tification of the common saying that Germany
had deserted Christianity for Paganism. Had such a statement been made
before the war began, our divines would have indignantly repudiated it.
The truth is that all classes--Christian and non-Christian--have yielded
fatally to the pernicious interpretation which interested politicians,
soldiers, manufacturers, and Jingoistic writers have put on the real
economic needs of the country. Of the Socialist and Catholic parties, in
particular, the two most powerfully organised bodies in Germany, we may
say that, in deserting their ideals, they have been partly deceived into
a real belief that Russia and England sought their destruction, and they
have partly yielded to that very old and familiar temptation--the desire
to retain their numerical strength by compromising with their
principles. In justice to the Socialists it should be added that that
party has furnished the only men and journals in Germany to raise any
protest against the madness of the nation. One of the most repulsive
moral traits in Germany to-day is, even when we have made the most
liberal allowance for the painful and desperate circumstances of the
people, the astounding expression and cultivation of hatred. It has
transpired time after time that the _Vorwaerts_ has protested against
this. Not once has it been reported that the religious press or
religious ministers have protested. The new phrase that is officially
sanctioned, "God punish England," is a religious phrase that no
Neo-Pagan could use. On the very day on which I write this page it is
reported that Socialists have protested in the Reichstag against the
official endorsement of outrages. We do not hear of any Christian
protest, from end to end of the campaign.

Yet I do not wish to disguise the fact that both Christians and
non-Christians share the guilt of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The real
difference between the two bodies appears when we take a broader view of
the war, and only in this way can any general indictment of Christianity
be formulated. Important as it is to determine the responsibility for
this war, it is even more important to conceive that the war is the
natural outcome of a system which Europe ought to have abolished ages
ago. We are not far from the time when, in spite of the official
teaching of the Churches, every Christian nation maintained the practice
of the duel which the Teutonic nations introduced fourteen centuries
ago. Altho