tian dogma keeps the Christian conscience in many matters
behind the ethical sentiment of the age. Many liberal divines would
express genuine repugnance at Archbishop Carr's view of the war; yet
some of the most liberal of these divines and laymen are almost as
backward in another direction. They justify the world-process through
which we are struggling on the ground that it will, we hope, issue in a
nobler order of things: of the war, in particular, that hope is
entertained, and to the war, accordingly, this theory of justification
is applied. That is a case of the end justifying the means. Christian
thinkers are advancing so rapidly and erratically that in some cases we
are not clear whether the writer does or does not regard God as infinite
in power and intelligence. We may ignore these few cases. The vast
majority emphatically hold that view. In their regard we can say only
what has been said a hundred times. Whether you speak of the
world-process in general or any particular cruel phase of it, such as
this war, you maintain that God chose, out of many conceivable ways, the
one way that is marked by cruelty and suffering. An infinite God is not
so confined in the choice of means. And just as we say of the
world-process in general, that to build the sunnier lives of a remote
generation on the sufferings of this and earlier generations implies a
grave injustice to _us_, so we must say of the war. No spiritual
advantages to those who survive will reconcile us to the suffering and
the loss of those who fell in the tragic combat. I speak impersonally.
It happens that I have no near relatives of military age, and neither I
nor any near relative is likely to suffer by the war. But when I brood
over the agony of the less fortunate millions, over the harrowing
experience of Belgians, Poles, and Serbs, over the whole ghastly orgy of
blood and tears in Europe, I feel unutterable disdain of these paltry
efforts to justify the ways of God to man.

Let us look a little deeper into the matter. No doubt the plain
statement that God "sent" or caused this war will excite a certain
repugnance in many Christian minds. They will prefer to say that God
"permitted" it. Man has "free will," and it is the plan of providence to
give a certain play to this free will. When man has bruised his
shins--more frequently the shins of other people--God may, on being
supplicated sufficiently, issue his veto and put matters right. I am
quite acquainted