Christ and international life

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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

78 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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.

83

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

83

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.

THE VOICE OF THE CHILD 89

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

A GREAT DELUSION 103

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.

112 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

" 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

114 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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

RELIGION AND POLITICS 117

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,

RELIGION AND POLITICS 121

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-

126 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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

128 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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

130 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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.

132 CHRIST AND INTERNATIONAL LIFE

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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