s always been wise or Christly in her application of this
sound Scriptural doctrine. She has, it must be admitted, sometimes
encouraged premature resort to force, and has given her blessing to
countless wanton wars. She has at other times treated as evils to be
suppressed by violent means offences which have been mere deviations
from her own arbitrary standards, and not violations of the eternal laws
of truth and right. Nevertheless, however imperfect her practice, all
her great teachers from Athanasius to Aquinas, and from Aquinas to the
present day, have rightly recognized the legitimacy of the employment of
force for moral purposes in the last resort, have admitted the
compatibility of Christianity with military service, and have confessed
that, evil as war is, there are evils still greater, and that the duty
of every Christian man may be to fight lest the cause of righteousness
and justice should suffer defeat. If the Church had taught otherwise--if
she had been captured by the Gnostic heresy of non-resistance--Mediaeval
Christendom and Western Civilization would inevitably have been
destroyed by the assaults of Huns and Saracens, Magyars and Tartars,
Vikings and Turks; while within the borders of Christendom itself law
and order would have perished at the hands of wicked and violent men.
Similarly in modern times common Christian opinion has agreed that there
are causes worth fighting for and worth dying for. The English Puritans,
for instance, including the early Quakers, considered that political
freedom and religious liberty were ideals that justified and indeed
demanded armed resistance to tyranny. During the last three centuries
there have been few who, on religious grounds, have condemned the revolt
of Christian peoples against Turkish misrule. In the American Civil War
many professed pacificists felt that for the abolition of slavery they
must need take arms. In our own recent history men like Havelock,
Gordon, and Roberts have regarded as sacred trusts the tasks of saving
women and children from massacre, of suppressing fanatical and cruel
tyranny, of preventing intolerable wrong. The Church with confident
consistency has rightly sanctioned and sanctified their heroic
enterprises. While condemning wars of ambition, conquest, or revenge,
she has taught that those who take arms to defend from murderous
violence the weak and helpless, to maintain the priceless heritage of
freedom, and to vindicate the majesty of