They solaced themselves with the thought that unnecessary
violence was condemned in their general teaching, and that, if it
eventually transpired that war was unnecessary, they could point out
once more the all-embracing character of the Christian ethic. In fine,
they were for the greater part, like the greater part of their fellows,
mentally indolent and indisposed to think out or fight for a new idea.
Whatever the explanation, the fact remains. By the tenth century
Christianity was fully organised, and all the peoples of Europe were
Christian; by the thirteenth century the power of the Church was
enormous and the nations of Europe were settled and civilised. But
neither then nor at any later period did Christianity perceive the crime
and stupidity of the prevailing system. The perception is even now only
faint and partial. It is this long toleration of the military system,
the thousand-year silence on what is now acclaimed as one of the
greatest applications of Christian principle, that one finds it
difficult or impossible to forgive. The zeal of some of the modern
clergy is open to a certain not unnatural suspicion: in view of their
shrinking authority and the growing indifference of the world to dogma
and ritual, they have been forced to take up these new and larger ideas
of our time.
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