Demoniac Furies Hover over the Nations — So-Called Christians Try to Harmonize It with Christ — The Keen Rebuke of a French Skeptic
By JEAN VUILLEUMIER
UNDER the caption “Above the Fray,” Romain Rolland, a French writer of note, writes in the Journal de Genève of September 22 an article of which a bishop would not need to be ashamed, and which is evidence enough that there is more true Christianity, although unconsciously so, than is generally supposed, in the souls of some so-called liberal thinkers.
THE SACRILEGIOUS MELEE
M. Rolland’s article was written in order to relieve his own conscience and the conscience of thousands, in all lands, who can not or dare not speak. His subject is the “European war, this sacrilegious melee, offering us the spectacle of a demented Europe, tearing itself to pieces with its own hands, like Hercules.” He says:
“And thus the three greatest nations of the West, the guardians of civilization, are madly bent on their own ruin, and are calling to their help the Cossacks, the Turks, the Japanese, the Cingalese, the Sudanese, the Moroccans, the Egyptians, the Sikhs, and the Cipayes, the barbarians of the pole and those of the equator, the souls and skins of all colors! . . .
“Let us dare to speak the truth . . . to religious or lay leaders, to churches, to thinkers, to socialist demagogues. . . . This intellectual upper crust, these churches, these labor parties, are not responsible for the war. Very well! But what have they done to prevent it? What are they doing to minimize it? They are fanning the conflagration. Every one is pouring some oil on the fire.
DEMONIAC IRONY HOVERS ABOVE IT
“The most striking feature in this monstrous epic, the unprecedented fact, is the unanimity in favor of war in each and every country at war. There is a sort of contagion of murderous fury which creeps over the whole body of the earth. No one has escaped this epidemic. Not one thinker has succeeded in keeping his thought free and above the reach of this scourge. It seems as if some demoniac irony were hovering over this melee of nations, which, however it turns out, will leave Europe mutilated.”
UNWITTINGLY NOTES ITS FULFILMENT
M. Rolland is not the first observer who unwittingly points to the fulfilment of John’s vision in which he sees “spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.” Rev. 16: 14, A. R. V.
INTERIOR OF THE BIG KRUPP GUN WORKS, ESSEN, GERMANY
SOCIALISM AND CHRISTENDOM
And now the writer turns his merciless logic upon socialism and Christianity (he means what is called Christendom), the two great advocates of peace:
“The two moral powers of which this war has especially discovered the weakness are Christianity and socialism. These two rival apostles of lay or religious internationalism have suddenly appeared to us as the most ardent nationalists. Herve [the noted French socialist who has recently become a member of the cabinet] wants to die for the flag of Austerlitz. The purest representatives of the pure doctrine, the German socialists, vote in the Reichstag for the war appropriations. . . . It was thought for a while — and it would have been to the honor of their cause — that two or three of them had preferred being shot by the military authorities for refusing to bear arms against their brothers across the frontier. But they have protested with indignation against the supposition. All are marching, weapon on the shoulder. . . . These men, who lack the courage to die for their faith, have the courage to die for the faith of others.
“As to the representatives of the Prince of peace, priests, pastors, bishops, it is by the thousand that they are going to the fray in order to practise, rifle in hand, the divine precepts, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and ‘Love one another.’ . . . So strong is the cyclone which sweeps them all! ‘So weak are the men it meets on its way — and I like the rest.’”
SOME PREACHERS ADMIT IT
This criticism on Christendom by the pen of an unbeliever has been practically accepted by some preachers, such as the Rev. Herbert Symonds, an Anglican minister of Montreal, who recently said:
“Christianity [he means nominal Christendom] has up to the present completely failed to influence the relations between nation and nation. While the principle of self-sacrifice between man and man has produced the most splendid type of individual, the idea of self-sacrifice as between nation and nation has scarcely dawned upon the horizon of our national life. . . . The combatants represent every form of Christianity — Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant. It is therefore impossible to lay the blame on any one form of Christianity.726
AN EPOCH OF SHAM AND HYPOCRISY
And as no one form can throw the stone at another, all the forms are ashamed to see and to be forced to uphold such a barbarous war at a time when they were all crying, “Peace and safety.” “The church has good reason to be ashamed,” said a Montreal editor recently in his morning editorial; and he further added: “The social excesses of modern times could not spread as they have spread, were the powers of all the churches exerted with that sincerity which invites the all-powerful forces of the Almighty. . . . If this were not an epoch of sham and hypocrisy, the fact that nations are making use of their tools of destruction would not cause so loud an outcry of astonishment and horror. Every sane man knows that the nations of Europe were for many years preparing for war. It was part of the prevailing hypocrisy to treat this preparation for war with comparative indifference.”
TOO WEAK OR TOO BLIND
Too weak or too blind to condemn the preparations for war, now that the war has come the churches seek to justify it! This is the case with most of the pastors of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Canada. Before a large representative audience, the Anglican bishop of Montreal said: “We are indeed standing to-day for righteousness as a nation. We are fighting in a righteous cause, and we must pursue the cause we have taken, as righteous and Christian men. Christ suffered because He set His face towards righteousness, and we are suffering to-day for a similar reason.” Other ministers have stated that war develops the spirit of sacrifice, which is a leading Christian principle. To this amazing distortion of the gospel of Christ, let the French infidel answer in his frank, sad, almost sorrowful voice:
MUST THEY ALSO SACRIFICE OTHERS?
“You, Christians, in order to get some comfort for betraying the orders of your Master, you claim that war exalts the virtue of sacrifice. . . . But is there no better use for the self-denial of a nation than the ruin of the other nations? And can Christians practise self-sacrifice only by sacrificing others with them? I know full well, poor souls, that many of you are far more ready to give your blood than to spill the blood of others. . . . But O, how weak, after all! Candidly admit, then, that while you do not tremble before the bullets and the shrapnels, you do tremble before public opinion devoted to the bloody idol, higher than the tabernacle of Jesus—the jealous pride of nationality. Christians of to-day, you would not have been able to refuse to sacrifice before the gods of imperial Rome.”
Christians of peaceful America, where do we stand?
