ted in South Africa, quoted with heartfelt approval the Archbishop
of Armagh's poem:--

"And, as I note how nobly natures form
Under the war's red rain, I deem it true
That He who made the earthquake and the storm
Perhaps makes battles too.

Thus as the heaven's many-coloured flames
At sunset are but dust in rich disguise,
The ascending earthquake-dust of battle frames
God's picture in the skies."[19]

We are no longer compelled to regard the dogmas of Christianity or the
opinions of eminent Christians as authoritative. The appeal to
Christianity, which used to be regarded as decisive in favour of peace,
is no longer decisive one way or other. Christ's own teaching is
submitted to critical examination like any other teacher's, and I should
be the last to decry the representatives of the Prince of Peace for
acclaiming the virtues of war, if they think their Master was mistaken.
When bishops and deans and leading Nonconformists thirst for war's red
rain, we must take account of their craving as part of man's nature. We
must remember also that war has popular elements sometimes overlooked in
its general horror. It is believed that in the American Civil War nearly
a million men lost their lives; but against this loss we must set the
peculiar longevity with which the survivors have been endowed, and the
increasing number of heroes who enjoyed the State's reward for their
services of fifty years before. Even during the South African War
certain compensations were found. A charitable lady went on a visit of
condolence to a poor woman whose husband's name had just appeared in the
list of the killed at Spion Kop. "Ah, Mum," exclaimed the widow with
feeling, "you don't know how many happy homes this war has made!"

Before we absolutely condemn war we must take account of these
religious, medicinal, and domestic considerations. On the side of peace
I think it is of little avail to plead the horrors and unreason of war.
We all know how horrible and silly it is for two countries to pretend to
settle a dispute by ordering large numbers of innocent men to kill each
other. If horrors would stop it, anyone who has known war could a tale
unfold surpassing all that the ghost of Hamlet's father had seen in
hell. There are sights on a battlefield under shell-fire, and in a
country devastated by troops, so horrible that even war correspondents
have silently agreed to leave them undescribed. But the truth is that