— 
 
 The Church 
 
 and 
 
 International Peace 
 
 A Series of Papers by the Trustees of 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 
 III 
 
 The Scourge of M il itarism 
 
 by 
 
 Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.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. 
 
 IN PREPARATION 
 
 1. Europe’s War, America’s Warning, by Rev. Charles S. Mac- 
 
 farland, Ph.D. 
 
 2. The Way to Disarm, by Hamilton Holt, LL.D. 
 
 3. The Breakdown of Civilisation, by Rev. William Pierson Mer- 
 
 rill, D.D. 
 
 4. After the War — What? by Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 
 
 5. Our Grounds of Hope, by Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D. 
 
 6. The United Church and the Terms of Peace, by Rev. Frederick 
 
 Lynch, D.D. 
 
 7. The Church’s Mission as to War and Peace, by Rev. Junius B. 
 
 Remensnyder, D.D. 
 
 8. Adequate Armaments, by Prof. William I. HulL 
 
A 
 
 % 
 
 The Scourge of Militarism* 
 
 By Peter Ainslie, D.D. 
 
 The two greatest influences in the world at this time 
 are those expressed by the principles of Jesus Christ and 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, the former representing the power of 
 overcoming evil with good, and the latter representing the 
 power of overcoming evil with evil. One stands for love, 
 humility and self-denial as expressed in the life of yoke fellow- 
 ship with Himself. The other stands for hate, pride and 
 avarice as expressed in the militarism of these times. The 
 two forces have perhaps never been in such severe conflict 
 since the earthly life of our Lord. Now they appear in 
 shocking contrast. 
 
 The whole life of Christ was a protest against force and 
 militarism. In His infancy. He fled from the sword of 
 Herod. When Satan offered to Him the militarism of the 
 world as expressed in kingdoms and their glory. He answered : 
 “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written : Thou shalt worship 
 the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” ^ When 
 James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven for 
 the destruction of the Samaritan village, which had rejected 
 them, Christ rebuked them, and some ancient authorities 
 have added that He said : “Ye know not what manner of 
 
 spirit ye are of ; for the Son of man came not to destroy 
 men’s lives, but to save them.” ^ When He was arrested in 
 the garden of Gethsemane and Peter attempted to come to 
 His defence by the wordly method of militarism, Christ 
 rebuked him, saying: “Put up again thy sword into its 
 
 place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword. Or thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, 
 and He shall even now send me more than twelve legions of 
 angels?” ® 
 
 * This thought is further developed in Dr. Ainslie’s book “Christ 
 or Napoleon — Which?” just published by the Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 New York, of which this article is a chapter. 
 
 iMatt. 4:10. 2 Luke 9:52-56. ^ Matt. 26:52, 53. 
 
 3 
 
The life of Christ on earth could be no other 'than this. 
 Mark you, He is the Teacher. When the military 
 power had succeeded in their purpose and He was being 
 crucified, He prayed : “Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do.” ^ This is the spirit of Christ and the 
 apostles expressed it in their lives and writings. “It is said 
 that, for a century or more after the death of Jesus, no 
 follower of His was enrolled in any army or took part in any 
 battle. This may not be literally true, but it was true in 
 spirit. The centurion, Maximilian, we are told, threw down 
 his military belt at the head of his legion, saying: T am a 
 
 Christian, therefore I cannot fight.’ And these words, says 
 Harnack, became a common formula with men who believed 
 in a brotherhood not to be achieved through killing. It was 
 only under Constantine (A. D. 312) that the Cross was 
 brought into the service of war.” ^ 
 
 From that time to this, Christians killing each other in 
 battle has become one of the commonest experiences of life. 
 It is almost universally held as a mark of honor. Once I 
 attended a large convention of Christian workers. One 
 of the speakers, telling of the fidelity of young Christians 
 mentioned the case of a young man, who on accepting 
 Christ as his Saviour, almost immediately left for the 
 front to join the army of his country in the European 
 war, and it was received with applause ! I cannot see why 
 it should be counted praiseworthy for this young Christian 
 to shoot at a dozen Christian men on the battlefield with the 
 intention of killing them, and why likewise it should not be 
 counted praiseworthy to shoot at this distinguished speaker 
 on the street with the intention of killing him. He certainly 
 would not have so considered it. Neither would the public. 
 Here is one of the marks of our semi-civilization, affirming 
 that it is wrong for two or three men to have a personal 
 encounter with the intention of killing, but it is not wrong 
 if the number be in the hundreds or thousands. Then it 
 becomes legalized and honorable. But this is militarism. 
 
 ^ Luke 23:34. 2 David Starr Jordan in War and Waste. 
 
 4 
 
Of course militarism was in the world long before 
 Napoleon, but he remains as the best personification of it in 
 these times. He is the successor of the great military leaders 
 of the world and is himself the most brilliant of them all. 
 His earthly career, like that of Christ, was short. Also like 
 Christ, he died without an empire or a throne, but the spirit 
 of Napoleon and all that he stood for is the dominating 
 tyrant of Europe in these times and of the world as well, 
 only Europe is in a condition to show it more clearly. One 
 afternoon in Paris, at tite beginning of the war, we strolled 
 out to the Arc de Triomphe de I’Etoile. A gentleman in 
 civilian clothes shortly appeared with more than a hundred 
 boys, apparently from some school, and there at considerable 
 length told of Napoleon, his army and victories, emphasizing 
 his personality as the greatest and the most ideal of all time. 
 I am told that this is a common occurrence. Not only the 
 French, but the Germans as well “have gradually acquired a 
 profound and ever profounder reverence for the creed and 
 the religion toward which that great and solitary spirit, 
 perhaps the loneliest among the children of men, still struggled 
 amid the tumults and desolations, the triumphs and the glories, 
 the victory and the disaster of his tragic and brief career — 
 a world tragedy his, at once the man of destiny andjthe 
 antagonist of destiny.” ^ ’ 
 
 Long ago Nietzsche in severest language denounced the 
 teachings of Christ as unmanly and dishonorable. He 
 boldly set forth his rendition of the Beatitudes as follows : 
 “Ye have heard how in old times it was said, Blessed are the 
 meek, for they shall inherit the earth ; but I say unto you, 
 Blessed are the valiant, for they shall make the earth their 
 throne. And ye have heard men say. Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit ; but I say unto you. Blessed are the great in soul and the 
 free in spirit, for they shall enter into Valhalla. And ye have 
 heard men say. Blessed are the peacemakers ; but I say unto 
 you, Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be called, if not 
 the children of Jahve, the children of Odin, who is greater than 
 ^ J. Cramb in Germany and England. 
 
 5 
 
Jahve.” Many, who would discard without hesitancy this 
 crass militarism, nevertheless are indirectly the subscribers 
 to the Creed of Napoleon and the Beatitudes of Nietzsche. 
 
 As a result of belief in this doctrine, all Europe to-day 
 is “bankruptcy armed to the teeth.” The war debt of Europe 
 amounts to $27,000,000,000, with an annual interest payment 
 exceeding $1,000,000,000. On the opening of this war there 
 has been a daily expenditure of $50,000,000, including all the 
 nations involved. So that as impossible as it was for Europe 
 to pay her war debt before, it is more impossible now, leaving 
 the nations burdened to despair, all because of belief in the 
 folly that great armaments maintain peace and wars solve 
 things. Some are seeing that neither policy is true, though 
 so earnestly believed by many of the great. It was Disraeli, 
 however, who so truly said : “War is never a solution ; it 
 
 is an aggravation.” 
 
 The United States has imitated Europe in maintaining 
 great armaments and looking with pride upon the false glories 
 of war. Said a London editor to me : “Unless you Americans 
 check your military party, your country will be in a similar 
 war to ours in less than thirty years.” It is immaterial as to 
 what will be the cause of it or what nations will be involved. 
 There need be only a large army and a large navy with 
 thousands of men trained to fight, and they need but the most 
 trifling thing to start them doing that for which they have 
 been trained. We are now spending $800,000 a day for our 
 armaments and by the next Congress it will go beyond a 
 million dollars, if the increase continues anything like it has 
 been in the past. 
 
 Our navy cost in round figures in 1881, $13,000,000; in 
 1891, $22,000,000; in 1901, $56,000,000 ; in 1911, $121,000,000; 
 in 1912, $130,000,000; and in 1913, $146,000,000. “Its yearly 
 expenses exceed the endowment revenues of all the univer- 
 sities of the world — the foundations of intellectual advance- 
 ment. They exceed the cost of maintenance of all industrial 
 and technical schools of all grades, including all colleges of 
 engineering and agriculture — the foundation of the world’s 
 
 6 
 
industrial advancement.” ‘ Militarism is confined to no country. 
 It is a world issue and so powerfully entrenched that to 
 dethrone it, from Christian sentiment alone, is one of the 
 mightiest tasks of these times. Carnegie was right when he said : 
 “We shall be barbarians to our great, great grand-children.”* 
 
 After the battle of Martinique, Benjamin Franklin wrote 
 his “Pest of Glory” as follows : “A young angel of distinction, 
 being sent down to this world on some business for the first 
 time, had an old courier spirit assigned him as a guide. They 
 arrived over the sea of Martinico in the middle of the long 
 day of an obstinate fight between the fleets of Rodney and de 
 Grasse, when, through the clouds of smoke, he saw the 
 fire of the guns, the decks covered with mangled limbs and 
 bodies dead or dying, the ships sinking, burning or blown into 
 the air, and the quantity of pain, misery, and destruction. 
 The crews yet alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing 
 around to one another, he turned eagerly to his guide and 
 said: ‘You blundering blockhead, you, so ignorant of your 
 business ; you undertook to conduct me to Earth, and you 
 have brought me to Hell.’ ‘No, sir,’ replied the guide, ‘I have 
 made no mistake. This is really the Earth, and these are 
 men. Devils never treat each other in this cruel manner. 
 They have more sense and more of what men call humanity.’ ” 
 
 The European war has involved the whole world in its 
 struggle. Like all the movements of militarism, both morality 
 and democracy have been severely assaulted and removed 
 out of their places as positively as one army putting another 
 to flight. The religion of Christ still struggles for its 
 place in the hearts of men. It is the struggle between reason 
 and force, between Christ and the Antichrist. It was this 
 that crucified Christ and buried Him behind the sealed door 
 of a stone tomb, but He arose from the dead. It Is this that 
 has divided the Church with anathemas, excommunications 
 and withdrawals, perpetuating the numerous divisions in 
 Christendom, so that the Greek church, the Roman Catholic 
 
 David Starr Jordan in War and Waste. * Andrew Carnegie in 
 Triumphant Democracy. 
 
 7 
 
church and Protestant churches all come under condemnation, 
 to whatever extent they have at any time adopted the methods 
 of force, and they have all done it. Present-day belligerency 
 and unbrotherly suspicions among Christians because of theo- 
 logical, psychological and sociological differences is a remnant 
 of it. 
 
 But the religion of Christ has survived through this 
 attack and some day she will go up to her triumph as the 
 great head of the Church did from His resurrection, for he 
 Himself said: “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against 
 
 it.” ^ All institutions state or ecclesiastical that have pursued 
 the policy of militarism have been under the Antichrist. He 
 is on the throne of the world. John affirmed : “The whole 
 
 world lieth in the evil one,” * and Paul said : “The god of 
 
 this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the 
 light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image 
 of God, should not dawn upon them.” ® 
 
 Democracy, fraternity, equality, equity — these are the 
 principles of Christ. Free institutions, self-government and 
 brotherhood can attain their highest development under His 
 leadership. Without Him all attainment is superficial 
 and temporary. Against all these, however, the Antichrist 
 hurls his scorn and by force battles into apparent ruin the 
 only principles that have given hope for making this world 
 better. The European war has brought into the light this 
 great struggle as perhaps has never been seen before. The 
 religion of Christ has been winning to His yoke fellowship 
 earnest souls in all nations and out from these have gone 
 strong influences for the better and saner way. Peace 
 advocates have not been driven from their positions. What 
 they have thought has taken lodgment and the reasonable- 
 ness of adjusting differences between nations in an inter- 
 national court is appearing to many to be as truly the path 
 to civilization as for adjusting differences between individuals 
 in a civil court. Christian teaching has not been in vain. 
 
 1 Matt. 16:18. 2 I John 5:19. Cor. 4:4. 
 
 8 
 
While for a time it may be driven out of the counsel chamber 
 of the nations, it is still influencing them. But the human 
 heart “is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly 
 corrupt ; who can know it ?” ^ 
 
 Merely to avow one’s belief in Christianity is an uncertain 
 thing. Constantine did this and bound together the Cross 
 and the sword. Centuries followed his example with 
 accumulating disaster and scandal. Now to wrench the Cross 
 from the sword is a difficult task. But it must be done. And 
 it will be done. The Church must clear herself, however 
 costly it may be. Christ and the Antichrist must separate. 
 The temptation of the wilderness is not over. The siege is 
 long. Faith still looks for triumph, because of her resting on 
 the arm of Christ, who cannot “fail nor be discouraged.” * 
 Lines of thought that lead to force must be abandoned. As 
 said the late Pope : “We must think peace.” Against the 
 
 long lines of thoughts of war, to think peace is a costly revolu- 
 tion, upsetting many sacred traditions and setting us to the 
 rewording of our prayers. Only in thinking peace after the 
 thought of Christ will we be able to find in Him the Prince 
 of Peace. 
 
 Religious bigotry and racial and national patriotism must 
 receive some severe scourging. They both have gotten their 
 strength from the Antichrist rather than the Christ. Emerson 
 felt this profoundly when he said: “We hesitate to employ 
 
 a word so much abused as patriotism, whose true sense is 
 almost the reverse of the popular sense. We have no sympa- 
 thy with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering for one 
 side, for one State, for one town. The right patriotism con- 
 sists in ';he delight which springs from contributing our pe- 
 culiar and legitimate advantages for the benefit of humanity.” 
 The earth is the Lord’s and “He made of one every nation of 
 men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”® The religion 
 of Christ is a brotherhood that rises above all racial and 
 national cleavages. It is the only way to civilization. The 
 
 ijer, 17:9. 2 Isa. 42:4. * Acts 17:26. 
 
 9 
 
other method has brought disaster and repeats the disaster 
 every few decades, indicating the difficulty in teaching the 
 corrupt human heart. 
 
 But whatever winsomeness there is in human life to-day 
 is of God. The religion of Christ must so deepen the beauty 
 of that life that its very winsomeness will quicken in all souls 
 the desire to be like those in the league of Christ. Some may 
 object to His yoke fellowship. Others may declare that the 
 best of the world came from other sources. Still others may 
 break forth in severe hostility. These conditions must not 
 effect one’s personal attachment to Christ. The soul that 
 clings to Him needs only to be patient and heroic even to 
 the extent of giving human life away. Christ did that for 
 us and He said that our experience in coming after Him 
 would be something like His. It means all this to be a 
 Christian. It meant death once; it may mean death again. 
 Satan said of Job ; “All that a man hath will he give for 
 his life.”^ It was not true in that instance and it is not true 
 now. The redemption of the world lies in the via crucis. 
 Every soul’s choice of the Christ of love over the Antichrist 
 of force means widening of the via lucis. In His light shall 
 we see light. ^ The final victory is as sure as God. This world 
 shall be taken away from the Antichrist. It shall be lifted 
 out of sin into holiness. “They overcame him because of 
 the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their 
 testimony ; and they loved not their life even unto death.”® 
 
 ^ Job 2:4. 2 Psalm 36:9. ® Rev. 12:11. 
 
'it 
 
 / 
 
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. 1. 
 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, III. 
 
 Hamilton Holt, LL.D., 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, 111. 
 
 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 Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, III 
 
 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.