ut this lamentable business. In fine, if
we take Dean Welldon's words in the most generous sense, if we assume
that he refers to the whole body of culture and sentiment which, in our
time, aspires to mould and direct the race apart from Christian
doctrine, the answer has already been given. Christianity is, as a power
in Europe, fourteen centuries old; this humanitarianism is hardly a
century old. But there has surely been more progress made during this
last century toward the destruction of the military system, and more
progress in the elimination of brutality from war, than in the whole
preceding thirteen centuries. Does Dean Welldon doubt that? Or does he
regard it as a mere coincidence?

Thus, whether we turn to Churchman or Nonconformist, to cleric or
layman, we find no satisfactory apology. I have before me a short
article by Mr. Max Pemberton on the question, "Will Christianity survive
the war?" He uses the most consecrated phrases of the Church, and leaves
no doubt whatever that he writes in defence of Christianity. But Mr.
Pemberton practically confines himself to a very emphatic personal
assurance that Christianity _will_ survive the war, and does not
honestly face a single one of the questions of "the Pagan" against whom
he is writing. He does make one serious point of a peculiar character.
There are, he says, "23,000 priests fighting for France in the
trenches." Mr. Pemberton seems to find it easy to accept the interested
statements of those Roman Catholic journalists who make sectarian use of
some of the London dailies. There are only about 30,000 priests in
France, and, since none of them are younger than twenty-three, to
suppose that seventy-five per cent. of them are of military age is to
take a remarkable view of the population of France. In any case, there
is no special ground for rhapsody. They are not volunteers; in France
every man must do his civic duty. We may appreciate their devotion to
their religion on the battle-field, but Mr. Pemberton must be
imperfectly acquainted with the French character if he supposes that the
thirty-four million unbelievers of France are going to return to the
Church because the younger _cures_ did not try to evade the military
service which the State imposed on them.

Another document I may quote is a manifesto issued by the "Hampstead
Evangelical Free Church Council," a joint declaration of the principal
Nonconformist ministers of that highly cultivated suburb. It d