WE have reached the great alternative, Peace or War.
It is an alternative that has been much discussed of late. The newspapers, the magazines, and innumerable books have considered it in every possible aspect, turning it round and round and tossing it from hand to hand. And this much at least the discussion has done, it has shown us how many and how fundamental are the issues that are involved in it.
1. One question that has come to the front, and has become indeed quite painfully acute, is the place of the individual conscience. Has the individual conscience any right at all in the matter? Is not peace or war a question for the State? Are not our statesmen alone responsible? Have we who are private citizens any duty, but to accept their decisions and obey their commands?
We cannot escape our responsibilities as individuals. That is the German attitude; it is not ours. Germany is or was the land of organization and strict discipline.
Other nations believe in the efficacy of the solitary effort of a man of genius, or in the duty incumbent on the community to respect the dignity of each of its members. German organization, starting with the idea of the All, sees in each man a Teilmensch, a partial man; and, rigorously applying the principle of the division of labour, restricts each worker to the special task assigned to him. From man it eliminates humanity, which it regards as the wheel-work of a machine.” [Note: E. Boutroux, Philosophy and War, 65.]
2. But the moment we give conscience a hearing, serious and apparently insuperable difficulties arise. The best case is that of the Quakers. One of their number, John W. Graham, Principal of Dalton Hall, asks what would have happened in Belgium at the beginning of the war if there had been Quakers in that country. “Some,” he says, “if we may judge from English action, would have fought with the rest—some also would have made in Christ’s name no resistance whatsoever. The remainder would have taken service with the State in helpful and necessary ways, not implying a personal share in killing.” [Note: J. W. Graham, War from a Quaker Point of View, 66.]
3. This variety of response is due to various causes. Temperament, as Mr. Graham says, has something to do with it. But the chief cause is ignorance, or at least uncertain knowledge, of the mind of Christ. The Quakers are Christians. When Mr. Lewis Bartlett, who is a Quaker, comes to the discussion of Peace or War, he puts the question, “Has Christ a place for war waged by His disciples for the establishment of His Kingdom? I don’t ask,” he continues, “may people whose life and thought and character are but partly Christian, and whose motives and outlooks are largely determined by other influences than Christ, may they look to war as an honourable and noble way of working righteous ends? but can those who desire above all things to be influenced by the Spirit of their Lord and Master, and the interests of whose Kingdom is their whole desire, can they find in His Spirit that which would lead them to use war as an infinitely sad, but essentially noble and therefore beautiful way of helping towards His Kingdom?” [Note: L. Bartlett, The Spirit of Christ and War, 3.]
4. Now, it is not so easy as some men think to discover the mind of Christ. One who has spent his whole life in the study of the Gospels and their interpretation—Professor Hope Moulton —confessed that on this very question he had been compelled to change his attitude. He said: “A distinguished Quaker in my hearing declared the Christian position to be ‘quite simple’; war is wholly and utterly condemned, and there is no room for a Christian man in an army. ‘I am a Christian and therefore I cannot fight,’ is the reply of a consistent follower of Jesus, now as much as in the second century. I have myself approached this position so nearly that I must utter some palinodes before I can admit that the matter does not now appear to me ‘quite simple,’ but surrounded with deep perplexities. It is well to be absolutely frank about certain mistakes of which our opponents, with natural satisfaction, are reminding us at the present time. We should have the courage to confess wherein we miscalculated, and I for one face the task, not with alacrity indeed, but from sheer desire to be honest.” [Note: J. Hope Moulton, in London Quarterly Review, Jan. 1915, p. 32.]
One thing is certain, the teaching of Christ cannot be understood by isolating one or two sayings and ignoring the balance of the New Testament as a whole. On the one hand, we have the journalist who writes as though “forgive your enemies” was a modern invention of “pro-German sentimentalists”; on the other there is a tendency to pick out a few texts from the Sermon on the Mount and treat them as though they explained themselves and represented the complete teaching of Christ. It is as though a casual visitor to a beach should light on one or two rare shells and argue from them as if they were characteristic of its general conchology. Their real significance could, in fact, only be explained by one who had a full knowledge of the whole subject, who realized their rarity, and could account for it.
