Page:The drama of three hundred and sixty-five days.djvu/130

THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS a strong Power, which is in the wrong, inflicts frightful cruelties upon a weak Power which is in the right, let us answer that we simply don't believe it. If anybody tells us that by Christ's law we are to permit ourselves to be trodden upon and trampled out of being by an empire resting on violence, let us answer that we simply don't believe it. If anybody tells us that by Christ's law we are not to oppose the gigantic ambition of a "War Lord" who claims Divine right to stalk over Europe in scenes of blood, rapacity, and impurity, let us answer that we simply don't believe it. If anybody tells us that Christ's words, "Resist not evil," were intended to say that spiritual forces will of themselves overcome all forms of war (including, as they needs must, crime, disease, and death) let us answer that we simply don't believe it.

Such a clumsy and dangerous interpretation of Christ's doctrine would put an end to government, to science, and to literature, and allow the worst elements of human nature to rule the world. It would also put Christianity on the scrap-heap—Christianity "with its benevolent morality, its exquisite adaptation to the needs of human life, the consolation it brings to the house of mourning and the light with which it brightens the mystery of the grave." God forbid that the very least of us should

126