ge on him. In the sane conception of our time the criminal is a
mischievous element disturbing the social order, and, in the interest of
that order, he must be isolated or put out of existence. It is not the
_guilt_, but the _social effect_, which we regard. And from this point
of view a single great war is far more calamitous than all the crime in
Europe during whole decades. It is estimated by high authorities that if
the present war lasts only twelve months it will cost Europe, directly
and indirectly, including the destruction of property and the loss to
industry and commerce, no less a sum than L9,000,000,000; and it will
certainly cost more than a million, if not more than two million, lives,
besides the incalculable amount of suffering from wounds, loss of
relatives, outrages, and the incidental damage of warfare. The time will
come when historians will study with amazement the wonderful system we
have devised in Europe for the suppression of breaches of the social
order at a time when we complacently suffer these appalling periodical
destructions of the entire social order of nations.

It is quite natural to arraign the Christian Churches in connection
with this disastrous outbreak. Unless they discharge the high task of
the moral direction of men, in international as well as in personal
conduct, they have no _raison d'etre_. Few of them to-day will plead
that their function is merely to interpret to their fellows what they
regard as the revealed word of God. In face of the challenging spirit of
our time they maintain that they discharge a moral mission of such
importance that society is likely to go to pieces if Christianity is
abandoned. We therefore ask very pertinently where they were, and what
they were doing, during the months when the nations of Europe were
slowly advancing toward a declaration of war.

In examining the charge that, for some reason or other, they neglected
their mission at a crisis of supreme importance, we must recall that few
of us believed that a great war would occur until we actually heard the
declaration. No indictment of the clergy is valid which presupposes that
they are more sagacious or far-seeing than the rest of us. Yet, however
much we may have doubted the actual occurrence of war, we have known for
years, and have quite complacently commented upon, the danger that half
of Europe would sooner or later be involved in the horrors of the
greatest war in history. Now it is notori