Page images
PDF
EPUB

in following Him. "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I am not come to send peace, but a sword." But the sword was the symbol of those desperate collisions between right and wrong, between love and hate, in the settlement of which greater heroism and loftier courage are involved than military history reports.

The earliest descriptions of the Christian life and the primitive encouragements to Christian character are cast in the terms of conflict and the qualities of a soldier.

"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 using the heavenly warfare."

The earliest Christians had no more sanction for softness, for the spiritual mollycoddle, than has the most ardent defender of military discipline as a school for virile virtues.

When some of them were too indulgent with themselves, they were shamed by this stern rebuke: "In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted so as to endanger your lives."

Paul wrote to Timothy, "Endure hardness with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

Thus by every form of speech and by every earnest counsel the seriousness, the intensity, the virility of the struggle for Christian character is made plain in the New Testament. It is the Christians who always have known and declared that

"Tis man's perdition to be safe

When for the truth he ought to die."

THE WORTH OF THE MARTIAL VIRTUES

As the teaching of Jesus recognizes the fact of struggle, but interprets conflict in the terms of noblest ends, so the Christian faith lays emphasis upon the martial virtues. Physical health, dauntless courage, patient endurance, ample resourcefulness, self-reliance, co-operation and self-sacrificethese seven so-called martial virtues, developed in war and best exercised in military campaigns we Christians claim these as the peculiar product of the struggle for Christian character and as means to Christian ends.

Better all the savagery, death and calamity that come with war than that these virtues should perish from the earth. But must we have fratricidal war in order to call forth and train the martial virtues?

We have been quite too willing to suffer ourselves to be impaled upon either horn of an imaginary dilemma. We do not need to choose between the inflicting of death and disaster upon an enemy in a military campaign and a state of demoralizing inaction under which the martial virtues perish.

To mo

There is an equivalent of war. It is a "moral" equivalent, as William James made clear years ago. It is a Christian equivalent, as every disciple of Christ must declare and exemplify in this time of war. This consists in releasing the martial virtues to other and nobler ends than war. bilize mankind to useful labor; to enlist trained minds in the continued fight with fear and superstition in the presence of God's majestic world; to summon devoted and disciplined men and women to annihilate the foes to man's physical welfare; to captain.the hosts who shall become "soldiers of the common good," this is the higher militarism to which the Christian Church calls the world today. And in that conflict every virtue that the noblest war of history has called forth will be trained and perfected. This is the new heroism.

[ocr errors]

A SOLDIER OF THE COMMONWEALTH

A short time ago the political life of a great state in the Middle West became sodden with bribery and the shame of it involved the national Congress. In the exposure and cleansing that followed it came to pass that a business man, a layman of quiet efficient force in a Congregational church, became involuntarily the possessor of information of critical importance to the community in the case. He knew what it would cost to "speak out boldly in God's name." But he never flinched; he never compromised. He told the whole truth. Then the pack flew at him. All that threats, plots and perjury could do to kill him or to ruin him was shamelessly done by the craven crowd that he had exposed. He looked in the face of physical death without fear and he defied those who tried by the foulest scandal to dishonor his name. The courts vindicated him and exposed his traducers.

His years of blameless living were beyond assault. He won in every instance. But it cost serious impairment of his health, a large part of his fortune, the suffering of his friends

and all because he was a good soldier of Jesus Christ in the fight for civic purity. Where can fratricidal war show a nobler example of all martial virtues in exercise than the brave, triumphant fight of this undecorated soldier of the

commonwealth?

Never were the tides of idealism flowing with deeper and healthier currents among our young men and women than they are today. Now is the time for the church to appeal to her heroic and responsive youth for the dedication of life to social welfare and the upbuilding of a clean state. Christian citizenship involves as great bravery and sacrifice in its exercise as are called for on the battle fronts of Europe. This year of frenzy and headlong rush into military preparedness is the strategic moment in which to offer an eager and chivalric manhood new goals for life in the Christian equivalent for fratricidal war. The call will not be in vain.

THE GROWTH OF RACE HATRED

A third disastrous situation created by the Great War is a fresh impetus to race hatred and a new sanction to parochial patriotism. Racial and national contempt have been growing at the expense of international good-will. Use the noun "menace," and each warring race will quickly furnish an adjective describing its foes, and affirm that they are fighting against it. Use the noun "peril," and men of white or black or yellow skin will furnish the appropriate adjective for it to justify repressive legislation or threats of future war. Thus race antagonism and national jealousy, fanned into flame, have finally burst out into the awful conflagration that is wasting Europe. There is a common cause behind such watchwords as "Pan-Slavism," "India for the Indians," "The Yellow Peril." This last unspeakable crime against the Armenians is due in part to the policy of expelling all alien elements from the Turkish state. Thus in the midst of what seemed to be great gains for human brotherhood and international good-will, a stubborn and disastrous reactionary movement has been going on.

[ocr errors]

THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM

True patriotism and national loyalty are not disparaged by the Christian doctrine of brotherhood. Just as one may be a loyal member of his own family and also true to the claim of the clan and the state, so one may be faithful to obligations that root in the ties of nation and race and at the same time fulfill his highest responsibility to humanity. It is possible, however, for patriotism to degenerate into a subtle and deadening selfishness. One may love his land and his race with a partisan zeal that robs such high loyalty of its grace and splendor. Whenever this vicious allegiance sings itself into such "Songs of Hate" as the Great War has already produced, we have the degradation of patriotism, and love of native land is changed from a blessing to a curse. The higher patriotism interprets loyalty to fatherland in the terms of human brotherhood, and defines nationalism in the terms of international obligation and service. It speaks its own language and rejoices in ancient traditions; but it feels and it acts in the universal realm of international goodwill. Its diplomacy is that of John Hay, too honest to be quickly understood by those who have learned only the vernacular of intrigue. Its love of country is that which burned in the breast of Lincoln, who today is nobly recognized as the South's truest friend as he was the North's most loyal son. Its final expression is in the ideal of Christ for that highest union of all the sons of men in the sonship of God and a brotherhood of mutual good-will and service.

If ever there was a place and time when this gospel of Jesus must be preached and practised with passionate loyalty it is in America today with the spell of the Great War upon us. Here if anywhere the brotherhood of men is to be realized.

On the 6th of October, in the washer-room adjoining furnace No. 1, in the plant of the Illinois Steel Co., at South Chicago, twenty-six furnace blowers were resting for a few minutes. Suddenly Sheldon Lacey heard a noise. The base of the great valve carrying the deadly poison waste gases had dropped. Lacey was near the door. Escape for everyone would perhaps be possible if the fallen base could be

held up until the flow of gas was checked; but the hazard was peril or death. These were men united in the brotherhood of labor. Lacey thought like lightning. "Get out, boys," he yelled, "I'll hold it back." The men ran. Lacey reached the valve and lifted the fallen base. But the loose connections and the rivet hole let the gas upon him. He and the base fell together.

Then Pietro Moncilochi, his "Dago" partner, ran in. He dragged Lacey half way to the door; then they two went down in a heap. Four others lugged them into the fresh air and collapsed.

A few hours later Lacey and Moncilochi died in the company hospital; a reporter added these graphic lines to the story:

"The four volunteers were lying near unconscious and perhaps dying. No one knew the names of the four. Men go by numbers in the mills until they die."

And so this Sir Philip Sidney of the steel mills, stranger and pilgrim from some Calabrian village perhaps, vindicated again that brother love that sent Jesus to Calvary and inspires all our heroisms.

THE HIGHEST BROTHERHOOD

Such an expression of brotherhood that is stronger than death is noble and heroic. There is, however, a more perfect form and a deeper basis. It is the brotherhood of all mankind in allegiance to Christ. "One is your Master; all ye are brethren." This is the Christian gospel to a distracted world.

This ideal is challenged now as never before. It is the so'called Christian nations that are at war. National alliances that would seem incredible from a Christian standpoint have been made. Brother Christians are killing one another. Is our noble ideal merely an idle fancy?

We know that it is not. Over against the madness of the Great War we put the ideal and the history of our missionary program. For over a century we have been proclaiming clearly and realizing steadily the gospel of the highest brotherhood in Christ. We have affirmed it against all the sectional bitterness of racial and national hatreds, and it

« PreviousContinue »