WHAT CAN CHRISTIANS DO IN WAR

TIME?

By REV. CHARLES E. JEFFERSON, D.D., LL.D.

W

HAT can Christians do in time of war? Live their religion. It is wise to do this at all times, but it is doubly imperative in the day of battle. We must now practice more assiduously than ever the fundamental virtues of our faith, mercy, brotherliness and kindness toward the stranger within our gates— the German, the Austrian, the Hungarian. They are lonely and they need our sympathy. They are by some distrusted, suspected, disliked, and we must show our confidence in them and our goodwill. The great mass of our foreign population will be loyal straight through the war, and every German should be assumed to be faithful to our flag until he has given indisputable proof to the contrary.

A second thing all Christians can do is to take heed to our ways that we sin not with our tongue. These are exciting times, and it is easy to say things which had best be left unsaid. We must be patient with one another. A thousand vexing and tangled questions will come up for discussion,

and all of us cannot possibly think alike. The only sensible thing for us is to do our own thinking, and let everybody else do his, without our pouncing on him and cudgeling him because he does not happen to agree with us. Blessed is the man who gets through this war without needlessly wounding acquaintances and friends by the cruel strokes of an unruly tongue. There will be enough wreckage at the end of the war without our adding to it a mass of ruined friendships. Let us do our utmost to maintain a cordial fellowship with our fellow Christians whose opinions are farthest from our own, and by our extraordinary self-control, refrain from saying things of which we shall be ashamed when the world is calm again. The world is torn by many demons, and we cannot afford to increase the fever and distraction by our impatient temper or our bitter tongue.

Furthermore we can keep our heart from becoming a nest filled with ugly and hateful feelings toward Germany. Before this war began, we Americans felt we knew the German people, and they held a warm place in our heart. We had excellent opportunities for getting acquainted with them. Some of us have lived in Germany, others have been educated there, multitudes have traveled through it from one end to the other. And our contact with the Germans caused us to love them, and to love their country also. We found them to be very rational, kind-hearted and lova

ble. Now it is incredible that any people of 65,000,000 should overnight degenerate into a nation of imbeciles and barbarians. The Germans are still what they have been ever since we came to know them. If we could travel through Germany to-day we should find the people as sensible and kind-hearted as ever. They are still clothed and in their right mind. The reason they seem to some of us almost demented and demoniacal is because for nearly three years we have been fed on the bad things which bad Germans have done, and have been kept in ignorance of the good things which good Germans have done. We have been industriously supplied with the foolish things which foolish Germans have said, and have been meagerly informed of the sensible things which sensible Germans have said. It makes a vast difference in one's estimate of a country whether he hears only good things or bad. Many of us had, before the war, an unfavorable opinion of France, and the chief reason was that the wire across the Atlantic was a sewer through which the filth of French scandal and gossip was constantly flowing. For three years we have been told daily what is good in the French people, and our estimate has been amazingly changed. Russia also was low down in our esteem, because the worst things done in Russia were constantly exploited in our papers. As soon as the war opened, another Russia was presented, and the attitude of our heart

the

was gradually altered. The newspapers can glorify or blacken what nation they will. There are thousands of intelligent Europeans who look upon the United States as a nation of semi-barbarians, because the chief things reported to them about us have been our lynchings, our divorces, and the tricks of our high financiers. All that they have heard is true, but they have not heard enough. By hearing more they would revise their judgment of us. At the beginning of the war, German cable was cut, and from that day to this we have been fed daily on stuff which has come to us through a wire which belongs to Germany's foe. Nearly all good things about Germany have been strained out, only bad things as a rule have been allowed to come through. We have not been allowed to miss a syllable which an insolent fireeater like Count Reventlow has said, and have been denied the privilege of hearing the things said by other Germans who dislike the surly Count as much as we dislike him ourselves. Day and night since August 1st, 1914, we have had sounded in our ears the names of three mighty Germans as though there were no others-Treitscke and Nietzsche, and Bernhardi-one a deaf, cross-grained curmudgeon obsessed with a dislike for Great Britain, the second a lunatic, and the third a fanatic. Most of us had never heard of one of them before the war, nor had the majority of Germans. Three fools can be picked out of any

any

nation, even the United States. Three French or Russian or English books can be found containing as dangerous doctrine as anything to be found in Treitschke or Nietzsche or Bernhardi. It is absurd to hold a great people responsible for the false philosophy of a handful of radical or eccentric writers. We have been surfeited with thrilling pictures of a hideous monster called Prussian militarism. German militarism has existed for many years, and it never seriously disturbed us before. We rather liked it. It was picturesque and it was even fascinating. We liked to see the great parades in Berlin, and to read of the autumn maneuvers, and we were fond of the Kaiser, especially in his army overcoat. Some of us doted on the Prussian way of doing things, and regretted that our Republic did not enjoy the ennobling discipline of universal military service. But for three years Prussian militarism has been painted altogether black. This has made a difference in our feelings.

German soldiers have no doubt done monstrous things, but they have been done for the most part by order of their superior officers. "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." That sentiment was written by a Britisher, and has been accepted the world over as a fine expression of a glorious principle. The German soldiers have merely obeyed their officers, and that is what soldiers in all lands are taught to