thunder-bolt
struck it. Could anyone, tracing back down the centuries and examining
the record of the wickedness of man, find anything which could compare
with the story of the nations during the last twenty years! Think of
the condition of Russia during that time, with her brutal aristocracy
and her drunken democracy, her murders on either side, her Siberian
horrors, her Jew baitings and her corruption. Think of the figure of
Leopold of Belgium, an incarnate devil who from motives of greed
carried murder and torture through a large section of Africa, and yet
was received in every court, and was eventually buried after a
panegyric from a Cardinal of the Roman Church--a church which had never
once raised her voice against his diabolical career. Consider the
similar crimes in the Putumayo, where British capitalists, if not
guilty of outrage, can at least not be acquitted of having condoned it
by their lethargy and trust in local agents. Think of Turkey and the
recurrent massacres of her subject races. Think of the heartless grind
of the factories everywhere, where work assumed a very different and
more unnatural shape than the ancient labour of the fields. Think of
the sensuality of many rich, the brutality of many poor, the
shallowness of many fashionable, the coldness and deadness of religion,
the absence anywhere of any deep, true spiritual impulse. Think, above
all, of the organised materialism of Germany, the arrogance, the
heartlessness, the negation of everything which one could possibly
associate with the living spirit of Christ as evident in the utterances
of Catholic Bishops, like Hartmann of Cologne, as in those of Lutheran
Pastors. Put all this together and say if the human race has ever
presented a more unlovely aspect. When we try to find the brighter
spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as apart from religion, has
built up necessities for the community, such as hospitals,
universities, and organised charities, as conspicuous in Buddhist Japan
as in Christian Europe. We cannot deny that there has been much
virtue, much gentleness, much spirituality in individuals. But the
churches were empty husks, which contained no spiritual food for the
human race, and had in the main ceased to influence its actions, save
in the direction of soulless forms.

This is not an over-coloured picture. Can we not see, then, what was
the inner reason for the war? Can we not understand that it was
needful to s