For His Name's Sake.

AS New Testament Christians we believe in the existence of a Higher Power, and we have a sense of dependence there upon. As "new creatures" in Christ Jesus, we have a new standard of measurement for men and things. We believe that He only has the right to rule in our heart and life; consequently numbers of us could not, in 1914, accept the position then forced upon us, in which there was the abnegation of individual responsibility, the surrender of conscience and conduct to the will of another. We were then plunged suddenly and unexpectedly into a condition of things in which as Christians many of us knew not how to act. We ought to have been prepared, but we were not. An issue arose which engaged the minds and exercised the hearts of our Church members, and which, unfortunately, caused great estrangement within our ranks.

This horrible, barbarous thing plunged our churches into a confused, uncertain and distracted condition. Some among us had their faith shattered; and what is even more lamentable to me is the fact that, speaking generally,

our preachers and church officers seemed either unable or unwilling to seek to restore such, or to lay the foundation of a more enduring faith. When midnight struck on Tuesday, August 4, 1914, it found England at war with Germany. The immense majority of British people were soon in no doubt as to the objects which the war, in their judgment, was to accomplish.

We were told that the war was a battle for spiritual ideals. We heard about "fighting for hearth and home." It is sadly amusing how women and children are always put into the firing line of pro-war argument. Commonsense says international arbitration would provide far better for our wives and families. Certain it is that the Christian faith is irrevocably opposed to war, and to all violence of man against man. But unfortunately many of the leaders and teachers in our own community had pinned their faith to our statesmen far more strongly than to the Lord Jesus Christ, with the result that, as Churches, we went back upon our faith.

Many of our young men went into this business not because they liked it, but because many, yea most, of them uneducated for it, had to solve the problem for themselves. Not one ray of New Testament light, on the question of Christianity and Militarism, was given them in the editorials or articles of our Magazines; and, with few striking exceptions, Church elders failed to give them any New Testament lead. Rather was it the reverse, some even handing C.O.'s over to prison instead of giving New Testament teaching on the question. Some of these lads we know yearned for New Testament teaching and guidance from their elders, but such was not forthcoming. We older ones may yet have to answer for this failure; as

it is, we are already reaping what we have sown, in the apathy of our churches. Remember they were our own lads; our own sons; our Sunday School teachers, and church workers. They were lads of principles; show them the New Testament teaching on this question, and we believe they will follow it. They may need to be reminded that the right side of the question is not always the side of the crowd; nor the money side; nor even always the winning side. Neither victory nor defeat, however, change wrong into right, or right into wrong. But we believe our lads are anxious to do right and follow New Testament teaching on this as on other questions. Their sincerity I have never doubted, nor their bravery and self-sacrifice. I respect those lads who so went. I have, however, no respect for those who, while urging others to go, stayed at home themselves, and in some instances made capital out of the war.

We are, however, thankful and proud that throughout our Churches there were so many prepared to maintain the old position, who, believing that Christianity does not sanction war in general; that the whole genius of Christianity is antagonistic to the spirit and article of war; and being unable to find any warrant in our New Testament for Christians to go to war; were found ready to stand loyal to conscience, to what they believed to be the teaching of God's Word. These men made history in making the momentous decisions for themselves, some of them in the privacy of their closets, on bended knees; decisions which involved imprisonment, "crucifixion" and death. They dared to stand against the majority and be unpopular rather than untrue to conscience.

drawn from the rank and file of the brotherhood. They showed that character is the one possession that is elevated above the vicissitudes of fortune.

In the light of events of the past seven years, I view Res. 11 of the 1914 Annual Meeting as recording one of the best pieces of work we did that week. We called "upon the Government to maintain absolute neutrality in this deplorable war, as being in the highest and best interests of our national life." True! it is a pious resolution, and we were not all strong enough to abide by it; but it expresses a high Christian sentiment, and I am thankful it is on the minutes of our representative assembly. And for those who took silently the hand of duty and followed her, believing:

we thank our God.

The pacifist brethren do not believe the proposition that force is a remedy for evil; therefore when the State pressed a claim for personal service for war, we were compelled to object. The State's claim is not that its citizens fight for it - when the cause is just and right, but that they shall fight for it at any time when the State orders them. This we cannot do. We cannot be bound unconditionally to be obedient to the State. We believe that if the church has a function towards the nation, it is to lead the nation into a real, living faith in God. Here, in August, 1914, was an opportunity to do so, a magnificent opportunity, but the church, as a whole, lamentably failed. Yet not all. There were young men, throughout the churches, who were

And well would it be for the Churches as a whole if they would learn the lesson of these witnesses - to diffuse through the communities the spirit of the Christ.

"We need once more to catch the martyr-spirit, a belief in the absoluteness of the Christian faith translated into facts which shall make the Church 'a peculiar people,' whose strength does not lie in any false blending of light and darkness, but in her renunciation of and aloofness from the world, and in her defiance of all social systems, organised politics, and world interests which are antagonistic to the great laws of the Christian Commonwealth ... Our task is to win the Churches to that position. Who is sufficient for these things? Our sufficiency is of God."

I rejoice in the good spirit and true appreciation which our soldier boys and our C.O.'s have shown the one to the other. There has been on each side a recognition of the others' courage and manliness. We only wish this right spirit had been more manifest amongst our "stayed home" militarists.

Now let the love and spirit of our Lord bind us into one for service and sacrifice, "keeping the home fires burning."