centripetal force of the Christian ideal, it is generally the former
that wins. How is this impotence to be accounted for? Four reasons at
least maybe noted. (1) The "inwardness" of Lutheranism, combined with
the cynicism of the Machiavellian doctrine of the non-moral character of
public policy led, especially in Germany, to an entire disregard of the
principles of Christianity in the public policy of the State. Nations
did not even profess to be guided by Christian principles in their
dealings with each other. The noble declaration of Alexander I remained
a piece of "sublime nonsense" to statesmen like Metternich and
Castlereagh, and their successors. (2) The internal life of the nations
was, and is, only partially Christianised. Nations cannot regulate their
external policy on Christian principles unless those principles are
accepted as authoritative in their internal affairs. (3) The influence
of Christianity has been hindered, to a degree difficult to exaggerate,
by the unhappy divisions that, especially in England and in the United
States, have made it impossible for the Church to speak with a united
voice. (4) The idea of the Sovereignty of the State and its supreme
claim on the life of the individual, with which Dr Figgis has dealt with
illuminating insight in his _Churches in the Modern State_, has
prevented the idea of the Churches as local expressions of a universal
society from exercising the corrective influence that it ought to
exercise on the over-emphasis of State independence.

The State is only one of the various forms in which national life
expresses itself. It is the nation organised for self-protection. And
wherever self-protection becomes the supreme need, the State, like
Aaron's rod, swallows all the rest. But in many directions, the world
has become, or is becoming, international. Science and philosophy, and,
to a lesser degree, theology and art, have become the common possession
of all civilised nations. The effort to make commerce the expression of
international fellowship, with which the name of Cobden is associated,
failed, largely as the result of the German policy of high tariffs, but
its defeat is only temporary, and the commercial interdependence of
nations will reassert its influence when the present phase of
international strife is over. The function of the Church is to express
the common life and interests of nations, as the State expresses the
distinctive character of each. So the Churc