hundreds of thousands of innocent men--men who in their simplicity or
ignorance are positively unable to even dimly comprehend why they are
being lashed into a blind fury and goaded to the madness of steeping
their hands in each other's blood--what barbarity, what savagery to
invoke as the minister, as the vindicator of justice! Let us keep our
eyes steadily fixed on this central, essential wickedness of the whole
business, that it dares to offer its polluted services in the interests
of justice and thereby to profane the holiest thing we know.

Remembering this, therefore, let us ask ourselves what help we get in
our endeavours to effect its overthrow from the recognised ministers of
religion. Why, it is notorious that what has long been clear to
philosophers like Immanuel Kant, and philanthropists among humble
laymen, has not yet dawned upon the imagination or touched the
consciences of bishops or priests. Popes, themselves, have created
military orders, "knights and commanders of Christ and the Cross,"
whose profession it was to destroy life in the name of the most
merciful, pitiful man known to us Western people. Popes have led
military expeditions, conducted campaigns and crossed swords with the
most daring, though the impetuous fisherman, founder of their line, was
bidden by Christ to put up his sword into its scabbard, "for all they
that take up the sword shall perish by it". Can any man point to one
single condemnation of war as immoral, irrational, opposed to the law
of their Deity or of Christ, in all the collection of councils, bulls
and canonical legislation? And can any man quote to us the charge of
an archbishop or bishop in the Anglican Communion or the Greek
Communion wherein he has raised his voice against the barbaric survival
of war and condemned it in the name of his Saviour Jesus, who spoke of
the meek, the mourners, the merciful, the pure in heart, the hungerers
and thirsters after righteousness, or, as we say, the ethical
enthusiasts, as his followers?

Why, religion, in the hands of bishops and priests, has allowed a trail
of blood to be drawn across the path of the ages. I say nothing of
religious persecution and the millions who have gone to torture and to
doom for erroneous beliefs. I confine myself entirely, to field
warfare. During a period of 674 years, from 1141-1815, it is an
historical fact that this country and France were at war for no less
than 266 years, or considerably mor