Page:Cecil John Cadoux - The Early Christian Attitude to War.pdf/14

X for war service will, sooner or later, bring the modern State to anarchy. It would be wise also for Christian leaders and thinkers not to imagine that the problem of war is going to be solved without this disagreeable question, of Christian condemnation, and of individual refusal to, take part in it, having first to be settled. It is unlikely that we shall be relieved of this moral decision, or that the great menace will be removed without some advance of Christian opinion, which will have to be taken first by individuals and then by the Church, incurring in the process the hatred of the world and the hostility of the State. The real principle for which the early martyrs died has yet to be established; and we cannot be sure that it will be at less price.

Here, then, is a subject on which we need clear light, and this excellent piece of research certainly brings considerable illumination; it is a subject that will not cease to vex the Church until we have decided either to make as unequivocal a condemnation of war as we have of slavery, or to abandon altogether any profession of whole-hearted allegiance to the Christian faith.

W. E. ORCHARD.