Page:The War and the Churches.djvu/42

 The question of real interest is, therefore, the historical question. Those of us who did not foresee this war until we were in the very penumbra of the tragedy cannot complain that our Christian neighbours did not foresee and prevent it. Those of us who feel that the participation of our country is just and necessary may, with no strain of imagination, conceive the men of other countries equally persuading themselves that the action of their country is just and necessary. But from the day when we awoke to an adult perception of the life of the world we have been aware that the established system of settling international quarrels was barbaric and might in any year lead to just such a catastrophe. How comes it that such a system has survived fifteen hundred years of profound Christian influence? Whatever we may think of the clergy of to-day, with the more powerful clergy of yesterday we have a grave reckoning. The Rationalist is a new thing in Europe. The very name is little more than a century old, and until a few decades ago only a few thousand would accept it. Not from such a new and struggling movement do we ask why this military system has dominated Europe for ages and has only in recent times been seriously challenged. During those ages the Churches suffered none but themselves to pretend to a moral influence over the life of the nations, nor were there many bold and independent enough to make the claim. It is of the Churches we ask why this appalling system has taken such deep root in the life of Europe that it resists the most devoted efforts to eradicate it. It is not this war, but war, that accuses the Churches. We are entangled in a system so widespread and so subtle that, when a war occurs, each nation can persuade itself that it is acting on just grounds. It is the system which interests us.