684 THE KING’S BUSINESS “The Germans have overrun France and Belgium, and may possibly invade England by airship and drop bombs on London. What am I to do? Am I to answer the Prime Minister’s call, make myself proficient in arms, and hurry to the Continent to beat the Germans off ? He answers his own question by saying: “Look! Christ in khaki, out in France thrusting his bayonet into the body of a German workman. See! The Son of God with a machine gun, ambushing a column of German infantry, catching them unawares in a lane and mowing them down in their helplessness. Hark! The Man of Sorrows in a cavalry charge, cutting, hacking, thrust ing, crushing, cheering. N o ! N o ! That picture is an impossible one, and we all know it. “That settles the matter for me. I cannot uphold the war even.oh: its supposedly defensive sidd, and I cannot, therefore, advise any one else to enlist or to take part in what I believe to be wrong and wicked for myself. A country, as an individual, must be prepared to follow Christ if it is to claim the title, of Christian.” ■ Further on he says: “No nation and no political party (and for that matter no Church either) is at present prepared to do that, although they all, more or less, profess to be Christian. The inference is irresistible that the nations of Christendom, the orthodox political parties, and the organized churches, believe in the religion 6f materialism, and not in God. “For myself, I can see no logical or practical half-way house between the policy of being always antiwar (anti every war, including this war), a policy based on the teaching of Christ, and the policy of Lord Roberts,, Lord Charles Beresford, Leo Malcse, and Gen eral Bernhardi, based frankly on material self-interest. The latter policy requires the keeping always ready of the maximum possible army and the maximum possible navy, equipped with the maximum possible efficiency. If we are to rely on force at all, then we ought clearly to see to it that we have a greater force oh our side than our enemies can put forward. If it is right to defend One’s country by taking part in war at any time, it is right and wise and necessary to begin the defense when it can be begun with real hope of sucqgss, not at the last moment.’ If it is right to recruit now for national defense against Germany, then we ought to have listened to Lord Roberts and the others and have had our million‘ men armed and trained ready before the .crisis arrived. We ought to have had their equipment, barracks, officers, and so on, in being now, instead of hurriedly impro vising a scratch army at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour. If the defense is right now, the Radicals, the Labor party, and the Socialists have been wrong all along in opposing increased armaments and general military service. When this war is over the Roberts-Beresford-Blatchford party will .demand, and consistently demand, that we should immediately commence to arm as never before in order to protect ourselves against the next war. That is the obvious logic and worldly wisdom of the situation, if you admit the use of, force at all. “But I simply do not.base my position on logic or worldly wisdom. I base it simply on the command of God and the teaching of Christ. Christ’s teaching applies as much to defensive as offensive wars; in fact,(his precepts are directed mainly to the method of defense. ‘Render not evil for evil,’ ‘Overcome evil with good,’ ‘Love your enemies,’ ‘Unto him that smiteth you on the one cheek,’ are all commands which imply antecedent offense on the part of the enemy and specify the method of defense on the part of the Christian. To the great majority of the people all this Sounds utter foolishness in the face of the present situation, but the divine sense has always been hidden from the wise and prudent, and has only been revealed to the babes of simple faith and child-lik.e heart.”
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