tral nations and of a section of our own nation, what
chances they have of succeeding. They have only to fill their people and
the world at large with counter-charges, resolutely mendacious, and
many will throw up their hands in presence of the mutual accusations and
declare that it is impossible to assign the responsibility. That is a
fatal concession to immorality, and we must hold that in some one or
more of the combatant nations the Churches have, for some reason or
other, acquiesced in a crime.

The plea is valid only to this extent, that the guilty nations in this
case were notoriously Germany and Austria-Hungary, and therefore one
cannot pass any censure on British Christians for supporting the war. I
have in other works dealt so fully with the guilt of those two nations
that here I must be content to assume it. The general and incessant cry
of the German people, that they are only defending their Empire against
malignant enemies, must be understood in the light of their recent
history and literature. No Power in the world had given any indication
of a wish to destroy Germany; there were, at the most, a few
uninfluential appeals in England for an attack on Germany, but solely on
the ground that it meditated an attack on England, and the accumulated
evidence now shows that it did meditate such an attack. England did not
desire an acre of German ground. France had assuredly not forgotten
Alsace and Lorraine, but France would have had no support, and would
have failed ignominiously, in an aggressive campaign to secure those
provinces. On the other hand, an immense and weighty literature, which
is unfortunately very little known in England, has familiarised Germany
for fifteen years with aggressive ideas. The most authoritative writers
claimed that, as they said repeatedly, "Germany must and will expand";
and leagues which numbered millions of subscribers propagated this
sentiment in every school and village. A definite demand was made
throughout Germany for more colonies and a longer coast-line on the
North Sea; and it was in relation to this ambition that England, France,
and Russia were represented--and justly represented--as Germany's
opponents. England, in particular, was described as the great dragon
which watched at the gates of Germany and grimly forbade its
"development." It is in this sense that the bulk of the German people
maintain that their action is defensive.

In passing, let me emphasise this peculi