
 that individual nation alone. We rather agree with the 
 explanation given by a distinguished statesman; “There is 
 no ethical justification of this war from any standpoint. There 
 
 9 
 
is only an explanation of the war from an economic stand¬ 
 point. Let us thrust aside in these dark moments of peril 
 and horror all subterfuge.” That is, the true explanation of 
 this war is to be traced to misgovernment, internal dissatis¬ 
 faction, national rivalry, commercial jealousy, and the tempt¬ 
 ing vision of world-empire. That this general, selfish, worldly, 
 non-Christian spirit, common, more or less, to all the powers, 
 and not the specific aggressive act of one, is the real cause of 
 this horrid strife, is shown by the fact that all these powers 
 have been looking for it, have held it to be inevitable, have felt 
 that the fire was rankling underneath the crust of European 
 civilization, and that it was an altogether secondary matter, 
 as to what would be the incidental occasion. 
 
 It is then this world-spirit, this carnal human heart, this 
 generic selfishness and unbrotherly race antagonism, which 
 is the cause of prejudice, bitterness and strife, culminating in 
 war, at which the Church must direct her opposition. Only 
 by exorcising it, and banishing it from the world’s theatre, 
 can there be peace. 
 
 And this can be done alone by the Church preaching the 
 Gospel. Nothing more than the present unprecedented strife, 
 with horrors more appalling than ever witnessed before, shows 
 the mistake of diplomats, social philosophers, mere ethicists 
 and rationalistic ministers, who think that this age has 
 progressed beyond the teachings of Christianity. The historic 
 Church has ever held with Paul that the human heart is 
 “deceitful and desperately wicked,” and that it needs to be 
 radically changed into another personality before it can be 
 truly Christian. The special mission of the Church is to effect 
 this spiritual regeneration. Men speak of the present war as 
 an evidence of the failure of Christianity. Quite the contrary, 
 it only demonstrates that men are not Christianized enough. 
 What they want is more of Christianity. Only when they put 
 the Gospel to practice in their hearts and lives by becoming 
 “new creatures in Christ Jesus,” will they “learn war no 
 more.” 
 
 lO 
 
As writes a recent Biblical critic: “I was at first 
 staggered by the recent events in Europe, but I quickly 
 recovered myself as I thought that this barbaric display has 
 been the result of a partially accepted Christianity. Then I 
 turned to these volumes by Dr. MacLaren, and was reminded 
 most impressively that, if we are to get rid forever of bloody 
 rnilitarism in Europe and merciless commercialism in America, 
 it can only be by a careful, thought-out presentation of the 
 Christian message which appeals at once to the conscience, 
 the intellect, the emotions, and the will.” 
 
 Finally, the Church, by not allowing her sacred mission 
 to be embroiled with political and partisan views, can exercise 
 a potent and most beneficent influence for a righteous adjust¬ 
 ment zvhen there comes the framing of peace. In this crisis, 
 when each party is seeking the advantage, and when the con¬ 
 quering power is disposed to act in the spirit of selfish 
 injustice, the danger is greatest. And as only that peace can 
 be lasting which is equitable to all, then it is that the churches 
 can be the agents of greatest usefulness. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is engaged in writing a series of articles 
 in which he reproaches the advocates of peace in these words: 
 “The weaklings who raise their shrill piping for a peace that 
 shall consecrate successful wrong occupy a position quite as 
 immoral as, and infinitely more contemptible than the position 
 of the wrongdoers themselves.” We believe that truer and 
 broader-minded is the attitude of Mr. Carnegie, when in his 
 late Independent article he said that the foundation for a 
 world-peace court had been laid when, on September 5th, 
 Great Britain, France and Russia had mutually agreed not to 
 make peace separately and added: 
 
 “After the present belligerents agree upon peaceful settle¬ 
 ment, Germany and Austria should be the first invited by the 
 Allies to join in forming a league of peace.” 
 
 It is just the present agitators for peace, and the churches 
 who are preaching the Christian spirit of forbearance and 
 brotherly love, who, when the terms of final adjustment are 
 being discussed, will stand to the last for, and will be 
 
the most potent factors of, a peace which will not be arbitrary, 
 but just, not the voice of force, but that of righteousness, and 
 therefore a durable one. 
 
 Such should be the attitude of the Christian Church 
 toward, the barbaric demon of war, and such the agencies 
 which she employes to circumvent his overthrow. It is evident 
 that all other agencies, political, ethical, social, cultural and 
 commercial, have failed and ever will fail. War, in the past, 
 has always driven men to the Church, and more than ever 
 can the Church now, by fidelity to the Gospel, by energetically 
 pressing her holy mission, win the confidence of mankind, and 
 gather all nations under the banner of a world-wide brother¬ 
 hood of peace, when we may say with Whittier: 
 
 “Lend, once again, that holy song a tongue 
 Which the glad angels of the Advent sung, 
 
 Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour’s birth, 
 
 ‘Glory to God, and Peace unto the Earth.’ 
 
 Through the mad discord send that calming word 
 Which wind and wave on wild Gennesareth heard. 
 
 Lift in Christ’s name His CROSS against the SWORD.’’ 
 
 The Church Peace Union 
 
 {Founded by Andrew Carnegie^ 
 
 TRUSTEES 
 
 Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D., LL.D., Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Rev. Arthur Judson Brown, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., LL.D., Boston, Mass. 
 President W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D., Providence, R. I. 
 His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D., New York 
 Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Hamilton Holt, New York. 
 
 Professor William I. Hull, Ph.D., Swarthmore, Pa. 
 
 Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Ph.D., New York 
 Marcus M. Marks, New York 
 
 Dean Shaller Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Edwin D. Mead, M.A., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 John R. Mott, LL.D., New York. 
 
 George A. Plimpton, LL.D., New York. 
 
 Rev. Julius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
 Judge Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D., New York. 
 
 Robert E. Speer, D.D., New York. 
 
 Francis Lynde Stetson, New York. 
 
 James J. Walsh, M.D., New York. 
 
 Bishop Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., New York.