MORAL ISSUES OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 118, 12 February 1919, Page 7

MORAL ISSUES OF THE WAR

—0—: CHRIST OR MACHIAVELLI? The war, said Dean Inge, preaching at St. Paul's, London, on Sunday, November 24, had not been a struggle between nations which believed in one form of government and those. who..belipved in another. "We are being told' that'it is bo," he said, "but. it' is not true. It has been a struggle .between those who believe in international morality and those who disbelieve in it, between those who believe in a; moral law and those who do not believe in it, between those who fear God and those who do not fear Him. The issue is-not between-, demoo- i racy and monarchy ;' it is between' Christ and Machiavelli.'' The belief in violence and war as a law of nature was not confined, the Dean, continued, to the so-called militarists. It was preached quite openly by the large majority of Continental Socialists—by the Bolshevilci of Russia, the Social _ Democrats of Germany, the Syndicalists of France. "All these are militarists of another type, whose principles and those of the Prussian officers are identicalrThfereforo our victory, believe me, is only half won.' We have striick down in one form, but he -is* waiting to attack us in another. The real dividing line is between those who wish to lift human nature by appealing to. what is best in it —to' love and sympathy and disinterestedness—wnic'h was Christ's way, and those who wish to keep the world a hell by assuming that strife and hatred and cruelty and robbery must be perpetual, because men are made that way and can never be different." , After mentioning, as by-products of the war—likely to have results even more im. portant than the war itself—the friend; ship between England and France, which we ail hoped would be. permanent, and the partnership between this country and Amerioa, which all hoped would go far to the healing of the great schism which for 150 yews had broken the unity of the race, fir. Inge said the war had ied to a real social revolution in the • " best sense—"a social change so great that it will rank with the' most momentous events in the history of civilisation. I mean the discovery of woman as a citizen." During the war the machinery of tiio national life had been very largely run by women. It was toossootn t to. predict all the consequences of. this-great discovery, but they would certainly be enormous;. and though no social change couid come without some loss, he believed . that the gain to civilisation would be ■ very'great indeed. Hitherto an immense ! amount of talent and energy in■ the i female sex had been running to waste for 5 want of an outlet. It had been an injustice to woman and a. loss to the whole community. Now they had found their work and they had found themselves He could not refrain from adding that this [ great emancipation had been.won by uie exercise of moral- force. The- new voter seized the opportunity to . say. I among you as lie tliat-Rerveth, j and the opposition collapsed at once.