It is only in quite recent times
that bishops and ministers have stood on peace-platforms and advocated
the reform. And even to-day, when peace associations founded by laymen
have been endeavouring for decades to educate the country, no branch of
the Christian Church has officially and collectively decreed that
Christian principles enjoin the reform; no Pope or Archbishop or Church
Council has supported it with a stern and official injunction that
Christian and moral principle demands that all the members of the
particular Church shall subscribe to and work for the reform. Even at
this eleventh hour, when the issue of peace or war confronts the whole
of mankind, one notices hesitation, reserve, ambiguity. During the
fateful years between 1900 and 1914, when the nations were, in the eyes
of all, preparing the most appalling armaments ever known in history,
when men were speaking freely all over Europe of "the next war" and the
terrific dimensions which modern science and modern alliances would give
to it, the various branches of the Christian Church adhered to their
ancient and futile practice of preaching general principles (as far as
national conduct is concerned), and had little practical influence on
the development.
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