Ethics must be continually warned. The word "war" is evidently used to cover a vast multitude of individual wars, and to include both sides in any one war. Those who answer, "War is right,' are reasoning, as logicians would say, from the particular to the universal. Because some wars in some ages, and under some circumstances, have produced good results, therefore war is right. That is not convincing. The other party, who answer, "War is wrong," begin with the universal proposition that all war springs from passion and sin, and always involves the killing of men, and conclude that no nation has any right under any circumstances to engage in war. It is the purpose of these pages to prove that both methods of argument are logically fallacious and the conclusion in both cases is false.

Nor can we be satisfied with the exact form into which Sir Gilbert Murray has thrown the question: "How can war ever be right?" For it is clear that in any case with which we can be practically concerned, war must be always wrong on at least one side. Both sides may indeed be guilty, equally guilty, of the immeasurable crime, but there may be cases where one side is free from blame in the eyes of posterity and of God. If one side made the contest inevitable by unjust demands, if it refused the last, desperate offer of reconciliation without 1 "Faith, War, and Policy." By Sir Gilbert Murray.

bloodshed, issued the aggressive ultimatum, fired the first shot, that one is guilty; and for it that war, whatever its issue may be, can never "be right." But what of the other side? Can that war be a right war for it? That is the real question with which we are practically concerned. For there are those who maintain that there are no conceivable circumstances under which a nation has the right to engage in war. The government of a people ought indeed to maintain just and honorable relations with all others, and if its rights are invaded, it ought to protest, it ought to use all the powers of moral suasion which can be discovered, but it ought never to fight. The real question which confronts the modern man, therefore, when it is expressed carefully and clearly, is this: "Are there any circumstances in which it is the moral and religious duty of a government to engage in war?" That puts the matter in its final form, as a problem in Christian Ethics, and that is the question which it is proposed to discuss in the following pages as frankly and yet as briefly as possible.

2. There are three classes of people for whom the discussion is mainly intended. First, there is that very large class who look upon war, especially this war in all its monstrous extent and horror, with spiritual dismay. They feel rather than see that the purely pacifist attitude contains some

error, but they cannot name it. They are confused by the contrast between the vast fields of carnage and destruction, and the spirit of peace and love which they identify rightly with the name of Christ. And yet they cannot bring themselves to believe and to say with the courage born of reasoned conviction that America was wrong to enter the fray. They feel that she was right, and yet feel also as if it were a sin to say so, a sin against that spirit of peace and love.

In the next place there are those soldiers, born and bred to lives of industry and honor, whose very breath was to live and let live, rather to help all others to live nobly and righteously and happily. Now they are suddenly caught into a career where they are to share in the dreadful work of killing their fellowmen. Many of these noble young men have been driven almost to madness on the field of battle by the crushing hideous facts before them, the heaps of slain, the stream of wounded carried in all degrees of shatteredness and pain, to suffer on beds of torture, perhaps to go through the long years of a life that promised sunshine and freedom and health, maimed, or halt, or blind-or mad. How can this be the will of God? That is the bitter cry of many a brave and confident soldier as he returns to billets, with a heart bruised and sick, wounded more deeply than he of the shattered frame.

In the third place there are those who occupy the position of reasoned pacifism. Several Christian sects have arisen which hold that it is wrong to make war, in the sense that it can never be right in any conceivable circumstances for a government to come to its citizens and order them to fight against an enemy. The Society of Friends, popularly known as the Quakers, is the leading exponent of this view. The movement began in England in the seventeenth century, though it had been variously prepared for in the course of the sixteenth century. It has had a most honorable history. Its members have been distinguished alike for piety and a noble philanthropy. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, John Howard, the prison reformer, Wilberforce, the triumphant worker for the liberation of slaves throughout the British Empire, are among its many illustrious names. The Government of the United States has done honor to the history and influence of the Quakers by exempting from direct military service members of that Society who adhere to its traditional interpretation of the meaning of war and of their relation to it as followers of Christ.

What is that interpretation? It can be better understood if we remember that it was preached with great success at a period when war was accepted almost as a normal condition of national life. All nations in Europe had their ambitions

for self-aggrandizement, their hereditary monarchies, whose dynastic interests were matters of national concern and defence, and consequently their professional soldiers, ready and eager always for the fray. Many earnest men and women saw and felt that this was wrong. They contrasted the situation with the spirit of the New Testament, and asked how professedly Christian nations could maintain the habit of warfare, in this deliberate manner. Further, these devoted souls endeavored to apply literally the specific words of Jesus Christ to their daily conduct. They refused to take oaths in court because He said, "Swear not at all." They refused to give each other titles, even to address anyone as "Mister," because Jesus said, "Call no man Master." In the same spirit they understood the command which Jesus quoted from the Old Testament and deepened, "Thou shalt not kill." They so understood the words, "Resist not evil," and asserted that no one could obey the great and glorious law, "Love your enemies," and engage in any war for any cause.

These men were not cowards. It is foolish to say that all pacifists are "yellow," have no red blood in their veins, and are taking refuge in a religious plea to shelter a craven spirit under sacred words. Many of these Quakers of the seventeenth century were very brave, heroically enduring all manner of persecution and physical suffering rather than