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CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

By the Same Author

CHRIST AND

WOMAN'S POWER

By EDITH PICTON-TURBERVILL, O.B.E. Introduction by Lady Frances Balfour, D.Litt.

"This is a book which should be read with deep interest by all who are concerned in the great movement which has succeeded in securing for women their true freedom and power. Its plea is that the power now gained for women should be used for the furthering of the Kingdom of Righteousness on earth. It lays stress on the real char- acter, the motives and the sustaining force of the struggles by which the emancipation of women has actually been won. The book abounds in stimulating thoughts, and will be found to be of very high value as a guide to the Christian woman."

Westminster Gazette.

"We commend the burning pages of this book to all who wish to see what Christ has done for women and what women may do for Him." — Church Family Newspaper.

3s. 6d. net

CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

BY

EDITH PICTON-TURBERVILL, O.B.E.

AUTHOR OF "musings OF A LAY-WOMAN " "CHRIST AND WOMAN'S POWER" ETC.

INTRODUCTION BY

The Right Hon. LORD ROBERT CECIL K.C., M.P.

MORGAN & SCOTT L^d

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS LONDON, E.C.4 ENGLAND

MB-

TO

JANE ADDAMS

A MASTER BUILDER

THIS BOOK

IS WITH VENERATION

DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

A SHORT time ago, when lecturing in a public hall on a subject intimately connected with the religious life of the nation, I referred to what appeared to me the clear teaching of Christ upon that subject. The chairman, at the close of the lecture, said that to explore the teaching of Christ was an " arid " occupation, as men and women to-day did not look to the past for guidance on modern problems. I am quite sure he was sincere, and am equally sure he was persuaded that this was the only view a really broad-minded man could adopt.

Yet, if we reflect for one moment, how narrow, dogmatic, and even ignorant such a statement appears !

The world has not had a superfluity of great teachers, and to many Christ is more than a teacher. He is a Revealer. But all recognize Him as one of the greatest teachers with whom humanity has been blessed. The truly inspired prophet, the perfect artist, speaks not to one race, but to all races, not to one generation or to one period of time, but to all. Time vanishes at the touch of inspiration. Therefore, to explore afresh the teaching of Christ is not to go back to the past. He lives to-day — and this, I think, is recognized by

viii AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

men of all creeds — in a sense that cannot be said of any other great teacher, and to study Him afresh will surely bring fresh light to many a modern problem.

No one has more sympathy than I have with the forward-seeing view, the passionate desire to get away from many traditions of the past that have hindered human progress and the evolution of spiritual life. But the truly inspired are beyond tradition, and the sincere student of Christ's teaching must take to tradition His own attitude; tradition must be viewed as He saw it.

" Ye have made the counsels of God of none effect through your tradition." Therefore, if there are those who, on handling this little book, are inclined to take the point of view of my chairman, I would beg them to reflect that to explore the teaching of One Whose ministry, of but three years, had so great an effect on human history, can be " arid " in no crisis and for no age.

Christ is amongst the Immortals for whom there is no past. He is supreme amongst them because through Him is revealed for all nations the Univer- sality of God.

EDITH PICTON-TURBERVILL.

INTRODUCTION

THE main thesis of this book is that our national policy, both internal and external, must be Christianized ; that, in other words, Christian morality must in its essence be the guide of our national conduct. To many that will seem a truism. By some it will be greeted as a paradox. It is neither. For though I believe it to be true, it is certainly not obvious.

Whether we accept it or not depends largely on our conception of the State. There seem to be at least three popular opinions on the subject, apart from philosophic theories. According to one view the State is a mere abstraction. It has no existence as a moral entity. When people talk of France or England being moved to take certain action, by moral considerations, all that is really meant is that the Committee of individuals, who form the Govern- ments of one of those countries, have decided that it IS in the interests of their subjects that a par- ticular policy should be pursued. That indeed, according to this view, is the only motive which they are entitled to consider. They are like directors of a limited company, or trustees of an estate. Their duty, and their sole duty, is to their cestuis que trustent. They have no right to indulge

X INTRODUCTION

in ethical fancies of their own at the expense of the trust property. True, as a matter of far-sighted prudence and strictly in the interests of their countries, they should observe certain rules, e.g.^ good faith in foreign affairs, and justice between man and man in domestic legislation. But that is not because a policy of that kind is morally in- cumbent on their nations, but because in the long run it pays. Pushed to its logical extreme this theory would justify any national wrong-doing pro- vided it was successful, or rather it would deny that there could be any such thing as national wrong- doing.

Allied to this view, but quite distinct from it, is one much more commonly held on the Continent than in this country. It consists in a kind of deification of the fatherland. The State is thought to be a super-moral entity. To the State its nationals owe complete self-surrender, and in its turn the State is bound by no laws save those which are essential to its greatness and glory. When a French orator tells us in glowing periods that the dying message of the boy-soldier to his mother was " Vive la France ! ", or we read of Germans going into battle singing " Deutschland liber alles" Englishmen are usually a little puzzled. Though love of country is strong in us, few would deny that our country may be wrong, and that in extreme cases it may be the duty of the individual to separate himself from, and even to resist, the national policy.

The third view, and the one contended for by our author, is that nations as such are subject to the

INTRODUCTION xi

moral law. In favour of this opinion it may be urged that the other theories break down in practice. The idolatry of the fatherland leads inevitably to such national misconduct as is fresh in all our memories. Crime of that kind is not even success- ful, for general fear and detestation of its con- sequences unite all others against the State that acts on such pernicious doctrine. So, too, the trustee theory is in many cases so difficult to apply that statesmen are driven to seek some simpler rule to govern their policy. Sometimes it may seem easy to see what is the interest of the country. Peace, we say, is clearly the greatest of British interests. But how are you to achieve peace ? Certainly not by grabbing every material advantage that comes within our grasp, or, on the other hand, by sub- mitting to every unprincipled infraction of our rights. In what cases then shall we submit, and in what resist? I doubt if it is often possible to decide rightly by weighing the national advantages and disadvantages of alternative courses. In practice, the wisest statesmen will be those who follow the line of conduct which seems the most honest and straightforward. It may be true that, in national as in individual affairs, enlightened love of self leads to the same results as enlightened love of God. But the former rule is, usually, much more difficult to apply than the latter.

Once the position is accepted that a nation is a moral entity the rest of our author's contentions follow naturally. There may be, and are, difficulties in the practical application of Christianity to national life, particularly in domestic affairs. Indeed it is

xii INTRODUCTION

notorious that, in the criminal law, attempts to enforce a moral standard in advance of the public opinion of the day have broken down badly. Even on the civil side, great care must be exercised to be quite sure that proposed legislation is really founded on morality, and not on some presupposition, the outcome of ignorance and prejudice. And these difficulties are increased by the fact that all law, as such, depends more or less on force, and force is a non-moral agency. In international affairs it is, or ought to be, different. For over the nations no supreme human authority exists. It is not a question of enforcing the moral law on others — always a hazardous operation — but of each nation making that law the guiding principle of its policy. Here we are on safe ground if we can only get there. But can we ? On the answer to that question depends the future of the world. That is the importance of this book. Many of us feel that our national policy needs a new inspiration. Still more recognize that the old international system has utterly failed. Our author urges that in the adop- tion of Christian morality, as the keystone of our national policy, lies our only hope of salvation, and in preaching that doctrine she is no less a patriot than a Christian.

ROBERT CECIL.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGB

I. National Thought and Patriotic Life . i

II. A New Internationalism

III. The Highways of a World

IV. An International Centre Two Thousand

Years Ago ....

V. Racial Antipathy, Toleration, and a more Excellent Way

VI. A Medleval Statesman .

VII. The Voice of the Child

VIII. A Great Delusion

IX. Religion and Politics .

X. Repent I .... .

XI. An International Tribunal .

13 27

37

51 69 81

97 109 123 139

CHAPTER I

NATIONAL THOUGHT AND PATRIOTIC LIFE

God gives all men all earth to love, But, since man's heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all.

Kipling.

Nationality is sacred to me because I see in it the instrument

of labour for the good and progress of all men. National life

and international life should be two manifestations of the same

principle, the love of God.

Mazzini.

Righteousness exalteth a nation,— Proverbs.

CHAPTER I NATIOxNAL THOUGHT AND PATRIOTIC LIFE

What is Nationalism ? — Diverse ideas on the subject — A new concep- tion necessary — Lord Bryce — Nationality a reality — A personal experience— The Cosmopolitan and the Bombastic Patriot— A double code of ethics.

AT an International Congress last year, a small company of people found themselves separated for an hour or two from the main body of the Con- gress. They were but eight in number, yet strangely enough all happened to be of different nationalities ; some were from countries that had but recently regained their freedom.

After comments on the fact that each one repre- sented a different country, the question arose as to what really constituted a nation. The variety of opinions that were expressed, revealed the fact that people attach entirely different meanings to the word " nation." The group referred to met and separated in perfect harmony, and all were agreed as to what was meant by the nationalistic spirit, although some expressed doubt as to its being beneficial to the peace of the world. But the hour or so spent by representatives of different countries in discussing the real meaning of the word " nation " certainly disclosed widely divergent points of view, and the

4 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

fact that there is need for fresh thinking on this subject if a common understanding is to be reached.

The words National and International occur con- tinually in speech, press, and literature to-day. At a time when it is of paramount importance to the very existence of civilization that International relations should be harmonious, there is a revival everywhere of nationalistic feeling. Whether or not a strong nationalistic spirit is in harmony with the univer- salism of Christian thought, is a question we may well ask ourselves. Is it in harmony with the true brotherliness of mankind ? For though the teaching of universal brotherhood is not peculiar to Chris- tianity, no teacher has ever laid down its principles so emphatically, so simply, and so clearly as did Jesus of Nazareth. One fact seems clear. The more truly a prophet is inspired, the more surely does he come with a message that transcends nationalism as it is usually understood.

The Jews were intensely nationalistic, claiming not only that they were the chosen nation, but that Divine benefits, such as they received, were not intended to be — and indeed could not be — shared by other nations. But the messages of many of their prophets and their poets cut like a knife across this extreme nationalistic and exclusive spirit. " He is the Ruler of all nations," sang one of them. " My Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered in My Name," cried another, of Jehovah. " Let the whole earth be filled with His glory," was the message of another. Jonah, when told to take the message of God's fullness of freedom to Nineveh, refused ; it was incredible to him that the

NATIONAL THOUGHT 5

Ninevites should share the peculiar blessings of the Jews. He, with almost all his people, took the glorious promises of God to all nations to feed their own pride. How bitter to the Jews must have been the memory of Egypt! Year by year the anniversary of their deliverance from the Egyptians was celebrated with unspeakable thankfulness and religious fervour. The relentless cruelty, the slavery, and the lash which they had endured when under the Egyptian rule were not to be forgotten. Egypt, the racial enemy of the Hebrews, represented to them all that was evil, revolting, and hateful in a far deeper degree than we can realize, even though such feelings against an enemy nation are not unknown in these days. And behold ! a Hebrew prophet, one of their own race, arose, with a message from God. The prophet's cry was to them an incredible, a staggering one : " Blessed be Egypt My PEOPLE, and Assyria the work of My hands."

Egyptians under God's special care, they His people, the nation who had refused to listen to the voice of God when spoken through the mouth of the great lawgiver Moses ! The thought was an impos- sible one to the average Hebrew. The Egyptians were the very nation which had persecuted the people of God, whom God in His wrath had destroyed in the Red Sea. The prophet could surely be no true prophet ; to people, such as those of Egypt, God assuredly would not bestow any of the gifts of freedom and spiritual inheritance promised to those who were His children. The Hebrews as a nation in their scheme of religion had no room for such a thought.

6 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

That they, being the chosen race, could alone understand and use rightly the freedom of life which is the gift of God, was a belief deeply im- planted in the hearts of the Jews. Yet one of their own poets sings : " Unto Thee shall all flesh come." Such a message might be ideally beautiful, but it could not be taken literally. Were even the barbarian races to share their privileges ? And behold, another poet sings : " Thou art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea." And yet another : " Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt govern the nations upon earth " (Ps. Ixvii. 4). Very alien was all this thinking to the patriotic Jew who loved his country, and who was Divinely chosen to receive gifts which men of other nations could not enjoy or rightly use. So convinced were the Jews of this, that in point of fact they never did as a nation listen to their prophets — they doubtless thought them too idealist — and their narrow national spirit was in the end the un- doing of their nation.

It is difficult to define exactly what is nationality, or what constitutes a nation. Chambers says : " A body of people born of the same stock : the people inhabiting the same country, or under the same government." But the definition is too barren, too material, to be accepted by those who are seeking a more Christian interpretation of National and Inter- national life than has hitherto obtained.

It is idle to deny that the Poles, or the Czechs, were a nation before the war, because they happened by compulsion to be under an alien rule. Such a condition will but intensify a nation's sense of unity.

NATIONAL THOUGHT 7

Nationalism is a thing of the spirit, it is of the soul, it is that which no government, be it ever so power- ful, can destroy. Few men are better qualified to give a judgment on the subject than Lord Bryce, and with regard to Nationality he insists that though " we can recognise it when we see it," ^ it is impossible to define it. Hitherto definitions have rested on such material forces as frontiers, govern- ments, armies, which surely no one can accept who wishes for the rebuilding of National and Inter- national life on Christian foundations. Professor A. E. Zimmern says that to him nationality is " primarily and essentially a spiritual question, and, in particular, an educational question," ^ and in so saying he traces nationality to its rightful source. It cannot be either unity of Government or purity of race that alone constitutes a nation ; if we rely upon the former we rely in many cases upon a rule of force ; if on the latter, then nowhere in the world can a nation be truly said to exist, for all nations are composed of mixed races.

It would seem that in the evolution of thought we are being driven to a spiritual conception of what it is that constitutes nations. Is it not strange that Renan, who was no Christian, has expressed the Christian ideal of nationality more clearly than any other writer ? "A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which are, in truth, at bottom only one, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. The one is the possession in common of a rich legacy of

^ Essays and Addresses in War Time, p. 1 29.

^ Nationality ami Govcnttnenf, p. 65.

8 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

memories ; the other is actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue to make the best use of indivisible heritage received." He also says : " A nation is a great solidarity, constructed by the sentiment of the sacrifices men have made, and of those they are willing to make in the future. It supposes a past ; it is summed up in the present by a tangible fact ; the consent, the desire clearly expressed to continue the common life." ^

While, then, throughout this book the word nation will be used often in the usual sense, it will be so used more or less under protest. It will be used in the general acceptance of the term, because no other word is available, but it will be used in the light of a certainty that human thought will ere long pro- duce a truer definition of the word " nation," than at present exists in the dictionaries of our language.

For nationality, whether definable or not, is a real thing. There is no one — except those rare speci- mens of humanity calling themselves cosmopolitans — who has been exiled from the land of his birth, and his upbringing, but knows how deep seated and passionate is the attachment to and longing for his own country and his own people. The experience of the present writer is, that a lover of one's country has no need even to echo the poignant cry of the exiled Hebrew : "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning " ; to forget the land of one's ancestors, of home, and of family is a sheer impossibility. It is true that Christian think- ing, brought to bear on the subject of nationality, must indeed transform much that has hitherto been ^ Discours et Conferences, pp. 306, 307.

NATIONAL THOUGHT 9

accepted. But it can never destroy the fact of nationality, never destroy love of country, or the sense of unity binding together those of one nation.

It is perhaps permissible to give a personal ex- perience at this juncture.

In October 191 8 I was in America, lecturing on woman's war work. A party of us had left England, under what were, in the time of the submarine peril, the usual secretive and exciting conditions. We landed in New York without incident, though we experienced the usual submarine scares. The tour was a brief one of only six weeks in the States. The welcome given by our American friends was kind and enthusiastic in the extreme. Leaving New York with my secretary, I went away to the Western States, speaking often two or three times a day in the cities through which we passed. Let it be said again, the kindness, sympathy, and love of the American friends was most touching, and will never be forgotten. It has to be confessed, however, that when one evening we stopped at an hotel where there were four or five British officers, who were in America on a special mission, it was a red-letter evening in that tour. In the large dining-room of the hotel they somehow sensed the fact that some of their own nationality were in the room. We recognized them, of course, by their uniforms. There were very few British people travelling in America at that time, and immediately after dinner these officers gravitated to where we were sitting in the hall, and almost immediately we were engrossed in conversation. The sense of peculiar comradeship and sympathy between us, though we had never

10 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

met before, was due to our common nationality. It was evident that to every one of that little group it was a peculiar joy to meet, to talk of things touch- ing our common land and our common effort. There was a quickening of sympathy in the group that could not be shared by those of another nation. Sitting at home it is possible no doubt to theorize about accident of nationality making little difference between human beings, but in actual fact it does, and theories that are irreconcilable with experience are no help to right living and bring no contribution to the solution of difficulties.

The cosmopolitan — he who belongs to no nation, making it his boast that he is a citizen of the world, owing no special allegiance to any one nation — is rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, respected by few. Brotherliness is not cosmopolitanism, nor are those who have no special love for their own country likely to make any useful contribution to the solution of the difficulties of International Life to-day.

There is on the one hand the man who boasts of his " cosmopolitanism," on the other hand there is the man who bombastically glories in being what he calls a patriot, a true Briton.

There are many of them, and we have all met the Bombastic Patriot.

The species belongs to no one nation, but in a greater or less degree is common to all. This man is fully persuaded that his own country is the finest in the world in every respect, and does not hesitate loudly to proclaim the fact. He despises every nation but his own. The surprised inquirer

NATIONAL THOUGHT ii

attempts to learn the Bombastic Patriot's reasons for supposing his country to lead in art, in literature, in social amenities, in commerce, in integrity, in military glory. The surprised inquirer is yet more surprised to discover, after considerable effort, that the only reason the Bombastic Patriot has for believing that the country to which he belongs is pre-eminent in all things great and noble, is that he — the Bombastic Patriot — happens to belong to it ! A surprise that, as a rule, is yet further deepened by looking at the specimen of humanity who makes these claims, for the greatness of a nation, merely because he himself is a unit of it.

Such men and women, though they doubtless afford amusement, are more of a danger in these days than in the past, when the impact of the nations was not so great as now. An astonishing fact concerning Bombastic Patriots is that, while making the most immoderate and preposterous claims for their nation, they are as a rule perfectly modest as far as their personal abilities are con- cerned. Unassuming in private life, it is only when they look upon things from a " national " point of view that they entirely lose their sense of proportion and become intolerable. It is evident that they have two standards. The Bombastic Patriots quite openly and obviously allow their private lives to be guided by one code of morals and behaviour, and adopt an entirely different code when speak- ing of, or acting for, the nation to which they belong.

The example of the Bombastic Patriot may appear to be a frivolous one, but, in truth, the

12 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

illustration leads us to the central point of the International problem. Is it possible that the ethical code should be the same for national as it is for private life ? An enormous number of people, statesmen included, throughout the world, maintain that such a thing is an impossibility. It is asserted that governments cannot deal either with their own or with other nations on the same high standard of morality as man would seek in dealing with man. Machiavelli, four hundred years ago, elaborated this point of view in the lucid treatise by which he became famous. The principle is clearly opposed to Christian thought, though it has been prac- tised by Christian nations ever since Machiavelli lived, and indeed in the ages before he was born.

It is in meeting the challenge of such thinking that we may find the solution of many difficulties in national life to-day.

CHAPTER II A NEW INTERNATIONALISM

»3

What can alone ennoble fight ? A noble cause I

Give that ! and welcome War to brace

Her drums ! and rend Heaven's reeking space !

The colours planted face to face ;

The charging cheer, Though Death's pale horse lead on the chase,

Shall still be dear.

And place our trophies where men kneel

To Heaven ! but Heaven rebukes my zeal !

The cause of Truth and human weal

O God above I Transfer it from the sword's appeal

To Peace and Love.

Thomas Campbell.

CHAPTER II A NEW INTERNATIONALISM

In a new conception of National and International Life lies our only hope — The Napoleonic wars — Contranationalism rather than Internationalism prevailed — The shrinkage of the world — Patriot- ism in the Middle Ages confined to cities — Growth of National Life — The Christian standpoint — Christ's environment.

UNLESS it is possible — and possible speedily — for men and women of all nations to think out and then put into operation a New International- ism, civilization is doomed. We look to-day at the toddling children who have been brought into the world since the Armistice was signed, at their bonnie faces, trustful eyes, and wonder what life has in store for them. Parents shudder at the thought that, perchance, these babes may be called upon to suffer more than husbands, sons, and brothers have suffered during the last few years.

And they have cause to shudder. Some say there need be no fear ; the war has taught the world such a lesson that never again will mankind permit itself to be plunged into so great a catastrophe. Easily said, it may bring some sort of comfort to the uneasy mind and soul. But it is not

true.

15

1 6 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

History shows that mere horror of the past does not prevent the past repeating itself. The Napoleonic wars were as devastating to the com- paratively thin population of England, early in the nineteenth century, as has been the Great War. This country then lived under a far greater terror of "Boney," as Napoleon was called, than a few years ago of Zeppelins and aeroplanes. The horror of an invasion then was not only a daily but an hourly fear. Children were sent to bed with their clothes packed beside them, lest at midnight they would need to fly from invading troops. Every hill had its beacon fire. Eager watchers scrutinized every port, every village resounded to the bugle and military drill. The horrors were as vivid to our great-grandfathers as were the horrors of the Great War to us.

After the Napoleonic wars men were filled with the same passionate desire for permanent peace as they are to-day, and attempted schemes to secure it as we are doing now ; they, too, thought they had securities for a Golden Age in which war could find no place at all. We have only to read the accounts of the Congress of Vienna, of the Holy Alliance, to see what wonderful hopes men built upon what we now see to have been flimsy founda- tions. The nation spoke in those days as if the Congress of Vienna were a body of philanthropic statesmen, whose passionate desire was to subdue the selfish aims of all the European governments, and who had the power to do so. The nation buoyed itself up with this hope, which proved a delusion. In point of fact the Congress of Vienna

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 17

was simply another kind of warfare carried into the Council Chamber. It was an " arena where national and domestic interests struggled for satisfaction by every means short of war."^

It is a desperately easy thing to say a horror can never return ; it is not only an easy but a criminal thing to say, for it chloroforms the mind into a sense of security when no security is there. It is the comfort of the slothful mind that will not face the eternal truth, that new life comes not from horror of the old life, but from new thinking that draws from fresh springs.

In the world to-day are to be found ruins of dead cities, records of races that have perished, not that they were overcome by armed forces, but because their traditions were so deep rooted, that they could not be modified quickly enough to meet new forces arising in their own national life. That danger is with us to-day. They whose thoughts and ideas have ceased to advance, are already in retreat.

The debacle of the high hopes formed early last century, after the Napoleonic wars, was due to the fact that while building hopes for future peace the nations clung to their " internationalism," if such a word could be used at all for the relations between nations in those days of the past. An attempt was then made to create a new system to eliminate the evil, while clinging to the thought, of the past generation. Another debacle of to-day's hopes of future peace will surely come, unless we envisage a new inter- nationalism built on a different foundation from that of pre-war days. Is this a matter for states-

' Fyffe's Modern Europe, vol. ii. 2

1 8 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

men only ? No, and again no. The new inter- nationalism leading not only to the cessation of wars — for it is not mere abstention from bloodshed that can lay the foundation for future peace — but to comprehension and sympathy, can only come by the will of the whole people. Only a fundamental change in the life and outlook of nations can save civilization to-day ; new motives, new living impulses, are called for. This, again let it be said, statesmen alone cannot achieve, for here we touch a basal truth ; the change cannot come except by new motives inspiring the concerted thought and will of the peoples.

What is the new internationalism that alone can save the world ? Perhaps it is a misnomer to call it new, for there are many who are persuaded that internationalism itself has never been really at- tempted. The very word " inter" suggests penetration, understanding ; but if we recall international Con gresses of history, is it not patent that there was little attempt on the part of those representing different nations to understand each other's needs ? Patent that the representative of each nation thought of and struggled for the interests of his own country ? It seems to have been assumed as a fundamental axiom, that the interests of one country were bound to conflict with the interests of the neighbouring ones, and instead of making any attempt at " inter- ness," if a word may be coined, each nation's hand was against the fellow-nation, and many such Con- gresses might be more truly called Contranational than International.

It is this Contranationalism that has plunged the

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 19

world into wars such as few men can ever wish to see perpetrated again. Surely no man, or woman, with any sense of responsibility to our children to-day, can dare a refusal to think afresh on international lines. Of course, international relations of a sort have always existed, but international business and international finance have been purely business affairs, run more or less on " business is business " lines, and the ordinary man did not concern himself with them. To-day, international thinking- is forced upon individuals, and they who evade it are betray- ing our children. This is a literal fact of life ; every little child looks up in wonderful trust to its elders, and, to-day, we can only fulfil that trust if, looking away beyond our own shores, we consider the in- terests not of one nation alone, but of the world.

It seems a large order. Worn out, we shrink from further effort. Yet it appears that not only must we, as a nation, make this effort for the finding of a new Internationalism, but we must be prepared to lead in it. To the victor come greater responsibili- ties than to the vanquished. Walt Whitman spoke truly when he said : " Now, understand me well. It is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." Yes, a greater effort lies before us, as a Christian nation, than that even of the past six years. Quite apart from the ethics of the question, the necessity for a new Internationalism is being forced upon us by the rapid means of transport, and the shrinkage of the world. The progress of science has contracted the world. We are much closer to the nations, not only

20 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

of Europe but of the East, than ever in pre-war days. Long since, the oceans have become roadways instead of boundaries. The East comes daily nearer to the West. A man or woman need not yet be old to remember the days when there was much talk of the yellow peril, when the German Emperor painted a fantastic picture of the Christian nations, clad in armour, with the Crusader's sword in hand, repelling an onslaught of the yellow races.

One need not be very old to remember the build- ing of the Trans-Siberian railway, when City men suddenly realized that Peking,instead of being eight weeks away, by sea, was a bare fortnight's distance, by land.

And now?

Now India and China, with their teeming millions, are distant but a few days' journey by aeroplane — and the development of air traffic is growing to enormous proportions. Aeroplanes carrying more than a hundred passengers have already been built, they will rapidly increase both in number and size in every country. We are on the eve of a great impact of the nations of the world. There is nothing new in this. It has been said again and again. True. But have its implications been realized ? That un- less mankind can discover the path to a common interest, among the peoples of the world, not the League of Nations nor any other league will prevent another disaster. It is hardly necessary to say that to possess a common interest does not mean that the nations must think alike. We differ and quarrel in home political life, but — no matter how much we disagree among ourselves, Labour from Capital, Con-

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 21

servative from Radical — we have a common interest, the welfare of the State, the betterment of the social conditions of the nation. Belief in the methods by which this can be achieved differ widely, but the aim is the same.

The new Internationalism must so far diverge from the traditionalism of the past that it must quite frankly aim at the betterment of all nations, at the expense of none. It must realize that if one nation suffers, all suffer. No purely national ambition can preserve a nation. , In Europe to-day there are memories of bitter feuds. Unless the future is to be no brighter than the past there must be no revival of bitterness and feuds. Not in such things as these lies the thrill of nationality. To create an inter- nationalism that stands for the betterment of all nations is easily said, but it is no easy task. Yet who dare say it is impossible ? Some six hundred years ago, which after all is not a long time in human history, citizens of the towns would have laughed at the idea that a man of York, or a man of Winchester, would ever think of the common good of all England. To a citizen of York a man from another city, let alone far away Winchester, was a foreigner. Towns levied taxes in those days on " foreign " goods which came in from other English towns, in just the same way as nations tax " foreign " goods from other nations to-day. The welfare of the city to which he belonged was the one concern of every citizen in mediseval times. A man who put the interests of his whole country before the interests of his city, was no true man in those days. The idea that he should concern himself with the

22 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

welfare of the whole country to which he belonged, was as preposterous and unpatriotic a suggestion to him as the idea that the welfare of all nations should be our genuine care and concern appears to many- people to-day.

This " nationalistic " spirit for one city alone was carried to even greater excesses on the Continent than in England. The history of the Italian cities is a history of titanic conflicts one against the other. In the battle of Montapesti, waged in 1268, between Florence and Siena, the Florentines had no less than two thousand five hundred killed alone, quite apart from those that were wounded and taken prisoners. This is the number killed, acknowledged by Floren- tine writers ; the real figure was probably far higher. The limiting of patriotism and the " national " spirit to the city of a man's birth was the rule in the Middle Ages, and the history of important cities is an endless history of warfare one against another. In the battle of Meloria, Pisa, defeated by Genoa, lost no less than four thousand citizens killed, and the wars between Venice and Genoa were ceaseless ; one terrible war, beginning in 1293 by a purely accidental encounter of the two fleets in the sea of Cyprus, lasted seven years.

The necessity of a conflict of interests between cities was as much an accepted axiom in the Middle Ages as the necessity of a conflict of interests between nations has been, and remains to many, an accepted axiom to-day. We have said that not so very long ago a man, who put the interests of the whole nation before the interests of his city, was considered unpatriotic. In process of time the cities

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 23

learned to realize that their true interests lay in mutual understanding and co-operation. In the realization of a common aim for the well-being of all nations lies our hope. The nations will then learn to call upon their statesmen to take advantage of every triumph in national history, to turn it to the good, not of the one nation that secured it alone, but to the common cause of international well-being. This will be the new internationalism which must frankly consider war of nation against nation as grotesque a thing as we to-day would find war between two cities.

There are thousands to-day who, though followers of Christ, are quite unprepared to adopt this attitude. They speak of a God of Battles, and maintain that war is not only a necessity, but in accordance with the will of God. Those who hold such doctrines are largely responsible for the loss of faith by many of the younger generation in a God of Love, and it may safely be said that scarcely a man, who has been in the very thick of war, believes it is reconcilable with the will of God. Men are to be found who glory in the battlefield — though they be but few — but it is not easy to find one who, having seen what war entails, can think of it as Divinely ordered ; for, though there are acts of self- sacrifice that illuminate the scenes of evil. Divine law must be ignored on a battlefield.

The mere abolition of war is but a beginning. Little will be achieved unless we arc prepared to study other countries more sympathetically than hitherto.

We have been terribly content to remain in

24 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

ignorance of the facts concerning other nations. We need to try to understand why foreigners have so different a conception of us, from that which we have of ourselves. Doubtless not all that is said of us, by other nations, is true, but much of it is ; and has it not been proved true, again and again, that when we listen to others, who see not as we do, they in turn are prepared to try at least to under- stand our motives ? It is thus that real under- standing is achieved. Diplomacy, as it has been practised, must surely perish, for its very essence has been, with courtesy, to deceive, to speak not the truth, but to say what was acceptable.

We are apt to believe that Christian nations have accepted the principle laid down by Christ, and persistently proclaimed by Paul, that all nations are of " one Blood." Yet even to-day when men and women attempt to base their relations towards other nations — nations which are commonly thought of as " inferior " — on this principle, what anger is often aroused even in those who theoretically have long accepted Christian teaching ! In practice, Christians still fear to give to the nations of the world that freedom and fullness of life which our Master tells us is the heritage of all, and not of privileged nations. Christ tried to teach His disciples that He came to bestow gifts on all mankind, that He came for all the world, and they would not see it ; many of His followers fail to see it to-day, in the fullest sense, even though with self-sacrificing heroism they are willing to give their lives to convert other races to the Christian creed.

How the disciples struggled to keep all He

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 25

brought for the benefit of the Jewish nation alone, to the exclusion of others ! How angry the Jews were when, gently rebuking their extreme nationalistic spirit, Christ reminded them that even in days gone by, God had not withheld from other nations what He had given them. " I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias," — i.e. many, belong- ing to the chosen people, — " but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elias the prophet, and none of them were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian." This International thought was the key- note of the first sermon Jesus preached. From the normal point of view His first sermon was a com- plete failure. The people were filled with wrath and turned Him out of the synagogue. The " nationalism " of the Jews blinded them, so that they could not accept the teaching of this Great Internationalist ; pride, love of country, tradition rose in rebellion against the thought that the " inferior " nations of the world, the " barbarians," were to share their privileged position, and they not only thrust the Preacher out of the synagogue, but they sought to kill Him.

Is there a message here for us to-day ? It is, of course, possible to evade the implications of His sublime teaching, by assuring ourselves that when He spoke these truths, He was referring to the Father's Universality, only in so far as spiritual gifts are concerned ? It is easy to think thus, easy to say that international relations — our relations, for in- stance, with Ireland, with India — cannot be founded.

26 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

as indeed a high official has publicly said, on the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. It is easy to convince ourselves that He Who dwelt in a carpenter's shop, Who ministered in fishing villages, by a lake-side, would have little knowledge of inter- national life such as that which fills our horizon to-day. Was not Galilee an obscure province in- habited by simple folk concerned with agriculture ? Galilee was held in contempt by the Jews of Judea who had not mixed with other races.

" Search and see, for out of Galilee cometh no prophet!'

" Can any good come out of Nazareth f " It is true that a great teacher proclaims his message to nations, as to individuals, by inspiration rather than by intimate knowledge of varying national problems. Yet how many are contented with the thought that He Who ministered for three short years, in an obscure part of the world, spoke to human hearts as units rather than to nations as a whole ? There are many who consciously, or sub- consciously, hold the thought that Jesus, whose life was mainly spent in fishing villages, apart from the great affairs of the world, had little touch with, or special message for, the political clash and struggle of international life and interests. It is well to study afresh the environment of Jesus, so that we may be clear whether this general idea — that Galilee, where He almost entirely spent His earthly life, was chiefly an agricultural province, and the lake mainly a centre for fishing villages — is a true picture of Galilee in the first century of the Christian era.

CHAPTER in THE HIGHWAYS OF A WORLD

Lo ! all the pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre !

Kipling.

Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction of the young was neglected.

Even to rebuild the Temple the schools must not be closed.

Sayings of the Rabbis.

28

CHAPTER III THE HIGHWAYS OF A WORLD

Galilee two thousand years ago — Surrounded with industrial nations — Nearness of Tyre to Nazareth — The industry and immense population of Tyre — Immense international trade routes passing through Galilee.

IT is not possible to have a true conception of the environment in which Christ lived without realizing that important factor which gave the province of Galilee, the home of His ministry, its name. It was called " Galilee of the nations." It was not merely a Jewish province, but the home of many races. The exact boundaries of Galilee in the time of Christ appear to be a little indefinite.

Caesarea Philippi, Gamala, and the regions about Gadara, appear to have been included. At the most Galilee was some fifty miles from north to south, and about thirty miles from east to west, no larger than a normal shire in England. No one could live in Galilee without coming in contact with peoples of all nations. Touching it on the west was the half Greek land of Phoenicia, with its great commercial cities, including Tyre and Sidon : on the north, Syria, with its large population and its great trading city Damascus. Galilee itself contained an extra- ordinarily mixed population, but, had it been entirely

30 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Jewish, the impact of other nations continually pass- ing through the province must have had an enormous effect on the Jews born and bred in Galilee.

The Phoenician coast, with its immense trading population, its factories and mining industries, was but a few miles to the north-west. Tyre, which Jerome even three hundred years after Christ described as " that most noble and beautiful city of Phoenicia," was only twenty miles from Galilee. It was a city of great dignity, though built on an island off the coast, whose greatest length was but little more than half a mile. On this small island stood at the time of Christ the city of Tyre, with a population of some forty thousand souls, crowded into high tenement buildings. Later reference will be made to the power Eastern nations have always possessed of confining themselves into small spaces. So cramped for room were the inhabitants of Tyre, that they possessed no open square, or public place — with the exception of the Temple. Buildings of great height were common in those days. It is evident that in Rome their height was at one time of positively alarming proportions, for the Emperor Augustus decreed that no buildings on the public way should exceed seventy feet in height. That the houses in the city of Tyre were of abnormal height is clear from the fact that Strabo, who lived at the time of Christ, describes them as higher than the houses "even at Rome." It was a city of textile industry and glass work, crowded with shops, docks, ware- houses, and factories. The suburbs of the town were on the mainland, connected with the island, at the time of Christ, by the great mole constructed by

THE HIGHWAYS OF A WORLD 31

Alexander when he took the city, which stands to this day. Tyre and Sidon (farther north) were in A.D. 30 still powerful and populous, though the day of their political world power was over, some three hundred years before Christ. The main business part of Tyre was on the island rock, but the town extended with its suburbs for no less than seven miles along the shore of the mainland.

Some idea is gathered as to the size of Tyre from the fact that, when it was taken by Alexander some three hundred years before Christ, eight thousand of its inhabitants were massacred, two thousand miserable beings were crucified on the shore, and thirty thousand carried into slavery. It was, however, quickly repeopled, and after being dominated in turn by both Egypt and Antioch, it had, in 65 B.C., been made a free city by Rome, and it was, as already stated, at the time of Christ, an immense trading and mining centre ; indeed, it had almost regained its magnificent previous wealth and prosperity. Phcenicians, though they hated the Greeks, traded with them. Jews, though bigoted in religion and filled with a desire to dominate, being the chosen people of God, were yet willing to be international in their business relations. It was good for trade.

The dye works of Tyre and Sidon were famous all over the world. The beauty of the colours have never been surpassed. From Tyre and Sidon came, not only in the height of their power, but in the time of Christ, the finest works of art. They were not only commercial centres but seaport towns. No nation had so great a sea traffic as

32 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Phoenicia. To all parts of the known world their ships went backwards and forwards, bringing to the surrounding district, Galilee included, news from the remotest parts.

That Christ was known by many of the inhabit- ants is clear. " And they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things He did, came unto Him " (Mark iii. 8).

Christ went into the region of Tyre if not actually into the city itself, and He certainly was in the great city of Sidon, meeting people of all nations, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians ; of all classes, factory hands, sailors, tradesmen, the rich and the poor. Caesarea Philippi, where we know He taught, stood on the borders of Syria and Galilee and was another international centre, a cosmopolitan and pagan city. It stood at the foot of Mount Hermon in one of the beauty spots of Palestine. The temple there was dedicated to Caesar Augustus, wherein he was worshipped. It is difficult to-day to realize the horror with which the Jews would view this Caesar worship. The worship not only of a man, but often of a bad man. The city was full of pagan shrines and marble gods. Indeed, almost wherever Christ went His eyes must have lighted on the splendid heathen temples. At Gadara were the temples of Zeus and Astarte, at Bethshan the temple of Bacchus, and at Ptolemais, only twenty miles from Nazareth, a magnificent one to Zeus. Roman soldiers with their hordes of slaves had their barracks in Caesarea Philippi. It was here, in one of the most pagan cities of Palestine, given up to the worship of Caesar and the god Pan, whose

THE HIGHWAYS OF A WORLD 33

sanctuary stood close to the temple of Caesar, that the Man of Sorrows " stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." Here, in the midst of pagan gods, He turned to His followers : " Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ? " Here, surrounded by heathen multitudes, marble deities, and sensuous worship, Peter recognized the true God : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

In the north of Palestine, even those who called themselves Jews were of very mixed origin. The Samaritans were originally of many nationalities. They were the descendants of the colonists whom Salmaneser, king of Assyria, had sent to Samaria after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. They came from Babylon, Avra, and Hamath. At first frankly idolaters, they soon accepted the faith of Israel, and though unorthodox, regarding tradi- tion as of no account and not even venerating the prophets, they accepted the Pentateuch and called themselves Jews.

The great caravan routes of the known world ran through Galilee. Judea had — and still has — no ports. " Judea was on the road to nowhere, Galilee was covered with roads to everywhere." The main roads from the Phoenician coast to Samaria, to the Decapolis on the other side of the Jordan, and to the Hauran all passed through Galilee. The main road from the seacoast to Damascus passed through Galilee. The caravans from Ptolemais, a flourishing seaport closer to Galilee even than Tyre, passed through Galilee north of Nazareth, and the great road from Egypt to Damascus ran south of it. Noblemen's litters and splendid equipages would 3

34 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

be common sights along this road. Men of many races passed along it in their thousands year by year. Merchants, rolling in wealth, from Antioch, one of the most gorgeous of the many gorgeous cities of the East, traders from Palmyra, Damascus, the Isles of Greece and the African coast, formed a part of the motley crowd which jostled with the Roman troops, Jewish rabbis and peasantry and priests of the heathen cults along the roads of Galilee. The great caravans, which could be watched for miles, with their long string of heavily laden camels, must have been almost a daily sight to the inhabitants of Nazareth. The fact that these caravans would often consist of five and six hundred camels with their attendants, gives some idea of the importance of this road. " The ships of the desert," as camels have been called, passed the foot of the hill at Nazareth between that city and Mount Tabor, carrying the wealth of Egypt, Arabia, and India to Damascus and the cities of the desert ; returning laden with wares to their native lands, accompanied by multitudes of men of all nations.

" Of all things in Galilee, it was the sight of these immemorial roads which taught and moved me most — not because they were trodden by the patriarchs, and some of them must soon shake to the railway train, not because the chariots of Assyria and Rome have both rolled along them, but because it was up and down these roads that the immortal figures of the Parables passed. By them came the merchant man seeking goodly pearls, and the King departing to receive his kingdom, the friend on a journey, the prodigal son coming back

THE HIGHWAYS OF A WORLD 35

from the far-off country. The far-off country ! What a meaning has that frequent phrase of Christ's when standing in Galilee by one of her great roads . . . roads which were in touch with Rome and Babylon." ^

Isaiah used no Oriental vein of extravagance when he spoke of populous " Galilee of the nations." Perhaps this also explains why the Master Who had come with a message not for one race alone, Who, in contradistinction to the exclusive spirit of His own people, was universal in His teaching, ministered not in orthodox Judea but in Galilee.

' Historical Geography of the Holy Land, G. A. Smith, p. 430,

CHAPTER IV

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

TWO THOUSAND YEARS

AGO

37

War — is an irony on the Gospels. — From the diary of the late Emperor Frederick of Germany.

Agreement is inevitable, and will come at an appointed time, nearer than is expected. I know not if it be because I shall soon leave this earth and the rays that are already reaching me from below the horizon have disturbed my sight, but I believe our world is about to begin to realize the words " Love one another." . . . The spiritual movement one recognizes on all sides. Mankind is about to be seized with a frenzy of love. This will not, of course, happen smoothly or all at once ; it will involve misunderstandings — even sanguinary ones, perchance — so trained have we been to hatred. But it is evident the great law of brotherhood must be accomplished some day, and I am convinced that the 'time is com- mencing when our desire for its accomplishment will become irresistible. — Alexandre Dumas in i8gj.

Christ is the visible representation of the invisible God, and through Him the world is a harmonious whole. — Paul of Tarsus.

38

CHAPTER IV AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

The cosmopolitanism of Galilee — Its immense population and noble cities — Nazareth not "poor and mean" — Industrial cities — The Lake of Galilee — A centre of pleasure and industry — Civic organization and internal problems.

IT must be borne in mind, when attempting to visualize Galilee two thousand years ago, that Palestine became inhabited, after the Captivity, very largely by pagan races imported from the East. The Jewish nation had been carried away to where, by the waters of Babylon, they bitterly lamented their exile. Palestine had become for a time almost a Gentile country. Under Ezra and Nehemiah, it is alleged, the tribes of Benjamin and Judah alone returned to repcople the whole of Palestine, the remaining ten tribes disappearing during the Exile and being lost to history.

Galilee at the time of Christ was not only surrounded by peoples of other races, as has already been shown, but had itself a large Gentile population. Syrians, Greeks, Arabs, Phoenicians inhabited its towns and villages. The farther away from Jerusalem, the more mixed was the population in the Galilean cities ; not only was it varied, but of immense proportions, Josephus, the military

39

40 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

governor of the province, who in his history gives an account of Galilee, when he was there, only thirty- four years after Christ, tells us that there were no less than three million souls in Galilee. Writers have questioned his veracity, mainly because the number Is so great that it sounds improbable. Recent research, however, has justified the historian to a remarkable degree. Sir Charles Wilson, whose work in connection with Palestine exploration is known in every quarter of the world, says, in speaking of Josephus : " Every new discovery seems to give a higher idea of the accuracy of his local knowledge." ^ Ruins of cities of such dimensions that they must have had large populations have been discovered. Dr. Selah Merrill, in his book, Galilee at the Time of Christ, gives one convincing reason after another to show that the figures given by Josephus are probably correct. Indeed, Dr. Merrill maintains that they are established now " beyond dispute." Sir George Adam Smith, though not accepting the figures as quite final, says there are good reasons for the possibility of Josephus' high estimate, and refers with appreciation to Dr. Merrill's valuable book ; and in The City and the Land, published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, the same view is taken by Sir Walter Besant.

Three million souls in a province the size of a normal English shire ! It sounds incredible. There were, however, two hundred towns and villages, indeed so closely did they lie that from distant heights parts of the province looked like one continuous city. Those who know certain Eastern

' The City and the Land, p. II.

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 41

cities to-day know how great is the power of human beings, in the East, to confine themselves into small spaces. In Galilee tens of thousands were crowded within a few square miles. In the West we know something of overcrowded industrial cities to-day : in the East they are not crowded, they are packed.

How could so small a province maintain so great a population? Galilee was fertile beyond belief!

" Throughout rich in soil and pasturage, producing every variety of tree and inviting by its productive- ness even those who have the least inclination for agriculture, it is everywhere tilled, no part allowed to be idle, and everywhere productive." ^ The walnut, ^■he palm tree, the fig and olive flourished. " The soil is universally rich and fruitful. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages here and there are everywhere so full of people, by the very richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain some fifteen thousand inhabitants." ^

Some of the cities it is possible to identify to-day. Bethshan, close to Bethabara, where John the Baptist preached, was in the Jordan valley in so fertile a spot that it was called the " Gate of Paradise." Ruins of it, with the fine acropolis, are to be seen to-day. At the time of Christ it had no less than forty thousand inhabitants, many of whom were Greek. Indeed, it had been renamed Scythopolis by them, and made the capital of the Decapolis ; the Decapolis being a confederation of ten Greek cities which had bound themselves together, in what to-day we would call a fellowship, for the further- ance of Greek thought and commerce, and was, it

^ Josephus, Wan, in. iii. 2, 3. ^ Ibid. ni. iii. 2.

42 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

must be admitted, distinctly anti-Jew in feeling. Like many of the cities near which, or in which, Christ gave His message, though there were large numbers of Jews, Bethshan seems to have been thoroughly pagan, for it was also called the city of Bacchus. Zebulun, one of the populous cities of Galilee, was " of admirable beauty, its houses built on the model of those of Tyre and Sidon." We remember that the houses in Tyre were higher even than those of Rome, so in Zebulun the houses were probably on a similar scale, which indicates, of course, a large population.

Nazareth, though resting in a basin among the hills, was not a secluded spot, as has so often been supposed. At the foot of the hill on which it stood, ran — as we have already seen — one of the world's highways. The road from Damascus to Egypt ran through the valley between Nazareth and Mount Tabor. Nazareth, which has been described as " poor and mean," had in all probability at least fifteen thousand inhabitants. It was a city {polis), not a village (kome). With reference to the general theory that Nazareth was a place of small import- ance. Sir George Adam Smith, referring to Dr. Merrill's work, says : " It is the great merit of Dr. Merrill's monograph on Galilee, that it has disproved this error in detail." ^ Within five miles of Nazareth stood Sepphoris, the former capital of the province, where the public archives of the province were kept, a wealthy city with a large working-class population. It was the Woolwich of Galilee, for the royal arsenal was at Sepphoris. Some idea of the size of

^ Historical Geography of the Holy Land, G, A. Smith, p. 432.

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 43

an arsenal and the enormous number of men employed in those days is gathered from the fact that Herod Antipas, in A.D. 39, had in one single armoury enough armour for seventy thousand men (Ant. xviii. 7. 2).

If Galilee is to be truly visualized as it was at the time of Christ's ministry, it is necessary to be clear that it was not a land of desert places in which demoniacs roamed, which is the impression left upon many minds by the scanty account of the province which we have in the Gospels. It is well to remember that the Gospels were written by holy men of old, to record the message and the ministry of the Son of God, not to describe a province. The environment of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth was thronged, gay, and industrial, populated by heathens of many nations as well as with Jews.

It is true that Christ went as far afield from Galilee and Jewish territory as Tyre and Sidon. True that He worked in Jerusalem. Yet most of His time was spent on the shores of a lake, in the company of fishermen. This lake at least, it may well be supposed, tucked away eight hundred feet below sea-level, was probably a secluded spot. The lake is thirteen miles long by about seven wide. To-day there is but one small village on its shores, Tiberias.

In the days of Christ there stood on its shores, not villages, but nine large cities of great magnificence and splendour. Nowhere else in Palestine, in so small an area, were there such a number of rich and populous cities as were crowded round the Lake of Galilee. Tiberias was a splendid city, built

44 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

in Greco-Roman style, enclosed by a wall three miles in length. It had only just been completed when Christ trod the shores of Galilee. Herod Antipas was a great architect, and had spent huge sums in building Tiberias. His own castle was on the hill. The city possessed theatres and temples, a forum of large dimensions, an amphitheatre and prastorium, a racecourse, and Greek colonnaded streets. The palaces of the high Roman officials were of great magnitude, with fine Roman gates and carved with figures of animals. Tiberias was known for its hot springs, as one of the watering-places of the day, famous throughout the Roman world, and it possessed stately baths after the Roman pattern. People from all parts were attracted to these baths. Besides the public buildings, there were Roman villas, provided as always with marble pavements, porticoes, and columns. A great acropolis dominated the town. It was a city of heathen beauty, " rich, strong, and splendid," but abominated by the Jews. Nothing would induce an orthodox Jew to pass through it. Not only was it heathen, but it had been built on an ancient burial ground. To the orthodox Jew contact with a grave meant seven days of ceremonial impurity (Num. xix. i6). Herod, to placate them, had built them here the noblest synagogue in Galilee, " in whose colossal basilica . . . the assem- blies of the people were held." Even so the orthodox would not dwell therein. Christ appears not to have visited the city, though His eyes must often have rested on its pagan beauty. Once only is Tiberias mentioned in the Gospels, when we are told (John vi. 23) that boats with sight-seers came

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 45

to the scene of the feeding of the five thousand ; so reluctant would a Jewish writer be even to mention it. The municipal machinery was highly organized, the Town Council having no less than six hundred members. Equality of civil rights between the Jews and Gentiles was a continual source of dis- sension ; for, though a strict Jew would not enter the town, the unorthodox were there in plenty. When the Jews were in the majority they tried to exclude Greeks and other Gentiles, and the Greeks in their turn spared no efforts to exclude the Jews.

Tiberias was the most magnificent of the lake cities, but not the largest. Within three and a half miles to the south — indeed, almost touching the outlying parts of the city — stood the town of Tarichaea.^

Only fifty years before the time of Christ, Cassius had laid siege to it, taken it, and carried thirty thousand of its inhabitants into slavery. Why it is not mentioned in the Gospels is a mystery, although it must be remembered that Christ confined His ministry mainly to the north of the lake. Tarichsea, at the time of which we are writing, with a popula- tion of some forty thousand, was not a city of pleasure like Tiberias, but a working-class centre. Though the proud possessor of a splendid hippo- drome, its chief industries appear to have been fish- curing and shipbuilding. The fish of Galilee were known throughout the Roman world, and here in Tarichaea was a fish factory where, cured and

* Although it is known that Tarichaea was three miles from Tiberias, it is still a disputed point whether in the north or south direction. The general consensus of expert opinion is that it was south. — E. P.-T.

46 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

packed in barrels, the fish were exported to other lands. The name Tarichaea means the " pickling place." Industrial conditions prevailed ; thousands of families were employed in the fishing trade. It was also a shipbuilding centre ; and here Josephus, in the reign of Vespasian, very shortly after the time of Christ, collected over two hundred ships, when he planned an attack on Tiberias. It was at Tarichaea, very shortly after the time of Christ, that a great sea fight took place — in Nero's reign — when six thousand men were slain.^ Close to Tarichaea was a bridge over the Jordan, of fine proportions. Spanning the river in ten piers, it was daily thronged with armed troops, caravans, and merchants coming and going to the Decapolis.

Some six miles from Tarichaea, high up on the hills, stood the Greek city of Gadara. Recent dis- coveries reveal this to have been an important city. An amphitheatre with an acropolis above it domi- nated the hill, paved roads with the usual fine villas and colonnaded streets ran the length of the city. It was a military centre, and Roman troops marched over the bridge referred to daily, in pursuance of their duties. Gadara was one of the ten cities of the Decapolis. Each city possessed the country surrounding it. There was Gadara and the country of the Gadarenes (Mark v.) : Hippos and the country of the Hippenes. Almost opposite Tiberias, on the hills overlooking the lake, only some eight miles north of Gadara, stood Hippos, another Greek city situated on the Damascus road. Here Herod Agrippa II. sometimes lived. Merchants in varying

' Josephus, fVars, ni. Ix.

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 47

kinds of picturesque craft came and went across tlie lake from Hippos to Tiberias. Joanna, the wife of his chief steward, must often have sailed from Hippos or Tiberias in one of the royal pleasure boats to listen to and follow the carpenter's Son. "There were at Hippos the usual buildings of a Greek city of the Roman Period — the arch, the forum, the temple, the theatre, the bath, the mausoleum in florid Doric and Corinthian, with the later Christian basilica among them and perhaps a martyrion, or martyr's monument. Approach any of these cities of the Decapolis, and this is the order in which you are certain to find their remains." ^ Very often, not content with one, there would be two amphitheatres, each holding from three to four thousand people,

Gadara and Hippos were the only two of the cities of the Decapolis actually on, or within, three miles of the lake. The nine cities round the lake were Tiberias, Tarichaea, Hippos, Gamala, Gergesa, Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, Magdala. As Christ ministered day by day on the shores of Galilee, its waters reflected the factories, workshops, wharves, houses, synagogues, temples, and city walls of splendid cities. In many of these cities the population was dense. Capernaum was the home of Jesus for over two years. It was on the great west road from Damascus to Egypt called " the way of the sea."

This road was paved by the Romans, went through Capernaum, where all who passed over it paid a toll, and here Matthew, who collected it, sat scorned by all, for to pay tribute to Rome was considered a

' Historical Geography of the Holy Land, G, A, Smith, p. 603.

48 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

slavish thing to do. The Jew who collected tribute for Rome was beneath contempt. The Capernaum road was then, and continued for a thousand years, to be the caravan route from Egypt to Damascus. Capernaum was in touch with the known world. It also was a centre for a Roman garrison. Within a couple of miles to the north of it, at the present Ain et Tineh, were large tannery and pottery works, absorbing an immense amount of labour. The Lake of Galilee was an industrial centre, where dyeing, tanning, fishcuring, and shipbuilding formed the chief industries. It was also a watering-place, thronged with a gay crowd.

Fashionable watering places patronized by wealthy Greeks and Romans were cities of dissipation and profligate living. The Lake of Galilee at night time would be illuminated by the lights of the surrounding cities, and the lights of the streets that connected them. Brilliantly lighted craft gliding swiftly over the waters would carry gay courtiers and court ladies from Tiberias to Hippos, and pleasure seekers from city to city on their way to entertainments, accompanied as ever in Greek and Roman days with wine, music, and dancing.

Is it then to be accepted that the whole of Galilee was but one vast city ? Far from it. Galilee had its cornfields and its olive groves, vine- yards and " desert places." In spite of its many cities it was also an agricultural province. The " fat soil " of the province was rich in production. The fertile fields of Genesareth bore figs, grapes, pomegranates, and olives. The country round about Chorazin and Capernaum was celebrated for its

AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 49

magnificent wheat. Fields of waving corn were one of the beautiful sights of Galilee. Even to-day the plain of Esdraelon in spring-time is a sight not soon forgotten for its wealth of beautiful flowers and rich vegetation. But the cities, as we have seen, were many and splendid.

Little remains of the Lake of Galilee as it ap- peared in the time of Christ ; little of the continuous cities, gardens, and villages that clothed its shores ; little of the almost unbroken line of city walls, houses, synagogues, wharves, and factories round the lake ; no traces at all — at any rate to the unexpert eye — of the terraces that lined the hillside. So desolate is the spot to-day, that, standing by the lake, it is not easy to conjure up the scene of activity it presented two thousand years ago ; not easy to visualize it as it was then, crowded with fishing-boats, both small and large, as is evident from the words used in the Gospels, and from a little touch in Josephus' history, where he speaks of the people " climbing up into their ships " ; with pleasure and passenger boats of every description, ships with their white sails darting here and there in the sunshine, great rowing-boats with multitudes of oarsmen, taking passengers to all parts of the lake, and the shores sparkling " with the houses and palaces, the synagogues and temples, of the Jewish or Roman inhabitants." ^

No land in the world has suffered as Palestine : it has been plundered, fought over, ruined again and again. Romans have sought to stamp out the Jews, Mohammedans to stamp out Christians, Christians have overrun it to stamp out Mohammedans, only

^ Sinai and Falestinc, p. 367. 4

50 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

to be themselves stamped out by the followers of Islam. Once again has the Christian conquered, and there will be no stamping out of other nations to-day. But so little remains of Galilee, as it was when Christ lived and ministered among men, that many who visit it to-day return with the traditional view rooted in their minds, that the home of our Lord was an " obscure province."

CHAPTER V

RACIAL ANTIPATHY, TOLERA- TION, AND A MORE EXCEL- LENT WAY

SI

i

Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, I am as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.

Pmil of Tarsus.

dyair-Zj Is an expression of character, determined by will, and not of spontaneous, natural emotion. Love is the willing communica- tion to others of that which we have and are — the exact opposite of that passion which is the desire of personal appropriation.

Westcott.

S»

CHAPTER V

RACIAL ANTIPATHY, TOLERATION, AND A MORE EXCELLENT WAY

Intense antipathy between Jews, Greeks, Romans — Contempt for a conquered race makes a just rule impossible — Samaritans and orthodox Jew — Comparison with modern days — Christ proclaims the message of love in midst of turmoil and racial hatred — Tolera- tion not enough — Paul at Athens — "One Blood" — Spiritual aspiration of all nations — The Prophet appeals to the people.

WE may well wonder what were the relations of the many races in Galilee, the one to the other. All along the western border of Galilee Jewish villages for miles faced villages of an alien race and creed. Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians, Jews, and many other nationalities were in daily contact, particularly on the west, but in all parts also of the province. To the Jew every one of a different nationality to himself was just a Gentile and anathema. All Gentiles were abominated by the Jews, but it is not easy to discover whether the orthodox Jew reserved his deepest hatred for the Gentile, or the unorthodox Jew, such as the Samaritans.

Rome, of course, ruled. Though no deliberate oppressor, the Romans had so supreme a contempt

54 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

for the Jews that though religious liberty was per- mitted their rule became tyrannical. Is it not a truth which all do well to remember, that man cannot rule with justice over those for whom he has contempt? He who harbours contempt over those he rules poisons his own soul, and though he is probably unaware of it, justice to the objects of his contempt becomes impossible. " The Jews," said Cicero, " are born only to be slaves." Tacitus goes further ; he speaks of them as " the scum of slavery." The moderate Seneca loses moderation when speak- ing of the Jews. " This miserable and criminal nation has spread over the whole world, carrying its customs with it." A quarrelsome rabble with ridiculous customs was all that the Jewish nation represented to the Romans. And the Jew ?

He returned the contempt tenfold. But with it was mixed the deep-seated hatred of the conquered for the arrogant conqueror. The Jew who killed a Greek, a Roman, or any Gentile was not, in the days of its power, put to death by the Sanhedrin. " Thou shalt not be guilty of thy neighbour's blood, but the Gentile is not thy neighbour," was one of the Jewish sayings. The severest punishment that could be meted out to a Jew was that he should be treated as a Gentile — it was the last resort. It is, of course, true that the Jew traded with men of all nations. In that they had international relations, they were, and always have been, a trading race. Christ in His parables to them refers to the things of their every- day life — to the bank, the talents, the stewards. Apart, however, from merchandise, the Jews were

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 55

not allowed any relations with the foreigner — the Gentile — or even permitted to go to his house. " Ye know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation," says Peter, who had just learnt something of God's Universality, and unhesitatingly, after his illumination, actually went into the house of a Roman soldier.

The Jews' dislike of Herod, though he was a Jew, as also of the Herodians, was due to the fact that they favoured Greek thought and culture. He was a Hellenic Jew, as were the Herodians, consequently they were in the eyes of the strict Jew unpatriotic, unfaithful to national tradition. So strong was the feeling of the orthodox against Herod on this account, that there is a record of a plot being hatched by ten young Jewish men to kill Herod. The plot was discovered and every one of the conspirators executed, but the feeling of the Jewish people was manifested by the fact that he who had informed against them was cruelly lynched. The story has, unhappily, a strangely modern sound.

The Samaritans were held in greater abhorrence by the Jews than were even the Greeks. The Greek at least was an out-and-out pagan. But the Samaritans had accepted the faith of Israel, and with it extreme veneration for the Pentateuch. Tradition, however, so worshipped by the Pharisees, was nothing to the Samaritans, nor indeed had they any reverence for the prophets. Supremely un- orthodox, they were "anathema" to the Jew. The Samaritans filled up the cup of their iniquity in the eyes of the Jews when they actually built a temple

56 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

on one of their mountains, as a rival to the one at Jerusalem. It was a Jewish saying : " A morsel of bread from a Samaritan is as swine's flesh."

The word Samaritan was used by an orthodox Jew as a term of opprobrium, and was only resorted to when all other vile epithets had been exhausted. It is significant to note that when Christ, after telling the matchless parable of the Good Samaritan — which, like His first sermon, is international in its teaching — turned to the scribe with the searching question : " Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among thieves ? " the scribe will not even permit the word Samaritan to fall from his lips, but elusively replies : " He that shewed mercy upon him."

It is more than significant, it is amazing, that John, the most gentle of all the disciples, should wish to wreak such fierce and terrible vengeance on the Samaritans, not because the Samaritans had done them any violence, but merely because the Samaritans had not welcomed them (Luke ix. 54). It indicates the depth of race feeling between Jew and Samaritan. It was not that the Jew consciously sinned. His very orthodoxy, his very " patriotism," led him astray and made him what he was. The Jew was profoundly convinced that the other races were not worthy of the privileges he possessed ; they would not know how to value them. Patriots, their one thought was to restore the ancient glory of their kingdom. Peter, at the moment when Christ is about to make a supreme spiritual revela- tion, breaks in : " Wilt Thou at this time restore

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 57

the kingdom unto Israel ? " Christ has little to say to this manifestation of patriotic feeling, for does not His message transcend what is generally known as patriotism ?

Deeply though the Jew scorned the Gentile, yet he moved heaven and earth to secure a proselyte ; only, however, as Christ scathingly and fearlessly reminded them, to make him such an one as themselves.

It is evident that Palestine at the time of Christ was in turmoil. Seldom in its long history had it been more disturbed than in His day. Hatred begets hatred. Contempt breeds contempt. Every man's hand seemed to be against his neighbour. The Romans, although they did not oppose Hellenic influence, doubtless kept together, as conquerors in an alien land will always do. The Greeks and other races combined among themselves. The Jews, though united in their hatred of the Gentile, were always divided internally, and perpetually wrangling in their schools. In their eyes no man was a patriot unless also an orthodox Jew, and this invariably involved contempt for men of other nations.

In the midst of all this came Jesus of Nazareth with His universal message. There was as much strained feeling in Palestine then as there is in Europe to-day. The Judaizing section bitter, strong, and intriguing ; the Romanizing section determined, tyrannical ; the Hellcnizing section subtle and insinuating. Hatred and suspicion were rife, all were fighting for their own hand. Into the very thick of all this strife came Christ, proclaiming a challenge and an amazing message : so idealistic

58 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

that surely it was hopeless even to attempt to obey. " Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise. Love your enemies . . . and ye shall be called the children of the Highest, for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." What He has to say is not only sublime in its ethics, but universal in its application. Christ's message, the liberty He comes to bring, is obviously for all men of all nations. He dares to speak of a common Father of all these warring peoples. He includes even the Samaritan, and His hearers are dumb. The Gentile Greek who worships the abominable Bacchus and the god Pan, He includes, and that in no dogmatic spirit. Through His teaching runs the thought, so alien to the Jews of old, so alien to many Christians to-day, that God has not made nation to dominate nation, but endowed them so that each is the complement of the other.

Somewhere near Tyre He meets a Greek, a Syro- Phcenician woman by race. Matthew calls her by the name that represented to the Jews all that was barbaric — "a Canaanitish woman." It never occurred to the men who were with Jesus on this occasion that He would treat her in the same way as He treated those of His own nationality. Such action would be misunderstood. It would be a loss of prestige to the Jewish nation. " Send her away," they cry. It was not to be, the Master gave as freely to her as to the " chosen " people. True, He tested her faith, but He tested many Jews before they received what He had come to give. She too,

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 59

" Canaanitish " though she was, had a contribution to make to the moral and spiritual wealth of the world. The Syro-Phoenician woman and the Roman soldier, with their faith, the Samaritan with his tender love, were a complement of the magnificent integrity which in spite of their many failings the nobler Jews possessed. Symbolically as well as by direct teaching, the Great Interna- tionalist proclaims that even the so-called powerful nations are but members of a world family, and not only can learn much from those nations who in their eyes are poor and of no account, but, apart from them, are incomplete.

It is a lesson hard to learn ; ancient Jewish thinking is not dead in Christian lands to-day. Powerful nations are still so assured that they only can give. So assured that for the welfare of smaller and more " backward " races they must dominate, even when that domination is resented by nearly all who are under it. That the " backward " races have often, in a sense, gained immeasurably by this system cannot be denied. That it has created material wealth is not to be gainsaid. Yet when one nation has dominated another, there has been, in nearly every case, failure to recognize the real spiritual aspirations of the races governed. Tolera- tion of religion is not enough ; that is possible without recognition of the spiritual value of the nation.

Toleration is good, and the desire to guide others into our own paths natural, when we are convinced that our path is the right one. These tendencies and the development of the material welfare of

6o CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

governed races by their rulers no doubt do much to minimize racial antipathy.

But there is a more excellent way.

Centuries have passed since Paul of Tarsus wandered through the streets of Athens. It was not long after the city had reached the pinnacle of its fame, that his eyes rested on the magic panorama seen from the Acropolis. Even to-day, when of all the glories of an age that has perished, the Parthenon rises almost alone, proud though mutilated, amongst a mass of ruins, it is impossible to stand there without marvelling at the wonder of the works of man. But Paul beheld the Parthenon in flawless beauty. His eyes rested on the bronze statue of Athene wrought by the hand of Phidias, of so great a height that from afar the sailors at sea steered by her helmet and the golden tip of her lance. He must have stood by the even more wonderful work of the same master in the temple itself, the other statue of Athene carved in ivory, 49 feet high, with draperies of pure gold.

On the Acropolis Paul would see the superb vestibule of the Propylea,the temple of victory, the Erechtheum, all the gathered glories of the Periclean age. Yet in the account of his visit to Athens which Luke had from his lips, no reference is made to the splendour of the city. In his speech no tribute to its beauty escapes his lips, only indirect reference is made to the temples and famous statues. One thought dominates his mind. " God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth."

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 6i

How natural to marvel at what appears to be utter insensitiveness to the beauty around him ! How natural to regret that there is no reference to the greatest architectural glory the world has ever seen ! Paul has, on account of this apparently strange omission, been criticized as a man insensitive to beauty, and therefore incapable of understanding one of the great needs of the human heart. But he saw a greater vision than do those who criticize his attitude of mind, greater than Christendom ever yet has seen. By the inspiration of God he saw what Christian nations have yet by experience to learn, that a nation's greatness lies in one thing alone, its consciousness of a mission to mankind. God " hath made of one blood all nations for to dzvell on the face of the earthy This is his message. This thought possessed his mind to the exclusion of all else.

" One blood." The words imply real brotherliness, those born of one womb : brotherhood has become almost a cant word and so lost its true meaning. Fearlessly Paul proclaims the Gospel of " one blood " in Athens. He proclaims it in a city where the privileged minority of free men were masters over vast hordes of slaves, masters over their bodies and souls, with all that such a system implies of ruthless cruelty. " Of one blood " with all men is his message, proclaimed at a time when the world was as full of hatred and animosity as it is to-day, torn asunder, even as to-day, by the rivalry of class and race and the clash of political parties.

We are apt to look back on the past through rose-coloured spectacles, and to feel that different though the problems were then, there were never

62 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

such stupendous difficulties as there are now. Look at England — at Europe to-day ! Yet the Roman world of the first century, when Paul announced to the world the " oneness " of men, was no less divided than is the world to-day. The Jews, who since the death of Christ had added another sect to those whom they hated — -the Christians — and the rival pagan cults were all at daggers drawn.

Looking down on what was then a part of the Roman Empire, whose very existence was founded on the largest slave system ^ — with all its denial of human rights, either spiritual or material — that the world had ever seen ; looking down upon a city where the hatred and deceit inseparable from such a system reigned, Paul calmly proclaims that all men are sons of one Father. He proclaims that all are His offspring — slaves included — all are of " one blood," Later he declares the corollary to this great truth, that a common ideal is possible to all the nations of the world.

This teaching that all men are brothers, with one Father, given not only to an initiated few in a philosophic school, but proclaimed in direct and simple language to all the cosmopolitan multitudes regardless of their racial hatreds, was indeed a staggering message. Only continuous reflection on the state of society in those days can enable us to realize the revolutionary aspect of such teaching, and the courage of the man who proclaimed it. To

* During the time of the Roman Empire slaves were counted in hundreds of thousands. Seneca tells us of one of Pompey's freedmen who had legions of slaves, and kept a secretary to inform him daily of the number of births and deaths.

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 63

the powerful Roman nation the Christian message was subversive of its whole social and industrial system ; to the Jew it was subversive of all religious teaching.

The slave, the backward races, to have the same freedom of life as the "civilized" Roman — the cultured, the educated, who knew, of course, how to use their freedom rightly — away with such a thought ! The Gentile, the heathen, men of all nations in the world — to have the same opportuni- ties, the same spiritual rights, as they ^ — the Jews, the chosen nation, who had far greater knowledge of the way of God than any other? Impossible! So infuriated were the Jews when later on he gave the same message in Jerusalem that with one accord they cried, " AWAY WITH SUCH A FELLOW FROM

THE EARTH IT IS NOT FIT THAT HE SHOULD

LIVE."

What feeling was aroused, what indignation, what righteous wrath 1 This man must not live ! He will mislead the people, give unhealthy ideas to the uneducated and the " masses." Privileges are in danger. We alone can rule, cry the Romans ; we alone can teach the things of God, cry the Jews. The tragedy was that both were sincere, both believed what they cried. God's view of man as taught not by Paul alone, but also by his Master, eliminated the doctrine of the superi- ority of certain races. This roused, as, alas ! it does to-day, the fury of those races who tenaciously cling to the certainty of their own superiority.

* Acts xxii. 22.

64 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Races are truly in different stages of develop- ment, some in the child stage : the adult, however, is not necessarily superior to the child. Paul, by the inspiration of God, has further knowledge, which even to-day we, as followers of Christ, have yet to learn. It is that only by the complete realization of the truth that all men are of " one blood " can inter- nationalism find a basis on which to build the harmony of the world. The whole of the New Testament proclaims that the refusal to recognize spiritual aspiration and dignity, and to deny respect to any nation whatsoever, is out of harmony with the teaching of Christ. Such refusal is responsible for greater discord amongst nations than even the annexing of territory.

Co-operation can only be founded on mutual respect, comprehension, and love. Of all words in the language love is the most complex and difficult to understand. If it is taken to mean an emotion of affection, then it is surely quite ridiculous to say we are to love all mankind. Yet it is in this emotional sense that love is generally understood, and it is not surprising if those who so read it say that to love all men — let alone your neighbour — is an impossible ideal. Westcott throws a flood of light on this subject when he tells us that the love enjoined upon Christians is determined by will, not natural emotion. In normal thinking man con- nects the word love with emotion and affection almost exclusively. " Love is the communication to others of that which zve have and are." It is of the will more than of the emotions, and the exact opposite to it is the desire of personal appropriation.

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 6$

It is not possible to have a feeling of affection for all, but it is surely possible by an effort of the will to share with others privileges and freedom of life. Christ proclaims for all time that His teaching, with all that it implies of equal opportunities for fullness of life, is to be applied practically, not only to those of like faith, but to all the nations of the world.

Is not this the Key of International Life ?

It is true that other religions taught such precepts as " Love your neighbour," " Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you," long before the Sermon on the Mount. Such are found in the religion of ancient Egypt, as well as in the teaching of Buddha. His sayings, too, were sublime : " Let a man overcome anger by not being angry ; let a man overcome evil with good." And again Buddha uttered a saying the truth of which we have yet to learn : " He has abused me, he has struck me, he has robbed me — they who do not entertain such thoughts, in such men enmity comes to an end. For enmity never comes to an end through enmity ; it comes to an end through noji-enmity ; this has ever been the rule from all eternity." Great teaching, yet Buddhism nevertheless soon developed into a cult, and has not been a powerful social influence. But, and herein lies the great difference between Christian and the highest non-Christian teaching, no religion has to the same extent — though all too narrowly — become a rule of conduct to the mass of its followers, as has Christianity.

Other religions contain high ethical teaching, but it is not unfair to say that in actual point of fact they have branched off either into metaphysical 5

66 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

conceptions, or have become stereotyped into formal rites and ceremonies. Christianity has become a rule of conduct and an incentive to pure living. That has been the sense in which Christianity has been understood by the majority of its followers. True it is that it has been corrupted. Who can deny this ? But — it is here that lies great hope for the future — the corruption has come more from the teachers than the people — from above, not from below. It has come mainly from the politician, the priest, the theologian. Corruption has not come from the instinct of the masses. The people need to be heard in the government of the whole world. To say that average public opinion, which is generally based on custom and prejudice, is Vox Dei is surely not only superficial thought but, in essence, almost blasphemous.

The deep conviction, however, which is inherent in the sacred recesses of the soul, commands the reverence of all mankind ; in moral consciousness the people ever rise superior to the politician and the priest. This is evident again and again in history. Students of the Old Testament cannot fail to note that when a prophet comes with a message, as did Isaiah, the hero of Jerusalem, again and again, he appeals over the heads of governments and priests direct to the people. The official powers and governments are not ignored ; prophets turn to them, as did Isaiah in the first case, but it is seldom that governments listen to the prophet ; and behold he, knowing that response to an inspired message will ever be found, appeals over the head of authority to the people,

RACIAL ANTIPATHY 67

In so far as the corruption of the Christian message has not come from the mass of the people, we may have confidence that, for this very reason, their voices will cry out for brotherliness, founded on " one blood," rather than for diplomacy, which, in spite of what it professes to achieve, has set nation against nation, and has ever ended in the shedding of blood.

CHAPTER VI A MEDIiEVAL STATESMAN

69

In politics, as for the individual, the moral law, so Mazzini taught, must reign supreme. " The end of politics is to apply the moral law to the civil organization of a country."

Bolton King, Life of Mazzini.

Commit a sin twice and it will not seem to thee a crime.

Sayings of the Rabbis.

CHAPTER VI A MEDIEVAL STATESMAN

A single standard of morality must govern new Internationalism — Machiavelli — The true patriot — Many modern Machiavellis.

ONE code of moral teaching, one spiritual message for the individual human soul and for collective humanity, in all its relations, is surely the message of Him Who came to redeem the world. This touches fundamental principles. For instance, it does not of course imply that the same method of teaching must be given to those of every race. The method of teaching an ignorant black child would differ from the method of teaching a child inheriting generations of culture. So the method of dealing with a backward race may differ from that employed in dealing with a highly civilized one. Christ Himself dealt in different ways with different types of people. It is not methods, but fundamental moral principles, that must guide man's relations with men of all nations, as being of " one blood," if there is to be hope of true international life, leading to world harmony. Paul has a striking phrase in Col. i. 17. Christ is the visible representa- tion of the invisible God, and " through Him the world is a harmonious whole." ^ There is an increasing

^ Col. i. 17, Weymouth's translation. 7J

72 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

number of men and women, whether orthodox Christians or not, who hold this to be a literal statement of fact. The world cannot be an harmonious whole unless the teaching of Christ permeates it, and forms a common ethical ideal for all nations. The non-Christian nations are not opposed to His teaching. Far from it. Nearly all look upon Him as one of the greatest teachers the world has ever seen. To millions, including the present writer, Christ was, in human form, the Exponent of the Mind of God to the world, and practically all nations see in Him an Exponent of the Divine Mind. If Christian nations had even attempted to make His teaching the basis of their relations with other nations, life would be different from what it is to-day. If Christian governments had realized the true international character of His teaching, as a solution to human problems, and had founded on it, as did Penn with the Red Indians, their relations with even the most " backward " nations — who, after all, are but the child nations of the world — there would surely have been far greater harmony in the world to-day.

And now the reader may well get impatient, may well retort that we have all failed, and this argument is merely attempting to be wise after the event !

The reply to that is : It is not, alas ! a question of having tried and failed, but that Christian statesmen have not thought it possible to bring Christian ethics into international statecraft. There is no desire here to rake up the past, nor indeed to show up the failures of England. A reference

A MEDLEVAL STATESMAN ;3

to past events is, however, necessitated to make the point clear. Were we as a nation attempting even to have a single moral code, when we went to war with China, to compel her to open her ports to our opium trade?

The " backward " races are the children of the world. The misuse of strength against the little ones earns, that is for those who thus offend, a stern denunciation from the lips of Christ : " It were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the sea."

It is not necessary, alas ! to go back sixty years. To our shame be it said, there is an illustration of the fact, that we have a different standard of morality in our relations with other nations, from the one we adopt at home, before our very eyes to-day. Hong-Kong has been a hundred years under our rule, yet little girls arc bought and sold into the worst form of slavery and often under conditions of revolting cruelty. Our Colonial Office are aware of the fact, but the evil continues. " For a money payment, girls are transferred by their parents or natural guardians to the care of another household, usually for the purpose of domestic service," is the substance of the reply given by the Colonial Office when questioned on the subject. Is it possible to see any difference between the " transfer " of a child for money and just buying and selling ? The use of fresh terms for old sins is in danger of becoming a real evil to-day. God help us to see this ! Rabindranath Tagore may have been unjust in his criticism the other day, when he said that we had invented new harmless sounding terms for old evils ;

74 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

a " mandate " instead of " taking possession," " com- pulsory labour " instead of " slavery." But who can say that the warning contained in his words is entirely unnecessary ?

The true patriot is not he who refuses to see his own country's flaws. Well did William Watson write :

The ever lustrous name of patriot To no man he denied, because he saw Where in his country's wholeness lay the flaw, Where on her whiteness the unseemly blot. England ! thy loyal sons condemn thee.

Be this the measure of our loyalty — To feel thee noble, and weep thy lapse the more. This truth by thy true servants is confess'd : Thy sons,, who love thee most, do most deplore. Know thou thy faithful ! Best they honour thee Who only honour in thee what is best.

History, as well as present events, reveals that the nations of Christendom guide their actions by a lower standard of right and wrong — not by different methods only — when dealing with the so- called " backward " races, than when dealing with each other. And again, in relation one with another, history shows that the same standard of honour as is demanded by man from man, has not even been expected between nations.

Four hundred years ago, in one of the most lucid treaties ever penned by the hand of man, Nicol6 Machiavelli laid down the theory that the code of morality, by which a government is to be guided, must necessarily be on a far lower level than the ethical code that should guide the life of an

A MEDIAEVAL STATESMAN 75

individual. Down the ages Machiavelli has been denounced in no measured terms, his very name is used to indicate all that is black, deceitful, and treacherous. Yet he was, after all, only the first to express in skilful language the necessity of a double code of morality, and exalt it to a science, belief in which has certainly not perished to-day. He also emphasized his faith in force as the final appeal, and no Christian nation has yet in practice abandoned that faith. Indeed, much of his teaching as set forth in his famous essay " The Prince " — by which he means the Government — has been a potent factor in European politics for the last four hundred years, and contrary though it is to the very elements of Christian ethics his teaching is with us to-day. At this moment in every country there are Machiavellians guiding the destinies of their nations.

These are Machiavellians, let it be clearly stated, not in the crude idea of Machiavellianism as the grossest deception and the blackest treachery, but followers of Machiavelli, in so far as there are thousands in every Christian country, who quite definitely believe that national morality must be on a level different from ordinary human morality. Many who condemn Machiavelli are his followers. The principle for which he stood was, after all, not on the surface a very vicious one, and certainly it was plausible. He maintained that statecraft is a science with its own laws. These laws are different from the moral laws which should govern human life individually. They are coarser and more material. Personally, Machiavelli was a man of

^6 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

high honour. Though his name is connected with all that is false and pernicious in politics, his personal honour was so great, that though tortured and put to extreme agony he refused to betray his fellow- conspirators. He was a passionate patriot: '' Amo la patria mia piu dell' aniina," is found in one of his last letters. His evil teaching was the result of passionate but misguided patriotism. According to his teaching, however, it is impossible to regard the State as a moral and Christian personality.

Many people to-day hold that view. Like our friend the Bombastic Patriot — though in a more skilful manner — they are content that a code of morals should guide activities, when representing nations, quite different from the code that should guide the actions of a high-minded man, when acting as an individual. This line of thought leads to many a grim situation from which those shrink who to-day hold the view that it is not possible for political to be co-extensive with human morality.

Machiavelli at least faced honestly the conse- quences of his teaching.

He stated his principles and unflinchingly followed them to their logical conclusions. In "The Prince" we are told that a prince " ought not to quit good causes, if he can help it, but he should know how to follow evil courses, if he must. It is not pleasant or right to tell a lie, yet as a prince, on behalf of your nation, you are frequently called upon to perform this unpleasant duty. Therefore it is necessary . . . to be skilful in simulating and disseminating a lie."

There are people, now, who deny that it is possible to build national, and international, political life on

A MEDIEVAL STATESMAN TJ

human idealism, or on Christian teaching. Those who hold such a position do not pass as dishonour- able men. Indeed, those who have stood in high honour openly embrace it.

Yet are not such men Machiavellians without the courage, and even the honour, of Machiavelli ? He saw clearly to what his teaching led and did not shrink from saying so. Having adopted a double course of morality, he did not attempt to prove, as so many have done, and do to-day, that it led to no dishonour. He made no attempt to invest his teaching with a halo of beauty. He believed that national morality was necessarily on a lower level than human morality, but was honest — ruthless in depicting to what such teaching eventually led.

Since the world began, men of one nation have not been prepared to deal with those of others as brothers of " one blood." We may safely go further and say, they have not dealt with each other on the same footing as man would with man. Christian nations have denounced Machiavelli, but accepted his pre- mises. The Council of Trent declared his books to be unfit for the Christian to read, and entirely repudi- ated them. It was a master-stroke, but by this action the Roman Hierarchy proved itself to be an arch- Machiavelli. For the Roman Hierarchy, as indeed have many other bodies, while formally condemning him, has ever, to a large extent, followed his teaching.

Morality, like science, if it is to live, must bt: progressive. To the Christian, progress in thought is life itself, for " unsearchable riches " lie before us ever to be discovered. In days gone by men would

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have been burnt at the stake for preaching the social and political equality — as the essence of Christianity — which many a clergyman preaches fearlessly to-day. We are at the parting of the ways.

Is it to be Christ, or Machiavelli ?

Not Machiavelli in all the blackness which he describes. Not many nations have sunk so low as to follow in extremis; from that all would shrink. But is it to be Machiavelli in the acceptance of his different code of morality for the human being and the State, or Christ? Christ, Who blazes His Message across the ages, that the Father makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust ; Who met the exclusiveness of the Jews by resisting their claim to privileges, and gave the opportunity, of fullness of freedom for service, to barbarian, Gentile, and Jew alike; Who, in the midst of all the rival nations amongst whom He lived, laid down the principle of neighbourliness, love, and one standard of action for all, in dealing with the whole of mankind, and between nation and nation.

A crusade is needed to-day against the double standard of morality, not only in sex, but in national and international life. This thing is an impossibility, many will cry. Nations cannot be trusted in the same way as individuals; the risk is too great. The nation who makes the attempt will perish. What, however, we may well ask, is the alternative ? True, it may be dangerous to go forward, but are we so satisfied with national life to-day that we are unprepared to take any risk ? Every true lover of his country, every true patriot — for the call comes,

A MEDIAEVAL STATESMAN 79

not to give away our patriotism, rather to exalt it, by admitting the complete supremacy of the moral law in our relations one with another — echoes Christian's cry in the Pilgrims Progress.

" Then," said Christian, " I must venture. To go back is nothing but death, to go forward is fear of death — and everlasting life beyond it. I will yet go forward."

CHAPTER VII THE VOICE OF THE CHILD

I dream'd I saw a little brook

Run rippling down the Strand ; With cherry trees and apple trees

Abloom on either hand ; The sparrows gathered from the squares,

Upon the branches green ; And pigeons flocked from Palace Yard,

Afresh their wings to preen ; And children down St. Martin's Lane ;

And out of Westminster, Came trooping many a thousand strong.

With a bewildered air.

They hugg'd each other round the neck,

And titter'd for delight, To see the yellow daffodils,

And see the daisies white ; They roU'd upon the grassy slopes

And drank the water clear, While 'buses the Embankment took,

Ashamed to pass a-near ; And sandwich-men stood still aghast,

And costermongers smiled ; And a policeman on his beat

Pass'd, weeping like a child.

Thomas Ashe, A Vision of Children.

Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.— /f-^zw of Nazareth.

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CHAPTER VII THE VOICE OF THE CHILD

Woman and International Life— The voice of the child— Recent Inter- national Congresses — "Economic Law" — Human needs and the coming race — Two ideals of Nationalism— The child mind and mother love in International Life.

WHETHER or not women are to have any share in international politics is a question we need no longer ask. It is true that, even to-day, there are a large number of women — and this is a fact that women who lead in public life are apt to ignore — who not only consider that they personally ought not to concern themselves with questions of high politics, and international relations, but still insist that such matters are too abstruse and complicated for women to grasp, and that they had better not attempt to do so. It is true that such questions are complicated and difficult, so true that one is inclined to think that the wish to avoid trouble is father to the thought, on the part of those women who urge that such matters are not for them.

No woman, however, who truly reflects upon the suffering of the last seven years, calling to mind that the men who fought and died, cried again and again

that they were giving their lives to secure peace for

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84 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

future generations, should, in sheer loyalty to our dead and to the unborn child, dare to refuse a share in safely establishing the peace that has been so dearly bought. A young ex-service Member of the House of Commons last year, when deprecating some bellicose action towards Ireland, which was contemplated by the Government, reminded the House that crime could not be defeated by the army alone. " Why not ? " cried some of the members,

" Because," he replied, " we young men in France fought for peace."

Women suffered and were willing to give their lives, during the war, but in actual point of fact they did not die as our men did. Now, however, the call comes to all to LIVE that peace may be established for future generations. Those who refuse to consider the complicated and difficult ques- tions that will make for peace, are betraying not only the trust of little children, but a sacred trust bequeathed by those who perished.

It is often asserted that the advent of women into the political arena of National and International life, will result in the creation of far happier relations among the nations than have hitherto obtained. The conviction is growing daily amongst many that in looking to a new Internationalism as the path to future peace, and the extension of the Kingdom of God, we must turn away from governments, politicians, and priests, to woman and the people.

And here be it noted that the phrase " woman and the people " is used. " Surely," the reader will say,

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 85

" woman is a section of the people." True. The reason why we distinguish thus is that there is good reason to suppose that woman will, to a large extent, lead in the creation of a new international- ism. It has been emphasized again and again by various writers, that women in the mass have a deeper care for the race than have men, and also that women think and build more for the future than for the immediate present, while, generally speaking, the immediate present is all important to the masculine mind. The mother heart has awakened to beat for lands and nations, instead of for family and home alone.

The phrase " mother heart " has often been spoken in so weak and sentimental a fashion, that its solid, practical significance has been lost. Its potency is just a plain fact of life, which, when it is allied with knowledge and brought into the arena of interna- tional politics, will change things. The mother heart expresses the voice of the child, the cry of the yet unborn. The mother heart itself, potent though it be, is not enough. The mind must be alert to explore facts in the service of the heart. It is to-day so alert ; and this must mean a far-reaching change in international relations and understanding. Women, in the mass, have hitherto had little knowledge of the needs of their own people, barely even a glimmer of the colossal nature of tho.se needs. They have lived, and many still live, in abysmal ignorance as to social and political conditions. " Knowledge," wrote Catherine de Pisan, " is that which can change the mortal into the immortal," and when the heart is awakened and know-

86 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

ledge gained, then the impossible can come to pass.

Let us consider actual facts. Can it be said that women, when they meet in International gatherings to-day, give by their spoken words and acts any warrant for the belief that, when they have a share in moulding national and in- ternational life, then only will their true ideals be revealed ?

Last year several International Congresses of women were held, and it is impossible to look at the reports of these Congresses without seeing that new notes were struck. A non-political International Congress is no new thing. For generations Europe has built up its economic life on an international basis. Innumerable Congresses have been called for the purposes of trade. As in Palestine two thousand years ago, men of all nations, whether in sympathy with one another or not, have met for the furtherance of international trade.

In the main, however, and as of old, these Congresses have been called by those whose chief concern was the building up of incomes. Men of one nation in their thousands have entered into business connections with men of other nations. Economic relations have become international simply and only because it paid better. There has been little that is stable at the back of these relations. Men of different nations, destitute often even of any desire to understand each other spiritually, have met again and again for the furtherance of trade. They have united on economic grounds in their pursuit of wealth, not for themselves individually, let it be said,

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 87

but often at true personal sacrifice, for their nations and their homes. The bond, however, which is created merely for mutual material gain perishes in every storm. Man does not live by bread alone ! Deep in his heart he knows this, but in his actions he continually denies it, and in his international relations is ever struggling over material gain. It is clear that nations can never have a unity, worth anything at all, which is built solely upon economic grounds. Still less on economic grounds as often interpreted by those who continually quote an idea they call " economic law." Both national and inter- national business has been built on a dogmatic assertion, which has been popularly called " eco- nomic law " — namely, that self-interest is the only potent force that compels men to give their best in work. This has been accepted as an actual law by no true thinker, but the followers of great economists have made the assertion and dignified it with the term " law." This which is often called an " econo- mic law " is little more or less than a moral, or, as some would say, an immoral postulate.

In such an assertion as this does not man malign his own manhood ?

It is well to question such a statement, perhaps it is well even to smile a little at certain high-browed individuals who make dogmatic assertions and cover up poverty of thought by high-sounding phrases. For it is possible for those of learning and university fame even, with richly endowed intellects, to have but poverty-stricken minds. The statement that self-interest is the only really potent factor in human

88 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

life is surely not a law, economic or otherwise. It is clear that there can be no peace in industrial, national, or international life unless policy of action is based on truer and more human thought. The mother has more real knowledge of economics than many a learned student of the subject. Her know- ledge comes from practical experience.

The reports of the Congresses of Women held last year reveal plainly the fact that the theory of self-interest was ignored. The well-being of all nations was the real concern of those present, rather than each delegate being mainly concerned for the welfare of the country to which she belonged. The (very natural) feeling of antagonism, between those nations which had recently been enemies, was tran- scended by a common passion for the well-being of the coming race. In one gathering a French woman made a moving appeal to all, to do their utmost to save the perishing children of Germany and Austria. As these women spoke on the needs of all nations, their thoughts did not centre on frontiers, tariffs, and the protection of trade ; though many were poverty- stricken indeed, and some actually showed pathetic signs of hunger and want. One, in a masterly address, called upon those of all nations to educate the children to a truer understanding of the peoples of the world. A woman uttered the words, but it was the voice of the coming race that spoke. It was not laxity of morals, but the welfare of the yet unborn, that prompted all present, at two of the Congresses, to plead that the illegitimate child should have the same right, to maintenance and education from its father, as the legitimate child. Every speech.

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every expressed desire for action, centred on true human needs and the coming race. They were there to make international life more humane, to give it a soul. To listen was to feel that here was a band of people who were bringing, into international life, a new era of human relationships. Every utterance revealed the fact that they were there to join countries to- gether by a common aim for the welfare of all nations.

It is true that other International Congresses have met since the war, with more or less the same aim, though in none of them has there been such concen- trated thought on the childhood of the race. More- over, they have been gatherings of political parties, Labour and Socialists. The significant fact in the International Women's Congresses referred to has been that women of all parties were present, some belonging to the most reactionary, others to the quite moderate, and some to the advanced party. They were, however, united in all their work, for they were aiming at that which transcends all party.

There are two ideals of nationalism commonly held. The one centres, and is persuaded that it rightly centres, in the aggrandisement of its own country, in its own sole welfare. This type of nationalist thinks much of frontiers, tariffs, and protection ; the reason often being — not necessarily an entirely selfish one — that those who represent this type are persuaded that the nation, to which they belong, knows better than any other how to put such things as wealth and power to their best use. This Nationalist aims more or less, as did the Jews of

90 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

old, at monopoly and exclusiveness ; those who give homage to it rest in their privileges and, even if they do not deprive other nations of good things, have, when they have seen their need, often passed by on the other side. To them the language of the prophets is stern.

The alternative ideal of Nationalism is quite other than that described above. It realizes the " oneness " of all nations, their interdependence on each other, and seeks the common weal of all, and in its own national way seeks to lead in promoting the welfare of all, knowing that so only does Nationalism find its true end. The Nationalism that unites us is, as is evident in the teaching of Christ and Paul, the Nationalism of Christian thought.

This does not mean — no one could be so foolish as to think it could mean — that the countries that hold this ideal of Nationalism would lose their characteristics, that which is their peculiar heritage, that which differentiates the nations one from another.

Clear reflection will show that national differences and characteristics can no more be lost, because the nations unite in a common aim, than can individuals lose their personality, because they are bound together in a common cause. Nationality, patriotism, we are learning, at long last, is a spiritual inherit- ance ; not love or pride for an ever-growing Empire. Patriotism has often been made an excuse for in- dulging in ugly passions. Into the elements of true patriotism nothing ugly can enter. It is a significant fact that the greatest word uttered during the war, the word that had in it the most true ring of

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 91

prophecy, was spoken by a woman — by no warrior, by no statesman, by no Bishop or leader in the Church, but by a woman, who in utter loneliness was facing death. Edith Cavell must have been very near the heart of Jesus when she uttered the words : " Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realize patriotism is not enough ; there must be no hatred, no bitterness in my heart against any one." Thus she raised Patriotism to its true level, for love must be at the root of both Patriotism and true Nationalism. This is a truth which thought for the coming race brings forth again and again at the Women's Congresses. It has often been said that the spirit of Nationalism makes for war. That is true, not of the real Nationalism, but of its counterfeit.

When the desire — not for successful trade — but for monopoly and exclusiveness is evident, at that moment the real thing vanishes and its counterfeit appears. It is across this idea of Nationalism — the counterfeit, that has passed current so long as the true coin — that the Christian ideal cuts, as we have already seen, like a sword.

The mother is the true economist ; she realizes that no section of the human family can with justice to others, or benefit to itself, enjoy advantages withheld from other members : and that an attitude of indifference in any of the great family to the welfare of others brings a slow but sure deteriora- tion in the deepest part of its own nature. The self-satisfaction which inevitably follows the mono- poly of privileges, acts as a moral poison to a nation.

92 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Women, whether consciously Christian or not, have brought and are bringing into life relations between the nations, more in harmony with Christian ethics than have hitherto existed. The reason, being love for the universal child, dominates desire for gain ; it always comes first, whether the woman be young or old, married or unmarried — the care of and thought for the little ones of the race, as well as of those yet unborn, transcends other considerations, and makes an international link not easily to be broken. The health of the coming race, the educa- tion of the child, both moral and spiritual (indeed, in true education these cannot be divided), into whose little hands will fall so soon the destinies of countless others, is the ruling force in these international Congresses. It is the voice of the coming race speaking through the women of the world, it is the voice of the child speaking through the mother. The child, though knowing little, is strangely wise.

One aged five and a half years was told the other day that certain land belonged to the King, whereupon, with a puzzled expression, she cried,

" The land can't belong to the King, Daddy, he didn't make it."

The father, ready no doubt to nip such strange ideas in the bud, at once explained that things do not necessarily belong to you because you make them. He pointed out to her that things belong to people when they have bought them. Whereupon Five-and-a-half promptly replied, " But you can't buy land from God."

Students of Mill will recognize that Five-and-a-half had got to the root of what Mill said about the

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 93

justification of private property in general, but the non-justification of private property in natural agents.

Darling little cousin,

With your thoughtful look,

Reading topsy-turvy From a printed book

English hieroglyphics,

More mysterious To you, than Egyptian

Ones would be to us.

Read on ! If you knew it.

You have cause to boast. You are much the wiser

Though I know the most.*

There is, of course, no thought of entering here into the question upon which the little one gave her views. The incident, a true one, is recorded to show how children — as indeed do those who are not over-educated — come to know certain things with- out understanding the steps by which they arrive at their knowledge. The child voice needs to be heard in the councils of the world. It is the mother who voices the inarticulate needs of the child and the Coming Race. Isaiah in a passage of great beauty likens the love, that alone will save the nations, to the " little mother birds hovering " over their young, to protect them from the savage hawk ; and in doing so he foreshadowed the saying of One greater than himself. Who when He spoke of that which alone would have saved a nation from its doom, used a like simile of the mother love : " O Jerusalem, ' Christina Rossetti.

94 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not."

The interest of the mother is for the race, her thought for the future. She must see to it that the reactionary spirit, which to-day has taken hold of so many, does not succeed in excluding her from using all she has to give in national and international life. The type of person who would relegate women to domestic affairs in the narrowest sense of that word, has not perished. There are those who even to-day would, if they could, defeat all women's efforts for wider service.

It is well for women to remember to-day, and pray God they may do so, that if they allow themselves to suffer defeat, now in this generation, in their international aims, those who are little ones to-day, children — millions of all races — will for many generations be robbed of their heritage. How foolish was the thought so prevalent at one time, that women when they came into political power would ape men ! The far-seeing ones knew that such an idea was contrary to reason, we now know it to be contrary to experience. The National ideal which has concentrated on tariffs, armies, and frontiers, has often been followed with self-sacrifice and heroism which call from all, both men and women alike, admiration which none can withhold. But it has not made for peace. The Internationalism, heralded two thousand years ago, is the only one that can give an abiding peace, for that was founded on sheer love for the human race, and it is this that woman, in response to the silent voice of the child,

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 95

is called upon to bring into international life. This she is already beginning to do and will yet more perfectly accomplish in the near future. It is surely possible that by new international thought, which women are already helping to bring into the world, the dreadful social conditions of to-day, as well as the records of wars, with all their attendant horrors, will be to our children the records of an evil dream that can return no more.

CHAPTER VIII A GREAT DELUSION

Some poet, I forget which it is, has said :

"Religion, freedom, vengeance, what you will, A word's enough to raise mankind to kill ; Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed."

"Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread," like the cunning phrase of "balance of power" which has been de- scribed as the ghastly phantom which the Government has been pursuing for two centuries, and has never yet overtaken.

John Bright.

By thy sorceries were all the nations deceived.

Rev. xviii, 23.

CHAPTER VIII A GREAT DELUSION

Great Powers and small nations — A new prophet — The Balance of Power — A Great Delusion — An alternative — The Victor and the Vanquished.

A SMALL nation between two great Powers. How familiar is the situation ! It re- appears throughout the history of the world, in Europe and elsewhere. The small country between the two powerful ones is a buffer state. The very existence of such a state has always been in continual danger. The feelings of the inhabitants of the small state, between the two powerful ones, have always been very much what one would imagine the feelings of a lamb to be, when standing between a lion and a tiger 1

Should one of the powerful nations on either side get just a little more power, immediately there is alarm, alarm in the small nation and beyond it. Outside Powers then plot and plan to outpower the Power that is becoming more powerful. The little nation — the small Power — thinks that it too must plot and plan to keep the balance of the Powers even, and thus retain the small amount of power it possesses as well as life and peace. This policy, now beginning to appear to modern eyes strangely

99

100 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

crude, strangely futile, has nevertheless guided the destinies of nations for many a long day. The theory that to secure the peace of the world there must be an equal balance of the great nations, known as the Balance of Power, is of hoary antiquity and has been most potent in European national life during the past hundred years. And it still exists to-day. Again it is well to ask ourselves if a change of thought is here possible. It will be said that there is the League of Nations, and therefore the theory of the necessity of the " balance of power" must, at long last, perish. The reply, however, to that comforting thought which will be given by others is, that even if the League becomes powerfully operative yet, in extremity, man's heart is always the same, and nothing can prevent secret or indeed openly defensive alliances being made to secure an equal balance of power. The theory of the necessity of a " balance of power " has always existed and will, it is alleged, continue in spite of the League of Nations.

The statement that a custom, or habit of thought, cannot be changed, because it has been persisted in and acted upon for ages, has been made — and vehemently made — whenever men have struggled for an advance in freedom of thought and life. Its falseness has been proved so often, that it is difficult to believe there can be many people to-day so blind to the facts of history, and of human experience, as to reiterate it. Though the policy of the balance of power, as a security for peace, has held its own for so long it has not done so — and it is here that we find hope for the future —

A GREAT DELUSION loi

without the protests of far-seeing, inspired men. A hero — who was also a patriot — raised his voice with passionate pleading against the policy long, long ago. He has long since perished in the flesh, but his spirit is alive and calls to the world to-day. No patriot suffered more for his country, no hero loved the land of his birth more passionately, no poet poured forth his protests in sublimer verse than did he. Torn with suffering as he watched the material policy and the blindness of the nation to which he belonged, passionately realizing that in plotting for balance of power his nation was losing its noblest and truest heritage, this patriot spoke in days gone by in no uncertain tones. Again and again, in the midst of storms of obloquy from his own people whom he sought to save, again and again in spite of cruel humiliation from those for whom he was prepared to give his very life, this poet-hero unflinchingly denounced what he knew must lead to war and still more war.

Belonging as he did to a small nation between two great Powers — indeed, the small Jewish nation had three great Powers on her borders, for on the north lay the Pan-Syrian Power — seeing the danger clearly of one of those great Powers overrunning his land, yet, in phrases of immortal beauty, he called upon his people to trust in the right rather than, by allying themselves to the other great Power, cling to material strength.

Isaiah, the hero-poet of Jerusalem, nearly three thousand years ago, raised his voice and denounced with inspired eloquence the practice of the Balance of Power.

102 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

The Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah, thorough oppor- tunists, tried to preserve their own country, by balancing the rival Powers against one another.

It was the old story. When the Egyptian or Pan-Syrian Power became stronger than Assyria, Judah sought alliance with Assyria to keep the balance true. When Assyria was the most powerful, Judah, following the custom of all nations, sought alliance with Egypt. The doctrine of the Balance of Power, followed by the whole of Christendom, comes from the remotest past : it is a relic of a primitive development in spiritual life.

In words of burning eloquence Isaiah cried out against the futility of such a policy. Neither Tolstoi nor any " communist " of to-day, or in days gone by, has lifted up his voice against the arrogance of wealth, and against the military spirit, against the Balance of Power, as did that inspired prophet of God, Isaiah of Jerusalem. The covenant with Assyria, made by Ahaz, to balance the Pan-Syrian Power, and the covenant with Egypt which Hezekiah made to be even with Assyria, these he denounced in plain terms as COVENANTS WITH DEATH AND HELL. In the following passage of majestic wrath he cries out against the alliance with Egypt, not because he knew Egypt to be not so strong as was supposed, but because again and again he calls upon his nation to trust in the laws of truth and righteousness, rather than in armed military force :

" Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, executing a policy, but it is not from Me; and weaving a web, but not of My Spirit ; that they

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may heap sin upon sin ; who set themselves on the way to go down to Egypt, and at My Mouth they have not inquired, to flee to the refuge of Pharaoh, and to hide themselves in the shadow of Egypt. But the refuge of Pharaoh shall be unto you for shame, and the hiding in the shadow of Egypt for confusion,"

The prophet-hero of Jerusalem long ago went to his eternal rest. But his voice is alive to-day. We have yet to learn the truth proclaimed so long ago by Isaiah, and to put our trust in something higher than the Balance of Power, which from the remotest past has proved useless for the prevention of wars.

It is true that the policy has been followed by us, and other nations, in the belief that it ensured the peace of the world. Wrong thinking ever clothes itself as an angel of light, and indeed, on the surface, it must be admitted that there is something to be said for the Balance of Power. No one can deny that it has succeeded in putting off, for a time, wars that threatened to take place, but the result of the policy has been the piling up of military force, the accumulation of weapons of destruction, with the consequence that far from preventing war, it pre- pares itself inevitably to precipitate wars of more terrible proportions.

How slow we are to learn ! This truth has been demonstrated in the history of the world again and again. When Isaiah first denounced the alliance Ahaz made with Assyria to balance the Syro- Ephraim Power, it did not prevent, but merelydelayed, a war which was all the more terrible when it came.

I04 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

In more recent times Pitt's whole policy was the aggrandisement of Austria — of the House of Hapsburg — as a counterpoise to the power of France ; to-day we see what a curse the Hapsburg Dynasty has been to the whole of Europe.

" By her sorceries," i.e. the sorceries of Evil, " have all the nations of the world been deceived." ^

Isaiah foreshadowed the truth, taught more fully by a Greater than he, that to follow the higher laws of the Spirit will not only ennoble a nation, but will solve the very problems in which it fails so lamentably, when trust is put in the Balance of Power teaching — in the arm of flesh. Even the alliances between nations do not, necessarily, imply fellowship, or thought one for another. An alliance is often made solely because the common fear of a great Power has become stronger than mutual dislike and distrust one for another.

The non-Christian thinking, which lies at the root of this policy, has led Christendom into a course of action that has little noble in it, and precipitates the very evil it seeks to avoid.

What, then, is the alternative?

Is it not true, as a point of fact, that if to-day one great nation decided not to attempt to keep up her military force, she would probably find herself at a woeful disadvantage in the Councils of the nations, and so destroy an influence that might be used for the welfare of all ?

Perhaps that is true — some will say undoubtedly it is true.

Even so we need not despair. The solution of

^ Rev. xviii. 23.

A GREAT DELUSION 105

the problem lies farther back than in the display or non-display of great armaments. It lies in the realm of thought, and if nations begin to think differently the piling up of armaments will cease to be necessary. It is appearing more and more evident that the only solution of the difficulty before us is a new nation- alism, founded on Christian ethics. This will in- evitably lead to a new Internationalism, standing for comprehension and co-operation between the nations of the world. This will not be easy of achievement, but the mere fact of aiming at such a goal will bring the nations of the world into closer sympathy with one another.

It is necessary to face what is bound to happen if this is not attempted.

Just in so far as we persistently believe that the interests of the different nations must be conflicting, will the belief in the necessity of a Balance of Power be held ; but ever since the days of Isaiah, history shows that it leads to, and does not prevent, war. As long as each nation is persuaded that its own well-being is secured, by concentrating on what has hitherto been called " national " aims and interest, so long will the policy of the Balance of Power con- tinue, with its inevitable corollary, the endless piling up of arms, which invariably has led to terrible wars.

To-day it is impossible to reconcile a National life built on such a policy with the Christian spirit.

It is clear that in this the nations must act together, but again let it be said a greater responsi- bility lies with the Victor than with the Vanquished. The call comes, as from the mouth of God to every

io6 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

Christian, every human being of good will, to Eng- land to-day, to respond to the summons to a new nationalism built on Christian thought, and thus to strengthen it in the other countries of the world. It will not really be a new nationalism, for it will be inspired by the teaching of the great Internation- alist, Who was in the midst of circumstances as com- plicated as are ours to-day, and Who proclaimed His teaching when military power was at its height.

Unwillingly surely, unknowingly certainly, the nations by the sorceries of selfish thinking, skilfully clothed in altruistic garb, have, as nations, ignored His teaching : they have been deceived, and have thus become enslaved to a course of action that, if per- sisted in, will bring agony to our children, ruin a world of human beings, and finally wreck what there is of Christian civilization to-day. The Balance of Power policy is founded on the spirit of fear — fear begets hate, hate begets armaments, armaments beget titanic wars ; moreover, fear is a spirit that blinds and enslaves. The nations have been blinded to the truth that the Master taught, of the " oneness " of the human race, and have forged themselves the very chains by which they have been enslaved.

Is it fanciful to think that the voice of Christ, which, like the sounding of many waters, is never silent, is saying to the nations to-day :

" Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Perhaps like them of old, many to-day, filled with a sense of their power, will indignantly reply :

" How sayest Thou, Ye shall be free ? We have never been slaves to any man."

A GREAT DELUSION 107

But others, seeing more clearly, will, perhaps, recognize that the worst form of slavery is when those who are in bondage know it not. Christendom has been in bondage — and, merciful God, how it has suffered in that bondage ! — to non-Christian thought in its national life. Christendom has sought for national welfare in exclusiveness and monopoly : it has failed to recognize that the nations of the world are " members one of another," and that great refusal has entailed the piling up of arms to secure its aims.

To-day, in spite of much gloomy prognostication to the contrary, in spite of the fact that there is cause for anxiety in our own land, yet there is a deepening and strengthening of Christian principles and moral feelings among the people which will surely lead to a new nationalism. True it is that in certain parts of the world the opposite seems to be the case just now, especially perhaps in the nations that have lately found their freedom, where it cannot be denied that the nationalistic spirit, not in its highest sense, is evident. The task that surely lies before us to-day is to bring our own country to respond to the Christian ideal of national life. If the nations who have recently won their freedom show an exuberance of nationalistic spirit which is embarrassing to us and to other nations, the call comes for simple patience. We cannot condemn others, the light is only breaking slowly upon our- selves ; the darkness that lingers in the world to-day on the ideals of national and international life has too long been our own, and for us the full light of day has yet to come.

CHAPTER IX RELIGION AND POLITICS

109

Prisoner, tell me who was it that wrought this chain ? It was I, said the Prisoner, who forged this chain. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive, leaving me in a freedom un- disturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete, I found it held me in its grip.

Rabindranath Tagore.

Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their tears. A Saying of the Rabbis.

He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives.

Jesus of Nazareth.

CHAPTER IX RELIGION AND POLITICS

" No religion in Politics" — The simple meaning of Politics— Political functions and religious ends — What is meant by religious ideals — Christian principles and legislation — The economics of the Old and New Testament — True wealth.

SOME eighty years ago an eminent statesman of the Victorian age was remonstrated with by one of his friends on account of a certain line of action, which the statesman proposed to adopt, in an entirely personal matter. His friend remarked that such a course of action was contrary to the most elementary Christian principles.

" A pretty pass we have come to," replied the statesman, " if religion is to invade the sphere of private life."

How naive and amusing is such a remark ! The statesman evidently resented the idea that religion was to have any effect upon the private life of an individual ; to him it was as a great work of art, to be respected from — and kept at — a distance. Few would associate themselves with such a sentiment to-day, but there are many who say there must be no religion in politics, and perhaps to a succeeding generation such a sentiment will sound as delightfully absurd as the stateman's views sound to us to-day.

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" No religion in politics " has been said again and again, as though politics must necessarily be so unclean a business that it is beyond any power to purify them. What a weak idea of the dynamic force of religion those who utter such a cry must possess ! That there should be no religion in politics is not necessarily the cry of the godless and indifferent. It has been said — and applauded — in tones of utmost piety, as though the speaker were in some way defending a precious citadel, defending all that is good and pure, indeed almost as though the speaker were defending God Himself

Must not this thought, that there is to be no religion in politics, be challenged amongst other statements if we can hope for better and purer national life ? Of course, strictly speaking, to have no religion in politics is an impossibility, for religion is ultimately God, and no man either in private or public life can really banish Him. We have in literature a graphic description of an attempt to evade God :

Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ?

Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven Thou art there :

If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there shall Thy hand lead me,

And Thy right hand shall hold me.^

Instead of there being no religion in politics, it appears clearer, day by day, that the only hope of future national politics is to bring the best of religious life into the very heart of them.

^ Ps. cxxxix.

RELIGION AND POLITICS 113

And here let us pause a moment to consider what politics are. They have been looked upon, too much, as something remote from the intimate and personal life of the human units that go to the make-up of a nation. Politics are the making

OF OUR LAWS, AND THE MAKING OF LAWS IS SIMPLY THE PUTTING INTO OPERATION THE COR- PORATE WILL OF THE NATION.

Individually those same human beings, which compose the nation, desire — for surely the majority of mankind do so desire — that their personal actions should approximate to some religious ideal. Then, is it not a strange thing that when these same individuals combine to put their common will into operation, so creating a machinery called politics, they should shun the attempt to approximate common will to a religious ideal ? Yet that is what the cry, " There should be no religion in politics," really comes to. Such an idea amounts, in simple language, to something like the following :

" I am willing — nay, desirous — to own the Christ ideal individually, but into the making of laws I am not willing to make the sacrifices that such an ideal requires, for the welfare of others."

Of one thing, however, it is well to beware.

There is all the difference in the world between bringing Christianity into politics, in which lies our greatest hope, and bringing politics into Church life. The last implies one of the greatest evils, an evil which was reduced to a fine art in the State Lutheran Church in Germany throughout the war, and was not unknown in our own Churches. It has happened again and again in every Christian

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country, that the State, for its own purposes of self- aggrandisement, has, as it were, " commandeered " the Churches, and brought pressure upon them, to conceal the policy of selfish interests under high- sounding phrases and religious phraseology.

This spells death to the true religious ideal.

Very different, however, is the bringing of Christian principles and the religious ideal into the heart of political life. This will bring the true life to the nation. Politics are nothing more nor less than concerted action, dealing with things both domestic and world-wide. They deal with the sale of milk, of coal, the paying of wages, the education of children ; and such concerns as these, whether we will or not, take us direct into national and international life. Is it not strange that there should ever have been said, " No religion in politics " ? This has been the cry both of the politicians and of the religious people. It has often been assumed that the two streams — of religion and politics — must flow apart.

Both the politician and the religious-minded man have in general maintained the idea that the political and religious streams must flow separate the one from the other.

A change is at hand. Men and women with religious ideals are beginning to realize that Chris- tianity, in corporate action, is of such dynamic power that it can reach the sources of misery and remove them ; that it can reach the sources of crime — not only preach the doctrine of forgiveness to the criminal — and to a large extent eliminate it. Politicians, with the aid of woman's vision,

RELIGION AND POLITICS 115

that she is already bringing, and will to a greater degree bring, into political life, are realizing that political functions are entrusted to them for religious ends. The divorce of the two, though it be from a sense of reverence — a reverence, however, which must surely ignore the supreme truth of the Incarnation — must cease, for politics apart from religious ideals and faith lead a nation to disaster.

It is easy to speak of ideals, of religion : the words can slip off the tongue or the pen with almost fatal facility.

What is meant by the religious ideal ?

Are not religious ideals the love of wJiat ought to be} Is not the habitation of such ideals the Divine Mind ?

All ideals — all high ideals even — are not necessarily religious. Some high ideals involve contradictions, even absurdities. Perhaps it is well here to recall Thomas a Kempis' pregnant saying : " Not all that is high is holy." The attempt, for instance, to crush the flesh entirely, that the spirit may live, may be a high ideal, but it is not a holy one, for perfection lies in the harmony of the two, which alone is truly holy. Again, the attempt to crush emotion so that the will alone shall rule, may be a high ideal, but it is not a holy one, indeed it is false, for holiness, again, lies in the right adjust- ment of the emotion and the will.

Yet, on the other hand, to condemn ideals, as vague and visionary, because they appear to be impossible of achievement, cannot be the attitude of one with the religious sense. It is, of course,

ii6 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

obvious that the larger the society is, that seeks to build its corporate life upon Christian principles and the Christian ideal, the more difficult this is of achievement. To build the whole of national life, with the complexity of its organization, on Christian ideals, is more difficult than it would be so to build the life of a small society. Again, it is only wise to recognize that the achievement of such an aim is yet more difficult, in the complicated machinery of international, than in national life. Yet the complete ideal must ever be strenuously aimed at, with intelligence and faith, so as to deter- mine the direction of effort. If the direction of effort is continuously right, what man is there that can dare to say what is, and what is not, possible ?

The crying need of political life is simple Christianity. The Christian is realizing to-day that it is impossible to keep out of politics, and unthinkable that in his political life he should leave his religion behind.

There are laws of the land to-day, that are opposed to good thinking and Christian principles. These will remain unaltered as long as attention is paid to the cry — " No religion in politics." Those who seek to bind up the broken-hearted, to let the oppressed go free, are again and again compelled to work through the political machinery, sometimes even party machinery ; for moral questions such as child labour, and the drink traffic, become political ones when dealt with from a national point of view. Every political question, every party question even — and we dare not refuse to face that fact — is

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ultimately based upon a principle, which may or may not be a Christian one, and which is either right or wrong. It is true that there are earnest Christians, as a rule, taking different sides on a difficult question — as in the slave trade, which became a party question — but that fact must not blind men and women to a yet greater fact, that there is a side on which God stands. There is a right path and a wrong one, difficult very often to discern at the time, but which in the course of history is relentlessly revealed. Is it not then impossible to have legislation, approximating to the Christian ideal, unless religion is taken right jnto the heart of political life ?

But in political life, it will be said, comes a rigid something called Economic law, which is unalterably independent of religious thought or sentimental considerations, such as neighbourly love or the brotherliness of nations. Christianity does not touch on such questions as economic law, which is a vital reality in our complex national life.

Is THIS TRUE ?

Not only in the New Testament, but in the Old, there is plenty of sound teaching on economic law, for those who have the eyes to see and the under- standing heart.

In the law, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadcth out the corn," there is a wealth of economic teaching. He who works should have sufficient — nay, abundance — to eat. " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads the corn." Our economic life is such, that men who have worked, and women too, even more tragically, have in-

Ii8 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

sufficient to eat. The elementary law laid down of old for the animals of the field, that the worker should have abundant food, has not been obeyed where human beings are concerned. This law is not only simple justice, but will prove to be ultimately the soundest of economics. Not only has this law not been obeyed as far as human beings are concerned in our national life, but for lack of religious ideals in political and industrial life, it has hardly been attempted. The separation between religion and politics has made a dis- harmony, between the social philosophy of the nation and its current morality — let alone its religious life. This unnatural separation has been maintained, by the traditional, parrot-like cry that there should be " no religion in politics." Men and women who have instinctively realized that there need be no such want of harmony, have been alarmed by the talk of economic necessity, and so have distrusted the social ethics of their own faith. That distrust is passing slowly away, and men are beginning to realize that when religion and politics flow in one stream, there is hope for a truer and more righteous economic life of the nation.

Christ's teaching on economic law is yet more advanced than that of the Old Testament.

A group of men are hanging listlessly about, loafers, no doubt, and they are challenged with the searching question :

" Why stand ye here all the day idle ? " And in a flash comes the simple reply : " Because no man hath hired us."

RELIGION AND POLITICS 119

The day is far spent. The men cannot do much work, but they are taken on and, behold, at the end of the day they receive not what they have literally earned, but having worked in so far as they were able, they receive according to their need.

In the face of such a parable as this, can it truly be said that Christianity has no teaching for the economist ? The teaching is clear and calls for attention from all Christian folk to-day. It is that the quality of the human beings the nation produces is literally its truest wealth. The entry of religion into political life will surely result in a new law, which will prove to be the best of all economics : " They who would work shall have enough." This is not materialism ; unrest to-day may have its materialistic side, but its strength lies in the fact that it is fundamentally a rebellion against a non- moral, non-Christian economic organization. When shall we be at rest, when will poverty on the one side, and luxury on the other, cease? This is the cry that comes to-day from almost every human heart.

And the reply ?

There seems to be but one answer. They will not cease until it is realized that the laws of the spiritual world can, and must, be allowed to rule in all departments of human life — not excluding the political. Legislators and politicians, and indeed most of us, are apt to ignore the fact of the spiritual nature of men, when thought of in the mass. Normal conversation shows that the spiritual nature of mankind is more often than not lost in the economic standpoint. Men are spoken of in the aggregate as hands, stokers, miners ; perhaps in a

120 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

sense that is inevitable, yet, to refer to them in no other way does indicate that they are being thought of purely from the economic point of view. It is only when a catastrophe occurs, such as a mine or factory explosion, that human beings in the mass are thought of and spoken of as souls. We have looked to trades and mines alone for economic wealth, and, lo ! we are learning that economic wealth lies in the content and well-being, both moral and spiritual, of the people.

Man is a spiritual being, in the mass as in the individual, and civilization is built upon a system — for lack of religion in politics — that ignores the spiritual nature of man, and does not recognize the law of the spiritual kingdom. We have built our corporate national life, as did the Jews of old, upon the traditions of men. Our traditions, it is true, are different ; they have been summed up in such terms as balance of power and economic law. Do not such traditions fail to recognize that a spiritual basis of society can alone satisfy spiritual beings ?

Nationally, as all will admit, it has simply not been believed that the spiritual laws of Christ, the principles on which He founded His teaching, either could, or were meant to, run through all departments of human life.

In days gone by men and women were urged to follow Christ, to ensure happiness in the world to come. There surely is a world to come when every one will be called upon to render an account of themselves, yet :

Ah ! Christ, if there were no hereafter It still were best to follow Thee,

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is a true guide for the statesmen, politicians, and the people. To follow His ethical teaching in national life will mean sacrifice, sacrifice of much that the nations have cherished as signs of power and strength. But the gain — immeasurable. The bringing of religion into the heart of politics — which, as has been stated, is just the machinery for putting into action the corporate will of the people — will bring a new sense of values to the nation, a recognition of the spiritual nature of man. Nations will then learn, at long last, that to produce a noble quality of human beings is the truest of all wealth, and that Ruskin was no false prophet when he said : " I can imagine in some far-away hour England may cast off all thought of possessive wealth back to the barbarous nations among whom such first arose. That she, as a Christian mother, may at last be able to lead forth her sons, saying, * These are my jewels.' "

CHAPTER X REPENT!

But so few are Thinkers ? Ay, Reader, so few think ; there is the rub ! Not one in a thousand has the smallest turn for thinking ; only for passive dreaming and hearsaying and active babbling by rote, Carlvle.

To think well is to ser\'e God in the interior court,

Thomas Traherne.

As a man thinketh, so is he. — Proverbs,

CHAPTER X REPENT !

Its meaning, "Change your mind" — " Si vis pacem, para bellum" — There never has been peace — Maxim and his gun — The call on science — *' Human nature " continually maligned — Man in image of God.

THE following incident is recorded as having occurred when Dr. Temple was Headmaster of Rugby. A boy appeared before him with a problem of Euclid, which the lad was supposed to have solved. The attempted solution was but a muddle from start to finish. In spite of that fact the boy had written triumphantly at the foot of the paper, " Q.E.D.," which, being interpreted, is a state- ment that the problem is solved.

" My boy," said Temple, horrified at the hopeless muddle the lad had made, " you must think."

" I did think, sir," the boy sadly replied.

" Well, think again, and think differently this time," said Temple kindly.

The boy disappeared. He thought again, and differently that time ; ere long he returned with the problem solved.

" Repent " is the first message that in His public ministry fell from the lips of Christ. It has in-

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variably been interpreted as a call to penitence for sin. The meaning of the word Repent may include penitence for wrong-doing, but it certainly is not its primary meaning. Think again, think differently. Change your mind, is the first call of the Master to the world ; Metanoeo is " to change one's views," and, using the imperative tense. He came with an imperative call. Alas ! that the full meaning of His message should, so generally, have been interpreted as what was only a part of it. It is impossible to be sorry for sin, wrong-doing, until the mind is changed.

Galilee has been depicted — as it was in the days of Christ — so like what the world is to-day ; and we have tried to realize that His is a literal message, not for individuals alone, but for corporate national life. Knowing and understanding well the social and political evils of His day, being more concerned than we are about them, He enunciated principles, proclaimed a teaching, that could bear, and was meant to bear, directly on the national evils of His day, so like what they are in ours. " Change your mind," think differently, is His first message, because the Kingdom of Heaven is not a beautiful dream, but near at hand, close beside us, and by change of thought and heart we can enter into it. But before different thinking can even begin to be vital, even begin to bear the smallest of fruit, it is necessary to change certain thoughts which have always been, and are still to-day, generally held throughout Christendom. Nor, as long as they hold their own amongst the nations, can we speak of a new Inter- nationalism. Such thought must perish if new life

REPENT! 127

and understanding are to come. Every time the word Repent is used here it will be used in the sense in which Christ used it — " change your mind."

" Si vis pacem, para bellum," which, being inter- preted, is, " If you want peace, prepare for war," is a saying that has held in its paralysing grip the minds of nations all down the ages.

Repent ! Change your mind.

Reflection will surely show that this thought, " Si vis pacem, para bellum," must perish unless our civilization itself is to pass away. It is clear that until there has been a change of mind here, there is no hope for the Christian brotherhood of the nations. The stupidity of such a saying seems obvious ; the power, however, that it has gained, by being repeated by generation after generation, is as an evil miracle. Politicians use it still : it has paralysed clear think- ing for generations, and confused the minds of even able statesmen. " Si vis pacem, para bellum," has always been the cry of those in authority ; and though the people have followed it has not been the genuine cry of the people. It is for such a reason as this that the certainty is borne in, on an ever- increasing number of men and women, that the peace of the world will come by the action of the people, not by the action of politicians.

" If you want peace, prepare for war."

Repent ! It is amazing that a statement so obviously stupid, so patently untrue, should have been harboured in, and seriously guided, the minds of great men. Statesmen with brilliant minds have acted upon it. It may be that the very obviousness of its futility has been its greatest asset. Men again

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and again overlook what is obvious to the simple- minded. It may be that in the nursery of the world the woman's mind and the mother's instinct is needed to bear upon a question like this, before the men of all nations will see by what a will-o'-the- wisp they have been led astray. As well might a mother, desiring peace in her nursery, say, " Tommy, we want peace in the nursery, so be sure you always have the poker in your hand." " If you want peace, prepare for war." Jacky, of course, must then have the tongs always ready to hand, so as to be quite sure there is peace in the nursery ! Would not the most elementary mother quickly detect the futility of such reasoning ? As well might we say, " If you want a sober country, deluge it with drink."

What has been the result of a policy built upon the saying : " Si vis pacem, para bellum " ? There never has been peace. At the best, in the days of so-called peace, the nations that by any stretch of imagination could be called " great," have been in a state not of peace but of armed truce. Indeed, the policy of " If you want peace, prepare for war," has made peace an impossibility. The nations of the world, before the Great War, lived as it were on a volcano, ever amidst alarm, ever expecting the catastrophe. The nations thought they were free, but the fear of war was ever present : by crying, "If you want peace, prepare for war," and by acting upon it, they had wrought for themselves chains of bondage. War is hateful, war is ghastly — but peace, on the foundation of " Si vis pacem, para bellum," is more terrible ; for it means that the

REPENT ! 129

nations " halt for ever on the crater's brink " of a devastating war, and eventually plunge into it.

It is comprehension alone that will lead the nations to abiding peace. Comprehension is difficult to achieve, but it could hardly fail to accomplish its end more lamentably than has the policy of the past. There has been but little attempt so far at comprehension. Treaties have been drawn up founded on mutual distrust, but not yet have they been founded on sympathy and understanding. The great nations of the world have concluded treaties again and again, but they have never yet made peace. Arms have been piled up, " Si vis pacem, para bellum " ; pile them high and higher, enlist the youth of the nations and teach them how to fight. If the young men of the rising generation are thinking in another channel, are imbued with what many would call " vague idealism," there is always conscription as a last resource ! The young, however, are not the only ones who are to be sacrificed to this teaching.

The best brains of the nation are needed. Scientists and inventors must devote their brains — how more skilfully, more terribly, more fiendishly to destroy life. They must be called upon to prosti- tute the whole art of science, which should be for the service and welfare of mankind, for its destruction. And in doing this how profoundly they have deceived themselves and the world ! When new weapons for destruction have been invented, so terrible in their power that they have alarmed the human conscience, men have deluded themselves by saying that, terrible though the weapon was, it would prove beneficial to 9

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mankind, for the horror of using the thing would prevent nations from waging war.

The following extract from Impressions and Comments^ by Havelock Ellis, makes significant and mournful reading to-day : " It was more than thirty years ago, and we stood round Maxim, as he explained the mechanism of his gun and demon- strated its marvellous qualities. I still see the mild, childlike air, so often marking the man of immense genius, the modest yet well-satisfied smile, with which he deftly and affectionately manipulated his beautiful toy. As we looked on, one of us asked reflectively, ' But will not this make war very terrible ? '

"'No!' remarked Maxim confidently; 'it will make war impossible.' "

In Revelation, when a description of the fall of a city built upon material wealth is given, these signifi- cant words occur : " By her sorceries have all the nations of the world been deceived." The writer was referring to one great city whose power and wealth had been built on the doctrine of war. It is true of the theory of the necessity of war to-day, as in days gone by, that " By her sorceries have all the nations of the world been deceived."

Kepler, whilst seeking to discover the laws of the universe, said humbly to one who expressed admira- tion for his great mind — that he was only thinking God's thoughts after Him. It must indeed be difficult for scientists who responded to the call of their different War Offices to devote their powers to the discovery of fresh means of destruction of the human race, to have the same high sense of their

REPENT! 131

calling as had Kepler in days gone by. It is true, of course, that each time a fresh means is discovered for the wholesale destruction of life, an antidote to the new discovery is immediately sought for. But what waste of energy and brain power ! One scientist uses all his gifts to invent effective machines for extinguishing human life ; another scientist uses all his powers to discover a means whereby he can destroy the machine his fellow-scientist has invented. Major David Davies reports that a new horrifying introduction is a tank with a speed greater than that of the fleetest horse. Then " a new grenade has been invented which can be discharged from an ordinary rifle. So terrific is its effect that it inflicts a mortal wound on the new tank ! " So there are two schools at work, each endeavouring to nullify the work of the other. Brains, power, money being thus diverted from their godlike mission for the welfare of humanity, into endless and futile competition.

Man lives in the middle of unexplored powers and energy, that could be explored and harnessed for the welfare of the human race. Some know- ledge has been gained of the power of radium, of one atom by means of which it is believed that science could harness power, and to an immense extent reduce drudgery and crushing poverty. The power of the tides still waits to be harnessed for the benefit of man. Yet not only is scientific research little encouraged, but Governments seek to com- mandeer the greatest brains, and the most power- ful minds, to explore avenues to destroy human life.

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If scientists are to follow their true calling they must surely be released to help humanity.

Professor Soddy, of Oxford, recently received an invitation from the War Office to become an associate of a Committee for chemical warfare research. That is, to devote his time and energy and brains to the discovery of means whereby to destroy human life. What his actual reply was is perhaps not known, though he distinctly announced that his individual view was against accepting the invitation. In an article referring to the incident, in Nature, November 4, 1920, he declared that univer- sities and scientific men stood for something in the world higher than anything which has yet found expression and representation in Governments, particularly in international relations, and called upon scientific men to consider, in a body, the whole question, before accepting the invitation to join a Committee whose function is to develop to the utmost extent aspects of " chemical warfare." It may be that future generations will owe much to Professor Soddy of Oxford.

" If you want peace, prepare for war."

As long as such a saying as this holds sway in the heart of mankind, be it ever so secretly, hopes of a better order are vain. Certain thoughts must perish if our little children are to live, and to live in peace. This saying is one of them. Good will never grow alongside this poisonous plant. War, hitherto, has been inevitable, that few can deny ; it need no longer be if the nations will change their thoughts.

"If you want peace, prepare for war."

REPENT! 133

Repent !

The saying is plausible, much can be said to defend it, of that we are well aware. Much can be said to defend every evil thing that has ever existed. But behold the alternative !

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, 'Twill come,

Humanity must perforce prey on itself. Like monsters of the deep.^

It is clear that if on this subject we refuse to change our thoughts, or say we cannot do so, we perish while persisting in a thought that has ever led to more wars. Is any saying in the whole world so entirely opposed to Christian thought? Is there any saying so obviously out of harmony with the Mind of Christ as this ?

The saying, " If you want peace, prepare for war," needs to be changed into a new one. A new saying that, instead of paralysing the moral and spiritual progress of the race, will hasten the coming, in one sense at least, of the Kingdom of God — " If you want peace, prepare for peace!' Apart from love, however, understanding cannot come to pass. Possibly the mother, whose heart is a great reservoir of tenderness, will, by her advent into the political life of the nations, transform the old saying into a yet more complete one : " If you want peace, love your neighbour."

Another saying which to a large extent has held back men and women from the belief that certain evils, which are a curse to the human race, can be ^ King Lear, Act iv. Sc. ii.

134 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

overcome, is : " Human nature being what it is," etc.

In that statement itself there is, of course, nothing to quarrel with, but as a matter of fact, when uttered at all, it is invariably followed by words which em- phasize the evil which is in mankind. The man who uses the phrase invariably expresses a low idea of human nature, which in itself leads often to un- speakable wrong-doing. There was an example of this in the House of Commons during the war. When a protest was made by some of the members of the House against houses of ill-fame being pro- vided for our troops, the reply from a responsible official of the Government was that " human nature being what it is " the evil was inevitable. Other nations hold the same point of view even more tenaciously, with the result, in many countries, that official influence is used to fill the houses, for in these days of independence women — or, rather, I should say girls — are not so easily found as formerly to consent to such a life. Their human nature asserts that it is not what some men think it is. So difficult has it become to find women prepared to live such a life as is involved in the entry of a tolerated house, that troops in a certain place on the Continent complained. Whereupon official instruc- tions were publicly issued so repugnant in their shamelessness as to be unprintable in this volume.

Is any comment needed ?

The illustration — a terrible one — is merely given to show to what length mankind will go when the evil side of human nature is the dominant thought in the mind. We are told that selfishness, drunken-

REPENT! 135

ness, covetousness, prostitution must continue, because human nature is what it is. These things belong not to human nature but to beast nature, and when mankind realizes his true humanity they will perish.

" Human nature, being what it is, we shall always have war." How often has that been said ! Be- hind all these cries lies a flat denial of the great truth that man is made in the Divine image. To speak of the unworthiness of mankind, to dwell upon the weakness of human nature, has an appear- ance of humility ; but often it is merely used as an excuse to indulge in passions, to yield to animal impulses. It is not surprising to find that Machia- velli had a profound belief in the depravity of human nature. " Men are a sorry breed," he writes ; they are " thankless, fickle, false, greedy of gain ; devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them." The insistence on man's sinfulness, without realizing the Divine image, does in the end — as in the case of Machiavelli and the other example given — lead to hideous practices, to un- speakable evils. There was at least an excuse for Machiavelli, for he was an avowed pagan all his life. It is strange that the attitude held by one so profoundly pagan should be held by so many Christians to-day. Unless there is a change of mind here, and a deeper and more ardent faith exercised in the truth that man is made in the image of God, the best that is in mankind can never reach its full development.

On a silent night, surrounded by the immensity of nature, a poet-shepherd kept his lonely vigil. At

136 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

such a time, alone on the mountains holding silent commune with the stars, the pettiness and impotency of human life is felt, if ever. Stirred to the depths by the beauty of the night, such as is not seen except under Eastern skies, he sings :

When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained : What is man that Thou art mindful of him ? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him ?

How often those words are quoted to imply the in- significance and impotency of man ! But exactly the opposite thought fills the mind of the poet as he continues his song of the night :

For Thou hast made him but little lower than God,

And crownedst him with glory and honour.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of

Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet.

In these inspired lines we find expressed the destiny of mankind ; to have dominion and to conquer ; born to put what is ugly and ungodly under his feet. Man is made in the Divine image, he is " but little lower than God " (R.V.). And yet men speak of human nature again and again as though it were irretrievably bad, so that, being what it is, such evils as war and prostitution must be endured.

We turn to One greater than the poet-shepherd, and find all through the Gospel narrative how great is Christ's faith in the Divine image of humanity. The incomparable parable of the erring son springs at once unbidden to the mind, and we remember that when the boy " comes to himself " he returns to God his home. When he remembers his destiny,

REPENT! 137

his true nature, he returns to what is beautiful and pure. The record of the Master's faith of what is best in man, reads as a touching and triumphant story. One day He passes Matthew on the great Capernaum road, levying toll on his own people, for an alien Government. Despised by all, Matthew has sunk low in the moral and social scale. The Master passes by and looks. He only looks at Matthew, but in that look He saw not what Matthew was, but what yet he might be. He saw the Divine image within. Somehow, in His look. He conveyed to the social outcast His faith in him. No word passed. But Matthew seeing in that look the Master's faith in the best within him — outcast though he was — leaves his calling and follows in His train.

Dare we any longer even think that, human nature being what it is, evils, wrongs must continue ?

Repent !

For unless there is different thinking here, we are denying the true destiny of mankind, and the fact of Christ. For although it is true that in Adam all die, it is a greater truth that in Christ all are made alive. Theories of life are unscientific, as well as un-Christian, which look upon evils as inevitable and what must be endured. Because human nature is what it is man will overcome ; prostitution, like slavery, will pass away ; and war will perish.

CHAPTER XI

AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

139

O glory of the years to be, I, too, will labour to your fashioning.

Drinkwater.

May we be such as those who bring on this great Renovation.

Zend-Avesta.

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the goal,

Patil of Tarsus.

140

CHAPTER XI AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL

The awakening to need of fundamental change — The Drama of the Final Day — An International Tribunal — The standards of Judgment material — The call to a new Internationalism.

WHEN the eyes of a people are opened to evils that prevail in their national life, the awakening is ever accompanied with a shock and an intense desire to change things. This desire often finds expression in blaming those who are in authority. Surely it is their fault. They are put in authority, it is argued, to guide the nation aright. The ordinary individual can do so little ; the feeling of distress at things as they are, accompanied by a sense of the magnitude of the task of getting things changed, is apt to overwhelm people with a sense of complete impotency.

Then comes the temptation — for temptation it is — to put the whole responsibility on those who are in authority, and seek refuge in the comforting thought that they alone are to blame.

It will not do.

The folly of Governments, the greed of those in power can, it is true, bring a nation to disaster, but, ultimately, it is the people who are responsible. Much as each individual would like to evade this

142 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

thought, it is a stark naked fact from which there is no escape. The political life of a nation is not really dependent on the will of Government, nor indeed upon the management of parties. Those in authority are, after all, not apart from the rest of the nation. They reflect the character of those who put them in the position they hold. It is futile to think much is gained by pointing to the authorities as solely — or even chiefly — responsible for that of which a people are ashamed.

It may stifle an uneasy conscience, but it is surely unjust only to murmur " Carson " when thoughts turn to Ireland, or only to mourn over General Dyer when thoughts turn to India. When we have to regret the actions of leaders, it is well to remember that the leaders of a nation are but reflections of a national temper, for which the nation alone — each individual — is responsible. The religious life of a nation, its moral standard, influences its own destiny far more powerfully than the actions of law-makers.

Is it not passing strange that the emphasis, all down the ages, that has been laid upon the teaching of Christ, has been almost entirely on the fact that He taught for the individual alone ? That His ethics demanded an individual, rather than national, corporate effort for their expression. The Church, in its official capacity, will perhaps deny this, but the Church's record, in bringing Christian principles to bear on national aspirations, is not an impressive one.

Christ, Who lived amongst men of many nations. Who realized the strength of national antipathy and rivalry, appears, as we study Him afresh, to speak to

AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL 143

human beings in their national, corporate nations as much as to the inner soul of every man.

In St. Matthew there is a graphic description of that day, which will surely come, when each nation will be called upon to render an account of its national life.

The drama is described with Oriental vividness and colour. The Son of Man, surrounded by the heavenly hosts, comes to judge the world. He sits on His throne, a throne of glory.

It is the Judgment Day.

And behold ! it is not individual men and women who stand to render an account of their lives.^ It is distinctly stated that the nations will be gathered together as nations for judgment. True, the scene describes the final judgment of the Church, but the nations are also judged.

A day of reckoning is a real thing. In days gone by the Judgment Day was depicted as attended with such horrors of fire and brimstone, that the mind of man, rightly repudiating belief in the fear- some cruelties graphically described, has reacted, so as hardly to believe at all in a judgment for wrong-doing. This is a calamity. That men — and nations — will surely be called to account for their deeds, is as clear as any teaching in the New Testament. Anxiously we look at the ques- tions, to see on what the Judgment given depends. What are the questions put to the nations, the ques- tions upon the replies to which they will be judged ?

Listen ! Though we do not know the exact wording, we can gauge the questions from the words * See some brief notes in The.Challcnge, April i, 1920, by M. E, Phillips,

144 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

addressed to the nations who were put upon the right-hand side of Him who judged.

In simple language the questions put to the nations are as follow :

" Were your people well fed ? " Strange that what seems so material a question should be the first one asked of the nations by the Son of Man. Stranger still perhaps that to those nations who could joyfully reply that their people were well fed, comes from His lips the wonderful reply : " / was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat."

There are more searching questions to come. It is not a question of one's own people alone. It is the great Internationalist Who sits upon the throne. In the same direct language comes a yet more searching question.

" What about the stranger — the alien, the foreigner? Was he, too, well cared for by your nation, or was a difference made because he belonged not to your people ? " Some nations had cared not only for their own people, but had treated the stranger and foreigner as one of their own. With them there had been no exclusive spirit of monopoly, but a brotherliness to all who were not of their race. To those in whose country the stranger had been cared for, the Judge identifying Himself with him, utters the words : " / was a stranger and ye took Me in."

But food, necessary though it is to men of all nations, is not all for which human nature craves. Further questions are asked the nations by the compassionate Son of Man, as to whether its people were properly clothed, properly protected from the

AN LNTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL 145

winter's blast and the drenching rain. Who has not seen in the streets of our cities on a bitter winter's day ill-clad, ill-shod men and women and even little children, shivering in cold and wet? The reply to this question given by certain nations is that its people were clothed and protected as well as properly fed. To them the Son of Man utters the words :

" Naked, and ye clothed Me."

The end is not yet ; there are more questions to follow. The Judge cares for every human need.

" What about the sick, did your nation take tender care of them ? "

The sick, above all others, need not material care alone, but sympathy and love. Of all the answers, the answer to this question brings forth the fullest and most complete reply. Not only had the sick been cared for in body, they had not been allowed to feel friendless or lonel}-, it had been the nation's provision that they were visited and loved. And identifying Himself with those who lie stretched upon a bed of pain, Christ again speaks :

" / was sick, and ye visited Me."

Then comes the final question. It is on behalf of the poor outcast, he who, by disobeying the laws of God and man, has lost his freedom ; this perhaps is the most searching question of all. Man is most Godlike when tender to those who have injured him, a nation most Christlike when, though firm, it is compassionate to him who has lost his way, and, losing sight of punishment, seeks only to reform. How did you treat your prisoners ? is the final 10

146 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

question. And behold ! even for them the nations who stood at the Judge's right hand had taken thought, not of punishment, not only even of their material needs ; the prisoners had been cared for, reformation not punishment had been aimed at, they had not been left to brood in solitude, but, within their prison walls, had been ministered to in love.

It is not necessary to dwell further on this match- less scene ; nor indeed is it possible to carry the analogy of imagery too far. We know the end. Those nations who had cared not for their people alone, to whom the stranger was as one of their own, enter the Presence for ever more, and those who had been indifferent to the needs of the human race are banished from the Presence of God.

So does Christ describe the final judgment of the nations. It is a great International Tribunal ; and a judgment awaits the nations to-day. It is possible that the judgment will be a stern one indeed, on those nations where it has been possible for large industries deliberately to foster " casual labour " — with all the horror and suffering of hunger and cold that such a system entails. It may indeed go hard with a nation in which a working man, of known integrity, and who is far too balanced to exaggerate can write :

" To-day unemployment is not a mere incident in a drab existence, a something that may easily be forgotten in the everyday struggle of life. The horrors which arise from being out of a job strike the heart and leave one's soul seared with the impress of the brutality of mankind. It is doubtful whether in the present social system any other result

AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL 147

is possible. The life of the average town worker is just one great struggle to live, a struggle which consumes every ounce of his energy. When un- employment comes, the worker is flung out of the trench into a world whose hall-mark is indifference to the fate of such as he. Now he has time to think and time to realize the unfairness of it all. He gradually sinks, and down with him go those who are dependent on his efforts. Unceasingly he seeks for work, only to be told every day, in every week, for months, that he is not wanted. This gradually has a degrading influence. A time comes when he ceases to care. The result of unemployment has scorched his life, and the scars will be carried for all time."

This from a man of our nation to-day, who sees daily the horrors of which he writes. It is not a question of the foreigner, the stranger, for whose welfare the Judge at the great tribunal is also concerned : here it is of a nation's action towards her own people that this man writes. It seems strange that the questions, at the great Tribunal, should centre so exclusively around, what appear to many, material issues, but it is just here that Christians have so often sinned ; for they have failed to see, what Westcott of Durham so persistcntlj- taught, that " every amelioration of the outward conditions of men's lives is the translation of a fragment of our Creed into action." The writer of the letter quoted above is an Englishman, but England is not the only Christian country where such conditions prevail.

In those nations whose .systems arc such, that their own people suffer as described by this work-

148 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

ing man, there can be little expectation of the stranger — the foreigner — faring better at their hands.

In Europe, to-day, the effort of every nation in some way to pillage another in industry is one of the most disquieting of many disquieting features. International friendship becomes thereby impossible, international sympathy and understanding is thereby banished.

Yet, also, in every nation in Europe to-day there are those who are beginning to see otherwise, who are imbued with a passionate belief that Inter- national relationships can be built on the ethics of Christ, that there is a Power that can quicken the consciences of whole nations, and change even national life and aspirations. It is a time in every nation of rapid movement, quick advancement. There are many thoughtful people to-day who are persuaded that it is possible, in one generation, for such changes to come to pass in the heart of man, as to cause certain evils in life which have been looked upon as " necessary," to perish. Such changes as will create a new sense of values in national as well as in individual life, nobler ideals in commerce and business, greater comprehension between nations. Yet such vast changes, though possible in one generation, can surely not come in any mechanical way. Those who fondly believe that the human race is, necessarily, evolving to a more perfect order, by the mere process of time, can build their comfortable teaching neither on science nor Christian doctrine. The conditions of life to-day call for the supreme effort. Intelligence, faith, and

AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL 149

effort are called for, and they, rightly directed, and based upon the teaching of Him Who is still the Way, the Truth, and the Life, will achieve the change for which the world craves.

It is of little moment whether those who are work- ing for a new order are consciously basing their efforts on the ethics of Christ, so long as His teaching is followed and His Spirit inspires their lives. When this is so, brutal force vanishes. Moral compulsion, so frequently used, defeats its own ends, as eventually does every kind of compulsion. Force, compulsion fails in its final aim. Truth can be forced on no man. Men must love it if it is to bear fruit. Acquiescence in truth is not enough ; without love it is empty. How often has it been the experience of man that truth, if strayed from, can be found again ; but a forced acceptance, from outside, of teaching of a certain line of thought — even though it be true — is not only barren of fruit, but bars the way in to the true path.

It is clear that truth, being of its essence spiritual, can be forced upon no man ; yet judgment falls upon those who are continually blind to it. Christ, the Great Internationalist, proclaimed, for all time, the doctrine nations have yet to learn, of the " one- ness " of the human race. Monopoly, privilege, had no part in His system. When one member suffers, the others, whether they know it or not, suffer too. The human race is actually, and not only senti- mentally, one large family, brothers with one Father. This is an eternal truth which He pro- claimed. Judgment falls on those who reject it. It is an inevitable law from which there is no e.sf-ape.

150 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

The pages of history record that the judgment is one which falls silently, unrecognized, upon power- ful and privileged nations — until, like the Jews of old, they do not even know that they can no longer see.

Europe to-day — Palestine two thousand years ago. Is the difference so very great ? On the surface, yes. Modern inventions, science, have in one sense changed the face of the world. Fundament- ally there is no change : the facts of lile are as they were then : man's heart the same, torn with a desire to-day as then, to dominate and control, to possess. Into the heart of this "acquisitive" society — for acquisitiveness is no modern vice — came the Son of Man, Whose message is with us to-day, Whose words have not perished.

The cities through which He walked have long since been laid in ruins. Empires have risen and passed away into an almost forgotten past since He trod the Galilean shores, but the words which He uttered have endured. They have literally over- turned dynasties and revolutionized kingdoms. The sermon on the mountain ended with the well-known imagery of incomparable solemnity. The house — be that a picture of the individual soul, or a nation — that is not built on the foundation which He laid, of service and of love, perishes. Just so far as men and women to-day are prepared by the power of the Spirit, quite literally, to translate His teaching of service into National and International life and thought, so far will the clouds that to-day so darkly and so heavily dim the horizon, pass away with the rising of the sun,

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