The immediate task is
to secure this majority by education; and the work of education will be
best conducted by vast non-sectarian peace-organisations. The mixture of
futile Christian phraseology and genuine humanitarian interests in some
of these movements has been hitherto a grave disadvantage. The movement
has been compelled to split into sectarian branches, and has
proportionately lost efficacy. If the clergy insist on winning prestige
for themselves, or respect and recognition for their doctrines, by
acting in these bodies, they are again hampering the work of reform. A
great national agitation, linked with similar agitations in other lands,
avoiding Christian formulae as well as anti-Christian reproaches, will
alone secure the object.
I confess--with ardent hope that I may be wrong--that I expect no
immediate realisation of the reform. It may take years, even after the
grim lesson that militarism has given us, to inspire the majority of our
people with an unsleeping and irresistible demand, and the work will
grow more arduous as the memory of the hardships of the war fades. On
the day on which I write this I have listened to the conversation, in a
train, of a wealthy, refined, and cultivated Churchwoman.
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