"SUB SPECIE ÆTERNITATIS"
as the destiny for which the nations were waiting. Pangermanism is indeed nothing else than an endeavour to erect a system of the teleography of war and of human death.
The question with which the heartbroken mother greeted the news that her only son had fallen: "Is there, can there be, any God?"—this question is put by the historian and the philosopher, when they inquire into the lawful development of nations and of humanity. To-day this question fills millions with misgiving. The huge armies in the field, the vast army of the fallen, stir our imagination and force us, in anxious terror, to ask the meaning of this Great Death. We turn away with impatient disgust from the politicians, who are unable to take in the universal import of the war, to rise to the grandeur of so historic a moment, or to comprehend the significance of the Great judgment. We all, individuals and nations alike, are standing before the bar of history, before the Great Judge.
The war is a religious problem: it is also a problem of the churches and the theologians. Every day we witness searchings of conscience on the part of the various churches, and we hear them asking how far they are responding to the religious needs of the combatants and of the warring nations as a whole. It is indeed an acute question, but it is in no way new. To my mind, the churches in war are scarcely better adapted to cope with the spiritual needs of the time than they were in former days of peace. The special questions so dear to theological minds, as to whether and how far Christianity sanctions war, whether the teaching of Christ can be reconciled with war, whether the churches should approve of and endorse patriotism and nationality in its prevailing forms—all these and kindred questions do not appeal to men who are fighting in the trenches, and have at least some grasp of the political and strategic situation. There have been many wars before and since the days of Our Lord, and all these questions are very old. To-day we feel that the warm blood of nations, shed in torrents all over Europe, compels all thinking men to face the decisive question: who is guilty of so hideous a crime as the present war? Like all its predecessors, this war is a question of conscience; but in it, as in them, we see the churches each following its own country. They do not lead—they are led. Foolish
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