BASIS OF PEACE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 156, 17 March 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

BASIS OF PEACE.

Pacificists in their search for some deiinito starting-point about which the immense predisposition lor peace may crystallise have suggested the Pope and various religious organisations aw a possible basis for the organisation of peace. But there would he no appeal from such a beginning to the 11011Christ'an majority of mankind, and the suggestion in itself indicates a profound ignorance of the nature of the Christian Churches. With the exception of the Quakers and a few Russian sects, no Christian sect or Church has ever repudiated war; most have gone out of their way to sanction it and bless it. and it is altogether too rashly assumed by people whose sentimentality outruns their knowledge that Christianity is essentially an attempt to carry out the personal teachings of Christ. It is nothing of the sort, and no Church authority will support that idea. Christianity—more particularly after the ascendancy of the Trinitarian doctrine was established—was and is a theological religion; it is the religion that triumphed over Arianism, Manichaeisin, Gnosticism, and the like: >1 is based not on Christ. hut on creeds. Christ, indeed, is not even its symbol; on the contrary, the chosen symbol of Christianity is the cross to which Christ was nailed and on which He died. It was very largely a religion of the legions. It was the war rior Theodosius who. more than an« other simile man, imposed it upon Kurope. There is 110 reason, therefor*, either in precedent or profession, for expecting any plain lead from the Churches in th : s tremendous task or organising and making effective and widespread the desire of the world for peace. And even were this the caso, it is doubtful if we should find in the divines and dignitaries of the Vat'can, of the Russian and British official Churches, or of any other of the mul 1 itudinous Christian sects, the pnweand energy, the knowledge and ability, op even the goodwill needed to negotiate so vast a thing as the ereat'on of a world authority. From "What is Coining! -1 " by H. G. Wells in the January issue of " Cassoll's Magazine of Fiction."