Christian Churches Training Men for Carnal Warfare.
The Glasgow Herald of some time since prints a letter from Field Marshal Lord Roberts to Lord Meath “on the subject of training to arms of the youth of the nation.” Lord Meath advocates for this purpose an extension of the Boys’ Brigade and Church Lads’ Brigade. Lord Roberts is a vice-president in the Brigade work, which, by the way, started in Glasgow, Scotland, twelve years ago. After telling how, in his opinion, it helped the boys to be clean, orderly, etc., Lord Roberts says:— “With regard to the extension of the movement and its being assisted by the State, as you suggest, it would, in my opinion, be scarcely possible to spend the public money for a better or more patriotic purpose, provided the movement is kept strictly undenominational. . . . The habits of order, obedience, and regularity instilled into the members of the Boys’ Brigade are as valuable in civil as in military life; and even if any large proportion of them do not join the ranks, they would form a considerable section of the population on whom we could draw in the event of a national emergency.” All of which means that the forces of the church, the professed spouse of the Prince of Peace, are to be used by the State to educate men for fratricidal strife, to destroy life, not to save it. Yet this is just what the Boys’ Brigade work is doing now. We need only to say that this is not Christ’s work. “For the Son of man is come not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.” “Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God.” These things show, not that the world is changed, but that the church has changed.