comprehend what was taking place in our Lord's mind, yet dogged in his loyalty. I would stress the fact that Peter was there, in the high-priest's court-yard: not fleeing down the road to Galilee and safety, not brazen and ostentatious in his doubts, not bringing accusations against his faithless brethren, or even against wretched Judas; but there in the court, as close to Jesus. as he could get. What else was there for him to do? He had his sword: but what was that against the mob of servants and rowdies who stood guarding Jesus? And anyway, the Lord had bidden him put up his sword. In his perplexity, his nervousness, he had become touchy and explosive when the maid questioned him. That was a moment of weakness which only overclouded but did not eclipse his loyalty and devotion to Christ. He was as loyal and devoted as a man of his character and in his circumstances could possibly be. What was the first announcement of the Resurrection? "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon." "He appeared (first) to Cephas" (I Cor. xv:5). This same Peter who followed on, with dogged loyalty, whose faith was at its height in the unpromising days of Caesarea Philippi, whose devotion never flagged in Gethsemane, whose strong will lost control of his fears for but the slightest moment in the high-priest's courtyard, this Peter was the first to see the Risen Jesus, and the rock-man upon whom the Lord built His Church. Here is the message for us: in the midst of the dark days which have come upon the world, when faith is put to the test, and loyalty, devotion to Christ, is tried in the fires of misgiving for many and many a soul, we are to remain doggedly loyal and undaunted, and to get as near to Christ as we can. They tell us Christianity is a failure: the existence of war has proven it. It is useless to argue such a question; you can never convince people who have come to that conclusion that they are mistaken. All we can do is disprove it by making Christianity a success. If a world at war is proof (to them) of Christianity's failure, then let us put an end to war: that will prove Christian ity's triumph. Every man in our army and navy to-day is offering his life, his whole self, all that he prizes most and all that he is, to assure that triumph. We know the possibility of triumph because we know Christ. We are called upon not to argue; not even primarily to understand, but to be loyal. They tell us the universe is a machine, human society only another genus of animal life, fighting for food, shelter, and superiority, and that God is a superstition. You cannot convince people who hold the materialistic or biological view of the world that they are mistaken by any reasoned argument. Only what we do, only the way in which we act, can make plain the truth of a God who can command the highest, most complete and utter devotion. Over against the reasoned scheme which would do away with God and immortality and unselfishness, we are to set our personal knowledge of God in Christ: we are called upon to be true to that knowledge, that personal relation into which we have entered, our friendship with God-in a word, to be loyal. "If Jesus Christ is a man And only a man-I say That of all mankind I cleave to Him, "If Jesus Christ is a God And the only God-I swear I will follow Him through Heaven and Hell, It is not a test of our intellectual abilities which we are called upon to face-any more than Peter was so called. It is a test of our loyalty to Jesus Christ. * Richard Watson Gilder. The American Church Monthly PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY TEMPLE PUBLISHING CORPORATION President: GEORGE A. ARMOUR, Princeton, N. J. Vice-President: GUY VAN AMRINGE, 31 Nassau Street, New York Business Manager: EDWIN S. GORHAM, 11 West 45 Street, New York The God of Pope Benedict XV IN his motu proprio directing all priests of the Roman obedi ence to say mass on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul for the intention of peace, the Pope has given to the world an interesting side-light on his conception of God and what he believes to be God's relation to the war. These are his words as reported in The New York Times of June 30th: "Now, therefore, casting all our anxiety upon Him, in whose power are the wills of men and the issues of events; from Him who heals by chastising and preserves by forgiving, we hope that mercifully He will quickly end these sufferings, and His peace being established, He will restore among men the reign of justice and charity. But first of all, God must be placated, whose anger has been aroused by the contumacy of sin so widely diffused, and that can be secured only by humble prayer, if made with confidence and perseverance. Nothing is more powerful to placate the Divine Majesty than the holy sacrifice of the Mass." This pronouncement is quite in harmony with his consistorial allocution of January 22nd in the first year of his pontificate, in which he declared, "It must be clear to every unbiassed thinker that in this frightful conflict the Holy See, without failing to watch it with close attention, is bound to a complete impartiality." In his opinion there was only one moral to be drawn from the events that were shaking the world to its foundations: "God allows nations, who have fixed all their desires on the things of this world, to punish one another by mutual slaughter on account of the contempt and neglect with which they have treated Him; and other events have happened also, in addition to these, which should constrain men to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God." We must say that we cannot believe in that kind of God,—a God who savagely punishes the innocent with the guilty like a vindictive tyrant, and will not desist from His cruel tortures until His wrath has been placated by prayer and sacrifice. This is surely not the God of infinite love and compassion revealed by our Divine Saviour Jesus Christ. We had supposed that the real responsibility for bringing on this war had been clearly shown to be resting on the shoulders of the ruling classes of Germany. Why try to shift it upon the Father of infinite justice and mercy? We are very far from being admirers of M. Alfred Loisy and all that he has recently written. We do believe however that there is justice in his criticism of the consistorial allocution of Benedict XV, as contained in his book on The War and Religion (p. 55): "The God, then, whom Benedict the Fifteenth represents, has, in order to punish men for their faults, induced the worst among them to commit a crime which surpasses in horror all preceding wickedness; of which the immediate result is the extermination of numberless people who are innocent. The Pope insinuates that to this chastisement of an European war, his God has added the scourge of an earthquake in Italy. It were better, perhaps, to veil more decently these pranks of the Eternal." Even if we take the position, which is quite legitimate, that the present catastrophe has fallen upon the world because of the world's refusal to accept and live by the Gospel of Christ, we still need not lay the blame upon God. If God has so loved the world that He has sent His Son into the world to save us from war as well as from all other kinds of sin, and the world has refused to receive its Divine Saviour because it preferred to wallow in selfishness and hatred and sin, we could hardly say that God is punishing the world. It would be much nearer the truth to say that the world is punishing God. A British Chaplain's Opinion of Our Army ONE NE often gains from private letters a deeper insight into war conditions than from many columns of newspaper information. This is particularly true of letters from chaplains. Their lips are not sealed as are the lips of officers in the army; they are men of intelligence and education; and they enjoy unique opportunities of observation. The following passage from the letter of a British chaplain who is an eminent priest of the Church in England is both interesting and illuminating: "I am home on leave after completing two years at the front. It is not possible to see any immediate end of this appalling struggle in sight. Each month makes me hate it more, but unable to keep away from it. It is a real joy to us to have your American army coming along behind us. I have been much impressed by those whom I have already seen. We have had a good many American officers attached from time to time to our Divisional Headquarters for instruction. It is the greatest pleasure to meet these officers, because they so completely satisfy my ideal of what officers and gentlemen ought to be. Their keenness is most inspiring and immensely invigorating to us who are war-weary after three and one-half years of this business. I have yet to meet an American officer with what I call for want of a better term 'boost.' They all seem to me to have come over consumed with a desire to learn, not to teach, and in consequence the modesty of their bearing and fine soldierly qualities have won all |