ng
judgment against us, "Thou art weighed in the balances and found
wanting"? Are we not all, like the Pharisees of old, too ready to throw
the first stone at someone else who we may think caused the war, instead
of admitting our own guilt?

As Arnold Freeman, in his lectures at Sheffield University, says:

"We persuade one another that it was the Kaiser, through his lust for
self-glorification, who made this war. Would it be possible for one man
to transform all Europe into a slaughter-house unless that same
Kaiser-spirit found its response in human nature in every corner of this
continent? It is the 'Kaiser' in each one of us that makes wars
possible. It is because we have in every nation, and in every class,
multitudes of men and women who neglect the service of their
fellow-creatures in a desire for self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement,
that this catastrophe has fallen upon us all. It is a case of
devil-possession, and our only hope is to exorcise ourselves of the evil
spirit. Our avowed intention is to cast out 'Kaiserism' in Germany by
brute force. We must be no less resolute to cast it out of this country."

The Bishop of Carlisle has well said that if we were really Christians
this war would not have happened. If the defense of its citizens is the
work of the State, and the redemption of the world is the task of the
Church, no one can deny that the State has done its work far better than
the Church. In the face of this, the most pathetic spectacle that the
Christian world ever witnessed, must we not wring our hands with shame
and cry, "Why could we not cast it out?" The divisions, the impotence,
the worldliness, the coldness, the sin and failure of the Church stand
revealed in the lurid light of this war.

What a self-righteous spirit the war has bred in many of us, and what a
hatred of our enemies! One has but to read the secular and religious
press on both sides of the present conflict to see our sin writ large
before us. Since we have such a keen vision for the mote in our
brother's eye and such an eager perception of every flaw in our enemy, we
can recognize this spirit most readily if we look for it first in
Germany, but in doing so let us clearly recognize that every quotation
can be paralleled by the press both secular and religious on our own side
of the conflict. In all fairness let us state that a large proportion of
the sermons which have been preached in the churches of Germany