Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/298

276 they hold that this war is a war to prevent war in the future, a war for the establishment of the Federation of Europe, a war that will make possible universal peace.

Still they hold that notion as a makeshift opinion. They would never in the palmy days of peace have thought it possible that mankind would go to war in order to get a better peace afterwards. They held that war was always avoidable, and that you could not by Satan cast out Satan.

They hold that nationally as individually we should give back good for evil. Amongst the educated Russians there are many pacifists, many non-resisters, a number also of quaker-like people who refer all war arguments to the one simple commandment—"Thou shalt not kill!"

Many Russians hold that Christ substituted for the Jewish law "Thou shalt not kill!" the moral principle "Thou shalt not hate!" And they understand the chastisement of war as performed more in sorrow than in anger.

Those who try to follow out literally the patterns of behaviour set out in the Gospel ask what would the Good Samaritan have done if he had come earlier than he did and had met the man who fell among thieves just at the moment when the thieves were attacking him with apparently murderous intent. Would he then have had to pass by on the other side like the Levite, or should he have fallen on his knees and prayed, or should he have rushed to the physical assistance of the man who was being attacked. Many held that it would have been the Samaritan's duty to defend his neighbour with all the means in his power. As the General says in Solovyof's conversation, "I prayed best when giving commands to the horse-artillery." So in August 1914, when Austria fell upon Servia and Germany fell upon Belgium, Russia in the East and Britain in the West rushed generously to give their physical assistance to the nations in distress.