We are not far from the time when, in spite of the official
teaching of the Churches, every Christian nation maintained the practice
of the duel which the Teutonic nations introduced fourteen centuries
ago. Although in Germany the Christian clergy have not the courage to
assert their plain principles in opposition to the Emperor's barbaric
patronage of the duel, the people of most civilised countries now regard
the duel as a crime. No one who surveys the whole stream of moral
development can doubt that a time is coming when war, the duel of
nations, will be regarded as an infinitely graver crime. The day is
surely over when sophists like Treitschke and callous soldiers like
Bernhardi could sing the praises of war. The pathetic picture drawn by
our great novelist of a worthless young lord lying at the feet of his
opponent touched England profoundly and hastened the end of the duel in
this country. If England, if the civilised world, be not even more
deeply touched by the descriptions we have read, week after week, of
tens of thousands of braver and more innocent men lying in their blood,
of all the desolation and sorrow that have been brought on whole
kingdoms of Europe, one will be almost tempted to despair of the race.
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