Article October 24, 1914 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from T. Rhondda Williams

[The Christian Commonwealth]

Certain elements have been growing up during recent decades which men of good will and faith have argued against in vain,—the belief in force, the trust in statecraft, the appeal to selfishness. We shall never need to waste our breath upon them again; their nemesis has arrived. After this terrible war is over it may be that there will be fewer fire-eaters in Europe, to say that armaments are the only guaranty of peace, fewer to think that in the end might is the only thing with which we have to reckon. There are some rebellions that God can only laugh out of existence; there are some sins that can only be burnt out in their own hell-fire.

Meanwhile, let us remember that there are Christian men in all the nations of Europe who are not going to let this be the end of their hopes or friendships. When this is over, the Christian church will have to take a different position. The old compromise of stat and church has been broken to atoms; the amalgam of the teaching of Jesus and the acceptance of the world's standard which we have labeled Christendom has perished in a night. There is a great work ahead. If we have to mourn that after so many hopes, and just when it seemed so near, we have to begin all over again, let us remember what a chance that may mean. It may be a thousand times better that we should be driven to believe that the kingdom of God is something that has to be received as a gift. Some of us have long doubted whether the things so often identified with the coming kingdom were not being attempted on lines that squared ill with the attitude of Christ, and with an ominous disregard for him.

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