ents
strong enough to put down revolutions, and directed by men of the
highest mercantile ability, whose main function will be to increase
productiveness and stop waste. We may even see Germany mobilised as one
gigantic trust for capturing markets and regulating prices. A
combination so formidable would compel other nations, and our own
certainly among the number, to adopt a similar organisation. This would,
of course, mean a complete victory for bureaucratic state-socialism, and
the defeat of democracy and trade-union syndicalism. Such a change,
which few would just now welcome, will occur if no other form of state
is able to survive; and this is what we may live to see. But there is
no finality about any experiments in government. A period of
internationalism may follow the intense nationalism which historical
critics foresee for the twentieth century. Or perhaps the international
labour-organisations may be too strong for the centralising forces. It
is just possible that Labour, by a concerted movement during the violent
reaction against militarism which will probably follow the war, will
forbid any further military or naval preparations to be made.

Whatever forms reconstruction may take, Christianity will have its part
to play in making the new Europe. It will be able to point to the
terrible vindication of its doctrines in the misery and ruin which have
overtaken a world which has rejected its valuations and scorned its
precepts. It is not Christianity which has been judged and condemned at
the bar of civilisation; it is civilisation which has destroyed itself
because it has honoured Christ with its lips, while its heart has been
far from Him. But a spiritual religion can win a victory only within its
own sphere. It can promise no Deuteronomic catalogue of blessings and
cursings to those who obey or disobey its principles. Social happiness
and peace would certainly follow a whole-hearted acceptance of Christian
principles; but they would not certainly bring wealth or empire.
'Philosophy,' said Hegel, 'will bake no man's bread'; and it is only in
a spiritual sense that the meek-spirited can expect to possess the
earth. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to suppose that a Christian nation
would be unable to hold its own in the struggle for existence. A nation
in which every citizen endeavoured to pay his way and to help his
neighbour would be in no danger of servitude or extinction. The mills of
God grind slowly, but the