confusion that runs deep into the conceptions they are intended to express and pervades not only the popular mind but that of the ripest scholarship. Thus we find Viscount Bryce in his epilogue to "The Holy Roman Empire" stating that "Christianity has overrun the whole earth." (This was, of course, before the war.) And so careful a writer as Lord Cromer in his work on "Modern Egypt" asserts that "the educated Egyptian very rarely makes any approach toward Christianity," and again in regard to the Moslem world he asserts "that any great accession of strength will accrue from it to Christianity is improbable." Neither of these authors can possibly mean just what he says. Lord Bryce really means occidental materialism which has indeed overrun the whole world, and Lord Cromer's educated Egyptian has probably never seen anything nearer to essential Christianity than England's trade balance at Alexandria.

Bishop Brent in his final report* on his work in the Philippines draws attention to this confusion. His references to

races

"in imminent danger of being taught the evils of

civilization with no knowledge of God in this supreme revelation of Himself by means of which to repulse them." and to pagan communities which,

"have reached the depths of degradation for which they

are notorious because of the pressure of civilized vice, etc." and the responsibility of the American nation for

"dragging the Igorot into the market-place of the world,” show a profound realization that Western Civilization is not essential Christianity, that the Gospel does not follow the flag, and that many a pagan in his primitive state may approach nearer to the Christian ideal than when dragged into the "market-place of the world."

Essential Christianity can find no realization of its ideal in a civilization that makes increase of population or increase of material consumption and production its supreme test. In

*The Spirit of Missions, Mar, 1918.

creased consumption and production mean only expanding markets, and boasts of increasing population have been through all history merely veiled menaces of armies in wars to come. The subtle reference to human souls as "food for powder" shows this.

The purpose of the state was never more an increased market than it is today under our commercial and industrial system. This is materialism in its most naked form. That purpose is and has been the great purpose of every nation operating in the theatre of the present war, however the purpose may have been hitched on more or less cleverly to a pseudo-Christianity in an effort to salve conscience and silence the voice of the spirit. None has been without the purpose, although in intensity and development it has varied in accordance with racial qualities. In the Teutonic race the purpose was carried out with a thoroughness that was characteristic. If the profound spiritual teaching of Jesus Christ was to be eliminated to suit a materialistic civilization, it was to be done with Teutonic thoroughness. Christ, however, had souls in the Teutonic race and many of them, and German Kultur could not triumph without some recognition of Him. So Philosophy, Religion, and Politics wove a robe for Him bearing no similitude to the seamless garment, a robe to misrepresent Him, not to reveal Him; and that tragedy of Herod's Judgment Hall was repeated when he "arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe and sent Him to Pilate.”

The Teutonic development was paralleled in other branches of the human race, though of course in them the development fell short in thoroughness-and that is to say in diabolism. There were racial characteristics in the way. We know full well that the nations drank deep of the Teutonic cup in philosophy, in religion, in politics, and in art. Even the Church in England received a Lutheran taint, as his statute in the sanctuary of an Anglican church in New York will soon record, and yet said Dr. Martin Luther:

"The world is ruled by God through a few heroes and preeminent persons."

and again:

"The severity and reign of the sword are as necessary for the people as eating and drinking, yes, as life itself." "The ass needs to be beaten and the populace needs to be controlled with a strong hand. God knew this well and therefore He gave the rulers not a fox's tail but a sword.” What could savour more of the diabolism of Teutonic philosophy and less of the teaching of Christ? What more could be desired even by a Hohenzollern prince from the complaisant ecclesiastic of a state religion? But not only was the Church in England affected. Everywhere in religion, the German school of interpretation propagated its views and modern Christianity at many points was easily diverted from worshipping the Christ of the Gospels to philandering with a Christ made in Germany.

In world politics a spirit quite in the line of German Kultur appeared. The medal issued early in the war by Germany (since suppressed) which showed the unspeakable Turk in the portrait of the Sultan between that of his most Protestant Majesty, the German Emperor, and his most Catholic Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, inevitably suggested an earlier alliance when England and France united with that same Turk in the slaughter of Christian Russians because Russia had asserted the intention of protecting Christian communities in the Turkish Empire.* Does not the Napoleonic development in France bear some similitude to the Hohenzollern development in Germany? Is the Teutonic people the only people that has been responsive to the call of an unscrupulous butcher and the dream of an ambitious schemer? And is the dynasty for which the French shed rivers of blood in an effort to revive the empire of Charlemagne and which expired in the effete Napoleon III, less odious than the dynasty which the Teutons are now supporting in an effort to galvanize the Holy Roman Empire into autocratic power and which lives on in the throned homicide at Berlin?

*It is not denied that Russia in her benign intentions saw chances of annexation at the expense of Turkey. Russia, like the rest of us, has had the taint of what the Germans call Kultur but which really is what the Church calls original sin.

Time cannot well be pleaded. It is less than fifty years from Napoleon III to William II and less than sixty-five from Sebastopol to Verdun.

And in our own land,-noble as have been pages in its history and characters in its annals, and inspiring as have been some of its formularies,-viewed in its totality does its development measure so much nearer to the Gospel of Christ? We cannot overlook the annals of a hundred years, flowering in present developments, when the great fortunes of America were building, the corruption of legislation and of public office, the roguery, the pilfering, the oppression, the crass materialism, the exploitation of a whole race in slavery, and the attempt to remedy by a policy of reconstruction that aborted in sectional hatred and individual greed, the destruction of souls and the multiplication of bodies, in order to speed up an ever-increasing home market-are all these of peace or of war, of Christ or of Caesar?

It is true that we have attempted to differentiate our own position in the present crisis by making "democracy" our war cry, but judged by history the form of government makes little difference with essential Christian development. Democracy may lead as straight to materialism as autocracy. It was free England and a popular vote that initiated and carried through the Crimean War and sustained the Turk in Europe. Napoleon as First Consul was the apostle of democracy. Louis Napoleon was carried to power without dynastic influences by the sheer force of a plebiscite. The negro, the Chinaman and the Japanese would have much to say against the democratic character of democracies. Civilization to satisfy the demands of the Gospel of Christ must respond not to the test of the form of government but to the test of its spiritual content.

There are those who will say that more than a difference in degree is found between German Kultur and the philosophy underlying the development of other nations,-that there is an essential moral difference. There is always a line in human conduct where the question arises as to whether the differences in action is one of degree or of moral essence. No claim is

made here that the domination of other nations is not infinitely to be preferred to German domination. All that is claimed is that in each case the end is empire. That is something in which the Christian soul may be involved, though against its will, but which cannot be evolved from the Christian soul. Christianity and empire cannot be united nor can God and mammon both be served. It may, of course, be attempted and different nations attempting it will proceed toward the same end, but their methods and results will vary in accordance with their racial characteristics. Commonly we speak of all this as involving a moral difference but it is not a difference of morals. It is a difference of method, and sin is in the intent or the thought and not primarily in the method. The Roman Empire was not interested in the condemnation of Jesus. The execution of a religious teacher was not in harmony with its characteristic policy. Pilate washed his hands saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man." The Jewish high priest on the other hand rent his clothes in murderous zeal and the Jewish rabble screamed for blood. The Jewish and Roman participation in the crime of Calvary are readily distinguished in degree but the intent was the same and moral responsibility attaches equally to each. So it may be observed that German colonization, while its records are dark enough, does not in horror equal the Belgian exploitation of the Congo. Yet the intent of material aggrandisement at the expense of other peoples and the moral responsibility were the same in both cases.

We have participated in the civilization common to the nations involved in this catastrophe. We have shared with them in the aim of material aggradisement and in the impossible attempt to unite this with Christianity. The end has come. There is a call to arms. The plea of pacifism, and most of all Christian pacifism, is found to be without justification. It is too late. We must and we will see it through. "He who delays is a dastard and he who doubts is damned."

The present conflict is bringing into contrast the spiritual and material as has not been in the two thousand years of Christian history. If the end of that conflict shall see the mind of the