enterprise—and they acclaim this as a triumph of Christian civilisation. As to the failure of Christianity in Germany to stand the test, they either point superficially to the growth of Rationalism, Biblical Criticism, and Socialism in that country, or they take refuge in the confusions of the extreme pacifists and refuse to assign responsibility at all, or they persuade themselves that a small minority of men who were not Christians deluded the German people into consenting to the war. In any case, they insist that Christianity as a whole is not impeached. Assume that Austria was dragged into the war by Germany, and you have four Christian nations—five, if one includes Serbia—behaving with great gallantry and entire propriety, and only one Christian nation misbehaving.
There is no doubt that this is the common religious attitude, but it does not satisfy some of the more thoughtful and earnest preachers. This optimism seems to them rebuked by the very fact that Christendom is in a state of war to which Paganism can offer no parallel. They think of the lands beyond the sea to which they have been sending the Christian message of peace and brotherhood. They fancy they see China and Japan smiling their faint but distressing smile at the situation in Christian Europe. They have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of fierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by Christians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down in Europe, they regretfully admit.
But they never go beyond this vague admission and boldly state the sin of the Churches. One would
