In that day will Jehovah of Hosts become a crown of gloryAnd a diadem of beauty unto the residue of his people,A spirit of justice to him that sitteth in judgment,And a spirit of strength to them that turn back the battle at thegate.[3]
It should hardly be necessary to explain that Jesus in deliberately giving up the career of purely non-political preacher, teacher, and healer, to assume the career ofChristand Son of David, fully conscious as he was of all the dangers it implied, was neither ignorant of the Isaian ideal, nor out of sympathy with it. When he rode into Jerusalem accepting the acclamation: "Blessed be the kingdom that cometh, the kingdom of our father David," he was not betraying the national hope; he was lifting it toward ultimate realization at the cost of Calvary.
It is true that he avoided suicidal collision with Roman authority on the one side, as prudently as he forestalled the sweeping off of his following into the insane fanaticism of the Zealot nationalists on the other. The prophet's method of a symbolic purifying of the temple was exactly suited to this purpose. In the temple Roman authority explicitly renounced control. The policing of this combined fortress, sanctuary, and treasure house was left, even to the power of life and death, in the hands of the Sadducean hierocracy. It was administered by a numerous and efficient Levite police commanded by a "captain of the temple." On the other hand, Sadducean control was notoriously and infamously corrupt. The abuses by which (with their connivance) money was extorted from the worshippers made it so hateful that a worthy reformer might be sure of popular support strong enough to cow "the hissing brood of Annas" into an interval of "fear of the people." And the reform might even be accomplished without unchaining the red fool-fury of the Zealot mob, if it was seen to be the work of a prophet, by authority "from heaven" and not "of men," consistent, even if regarded as a messianic act, with the course of one who had come "meek and lowly and having salvation, riding upon an ass, and on a colt the foal of an ass."
It is of vital importance to a historical appreciation of Jesus' sense of his mission to realize fully and adequately what he meant by this one public overt act of his career; for by it he signalized to all Israel assembled at the Passover his purpose to achieve a national deliverance such as the feast commemorated. From it every loyal Israelite might infer that the hope of "the kingdom of David" was now about to be realized. Jesus thus entered deliberately upon the stormy and dangerous seas of messianistic agitation, as a claimant to leadership in the achievement of the national hope.
To herald such a reform as Jesus proposed, reviving the national ideal, the purification of the temple was a symbolic act worthy of the greatest of prophets. It was exactly fitted to raise and define the issues at stake. It would convey just the right impression to the multitude, whose attention could be reached by this time-honored method, and by this method alone. It was also free from the worst dangers of messianistic agitation. It would avoid on the one hand the Scylla of needless collision with Roman authority, and on the other the Charybdis of Zealot turbulence. The calm and fearless "authority from heaven" with which it was effected overawed resistance, so that even while assertedby forceit attained its result with the shedding of no other blood than the Messenger's own.
To show the exact meaning to contemporary Jewish minds of this act of the Prophet of Nazareth we must recall not merely the Isaian ideal of the "Davidic" reign as a universal kingdom of righteousness and peace based on divine law going forth from Zion, but also the later apocalyptic hopes. We must remember that all expectation in Jesus' time was focussed on the prophecies of Malachi, which made the purified temple the scene of Jehovah's visitation of his people, after they should have been brought to a "great repentance" by the coming of Elias. A rabbinic parable of the period will give us the point of view. It is an answer to the reproach so bitterly resented by Isaiah, "Israel is a wife forsaken," and is based on Malachi 1:6-14, and 3:1-12 interpreting the designation "Tent of Witness" applied to the tabernacle in Exodus 38:21:
A king was angry with his wife and forsook her. The neighbors declared, "He will not return" (cf. Isa. 49:14). Then the king sent word to her (Mal. 1:10 ff): "Cleanse my palace, and on such and such a day I will return to thee." He came and was reconciled to her. Therefore is the sanctuary called the Tent of "Witness"—a witness to the Gentiles that God is no longer wroth.[4]
Jesus' act was the assertion of authority "from heaven" to make Jehovah's will supreme upon earth, beginning at his own sanctuary. It was effected by direct appeal to the conscience of the masses, which to the extent of their understanding responded overwhelmingly. Jesus did not expect his act to be more than "a witness to the peoples." But on the other hand, for the time being at least, he sacrificed no life save his own. One close parallel could be cited from modern times if the demonstration could be freed from its unfortunate association with really fanatical revolt and real intention to provoke a servile insurrection. In keeping his demonstration in the temple free from entangling alliance with Zealot nationalism, Jesus showed a moderation and foresight which were unfortunately lacking to the demonstration of John Brown at Harpers Ferry; otherwise the two have many points of affinity. It was while the governor of Virginia was still hesitating to sign the death warrant of the champion of negro emancipation, long before his martyr spirit marched on before great armies of liberation, that Ralph Waldo Emerson, once himself a non-resistant pacifist, wrote in his journal:
If John Brown shall suffer, he will make the gallows glorious like the cross.
That Jesus intended to raise the standard of David by his public act at the Passover is certain. His pacifism was of the type of Micah's and Isaiah's. That he meant the act to convey a religious sense differentiating it from the merely political ideal of the Zealots is also certain. His doctrine of reliance on spiritual methods in the pursuit of the God-given aim exalts forbearanceas a meansin terms not less noble than the foremost champions of non-resistance. We may question whether he actually counted upon his own only too probable fate of crucifixion at Roman hands as destined to serve the precise end which it actually has subserved in human history. Those who see it with the wisdom of retrospect know that it has furnished to all devotees of Israel's ideal of the Kingdom of God, in all races, unto all successive generations, a rallying point and a symbol of final victory. But Jesus was looking forward with the eye of faith, not backward with the eye of knowledge. He believed that even through death God would give victory to those who sacrificed life and all to his kingdom's cause, and that it would be given ere their generation had passed into oblivion. How much further than this his prophetic insight into the ways of God with men extended is a question which will be variously answered in accordance with varying views of his personality. It need be no matter of surprise, however, to any discerning mind, that the fourth evangelist should also look backward at the significance of the cross, interpreting it in the light of its actual results. The fourth evangelist is the successor of Paul at Ephesus. Like Paul he naturally emphasizes its effect in "reconciliation," a twofold atonement, "breaking down the enmity" between man and God, and also that between man and man; and the great barrier of Paul's experience was that erected by the Mosaic law between Jew and Gentile. By the cross, says Paul to the Ephesians, Christ who is "our peace"[5]
made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity; even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.
No wonder Paul thinks of God as "the God of peace," the gospel as "the gospel of peace" and Christ as "our peace" proclaimed to the nations near and far.
That is the pacifism of Christianity. No wonder Paul's great successor at Ephesus compares this healing and reconciling cross to the token of forgiveness and faith which Moses lifted up in the wilderness, and repeatedly presents as its divinely appointed aim the "gathering into one the children of God that are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52).
The fourth evangelist devotes the closing section of his story of the public ministry to this great question, Why Jesus came forward as the Christ? The scene he chooses is Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, that festival which commemorated the death and resurrection of the Maccabean martyrs who had given their lives for the national ideal. The story begins with the Jews' demand of Jesus that he "tell them plainly" whether he is the Christ. It ends with the mystical utterance of the high priest:
that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but that he might gather together into one the children of God which are scattered abroad.
To show what alternative lay before him we are told of a delegation of Greeks who wait upon Jesus, apparently to invite him to "go to the Gentiles and teach them," but who receive as their answer, after a momentary soul-conflict paralleling the scene of Gethsemane, that Jesus "must be lifted up," and thus through his martyr death "will draw all men unto him." The central scene of the raising of Lazarus is of course directed to the resurrection theme appropriate to this feast, the theme of the Christ who as Messenger of God brings life and immortality to light. But the whole section rests back on an opening parable, that of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11-18). Our concern is with this parable; for it is not an invention of the fourth evangelist, but an authentic comparison of Jesus attested by the preceding evangelists,[6]and merely developed in the later interpretative gospel along the lines of the original prophecy,[7]and with special reference to the cross as a token of unity in estranged and warring humanity evoked by loyalty to a common higher ideal.
In the parable of the Good Shepherd, as elsewhere, the fourth evangelist shows that his view of the tragedy of Calvary is determined by its actual result. The function of the Shepherd is to gather a flock now scattered, and which includes "other sheep that are not of this fold." The aim is "that there may be one flock; one Shepherd," an aim suggested by Paul. But primarily the parable is simply an adaptation of Ezekiel's famous indictment of the hireling shepherds of Israel, who had first exploited Jehovah's flock, and then abandoned it to the ravening of wild beasts. Because of this, the prophet declares, Jehovah himself will seek out the scattered and bleeding remnant and will set up over them a worthy shepherd, the son of David.
The special application made by the fourth evangelist is to the gathering of a flock already scattered, bleeding, and torn of beasts, because of the faithlessness of hireling shepherds. Such was in truth the task imposed by the conditions of the time. Such was in the experience of Paul and his generation the actual effect of the cross. But primarily and in Jesus' mind it was simply the token of the last supreme measure of devotion which he, and all who would follow him, must be prepared to pay in loyalty to the Kingdom of God. Its comparison is purely and simply a contrast between two types of leadership. On the one side is he who lays down his life in defence of the helpless, be it in conflict, as when David the shepherd lad with sling and stone rescued his sheep "out of the paw of the lion and the bear," or be it in search for the lost lamb upon the mountainside. On the other side is he who "when he seeth the wolf coming leaveth the sheep and fleeth." The special need of the time, that which appealed to Jesus as the supreme need of those to whom he was sent, was his people's need of a standard and leadership, rescue of the scattered and lost.
When he saw the multitude he had compassion on them because they were distressed and scattered as sheep that have no shepherd.
He gave them the needed rallying point, a sign in which afterward they should conquer. He also gave them the needed leadership. The former was the need of the first age of the Church. The second need is ours; for defence of the flock is as much a shepherd's task as seeking out the lost. They who abandon it in the face of wolfish attack need expect no approval from the Son of David.
There is a certain magnificence of logical consistency in the non-resistance doctrine of the pacifist who chooses the Empire of China (!) as the example of its perfect work in the field of international relations.[8]With the blessed example of the Celestial Kingdom before us we are asked:
What did it avail Belgium to marshal her armies and hold her forts against the irresistible advance of the German legions?[9]
The question has an extraordinary resemblance to that addressed by the Kaiser to King Albert inPunch'sfamous cartoon: "Don't you see that Belgium has lost everything?" And Albert's answer is taken from Christ's own lips: "She has not lost her soul." The Celestial Empire on the other hand seems to this champion of the pacifism of Lao-tse to have practically realized the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven. Peacefully non-resistant under the corrupt domination of its Manchu conquerors it had attained the climax of earthly felicity. It had a name to live, and was dead.
The Chinese and the Quakers, each in their own way, are finished products. What they are is all they ever can be. Which means from the standpoint of national idealism, that non-resistance is the "saving element."[10]
This eulogy of China, however, was written before the new Republic of China, stirring the long dormant instincts of Chinese patriotism, had roused to new hopes and visions of world achievement the body that had become as one dead, insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But non-resistant pacifism is ever rich in paradox. Today China herself, so long inert, blessed for so many centuries with all the felicity of submission, has thrown off the Manchu yoke of domination. And in the first surge of new-found strength she declares war against Attila and his Huns, and in the declaration itself avows that she is "fighting to establish peace." To such inconsistency does non-resistance seem fated as soon as life triumphs over death, as soon as the Christian gospel of a world kingdom of righteousness and peace triumphs over Buddha's pessimistic obliteration of desire and hope together in the graynirvanaof extinction. "Eternal life" through death-defying loyalty to a divine ideal begins at last to seem preferable, even in China, to mere indefinite "survival."
Not Quakerdom itself seems able to maintain consistency with its non-resistant ideals. Alas,
they were abandoned by those who could not and would not see the connection between these principles and the uninterrupted peace which had long blessed the Pennsylvania colony.
Becoming itself directly responsible for the order and security hitherto guaranteed by the sovereign British power the Quaker commonwealth followed the example of its neighbor states and girt on the sword.[11]For this, doubtless, we may hold the influx of alien immigrants more responsible than the genuine followers of Fox and Penn. But it must at least be admitted that Quaker leaven showed little power to work, so far as the doctrine and policy of non-resistance are concerned.
Inconsistencies such as these on the part of the greatest modern exemplars of non-resistance are saddening to its champions, but there remains ever a more ethereal realm, where philosophy can build without fear of the stern realities of life, the limbo of utopias.
Jesus, too, they tell us, though greatest of all non-resistants, was also "inconsistent." Was he, then, inconsistent with himself? Or was his pacifism the active pacifism of those who give their lives for just and lasting peace, the peace that is real and not mere devastation, not destruction and tyranny miscalledKultur; not might triumphant over right and unashamed; but a peace that endures because justice and right have been enthroned?
Jesus closed his public teaching with the doctrine that all religion, all duty to God and man, is summed up in the two commandments: Unreserved, unqualified, unfaltering devotion to the One God of Righteousness and Truth; unselfish devotion to the common weal of man. One who in obedience to this law of love took up the succession of Moses, David and the prophets, raising the standard of God's real sovereignty on earth, and paying to it the last full measure of his own devotion, has not deserved the accusation of inconsistency. Jesus was sublimely consistent. That interpretation of his words which refuses the witness of his heroic deeds to their true meaning is guilty of the inconsistency.
It is true, as Tolstoy finely says, that Jesus' noble depiction in the Sermon on the Mount of the forbearance of God as the standard of the higher righteousness means that we should "never do anythingcontrary to the law of love." But by what right does the great Russian pacifist (or any other who claims for his theory the authority of Jesus) omit from that law of love its "first and great commandment"? How can we ignore the demand of supreme and unqualified devotion to the God of Righteousness, whose kingdom of righteous peace Jesus gave his life to establish, and limit our obedience to acquiescence in the demands of men, be they righteous or the reverse? The second commandment of the Law of Love is dependent on the first, and in separation from it will assuredly be misconstrued. Equal love of neighbor can be no requirement ofreligion, save as it depends on the prior obligation of supreme devotion to a common Father, whose forbearing, forgiving love extends equally to all. Imitation of that Father's goodness and forbearance, overcoming the evil of the world with good, is the one teaching, the comprehensive, unifying principle, of the Sermon on the Mount. But the God whose goodness this great discourse sets up as the standard of the righteousness of all "sons and daughters of the Highest" is not anon-resistantGod. It is the just and merciful God depicted in those Scriptures wherein Jesus read his beneficent will and purpose for the world.
It is not enough for the Christian merely "to do nothing contrary to the law of love"; he must actively toil and suffer in its service, fighting to the death. His personal enemy he may and must forgive. Enemies have thus been won to the kingdom. The enemy of the weak and defenceless brother he must resist. The enemy of God's kingdom he must fight to the death. It is true that this foe of God is no human or visible foe. Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; it is against the principalities and powers of darkness in the heavenly places. But we do not beat the air. This power of darkness finds incarnation in human form at least as readily as the Power of light. He fights with real and concrete weapons, and this reality is the ultimate test. For the foe who thus incarnates the evil power the Christian has no hatred as brother-man; only as agent of the evil power. The hatred ceases when the man renounces the evil allegiance. Hence the paradox of love that may necessitate a blow. Self-deception is here all too easy, but absolutely selfless devotion may be trusted even here not to substitute its own cause for God's.
The very paragraph from which the non-resistants draw their doctrine has this conclusion:
Wherefore seek yefirstthe kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these (outward blessings) shall be added unto you.
It is because Jesus soughtfirstthe kingdom, which means righteousness, peace and good will among men, sovereignty of right over might, overthrow of the powers of darkness which claim as their own the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, that he could teach as the best means to its attainment forbearance and loving-kindness to the limit. For a limit there is—thedivinelimit of the welfare of all. Loyalty to this ideal led Jesus to crown his sublime teaching with action sublimer still. When the scenes of his earlier ministry were closed, he left the quiet paths of teacher and healer in Galilee to tread the martyr's road, and to set up in his own cross an ensign to rally the scattered and bleeding flock of God. Because he sought "first the kingdom of God" Jesus held back his disciples from the bloody and disastrous path of Zealot fanaticism, and bade Peter return his futile sword to its sheath. For the same reason and no other he depicted to his disciples the Good Shepherd laying down his life in defence of the flock, and poured scorn upon the hireling who "when he seeth the wolf coming, leaveth the sheep and fleeth." It is for the same reason and no other that he also warned them of days to come when it should be the duty of the disciple unprovided with a sword to "sell his garment and buy one," days when only he that endured unto the end, fighting to the death against the powers of darkness, should be saved.
Jesus teachesunlimitednon-resistance where only personal and selfish interests are at stake; but resistance unto blood for the sake of the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. In this heisinconsistent with non-resistant pacifism that can see no difference between this doctrine and that of Buddha or Lao-tse. Jesus even reverses that Bolshevist pacifism that to save its own skin throws to the Turkish-Teuton wolves the bleeding remnant of the earliest historic flock of Christ. He approves rather shepherds that give their lives fighting in defence of their helpless charge. Heisinconsistent with the theories and philosophies of non-resistance; but he is consistent, sublimely consistent, with his own gospel of the sovereignty of God.
The rule of truly Christian pacifism is not hard to understand when we approach it from the standpoint of those who after the precept and example of Jesus seekfirstthe Kingdom of God. Men of this type are ready like "all the saints who nobly fought of old" to lose their lives in this high cause, that they may save them unto life eternal. For individuals and for nations the rule is the same: "In thine own cause strike never, not even in self-defence; in God's cause strike when he bids thee strike and cease not, come victory or death." There is, no doubt, an easy self-delusion, prone to identify its own cause with God's. But against this blasphemous egotism human history henceforth will ever set up the abhorrent warning of a certain imperial attitudinizer whom we do not need to name. There is a time for forbearance, patience, longsuffering, up to the limit of the forbearance of that God who seeks only the good of all, and who seeks it in wisdom and justice as well as in forbearance. The time isup to that limit, and not beyond it. If the enemy can be won, win him. Turn the other cheek, surrender tunic along with cloak. But forbearance is not meant to play into the hands of the evil power. There is also a time when it only gluts the ravenous maw of inhuman, soulless tyranny, a time when incarnate evil sits in the very temple of God, setting itself forth as God, a time when the law of violence is openly avowed and exalted above the law of mercy and right, a time of the beast and the false prophet, threatening to turn civilization back again to the age of Lamech and Tubal-cain. That is a time to remember also the commandment, "Let him that hath no sword sell his cloak and buy one," and the promise: "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne."
[1]Rom. 12:20, citing Prov. 25:21-22.[2]See below as to the fourth evangelist's explanation of Jesus' claim to be the Davidic Shepherd of Israel only in the sense of uniting the scattered flock of God.[3]The citations are all from the unquestioned writings of the First Isaiah, Isa. 2:2-4; 3:1-5; 9:2-7 and 28:1-6. The rendering is made independently from the Hebrew.[4]Mal. 3:1-4; 4:1-6.[5]Paul is elaborating Isa. 57:19.[6]Mk. 6:34; 14:27 and parallels.[7]Ezek. 34.[8]"New Wars for Old," pp. 252-258.[9]Ibid.p. 223.[10]Ibid.p. 258.[11]"New Wars for Old," p. 241.
When the greatest crime in all history was perpetrated and the world-war began, it was natural and necessary that the ministry of all lands should buckle on the Christian armor and take its place in the fighting ranks. Thousands volunteered as chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers. Thousands more—two thousand at one time in Canada alone—equally eager to don the khaki and endure their share of the hardships, waited impatiently until a door could be opened for them to go. In the training camps and in the trenches, in hut and in hospital, these men found new parishes and pulpits, ministering in a multitude of ways, and finding opportunities for Christ-like service in the soldier's every need. They did more than preach sermons, hold Bible classes, and act as spiritual comforters and advisers. To them, as to Donald Hankey's "beloved captain," no task was too petty or too menial, no lowly service beneath them, if it lightened the burdens or added to the comfort and efficiency of the fighters. At all times and everywhere, in all ways and by all means, they strove to represent the Master, who cared for bodies as well as for souls, for the resting times and food and tired feet as well as for the thoughts and motives and ambitions of his disciples. They were the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace and the army's public friends.
All this was only what might have been expected. The arresting fact was to find these prophets of peace, with comparatively few exceptions, proclaiming the righteousness of our participation in the war. In 1915 when theContinent, of Chicago, sent out a questionnaire among the Presbyterian ministers of the country, an overwhelming majority declared themselves in favor of preparedness. A vote in Brooklyn, embracing ministers in something like twenty denominations, showed one hundred and fifty-one in favor of preparedness, while six qualified their approval and only fourteen were opposed. These are indications of the trend of thought among the ministers of America; and though they may not give direct and unimpeachable evidence of how these men would have viewed the entrance of the United States into the Europeandébâcle, it would seem to be a legitimate inference that their attitude would be the same. When a nation, patient and forbearing until her enemies scoffed and her friends grieved, found herself compelled to defend her unquestioned rights against lawless and brutal pirates, minds which approved of preparedness for war would naturally, almost inevitably, approve of war. Nor was it our rights only. We entered the struggle not through pride or greed or hatred, but as the champion of international law, righteousness, liberty, democracy, and a world peace that shall be abiding and just for all.
To the few pacifists among the clergy all this seems quite unnecessary. Why should not America walk in the footsteps of Jesus, set her face steadfastly toward her Jerusalem, and for the world's salvation suffer Germany and Austria and Turkey to drive the spikes through her hands? Why not permit the Central Powers to seize and possess our country, even though they dealt with those of us, who could not and would not submit to the ethics of Nietzsche and the diplomacy of Bernhardi and the rule of von Hindenburg, as they treated the fathers and mothers and little children of Armenia and Belgium and Poland? "Resist not evil!" The cure of Christ's time is the cure of our time! The age of Judas and of Pilate, of the scribes and brutal Roman soldiers, has never passed.
This is not the place to attempt to settle the dispute between the champions of peace at any price and those of a war which, rightly or wrongly, they regard as righteous and unavoidable. It certainly will never be decided by calling all pacifists cowards and slackers, and all defenders of the course pursued by President Wilson, the son of a clergyman, exponents of Prussian militarism. The plain fact is that there is no path open to us which presents no moral difficulties. It is not a choice between absolute right and absolute wrong, but between the preponderance of right and the preponderance of wrong. As some one has phrased it, "War is a moral enterprise, if it redeems a state from a condition worse than war"; and that—so it seemed to thousands of ethical and religious teachers—was the situation in America. To have watched the violation of Belgium, the massacre of Armenia, the destruction of England, France and Italy, the absorption of Russia, and ultimately the forging of the chains of our own servitude, without striking a blow to protect the world against the unspeakable barbarism of a megalomaniac would have been ethical madness. Granting the culprit's sanity, it would have been a kind of religious paranoia not to bring the international butcher and brigand to terms. The man who stands by, while a thug robs his neighbor's house and murders the wife and children, practically coöperates with the criminal. If he is a saint, he is a saintly Raffles. Though he never strike a blow, he bears the mark of Cain. Leaders like the Rev. Charles A. Eaton, D.D., of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, have ventured to characterize our participation in the struggle as "our Christian duty." Many even of our Quakers vigorously champion it. Mr. John L. Carver, the head of the Friends' School in New York and Brooklyn, writes: "First and last, let us have no compromise or suggestion of compromise as to the justice of the American cause—no admixture of false pacifism in relation to one of the few absolutely just and unavoidable wars that the world has ever seen, unmarred by fanaticism, mistaken hatred, or lust of gain. Let us permit no confusion of ideas between old time wars of aggression or revenge, and this present war of unselfish sacrifice to save humanity from the reign of the beast." With this it is safe to say the great majority of Christians, lay and clerical, heartily agree. War is always bad; but there are situations when to decline to give battle, permitting the foe to work his immoral will, is not only still more terrible in its cost but more awful in its moral degradation. To kill is always an evil; but it is less of an evil, both for society and for the evil doer, than to permit a band of deluded assassins to run amuck in the ranks of civilization and to practice their marksmanship on the gentlest of women and the noblest of men. Almost to a man the leaders of thought in the allied countries, with unwilling minds and breaking hearts, have reached this decision. Rightly or wrongly, it is the answer which has come to their agonized petition, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
But there is a still more striking fact. Not only are our ministers like Sir George Adam Smith in khaki and Dr. Henry Van Dyke in the uniform of the navy, toiling as spiritual specialists for our soldiers and sailors. Not only are teachers like Principal Forsyth and ex-President Taft proclaiming our moral duty and legal right to participate in the greatest and most terrible of wars. After careful deliberation an ever-increasing number of ministers, especially among those of draft age, both in the pastorate and in the seminary, have given up their distinctive work, donned the uniform of the soldier, and sailed for the trenches of France. To some minds this seems incredible folly, a species of ministerial madness. War is so tigerish in its ruthlessness, so demoniacal in its treatment of ethical principles, so un-Christian in matter and in method, that it appears impossible to characterize any participation as righteous. It is, no doubt, the minister's duty to play the role of Good Samaritan when, with nations as his victims, the modern Hun repeats the parable. But can he still bear the title of minister if he joins the police force and attempts, even at the cost of killing the robbers, to clean up the Jericho road?
The answer of these men has been an enthusiastic affirmative. To them their clerical exemption was something more than what Dean Shailer Mathews called it, "an insult or a challenge." No doubt there were good reasons why certain trained specialists, and themselves among them, should be set to work with tools other than bayonets. The physician, the engineer, the munitions expert, the ship-builder and the chaplain will all have their part in the triumph. Mr. Hoover, Mr. Schwab and the Archbishop of York will do more in their present positions than they could behind a machine gun or in an aeroplane. They, and millions of men and women in lowly stations, can fight at home for peace and for freedom; and when the burden is heaviest and the strain almost unendurable, call cheerily, as Harry Lauder did to the Scotch Highlander: "No, man, I'm no tired! If you can die fighting for me, I can die working for you!"
But this patent plea did not satisfy some militant ministers. Their religion as well as their patriotism carried them beyond Dean Mathews' interpretation of the phrase. Grant that their exemption is an insult if it "implies that ministers are not as ready to serve their country as any other citizens, that they are slackers, or that they are so effeminate that they would not make good soldiers; that if they go about their work with no increase of labor or of sacrifice, making an excuse out of their holy calling, they accept their exemption as an insult to their calling." Grant that, if this is not true, it comes to them as a great challenge to do and to dare as much in their spiritual work as the soldier does in his, toiling to the limit of costly sacrifice, possibly to overwork and to death. They are quite ready to burn out, and that quickly, when the age demands the heat and light of their lives. But there was still in their hearts a service unexpressed, an intense desire ungratified. One hears the call in the following letter from a minister, who is now a lieutenant with a Canadian regiment in France:
"I expect to go to the front in Europe in the near future," he wrote to the editor of theOutlook. "For six years I was a Presbyterian minister, although a Canadian, in the Presbyterian Church of the United States. When the cause of liberty and the ideals of democracy were at stake, I could not withstand the 'call'—not so much of my country as of civilization—any longer. I resigned my charge and came to Nova Scotia, my boyhood home. It seems strange, but true nevertheless, that today I am a happy man. I hate war and know something about it—I served through the South African War and saw its results—but there are things worse than war. I am going, as I find many of my comrades going, not because we hate the German people, but because we believe that Prussian militarism would be an intolerable system for the world to live under."
"Is this a psychological and moral paradox?" comments the editor. "We think not. Every man who really grasps the meaning of the words righteousness, justice and peace, and their true relations, will understand the state of mind of this Canadian clergyman." It is the decision of one who loves and honors the calling of the ministry, and yet feels that in this crisis there is a place where he, whatever may be true of his fellows, is more greatly needed. It is the confession of faith on the part of a Christian who knows war and hates it, and yet is happy to make it because he loves peace, and believes, rightly or wrongly, that if the world is to possess it in our time, it must be won with the sword. It is the deed of a brother of all men who declines to be limited by his cloth, who cannot preach to the soldier without drinking the soldier's cup and being baptized with his baptism of mud and of blood. It is the spirit of a true Christian preacher, who cannot urge Christian laymen to "go over the top" unless at least some Christian ministers go with them. It is the jubilant response to the call of the heroic, the comradeship which knows no secular and no sacred, and which covets the most intimate fellowship in the life and sufferings of brave men.
The same attitude is being increasingly taken by the peace-loving Friends. "The young Quaker of the present day," writes one of them, "is so true to his inheritance—that of being allowed to act as his conscience dictates—that there are already many in the service, and that, too, with the fervent coöperation of their Quaker parents.... When one of these young Friends—now a trusted officer in the American infantry, who enlisted before war was declared by our Government—was challenged by a Quaker friend, he promptly replied: 'I am showing my regard for my Quaker ancestry and training in the fact that I cannot and will not allow war to stalk upon the earth unchecked. Only by meeting the Devil face to face can we hope to crush him.'"
Sir George Adam Smith in an American address stated that in Scotland 90 per cent of the ministers' sons of military age entered the army before conscription. Would it be strange if some fathers decided to go with them? He also said that of the sixty thousand Catholic priests engaged in war work in France, twenty-five thousand are fighting in the ranks. Some Chinese missionaries are serving behind the lines as officers of detachments of Chinese artisans and laborers. Other missionaries, however, and sons of missionaries are reported to have gone directly into military service. Our country's Roll of Honor contains the names of men like Captain Jewett Williams, an Episcopal rector and the son-in-law of Dr. David J. Barrows, Chancellor of the University of Georgia, who declined a chaplaincy, trained at Fort Oglethorpe, and was killed in action. Of recent graduates and members of the Yale School of Religion, forty-four are now in khaki. Of these nineteen are chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers, while eighteen are in the regular army, one each in the British and Canadian armies, two in the Ambulance Corps, one in aviation and one in the navy. Already the School Roll of Honor bears one name, that of a young Englishman of rare promise, who died in the hospital from wounds received on the battlefields of France.
These men are following in the footsteps of ministers of other generations. Yale's records show that there is scarcely a campaign of note, or an important battle in American history, in which her sons among the clergy did not share the hardships and dangers of the soldier's lot. Besides the more than one hundred and thirty who served as chaplains, in the thick of the fight as well as in camp and hospital, are those who fought shoulder to shoulder with their parishioners. When the news of the approach of the enemy reached Thomas Brockway (1768) during service, he dismissed his congregation, shouldered his long gun, and marched away. Of John Cleaveland (1745) it is said that he preached all the men of his parish into the army and then went himself. They helped to take Louisburg in the campaign against Cape Breton Island. They marched in the Crown Point Expedition, fought at Ticonderoga, and shared with Wolfe the hardships of the campaign against Quebec. The record of the Revolutionary days is a stirring one. Edmund Foster (1778) joined the Minute Men on the sounding of the alarm in Lexington. Ebenezer Mosely (1763) enlisted in Israel Putnam's regiment, and with Joseph Badger (1785), who served with General Arnold in Canada, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. They were in the ranks at Germantown and at Monmouth. Samuel Eells (1765) was elected the captain of a company formed among his parishioners to aid General Washington, who was then retreating through New Jersey. Elisha Scott Williams (1775) crossed the Delaware in the boat with Washington, and is so depicted in Trumbull's painting. He also fought at the battles of White Plains, Trenton and Princeton, and shared with William Stone (1785) and Benjamin Wooster (1790) the hardships and sufferings at Valley Forge. Levi Lankton (1777) was present at Burgoyne's surrender.
In the Civil War this record is repeated. The ministers of Yale fought at Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. They rode with Sheridan's cavalry in the Army of the Potomac; they marched with General Sherman to the sea. Several, like Erastus Blakeslee (1863), well known for his services to the work of the Sunday school, rose to the rank of general. Moses Smith (1852) entered in 1865 with the first troops into Richmond, while Samuel W. Eaton (1842), after fighting in some of the hardest battles, was present at Appomattox Court House on the surrender of General Lee.
In all this there is no thought of glorifying war, or of haloing the head of the minister who lays down his Bible to take up his bayonet. Quite the contrary. These fighting chaplains condemned war and hated it. They never proclaimed that organized slaughter was a sane method of settling international disputes or ethical questions. They would have marched to their own Calvaries gladly if this would have saved them from the horror of the task of the soldier and at the same time helped to bring in the Kingdom of God. But to their minds there was a time when a Christian ought to put up his sword, and another when his duty was to buy one. Devilishness is not usually overcome by allowing the Devil to have his way. If the powers of evil attempt by force to overthrow righteousness, righteousness may well by force oppose and thwart them; not that it may escape martyrdom, or vent its anger, but with the clear purpose of rescuing the evil doer from his devastating delusion, and of saving the most precious treasures of civilization from the axe of a vandalism, which can and ought to be restrained. The thought finds a crude but characteristic expression in Kipling's poem of Mulholland, the coarse sailor, who, in fulfilment of the vow made during a storm on the cattle-ship, goes back to preach religion to the brutal and unsympathetic crew:
I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should get,An' I wanted to preach religion, handsome an' out of the wet;But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, and I done what I was set.I have been smit and bruised, as warned would be the case,An' turned my cheek to the smiter, exactly as Scripture says;But following that, I knocked him down an' led him up to grace.An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the sea is calm,An' I use no knife nor pistol, an' I never take no harm;For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my fighting arm.
It is devoutly to be wished that it was never necessary for the preacher to use knife or pistol; but at present apparently there is no other means by which the smiter may be knocked down.
This teaching is what might be called, in Dr. Van Dyke's phrase, "Fighting for Peace." It is the kind of militant pacifism which Paul hints at. "If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men." Sometimes it is not possible. It is neither wise nor saintly to attempt to negotiate with a tiger. It would be something worse than folly to allow the I. W. W. to dictate the economic policy of our country, or to suffer philosophical and practical anarchism to work its will with the law and order of the world. War as mere war deserves all the vitriolic epithets which have been heaped upon it. It is the scourge of scourges, the father of piracy and of murder, the mother of havoc, desolation and woe. It stands clearly revealed as "a monstrous crime, man's crowning imbecility and folly." But when through war the attempt is made to tear down law, overthrow justice and shackle the world's liberty, shall not war be met by war in order to preserve these priceless possessions, and perchance end all wars by rendering its mad champions powerless? No minister can be called Christian who does not hate war. But most of them hate still more the sinking of the Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the massacre of the peaceful people of Armenia. They cannot with clear conscience sit still and watch the fulfilment of the plot of "the Potsdam gang" without striking a blow. Peace proposals from the successful marauders sound to them too much like Dr. Van Dyke's imaginary conversation between an outraged householder and his triumphant pacifistic burglar. It is not a question of Christ or Cæsar. There is something of the Sermon on the Mount in pacifist and militarist alike. But in the choice our ministers in the army have registered their vote for what seems to be by far the lesser of two evils. They with their fellows have chosen to tread the new Via Sacra, as the road is now called which made the salvation of Verdun possible; and today they stand facing the forces of autocracy, greed and military oppression, uttering that great battle cry which broke from the heart of France, "They shall not pass!"
Whatever the verdict of history upon this decision of brave men in the ministry, certain effects of the war upon them and upon their work are sure. These again are both good and evil. On the debit side of the ledger will be the loss of many in whose future service lay much of the hope and strength of the church. A large proportion of the best men, who were looking forward to the ministry, are in the training camps and trenches. Some may now be diverted to other callings; some will never come back. Their vacant places in the ranks will be saddening and for a time crippling. Great tasks which might have been done must needs be left undone. New Elishas will wear the prophet's mantle; but the memory of many a vanished face will waken the old cry upon their lips: "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" If the church does not begrudge them, it will mourn them among its multitude of sons who