Page:Ploughshare and Pruning-Hook.djvu/16

xii it would have meant that a real change of heart had come to us, and that we were offering that changed heart to all the world alike for the establishment of the new International.

But to such change of heart we could not attain—could not even consent; for it would have implied that there was something morally wrong in our national institutions, in our government and our whole social structure, which we would not admit. We would not admit that the chemic elements of our own national life had conduced to war in common with the chemic elements of the nation whose flagrant violation of treaties had given us the immediate materials for a good conscience. We fattened our hearts for war on the immediate material thus provided us, ignoring those other materials which lay behind, and which we and all other nations shared alike—though not necessarily in equal degrees.

And here we have the essential and fundamental difference between the genuine profession of Christianity and the profession of Cæsarism. For the follower of Christ to confess that he has done wrong, that he needs a change of heart, redounds to his honour—he goes down to his house justified. But when a nation has given itself to Cæsar, its main idea of "honour" is to refuse to admit it has done wrong, or to accept punishment; it may be beaten, crushed, but you cannot extract from it a confession of moral wrongdoing; a sense of sin is the negation not