Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/105

Christianity and War, to substitute sentiment for truth. The very wrongness of the one implies logically the rightness of the other. And whatever is morally right is in accord with Christianity. To speak loosely of war as unchristian is to ignore not only the Christian right, but the Christian duty, which rests with every nation and with every man to protect that of which nation and man are lawful protectors. Even aggressive warfare is not necessarily a denial of the Christianity it affronts. Crooked thinking comes naturally to men, and the power of self-deception is without bounds. God is not deceived; but the instinctive desire of the creature to hoodwink the Creator, to induce Him—for a consideration—to compound a felony, is revealed in every page of history, and under every aspect of civilization. The necessity which man has always felt of being on speaking terms with his own conscience, built churches and abbeys in the days of faith, and 89